Medusa:

The Gift and Tyranny of Transforming Civilisation Trauma

with Sara McFarland

October-November 2025

An introductory online course for change-agents *

*we mean change-agents in the widest of senses including and beyond activists, campaigners, movement-builders, community organisers, grief tenders,
community space-holders, permaculturists etc

This is a five week course exploring civilisation trauma as the underbelly of our current crises - and how transforming trauma is therefore at the heart of composting our power-over paradigm into relational cultures. Together we will courageously and tenderly explore these transformative terrains through the mythic lens of Medusa.

Myths carry stories from when the land and the humans were in reciprocal relationship, revealing the consciousness and culture of our wise and well ancestors, born from a still thriving Earth community. Myths also carry the record of their journey through time: the transformation of our peoples and their culture, spirituality and politics. When we listen to these ancient stories, we have the opportunity to listen to the psycho-spiritual and archeo-geo-ecological history of Earth and the humans and creatures from the particular place and people of the story. We have the opportunity to remember backwards, to discover a map, through listening, of how to be in relationship with Earth in a way that is very un-modern: a future earth-centered thinking arising out of the past. This kind of time travel can teach us how to transform our current crisis into an opportunity for change.

The myth of Medusa is a writhing conglomeration of snake-like stories - she becomes a monstrous vision of the tyranny of trauma, she is called victim, empowered avenger, embodiment of freedom and so much more. Over time, she has been cursed, ostracized, demonized, feared, rejected and she also is a powerful vision of the beauty, sacred gift and magical power, the blessing/curse, that this trauma co-creates. Her experience, and her story, is personal and political, collective and mythic. We need this story now as both a reflection of where we are, as well as a map to transforming civilisation trauma.

We at Starter Culture refer to the traumatizing impacts of living in modern culture as “Civilisation Trauma”. This is our way of pointing to power-over culture as the collective waters we swim in: the larger story of wounding and trauma that we carry as a species through our civilisation and domination of one another and the other than human creatures.

Medusa as map and compass

The myth of Medusa will be our map and our compass for orienting ourselves to Civilisation Trauma in our inner lives - and how this then plays out in our groups, organisations and movements - and the world at large. Medusa reveals to us the split of separability; the forgetting that we are part of Earth community and the freeze/dissociation that are the intergenerational inheritance of it. We will gather for two hours every week, over the course of five weeks, to begin an introductory inquiry into the three elements of healing Civilisation Trauma:

From separability to Earth belonging
From core to sacred wound
From the shadow of modernity to the gifts of soul

During this 5 week course, we will ask questions that trouble the status quo and that mirror to us the internal assumptions we have. Together we will risk new perspectives out of the deep time that is myth. We will begin to dance with these questions and more through the process of inner-led change…

What does Medusa have to teach us about the sacred alchemy of healing and transforming the Civilisation Trauma that underpins our current crises and collapse?
How might we look again, with her eyes and her snake power, at the beauty and gift and horror of this world and respond from our hearts in ways that transform our (and our species’) way of being in the world?

Come and join the listening and inquiring, and experience practical exercises for composting Power-over culture as we invite the oracle of Medusa to speak to us through the centuries and begin to understand and experience what transforming civilisation trauma is … that is, if you have the tender courage to gaze into her eyes and see your own heart, turning towards both the wound and the gift of these times and our place in them.

We will be experientially exploring these themes at an introductory level. We are planning a longer course in order to deepen more fully into the work of composting power-over culture and heal Civilisation Trauma.

You can listen to Sara telling the Medusa story as part of our series “Stories at the Edge of Collapse" here.

Exchange: Sliding Scale

Lowest end at £200
Upper end ~ whatever you can afford.
You can pay all at once or in installments. We are aware of these times and their rising challenges and we don’t want the price to prevent participation. If the lowest end of our sliding scale is not possible for you, please reach out to us at clairemilne@starterculture.net

By signing up, you are committing to being present at, and financially contributing to all five sessions.

This will be a small intimate group with a maximum of 14 participants.

If you have any questions contact clairemilne@starterculture.net

We very much hope to grapple together with you in this Medusa-shaped inquiry of our times!

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Our relationships with money are deeply entangled in the power-over paradigm we seek to help compost. Within Starter Culture and in regards to our programs, we see this as an ongoing inquiry rather than something that we will somehow be able to ‘fix’ and get to a perfect solution around.

For our work to be financially viable we need there to be a mix of contributions across the sliding scale. (If all participants pay the lowest/lower end of the sliding scale we will not cover all our monthly costs.) And with this said, we recognise our own relative financial privilege and our longing to offer our work in the spirit of mutual generosity.

Currently, we unfortunately do not have scholarship monies, although we hope to do so in the future. Therefore, if you give more, you support those who cannot pay as much to be able to attend. If the lowest end of the scale still does not feel possible for you, please reach out. (Once our minimum participant number has been reached or enough folks have payed the higher end of the scale, we offer 2 pay what you can spots for online courses).

We ask that you take some time to listen into what feels like the right contribution for you, as a guide we offer this:

Low end of the scale: I am regularly not able to meet my needs

Mid-scale: I am able to meet my basic needs

Mid-high end of scale: I am able to meet my basic needs as well as, for example, to go on holiday without worrying about it.

High end of scale (or higher!): I have savings / own my own house and would like to share this abundance so others with less financial abundance can benefit from this support.

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