Martin, regarding the interview you shared—the clear cunning of your mind flows like its own river. The rogue in you, a wink from a shooting star. The strength of spirit in your heart, a herd of a thousand charging reindeer with antlers held to the sky. And if compared to the beauty of kindness that is in your soul, wild honey would be bitter and it’s color dull.
Thank you so much for this..I've been in tears and lighting candles, and saying a prayer in our ancient mother church on the hill in Brighton where so many of my own forebears lie.The death of the Queen is momentous, and I know my own dear mother , whose heavenly birthday is 93 today, loved the Queen, so everything is all rolling around in the emotional quake. I so look forward to this story. Thank you.
Thank you for this anchoring Martin. I’ve been in Turtle Island this last week so feeling strangely distant from the tremors rocking Albion but the story of Akanida was a wonderful balm.
After listening to it I found myself drawn to walk down to Tiburon Point and to sit by the Bay for the sunrise this morning. Reflecting on sovereignty and the passing over of our Queen. I found myself telling the story of the Firebird to the gulls and pelicans in the predawn light. I scrambled to the seashore as the young hunter returned to retrieve the wedding dress telling the story to a family of crabs scuttling in the shoreline hiding in the kelp. Never more grateful to them for all they do. A family of seals then emerged from the depths just as the dress was retrieved.
I found myself full of gratitude for all that is and can the still can be, despite all that is lost. I now sit looking across at Mt Tamalpais remembering the old Miwok legend that the mountain is a sleeping princess who will stir to weave beauty again into the world at a time of great peril. I wonder if together we can build a new more balanced sovereignty. If together we can unleash the firebird from the dungeons of our shame.
Thank you for walking this path. Perhaps, folk with my connivance closed the smoke hole, I tumbled from tent to the undergrowth and may have stumbled upon it and now I need to learn to walk again.
Prayers this night for England and Charles, your new king. Both you and he have a marked vulnerability and kindness. It seems to me that the country, or at least the dreamtime dimensions of it, are in good hands.
Sep 9, 2022·edited Sep 9, 2022Liked by Martin Shaw
Wonderful story for telling on the passing of the Queen. Also Really loved your rich discussion on Grail Country. I too am feeling much uncertainty in my life and am taking a deeper dive into my own spirituality. Lots of beautiful thoughts were shared that will fertilize my imagination. thank you 🌺
So much is here, at the altar of this moment, at the altar of this story. I bow my head to the passing of the old growth Sovereign, and to those that grieve her. In America we have no Queen and plenty of ambient opinion on monarchy. I feel an ancestral echo-sense of what a Queen might bring to her people, and the many meanings of her long life and it’s end. May I share a minor and lighthearted story, from my granddad? He would tell it today, if he were with us: When he was a young man at college in Williamsburg, Virginia, he was playing pool with his friends at a bar on Duke of Gloucestershire Street, on a day when Her Majesty was visiting on a Royal tour. Her parade came right down D.O.G. street (what other street is there really, in historic Williamsburg?). Her carriage stopped right in front of the bar, and just as it did, a pool cue jumped in a nervous hand. The white cue ball jumped off the billiards table, rolled right down the steps, and out the front door. The college boys watched in horror as it rolled (yes!) directly under her carriage. All the Guards and security forces surged into action. The whole parade was completely dismantled and they swore never to tell who had so badly misjudged his aim at the pool table, with nearly international consequences. I hope Her Majesty was informed that the potential threat was actually a billiard ball, and I hope she got a chuckle out of it. The story made my granddad smile his whole life, and he took the secret to his grave.
I’ve just had the deluxe experience of an entire Saturday morning(peppered with only a few brief interruptions)listening to your story and the interview. Thank you so very much for sharing. 🙏🏼 ❤️ I can’t stop thinking about one of my favorite books, The Robe. The potent feeling of joyous energy and vibrant life surrounding Christianity that I received during the reading of that book left a permanent impression on me. It has frequently come to my mind these days and I am craving another reading and that feeling. I imagine the feeling that I got from reading,The Robe, to be in Camelot. Camelot and a round table feels too burdensome, serious and formal to me though. Give me Robin Hood and the merriment, mystery and magic of Sherwood Forest! (Sound the horn.😆) I am weary of large, organized structures and meetings. My pulse longs for a small, simple home, maybe even something impermanent. And must we insist on knowing everything? Has knowing more gotten us anywhere we actually want to be? (I love the stories that feel so foreign they leave me struggling for sense.) In an age full of tsunamis of information, I welcome knowing less. In an age of endless efficiency and hastening production, I welcome loafing, wandering, whittling by fires, visiting with the moon, stars and sunsets. My luxury these days is slow living. I want large amounts of quality time with people in person, stories, pondering, poetry, listening, walking, horseback riding, music, reading, sunbathing, exploring, dreaming and the gift of getting lost on my way to somewhere. I wish for you all the same…if you desire it! ❤️ Have a wonderful weekend everybody! I’m really missing England and all of my summer myth friends!
Dear Martin. This is a welcome care package. Just yesterday, even as this story was nestling into my body again, I received a commission to make another hare, sister to the little wooly being I gifted you back at Embercombe, the first time I heard you tell this tale. I expect I was too shy to tell you at the time that in his ear are whispered stories of the winding paths and hollows of this little enclave of London. Perhaps he tells you them sometimes. I am happy and grateful to see the accompanying image of the petalled path. I heard what was said in that place. Every word. I carry it in me, a flickering flame. In this time of great transition, with the collective smoke hole in jeopardy, rest assured that the one above my little house remains open and I am listening.
Thank you Martin, such a story for this time of the death of the old growth queen. I've never really thought about the royal family as anything but a good way to bring tourists into our country but the Queen was a whole different force - one of service to the people, genuine commitment. I spent most of yesterday with a friend who has served in Afghanistan, Syria - all the places where the wicked witch of the swamp holds sway in people's minds. He shed tears at the news, as I did - our experiences in life are very different yet the old growth queen bound us together, we recognise our 'commonality' and that there is something bigger in the world. Beautifully captured as Akanida in the Saami tale. That was the Queen's great strength and her gift to us. Go mbeannai Dia thu.
A beautiful tale and true. Story and commentary received with gratitude. I like to listen to your stories while I am stretching or very slowly dancing. The deliberate and slow physical activity makes room in my body for the stories to enter.
I want to push back on an assumption contained in this tale that has emerged before in your stories or perhaps in your writing. This is the idea that fatness is associated with laziness, greed, taking advantage of others, and generally being a less-than-stellar human being. In the story of Akanida, fatness or "chubbiness" is mentioned twice, and it sounds a flat note for me in an otherwise deep telling. Why should body shape or size be allowed to signal moral failing?
Of course it has, in the human mind and in our stories, for ages, and this is the actual failing. This assumption sets the stage for us to embrace a lack of compassion for, even a fear of, people who are fat. It leads to cruelty and suffering that is absolutely unnecessary and unworthy. Because of course it is not a moral failing not to be thin. Thin is the way some bodies are at some times, and fat is the way some bodies are at some times, and something that is not quite either of these is the way some bodies are at some times. It saddens me that our culture encourages us to believe that only one of these is always, for everyone, the only good way to be.
If stories are the way our deep understandings are shaped, and I believe they are, then we have -- you as a storyteller have -- an opportunity in story to create room for a wider compassion, and a greater comfort with the diverse and mysterious experiences of living in a body in the world.
I thank you for your consideration. And your truly wonderful stories.
At your word "patterns," Martin, my mind went immediately to the pufferfish: https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/meet-fish-builds-works-love-seafloor. To make their intricate snowflake patterns on the sea floor -- each one unique -- the pufferfish works for seven to nine days around the clock. "...craft, repetition, instruction..."
There is a cricket who digs a resonating chamber underground, and a funnel-shaped passage to the exterior. Then he places his hind legs -- his musical instrument, that is -- at the small end of the funnel, which amplifies his song like a speaker.
Thank you Martin , as ever your words awaken my soul , speak to my mind and open my heart . Once again our core is shaken regardless of your belief system, the resonance and tone has shifted once again . Pivotal times for sure , a time to remain open , questioning , curious to all possibilities . A time of reflection is upon us in many ways to enable the dreaming and light to return.
Martin, I just finished listening to you interview here and wanted to say a couple of things in response (if I can manage to remember them!).
One is that I read The Snowy Tower when it came out and found it utterly life changing in inexpressible and mysterious ways. I am so very glad you did not hear that "gold thrown into the Grand Canyon" land, because to most appropriate response I could fine in myself was silence. Deep, long silence.
The second is that I find the modern world and all its media and technology to be astoundingly porous to the voice of the divine, so that I am the grateful recipient of that life-giving sound from all sorts of unexpected directions. Enough said there, so I will leave it at that.
Martin, regarding the interview you shared—the clear cunning of your mind flows like its own river. The rogue in you, a wink from a shooting star. The strength of spirit in your heart, a herd of a thousand charging reindeer with antlers held to the sky. And if compared to the beauty of kindness that is in your soul, wild honey would be bitter and it’s color dull.
Thank you so much for this..I've been in tears and lighting candles, and saying a prayer in our ancient mother church on the hill in Brighton where so many of my own forebears lie.The death of the Queen is momentous, and I know my own dear mother , whose heavenly birthday is 93 today, loved the Queen, so everything is all rolling around in the emotional quake. I so look forward to this story. Thank you.
Thank you for this anchoring Martin. I’ve been in Turtle Island this last week so feeling strangely distant from the tremors rocking Albion but the story of Akanida was a wonderful balm.
After listening to it I found myself drawn to walk down to Tiburon Point and to sit by the Bay for the sunrise this morning. Reflecting on sovereignty and the passing over of our Queen. I found myself telling the story of the Firebird to the gulls and pelicans in the predawn light. I scrambled to the seashore as the young hunter returned to retrieve the wedding dress telling the story to a family of crabs scuttling in the shoreline hiding in the kelp. Never more grateful to them for all they do. A family of seals then emerged from the depths just as the dress was retrieved.
I found myself full of gratitude for all that is and can the still can be, despite all that is lost. I now sit looking across at Mt Tamalpais remembering the old Miwok legend that the mountain is a sleeping princess who will stir to weave beauty again into the world at a time of great peril. I wonder if together we can build a new more balanced sovereignty. If together we can unleash the firebird from the dungeons of our shame.
Thank you for walking this path. Perhaps, folk with my connivance closed the smoke hole, I tumbled from tent to the undergrowth and may have stumbled upon it and now I need to learn to walk again.
Prayers this night for England and Charles, your new king. Both you and he have a marked vulnerability and kindness. It seems to me that the country, or at least the dreamtime dimensions of it, are in good hands.
Wonderful story for telling on the passing of the Queen. Also Really loved your rich discussion on Grail Country. I too am feeling much uncertainty in my life and am taking a deeper dive into my own spirituality. Lots of beautiful thoughts were shared that will fertilize my imagination. thank you 🌺
Thank you Martin. I loved the story.
So much is here, at the altar of this moment, at the altar of this story. I bow my head to the passing of the old growth Sovereign, and to those that grieve her. In America we have no Queen and plenty of ambient opinion on monarchy. I feel an ancestral echo-sense of what a Queen might bring to her people, and the many meanings of her long life and it’s end. May I share a minor and lighthearted story, from my granddad? He would tell it today, if he were with us: When he was a young man at college in Williamsburg, Virginia, he was playing pool with his friends at a bar on Duke of Gloucestershire Street, on a day when Her Majesty was visiting on a Royal tour. Her parade came right down D.O.G. street (what other street is there really, in historic Williamsburg?). Her carriage stopped right in front of the bar, and just as it did, a pool cue jumped in a nervous hand. The white cue ball jumped off the billiards table, rolled right down the steps, and out the front door. The college boys watched in horror as it rolled (yes!) directly under her carriage. All the Guards and security forces surged into action. The whole parade was completely dismantled and they swore never to tell who had so badly misjudged his aim at the pool table, with nearly international consequences. I hope Her Majesty was informed that the potential threat was actually a billiard ball, and I hope she got a chuckle out of it. The story made my granddad smile his whole life, and he took the secret to his grave.
Thank you Martin, package gratefully received. The school run today felt treacherous. People are on edge.
Dearest Martin,
I’ve just had the deluxe experience of an entire Saturday morning(peppered with only a few brief interruptions)listening to your story and the interview. Thank you so very much for sharing. 🙏🏼 ❤️ I can’t stop thinking about one of my favorite books, The Robe. The potent feeling of joyous energy and vibrant life surrounding Christianity that I received during the reading of that book left a permanent impression on me. It has frequently come to my mind these days and I am craving another reading and that feeling. I imagine the feeling that I got from reading,The Robe, to be in Camelot. Camelot and a round table feels too burdensome, serious and formal to me though. Give me Robin Hood and the merriment, mystery and magic of Sherwood Forest! (Sound the horn.😆) I am weary of large, organized structures and meetings. My pulse longs for a small, simple home, maybe even something impermanent. And must we insist on knowing everything? Has knowing more gotten us anywhere we actually want to be? (I love the stories that feel so foreign they leave me struggling for sense.) In an age full of tsunamis of information, I welcome knowing less. In an age of endless efficiency and hastening production, I welcome loafing, wandering, whittling by fires, visiting with the moon, stars and sunsets. My luxury these days is slow living. I want large amounts of quality time with people in person, stories, pondering, poetry, listening, walking, horseback riding, music, reading, sunbathing, exploring, dreaming and the gift of getting lost on my way to somewhere. I wish for you all the same…if you desire it! ❤️ Have a wonderful weekend everybody! I’m really missing England and all of my summer myth friends!
Dear Martin. This is a welcome care package. Just yesterday, even as this story was nestling into my body again, I received a commission to make another hare, sister to the little wooly being I gifted you back at Embercombe, the first time I heard you tell this tale. I expect I was too shy to tell you at the time that in his ear are whispered stories of the winding paths and hollows of this little enclave of London. Perhaps he tells you them sometimes. I am happy and grateful to see the accompanying image of the petalled path. I heard what was said in that place. Every word. I carry it in me, a flickering flame. In this time of great transition, with the collective smoke hole in jeopardy, rest assured that the one above my little house remains open and I am listening.
Thank you Martin, such a story for this time of the death of the old growth queen. I've never really thought about the royal family as anything but a good way to bring tourists into our country but the Queen was a whole different force - one of service to the people, genuine commitment. I spent most of yesterday with a friend who has served in Afghanistan, Syria - all the places where the wicked witch of the swamp holds sway in people's minds. He shed tears at the news, as I did - our experiences in life are very different yet the old growth queen bound us together, we recognise our 'commonality' and that there is something bigger in the world. Beautifully captured as Akanida in the Saami tale. That was the Queen's great strength and her gift to us. Go mbeannai Dia thu.
A beautiful tale and true. Story and commentary received with gratitude. I like to listen to your stories while I am stretching or very slowly dancing. The deliberate and slow physical activity makes room in my body for the stories to enter.
I want to push back on an assumption contained in this tale that has emerged before in your stories or perhaps in your writing. This is the idea that fatness is associated with laziness, greed, taking advantage of others, and generally being a less-than-stellar human being. In the story of Akanida, fatness or "chubbiness" is mentioned twice, and it sounds a flat note for me in an otherwise deep telling. Why should body shape or size be allowed to signal moral failing?
Of course it has, in the human mind and in our stories, for ages, and this is the actual failing. This assumption sets the stage for us to embrace a lack of compassion for, even a fear of, people who are fat. It leads to cruelty and suffering that is absolutely unnecessary and unworthy. Because of course it is not a moral failing not to be thin. Thin is the way some bodies are at some times, and fat is the way some bodies are at some times, and something that is not quite either of these is the way some bodies are at some times. It saddens me that our culture encourages us to believe that only one of these is always, for everyone, the only good way to be.
If stories are the way our deep understandings are shaped, and I believe they are, then we have -- you as a storyteller have -- an opportunity in story to create room for a wider compassion, and a greater comfort with the diverse and mysterious experiences of living in a body in the world.
I thank you for your consideration. And your truly wonderful stories.
At your word "patterns," Martin, my mind went immediately to the pufferfish: https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/meet-fish-builds-works-love-seafloor. To make their intricate snowflake patterns on the sea floor -- each one unique -- the pufferfish works for seven to nine days around the clock. "...craft, repetition, instruction..."
There is a cricket who digs a resonating chamber underground, and a funnel-shaped passage to the exterior. Then he places his hind legs -- his musical instrument, that is -- at the small end of the funnel, which amplifies his song like a speaker.
We are not the only creatures capable of culture.
Thank you Martin , as ever your words awaken my soul , speak to my mind and open my heart . Once again our core is shaken regardless of your belief system, the resonance and tone has shifted once again . Pivotal times for sure , a time to remain open , questioning , curious to all possibilities . A time of reflection is upon us in many ways to enable the dreaming and light to return.
Martin, I just finished listening to you interview here and wanted to say a couple of things in response (if I can manage to remember them!).
One is that I read The Snowy Tower when it came out and found it utterly life changing in inexpressible and mysterious ways. I am so very glad you did not hear that "gold thrown into the Grand Canyon" land, because to most appropriate response I could fine in myself was silence. Deep, long silence.
The second is that I find the modern world and all its media and technology to be astoundingly porous to the voice of the divine, so that I am the grateful recipient of that life-giving sound from all sorts of unexpected directions. Enough said there, so I will leave it at that.
Just thank you for Snowy Tower. Thank you.