The Fifth Direction is an international mythopoetic community who gather to discuss, share, learn and practice the way that leads to the deep self.

We began our journey in 2017 as a small group of men talking, sharing and meditating together at the home of former Meditation Australia president, Asher Packman, in Melbourne, Australia. While the practice of meditation was the primary focus, we soon found ourselves deeply immersed in the mythopoetic work of poet and activist Robert Bly.

This soon expanded to include James Hillman, Michael Meade, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Marion Woodman and numerous others.

We grew rapidly — and when plague times took hold in late 2020, an online platform and mobile app was built. This provided us with a bespoke place for our community to share and learn, away from the distractions of social media. It was also able to contain our ever-growing library of resources.

We then gathered renowned teachers from around the world to host sharing circles, meditation, breathwork, music, storytelling and poetry, to broad-ranging discussions on mythology and more.

We are now a welcome community for everyone of all genders, faiths, backgrounds, orientations, ages and abilities, offering live sessions, discussion groups and deep immersions through our flagship courses The Way and The Wild Soul.

We passionately believe in the re-emergence of mythopoetic understanding, and are helping to steward a new story beyond the ‘hero myth’ to which our culture has become so rigidly affixed. A story which embraces the heroine’s journey, queer ways of being and the ecological soul.

Following Bly’s work in revivifying the divine feminine in culture, art and psychology — and his reimagining of the masculine as a response to the violent wars and environmental destruction of his time — we aim to build an inclusive community that continues to ask the same questions, which are now more urgent than ever.

The fifth direction — or the ‘sacred fifth’ — represents a turning inward towards the centre of the self. It is the place from which we can embody a vertical life, connected to spirit above and soul below, and no longer seek anything outside ourselves.

The fifth way has always been sacred. It is a return home and asks of us only to explore our own true nature and find harmony — the middle way — between the chaos of opposing tensions.

Bly often called people into the fifth direction before his storytelling, and thus our name also offers an opportunity to pay homage to the work we humbly continue.

We invite you to join us, reclaim your mythic imagination and celebrate a return to soul.

“To be wild is not to be crazy or psychotic. True wildness is a love of nature, a delight in silence, a voice free to say spontaneous things, and an exuberant curiosity in the face of the unknown.” — Robert Bly