On the first day of registration, my extra-curricular courses at a high school in South Korea are already almost full.

For the mythology course, this semester we will be tracking tricksters as they steal fire and bring it to humanity, asking each of us what the fire that we need to steal for our own lives is.

We’ll learn what makes a sun goddess hide herself in a cave, and how we might bring her back out when we feel things growing dark and cold in our own lives.

We’ll quest with Percival and Arthur for the grail—a chalice of light and restoration and examine 14th century poetry for clues to what kind of covenant we may have broken that leads to the wounding of the fisher king and the question we rarely remember to ask when we have the chance.

We’ll meet a talking snake with an ancient shipwrecked sailor and walk a labyrinth with Re, Ma’at, Set, and Heka as they travel the regions of Duat and learn a cheeky secret Khepri reminds us of each morning.

And lastly, we’ll return to a cave—a place of hiding and safety, but also limitation—with young Hermes and discover the threshold marked by a tortoise (we’ll also learn the difference between turtles and tortoises), sacrifice, and what it means to choose not to satisfy our desire and discover the power of choosing bones over meat.

In the Tarot class, we will learn how to use the symbolic images of the tarot and a few spreads to explore character and narrative arcs. And how to take more control of the most important story we’ll ever write: the story of our own lives.

Year of the Fire Horse, here we come!