Today we’d like to introduce you to Pamela Jaye Smith.
Hi Pamela Jaye, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’d been in the film industry for twenty years doing studio feature films and TV series, international commercials, documentaries, music videos, and corporate and military films.
Then in 1992, I also started my Story Consulting and teaching business, focusing on using mythology to help people create better stories, improve their communications and leadership skills, and further develop themselves towards their full potential.
Today my focus is on Applied Mythology: using Mythic Themes, Archetypes, and Symbols to help creatives improve their projects, presentations, and their own lives.
With so many more venues for media exposure, it’s been great to spread out from film schools and universities into presenting at WebFests and PitchFests, judging film and script contests, and mentoring at retreats. Other venues include corporations and non-profits, the U.S. military, medical groups, the aeronautics and aerospace industry, and more.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Though it was difficult at first to get people to understand what I offered, it’s much easier today to find audiences who are familiar with and receptive to mythic concepts. Sometimes it just takes a while for new ideas to gain purchase, though in my case they are really old ideas brought forward for current use.
As many of you have no doubt noticed, more and more people are searching for new experiences, new information, new ways to hack their lives and professions both with technology and often without. The good news is that the old can be new again, depending on how you present it in your own unique way.
This is great for artists and entrepreneurs and offers rich opportunities to explore further categories of clients, customers, and venues.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
“REACH OUT & EXPLORE”
No matter your expertise or your enterprise, you can likely expand your outreach in directions that might not seem obvious at first. With so many people having access via the internet to so many different things, ideas, people, places, and experiences there is generally more openness to the new, as well as the sometimes unfamiliar traditional and classic.
As a specialist in Applied Mythology, I’m always looking for ways to put the many world myths into practical use. The main way has been for Story Consultations where I offer people the Mythic Themes, Archetypes, and Symbols that can enhance the story they want to tell, be it fiction, a screenplay, a game, non-fiction, marketing materials, etc.
However, an aspect I’m using even more and taking into more arenas is that of the ArchePaths – the Warrior, Scientist, Magician, Clergy, and Lover paths are ways of perceiving and dealing with the world around us and within us. It’s an ancient system of personal awareness and development that lends itself very well to creating story characters.
It also works very well – as intended by the spiritual practices that identified and refined the system – to help individuals gain more self-knowledge and find guidance on how to improve and expand their abilities.
Who am I? What do I want to do in this world? How can I best accomplish that?
Learning about the 5 ArchePaths, the three levels and three approaches of each can be quite revelatory. Then using the specific tools for each as is appropriate can improve everything from your own creative process to dealing with friends and family, colleagues and co-workers, clients and customers. It can help you develop flexible leadership and communication skills.
It’s also an excellent tool for selecting teams. At the Mars Society 2019 Convention, I gave a presentation on “Applied Mythology for Space Exploration”, how to use the ArchePaths to select teams to go to Mars. I’ve also used it in consultation for such as a medical practice, actors, and the US Army.
Here’s a fun thing you can do – think of times in your life when you seem to have been on or touched base with one of the 5 ArchePaths and find a photo or a saying or something that illustrates that.
My ArchePath photos include for the –
Warrior – My buddies and I were all doing free-lance production as producers, directors, A.D.s, shooters, gaffers, etc. and promoted ourselves as “Weekly Warriors”.
Scientist – for a project going to the Himalayas, we got to meet with Dr. Charles Elachi, later the head of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, who helped us find a plane crash from WWII using Space Shuttle photography.
Magician – as you all no doubt know, being a creator is being a Magician. For this, I chose a documentary I directed for Culver City as they were transforming their old City Hall into the new one while still preserving the old façade.
Clergy – I’m just completing a novella set in 14th century France and featuring a monk on a pilgrimage of the Cathedrals. Besides lots of reading, my research included on-the-ground exploration of churches and monasteries in France.
Lover – one of my books from film-book publishers Michael Wiese Productions is a movie guidebook to Romantic Comedies. [Available at our MYTHWORKS website, also at www.mwp.com, and in bookstores.]
See what you can come up with about yourself and your experience on the different ArchePaths.
Our company is looking forward to doing lots more Personal and Organizational Myth Consulting using the ArchePaths. You can find out more about that at http://pamelajayesmith.net/archepaths/
Mars Society Presentation on ArchePaths
https://usc-marshall-panopto-demo.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=978c17e8-35db-45cf-8008-aae80112bfca
What was your favorite childhood memory?
We grew up on a cattle ranch in the Texas panhandle with an endless vista of pretty much just flat prairies dotted here and there with lone windmills. It’s the sort of landscape that spurs one’s imagination. Our parents read to us a lot, all sorts of things.
My favorite memory is when I learned to read for myself and could enter and explore so many more amazing worlds. Time magazine and Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales stand out as my early favorites. Our ranch house and the grandparents’ house in town both had extensive libraries so we could lose ourselves in the wonders released from those magical pages.
Pricing:
- Individual Personal Myth Consultation $2,000
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.mythworks.net
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pamela+jaye+smith
- Other: www.mythicchallenges.com
Image Credits
Portrait photo – Kate McCallum Weekly Warriors – Edward Wilde “Heir Apparent” book cover – Brian Dyer others are candid shots
