Faces We Wear to Meet the Gods

On an island where gods hide as refugees and the sea remembers every promise, one woman carved a face from grief and taught a nation how to dance with death. When her husband drowned in a typhoon, the Seawife Shaman Sumyeong dove for seven nights into the depths, searching for his spirit. What she found in the palace of coral changed everything not resurrection, but transformation. The Sea Mother's command was simple and profound: "e;Make him a face."e;From driftwood that had swallowed salt, painted with squid ink, sealed with seaweed, the first Korean mask was born. And with it, a sacred technology for speaking across the threshold between worlds. In this electrifying lecture, we journey through the forgotten mask traditions of Korea from Jeju's ocean shamans to the mountain spirits of Gangneung, from resistance rituals under Japanese occupation to the living practices that continue today. Each region carved its own answer to the oldest human question: How do we face the unseen?Discover why grief must be given form, why laughter is holy, and why the mask that mocks is the mask that heals. Learn how personal transformation flows into community renewal, how the materials of our wounding become the materials of our healing, and why every face mortal or divine is only complete when it dares to laugh. This is mythology that breathes. History that dances. Wisdom carved in salt and storm. Because some truths can only be spoken when we wear a face that isn't ours.