Loving Medusa, Redeeming Athene

The Joseph Campbell Foundation Mythological RoundTable® Group of OPUS at Pacifica Graduate Institute presents Dr. Jaffa Frank Loving Medusa, Redeeming Athene: A Mythopoesis of Female Blood, Embodiment, and Sovereignty Archetypal psychologist James Hillman urges us to “restore the disease its God and give the God its due.” But what does it mean to be a human woman in an embodied relationship with the archetypal divine, especially when facing illness, pain, loss, or death? In this presentation, Jaffa Frank, Ph.D. transmutes her decades of suffering from endometriosis by engaging the mythic imagination, experiencing body, and narrating mind to craft a restorative tale of sovereignty. Confronting embodied misogyny and the demonization of menstruation, woman’s most indigenous process, Dr. Frank mythopoetically weaves together threads of endometriosis, Medusa, and Athene and reclaims humility, joy, and the life-affirming reciprocity of death and regeneration as gifts of the Gorgon. By personifying endometriosis as Medusan, pathology is rendered sacred and healing becomes a form of grace—a mystery that transforms the experience of hardship without denying the truth of suffering.

Dr. Jaffa Vernon Frank is an archetypal mythologist, licensed mental health counselor, writer, and a woman with over 40 years of experience living with endometriosis. She holds a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and an M.A. in Counseling with an emphasis in Grief, Loss, and Trauma Therapy from Southwestern College. Dr. Frank teaches courses in the psychology of altruism, archetypes, and the evolution of consciousness at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her book Eyes of the Gorgon: Endometriosis, Mythic Embodiment, and Freedom is available on Amazon. Learn more about Dr. Frank at jaffavfrankphd.weebly.com