Terri Stiles Alkayali
The Poetic Doodle, the Doodling Poem Session
Archetypal artist and fabulously foolish witster Terri Alkayali will lead the group in a series of edgy collective poem/doodle creations...or was that doem/poodle creations?
www.technotribalart.com

Louise Anagnoson
Writer, traveler, mythologist and sometime bookseller, Louise greets the world with a superbly dry, subtle mind. She misses nothing. If you're lucky, she may be enticed to tell you what she thinks.
First Fools Attendee

Patty Brundage
Warriors, Poets, and Fools Session
Lit chick, Celtic mythologer, and the AP English teacher you wish you had, Patty is playing with some really interesting ideas about detoxifying veterans as they return to general society, using the Irish warrior myth of Cu Chulainn as a metaphor. She'll be leading the group in a dialogue about who we grant authority to in this culture, and how we can challenge our own assumptions.
Imaginal Institute Fellow
First Fools Attendee

Sally Carless
Subversive Education Session Co-Facilitator
Sally is the Founder and Executive Director of Global Village School, a unique and superbly imaginal accredited online school for children around the world celebrating cultural community and peace studies. She's a maker of impossible things possible, a connector of people and ideas, and a seriously hot bluegrass musician.
www.globalvillageschool.org

Chris Drucker
Chris is an imaginer of personality typology and myth, a truly inspired community activist and booster, and currently invokes the Muses in her role as the President of the extraordinary Ojai Music Festival.
Imaginal Institute Fellow
First Fools Attendee
www.ojaifestival.org

Anna Ernstthal
Follower of the crone, embracer of change, Anna is a first time fool (at least in this context!) who joins us from San Francisco. We're looking forward to her guardian at the gate tales...

Steve Gerringer
The Edges of Practicality, Community, and Myth Session
One of our pals at the Joseph Campbell Foundation (who are co-sponsoring this extravaganza, in case you've missed other mentions of this...did we mention that the Joseph Campbell Foundation is co-sponsoring?..did we mention we appreciate this?...did we mention you should become a JCF Associate?...now returning to our regularly scheduled programming...), Steve is a columnist for the JCF website and a wonderful connector-of-dots, both ideological and social. His Practical Campbell essays are splendiferous, and he's going to explore the edges of practicality and mythicness within community -- how communities come together, and how they dance with ideas of authenticity and authority.
www.jcf.org

Jane Hendrickson
Fools Molding: Clay and Cultural Exchange Session
Artist, mythologist, and teacher, Jane does extraordinary work with Mytho-Ceramics™ a curriculum she developed combining work in the clay arts and mask making with Jungian active imagination. Jane will lead us in a session playing with clay in the spirit of Turkish fool Hodja as she shares her plans about an extraordinary project that she's working on, building a cultural exchange between the US and Turkey using clay, along with poetic and performing arts and myth. Splendid stuff!
First Fools Attendee

R.E. Joyce
Flame-haired bringer of rejoicing, writer of novels, mythologist, and grandmother, Rejoyce brings a superb realness to an unreal world.
First Fools Attendee

Susan Justice
Psychotherapist, body worker, and adventure-seeker, Susan is a brand-new resident of the Ojai Valley, and has discovered more of its magic already than many who've lived here their entire lives.

Lisa Kalechstein
Subversive Education Session Co-Facilitator
Lisa is a science teacher, tireless champion of youth, player with improvisational drama and music, budding playwright, and a tired-of-being-a-rebel kind of rebel, ex-Israeli kibbutnik looking for a serious community of fools with similar nonsensabilities.

Susan Kelejian
Authority Ridiculi Session
Susan is a writer, theater artist, equestrian, and teacher extraordinaire. By popular demand, we've prevailed upon Susan to promise another round of her delicious Commedia dell'Arte workshop. Last year, those of caught in our own heads had a depressing conversation about the status of the academy and the job market while the smart fools headed outside and explored their comedic talents. They had big fun. We were merely envious. This year's workshop will play with power and authority, commedia-style, with masks and movement, oh my!
Imaginal Institute Fellow
First Fools Attendee

Cynthia King
Authority in Partnership: Re-Imagining the Heirarchy Session
Consultant, writer, educator, and grandmama (though you'd never know it to look at her!), Cynthia is the amber goddess who joins people together and shares her own brilliant version of harmonic convergence with organizations around the world.
First Fools Attendee
www.thewisdomway.com

Annette Marcus
Eccentricity, Leadership, & the Power of Subversion Session
As a child, Annette loved her mother’s stories of being naughty and, despite deep good girl tendencies, tried to follow in this tradition whenever possible.  She imagined that after running away from home, she would make a stunning musical stage debut in which her beauty and very hidden talents would finally be recognized.  After which she would write children’s books, lead a school for bad boys, live in Narnia, catch Scarlett Fever while comforting the poor and become a beautiful big palomino horse before dying tragically, but with great nobility, much to the regret of the entire community who had never really appreciated her.  Hence, she grew up to work in non-profits, providing leadership to Family Resource Centers throughout the state of California.
Imaginal Institute Fellow
First Fools Attendee

Leigh Melander
An Exaltation of Larks, An Authority of Fools Session
Foolish party girl, who's discovered the delights of inviting playmates to someone else's house (in this case, the Ojai Retreat) where I can lap up their brilliance without having to vacuum...I'll be setting the stage for our edgy conversations, exploring imaginal and mythic ideas about foolish edges and authority in a brief lecture on Friday night before we jump into open mic'ery.
Imaginal Institute Founding Fomenter
First Fools Attendee

Suzie Nixon-Bohnett
Suzie has spent a splendidly diverse lifetime playing with the edges of point and pointlessness...she is a dreamer of fantabulous dreams and a detail person who methodically makes them happen. She has an extensive background in youth work, and is currently making other people's dreams come true at Thacher School as a development director. We're working on getting her to focus on her own dreams, which are even more cool...
Imaginal Institute Fellow
First Fools Attendee

Bradley Olson
Psychology of Ideas: Finding Authority in Possibility Session
Brad is a psychotherapist in private practice in Flagstaff, AZ and has never been described in this way: "He manures and nourishes his mind with jests, as he does his body with sack and sugar. He carves out his jokes, as he would a capon, or a haunch of venison, where there is cut and come again; and pours out upon them the oil of gladness. His tongue drops fatness, and in the chambers of his brain 'it snows of meat and drink'. He keeps up perpetual holiday and open house, and we live with him in a round of invitations to a rump and dozen....He is represented as a liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton, &c., and yet we are not offended but delighted with him..." Shakespeare and Fat Jack spin in their graves... Brad will be leading a dialogue session about the power and authority in a psychology based in ideas, starting by grounding us, most appropriately enough, in bewilderment.
Imaginal Institute Fellow
First Fools Attendee

Kamme Osborn
Questioning quester with the quicksilver tongue, Kamme juggles life, a sprawling family business, and frequent visits to the world of fey with grace and delight.

Kris Katsuko Seraphine Oster
She of the many names, each more exquisite than the last, Kris is a percussionist, a mystic web developer, a mythologist, festival birther, and sharer of travel experiences to magical places.
www.soul-pilgrim.com
www.gaiafestival.com

Paula Sharp
It is a fact that no one really knows what Paula looks like. She disapperated shortly after she began writing her Dissertation in Mythological Studies two years ago and it is uncertain whether or not she’s been seen since. A pile of paper and books piled up, covering her over rapidly, and she and the books became buried in a white covering as she collected a blizzard of information. Since then from the pile has come little movement and nary a sound. If you wait patiently, you may occasionally catch a glimpse of two uncertain hands feeling their way out through two small holes, surreptitiously, to type a few words into a lap top which balances precariously somewhere in the middle and at the edge. Common wisdom is that the laptop is open perpetually to Chapter Four, though there have been brief sightings of other chapters, as well, or so they say. Once each afternoon, a middle-aged matron appears and disappears, phantom-like, and it is rumored she claims to be Paula, but there are doubts, as the only evidence of her visit is dinner warming on the stove. In truth, no little consideration should be given to several emerging versions of the legend which say Paula is not a person at all, but a turtle or a sloth, for no Dissertation ever on record is known to have been produced at such a super-humanly slow pace. It is year three and soon it will be winter . . . . .
First Fools Attendee

Jacob Wright
Mythologist, heart-builder, and man of the open hand, Jake is a writer, teacher, and connector of communities and saver of the world in remarkably rich, creative, and just plain fun ways.
Imaginal Institute Fellow
First Fools Attendee