Wayne M Mellinger | Independent Scholar (original) (raw)

My name is Wayne Martin Mellinger and I am an Independent Scholar living in Santa Barbara. My advanced training is in Sociology, and I have long-term interests in Social Psychology '/ Micro-Sociology, Critical Social Theories, Power, Inequality and Oppression, Everyday Life, Mass Media and Cultural Studies. I am now using this framework to understand homelessness in American society, focusing on the needs of those who experience mental health challenges. My curiosity is unbounded and I am interested in all aspects of our world--broadly including science, religion, the arts-- all aspects of the human condition. I am also a painter and a poet. I am a student of Nature Religions, by which I mean new religious movements such as various Pagan traditions (including Wicca, Druidry, Asatru / Heathenry), shamanism, Gaianism, and Religious Naturalism. Since 2012 I have been developing my personal theology, which I call Dionysian Naturalism. Dionysian Naturalism is an emerging religion of nature that is ground in a scientific worldview (thus naturalist) that acknowledges the primal role of shamanic or mystical states of consciousness in spiritual life (thus Dionysian). As a form of Religious Naturalism, it rejects the supernatural, insisting that everything that exists exists in nature. It is a hybrid of contemporary Nature Religions with the philosophical sophistication and methodological rigor of Religious Naturalism, the practical and real-world theological nuts and bolts of Paganism, and the up-close engagement in local ecosystems and environmental activism of contemporary Druidry.My blog, THE DIONYSIAN NATURALIST, (www.thedionysiannaturalist.blogspot.com) contains my writings on this project, including those originally published on Naturalistic Paganism, Gods and Radicals, and Noozhawk. I hope to eventually collect these writings into a book entitled "The New American Religions of Nature". A turning point in my life was an emotional breakdown that occurred in 1999. The combined loss of everything in my life--an intimate partner of 19 years, my three teaching jobs paying me $85,000 a year and allowing me to buy a home and live the American Dream--left me broken and traumatized. I am writing an auto-ethnographic memoir about this journey. A draft version of this project, "I Just Wanted to Dance With Dionysus: Life's Sacred Journey, Lost Souls and Our Thirst for Wholeness", was developed as a guest lecturer at Pacific Graduate University from 2013- 2020. In that project I employ my lived experience with mental illness, substance use and homelessness to shatter cultural mythologies and ideological frameworks found in the academic literatures on those substantive research areas.These lived experiences allowed me to bear witness to grave injustices I never really knew existed, and propelled me to become a social justice activist fighting for the well-being of those living on our streets. I sit on four nonprofit boards and two county commission in hopes of improving the lives of our neighbors on the streets.In 2007 I returned to school to develop social work skills and I have worked as a social worker for the homeless for a variety of agencies including WIllBridge of Santa Barbara, Transition House, Casa Esperanza and New Beginnings Counseling Center. I sit on various county commissions, including the Continuum of Care and the Behavioral Wellness Commission and sit on numerous nonprofit boards, including Showers of Blessing, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), the Committee for Social Justice, and Social Venture Partners-Santa Barbara. For me the highest ideal is to be of service to those who are less fortunate.I am a journalist writing about my community of Santa Barbara for the online newspaper Noozhawk.I have taught sociology, social psychology, human service and social justice classes at several colleges since 1985, including the Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Berkeley campuses of the University of California, the Fielding Graduate University, Ventura College, and Antioch University Santa Barbara.
Supervisors: Professor Don H. Zimmerman, Professor Harvey Molotch, Richard Appelbaum, Richard Flacks, and Tomatsu Shibutani

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