CHRISTIAN WONDER TALES

A New Online Course with Symbolic World

Hey friends, I’m delighted to announce my very first online (but in real time) course, Christian Wonder Tales, beginning this November. With my friends over at Symbolic World, I’m excited to be delivering this. I’ve been asked to do online courses for years, but this was the first time it felt both right and great fun to offer. Building our relationship here at House of Beasts & Vines has had a lot to do with it. It’s not always easy to travel, but being able to teach this way with interesting folks (you) and ideas and stories that are absolutely alive for me finally has proved irresistible. If this works as I hope it does, it could really be the start of something.

Here’s the link: Christian Wonder Tales

COURSE OVERVIEW

Mythographer, writer and storyteller Dr Martin Shaw takes us deep into the heart of what he calls Christian Wonder Tales. Profoundly mythic, these teaching stories range from the early saints through to the grandeur of the Round Table and Arthurian tradition. Shaw emphasises these stories as re-emerging providentially on time for the perils of modern life. Filled with vocation, sacrifice, and courage, these are an inheritance many of us simply didn’t know we had.

A Seanchai (storyteller), Shaw notes that this will not be a journey undergone with a great deal of powerpoint and handouts. It will be an adventure of the ear as well as the eye. In traditional style he will tell or read the stories orally, and explore responses with the students afterwards. Between sessions he will pose a bardic question to be brooded on weekly, as well as a reading list made available on confirmation of attendance. Recordings from his archive will be offered to support study, with advice on the act of storytelling itself.

Time: 2 - 4 pm EST

Lesson 1: Tuesday, November 12th, 2024: ORIGIN STORIES

In this first session we address beginnings: from a Christian and early Irish perspective. We will explore the mythic story of Ireland’s early development: The Invasion Tales of the Tuatha De Danann. The need for a culture to sit inside a story is developed, and how metaphor and poetry assist that process. This first session has a possible extra thirty minutes due to the timeless-time-keeping of the storytelling tradition.

Lesson 2: Tuesday, November 26th, 2024: SIGNS & WONDERS

Christianity arrived in Ireland on the tip of a tongue not the tip of a spear: this creates a different kind of spiritual investigation. We explore tales of the early saints of the Celtic world, and the end of one age and the beginning of the next. This is illustrated in St Patrick’s mythic encounter with Ossian, the son of the great Finn McCool (with the story of Ossian’s birth also being told). A desert father and mother influence is explored in these early lives, and the notion of Green Martyrdom.

Lesson 3: Tuesday, December 3rd, 2024: PERILOUS QUESTS

We journey with St Brendan to the land of the Hidden Country – an adventure that’s anything but straightforward: we encounter a series of islands designed to deepen the voyager’s soul. What could a modern person’s faith look like when Jasconious deep, or as elevated as a bird’s-eye view, or dwelling in profound hesychastic quiet? These perilous quests tell us that such journeys are never A to B and favour the circle over the straight line.

Lesson 4: Tuesday, December 10th, 2024: A RULE FOR LIFE

A deep dive into Gawain & The Green Knight and the chivalric and Arthurian traditions. One of the greatest poems of the medieval era, it presents a Christian Wonder Tale that is freighted with peril, humour and magic. Threaded throughout is a value system we would benefit from today, and in our last gathering we will be asking what could it be to re-establish such qualities. What would have to be sacrificed for such a Rule for Life?

In this session we will draw closer to two essential themes in Shaw’s work – the vigil in the wilderness and the notion of the Merrie in pre-reformation religious life, both vitalising elements in the mystic heart of Christianity.

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JUST IN: SIGNED COPIES OF THE BACCHAE, NOW AVAILABLE

Me, literally two hours ago. Note my regal and archaic cat Harry presiding.

Order a signed copy: The Bacchae, Cista Mystica Press

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SMOKE HOLE LIVE: CANTERBURY, LONDON, DARTINGTON

I’m delighted to say my book Smoke Hole is being released in paperback on October 24th - my birthday. To celebrate its release, we’re holding a series of in-person events, in Canterbury, London and Dartington. Can’t wait. I do hope to see some of you there, details below.

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Smoke Hole Live

Celebrated mythologist, author and wilderness guide Dr Martin Shaw invites us to use ancient stories to help find ‘a commons for the imagination, a place to breathe deeper, feel steadier and become acquainted with rapture.’ For the paperback release of his book Smoke Hole, Martin will dive into some of his favourite myths, showing how they can be powerful tools to help us face the complexities of contemporary life.

October 29th – Smoke Hole: Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass Martin Shaw. Waterstones, Canterbury, 6.30pm. Tickets: Smoke Hole, Canterbury

October 30th – Smoke Hole: Ancient Myths for Modern Times. Conway Hall, London, 7pm-9pm. Tickets: Smoke Hole, Conway Hall

Stay tuned for details of the Dartington event.

Smoke Hole Sessions

Meantime, for those who have not listened yet, you may enjoy dipping into the Smoke Hole Sessions podcasts. Recorded after lockdown, around the time the book was released, I spoke with the likes of John Densmore, Mark Rylance, Jay Griffiths, Tommy Tiernan and others, looking for breadcrumbs to lead us out of the forest and into a deeper life. You can delve in here (or wherever you like to listen):

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