A long form poem, told from the perspective of an oak tree, about the time Merlin spent in the forest, after stumbling there grief stricken from seeing three of his most beloveds killed in battle.

He came in blood shield,

streaked in tears.

Hands heavy, yet empty

growling like trapped badger,

like whimpering injured and exiled dog,

like lone stag with antler broken,

like fish flipped from water and gapping.

He howled like a wolf abandoned by his pack.

Many of the wood kin hid,

but looked curious from their perches

wondering “Was this him?”

Full audio below…

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Dear Ones,

Here i am catching up with myself and hopefully with you too. This month we have taken a break from following the poetically and musically inspiring Orpheus, to look at another Greek myth - that of Psyche and Eros. The prompts invited consideration of love and all its many forms and guises. This months’ Book from the Bibliophiles Shelf carries on with this theme by focussing on a very specific excerpt (shared below in an audio) - a letter from the wonderful Anaïs Nin.

But before we dive into that let me tell you what is happening this coming month…

This months story is a long form poem written around the mysterious stage of Merlins life when he went mad and entered the woods. It is written from the point of view of an oak tree, who witnessed his madness, the care woodland creatures give to him and ultimately his transition from a non-verbal being destroyed by grief to a being articulate in the language of the woods.

The Orpheus tales and this Merlin tale are both part of a project that features 9 focal stories and a few other little ones sprinkled in for deepening. Each of these tales is concerned with the enchanters tongue, the speaking of truth, the manifesting of truth and the powerful influence of the spoken and written word.

Orpheus's tales are the frame story for this project and this particular aspect of Merlins tale is the second story in the series. The nine follow a trajectory of tutelage from deep listening, to speaking truth in a way that impacts and influences the way of things.

I will reveal the title of this project once we are a little further down the line. You, my dear ones, are witnessing the process in action and hearing the first drafts of each tale, thank you so much for being here with me on this journey!

I am holding my first ever Writing for Wellbeing Workshops on the 12th and 26th of August in Paignton Library, if you are local i hope you can join us.

If not, and this peaks your interest, do let me know if you would be interested in doing something like this online, most likely in the new year.

A Book From The Bibliophiles Shelf

Rather excitingly i now have a study in my home. It’s a magical space and i am relived to have all my books in one place and in order! My Bibliotherapy mentor told me that her books are like her friends and she always feels happy to have them around her. I feel the same way, and I wonder if you do too? What are the books that have been the greatest friends to you?

This months book of choice is rich and fulfilling, a charity shop find that feels like a true treasure! Letters of Note, compiled by Shaun Usher, is a collection of letters (some photographed and printed so that we can see the hand they were written in) from a great variety of people - writers, artists, freed slaves, doctors, professors. It includes a letter from Jack Kerouac to Marlon Brando, one from Nick Cave to MTV refusing their award, and letters from writers to beloved partners who have died. I have been both moved and inspired by its contents - there is much, creativity, sass and insight in each and every letter. It’s pages are a museum to what might fairly be called the lost art of letter writing.

I have chosen one in particular to share with you through the below audio. It is from the writer Anaïs Nin and was written to The Collector, who was an anonymous client that Nin, and some of her peers, wrote erotic fiction for, earning $1 a page. She writes in frustration at his requests that they remove all the ‘poetry’ from their writing.

It seems a fitting letter considering this months story theme of love and desire. In it she states what she feels needs to be in the mix for the most delightful of sensual exchanges.

Learning the story of Psyche and Eros has taken me on quite an interesting research path that led to discovering just how many types of, and therefore deities, the Greeks had for love.

Let me share some with you…

Aphrodite is the goddess of Love beauty sexuality and fertility.

Eros is the God of passion desire and erotic love.

Anteros is the God of reciprocal love and mutual affection.

Himeros is the God of intense desire and unrequited love.

Pothos is the God of longing and yearning for the unattainable.

Peitho is the God of persuasion and seduction.

Hymenaios is the God of marriage ceremonies and marital love.

Hedylogos is the God of Sweet talk, and flattery persuasive speech

Words for types of love…

Agápē is the Greek word for spiritual love, Éros the word for romantic love, Philia means the love of freindship, Storge for familial love, Mania - obsessive love, Ludus - playful love, Pragma - enduring love and finally Philautia is the world for self-love.

How nuanced and revealing these definitions are, and of course this makes sense - love for a family member, or a friend, is different to the love we have for our romantic partners.

What struck me initially about the story of Psyche and Eros is that Aphrodite, the main goddess of love, is so cruel and vindictive towards Psyche. Why? is always a good question when we come across things like this in myth. Why? is always a good question full stop perhaps? I’ll admit it’s one of my favourites!

If you love a good Why? then your mind, much like mine, is also very much like Psyches, ponderous, curious, searching; like her we wish to shine a light on what we do not understand.

Let’s use that aptitude and application now to discover how we relate to love…

This month’s prompt…

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Dear Ones please accept my apologies on two counts, one that this is so very late, life here has been a pressure cooker cart on a roller coaster ride! Which brings me to my second apology - in this post we are taking a little break from the stories of Orpheus and turning our attention to Psyche and her love trials with Aphrodite and Eros.

This story is very fitting for me right now as i navigate the labyrinth of love myself, having just separated from a 9 year relationship and reflecting on my personal relationship to love in all its forms and disguises.

In greek mythology there is more that one deity of Love, in this story we meet both Eros and Aphrodite but there are many more, lesser known ones. We may ask why are there so many? And why even are there these two in this story and how do they relate to one another through the story?

This story is nearly an hour long so grab a cup of something relaxing and make yourself a comfy spot to listen.

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It seems that when Orpheus is gifted his lyre by Apollo he begins a dance between the dark and light. It is a dance that many with a great creative gift undertake - learning how to navigate their relationship to the wild abandon of the dark and the ordered reason of the world of light.

The lyre was made by Hermes, the trickster god (more about that in my article The Lyre), and as Lewis Hyde writes in his book Trickster Makes This World

“Trickster is the mythic embodiment of ambiguity and ambivalence, doubleness and duplicity, contradiction and paradox.”

Trickster is an amoral being, often disrupting the present order to make space for something new. Perhaps it is fair to say, that a gift created by him would not lead one way or the other, but instead constantly pose these questions - Which way should you go, or is there a middle path that includes both? What can be created through synthesis?

For many creatives, the dance between wild ideas born from the shadowy realm of the unseen, accessed through dreams, trance or intoxication; and the work to make them manifest, bringing them into the light of observable reality, is a necessary one for their creative process. Orpheus is the mythic embodiment of the creative, his sensate experience of the world inspires a desire in him to generate. Yet he is called by the spirits of both realms to move between them, gathering in one realm and realising in the other.

Dionysus and Orpheus

Greek myths are not simple. Mythology as a whole is not simple. As storytellers we choose a path down tributaries of the mythological river to bring you a story seemingly coherent and chronological, but many myths are not so, they manifest in different versions through time and across space. When we approach them as scholars their form is more like a web than a single thread. Therefore tracing Orpheus’ relationship to Dionysus is not a straight forward task, and the apparent influence on one from the other, does not always flow in one direction. This being said, there is a relationship, one in which Orpheus was, at one time, a ‘follower’ of Dionysus.

Yet Orpheus was also the son of Apollo - god of light and order, written language, clarity, prophecy, and illuminating brightness. This may seem in opposition to the wine-inebriated, revelling, chaotic ways of Dionysus. Yet it is written that the oracle at Delphi was shared between Apollo and Dionysus, each holding sway at different times of the year. Apollo for the majority, but for the three colder months of winter, when no prophecies were given, the oracle temple belonged to Dionysus. This echoes a truth about human nature - we cannot be in the light all the time, we cannot always be in the realm of reason and order, we must have time to connect to chaos, animal nature and hedonistic abandon and delight.

As creatives we know the Dionysian Dark is an exciting place to birth new ideas, free from the fetters of rational thinking and societies ordering care. In this permissive place, where anything goes, our creativity knows no bounds. However, those of us who survive the creative initiatory fires, know that this is not a place to stay. It is an enchanted place that we can get lost in, its essence, and impact, is echoed in the opium dens of the 19th century, or the alcoholism and drug addiction of many modern artists and musicians. Dionysus’s world is a place to visit, not a realm to remain in, to stay there long-term is damaging to the human spirit.

Ann Wroe, in her book Orpheus The Song of Life, imagining Orpheus at a Dionysian rite, wrote…

“After a few gulps from the goblet, young Orpheus would begin to feel it: the beat, beat, beat of life thumped out on goat-skin drums, crashed out on cymbals… It shocked like shrilled tambourines, shaking down as rain to leaves, or as foaming cataracts through the rocks. Piping on the double pipes, it filled the trees with wild, howling songs. Orpheus’s heart pounded with that same raw creation music, whirling beat after beat.”

Orpheus, called down from wind into a corporeal form, now sensate, always creative, could not help but be drawn into this raw, musical, delight of the senses. Yet these are also orgiastic rites, where wax or wooden phallus’s were carried about and worshiped, rites that culminated in the animalistic eating of flesh.

Wroe continues…

“At the climax came the sparagmos, the tearing-in-pieces… The dancers fell to the ground, as if dead themselves. Bullocks and goats were ripped apart, their flesh chewed raw, warm blood forced down, while the mad god-greeting ‘Evoi! Evoi!’ rang among the rocks.”

Historically, before he was placed here, Orpheus was depicted as vegetarian, a gentle being surrounded by animals that did not fear him. To partake of this blood lust seems as out of character as when our own off-spring become teenagers, and we find ourselves navigating late-night worrying, dark-glasses at breakfast, messy bedrooms and moods like clawed weapons. Perhaps this is this moment in Orpheus’s life when he goes through this stage of teenage angst, revelling in a release from the parental influence of Apollo, god of all that is light and bright.

Clement of Alexandria, master at the school there (approx AD 205) a pagan convert to Christianity wrote

“Let’s leave him there with satyrs, and the frenzy rabble, and the rest of the Demon crew.”

Yet as Wroe writes, it is “always difficult to consign him to that place.”, because he is the son of Apollo and, no doubt, he will return, after his time in the arms of Dionysian nymphs, to the light of his fathers realm.

Wroe concludes her imaginings…

“The life of beast and bird and even grass blade was also his own, a music he shared. Horror must at last have sent him stumbling away out of the rampaging firelight into the dark, his fur robes slick with sweat and the wine-breath sour in his mouth, to retch among the rocks of Helcion or Kathaeron until the dawn came, smeared with red.”

This descent into the dark, and ascent back into the light, is also echoed in his most famous myth - the descent into the underworld to fetch his wife Eurydice from the clutches of Hades. Some speculate that Eurydice represents the artists muse, or, alternatively, the gifts from said muse. These are the inspiration seeds we hope to bring back, in their purest form, from the dark. These seeds so often dissolve into dust if we do not capture their essence quickly. That he struggled to bring her back, (older myths say he succeeded, more recent ones that he did not) allegorises how challenging it can be to entice a creative seed to germinate, and grow up out of the dark soil into the light.

Later in his stories Orpheus is torn apart by the Meanads, followers of Dionysus, who are known for ripping both animal and men apart whilst in the frenzy brought on by the rites. Different versions of the myth give different reasons for this - some say he rejected all women, others that after his wife’s death he would lie with no other women and yet another that Dionysus was jealous that he returned to the light realm of his father and sent the Meanads himself. Again the tangled web of tellings has no problem in mixing up the chronology here. Was he a teenager when he took part in the Dionysian rites, or had he already married Eurydice and lost her by then? The mythopoetic world does not always care for narrative order.

Either way in this part of his tale, again we see darkness turned to light. After this fatal happening, his body torn limb from limb, his head and lyre find their way to the sea, float to the island of Lesbos and remain there as an oracle bringing illumination in the form of prophecy.

Orpheus journeyed, as many of us do, into the world of the dark unseen, and returned to deliver what he had learnt into the world of the seen and known. The gifted lyre created by the tricksters hands leads Orpheus to the middle path where dancing between the dark and the light creates something new. Always being in the light creates nothing new and being lost in the dark destroys us. Yet, time in the dark, unhampered by rules and restrictions gathering raw gems of creative fire, followed by time in the light refining and perfecting what has been gathered, is the perfect balance for the creative process.

Orpheus is all of us as we navigate these two realms, his journey a map for those that come after.

Free-writing (sometimes called stream of consciousness) is a way to access our deep inner knowing.

It involves setting a timer and writing, without thinking too much, worrying about clarity, punctuation, grammar or meaning. It can be done from a prompt or simply writing whatever comes to mind. It is a way of writing unhampered by the restrictions of form, the concerns of what others might think of our writing, or the need to clearly communicate anything to another. It is a way of accessing the depths of our own psyche.

When we free-write we can often be surprised by what we write, it can reveal what is beneath the surface of our conscious thoughts. It offers a creative activity that helps us in see and understand connections that our psyche has made that we have not consciously acknowledged. We can often monitor our output in conversations, we are of course influenced by, an often unspoken, social contract, yet when we write freely, we say whatever comes to mind and often learn what our true thoughts and feelings are.

A great poetic example of this is the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac invited him to write as if his father would never read it. The result was a poetic scream of revelation and defiance against Moloch (read the poem for an understanding fof what this means), projected madness and judgement of homosexuality. The poem is an anthem for the suppressed and unaccepted members of society. It is also an innovation in poetic style that we had not seen from him before. This poem carries so much unabashed truth that it struck a cord with many but was also dragged through court for obscenity by the establishment.

How is free writing therapeutic? It reveals truth, whilst also giving us a space to process how we feel about difficult things that have occurred in our lives. This has been found to improve wellbeing and even support healing from deeply traumatic events. This healing does not happen all at once, in one writing session, but instead is cumulative. This process combined with writing about traumatic events has been proven to be transformative.

James Pennebaker, a pioneer in researching specific methods and techniques that bring about the best results for processing traumatic events and enhancing well-being through the act of writing wrote…

“…writing can be an avenue to that interior place where…we can confront traumas put them to rest - and heal body and mind.”

In his book Opening Up - The Healing Power of Confiding in Others he summarises 10 years of scientific research into the connection between sharing our stories of deeply troubling, emotionally challenging, traumatic events and our mental and physical well-being. He conducted carefully constructed experiments whilst he was a professor of psychology at Southern University in Dallas, Texas. These experiments revealed that writing in certain way, not only allows us to explore these troubling events, but also order them in our psyches in a way that releases us from the grip of the trauma they have caused.

Alongside his research partner Sandra Beall, he invited three groups of students to write for 15 mins a day for four days. Each group was invited to write in a different way - the first wrote about feelings around difficult events, the second only what happened, the third about what happened and their feelings about it, from both the time of the event and now. The students wellbeing was measured through taking their blood pressure, follow up questionnaires and journal entries. Initially the first two groups showed increased wellbeing, whilst the third was struggling more, the researchers were concerned that the writing had only served to stir things up for them. Four months later though the third group reported feeling significantly better and said that the writing had helped them resolve a difficult issue. The researchers wrote that…

“Writing about their deepest thoughts…resulted in a more positive outlook.”

6 months later the researchers observed the health of these students by counting visits made to the student health service before and after the experiments. Students visited the health Centre with the same frequency. After writing visits to the health Centre by students who wrote about both events and feelings dropped by 50% whereas the results for the other groups were that they visited the health centre with the same frequency.

The research revealed that although we may feel worse before we feel better, writing that includes both events and feeling has a positive affect on our wellbeing especially in connection to traumatic events.

Therefore the combination of free writing, to reveal unconscious connections, and from this constructing ordered and coherent accounts that include both events and feelings, we access deeper levels of our psyches and bring order to events and how they affected us, bestowing a greater sense of comprehension and empowerment which results in healing.

One student wrote “Although I have not talked with anyone about what I wrote, I was finally able to deal with it and work through the pain instead of trying to block it out. Now it doesn't hurt to think about it.”

Another student said “ One result of the experiment is peace of mind and a method to relieve emotional experiences. To have to write emotions and feelings helped me understand how I felt and why.”

In Bibliotherapy Free writing, in response to literature and our personal responses to it, is an integral. As i move forward in my training i am excited to see how this will improve the lives of those i work with. Watch this space for opportunities to join me in therapeutic writing sessions both online and in person.

Orpheus is an accessible figure because you only have to step out of your door, or open your window, and there he is animating the world and bringing it alive with sound. He is both the movement and the song of the stream, he is in the dancing leaves of trees and the susurrations they create. He lifts the birds wings and rests on the moving notes of their song. To connect with him you only have to watch and listen. And when you do, with all of your being, he will take you into a trance, through the chaotic yet rhythmic visual patterns and the polyphonic sounds of stream, birdsong, rain fall and moving leaves.

We do not need to sit beside the exact man who played the lyre, because he has reincarnated over and over again in different poets and musicians, his strings and songs hum in every peaceful piece of music, in every poem that soothes your heart.

He had a mystery school and many teachings that flowed out after him, and we can study and practice them, but it is not necessary to do this to know him.

This is is how I first connected to Orpheus, then I began researching him, the depth to which this research goes is as deep as the ocean, right down to the place where all that lives are flashes of light in the darkness and drifting marine snow. He is, of course, present in his stories, the most famous being his journey to Hades to fetch Eurydice back from the underworld. He his teachings, all of which we will come to in good time, but if you seek to connect to him, I urge you go out of your home, watch the world move, and listen to it sing, then come back to Eye of Buzzard Beak of Wren and read of who he is.

That said, let us speak of the next stage in his story. We have already looked at his essence and his origin as the pure element of air. We have heard of how his mother, the nymph Calliope, one of the nine muses, the beautiful-voiced, sang him into her womb. We have heard that he is fathered by Oeagrus of Thrace, but his alternative father, or perhaps we can say Godfather, is Apollo.

I have told how his Godfather Apollo gifted him the lyre (the one made by Hermes the trickster god, from a lucky find). We have heard how Apollo taught him to play and how all the animals, prey and predator alike, sat beside him entranced by his song.

Now the river of his life splits into tributaries and it is my choice, as the storyteller, to choose which one to take. As a teller of tales I choose governed by what our time and culture needs in this moment. I ask…

Where is the message we most need to hear? Where is the healing?

This month’s telling will focus on Orpheus’ presence on the Argo as she sailed to Colchis to fetch the Golden Fleece manned by Jason and so many heroes you’d think the ship would sink with the weight of them! It is a complex journey full of many stops along the way and gnarly twists of fate. Orpheus’ presence on the ship brings reason and stability, he is the priest of the journey and his ritual understanding makes sure they do the right things when needed, yet it is his playing of the lyre that saves them from death on the rocks as they are lured by the beautiful yet fatal song of the sirens.

What’s on…

As this part of story is so epic, there will be a swap around of the order of releases this month.

So Friday next week (19th June) I will share my monthly free article which will peer into Orpheus’ relationship to Dionysus, and how this connects back to the lyre being made by Hermes.

The story, for those of you on the paid tier, will be released the week after on Friday 26th of June.

This switch is also necessary, as, not only is the story big, but, also this week, I am taking a few days away in Glastonbury to join a pilgrimage course on the Golden Women. This work relates to the two patron deities who I connect with when delivering workshops - Brigid and Mary Magdalene, both of whom carry a grounded gentleness that I aim to bring into my workshops spaces. I’ll let you know about my experiences when I return.

A Book from the Bibliophiles Shelf.

The erotic and metaphysical Blackberries in the Dream House by Diane Frank.

This book was published in 2003 but still shines as one of the brightest stars in my book shelf. I came across it on a bring-and-swap bookshelf whilst travelling in India in 2006. So this book has occupied a sweet corner of my heart for the last 20 years.

In prosaic terms it features a young woman who becomes a geisha, she is not a slave but an artist, well loved and cared for in the ‘house’ in which she lives.

Yukiko falls in love, with the ‘right’ man and the ‘wrong’ man, she spends time refining her craft as artist, poet and lover, witnesses her sister giving birth, experiencing many things that you or I might also. There are no big dramatic scenes, save a ‘break up’ of sorts, no heists or car chases, no tearing down of great powers or over coming evil.

Yet, however ‘normal’ the stages of her life seem, the way she see’s them and tells them is the true beauty of this book. Everything is a poem. Let me share with you the opening lines…

“Blackberry soap, wooden buckets, rivulets of steaming water over your shoulders in waterfalls, cascading over the seashell curves of the muscles in your arms. Then back into the steam of the blue tile tub in the bath house. I do this with my hands. You are a Zen Buddhist monk and I am your almond Aphrodite.”

Yukikos life, expressed in exquisite poetry, brings together in one life the reflective depth of the buddhist monk and the sensual delight of the geisha house, it is a combination that gently probes our separation of the two realms of body and mind in our present culture.

It is also a wonderful expression of the Orphic art, bringing depth, charm and sooth to life experience. It speaks of love, both permissive and profane, contrasting that which allows and that which possesses out of lack of understanding. It speaks of the beauty of following our true path. If you have poetic sensibility, and long for a recalibration of your relationship to truth, this is a book that will lead you there through rich imagery and contemplative depth.

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I have been deep in contemplation of the Lyre this week, considering its meaning to us as a creatives.

When Apollo gives the lyre to Orpheus he is essentially saying “I recognise your innate skill and your mastery of this gift you were born with, here is another gift to enhance what you already have.”

As a creative the gifting of the lyre represents the time in your life when you take what you have as raw talent and develop it into something more. It is the act of defining a frame work through which your innate skill is expressed. This can be done through practicing a specific craft, of course, but also learning to play the lyre is a discovery of your own process, your own particular way of doing things.

In an age of overused AI what we hunger for is authentic human creativity. Yet what makes one artist so different from another, or AI? We can answer originality, yes, but we also know that all creative acts are influenced by those made previously - this is the great web of conversation that art inherently is. Yet what an artist has that becomes wholly their own and inspires them to create art that we can recognise as one artists work over another, at just a glance, is their process, which gives their particular style and perspective.

Learning to play the lyre can be seen as - discovering your own process, how you generate ideas and how you work with materials.

This is the aspect that gives work spirit and depth, what makes it original and non-replicable. A god has come down and given you a gift, the gift is not going to make you instantly excellent, yet it is going to support you on your path, if used well. Your task is to find your own way of playing the lyre.

The lyre offers a frame, invites you to ask “What will my medium (or mediums, yes, I see you fellow polymaths) be? How will I take my creative urge and manifest it in the world?”

The strings are the ways you play. What is your personal tuning? How do you create sound? (musicians this is literal for you, to others it’s a metaphor). To find your ‘strings’ ask “What is my way of generating material? How do I ignite and gather inspiration?”

To learn to play is to invest energy into discovering your particular preferred style - What do you like in other works? What inspires you and gets your creative juices flowing? What resonates with the song playing through your soul? How do all of your influences weave into a special expression that is your particular style?

I have always been creative, and I have always been slightly mad and messy in doing, what I consider to be, discovering what wishes to be made. For me play and exploration are key to my process. I do not think of what I wish to create and then make it, although some sketching and planning can be involved. I tend to surrender to the process and often I let a thing make itself. It is in someway like riding a horse, I often choose to let the horse lead. But this may not be your way of creating, discovering your own process is key to finding your very own and most true creative expression.

The delightful image of the wild animals coming close to Orpheus to listen to him play, without any animosity between them, is perhaps something we can all relate to. It is one of the most beautiful and calming things to witness - a creative in their flow, doing what they love, radiating peace as they do.

Why else do people love to watch Bob Ross painting, Queen Yuna on the ice or Zoe Keating, eyes softly closed, playing her cello? It’s beautiful, it does something more to us than listening to a recording, there is resonance and enchantment in the witnessing. We become like those animals - calmed for a moment, soothed by the creatives loving focus on the act they are engaged with.

This is why videos of people engaged in creative acts are so popular on tick tock and instagram. People are not only watching to learn, some research confirms that even watching others create has benefits for our mental health. My belief is that watching generative acts, is life affirming and settles a yearning in us that is akin to watching life becoming.

We are like Orpheus when we invest in developing our innate creative skills. When we receive our metaphorical lyre, we give ourselves a frame to work within. We find strings to pluck, paint to daub, gestures to dance, rhythms to express. We discover our personal process of connecting to our source of inspiration and how we use our mediums to contribute to the great wellspring of expression. When we as creatives delve deeply into our own practice, and allow others to witness that process, we become like Orpheus playing the lyre. Others are calmed, charmed and enchanted by the radiation of truth and authenticity.

Many blessings on your lyre playing fellow creators. May your song resonate with your souls hum and your emanations bring peace and gentle invitation to others.

I hope you can still enjoy this important scene in the story that is Orpheus’ life and as soon as the version with music is ready i will s…

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This month i will be sharing the next instalment in the life of Orpheus, in which he receives his lyre from his god father Apollo.

On a mountain fragrant with wild thyme and rosemary, Orpheus sings and dances with the nymph sisters of his mother, learning to give voice to water and unravel the secrets of trees. His song is so enchanting it captures the attention of Apollo, who appears in shaft of light holding the lyre as a gift for him.

Here is an excerpt from the first part of his story that i shared last month.

The next instalment comes out this Friday. This particular audio will also have some lyre music in the background of the telling, all being well.

It is my desire to find musicians to play on all of these storytellings. If any of you are a musician and interested in that please let me know, and lets see what we can manifest.

If you’d like to know more about Orpheus’ lyre…

I explore the creation of the lyre, and its connection to the trickster god Hermes, in my most recent article The Lyre.

Eye of Buzzard Beak of Wren

The Lyre

Orpheus’ lyre is famed for lulling the many ferocious heads of Cerebus, tugging at the heart strings of Hades and Persephone, enchanting the Argo to brave the waves of the Mediterranean sea, enticing shy animals from their hiding places and causing trees to lean in clo…

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4 months ago · 3 likes · Jade Moon

This point in the myth is poignant.

Receiving this gift marks two things for Orpheus. Firstly, an acknowledgement from Apollo of his innate skills in enchantment - his capacity to sing in a way that calls things to him. At this point in his young life his song has already inspired a group of oak trees to uproot themselves and follow him all the way to the sea. This same song has enchanted water to defy the laws of physics and flow up a boulder to be closer to his sweet tones. When Apollo, the great god of illumination, gifts Orpheus the lyre he is saying I see you. I acknowledge your inherent gift and give you this other gift to enhance it. It is a blessing and a boon.

This gift extends what is innate in Orpheus, it expands, enhances, strengthens.

Sometimes we are handed a lyre, or we need to go on a journey to find one.

Perhaps it is handed to us whole and glowing. Or perhaps we find a frame and must string it ourselves. Perhaps the tuning needs adjustment. Either way it is good to know when we need a lyre, when we have found one, or when we have found something to make a lyre from.

To follow Orpheus in his journey - from a young person with an innate magical, skill, to a mature person expanding that skill through a tool - is to take something you innately understand, have an aptitude for, or can relate to in a special way and hone it into a craft you can share with others.

What is your lyre? What framework and strings can you pluck to enhance your song? What is the innate gift you have that can be honed and shared?

A String on the Lyre (Or What’s on…)

Im excited to have connected with a local project, Bowden Pillars Future, who are re-wilding land near me, transferring the farm they have bought over to sustainable farming methods and building an eco-village. In collaboration with them i am offering the below workshop.

If you are near by please do come along i’d love to meet you in person.

How do the trees, buzzards, voles and insects of this land experience our shared world?

Sensory Presence - Nature Connection Workshop

Thursday 4th June - 10am to 1:30pm

This workshop is inspired by the concept of Umwelt put forward by German biologist Jakob von Uexküll and expanded by James Bridle in his book Ways of Being.

We will sink into our own senses and then move on to be actively curiosity about how the flora and fauna of the specific place experience the world, bringing us closer to an understanding of our more-than-human-kin.

We will meet at Bowden House Community Centre at 10am and walk to the near by beech trees at the top of the hill over looking Totnes. There we will spend time engaging each of our senses in turn then consider how other animals experience the world too before returning for a rest and time to reflect and integrate. There is also an optional writing element to this workshop that will culminate in a co-created poem about our time on the land.

https://www.bowdenpillarsfuture.land/events

A Book from the Bibliophiles Shelf

This months book is Trickster Makes This World - Mischief, Myth and Art by Lewis Hyde.

Hyde expounds the mystery of the trickster, who often, in modern Christian interpretations of the myths, is connected with the devil as his ways ( he is always a he, no mater which culture you find him in) are chaotic and destructive. Yet the tricksters magical purpose is to unravel things, so that they can be made anew - hence the title Trickster Makes the World. Without the trickster stagnation rules, order becomes a restrictive structure and nothing can truly breathe. When the trickster emerges in our lives, or in culture, we may fear him, he is messy and chaotic, bringing the unknown, rearranging paths that seemed steady and sure, but always, from his disruption, something new emerges.

Hydes book introduces us to many expression of the trickster including Eshu, who caused an argument between two farmers by wearing a hat that has a different colour on each side; Loki, who’s tricks bring about confusion and strife, but also the invention of many things including the net; Coyote who’s odd antics reveal much about basic human bodily needs, and how naive stupidity can reveal things previously hidden. Amongst this cohort of tricksters is, of course, Hermes, who was mischievous and deceitful right from birth, but who’s tinkering had purpose, unlike many other trickster characters who seem to blunder about, or are consciously set on causing mayhem! Hermes is also the creator of the lyre that later is given to Apollo, and may well be (i tell it as it is) the same lyre that is gifted to Orpheus.

Hydes book reveals the importance of trickster energy in the world, allows us to understand why he is such an important character in the mythology. Understanding the trickster gives us, although we may cling to the safe and steady and even strive to create it, and a way to comprehend the importance of his unsettling presence.

Firstly Dear Ones please forgive that this post is alater than usual i have been unwell.

Lessons in Listening

Let’s meet Orpheus in his purest, most essential state, before the myths embodied him he was wind and sound, the song and animating force of the world. This is where he was before and still is now.

These practices bring you in touch with one of the two main essences of Orpheus - sound. He is also present in the animated movement of the natural world, we will come to this in next month’s practice, but for now we will focus on sound.

To get in touch with Orpheus we must listen, listen as deeply as we can, then deepen again.

These practices will hone your listening ear and refine how you listen, as well as making you aware of how sounds affect you.

If you are creatively inclined, this month you can use any of these practices as spring boards for your creativity. Dance to the sounds, write about them, sketch them abstractly, record them or make a soundscape or a song, whatever is your leaning.

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Orpheus’ lyre is famed for lulling the many ferocious heads of Cerebus, tugging at the heart strings of Hades and Persephone, enchanting the Argo to brave the waves of the Mediterranean sea, enticing shy animals from their hiding places and causing trees to lean in close to hear its notes. Yet how does this lyre connect to the disruptive, messy, rule-breaking chaos of the trickster?

The lyre came from his hands, yes, Hermes the trickster (if you do not know this story it is at the bottom of this post). He made it perhaps, on a whim; he a babe, flowing along in the trust of his own disruptive chaos. He trusts the mysterious gift he comes across and creates from it. Once a tortoise, now an instrument that makes the most soothing and entrancing sounds ever heard. The lyres song enchants Apollo, calming his anger at Hermes for thieving and lying, and creating a peace between them. An agreement is made, and Hermes gives the lyre to Apollo in exchange for Apollos sacred cattle. Hermes, according to Homer, said this when handing the lyre to Apollo

“Sing well with this clear-voiced companion in your hands; for you are skilled in good, well-ordered utterance…Whoso with wit and wisdom enquires of it cunningly, him it teaches through its sound all manner of things that delight the mind, being easily played with gentle familiarities, for it abhors toilsome drudgery; but whoso in ignorance enquires of it violently, to him it chatters mere vanity and foolishness.”

Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C7th to 4th B.C.)

This passage seems to imply that the lyre itself is a tool, and it matters whose hand it is played by. Its capacity to entrance and seduce has a double edged power, that can be used for good or ill. Even Hermes himself seems to know after playing it, that it should not be his, but in the hands of one who is “skilled in good, well-ordered utterance.”.

And do we not all know the power of enchantment and seduction? To carry an instrument such as this, and to use it for good, we would need to have a well-directed, healthy, moral compass. To know the responsibility of possessing such an art, being capable of entrancing any living being.

There is a little story of young Orpheus, in which he realises a group of oak trees are following him, as he is singing and dancing through the meadow. He winds his way to the sea, wades in, splashing, still singing, trying to coax them in, but it is here that they stop and grind their roots back into the earth.

Here we see Orpheus learning the limits of enchantment - it is an enticement to adventure, but never a spell against a beings nature.

The lyre was made by a god who is not known for his adherence to rules, the lyre itself sings what is played upon it, it makes no moral judgment as to how its magic is used. The judgement is in the art and heart of the person playing.

This is, in fact, very trickster, he is not a moral character, he does not follow social constructs, or traditional concepts of order. His very nature is to shake things up, break things down, and create space for a new order to emerge. Does this mean then that inherently, in the lyre, there is something of his nature? A little dash of chaos to be wary of?

When Apollo gifts Orpheus the lyre, he does so because he is amazed and delighted by his son’s voice, its beguiling harmonies, its capacity to delight and entrance. Clearly he believed the lyre to fit in Hermes’ hands, yet it is a double-edged gift.

There is another part of the Orpheus tale that speaks of his alignment with Dionysus, tells of how he was once a devotee of the god. He plays his lyre at the Dionysian forest rites. The Maenads, female followers of Dionysus, who’s name comes from the word maínoma, meaning to rave, to be mad, to rage, to be angry, dance to it, inebriated on wine, their inhibitions abandoned. In their ritual madness they are said to rip men apart. Orpheus himself will feel the sting of this later, when he is torn limb from limb by them. There are different tellings of why this happens, some say because he spurned all women, some because he left the wild, dark cult of Dionysus, to return to the light and the bright ringing truth of his father Apollo. It is said Dionysus sent The Meanads, angered by Orpehus’ leaving.

But why might Orpheus have left? Let us think of the artist, and the lyre as the song of the muse: as a creative I personally know, and we have seen it in many of our greatest, that there is a madness can come over us when we fall too deeply into the place we go to gather creative inspiration. This is a place of playfulness and flow, but also the dark place of no rules, it is a timeless place, were bonds can be broken. This is the place of Dionysus, but it is not a place we humans can stay. It seems Orpheus knew this, when he sought to return to the light.

He takes his lyre with him of course, changing the focus of its song, from a seduction that takes us in to the shadowy depths, where we may find inspiration through complete freedom, and up again into the light, where what we have gleaned can be seen, brought into form and shared with the world.

This same pattern is echoed in his descent into the underworld to recover his wife Eurydice. It to is a descent into darkness and then a return to the light. Although we know he failed in most of the tellings of this tale, there are some that have him succeed. Perhaps we can see Eurydice as the pure, yet shadowy, creative form we find when we are entranced and abandoned in ritual, creative madness (in the ancient Greek sense, meaning a visitation from the muse). It is often almost impossible to bring back that pure form and weave it, as it is, into reality. Can we take what we find there as a lucky find and make it into something useful when we return, as Hermes did with the strangely placed tortoise? After all it was he who made the lyre that gives us passage down to that place.

Ultimately all that is left of Orpheus is his head and his lyre. It is told that the maenads, sent by jealous Dionysus, tore him apart. Yet his head and his lyre somehow make their way in to the river Hebrus and float down to the sea. Carried by waves they land on the island of Lesbos where the head is buried, yet continues to give prophecy. His lyre is placed in the sky and still shines on us as the constellation Lyra.

So all the while the lyre is playing the tricksters game, offering a gift that can change things, giving the bearer the capacity to enchant anything.

What will the bearer do with it? is the question.

A gift any gift can be used for good or ill, it can be squandered in darkness or brought to the light. A power, any power, can be used for betterment or destruction, of either ourselves or others. Perhaps Orpheus, with Hermes amoral gift and its potential to seduce or inspire, invites us to visit Dionysus and experience the wild dance in the forest, but also to come back to the light and give what we have experienced form. Hermes gift invites us to ask ourselves what we can make with what we have been given, will we use it for good or will we use it for ill? What reality will we construct with our gift?

A brief, therefore not exhaustive, tale of the complex and beautiful…

Birth of Hermes

Hermes, like Orpheus, is born in the cave of his nymph mother. Her name is Maia, she is one of the Pléiades, who was amongst the group of nymphs who cared for Dionysus, god of wild delight and debauched drunkenness, when he was a baby.

Hermes father is Zeus, however this does not make him a god, initially he is a demi-god and, not yet, accepted amongst the undying gods of mount Olympus. This is a fact that this tricksy, cunning, structure-shaking, god will soon change.

Hermes, still a baby in his cradle, grows both uncommonly strong and surprisingly cunning, his mind is active, his tongue quick, he is very soon able to speak. He, perhaps most surprisingly, is aware that his mother and himself are separate from the gods, hidden in their cave on mount Olympus. Unseen by his mother he leaves his cradle set on stealing his half-brother Apollos sacred cattle.

As he is leaving, he comes across a tortoise eating the lush grass just outside the cave opening. He is amazed to see a tortoise up there on the mountain. Yet, as will become one of his trademarks, he takes this unusual find and transforms it into luck. After speaking kindly to the tortoise, telling her he will bring her into his home and give her a voice to sing with. He removes her limbs and scoops out her shell. Attaching horns to the shell and stretching gut strings across it he creates the first ever a lyre. He plucks the strings and delights in their sound. However, he is still set upon his task, so he stores the lyre in his cradle and goes off after the, gleaming white, sacred cattle of Apollo.

There is much trick and deceit in his actions, as we would expect of a trickster. To cover his tracks, he walks the cattle backwards and when he arrives at a sandy patch of land, he gathers sticks and ties them to the bottom of his feet to obscure his tracks as well. When the enraged Apollo finds 50 of his sacred cattle missing he seeks to find what has happened to them.

Hermes has stored them at the very back of a large cave. He has slaughtered one and, with great difficulty, resisted the human urge to eat the meat. Instead he allots the meat out as offerings to the gods, ensuring to included himself, and burns them, sending the smoke up to the gods. Then he sneaks back to the cave and nestles back under his swaddling blankets, in his cradle, beside his lyre.

When Apollo arrives, after a process of deduction, he sets to chastising the child, but Maia protests “He’s only a baby. What can he have done?” And Hermes, at first, only says “googoo” or “gaga” to every question Apollo asks. When he does speak he denies he has anything to do with the matter. Eventually, Apollo insists on taking Hermes up to Zeus. Before Zeus, his father, Hermes continues to deny that he, a little baby, could have committed this act. Zeus is greatly amused by his son, but doesn’t believe a word of what he says, and commands him to take Apollo to where the cattle are hidden. Hermes seems to be in a sticky spot! He takes Apollo to where the cows are hidden. Apollo sees the skin of a flayed cow laid over a rock and is astounded at baby Hermes’ strength. He thinks Hermes should not be allowed to grow any stronger and so begins to twist together some Osier withies with which to bind him. The withies though, in apparent defiance of Apollo, fall to the ground, stand upright, instantly multiplying and hiding the cattle again. Apollo is amazed and concedes to the wondrous presence of his half-brother Hermes.

After this Hermes lifts out the lyre from its hiding place in his swaddling clothes and begins to play it and sing. Apollo is the first being ever to be enchanted by the sound of the lyre. Hermes, to sweeten the experience further, sings of the gods greatness. Firstly he sings of Mnemosyne, as he is her follower, then of the gods in turn, and of course Apollo himself. An agreement is reached that Apollo will have the lyre and that Hermes would swear never to steal from him again.

Now Apollo gives Hermes his cattle whip and names him keeper of the herds. Hermes and his mother Maia are both elevated close to the undying gods. Hermes has a role and will come to be known as the god of herders, roads, travellers thieves, merchants, boundaries, commerce, speed, cunning, language, oratory, wit, and messages.

He has, in his tricks, changed the order of things, had himself and his mother promoted. His finding of the lyre and its soothing effect on Apollo is what appeases. What a powerful gift!

Hello dear fellow myth trackers below is the audio of first instalment of the story of Orpheus…

Sweet Orpheus who’s breath animates the world, see him in wind waving through leaves, breeze ruffling fur and gliding over bare skin.

Look out on the field and you will see him press silvered patches of soft foot prints on the bustling arches of green grasses.

Listen and hear his voice from their rustling seed heads, whispering hushed poems of invisible presences.

His story is long and moves through many eons, until his beginning right here into the present, this audio tells of his beginnings, his parents, his birth and his growth.

Next month i will tell you how he got his lyre…

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Sweet Orpheus who enters body through the ear

and leaves the body on the breath.

Orpheus is not a being you can know solely through story, he is a being you experience. His presence in the world is constantly weaving around us through sound and movement. He is present in bird song and flowing water, in the wind that ruffles your hair and flutters the leaves of trees and plants. He is the movement and sound that animates the world. He is the Song of Life and when he flows through you, you will sing, you will write poetry, you will tell of the rocks quiet hum, the all-but-silent sound of xylem flowing and all the other quiet utterances of the earth.

It is fair to say that he is easily found, but not so easily pinned down.

We can find him though, and we must before we hear of his narratives, the many books he is reputed to have penned, the poems he composed through others hands, the initiation rites and paradigms he inspired. For without knowing his lightness, his brightness and his ability to travel by air, we cannot fully follow the arc of his story that includes speaking to the boards of the great ship Argo, calling her off the beach and into the sea. Without this felt understanding we cannot fully vision how he could lull the great four headed dog of Cerberus to sleep with his lyre and go on to convince Hades and Persephone to give him a chance to recover his wife from that place that does not release its captives easily. Without knowing him how can we understand how he could be both the son of the muse Calliope, the god Apollo and the human king Oeagrus? Without this felt experience of him we cannot grasp how he came to know Dionysus, to play in his cult of wild, rich, earthy darkness and leave it again to return to the light of Apollo. We cannot truly know how he could be torn apart by the Maenads, how his head could survive and along with his lyre float in the waves to the island of Lesbos and continue to speak his oracular wisdom. Only in knowing him can we understand how he could pour himself, eon after eon, into one human body after another and sing and write through them. We cannot truly understand any of this until we feel him enter our bodies through our ears and leave on our breath, this is how to know him as the Song of the World.

This month’s audio (coming Friday next week for paid subscribers) will be a conjuring, an invocation and an invitation for his visitation. To know him is to listen, and to listen deeply.

In the mean time I invite you simply to step out into the world and listen, I have no doubt you will hear him.

A Book from the Bibliophiles Shelf

This month’s book recommendation is Orpheus The Song of Life by Ann Wroe.

A book that not only explains but invokes.

Wroe’s book goes in search of Orpheus directly in the lands he is reputed to have walked, as well as in the mythological and imaginal world. She traces his influences through thinkers such as Cicero and Plato; his creative influence on many painters and sculptors, musical composers such as Gluck and Monteverdi, the film maker Cocteau, and the poet Rilke; and his presence in the thoughts and writings of mystic psychoanalyst Carl Jung weaving his presence into our minds through all that he has touched and influenced.

But this book is more than just an intellectual study of his stories, his histories, those he influenced and the books he is reputed to have penned. It is written with an ever unfolding poetic beauty, trickling like flowing water and whispering as susurrating leaves throughout the pages.

This book is itself an expression of the Orphic spirit, invoking his presence directly, bringing to life his light, flighty and inspiring spirit.

“ Orpheus’ music…was a sort of natural magic, and that magic too was an act of love, as iron was irresistibly drawn to the magnet, or flowers to the light. It was a turning of creature to Creator that completed, in a circle or a mirror, creation itself. And it was also the means for his soul to go back to the Heaven it had once known. The effect of his divine music…trembling bay trees and across the marble floors, was to lead his listeners note by note towards God, and towards Love.”

Ann Wroe

A riddle is often a little poem written as a strangely worded description that, through investigation of the phrases, we can find the answer. Riddles encourage us to think laterally, to find creative solutions to problems. To solve a riddle we have to examine the information given from a variety of angles and to test our theories against other parts of the riddle before we can find the answer.

Being of a riddling mindset opens us up to web like thinking, asking us to see connections that we otherwise might not have. It’s a healthy thing to play with in our world of this-therefore-that.

The art of creating riddles ask us to take a concept and think of ways of explaining it that are not clearly understood until the riddle is solved. Life often deals us riddles, scenarios and relationships that we have to investigate to properly understand. A riddling mindset is very helpful for finding ways through paradox and change. It can help us make of sense of nonsensical things. It is what helps us make understand dreams and have relationships to stories based on open-minded curiosity.

The practice of writing and sharing riddles is mind expanding.

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Sometimes you read or hear a story and they pass you by, just a bit of light entertainment, maybe beautiful, adventurous, strange, or amusing but nothing more; no striking revelation or sudden deep dive into your shadow held by a characters hand. You don’t need them, at least not yet.

But they are there in your psyche, part of the map your soul has glimpsed. They will resurface when you need them.

This is what happened for me with story of Turandot.

I had read it somewhere, sometime, but couldn’t remember where or when, it came floating into my mind like a message from the little triangle in the strange blue liquid of a Magic 8 Ball and I am not one to ignore a message from the 8 Ball of my soul! I only remembered little snippets of the tale, something about an icy hearted princess and the riddles she sets her suitors. I hunted in my collection of books on folktales but couldn’t find it. Then one night, half asleep, I had an image of myself and my son tucked up in bed together reading it as a bedtime story! The illustrations came to mind, floating up like the 8 Balls triangle again, they were quite distinctive, unmistakable in fact. It was a story called The Mountain Princess in the Barefoot Book of Princesses (edited by Caitlin Matthews, Olwyn Whelan and Margaret Wolfson), no wonder I couldn’t find it amongst my books! My son had long since grown out of this book and it had been passed on to parents of younger children. So, yes, I had to buy a copy for my 48 year old self. Bear with me, it may come as a surprise, but this children’s story had all the insights I needed for my development.

The Mountain Princess is based on an adult tale, as many children’s tales are. The original is called The Seven Beauties and was written by the Persian poet Nezami. It is a set of seven tales in one, each tale told by a princess of a particular region, dwelling in a palace of a different colour, each relating to a planet and set of symbolic associations. This particular tale, about a princess called Turandot, is told in the red palace, relating to Mars the god of war. Each tale is told by one of ‘the seven beauties’ to a king who, as a result of each tale, learns something about being a good man and a worthy king. He is initiated by the seven beauties one tale at a time.

This story contains lessons in testing and being tested.

Why did this story come to me at this time?

I had been in a long term relationship that had broken down painfully. When I thought about it, this had happened time and time again in my life. I had given my heart before I really knew who I was giving it to. The partner from this relationship wanted to keep trying, but I had been betrayed, and now my heart felt like reluctant ice. I wanted to be compassionate and forgiving, but I was on the mountain like the princess in the story, and the truth was I knew I needed to be there. I had to protect myself. I knew it would be foolish to do anything less under the circumstances. The story came to advise me of a new way of being in the world, a way I had not been before. My nature is to be trusting and this has caught me out many times in my life. Lacking healthy suspicion, or even a gently cautious reluctance, has found me trusting when I should have been testing more times than I can tell you.

So here it is, this story from a children’s book, of a distant princess whose heart had turned to ice, living in a palace atop a distant mountain, surrounded by a wall with an invisible gate, guarded by watchmen made of iron and stone. This princess tested those that attempted to woo her, and she tested them hard. Any who failed were killed and their heads were hung from the walls of her father’s castle! I wouldn’t willingly have chosen her as my mascot (I’d always been far too ‘nice’ for that!), but the truth was life had brought me to a place where I had become her, whether I liked it or not. My choices, and therefore present situation, were teaching me a lesson and she was the guide my soul reached out for. When the Magic 8 ball of your soul speaks it’s always wise to listen!

If you are not already a paid subscriber and you’d like to hear the story in full consider trying out the 7 day free trial of my paid subscription so that you can hear it, told in my own voice, in the previous post. If you choose to go beyond the 7 days you will receive a story audio every month as well as creative/nature connection/ritual prompts to deepen into the story.

The mountain princess was being harassed instead of carefully seduced. Many had fallen for her beauty, each of them sought to capture and own it, yet none had succeeded in appealing to her mind, and when she turned their proposals down none of them left the palace! Turandot, in this telling, is a wildly intelligent woman studying philosophy, mathematics, alchemy, astrology and magic. She doesn’t want to be worshipped for her beauty, to become an ornament; or find herself in a marriage with a man lacking intelligence and kindness of heart.

This woman knows what she wants, and needs, right from the start. Clearly she is the right guide for those of us who have yet to learn to carefully consider what we are getting into when we commit to something.

Encoded in the flow of the plot and all the other images in the tale are the answers to the queries I now had around how I could become ‘a princess’ who tests before she trusts.

To escape her relentless suitors Turandot asks her father (who is very understanding) to build her a palace on the mountain. She wishes to be alone: to read her books, watch the pathways of the stars and stroll in her gardens in peace.

Using magic she creates her watchmen, surrounding herself with protectors who could never fall in love with her or take advantage of her solitude. They had no flesh to be tempted, no blood to become empassioned. Their only function was defence. There is a natural logic in putting up defences when we have been hurt.

She then created a wall, with a hidden gate, a gate that can only be found with special skill. Does your inner sanctum come with a secret gate? I know mine does now, thanks to the insights of this tale!

So how did the ultimate suitor, who in my telling is called the wanderer, pass by the slashing swords of her defences? This man, seeing all the heads hung from the castle walls (and feeling great sympathy for them, more details in the full telling), realised that he needed to gather himself before facing these trials. So like any truly wise person he wanders off into the wilderness to seek clarity. Whilst there he comes across a hermit and asks for advice.

When he reaches the top of the mountain he does as the hermit advised him, digs a trench and calls on the sprits of the earth. Where the spirits touch the ground the wanderer treads, moving in a dance that avoids the swords. It was not in fighting the defences of the princess that he found his way through, but in listening to the earth, connecting to a gentler way of being and, yes, dancing!

Once he found himself at the wall with the invisible gate, he again followed the advice of the hermit and began to beat a drum the hermit had given him. He moved around the wall, listening carefully to the sound bouncing off it until he noticed a difference in the sound, this is how he found the gate. Each time he hit the drum he was sending out a signal, a question perhaps, that asked for consent to enter? He did not try to destroy the wall, he did not try to scale the wall, he did not yell to her to open the gate. He sent out a gentle query, a vibrational invitation, and waited patiently for the answer.

All the while Turandot was watching from her tower, seeing all he did in her enchanted mirror. She waited, before engaging, to see if he could pass the basic tests - to approach with gentleness and respect, with a pure heart, devoid of pressure, entitlement, neediness or demand.

She sent a message for him to go to her father’s castle so that she could set the riddles. The riddles are not what we usually think of as riddles, like the ones we hear in Lord of the Rings for example, little poems that have a one word answer like…

“Alive without breath,

As cold as death;

Never thirsty, ever drinking,

All in mail never clinking.”

(Answer at the bottom of the post.)

Turandot’s riddles consist of her sending first 2 pearls, which he looked at carefully and returned with 3 added. She crushes the pearls and adds some sugar, he puts this powder into milk, she drinks the milk. She sends a diamond ring, he returns a pearl, she sends back this pearl tied to another. He sends back these two pearls with a blue glass marble tied to them. Confused? All the people watching were too, including the king. Turandot came out from her place behind a curtain and asked her father to arrange their wedding. The ‘riddles’ are explained to the king and the people, their content and meaning is relevant (again listen to the full telling to learn all about them), but perhaps what is most important is that the couple were able to speak to one another in a shared language. It did not matter if anyone else understood, only that they did. They were a match and that was the end of it.

Turandot’s heart was turned to ice by the ignorant persistence of the suitors, and so many of us know how this feels! #metoo She put up her defences to keep out those not worthy of the prize of her beauty, those that sought to possess without mastering the true art of seduction. Perhaps this is what the story invites us to consider in the symbols of the watchmen and the wall, especially in our current times, or maybe this has been the theme for the entire life of this story?

The part that was most relevant for me, and perhaps is for you too, if you are of a similar trusting-not-testing nature, is the riddles themselves. Could any man other than this man have passed these obscure riddles? He’d already proven himself to be gentle, clear thinking, understanding, but just this was not enough, he needed to be a good fit for her, to both understand and speak back to her in a shared, secret language. A good partner is not enough if they are not your right match.

Under the guidance of this tale I considered what might be my criteria for a good match, not a ‘good enough’ match, but one with a shared language. How do we find a person who understands our soul language if we do not speak it to them?

I have learnt, through enacting the wisdom of this tale in my own life that, although kindness and forgiveness are great virtues, when it comes to making a match that lasts a lifetime, a match that will fulfil our hearts, we are wise to be discerning, to set our tests before we commit. Then we can find ourselves a union that will be more than just good enough, it will be safe and secure, it will be generative and fulfilling and within this cauldron of coupling we can be more than the sum of our parts.

Riddle answer - Fish.

This months tale is two tales!

Both are wholesomely riddle-ish, but perhaps not quite in the way you’d expect…

The first is Marcella’s Mind and the second a Turandot’s Icy Heart.

Watch out next week for an free article exploring the theme of riddling in these stories and then the following week for creative riddle-ish prompts…

Here is sample…

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Let the buzzard look through you

and show you the map of your life

a land formed through tectonic change

and all but invisible creatures.

Let her show you

what wide wings bring

what sharp eyes see

what precision talons grasp

to sustain you

for the next flight.

The buzzards that fly above my home have become great teachers to me. Many years ago I was gifted two of their feathers, they were found on the old hollow way that runs beside my home. I began a practice with these feathers that I call Freya’s cloak. Freya’s cloak, as some of you will remember, is made of falcon feathers, the buzzard is the closest relative I have living near me here in Devon. Freya’s cloak is a shapeshifting device that allows the wearer to transform into the falcon, echoing many shamanic beliefs that wearing a mask, or some part of the animal, and moving in their way gives us a pathway into their being.

I always enjoy when science catches up with the wisdom held in stories, ancient practices and rites. In Ways of Being James Bridle, in his chapter Thinking Otherwise explores our ideas of intelligence, tracing our historical ignorance, our inability to see the intelligence of other beings because our definition of intelligence has historically been defined by our own particular expression of it. There is a ‘new’ way of percieving that western scientific thinking is turning back to. It’s seems we have had to run all the way down the scientific track, travel far enough in that direction to come back to where we started - being animist, read: already knowing through our bodies that everything is alive and has its own wisdom.

Robin Wall Kimmerer tells us in Braiding Sweet Grass that indigenous wisdom considers humans as the younger siblings of all else. I often felt as a child (when we are arguably closest to our innate indigenous wisdoms) that we had all of this arse about face, and actually the animals were wiser than us, choosing to ignore the silly ways of inventing things, getting all carried away, caught up and unhappy in the industriousness of our society. I saw that animals only experience true misery when we entrap them, they are perfectly happy living their, what we perceive as, simple lives, whilst we mentally tie ourselves in knots reflecting on our own existence, at the same time as causing the rest of the planet deep distress!

In this chapter Bridle speaks of the Umwelt, a word coined by the German biologist Jakob von Uexküll. The literal translation means environment or surroundings but, as Bridle says, “…being German it means more than that. The Umwelt connotes the particular perspective of a particular organism: its internal model of the world, composed of its knowledge and perceptions.”. Indigenous people have always known this, finding ways, using ritual technologies, to place themselves in the feeling experience of the more-than-human for millennia.

Before this era we knew how to shape shift, how to enter the umwelt of another being.

My practice is to dance with these two feathers, one in each hand clasped between my pointing finger and my middle, lifting my wing arms with each in breath and letting them sink down with the out, in an imitation of flying, carried, not on wind, but on my own breath. I allow this to develop into a dance that moves in all directions all the while moved by my breath. It induces a trance - it takes me into the bird.

Now when they fly over head, I hear them calling, look up and see them soaring, I am entranced, and a part of me rises up to be with them.

An invitation - what animal could you find yourself in? And if you did what would they teach you?

The last two stories I have shared have been focussed on this idea of being in a different skin, of shapeshifting, or transforming. If you missed them you can find the story of Taliesin Shining brow, for free here in my last newsletter…

Eye of Buzzard Beak of Wren

Hope in thrutopia and the magic of stories.

Dear Ones…

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6 months ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Jade Moon

The other is The Selkie’s Stolen Skin which is available to paid subscribers here, along with the creativity prompts as well. If you enjoy having a creative, embodied relationship to stories, you will most likely enjoy these prompts.

Eye of Buzzard Beak of Wren

Donning your Skin and Diving into the Ocean

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6 months ago · 1 like · Jade Moon

Each month I will work with a different story.

Subscribers will receive a newsletter like this one and a free article about the months story.

Paid subscribers (£6 a month) will receive the story recorded as audio in my own voice and then two weeks later prompts to engage with the story.

This months story - Riddling Tales

I’m excited to share these two fun little stories with you, they contain much riddling, and through them we can consider how we might riddle our way to insights. Asking questions of things, finding a shared language of mystery, out witting a tricksy situation or person, or proving our own wit, are all themes these stories ignite.

They are also both fun, amusing and enlightening tales. The protagonists are two very beautiful women who do not use their beauty to get what they desire, but instead value intelligence and wisdom over simply being pleasing to the eye! Both women are either tested or test their suitors, refusing to settle for anything less than a fellow great mind.

Both stories also contain two admirable men - the first, a king, who, although he tries to adhere to the sexist rulings of the land, eventually knows when he’s been beat and wisely makes way for his wife’s input. The second a suitor who never gives up, follows his sense of goodness and wins the heart of a disheartened woman whose demeanour has turned to ice!

I’m enjoying living beside these tales for so many reasons. One of the main ones is, as I step through the initiatory gate of menopause, they speak to a certain confused, yet somehow all-seeing part of me, she is the ghost in the middle of that gateway. When we are in the middle of an initiation we are often also in the middle of a riddle too! There is something to untangle, we must unravel the thread that leads us through the gateway. What we can work with in these times is the language of mystery and the art of asking just the right question.

A Book from the Bibliophiles Shelf - this month’s book recommendation.

The Big M

13 Writers Take Back the Story of Menopause

Edited by Lidia Yuknavitch

Yup it’s here, a book full of real women’s myriad experiences of menopause. It’s not medical, it not filled with advice, although I’ve got some really good tit-bits from it, especially around ways of dealing with and even supporting us through certain symptoms.

This books strength is it is not simply one women’s experience, it is a set of nodes on a connecting web of stories. Each article opens up a facet of this shared, yet very personal experience. The stories investigate aspects of menopause like the changes our bodies go through, power and how it shifts, cultural and family stigma, and the eruption and place of rage.

Especially interesting to me is the thread of sexual trauma coming up and being worked with during this phase, runs through some of the stories in the book. One story deals very candidly with sexual desire, another with medical sexual/body trauma.

Another strong thread is relationships to mothers, how our menopause makes us think about our mother’s process, how they were hidden, also how we might need to talk to our mothers about menopause in order, not only to learn about their experiences, but also to learn more about our own as there are some hereditary aspects.

This book goes some way towards answering my question about where the folk tales and stories of the process of menopause have gone? They were silenced.

But, as with many original initiation rites, and the stories that share their processes, the impetus originated in the body. We were moved to create these stories, containing information about how to travel through these initiatory gates, by our bodies - first blood, coupling, pregnancy, birth and of course menopause. Sharing our experiences is one of the ways either back to recovering them, or to creating new ones. If what we had before repression is lost, we can find it again through open conversation with our bodies. This is how we rebuild our web of knowing.

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