Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryMeet Achtan, a druid’s daughter and mother of a future king, Cormac, son of Airt. This is a story of sovereignty, of spellwork, and of our deepest entanglement with nature. Bees, wolves, and horses also play a magical role in this tale.Our GuestKarina Tynan is a psychotherapist and the author of two collections of Retellings from Irish Mythology: TÁIN : The Women’s Stories offers a new lens on great Irish epic, Táin Bó Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), and SÍDH : Stories from the Women in Irish Mythology, which  are linked through the presence of the goddess in her many manifestations. Karina's interest in Irish mythology began almost 30 years ago through the Bard Summer School which commences each July on Clare Island, Co Mayo, Ireland. Each year the summer school explores an Irish myth for its contemporary relevance. You can purchase Karina’s books at bookshops across Ireland. International readers can buy them directly from the author: https://karinatynan.com/Find Karina on Instagram @irishmythsretoldBoth books are illustrated by Karina’s daughter, artist Kathy Tynan, kathytynan.net & @kathy.tynan. The books are designs by Karina’s niece, Ruby Henderson  Insta: @ruby.hndrsnOur ConversationOur need for magic, and the way we know that magic when we meet it: magic wakes you up.Ultimately, this is a powerful conversation both about growing and about parenting - both in the ancient times we imagine and in this difficult contemporary moment. Sacrifice (whose roots mean “to make sacred”) particularly, when it comes to parenthoodThe five spells of druidic protection are inspired by the original sources and Karina's imaginationIrish myth’s tradition of the geis (pl. geasa): a cross between a curse and a taboo. Modern examples of geasa: the ethics of psychotherapy; the way humans - or, the richest humans - are transgressing the limits of our planet’s ability to support life with the addiction to fossil fuelsOur fear of our own children’s fragility, including fears of giving our kids an eating disorder or pushing them to suicideThe importance of fathering - both for partner and childThe role of rhythmic stories, fairy tale, adventure, and romances in the development of childrenThe role of ritual, particularly coming of age rituals which get people to wake up and be alive to what happens in life.Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa....

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons.Subscribe to our on our Substack newsletter Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryDid Saint Patrick have a wife? Irish folklore of the 18th and 19th centuries declared he did. Sheelah was celebrated on March 18, the day after Saint Paddy's Day. KnotWork host Marisa Goudy imagines a one-sided bedtime conversation between the couple. The story also weaves in two other women of the Celtic Otherworld - Cailleach and Sheela Na Gig.Our GuestMartha Wright is the perfect combination of maternal and bad-ass, she devotes herself to helping people embrace their inner divinity. She is a vessel and facilitator of divine energy - whether that is a healing session,  her own writing, or leading a class or retreat. As you’ll hear in our conversation following the story, Martha has apprenticed as bean chaointe,  the Irish tradition of keening and as a shaman.Find her at marthawrightshaman.com or on instagram @Marthawrightshaman Our ConversationSheela Na Gig: a figure of a woman with a skeletal head holding her vulva open wide that was carved into medieval churches and castles, a representation of death and rebirthApproaching a story of Ireland’s patron saint with a kind of holy ambivalence - responding to the call to the ancient, often hidden divine feminine, and also the beauty and the scholarship of early Irish Christianity, but acknowledging that Catholicism became such a punishing, diminishing force in Irish culture. Reclaiming the tradition of divine coupleship as the full humanity of the people in the story. They are both spiritual beings and as sexual beingsThis story was inspired by the famous “Pillow Talk” scene from Ireland’s greatest mythological epic, The Táin. Intimacy, at the emotional and at the physical level. Marisa borrowed from Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, particularly its refrain “I bind unto myself this day”The tradition of celebrating Sheelah’s Day seemed to emerge in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in the Irish diaspora, as a way to extend the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations one more day (and to avoid the Lenten abstention for one more day)Martha as bean feasa (wise woman) and bean chaointe (keening woman), as shaman, as emerging author who has uncovered so many layers of her own identity in the process of telling the story that is truly hers to tell“Wildness” and what that really means in our modern world.Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at

Write With Us in 2024Do you want to write your own memoir or simply make more space for self-expression in the new year? Join Marisa in the Writers' Knot, our online writing community.Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons. Subscribe to our  on our Substack newsletter Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryPerdita Finn shares an excerpt from Take Back the Magic. This chapter, "The Land of the Dead," describes her first encounter with the place that she and I both call home, the Hudson Valley, the land once peopled by the Lenape and Esopus tribes.“We wouldn't fight wars if we knew that everyone on the other side had once been our child. We wouldn't kill children if we knew every child had once been our child, had once been our mother. There would be no sides.”Our GuestPerdita Finn is the co-founder, with her husband Clark Strand, of the feral fellowship The Way of the Rose, which inspired their book The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary.  Find out more about her devotion to “ecology not theology” at wayoftherose.orgPerdita’s book Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World is an intimate journey through her recovery of these lost ways. She speaks widely on how to collaborate with those on the other side, on the urgent necessity of a new romantic animism, and on the sobriety that emerges when we claim the long story of our souls. Find more at her work at takebackthemagic.comOur Conversation“Paperfold places”: real places that are dream places, places you feel you’ve seen before.Who are our ancestors? Everyone. This disrupts our ideas of ancestry and lineage and feels like a radical idea when we consider colonialism and we’re cautious about cultural appropriation. Civilization as a long story of genocide and colonialism that is based on stories of good guys and bad guysCyclical living, and the sense we have all been here before. Cairns on the side of Woodstock’s Overlook mountain were placed about the same time as Newgrange in Ireland. Glenn Kreisberg and Dave Holden’s research about stone monuments created by indigenous people of the northeastern US.  The heart, a sense of belonging to land, the ancestors, and the dead. So different from the fear and fascism that are so present today.Our interrelationship with the more-than-human world reflected in the destruction of the American chestnut trees.How to nourish the seeds of the heart; a practice for the new year at the Solstice.Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With MarisaJoin the Writers' Knot online writing community - the new program begins mid-January!1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to...

Write With Us in 2024Do you want to write your own memoir or simply make more space for self-expression in the new year? Join Marisa in the Writers' Knot, our online writing community.Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryElizabeth Cunningham reads to us from her new memoir, My Life as a Prayer. For Elizabeth, "A prayer is one who prays." This excerpt brings us to the start of her journey as a writer because, for this author, writing and prayer are always interwoven.Our GuestElizabeth Cunningham is a novelist, poet, musician, and counselor based in New York’s Hudson Valley.  She’ll be reading to us from her multifaith memoir, My Life as a Prayer. She is the author and illustrator of The Book of Madge, a graphic novel, and the source of her best known work, the four books in The Maeve Chronicles. Her earlier novels include The Wild Mother, The Return of the Goddess, and How to Spin Gold, all of which have been recently reprinted by Monkfish Book Publishing. Our ConversationThis excerpt from My Life as a Prayer is a request for help, and a prayer of gratitudeElizabeth chose to write through the lens of prayer because it enabled her to write a memoir without writing about certain things at the core of her life - love affairs, children, her marriageScripture as sacred storytellingThe pressure from Elizabeth’s father to be a social worker, not to be a writer; this tension is alive for many writers who fear they should be more devoted to activismElizabeth’s “best imaginary friend forever” BIFF, Maeve, the unrepentant Celtic Magdalene, heroine of The Passion of Mary Magdalene and three other booksThe need for an incarnate goddess, and a desire for a relationship with JesusThe invitation to all people be in a uniquely passionate love affair with “God” (or whatever you call the great spirit) Prayer and the troublesome idea that “only god can help” when we think of suffering mothers and children in GazaFite fuaite, the Irish phrase for interwoven; the idea that something can be woven, then torn, then mended, as the Hebrew word tikkun“A way out of no way, way will open”Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With MarisaJoin the Writers' Knot online writing community - the new program begins mid-January!1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot:

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryDimple Dhabalia reads to us from a later section of her forthcoming book, Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self. She shares a moment of deep realization: her life’s work as a humanitarian, and specifically her career as an asylum officer, was actually a direct response to her own family’s refugee history - she just didn’t know it when she started on that path. You’ll hear a part of her uncle’s story and his expulsion from Uganda during the regime of Idi Amin, followed by a conversation about the power of story, in ancient myth, in personal narratives, and in the conflict zones of today.Our GuestDimple is the founder of Roots in the Clouds, a boutique consulting firm specializing in using the power of story to heal individual and organizational trauma and moral injury. She is also a writer, podcaster, coach, and facilitator who brings over twenty years of public service experience working at the intersection of leadership, mindful awareness, and storytelling. Her first book, Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self will be available in February 2024. Listen to her podcast, What Would Ted Lasso Do? and connect with her on social media @dimpstory across all platforms.Pre-order a copy of Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self Our ConversationHow intergenerational trauma and other unseen influences shape our lives. The role of storytelling in the workplace and how it helps heal individual trauma and company cultureWe connect story healer to story healer, the contrast of working with mythology and working with modern stories from the front lines. Story healing as “creating a ministry of presence.” The paradox of humanitarian work, specifically Dimple’s former work as an asylum officer; how to hold onto your humanity in the face of such profound human painAncestral healing is for us and for our entire family - Dimple is healing trauma for many generations of her familyStory Healing for global conflict, including the Truth and Reconciliation Committees in South Africa and Dimple’s work with people after the Rwandan genocide of 1994Dehumanization as part of war and equating people with animals, which perpetuates the toxicity of placing the human experience above all other aspects of the more-than-human worldThe mythology of Hinduism (though it’s not myth to many); the indigenous stories told on the show Reservation DogsOur MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her...

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryEleanora Amendolara shares an excerpt from her book Divine Embodiment: The Art & Practice of Chumpi Illumination. We discuss Eleanora’s many trips to Peru and the origins of her pioneering approach to healing and spiritual awakening.  Our GuestEleanora is a master healer and teacher with a thriving healing practice in Brooklyn and in Warwick, New York. As the founder of the Sacred Center Mystery School and a certified Health Kinesiology practitioner, she has been training healers and individuals on the path to spiritual awakening for more than three decades.Her signature healing system, Chumpi Illumination, weaves together the indigenous wisdom of the Andes, principles of sacred geometry, the science of muscle testing, and wisdom of the ancient mystery traditions. Get your copy of Divine Embodiment: The Art & Practice of Divine Embodiment.Our ConversationHow Eleanora received her first set of Chumpi stones: An origin story, which includes a woman’s quest, a wise guide, the great Incan myth of Pachacuti (“the world turned upside down), all aligned with the turning of the seasons.When Eleanora would ask the paqos, the medicine women of Cusco who could teach her about the Chumpi stones, they always told her to look to the mountainsOur collaborative writing practice (I am a longtime student of the Sacred Center Mystery School, and have co-written two of Eleanora’s books).Connections across ancient cultures: Cusco as the sacred center of Peru, Uisneach as the sacred center of Ireland.Power of receiving and surrendering to a healing, rather expecting a healer to do something/produce something for you.Writing and creating from a place of “we don’t know what we don’t know.” When we can embrace uncertainty, the real mystical creation happens.What ritual with the indigenous Q’ero people really looks like (it’s not what the Western-programmed mind might expect) Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our Story In Ireland’s Forgotten Goddess Queen-Queen-Witch (S4 Ep7), you met Mongfind. She’s best known from her role in the story of Niall of the Nine Hostages. In “The Last Sovereignty Goddess” I imagine Mongfind’s divine origins and tell a story about power, sacred union, and the disruption of the balance between spirit, nature, and so-called civilization. We explore the intersection between the divine and the human and the frailties that are at the core of this story of goddesses and kings.Our GuestLaura Murphy, @everose on Instagram, is a poet, activist and healer from Ireland whose work centers around the ancientIrish poetic practice of Imbas Forosnai. She has shared a trinity of stories here on KnotWork, reweaving the tales of the Irish goddesses Bóinn, Brigid, and Danu.This time, I have asked Laura, a true soul sister, to sit with me as I weave a new story. Our ConversationA longtime theme in my work: how we tell goddess stories in order to tell our own human stories. While at University College Dublin, I published a paper in New Voices in Irish Criticism 4, “Dethroning the Goddess, Crowning the Woman: Eva Gore-Book and Lady Augusta Gregory’s Mythic Heroines”Channeling a story that is bigger than myself and also exactly the size of my own experienceThe power of choice and consent; the Irish tradition of the Sovereignty Goddess who chooses the king, and how that tradition was disruptedThis story explores sacred sexual union, but also the terrible first kiss What it is to be in relationship with our younger self and younger body, without buying into the toxicity of “anti-aging” Some background on the connections between the Irish and Palestinian people, including the British Israelites and attempts to excavate the sacred Hill of Tara in a quest to find the Ark of Covenant in 1900The ongoing struggle with the word and concept of “Sovereignty,” particularly with the far right’s use of the term. Considering relationship to ancestral land through the lens of America, a country built on the disrupted sovereignty of indigenous peoples.This Last Sovereignty Goddess story is the tale of an ending, and this feels like a “Tower moment,” the liminal space between what’s dying and being born.Join Melinda Laus's Seasons for Healing Community My dear friend Melinda Laus holds space for a grief support community that blends the healing power of nature with wise and inspired grief education. Her wisdom and compassion are soul medicine, and I highly recommend her work to anyone experiencing collective grief or personal loss. Learn more at thenatureofgrief.comOur MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative...

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryMeet Mongfind, the Sovereignty Goddess who appears in the Book of Lecan, a medieval Irish manuscript compiled at the turn of the fourteenth century. Her story is part of the better known tale of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the founding father of the O'Neill clan.This story was written by Marisa Goudy. It is an adaptation from the translation of the original manuscript, inspired by the interpretation of the tale by Gearóid Ó Crualaoich in The Book of the Cailleach: Stories of the Wise-Woman Healer.This story originally aired in February 2022. We’re sharing it again this week because Mongfind is closely associated with the festival of Samhain (often called the Irish holiday that inspired Halloween). Listen to this episode so you’re ready for another tale of Mongfind, The Last Sovereignty Goddess, coming next week!Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryFite Fuaite, the Irish for “interwoven.” Jen Murphy weaves a vast cloak of wisdom and culture. Less a story perhaps and more of an incantation and an invocation of the many faces of the divine feminine.The lore of the Cailleach, the sacred hag known by many names including Old Woman of Beare, gives shape to Jen’s narrative. Over a dozen goddess beings, all representing facets of the Great Mother, in this story: Brigid, Sionann, Morríghan, Anahita, Bóinn, Kali, Badb, Inanna, Mis, Sophia, Baubo, and Sheela-Na-Gig.Our GuestJen Murphy is the award-winning founder of the Celtic School of Embodiment. An anthropologist and mythologist by background, Jen is a cultural dreamer whose work is dedicated to evolving the Irish mythic feminine through scholarship, the body, and the arts, in service to these times.I highly recommend Jen’s Celtic Woman's Voyage, now offered as a self-study program: www.celticembodiment.com/self-study/voyageOur ConversationThe best way to experience this story is to release the hold of the intellectual mind and let the heart be in the flow. Jen recommends you let the story move through the body and then respond through image, either by drawing or by actively seeking the images of the story throughout your life. This story is inspired by words from Sinéad O’Connor and Marion Woodman and inspired by work Jen did through the Anima Mundi School.A profound question to ask: What if I was created in the image of the Great Mother? Who would that give me permission to be?James Hillman: “Our dreams are prior to our thinking.”To thrive, we need an image of the feminine and the dance of  metaphor, not just masculine, fact, and doctrine.The need to balance scholarship and research with the emotional response and the realities of cultural dreamtime. Now, scholarship and magic are completely separate, but that wasn’t so for the ancestors. Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, and hear the supporter-only podcast between episodes on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryIona. This island in the Scottish Hebrides is only three miles long, but it's home to millennia of spiritual, cultural, and natural magic. This story is an excerpt from the new spiritual memoir by Royce Fitts’s, The Geography of the Soul. Royce invites us to meet the wild divine feminine energies that are embodied on this sacred land.Our GuestRoyce Fitts, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified dream worker, with a doctorate in ministry. His book The Geography of the Soul: Dreams, Reality and the Journey of a Lifetime blends memoir, political and social consciousness, and spiritual wisdom and takes you to a hidden gem in the midst of the English countryside: the Ridgeway National Trail.This book explores relationships between physical and spiritual landscapes, personal and collective histories, and night-time dreams and how they weave together to reveal and heal the wounds of our lifetime.Royce is a long-time writing coaching client. I have had the immense pleasure and privilege of walking alongside him throughout the writing process, all the way to now as he launches Geography of the Soul with Flint Hills Publishing.Join us for the online launch event for Geography of the Soul on October 25, 2023. I’m excited to join Royce to talk about his author journey and how we collaborated through the drafting and editing process. Register here.Our ConversationThis book grew out of Royce’s 2016 journey: a “conscious hike” on the Ridgeway National Trail, the oldest road in England and Europe,  which he took in response to a series of great life changes that needed him to change even more.The role of dreams in our lives and the strange, evolutionary instinct to dream. The divine feminine is at the heart of every story in this season of KnotWork Storytelling. Royce describes his relationship to the Crone of Iona and what he learned about his own masculinity while held by the sacred feminine.  What is it like to embody masculine “god” energy in a healthy way? Royce invites us to have an intimate conversation with the feminine and masculine divinity within us.Royce’s lived paradox: Royce is a mystic, wizard, shaman in this world, but his work takes him to the heart of the US military where he is a military and family life counselorAn invocation of vitality and why it is so important to dream and to value our dreams.Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryLilith was a goddess or a demon, depending on whose holy books or sacred folk tradition you follow. Pearl Gregor channels Lilith’s divine voice, decrying all the ways she has been misunderstood and offering us a renewed story of Lilith as the rising power of the long repressed feminine.Our GuestPearl Gregor is an explorer and a seeker. She is a writer, dream coach, story teller, author of the three books in the series Dreams Along the Way, and an international public speaker.  Pearl is a farmer, grandmother, a blogger and a Crone of wisdom. Pearl experienced years of personal turmoil beginning about age nine.  Nothing.  But nothing, worked.  Then at age 43, she discovered meditation and in December 1988 learned that she could ask for a dream.   That first dream unleashed an avalanche of change.  Like the Myth of the Goddess Inanna, Pearl lived the descent into the underworld.  Like the Myth of the Goddess Lilith, Pearl has lived this process of life, death, and rebirth. Join Pearl to explore the deep mysteries of dreams, psyche and soul. You can read her books, or join her in her latest passion, a Dream Readers’ Myth Circle. Find her at https://dreamsalongtheway.com/Our ConversationPearl’s visionary experience of the goddesses Lilith and Sophia during a reiki treatment The contrast of a profound spiritual opening of the divine feminine while at conference of educators whose systems had little respect for a feminine perspectiveContinuing the journey with a dream of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the ancient rites of Demeter and Persephone, which enabled Pearl to feel for the first time “I am pleased to be a woman” The 325 AD Council of Nicaea and Empire Constantine’s declarations establish one true church that declared the birth-death-rebirth story to be hereticalMarisa’s journey with the Church and the decision to reject it, which seems a generational difference from Pearl who stayed connected to the church through the  Roman Catholic WomenPriest movement. The initial rejection and slow acceptance of Marija Gimbutas’s work by some (See more at Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA)The work of Liliana Kleiner, a Argentinian-Canadian-Israeli artist who focuses on the work of Lilith and Inanna Books we discussed: Perdita Finn’s Take Back the Magic, Marion Woodman’s The Pregnant Virgin, Nancy Qualls-Corbett’s The Sacred Prostitute (foreword by Woodman). Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StorySophie’s new novel, The Madonna Secret, offers a lush, ecological exploration of the gospel stories of Jesus and Mary Magdalene we may think we know so well. Rather than reading an excerpt or sharing a particular story, Sophie takes us into the landscape and culture of her heroine Miriam’s world. Our GuestSophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. She is the author of The Flowering Wand, The Madonna Secret, and forthcoming memoir on disability and ecology: The Body is a Doorway. Subscribe for her newsletter at sophiestrand.substack.com. And follow her work on Instagram: @cosmogyny and at www.sophiestrand.com.Our ConversationHow does a man who seems to be pro-women and deeply rooted in his own landscape become the mouthpiece for sexism, oppression, colonialism, and ecocide? How does the mistranslation of Jesus happen?A spiritual text is one that is a sensual text. The role of scents and herbs, especially spikenard.Understanding the Marian tradition as both Mother of God and Partner of God. Seeing the trinity as: The Mother, the Wife, and the Teacher.“There were lions in the old testament because there were lions in Palestine.” Shifting baseline syndrome means we’ve come to accept a desert-like Palestine. Empires committed genocide and ecocide and radically changed all aspects of the landscape in the last 2000 years. Written culture recorded by male elites; oral cultures make knowledge “a verb.” Miriam’s illiteracy is painful to her, but it’s core to who she is. Stories that were intended to be told in certain seasons. How do we transform the stories amidst climate and phenological change? Stories travel in bodies at the pace of a footstep.More complete show notes will be available at the Myth Is Medicine Substack.Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryLaura Murphy returns to KnotWork for the third time with a tale of the Irish goddess Danu that is part creation story and part initiation rite. Our GuestLaura Murphy is a poet, activist and healer from Ireland whose work centers around the ancient Irish poetic practice of Imbas Forosnai. The filí (seer-poets) of pre-Christian Ireland used this practice to bring healing to society and truth to power. Laura’s Imbas-infused work has been featured in the Abbey Theatre’s critically acclaimed "HOME: Part One," Herstory Light Shows, TG4’s "Imeall" and RTÉ documentary "Finding Brigid."Laura was the inaugural Poet in Residence at Herstory, the movement illuminating female role-models, she was a key player in the campaign to make Brigid’s Day a national holiday in Ireland. She is an advocate for Mother and Baby Home survivors. Follow Laura on Instagram: @everose Art for this episode, “Danu Rising” by Yuri Leitch of The Ogham Grove.The Danu Chant at  the end of Laura’s story is written by Jenny Ní Ruiséil; sung & recorded by Melanie Taylor.Our ConversationDánu gave her name to the people of the goddess Danu, the Tuatha De Dannan, the most celebrated divine beings, but she is mentioned only a couple of times in Irish mythology. Our relationship with gnosis and ‘the mystery”: our birthright is to hold the mystery, not to solve the mysteryThe role of the Grandmothers: in the story, across spiritual traditions, and in Irish society in recent generationsThe calling to be an elder in midlifeWhat it means to follow your dán: an Irish word that simultaneously means gift, skill, art, poem, soul and destinyWhen the English language replaced the Irish we lost a poetic way of speaking and expressing that was closer to the mysteriesThe alignment of stars (the constellation Casseopia), sacred sites, and features of the land (Paps of Anu in Killarney); Laura is inspired about these connections thanks to ideas brought forth by Yuri Leitch.More complete show notes will be available at the Myth Is Medicine Substack.Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot:

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Join us in the Autumn Writers’ Knot!Let the Guides, Gods, and Ancestors Lead Your Creative Journey - Register for the online writing program that begins on September 24!This series of four retreats is storytellers and poets, memoirists and bloggers, novelists and seekers, dreamers and healers trying to find a project that matters.Our StoryAs we prepare for season 4, Marisa reflects on purpose and mission of KnotWork Storytelling.In this episode:A preview of this season’s guests, including Laura Murphy and Sophie StrandMarisa's spiritual foundation: studies at the Sacred Center Mystery SchoolA devotion to mythology that goes beyond costume drama An ancestor who refused to be called by “an Irish maid’s name” and what that says about the legacy of shame in the Irish diasporaOur MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy, a Celtic Fiddle and multi-instrumental duo based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The traditional Irish reel we play at the start of the show is called "The College Groves." billyandbeth.comWork With MarisaThis season, Marisa will be taking on a handful of new writing coaching clients. If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, set up a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryCeridwen of Wales was a powerful sorceress with a hand for potions and a ferocious amount of mother love. Her magical cauldron was blessed with “awen,” supernatural inspiration and knowledge. She gave birth to a beautiful daughter, and a woefully ugly son. Ceridwen decided to whip up a potion to offer her son the gift of beauty and the gift of awen… except things didn’t go as planned!This story of shapeshifting and rebirth gives us the twice-born hero who would become the great poet-prophet-sage Taliesin.Also in this episodeThis solo episode is sort of Mother’s Day celebration, and it gives us a chance to bring together all the stories and guests who have added their wisdom to the great cauldron this season.The archetypes of the cauldron and the alchemist and why they’re so important when we’re doing creative work. Mythology and folklore weren’t crafted for mere entertainment. Most often, they were conceived to explain moments of change and disruption.KnotWork Storytelling will be on hiatus until August or September, but stay tuned for a special announcement this summer! Hint: you’ll definitely want to listen in!Join us in New York City!Be part of Bealtaine: Returning to our Senses | Beo Bríomhar Arís, curated by The Trailblazery’s Scoil Scairte/Hedge School and presented in partnership with the Irish Arts Center in New York City for this years’ Féile na Gaeilge/Irish Language Day on Saturday, May 13. Tickets available now. Be Part of the Heroine's Knot Mythology & Writing Program“Who has a story, a reflection, a collection of words to add to the cauldron?” That’s the question I ask whenever I gather writers together in a group dedicated to exploring stories and expressing creativity. Are you interested in join the mythology and writing program, The Heroine’s Knot? Be sure to get on the list to find out when registration opens (fall 2023).Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy, a Celtic Fiddle and multi-instrumental duo based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The traditional Irish reel we play at the start of the show is called "The College Groves." billyandbeth.comWork With MarisaThis summer, Marisa will be taking on a handful of new writing coaching clients. If you are an aspiring author, a wellness professional, or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, set up a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, and get even more stories on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORY:Niall of the Nine Hostages was an Irish king and the first sovereign of the powerful Uí Néill dynasty. Mari Kennedy’s telling of the story begins with the birth of Niall, son of a king and an enslaved woman. In the story’s most powerful, enduring element, we meet the Hag the Well, and witness her transformation into the shining Sovereignty Goddess.OUR GUESTMari Kennedy is a global gatherer of Celtic women, a yoga, breathwork, and embodiment teacher and Sovereign Woman's coach and Mentor.  Six years ago she founded The Celtic Wheel, a global online journey of ritual, myth and practice for women who want to do the sacred work of the feminine. Her work weaves ancient esoteric indigenous wisdom with evolutionary modern science in service to the new more beautiful world she believes is emerging. Her passion across all her work is in uniting the opposites and playing the polarities of being human. Find Mari at www.marikennedy.com,   www.thecelticwheel.com, and on Instagram: @marikennedywisdomThe marriage of the king to the goddess is at the core of the indigenous Irish tradition’s concept of Sovereignty. The marriage of the feminine and masculine in the individual works on the individual as well as the collective cultural level.Mari looks to Carol Gilligan’s definition of patriarchy: it is a way of living that privileges some men over other men and all men over women. Feminism has always been intended to support all people because patriarchy affects everyone in the society.Mari’s story stands in contrast to Marisa’s version of this story (Ireland’s Forgotten Goddess Witch Queen, S1 Ep2) which places Mongfind at the center of the story. Marisa was inspired by Gearóid Ó Crualoich’s Book of the Cailleach The marriage of the scholarship, the silences, and the intuitive knowing -  and making room for the modern retellings.Work with MarisaMarisa is a writing coach for wellness professionals, entrepreneurs, and aspiring authors. Learn more about her services and book a complementary consultation: www.writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and join listeners' community.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, and get even more stories on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryThe twelfth century poet Chrétien de Troyes gives us the story of Perceval, a holy fool from the wild woods who visits the court of the Fisher King and eventually becomes the epitome of the chivalric knight. In this retelling by Tara Wild, he meets three women, each with her own archetypal energy: the Grail Bearer, the Mourning Maiden, and the Loathly Lady. This story comes from Arthurian legend, and remains some of the only native mythology of Britain.Our GuestTara Wild is a women’s educator, storyteller and songstress, focusing on uplifting nature-based feminine wisdom & ancestral teachings from Ireland & Britain. She's been on a journey of remembering and reclamation for over ten years, honoring the earth based feminine wisdom left in her blood and bones.She's the creator of The Roundhouse, an online membership community that lovingly guides women into nature based feminine wisdom from the Irish traditions. She also runs courses, events, and workshops that serve thousands of women every year. She's trained as a Women’s Moon Circle facilitator with Moon Mná based in Dublin, Ireland, as a Keening & Breathwork facilitator.She journeys to Ireland & Britain regularly for pilgrimage, and currently lives on the ancestral lands of the Ute and Arapaho people in the mountains of so-called Colorado (USA).Find her on Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and at tara-wild.com.Continue your journey in Arthurian legend with Tara in her upcoming Women of the Wells workshop.Our ConversationThe power of curiosity and the courage to ask the right question.This is a story of transformation and the quest for spiritual maturity, not about the materialist prize of the grailThe archetypal energies in the story: Grail Bearer is life, the Mourning Maiden is Death, the Loathly Lady is Transformation and Rebirth.The wasteland - in mythology, in the landscape, and in the psyche. What does it mean to live upon land that has lost its heart and in a society that has lost its soul?This story invites us to encounter the wildness of The Loathly Lady and the grief of the Mourning Maiden. We tend to both embrace and reject these intense, difficult women and all they represent.Is the Grail Bearer voiceless, or is she the power of silence?Book recommendation: Circle of Stones: Woman's Journey to Herself by Judith DuerkMythology offers us a map back to ourselves that helps us restore balance in ourselves and in the wider world.Our Music is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy, a Celtic Fiddle & multi-instrumental duo based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts: billyandbeth.comWork with MarisaMarisa is a writing coach for wellness professionals, entrepreneurs, and aspiring authors. Learn more about her services and book a complementary...

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, and get even more stories on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryAccording to the New York Times,  Owen King’s new novel The Curator is “a horror-tinged historical fantasy set in a city upended by revolution." Owen joins us to read an excerpt that highlights both the social landscape and the mythology and folklore he created for the story. And yes, it most definitely involves cats.Our GuestOwen King is the author of The Curator, Double Feature, and We’re All in This Together: A Novella and Stories. He is the coauthor of Sleeping Beauties and Intro to Alien Invasion and the coeditor of Who Can Save Us Now? Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories. He lives in upstate New York with his family. Our ConversationIn the story, cats are considered as holy creatures by many people in the society, particularly in the lower classes. Owen consciously chose not to sentimentalize or anthropomorphize them and let them do “cat stuff” that hints at magic or higher knowledge.The act of world-building and creating a mythology “from scratch” as a novelist, including the creation of the “oral tradition.” Stories as a way to make meaning in life.The Curator is a heroine’s tale, to some extent, not just because it has a female protagonist, but because Dora’s ability to move about is limited by her gender in this Victorian-like society. How her character transforms through the course of the story. The various old women and crones in this story - the lady who reflects the truth, the evil twins outside society, and the otherworldly “fate” like beingAudiobooks and the power of a narrator, particularly the “wildly gifted storyteller” Marin IrelandOur MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy, a Celtic Fiddle and multi-instrumental duo based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The traditional Irish reel we play at the start of the show is called "The College Groves." billyandbeth.comWork with MarisaMarisa offers 1:1 coaching for writers & creative entrepreneurs.Find more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and join listeners' community.

Our StoryIn Season 2 of KnotWork Storytelling, Marisa Goudy took Seamus Heaney’s translation of the Irish medieval epic poem, Sweeney Astray and crafted Lost in the Wild, At Home Within: A Story of Mad Sweeney. In that retelling of a pagan warrior king driven into exile by a saint’s curse, there wasn’t time to explore the women’s stories. This time, Marisa presents a conversation between Eoran, Sweeney’s wife, and the Mill Hag, who played a key part in Sweeney’s time in the wilds. Our GuestLoraine Van Tuyl, PhD, CHT, is a licensed clinical psychologist, a shamanic eco psychologist, and a Depth Hypnosis practitioner. She has distilled thirty years of diverse and well-rounded professional experiences into an elegant and seamless integration of modern psychological expertise, ancient healing practices, and nature wisdom. She was born and raised in Suriname, the most forest-covered nation in the world, which inspired her unique Soul Authority™, Re-Naturing©, and Re-TREE-ting© methods. These tools have empowered hundreds of spiritual empaths and transformational leaders in psychology, holistic health, academia, the arts, renewable energy, economics, social justice work, and spiritual entrepreneurship by connecting them to their innate wisdom and healing powers. She is the author of Amazon Wisdom Keeper: a Psychologist’s Memoir of Spiritual Awakening and Soul Authority: Liberatory Tools to Heal from Oppressive Patterns and Restore Trust in Your Heart Compass.  Find Loraine: website, Instagram, Facebook, YouTubeOur ConversationThis is a dialog between two women with very different perspectives, but it’s also a conversation between civilization and the wilderness, between Christianity and the old ways that came before.Speaking as a psychotherapist, Loraine explores trauma around attachment and Gabor Maté - the struggle to be safely attached and also authentically ourselves. How do we connect, trust, and grieve in that context?Gabor Maté’s work is particularly relevant to the legacy of collective and individual trauma in Ireland.  Kathy Scott’s work with Irish cultural organization, The Trailblazery, is devoted to applying these ideas, promoting healing and “post traumatic growth.”   Patriarchal conditioning that causes women to focus on the needs of men. Their conversation definitely does not pass the Bechdel Test, which measures whether women in a story discuss something other than men and male interests.Loraine’s diverse ethnic background as a woman from Suriname, and her PhD dissertation on diversity and identity. Her work as a healer is focused on reconnecting to nature, beyond dualities  and is rooted in a critique of clinical psychology that is based on ego and obtaining objectivesWhat it means to align all the parts of ourselves and be comfortable being both Eorann and the Hag.Lorraine describes the importance of the elements in her healing work, as well as the practice of re-TREE-ting, at the Sacred Healing Well. Learn more:

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, and get even more stories on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryKaty Swift shares a story of Scotland’s creation and the cycle of the seasons, featuring the Cailleach, the goddess of winter, and Bride, the goddess of spring.  The  story is inspired by Donald Alexander Mackenzie’s Scottish Wonder Tales from Myth and Legend. Katy’s version offers us a vision of the Cailleach as creatrix, and explores why this mother god transformed into fearsome figure remembered in Scotland today.Our GuestKaty Swift is a Socially Engaged Artist and Storyteller from Northumberland, now based in the Scottish Borders. Her work aims to create social and political change with individuals, groups or communities through weaving together Scottish Gaelic folklore, mythology, folk herbalism and creative practices. She recently graduated with an MA in Socially Engaged Art with the University of the Highlands and Islands, where she focused on how ritual and creative practices can help us to process our collective grief for the Earth. Follow Katy on Instagram @katy.swift.storytelling Our ConversationKnotWork Storytelling tends to emphasize the Irish storytelling tradition. Listeners will hear familiar names in this tale - Cailleach, Angus, and Bride who shares so much in common with Brigid - but Katy’s tale brings us deep into the unique nature of the Scottish mythological traditionIn our most recent episode about Cessair ended just as the great flood waters rose, which is just where this story began, as the Cailleach, a giant, wades through the waters and creates the land.This story is tied to the Celtic Wheel of the Year, particularly the Scottish  Là na Caillich or Auld Wives Day or Ladies’ Day, the day that the cailleach falls asleep for spring and summer, which falls on March 25.Once these stories were reminders to trust the cycles of the seasons. Now, these stories are medicine as we grieve as a species, unsure of where we belong in the natural order of things.Katy’s own story of eventually falling in love with the stories of the Scottish Borderlands after years of seeking endless summer and studying the stories of Southeast Asia.The importance of liminal spaces in Scottish folklore, including past podcast episode, The Man Without a Story, told by Michael Newton Keith Basso’s book Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache, describes how holding a place name in your mouth is to speak the words of the ancestorsThe significance of place names in Scotland and the resurgence of the Scots Gaelic language Work with MarisaMarisa offers 1:1 coaching for writers & creative entrepreneurs, as well as 1:1 intuitive tarot sessions called