Delicious. The connection has never occurred to me before, but somehow the single eye in this story rings echoes for me of the injunctions in the New Testament to “be not double minded.” The creature is in total integrity of being/seeing, and it’s only the child who can perceive that nature and be fascinated more than afraid. Those who cage it, suffer. The wet fur sends me off on a ponder of what it might be like to be so thoroughly immersed in my baptism that I never “dry out”; I’d certainly look like a strange wild drowned thing to the eye of the world, but oh the magic beneath the dark water… Grateful for this bread to chew on. Thank you.
A brief shout out for the Fen - a beautiful place in its original form. I caught a glimpse crossing the great twin drains, on my cycle a dozen years ago not that far from Ely and going north. Two books of Fenland tales have come by way of a long story and a brother, but I think I have only have one to hand: 'Tales from the Fens', by WH Barrett; Edit. Enid Porter, Cambridge Folk Museum, 1963. These are from 'before the Education Act, 1870', and written down in his eighties from memory, long after the old storytellers had died out. There is many a wild man in the Fen and the devil in the details ended up in the pub where young ears should not have been.
I love the Fens - I think I know that view you describe Phillip. I'm going to root around in my library in case I have the Barrett book. Just the thing by a fire on a Sunday evening.
Wrote a story about Wicken Fen a few years ago… when they first drained the Fens they used to skate down the frozen canals on sheep bones. Very mysterious place. ***
Mr Barret had a tough uprbringing in a tough place, Brandon Creek. The old Fen tiger story tellers in the pubs had updated (to 19thC) many of the tales, though often clearly they had vey old roots. Some are gruesome in detail. WHB writes he was born with a caul (preserved in the Folk Museum) which was supposed to have given him the gift of the gab. Started work in the fields at 11 and ended as a gardener for the Archdeacon of Norwich.
I had an older brother who lodged with the Barretts when he was in the Airforce in the early 50s before the tales got published.
My tale was written quite a while ago called The Harvest Child set in and around Wicken at the time the Adventurers were draining the Fens. About creatures found living there. I didn’t actually get to finish it as I discovered while writing about events at that time, they had actually occurred, so I gave up, a little fearful. I still have some of the sketches I made at the time. I explored the region... beautiful and mysterious. X
Thanks Martin, I love Iain's work. I do worry about this exciting movement that's happening might be hijacked by extremely well funded/powerful political agendas, I see those kind of movements as a complete distraction from the heart of the matter, a bit of a 'sell out', when the band gets big so to speak. I might be wrong but I just can't put that worry down for some reason.
Wow. I cheered loudly at the end of this telling! Know-Not meets Iron Hans in Fenland. This one is full of juicy energy from start to finish. I'll be chewing on it for some time, I reckon. Thank you.
Oh my God, my God! Throughout this conversation with you and Paul, the Earth was rumbling and quaking; moving up my rooted feet, legs, and deep in my belly. I have been fully befixed and continue to tremble, feeling a blessed gift, an opening has been transmitted, through the spoken word.
I'm deeply grateful as I have been in “brain spotting” therapy since my GRACE pilgrimage experience in Glacier Park, where I met the big Bull Moose, eye to eye, straight ahead of me. My mind stopped, enveloped in a PRESENCE, there was no identity, other than being one with it ALL. Something happened in my heart, unbounded love & joy. I came home and soon became enveloped in extreme anxiety from the vulnerability and being so open to the unknown!
Today I got my medicine, WE are moving on! I have breadcrumbs on my path once again and quite fearless embarking on this new journey. I am not alone. I have Kin who walk before me….Thank you, Martin. Bless you, for your deep surrender, listening and gifts of expression. As always, I stand with you!❤️
Exciting events upcoming Martin and a new book! I truly wish I was able to head down to Tarpon springs for the conference, please let us know if you come up to the northeast in the future. May the practice of restraint during lent be a restoritive nutrient for you in the renewal of your faith. All blessings
Hey Martin. I was really most attached to the face to face with the Wildman as the one-eyed in this telling. It seemed "right" to me, but though I have dug around a bit in the past regarding Polyphemus, I have never really gathered exactly what this one-eyed looking is about. Do you think this is a way of placing this being as one also born of the union of earth and sky? Or a singular perspective from the wild to balance the singular perspective of the tamed? What do you have on the cyclops in that bag?
He reminds me of woodland guardians you get in Arthurian stories, there's also Balor of the baleful eye over in Irish myth, but that's a very different character. He seems utterly focused to me, singleness of vision and all that. The initiator has arrived.
Listening to this story enroute (coincidentally) from my first trip to Oxford for inaugural Word on Fire UK event yesterday. Your telling took me back to the event with Paul and Jonathan in Dublin last June. (Different story but unchanging truth) So drawn by the rich symbolism.. I almost missed my train back North :0 I will continue to dwell with this story on many levels. Thankyou Martin. May the Symbolic World conference be blessed and fruitful!
I'm wondering is that how young men mostly experience growing up and learning to be men? Like they don't really learn how from their dads, but from watery one-eyed hidden underworld kings?
I think mums and dads have to provide an awful lot, but in many traditional cultures the real initiations take place with unrelated clan members - or distant aunts and uncles at least. Of course, most of us never got that. Or we get the rupture but not the rapture. But - but - life can be a long case of tempering, even if those very age specific experiences didn't take place, or were so unregulated they didn't quite land. I would have written about this in Wild Twin and Smoke Hole (if memory serves). We can still work on our tempering!
That sounds so right, thank you.... I guess that's true for both sons and daughters.... your comment made me think of my brother who wasn't treated so well by my dad, so he went off and joined the Navy. And lived on a submarine for months and months. Then he surfaced, got married and had 7 kids. So I guess he trod the path of this story pretty exactly! 😀 Very much looking forward to Tarpon Springs, I can't wait! Thank you for being there, we will be blessed by hearing you speak!
Oh and that conversation…the nugget, the pearl I take from it is Christ, no not some exclusive notion of institutions or minds of men, but the Universal Cosmic Christ of Divine LOVE Themselves…Great Mystery and yet intimate Lover of our souls.
So much mystery and enchantment in the woods creatures of the nether…conjures many things for different folk me thinks? But perhaps it’s all been a dream after all…maybe another night will reveal more?
Loved the story. Loved the sound of the purring cat too:) wishing you well on your travels Martin. I won’t be able to be there unfortunately, my husband is recovering from a hip replacement at the moment. Maybe next year. All good things come to those who wait!
I love this story and I’ve been working with it over the past year pretty intensely as my oldest son is right on the edge of turning 13.
I actually re-read Iron John right before he turned twelve and finished it right before he lost vision in his right eye (a hereditary trait). Actually Martin, right after his first surgery he came home and read Wolf Milk and it really kicked off the entire healing process for him in a deep way., thanks from the bottom of this mama’s heart for that, amigo!
We are still in the thickets of male initiation time with him and this story calls to mind so much around that. I’m blessed to have an amazing husband who is also an amazing dad and both my boys are blessed in that as well. It’s a time that tests for mettle for sure and it’s also wonderful to watch him becoming a young man.
As for me, I find myself thinking back to the golden key quite frequently and checking in on what’s appropriate and what’s not as far as expectations, hopes, and fears go. Prayer helps a good deal.
Delicious. The connection has never occurred to me before, but somehow the single eye in this story rings echoes for me of the injunctions in the New Testament to “be not double minded.” The creature is in total integrity of being/seeing, and it’s only the child who can perceive that nature and be fascinated more than afraid. Those who cage it, suffer. The wet fur sends me off on a ponder of what it might be like to be so thoroughly immersed in my baptism that I never “dry out”; I’d certainly look like a strange wild drowned thing to the eye of the world, but oh the magic beneath the dark water… Grateful for this bread to chew on. Thank you.
Thank's January - unusually I actually listened to the story myself today and the one-eyedness came out at me.
A brief shout out for the Fen - a beautiful place in its original form. I caught a glimpse crossing the great twin drains, on my cycle a dozen years ago not that far from Ely and going north. Two books of Fenland tales have come by way of a long story and a brother, but I think I have only have one to hand: 'Tales from the Fens', by WH Barrett; Edit. Enid Porter, Cambridge Folk Museum, 1963. These are from 'before the Education Act, 1870', and written down in his eighties from memory, long after the old storytellers had died out. There is many a wild man in the Fen and the devil in the details ended up in the pub where young ears should not have been.
I love the Fens - I think I know that view you describe Phillip. I'm going to root around in my library in case I have the Barrett book. Just the thing by a fire on a Sunday evening.
Wrote a story about Wicken Fen a few years ago… when they first drained the Fens they used to skate down the frozen canals on sheep bones. Very mysterious place. ***
Can we read your tale?
Mr Barret had a tough uprbringing in a tough place, Brandon Creek. The old Fen tiger story tellers in the pubs had updated (to 19thC) many of the tales, though often clearly they had vey old roots. Some are gruesome in detail. WHB writes he was born with a caul (preserved in the Folk Museum) which was supposed to have given him the gift of the gab. Started work in the fields at 11 and ended as a gardener for the Archdeacon of Norwich.
I had an older brother who lodged with the Barretts when he was in the Airforce in the early 50s before the tales got published.
My tale was written quite a while ago called The Harvest Child set in and around Wicken at the time the Adventurers were draining the Fens. About creatures found living there. I didn’t actually get to finish it as I discovered while writing about events at that time, they had actually occurred, so I gave up, a little fearful. I still have some of the sketches I made at the time. I explored the region... beautiful and mysterious. X
Thanks Martin, I love Iain's work. I do worry about this exciting movement that's happening might be hijacked by extremely well funded/powerful political agendas, I see those kind of movements as a complete distraction from the heart of the matter, a bit of a 'sell out', when the band gets big so to speak. I might be wrong but I just can't put that worry down for some reason.
I know what you mean, always a perennial issue when some kind of good thing is happening. Does need some discernment.
Wow. I cheered loudly at the end of this telling! Know-Not meets Iron Hans in Fenland. This one is full of juicy energy from start to finish. I'll be chewing on it for some time, I reckon. Thank you.
Oh my God, my God! Throughout this conversation with you and Paul, the Earth was rumbling and quaking; moving up my rooted feet, legs, and deep in my belly. I have been fully befixed and continue to tremble, feeling a blessed gift, an opening has been transmitted, through the spoken word.
I'm deeply grateful as I have been in “brain spotting” therapy since my GRACE pilgrimage experience in Glacier Park, where I met the big Bull Moose, eye to eye, straight ahead of me. My mind stopped, enveloped in a PRESENCE, there was no identity, other than being one with it ALL. Something happened in my heart, unbounded love & joy. I came home and soon became enveloped in extreme anxiety from the vulnerability and being so open to the unknown!
Today I got my medicine, WE are moving on! I have breadcrumbs on my path once again and quite fearless embarking on this new journey. I am not alone. I have Kin who walk before me….Thank you, Martin. Bless you, for your deep surrender, listening and gifts of expression. As always, I stand with you!❤️
Hello there Melissa - you sound in outstanding form.
“You must steal the key from your mother.” I could hear the knowing, gravelly laugh of Robert Bly here.
Exciting events upcoming Martin and a new book! I truly wish I was able to head down to Tarpon springs for the conference, please let us know if you come up to the northeast in the future. May the practice of restraint during lent be a restoritive nutrient for you in the renewal of your faith. All blessings
Hey Martin. I was really most attached to the face to face with the Wildman as the one-eyed in this telling. It seemed "right" to me, but though I have dug around a bit in the past regarding Polyphemus, I have never really gathered exactly what this one-eyed looking is about. Do you think this is a way of placing this being as one also born of the union of earth and sky? Or a singular perspective from the wild to balance the singular perspective of the tamed? What do you have on the cyclops in that bag?
He reminds me of woodland guardians you get in Arthurian stories, there's also Balor of the baleful eye over in Irish myth, but that's a very different character. He seems utterly focused to me, singleness of vision and all that. The initiator has arrived.
Goll macMorna, of the One Eye, head of the Fianna warriors was also a great Seer and trained the poet warriors I believe. Curious. X
Not a what-does-it-mean pin of the wing, just what else do you scent when that business is in the breeze.
Listening to this story enroute (coincidentally) from my first trip to Oxford for inaugural Word on Fire UK event yesterday. Your telling took me back to the event with Paul and Jonathan in Dublin last June. (Different story but unchanging truth) So drawn by the rich symbolism.. I almost missed my train back North :0 I will continue to dwell with this story on many levels. Thankyou Martin. May the Symbolic World conference be blessed and fruitful!
Very much looking forward to the thinking that emerges from the Symbolic World conference - and a new book on the horizon?! Very cheering news.
This is one of those fairy tales that leaves me feeling very strange, like I've just watched a full season of 1960's Dr Who episodes in one sitting!
I'm wondering is that how young men mostly experience growing up and learning to be men? Like they don't really learn how from their dads, but from watery one-eyed hidden underworld kings?
I think mums and dads have to provide an awful lot, but in many traditional cultures the real initiations take place with unrelated clan members - or distant aunts and uncles at least. Of course, most of us never got that. Or we get the rupture but not the rapture. But - but - life can be a long case of tempering, even if those very age specific experiences didn't take place, or were so unregulated they didn't quite land. I would have written about this in Wild Twin and Smoke Hole (if memory serves). We can still work on our tempering!
That sounds so right, thank you.... I guess that's true for both sons and daughters.... your comment made me think of my brother who wasn't treated so well by my dad, so he went off and joined the Navy. And lived on a submarine for months and months. Then he surfaced, got married and had 7 kids. So I guess he trod the path of this story pretty exactly! 😀 Very much looking forward to Tarpon Springs, I can't wait! Thank you for being there, we will be blessed by hearing you speak!
Oh and that conversation…the nugget, the pearl I take from it is Christ, no not some exclusive notion of institutions or minds of men, but the Universal Cosmic Christ of Divine LOVE Themselves…Great Mystery and yet intimate Lover of our souls.
So much mystery and enchantment in the woods creatures of the nether…conjures many things for different folk me thinks? But perhaps it’s all been a dream after all…maybe another night will reveal more?
Loved the story. Loved the sound of the purring cat too:) wishing you well on your travels Martin. I won’t be able to be there unfortunately, my husband is recovering from a hip replacement at the moment. Maybe next year. All good things come to those who wait!
I love this story and I’ve been working with it over the past year pretty intensely as my oldest son is right on the edge of turning 13.
I actually re-read Iron John right before he turned twelve and finished it right before he lost vision in his right eye (a hereditary trait). Actually Martin, right after his first surgery he came home and read Wolf Milk and it really kicked off the entire healing process for him in a deep way., thanks from the bottom of this mama’s heart for that, amigo!
We are still in the thickets of male initiation time with him and this story calls to mind so much around that. I’m blessed to have an amazing husband who is also an amazing dad and both my boys are blessed in that as well. It’s a time that tests for mettle for sure and it’s also wonderful to watch him becoming a young man.
As for me, I find myself thinking back to the golden key quite frequently and checking in on what’s appropriate and what’s not as far as expectations, hopes, and fears go. Prayer helps a good deal.
Ah, thank you Briana. Maybe that's who I wrote Wolf Milk for, your lad.
100% believe it. The right words at the right moment made all the difference.
Great company you keep everywhere, Martin. You meet such interesting witty souls xxx