Writing from Earth’s Landscapes: A Mythic Journey

A self-study online course for change makers, creatives, and seekers

“Earth, isn’t this what you want,

an invisible re-arising within us?”

–Rainer Maria Rilke

Desert landscape with rocky hill, sand dunes, and sparse desert vegetation including bushes and grasses under a clear blue sky
Reflected image of tree branches with yellow and orange leaves against a blue sky on a clear day.

Take a sacred journey through five archetypal landscapes. Awaken to your Earth-born intelligence and rewrite the story of your life to reflect your wilder, wiser, most magnificent self.

Are you an activist who longs to make a difference? A creative who feels blocked but knows she has so much to offer? Are you a seeker looking for answers to why you are here and what is yours to do?

Then join me for this wild and creative exploration of Earth’s archetypes as guides to your own mythic journey.

A scenic view of a tall mountain with rugged rock formations and lush green trees, with waterfalls cascading down the rocks.
View of the ocean with blue water and foamy white waves created by a boat's wake.

Overview

This journey roots your mythic story in five Earth archetypes. In writing from these ancestral landscapes, your personal search for meaning becomes part of the dream of the Earth, gaining a fierce potency that awakens you to a deeper meaning and purpose. The deserts, forests, oceans and rivers, mountains, and grasslands reveal your soul’s patterns and potential through image and metaphor. It is time to write a wilder, larger, and deeper story for our lives.

A picturesque mountain landscape at sunset with snow-capped peaks, a calm turquoise lake reflecting the mountains, and a forest of evergreen trees in the foreground.

During this online class you will:

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Rewild your imagination and spark your earth-born creativity

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Align your personal path with the dream of the Earth

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Awaken to the power of Earth’s metaphors as wise guides and ancestors to your mythic journey

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Discover a nature-based writing practice that will bring greater clarity to your life path

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Put language to your wildest dreams and most authentic desires

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Be inspired by poetry, writing prompts, and imagery

The Mythic Journey You Will Undergo:

  • The desert is a spare and spacious landscape that reveals the bones of your being. Who are you when all else is stripped away? Here, amid the searing, shifting sands you begin to discern between mirage and reality. The desert, long a place for mystics and misfits, invites you to step out of the everyday and explore the particular quality of your own soul.

Dune desert landscape with reddish-orange sand dunes and small green desert shrubs, under a partly cloudy sky during sunset.
Close-up of fern plants with curled, unfurling fronds in a lush green forest with misty background and tall trees.

  • While much of the world’s knowing is rational and clear-cut, the soul thrives in the shadows, under a dark canopy of branches. In the dim light of the dense forest, you tap into a more magical and instinctive knowing. You awaken to a deeper level of consciousness. No longer following the prescribed, linear path, you begin to chart your own way.

Aerial view of a rocky shoreline with clear blue-green ocean water and sandy beach.

  • When you feel out of your depth, as many of us do in these turbulent times, it is a sign to look into your depths. Oceans and Rivers invite you to explore what lies in your subconscious, beneath the surface. How will you contemplate your inner life? How will you navigate the shape-shifting mode of your desires that move like water through your body? Just as water carves a path through the canyons, so your emotions set the contours for your life.

  • The first 700 million years of Earth’s history were placid: There were no mountains and no continental collisions. A flat calm pervaded. Now, as your mountain Self stirs, you feel a quickening. Mountains are born of restlessness and tension. This is how your higher self emerges too—out of magma and motion. Even as the winds howl about you, even as your belly fills with fire and fury, you are rising.

Mountain landscape with rugged peaks, green valleys, and scattered patches of snow, under a partly cloudy sky.
Sunset over rolling hills with fields, cypress trees, and a farmhouse in a rural landscape.

  • How can we honor our everyday lives and still live from the mythic depths of our wild hearts? While it might appear that the hard work is mostly over, homecoming can prove the most challenging stage of the journey. Here, re-absorbed into culture and community, you confront the ultimate test: to remain true to yourself amid the demands of your everyday life.

Sign up for our Members Only Page and then you’ll be asked to pay the one-time fee of $97

Before you begin your journey, you’ll need to sign up to be part of a members only page, and then be asked to pay the one-time course fee of $97.  

At that point, you will be taken to the members site, where everything you need for the course resides.

What the course includes

Overhead view of a wooden desk with a person taking notes in a notebook, computer monitor, keyboard, mouse, mug with hot beverage, and various office supplies.


Six Pre-Recorded Teleclasses (60 mins)

Where we creatively explore our relationship to these landscapes.

Open MacBook laptop on a woven beige rug, with an open book, a white cup, and a framed black-and-white artwork of a cityscape in the background.


Six Pre-Recorded Zoom Calls

That dive deeper into the material and offer you more writing prompts

A woman with black hair and glasses sitting on a sofa, writing in a notebook.


A Workbook of Writing Prompts

to accompany your journey and supplement your in-person writing sessions. (Received when you sign up.)

A woman with braided hair sitting at a white desk, using a laptop with an email or messaging app open on the screen. The desk has a notebook, a pen, and two small succulents in white pots.


Access to a Private Facebook group

to build community and encourage sharing. Simply email me for an invitation.

What people say about the course

  • “Mary’s course was completely life changing. My relationship to the landscapes changed. I have always been a nature lover, but I’ve always felt these veils of separation and I’ve longed to know how to fully open and I’ve not been able to. Until Mary took me thought the landscapes. It was the most poetic, creative experiences I have ever had.”

    — CLARE DUBOIS, FOUNDER OF TREESISTERS

  • “Brilliant facilitation. I am deeply appreciative of the process Mary crafted. I loved her authentic presence as our guide. I had a profound experience under her wise and caring leadership.”

    — JON SYMES, FORMER OUTREACH DIRECTOR, PACHAMAMA ALLIANCE

  • “Mary brings a depth of presence and wisdom that is exceptional. Her presentations are not only inspiring and transformational, but they are organized with crystal clarity. I first heard her speak back in 2003, and felt I had received the equivalent of a daylong workshop in the space of one hour.”

    — AUDREY SEYMOUR MA MCC, FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL, CLEAR CHANGE GROUP

  • "I was shocked that I had held so much in, so effectively, that I was totally consciously unaware. Mary’s gentle and accepting facilitation brought it out of me."

    — Morgan M

  • "Mary is a natural and her energy is contagious. I love her voice and her energetic fingers sending positive vibes to participants. She engages everyone to feel included, even if you do not attend the live recordings."

    — Arnette S

  • " I just wanted to thank you soooooooooo much for the session!  I really do feel you are a poetry mid-wife!... that's what bubbled up for me with the exercises.  I was so amazed to feel what it did to my whole being to express in the moment like that... and for me, 'publicly'. "

    — Dawn S

  • "I wanted to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your course "A Wild Soul Woman." Participating in it was transformative for me, and I believe the transformations will continue well into the future. How I see myself, Nature, other people, and the rest of the world has changed. I loved your teachings, the poetry and music, the concepts - and I loved the community of such creative and powerful women."

    — MaryBeth Mannarino

  • "Thank you Mary. Thank you for your gentle, generous, graceful, powerful leadership for this course. You embodied the Divine Feminine in many wonderful ways."

    — Steffany Raynes

  • "You have so much to offer, so many resources and all your embodied experience of the elements just blazes through. Deepest Bow."

    — Katie

Notes from the author

Notes from the author

A woman with short brown hair smiling outdoors, standing in front of a tree with sunlight on her face.

Mary Reynolds Thompson, CPCC, CAPF, CJF, Founder of Live Your Wild Soul Story, works with creatives, change-makers, and seekers who long to step into their most courageous, creative, and connected selves in order to live fully and have the impact they desire.

An award-winning author, facilitator of poetry therapy, and a pioneer in the emerging field of spiritual ecology, Mary has created a unique program of transformation based on five Earth archetypes that map a journey into the depths of our untamed souls. She speaks and gives workshops around the world. Her book, Reclaiming the Wild Soul was a 2015 Nautilus Award-Winner and forms the foundation for this course.

join me for this wild and creative exploration of Earth’s archetypes as guides to your own mythic journey.