KnotWork Myth & Storytelling

OUR STORYJust in time for Bealtaine, the Irish festival of fertility and new life, we explore the erotic energy at the heart of all creation, specifically in the context of Celtic mythology.We open with a brief retelling of the story of the woman made of flowers Blodeuwedd, which appears in the fourth branch of the Welsh mythological epic, the Mabinogi. You’ll hear an excerpt of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s Irish language poem, “Blodeuwedd,” and the translation by John Montague.OUR GUESTRobert brings two decades of experience in diverse industries, including spirituality/well-being, international development, leadership development, finance and education. He is passionate about service and deeply curious about how people can facilitate sustainable transformation to enable more peace, justice, and freedom in our world. Robert’s career has enabled him to cross the private and public sectors multiple times working at and with organizations such as Concern Worldwide, The Gates Foundation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, The Crossland Group, and Kripalu. Originally from Ireland, Robert has been certified as a CPA, Irish and Celtic Shamanic practitioner, Yoga teacher, Reiki healer, Meditation teacher, and in the Enneagram.Find him on Instagram @wicklowcelt and at www.robertmulhall.comIN THIS EPISODEThough Irish culture may not necessarily be directly associated with “the erotic,” the springtime festival of Bealtaine is alive erotic energy. When you look closely enough, you’ll find it is woven through Irish traditionThe snake as through-line: Patrick's banishment of the snakes, Kundalini, and the connection between Eros, creativity, rage, and fire as expressions of the same primal forceManchán Magan's work recovering old Irish words for the erotic and the inseparability of desire and the natural world. See Thirty-Two Words for Field.The sovereignty rites at Tara and Uisneach: what it actually meant for a king to marry and consummate a relationship with the land and the goddess of sovereigntyWhat gets dampened when we separate Eros from everything else. The great question: what if it's all Eros?Robert's poem "I Fell in Love with the Trees" and the invitation to experience nature not as backdrop but as lover, teacher, and kinForgiving the body as preparation for welcoming ErosFire as alchemical medicine: Robert's fire ceremony and the difference between external preparation for difficult times and internal readinessMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid newsletter subscriber, you'll have access to the special “podcast within a podcast” series called Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers’ Hearth Gatherings.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Workers’ Hearth

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid subscriber you'll be invited to join us for the Myth Workers' Salon and keep in touch with the show during my upcoming Imbolc sabbatical. Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicOUR STORYA sacred Immram, the great voyage of a birthing mother goddess. In this story, presented in both Irish and English, you’ll meet Brigid, Danu, and the midwife, the bean ghlúine who held the portal of life and death and helped bring new babes into the world.OUR GUESTSarah Richardson is the author of WOMAN: A Guide to Living Your Best Life by Setting Yourself Free and Coming Home to Your True Self. A midwife of conscious conception, birth, death & rebirth. A woman of the medicine way. Sarah brings over 15 years of experience in the medical field as a registered midwife and the mysteries, which is steeped in her lineage. Her work is a safe welcoming hand — and a cheeky wink — across the veil, guiding others into deeper connection with the unseen and the ancestors. She serves as a living portal into the otherworld, inviting others to remember, reclaim, reconnect and rejoice in the fullness of their authentic selves. Her soul’s devotion is to the Goddess in all her forms — restoring our connection to our sacred source so we can receive the radiant, embodied BIG life that is our birthright. She is the Founder of the Womb & Word Collective and the Co-Founder of Dream Midwifery. Subscribe to Sarah's Substack, The Womb & Word Collective and her collaboration with Jen Murphy, Dream Midwifery Find her on Instagram @sarahrichardsonauthor.ie and at www.sarahrichardson.ieIN THIS EPISODEThe significance of Brigid’s Day and the season of Imbolc Sarah’s description of the Four Faces of the Ancient Irish Grandmothers:Bean Ghlúine, The Midwife; Bean Chaointe,The Keener; Bean Feasa,The Seer; Bean Leighis,The Medicine WomanSarah’s own first experiences as a midwife and how this story is told in memory of a pair of twins, one born alive and one stillborn Our craving for a wise woman mentor, and the bean ghlúine is that being for SarahWhat it’s like to be comfortable in the shadows, the Cailleach, and Samhain and what it’s like to embrace the joy and light that come with BrigidAncestral stories and how they cause us to both fear and reclaim aspects of ourselvesSaint Brigid of the Flaming Harrow who helped her Mary when she was “churched” after the birth of Jesus (hear the story in S6 Ep42)Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Take Marisa's Brigid class at Celtic Junction!Marisa will be teaching a three-session online class for Celtic Junction, starting January 28.Register for Brigid & Expressions of the Irish Divine FeminineOur StoryAs the season of Imbolc draws closer, an episode from the KnotWork archives. Kate Chadbourne offers us two tales of Brigit, Ireland's patron goddess and saint. The first describes Brigit as the Blessed Virgin Mary's best friend and the first celebration of Saint Brigit's Day. The second is a story of resourcefulness and kindness: when Brigit saves a fox and outfoxes a king.Our GuestKate Chadbourne is a singer, harper, and storyteller, an award-winning songwriter and poet, and a scholar of Irish language and folklore with a PhD from Harvard. She's a beloved performer at venues throughout New England and founder of The Bardic Academy, a school for writers, musicians, singers, and young scholars. Kate recently released her novel The Poet on the Train.Learn more about Kate as a performer, teacher, editor, and guide at The Bardic Academy and her vibrant YouTube channel.In This Episode:Fite fuaite—an Irish phrase that speaks to the weaving together of ideasThe meanings of Brigit's names: "Flaming arrow" and "life force, vitality"Prayer as co-conspiring with the universe: Brigit doesn't ask God to take care of everything, she asks for the eyes to see the solution and does her part"Conspiring" means "to be inspirited together"The power of the Celtic Wheel of the Year, which reminds us of our most treasured values and our connection to natureImbolc: the feast of Ewe Lactation—a great excuse to have the finest butter, cheese, and ice cream!Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

Take Marisa's Brigid class at Celtic Junction!Marisa will be teaching a three-session online class for Celtic Junction, starting January 28.Register for Brigid & Expressions of the Irish Divine FeminineIn this episode:As part of our Myth Workers and Culture Makers series, we sit down with Natalie O'Shea, founder and Executive Director of Celtic Junction Arts Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. We explore the Brigid's Cross as a living symbol and community touchstone.This Imbolc-season conversation weaves together the power of place, the preservation of language and tradition, and the resonance between Irish and indigenous wisdom on Dakota land.Our GuestIn addition to being founder and Executive Director of the Celtic Junction Arts Center of Minnesota, Natalie is an officer of Ireland Network Minnesota, and a member of National Irish Cultural Centers of North America (NICCoNA), representing her region nationally and internationally. She is an actor, speaker, and writer/ director of three annual productions with an international resume of theater work. Natalie’s honors include being named an Advisory Editor for University of St. Thomas’s New Hibernia Review and one of the Irish Echo’s “Arts & Culture Heroes” in 2020, as a “Rebuilder of Irish America” in 2021 and 2022, and honored as an Ambassador of Irish Culture in 2025. She toured the world for three and a half years with Riverdance, The Show where she met her Dubliner husband Cormac Ó Sé before moving to Ireland and, eventually, back to Minnesota.Find out more about what's happening at celticjunction.org and on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and LinkedInOur Conversation:We recorded this session on January 7, the day Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. As a community organization, Celtic Junction is doing what they can to support the people of the Twin Cities in this difficult time.The Brigid's Cross as living symbol offering us the four directions, a sense perpetual movement, and the ritual of annual renewalBuilding Irish cultural community in Minnesota on Dakota landLanguage, place, and the intersection of Irish and Indigenous wisdomThe divine feminine as goddess, saint, and living presenceKeeping tradition alive without holding it too tightlyThe old hymn to Brigid quoted at the start of the episode:Gabhaim molta Bhríde,Ionmhain le hÉirinn;Ionmhain le gach tir í,Molaimis go léir í.I proclaim the praises of Brigid;she is dear to Ireland;she is dear to every country;let us all join in her praises.Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

Write Your Book With Us In 2026The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2026Registration is open now for our intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, novelists. and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”Learn more and apply to join the Authors’ Knot.Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicOUR STORYCiarán of Saighir was born jus as Christianity was emerging in Ireland. This is the story of a woman’s vision, a long pilgrimage, and what happens when you keep company with a boar, a wolf, a badger, and a fox in a very inhospitable forest.The story was recorded during a Myth Workers’ Salon, a gathering of Myth Is Medicine newsletter subscribers. If you’d like to join the next gathering and hear the story before it’s on the podcast, sing up or upgrade your current subscription at: https://mythismedicine.substack.com/IN THIS EPISODEJanuary 6 and all of its spiritual and traditional celebrations: Little Christmas, Epiphany , Nollaig Na mBan (“women’s Christmas” in the Irish)The human habit of trying to tame the wild and the trouble with anthropocentrismConnecting with the animal nature within and reconnecting to nature in a profound, elemental wayWhat it means to be a liminal creature, to hold space for both worlds, for multiple traditions, like paganism and CatholicismSources of this story: John Moriarty in Invoking Ireland, Martin Shaw in Jawbone, Ciaran Carson’s The Star Factory in which he quotes Patricia Lynch’s Knights of God OUR STORYCiarán of Saighir was born jus as Christianity was emerging in Ireland. This is the story of a woman’s vision, a long pilgrimage, and what happens when you keep company with a boar, a wolf, a badger, and a fox in a very inhospitable forest.The story was recorded during a Myth Workers’ Salon, a gathering of Myth Is Medicine newsletter subscribers. If you’d like to join the next gathering and hear the story before it’s on the podcast, sing up or upgrade your current subscription at: https://mythismedicine.substack.com/IN THIS EPISODEJanuary 6 and all of its spiritual and traditional celebrations: Little Christmas, Epiphany , Nollaig Na mBan (“women’s Christmas” in the Irish)What it means to tame the wild and the trouble with anthropocentrismConnecting with the animal nature within and reconnecting to nature in a profound, elemental wayWhat it means to be a liminal creature, to hold space for both worlds, for multiple traditions, like paganism and CatholicismSources of this story: John Moriarty in Invoking Ireland, Martin Shaw in Jawbone, the original manuscript at celt.ucc.ie, Ciaran Carson’s The Star Factory in which he quotes Patricia Lynch’s Knights of God.

Write Your Book With Us In 2026The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2026Registration is open now for our intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, novelists. and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”Learn more and apply to join the Authors’ Knot.OUR STORYIt’s the winter solstice in the northern part of the globe. Christmas is just days away. This time of year is so steeped in story. Our culture is shaped by the nativity story in so many ways.And yet, we’re shaped by the storyless mysteries too, like the 5000 year old passage tomb of Newgrange which was built to capture the rising sun on the Winter Solstice.Sitting with these two late December phenomena, the story of Bethlehem and the alignment of Newgrange, I invite you to consider Omen Days and the 12 Rays of Solstice, two practices that can help you reflect and prepare for the new year.IN THIS EPISODEThe Christmas story describing the birth of Christ endures because it’s the foundation of a faith, but also because it contains the elements of a good storyCalm Tóibín’s novella The Shortest Day, a fictional account of the modern discovery of the Newgrange solstice alignment by Professor Michael O’Kelly in 1967.Caitlín Matthew’s description of the medieval Omen Days practice, from December 26 - January 6.An alternative: start searching out twelve signs over twelve days starting on solstice, from December 21-January 1, as a way to gain insight into what each of the twelve months might offer.JOIN US ON JANUARY 3Join us for the January 3 Reflect & Envision Retreat!It's open to all paid Myth Is Medicine subscribers. Subscribe or upgrade your subscription at https://mythismedicine.substack.com/During this this three-hour event (held noon - 3 PM ET via Zoom) we'll have the time and space to reflect on the year that was, root into the moment that is, and imagine the year that will be.We will weave the Omen Days practice into our time together.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write Your Book With Us In 2026The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2026Registration is open now for our intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, novelists. and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”Learn more and apply to join the Authors’ Knot.Our StoryIn this original tale by Erica O’Reilly, we meet An Chailleach, the ancient grandmother spirit of Irish folklore. Though the Cailleach is often associated with fierce energy, she is also the gentlest of goddesses. In this story, she comes to the aid of a little boy who needs her help navigating his first Christmas without his mother.Our GuestErica O’Reilly is an Irish-Canadian storyteller, spiritual counsellor, and ordained minister whose work is rooted in the transformative power of story. Supported by the ancestral Irish traditions of the Mná Feasa (Wise Women), the Mná Ghlùline (Soul Midwives), the Mná Leigheas (Medicine Women), and the Áes Dána (People of the Arts), she believes deeply in facilitating experiences where souls feel seen, heard, and held. She lives on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg NationAs the Creative Visionary of Into the Circle Theatre, Erica weaves Irish culture, folklore, and mythology into contemporary storytelling that honours feminine wisdom and ancestral memory. Stay in touch with Erica by subscribing to her gorgeous newsletter and podcast, Into the Circle with Erica O’Reilly on Substack. IN THIS EPISODEA conversation between two storytellers about heart, soul, and craft involved in the creative processHow stories arrive as medicine for the teller, especially when navigating grief and the complexities Christmas without a beloved parentErica's relationship with the Cailleach and how she offer "steady bones" through early grief—a grandmother spirit who offers both fierce presence and tender supportThe art of staying in relationship with stories across seasons and trusting they remain "in the wings" waiting for their moment to be told againHow oral storytellers navigate multiple formats and platforms (live performance, Substack, podcast) to honor both the spirit of stories and the diverse ways listeners need to receive themThe practice of repetition and re-telling as a way to honor a story's living essence rather than treating it as one-time “content”Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write Your Book With Us In 2026The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2026Registration is open now for our intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, novelists. and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”Learn more and apply to join the Authors’ Knot. OUR STORYAmanda Carmody shares three Christmas stories from her uncle, Irish philosopher John Moriarty. We follow a five year-old John to the barn on Christmas morning, meet a local Moyvane man who shows a sense of “alarming humanity” at Christmas mass, and walk with John and a five year-old Amanda to Granny’s house to light the Christmas candle in the window. OUR GUESTAmanda Carmody joins us to speak about her uncle and dear friend, John Moriarty. She knows firsthand how John Moriarty’s work can be a shelter, a companion, and a deep reservoir of meaning through the dark night of the soul. Amanda spent meaningful time with John and later devoted many years to studying his wisdom teachings. Over the past six years, she has shared that work widely—through institutes, festivals, reading groups, workshops, blogs, and online classes. She has a background in visual display and design and is also an author and illustrator, an co-editor of John Moriarty: Grounded in Story.She is the mother of three remarkable children: Damien, Sarah, and Anna. Being a mother and carer is Amanda’s first calling, and it is from this lived experience that she speaks.Connect with Amanda and the vibrant John Moriarty Community on FacebookIN THIS CONVERSATIONThe first story of John as a five year old appears in his autobiography Nostos and serves as a foundational story that informs so many of his other teachings and storiesThe power and presence of the lapwings, a species of birds that was once ubiquitous around Ireland is now profoundly endangeredManchán Magan’s podcast series about John Moriarty, The Bog ShamanThe influences of indigenous North American stories on John’s work, particularly after his time in Western Canada. Resonances between John’s work and that of Robin Wall Kimmerer and her ideas around naming and how names transform relationshipsJohn’s most important message: this spirit of ecumenicism. Written on his tombstone,  "Mitakuye Oyasin" (the Lakota phrase, “we are all related”): nothing and no one is excluded from the sacred, not the animals in the barn, not the darkness, not our crooked humanity.The nature of love, and how to love people beyond projections into loving people in their sacred otherness.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write Your Book With Us In 2026The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2026Registration is open now for our intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, novelists. and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”OUR STORYKing Bran discovers the mystical silver branch. He loses it the very next day and sets sail to the otherworld to recover it. As with any otherworldly journey, this is so much more than just a boat trip!OUR GUESTJenny Finn has designed structures that foster vitality in people, communities, and organizations for nearly 30 years. Her research, mentoring, and teaching invites people to deepen the relationship they have with themselves in order to serve the world with greater clarity and compassion. Jenny's work has taken many forms including non-profit leadership, trauma and hospice care, chaplaincy, clinical private practice, community building through the expressive arts, community and cultural design, and transformative education. Jenny holds a Ph.D. in Sustainability Education and is the co-founder of Springhouse–an intergenerational vitality-centered learning community in Southwest Virginia.Join the Springhouse Online community at https://community.springhouse.org/Find Springhouse on Instagram @SpringhouseCommunity and on Facebook IN THIS EPISODEThe meaning of "waking up" and following a call–even when it leads to irreversible changeThe influence of John Moriarty and his concept of “Silver Branch Perception”Jenny’s stories of transformation, recovery, and the importance of community supportThe founding and mission of Springhouse as a place to nurture the source of life in everyoneThe challenge of living in a culture focused on achievement rather than human developmentReflections on education, tradition, and creating spaces for true growth and renewalThe ongoing journey of remembering, supporting each other, and carrying the "silver branch" through lifeA "wayzgoose" is an annual printer's entertainment or outing, originally held to celebrate the start of working by candlelight and mark the end of summer. Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write Your Book With Us In 2026The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2026 Registration is open now for our intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, novelists. and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”OUR STORYIn this episode, we welcome back Elizabeth Cunningham, a beloved guest who joins us for the third time. Elizabeth shares the wild Elemental Grannies who appear in her latest novel Over the Edge of the World. OUR GUESTWidely known for The Maeve Chronicles, Elizabeth Cunningham is the author of six other novels, four collections of poems, and a memoir. She lives in the Valley of the Mahicantuck on land that was home to the Esopus Tribe of the Lenape.Elizabeth’s latest novel is Over the Edge of the World and her new poetry collection is called  Holding Our Brokenness. Find all of her books at https://elizabethcunninghamwrites.com/IN THIS EPISODEMeet the Grannies–Sweep, Spark, Dirt, and Brine The power of fairytales to help us grapple with the biggest issues of modern life, particularly issues of power and environmental destructionArchetypal old women characters that have appeared across Elizabeth’s work especially in The Wild Mother and The Maeve ChroniclesElizabeth’s process of naming and conceiving of her characters A reading of “November Trees”  a poem from her new collection, Holding Our BrokennessMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

When Rima Bonario invited me to be part of her Sovereignty Rising Summit, I was honored. You’re invited to the Sovereignty Rising Summit, too! Join us Nov. 21-23. Register for this free online event now: https://www.thesevenqueendoms.net/sovereignty-rising-summitRima’s work has given me an opportunity to come back into renewed relationship with ideas that are always at the roots of everything I do at KnotWork.OUR GUESTDr. Rima Bonario is an Author, Dream Weaver, and Soul-Coach with over 30 years of experience in spiritual and mystic exploration. She helps women reclaim their inner power, divine wisdom, and radiant presence through archetypal embodiment, ritual, and transformational programs.As the author of The Seven Queendoms: A Soul-Map for Embodying Sacred Feminine Sovereignty, and the Founder of Bloom Temple Mystery School, Rima guides women into self-trust, soul-sourced prosperity, and embodied leadership. Holding a doctorate in Transformational Psychology, Rima blends trauma-informed practices, energy work, and the Temple Art of Anointing to offer profound spiritual transformation. Meet Rima, and more than three dozen other powerful advocates for the power of sovereignty at the Sovereignty Rising Summit: https://www.thesevenqueendoms.net/sovereignty-rising-summitIN THIS EPISODEMarisa revisits the experience of writing and publishing The Sovereignty Knot, nearly six years later, including the shifts in our cultural interpretation of “sovereignty” due to the pandemicThe Cailleach, a shapeshifting being older than the time and land itself, is likely the first of the Irish Sovereignty GoddessesThe roots of Rima’s passion for sovereignty, including a childhood need to “up regulate” the adults in her life, which she sees a skill and an obligation of young women and the princess archetypeSovereignty counters both hyper-individualism and selfless serviceReflections on sovereignty as individuals, and on the national level, particularly on colonized land in North AmericaThe concept of Rima’s seven sovereign queens, and their shadow aspectsPlease Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicS6 Ep 33We continue to celebrate Samhain season on the podcast with a story of an Irish goddess and queen who was eventually known as a banshee and a witch. Though we tend to celebrate the festival on the same day as Halloween, October 31, the ancestors would have celebrated this final harvest on the day that falls between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice. In 2025, that’s November 7.In a year full of No Kings protests and with the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York City mayor, it’s the perfect time to embrace the women and the rabble who operate outside the halls of established power.“Then, on the eve of Samhain precisely, Mongfind dies. So this is The Death of Mongfind the Banshee. Hence Samhain is called by the rabble, “Mongfind's Feast,”  for she was a witch and had magical power while she was in flesh; wherefore women and the rabble make petitions to her on Samhain.” From "The Death of Crimthan Etc." in the Silva Gadelica, a collection of medieval Irish tales, translated by Standish O’Grady, 1892. Mongfind, a sovereignty goddess and high queen of Tara, inspired Marisa to start KnotWork Storytelling, and her stories  appeared in several past episodes:Ireland’s Forgotten Goddess-Queen-Witch (S4 Ep7)The Last Sovereignty Goddess (S4 Ep 8)Niall of the Nine Hostages, A Story by Mari Kennedy (S3 Ep14)This story is really an invitation to imagine and do your own myth working. Who were “the women and the rabble” who would have remembered Mongfind after her death? Where would they have gathered? Who would have led the ceremony? What would their petitions have been?Share your myth work reflections in the comments section of the latest post at Myth Is Medicine.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicSamhain: the Celtic festival when the veil between the worlds is thin. It's the last harvest of the old year, the start of the new, and a time of turning inward both to reckon with the shadow and to engage in deep, restorative rest.We're marking the start of Samhain season with a conversation with Robert Mulhall as part of our Myth Workers and Culture Makers series. May this episode offer you an invitation to have your own conversation with the Otherworld and engage with mythology, the land, and the power of ritual and ceremony. OUR GUESTRobert Mulhall has spent the last two decades in such diverse industries as public health, leadership development, education, finance, organizational consulting, and executive coaching. He is now the CEO of Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in the Berkshires. Originally from County Wicklow, Robert holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce, accounting, and business management from the University College of Dublin. He is a certified public accountant in Ireland, and certified in mediation, executive coaching, the Enneagram, Reiki, and Celtic Irish Shamanism.  IN THIS EPISODE:Living mythology in modern times through relationship with the land and daily spiritual practiceThe power of uncertainty and mystery in Irish spiritual traditionsThe importance of humility in walking with spirit and indigenous wisdomFinding wholeness through reconnecting with ancestral roots and practicesNavigating cultural identity and spiritual authenticity with an awareness of colonization and what it has stolen from both indigenous and white-identifying peoplesThe symbol and power of the triple spiral, the triskele“Don’t rush your winter.” How can you allow your own wintering, quietude, and need for rest and renewal - even if that instinct doesn’t match the current weather or your long to do list.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Last Call! Write with Us this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression.Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityPlease Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicIN THIS EPISODEWhat takes us even deeper than mythology? The direct relationship with the earth itself. In this episode, I share a 20th century poem rather than an ancient story: Seamus Heaney’s "Digging."Finding the mythic, magical moments in the everyday, and in art that seems to describe “the mundane”The evolution of the name of my Substack newsletter to  Myth is Medicine. Words are Magic. Reflections on sharing poetry with my daughter at the start of our first day of homeschoolingThe nature of work, whether that’s farm labor or sitting at the writing deskListen to Mr. Heaney recite "Digging"Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write with Us this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression.Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityPlease Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOUR STORYKing Bran leaves the feasting hall and is wrapped in the haunting song of a magical silver branch. This is the beginning of his immram, an oversea journey to the Otherworld. Along the way, he meets Manannán Mac Lir, the god of the sea, and they eventually reach Tir na mBan, the Island of Women.IN THIS EPISODEThis story of Bran throws the typical hero’s journey on its head as he cannot return home with the elixir because time works so differently in the otherworldSilver Branch Perception, a way of seeing the world described by the Irish mystic-philosopher-scholar John Moriarty (author of Dreamtime and Invoking Ireland)My experiences with the Bard Mythologies Summer School, which carries Moriarty’s work forward todayReflections on traveling to the ancestral homeland of Ireland, including the art of arriving there fully, the pain of leaving, and the unique challenges of returning home againWhat it means to be “fully in yourself” as you travel and as you move through your everyday life How my own life is changing on the other side of my own homecoming: homeschooling my younger daughter

Write with Us this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression.Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityPlease Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineThis week, a ‘best of the podcast episode’: Achtan: A Brave Mother’s Tale.Our guest Karina Tynan, psychotherapist and Irish mythology author, tells a story of sovereignty, or spellwork, and of our deepest entanglement with nature. Bees, wolves, and horses play a magical role in the tale of Achtan and the lengths she went to protect her infant son, the future king, Cormac, son of Airt.In the conversation that follows we explore:✨Mothering and parenting - both in the ancient times we imagine and in this difficult contemporary moment✨Our need for magic, and the way we know that magic when we meet it✨The way Karina blends her imagination and personal experience into all her mythological retellings✨Sacrifice (whose roots mean “to make sacred”) particularly, when it comes to parenthood✨Achtan is a druid’s daughter, and Karina imagines the details of the five spells of protection are woven around Cormac Mac Airt in the literature✨Our fear of our own children’s fragility, including fears of giving our kids an eating disorder or pushing them to suicide✨The importance of coming of age rituals in indigenous cultures and the lost value of adventure.✨The role of rhythmic stories, fairy tale, adventure, and romances in the development of childrenMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write with Us this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression.Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityPlease Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOur StoryThe sea has its own way of speaking - not in words, but tides, dreams, and memory. Not all who feel lost are meant to be found; some of us are simply remembering where we came from. Erica O'Reilly's The Call of the Sea and a Lost Sealskin emerged when she returned to Ottawa, after two weeks at an artists' residency on the coast of Kerry. In this piece, she explores the layered, cascading grief of returning to a land that doesn’t feel of “home.” This piece was first as part of her Substack series The Creative Process of De thír mo Mháithreacha: Of the Land of My Mothers. Be sure to subscribe to her amazing newsletter, Weavings of the Wise & Embodied.Our GuestAs KnotWork’s 2025 resident storyteller, Erica’s heart-centered work is devoted to facilitating experiences where souls feel seen, held, and heard. Through her Into the Circle Theatre project, Erica weaves together Irish culture, history, folklore, and mythology.As an Irish-Canadian, Erica is profoundly grateful to the traditional spirits and keepers of the land—past, present, and future—of the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation where she was born and currently resides. In this episode:Diasporic grief and what it is to feel at home in two worldsThe selkie myth, that classic tale from Irish mythology of the seal woman who is torn between land and seaCreative residencies: making plans vs. letting go of expectationsStorytelling is medicine and sharing stories out loud mattersWhat it means to live between worlds and living the question: do you have to choose? Planting seeds in the water, hoping for future adventures and new stories togetherMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write with Us this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression.Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityPlease Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineYou can also dive deeper into the stories behind the stories in this episode with the latest post about the immram tradition and what makes a good story. In This Episode In this solo episode, Marisa Goudy explores the art of truly “arriving” through the lens of her recent journey to Ireland, blending personal storytelling with Irish mythic tradition. Inspired by the ancient immram tales—sea journeys to the otherworld—Marisa reflects on how travel, memory, and landscape shape our sense of self and belonging. Rather than a simple travelogue, the episode weaves together 17 moments of arrival at the Bard Mythologies Summer School on Clare Island, each representing a different facet of presence, transformation, and connection. Along the way, Marisa draws parallels between her experiences and Irish mythology (including the story of the voyage of Máel Dúin), considers the role of motherhood, grief, and friendship, and invites listeners to reflect on their own journeys and moments of arrival. Also in this episode:Fiona Doris who gave us “Bid, the Unbiddable” S6 Ep4 Tracy Chipman who joined us in S6 Ep19, had me on her show, “A Year and a Day” in an episode called The Poetry of MotheringErica O’Reilly, our storyteller in residence who will join us next week with her own story of visiting Ireland this JulyConnecting with past KnotWork guests at the Bard Mythologies Summer School including: Treacy O’Connor, Mari Kennedy, Karina Tynan, and the founderes of the Bard, Ellen O’Malley Dunlop, and Sandy Dunlop.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineWrite with Us this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression.Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityOUR STORYAs the traditional Irish myth goes, Tailtiu, the foster mother of Lugh of the Tuatha Dé Danann, clears vast fields so the people can plant their first crops. And then, she dies from exhaustion. The great festival of Lughnasa (on or around August 1) is held in her honor. REFLECTIONSThe power of retelling stories, both to honor the cyclical nature of time and to give ourselves the chance to see it with new eyesHow we tend to flatten the stories and experiences of groups of "others" in preference for singular hero's talesWhat does this story say about work and overwork, and the way that we can get so caught up in what we convince ourselves must be done, regardless of the cost? Deep gratitude to the work of Bard Mythologies. Find the passage about the Fir Bolg, and more, at bardmythologies.comMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineWrite with Marisa this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression. Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comOur StoryInanna, Goddess of the Upperworld, is at the core of a 6,000 year old myth from ancient Sumer. Upon the request of her sister Ereshkigal, Inanna pays a visit to the Underworld. As she passes through each of the seven gates, more of her symbols of power, intellect, and wealth are stripped away. Upon arrival, Inanna is sentenced to death by her sister Ereshkigal. As is the way of myth, death is intricately connected to rebirth. Through the intercession of her father, Enki, God of Wisdom and Light, Inanna is revived and ascends to the Upperworld, renewed and transformed. At least… those are the basics. Pearl’s retelling of the story is a deep dive into contemporary dreams and timeless truths about the emerging of the feminine and the merging with the masculine.Our GuestPearl Gregor is an explorer and a seeker. She is a writer, dream coach, story teller, author of the three books in the series Dreams Along the Way, and an international public speaker.  Pearl is a farmer, grandmother, a blogger, and a Crone of wisdom. Join Pearl to explore the deep mysteries of dreams, psyche and soul. You can read her books, or join her in her latest passion, a Dream Readers’ Myth Circle.Find Pearl at www.DreamsAlongTheWay.com and on Facebook  and InstagramOur ConversationThis story of Inanna is woven with seven years of dreams that came to Pearl at midlife. We explore:Pearl had never heard of Inanna when images from this myth came to her in dreams. The book Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women Sylvia Perera appeared as a guide and confirmation. We need both the light and the dark, the masculine and the feminine, though the patriarchal mindset has shaped our perspective of what the feminine should beThe role of “strange women” in a woman’s dreamlife; the integration of the “strange” parts of the self and the movement into circles of womenThe process of “birthing a new world,” as described by Jean Shinoda Bolen in  Moving Toward the Millionth CircleThe power of “collective dreaming.”More of Pearl and Marisa in the conversation series, Dream, Sovereignty, and Wise Woman WaysAs Pearl says, “Skip Descartes and what you learned in school, there is nothing logical about rebirthing an entire universe.” WORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineWrite with Marisa this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression. Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityOur StoryAn Irish sovereignty goddess whose origins lie with the mythical Tuatha Dé Danann, Áine is also a sun deity, a bean sidhe (woman of the Sí), and fairy queen. In a story from the mythological period, Áine has an ill-fated meeting with the unjust king Aillil Ólomm, who strips the land bare and threatens the goddess. Later, Áine is also found in a 14th century tale of Gerald, Earl of Desmond, also known as “The Wizard Earl.” Finally, a story collected in 1938 by the Irish Folklore Commission about a wise woman named Áine with two daughters who refuse to follow their mother’s marital advice, each with disastrous results.Our GuestJen Murphy is the founder of The Celtic Creatives. A Dubliner born and bred, her ever-unfolding apprenticeship to following her soul’s breadcrumbs has guided her work and academic studies in Medieval Irish and Celtic Studies, Sociocultural Anthropology, Creativity and Innovation, and Jungian Psychology with Art Therapy. She is also a qualified Feminine Embodiment Coach and Non-Linear Movement Teacher. Find Jen at www.celticembodiment.com/ and on Instagram: @celticembodiment Subscribe to her brilliant Substack, The Celtic Creatives: https://celticcreatives.substack.com/Our ConversationThe ancient Celtic Sovereignty myth: the divine marriage (the banais ríghi). When the Sovereignty goddess unites with the king, she expects fir flaithemon, the prince’s truth. A worthy ruler needs to be just, truthful, and discerning. Parallels to Sumerian tales of Inanna and her partners.The importance of reciprocity - between people and land, between sovereignty goddess and kingThe ways that religion and politics collude together and exploit the landConnections to Arthurian Grail legend and “The Elucidation,” a tale that describes the rape of the Well Maidens that leads to the closing of the wells and creation of the Wasteland.Hospitality as a key aspect of mythology and cultureIreland as a “goddess obsessed” island. And yet, with all of the divine feminine magic, all of the Mother Goddess worship, it was not a Utopia for women. There were ways in which the coming of the church offered a haven for women, and monasteries became places of learning.Jen’s personal story of what it meant to see all part of herself, integrate the energy of midsummer, the deepest energy of the grandmothers, a death of a part of the self, and  rebirth and integrationMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineWrite with Marisa this SeptemberThe Writers’ Knot is welcoming new members! This is the global creative community where where the mythic imagination meets creative expression. Registration is now open and due to the intimate nature of this community, space is extremely limited: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityOur StoryAt a ceilidh, a home-based gathering, in the Highlands of Scotland, a young man is asked to follow the custom of sharing a song or a story. He has nothing to share, so he is asked to contribute by drawing water from the well. While there, he sees a mysterious boat and climbs in and it takes him to a far shore. When he steps on the shore, he realizes everything has changed. Suddenly, he is a she, and our protagonist begins a new life on the other side of the loch…Our GuestDr Michael Newton earned a Ph.D. in Celtic Studies from the University of Edinburgh in 1998 and was an Assistant Professor in the Celtic Studies department of St Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia 2008-2013. He has written a multitude of books and articles about Gaelic culture and history and is a leading authority on Scottish Gaelic heritage in North America. In 2018 he was recognized with the International award at the annual Scottish Gaelic awards in Glasgow, Scotland. The book that he co-edited with Wilson McLeod, An Ubhal as Àirde / The Highest Apple: An Anthology of Scottish Gaelic Literature, was awarded with the Best Gaelic Non-Fiction Book of 2020 by the Gaelic Books Council of Scotland. He established the Hidden Glen Folk School of Scottish Highland Heritage in 2019 to teach a range of topics to students online and is reaching a global audience including Scotland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.Find Michael on Substack with his newsletter The Virtual Gael. His scholarly articles are available at academia.edu Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. Words Are MagicIN THIS EPISODEAs part of our Myth Workers and Culture Makers series, the writer behind the On Culture Work Substack newsletter, Tad Hargrave offers stories and observations about how to feed and shape culture within community.OUR GUESTTad Hargrave is a hippy who developed a knack for marketing (and then learned to be a hippy again). Since 2001, he has been weaving together strands of ethical marketing, Waldorf School education, a history in the performing arts, local culture making, anti-globalization activism, an interest in his ancestral, traditional cultures, community building and supporting local economies into his work helping people create profitable businesses that are ethically grown while restoring the beauty of the marketplace. You can learn more about Tad and his work at marketingforhippies.com. He also writes on Culture Work on his Substack: https://tadhargrave.substack.com/OUR CONVERSATIONTad’s working definition of culture work comes from Stephen Jenkinson and his Orphan Wisdom School and  Kakisimow Iskwew, “culture is our set of original instructions about how to live on the land in a good way.”What can we do to feed the culture around us? How are we killing it?How ceremony can be part of lifeHow to (and how not to) facilitate homecoming and farewell events within communityMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Explore your own mythic landscape…Join us for our summertime writers’ retreat on June 25th! During a three hour online retreat, we’ll explore a series of imaginal landscapes that help to illuminate and reframe your own relationship to your creativity and to your voice. You can expect a guided journey, a lot of time to write, and chances to dive into conversation with other myth-minded participants.This event is open to all paid Myth Is Medicine subscribers. To subscribe, or to upgrade your subscription, please visit: https://mythismedicine.substack.com/ IN THIS EPISODEAs part of our Myth Workers & Culture Makers series, American musician Katy Hellman of Emerald Ground Water talks about how folklore and a connection to the Irish ancestors was so fundamental to the development of her latest album.OUR GUESTKaty Hellman is a songwriter, storyteller, astrologer, and community organizer based in Burlington, Vermont. She weaves worlds together through her art, one-on-one work, and community engagement. Drawing on mythology, ancestry, and folklore, Katy infuses her work with mythic wisdom—believing these stories offer vital guidance on what it means to be human.Her latest project is the debut album from her band, Emerald Ground Water, titled The World Below. The album delves into the depths of inner experience, echoing with ancestral sounds and drawing on the archetypal power of fairy tales and myth. She blends these ancient sounds with more contemporary inspiration of psych rock, prog rock and freak folk. Find the album on all major streaming platforms. Find the tour dates and the album's fabulous accompanying PDF booklet at https://www.emeraldgroundwatermusic.com/OUR CONVERSATIONKaty consciously sings from a shared well of sound with people from her ancestral and musical lineageKaty & Marisa met through the Bard Mythologies online Nine Waves ProgramImbas forosnai - the Irish druidic practice of channeling “inspiration that illuminates”Seeing the scars of colonization and industrialization in the treeless Irish landscapeDeveloping a relationship with a spiritual guide or “fairy hitchhiker” that might follow you home after visits to IrelandInspired by Stephanie MacKay: grief is generative, while despair is not Feeling ancestral support and care through the creation of artThe power of calling in Cailleach, so often associated with winter, in the midst of a summer solstice heatwave. As we say on KnotWork, every season is Cailleach season!  (Including the recent story from the Outer Hebrides told by Tracy Chipman.)The Cailleach gives you permission to feel ugly and rageful Dee Mulrooney speaks about the power of the diaspora to support the culture and offer new perspective to the “mother culture”Katy has deep expertise in astrology, so the stars and planets ground this conversation too!Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Explore your own mythic landscape…Join us for our summertime writers’ retreat on June 25th! During a three hour online retreat, we’ll explore a series of imaginal landscapes that help to illuminate and reframe your own relationship to your creativity and to your voice. You can expect a guided journey, a lot of time to write, and chances to dive into conversation with other myth-minded participants.This event is open to all paid Myth Is Medicine subscribers. To subscribe, or to upgrade your subscription, please visit: https://mythismedicine.substack.com/ IN THIS EPISODEMarisa revisits the story of Cessair, the first person to set foot on Irish soil. This time, the story is told from the perspective of the ocean that carries Cessair from her homeland in the ancient Sudanese city of Meroë, all the way to Ireland.Find the full story of Cessair in When Tides Rise, Build Your Own Boat, S5 Ep19The latest Bard Mythologies program, an exploration of creation myths tracing the route that Cessair might have taken across the ancient world.  The original story is told in the Leabhar Gabhála Éireann, the Book of InvasionsMarisa’s new project explore the concept of erosion, both in terms of culture and the earth.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next mythically inspired online writing retreat on June 25!Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOUR STORYThis tale from the Outer Hebrides weaves together an unjust king, a sovereign maiden, and the Cailleach. It originates in a certain place on Isle of Harris, but spans many landscapes from Lochlann (Norway) to Éire (Ireland).Tracy Chipman received this story of the Cailleach Squire in the late 1990s from an islander from the village of Leverburgh named Norman MacLeod. It has never been published, and was given to Tracy in hopes that she’d preserve and share it as part of the Hebridean Folklore Project.OUR GUESTTracy Chipman is a somatic healing artist, oral storyteller, creative writer, and a certified TRE® provider who weaves together ancient and new experiences designed to invite us into deeper connections with ourselves and the animate world. She resides in Washburn, Wisconsin, on the traditional territories of the Ojibwe peoples. In March 2023 Tracy published her first book, Borealis Mundi - Resting in Place, Loss & Grace. Learn more about her work. www.tracychipman.net, IG @all.here.dwell.free, Substack: allheredwellfree.substack.com, and Patreon: www.patreon.com/c/tchipman_storytellerOUR CONVERSATIONMeeting the elemental powers of the land in an “un-storied” way rather imposing our expected stories upon them.The language and the access to the imaginal that has been lost in modernityThe power of orality. We reference a recent article by Sophie Strand (a guest S2 Ep 3 and S4 Ep3) called Against Self Capture.The understanding of sovereignty and virginity as being related to being complete unto oneselfThe experience of telling stories in certain atmospheres and how different elements emerge.The sweetest sound in the world, according to Finn MacCool: “the music of what happens”What it’s like to tell Scottish stories on Turtle Island, being aware of appropriation and learning how to stay centered in yourself when called out. The messiness and difficult encounters when doing cultural workMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next mythically inspired online writing retreat on June 25!Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOUR STORYIt’s Gemini Season. And Marisa, your host, is a quintessential Gemini. She tells the story of Castor and Pollux, the twins who are associated with the constellation. IN THIS EPISODEWTF is Blindboy? He’s an Irish podcaster and author whose show explores everything from mythology to mental health to modern culture. Highly recommended!Chani Nicholas is a Canadian astrologer and writer, and the woman behind the CHANI app as well as several podcasts related to astrology, culture, and activism. Eleanora Amendolara is Marisa’s longtime teacher, and the founder of the Sacred Center School for the Healing Arts. She appears in S4 Ep9.  The passage from the end of the episode is from Stephen Jenkinson’s Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity & Soul.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next mythically inspired online writing retreat on June 25!Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOUR STORYA magical tree grows apples that assure the fertility of the community, but suddenly the fruit stops appearing each morning. The story, which comes from the Nart Sagas of the Ossetia region in the Caucasus Mountains, includes an initiatory journey, a marriage, and is ultimately about the union of the land and the sea. OUR GUESTStephanie MacKay is the founder of Mythology Club and is co-founder and Director of Fianna Wilderness School. She specializes in ancestral knowledge, earth-based skills, ceremony and myth. Stephanie has a degree in literature, which has been enriched by over 15 years of transformative practice and study. She has delved deep into the realms of myth and initiation through trainings with Animas Valley Institute, Haven Institute, Wilderness Awareness School, and over a decade of study with Martín Prechtel. Her work is deeply informed by the time she spent in Alberta collaborating with Blackfoot and Métis elders as a part of the Rediscovery Initiative. She has held the role of senior guide and director at nature-based organizations across Western Canada. Stephanie is dedicated to uncovering the vestiges of intact cultural origins within the body of old European mythologies. Drawing from the wellspring of these old mythologies, she seeks to uncover the hidden pathways that lead us to our cultural origins—reviving traditions long forgotten and holding space for the rehydration of ancestral wisdom.Find her at www.stephaniemackay.ca and facebook.com/MythologyCultureRememberedOUR CONVERSATIONFirst questions to savor when you first receive a story: Where do you place yourself in this story? What image stands out for you? Can we meet the story from a place of soul?This story is connected to a Celtic story from the Isle of Skye, “The Cup of Healing.” The Narts are connected to the Celtic peoples through Indo-European migration.The contrast of working with myth for the purpose of psychological insight, compared to the more ancient, animist, land-based understandings of the storiesThe power of romance in the creation of the world. In this story, she is water goddess, he is a warrior of the land.John Colarusso, translator of the Nart SagasStephanie’s work with First Nations elders of the Haida, Blackfoot, Métis. Her need to look to her own ancestral origins to feed her own land based work on on the land of the Sneneymuxw, Gabriola Island.The discomfort and aliveness that comes with reckoning with the stories of the lands you live upon as a descendant of settlersWe might read this story as the old “hero selects a woman” narrative, but it’s ultimately a story about the marriage of the land and the sea and the creation of the Nart people.This story is an initiation story for all, not just a singular hero’s tale. Everyone has a magnificence and a royalty of the soul (Martín Prechtel)/How to become receptive to story rather than a consumer or a decoder of story.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next mythically inspired online writing retreat on June 25!Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOUR STORYThink you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood?Think again. Katrice Horsley offers a wholly original take on this classic tale. It’s a coming of age narrative that invites us all to come into relationship with the wildest parts of ourselves.OUR GUESTKatrice grew up in the slums of Birmingham. Whilst her family were poor in the pocket, they were rich in the mouth and this laid the foundation for her love of words and stories. In her early years she struggled to be understood due to a speech problem and this resulted in her becoming a selective mute - in fact she did not speak in school until she was about 8 years old and her teachers judged her to be 'educationally sub-normal.' She went on to become the UK's National Storytelling Laureate and an internationally known narrative consultant and performer. Katrice believes that this was not, 'in spite' of her childhood but because of it. She is passionate about the power of story in enabling people to know that their voice deserves to be heard and their story deserves to be told.Website - www.narrative4change.com Substack The Wildling's Path https://katrice.substack.com/This story was crafted as an homage to the late British writer Angela CarterKatrice’s key themes: duty, desire, and death. Inhabiting the liminal space between the feral and the acceptable, she questions what is allowed by the dominant narrative and explores what within the individual nature that needs an outlet.The myth of separation, at cultural and personal levelThe desire to make menstruation and what it means into something beautiful Biomimicry: “a practice that learns from and mimics the strategies used by living organisms to solve challenges comparable to the ones we face as individuals and societies.” Katrice recommends this interview with Janine Benyus on biomimicry. On Katrice’s TBR list: To Have Or to Hold by Sophie PavelleKatrice’s newest project “Mythcilium” explores how myths work as the mycorrhizal networks that connect humanityOral storytelling is action driven while written storytelling is character driven.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next mythically inspired online writing retreat on June 25!Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOUR STORYAs part of our Myth Workers and Culture Makers series, the artist Rónán Ó Raghallaigh takes us on a tour of the landscape and storyscape of his native County Kildare and neighboring County Wicklow. This area was home to Fionn mac Cumhaill (AKA Finn McCool) and his legendary band of warriors, the Fianna.OUR GUESTRónán Ó Raghallaigh is an artist and researcher who received an MFA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 2021. He has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in Ireland and internationally.Working through painting and performance, Rónán’s practice engages with pre-Christian Ireland as a means for contemporary postcolonial action. He visits sacred sites and researches their archaeology, history and folklore, providing a spring for new work. Paintings are made in the studio, while performances on site are filmed or live. He is re-learning the Irish language, and uses it during performances, for work-titles and in written texts interwoven with English and his vernacular dialect.Rónán’s work is a constant act of remembering and cultivating alternative ways of being in response to colonialism, Christianity and industry. Storytelling and ritual become a practice for befriending our environment, considering identity and encouraging healing.Find Rónán on Instagram: @ronan.o.raghallaigh and at ronanoraghallaigh.comOUR CONVERSATIONRónán’s approaching to creative visionary art work includes accessing the consciousness through channeling and trance work. It’s a form of DIY spirituality and decolonization work.Logainmneacha: Irish placenamesThe power of well-visited sacred sites where others are also engaging with spiritual work, and also being with folks who are simply out enjoying a beautiful dayThe research and revival of imbas forosnai and other druidic practices to access inspirationThe power of naming. In 1972 Brian O'Doherty staged a performance called Name Change, in which he changed his name to “Patrick Ireland” in protest of Bloody Sunday in Derry.The role of ritual, and Rónán’s performance art piece: Bealtaine BaptismAmergin’s Song with its proclamations of “I am” as a form of pre-Christian prayer.A recent performance art piece An Tobar agus an Chloch Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next mythically inspired online writing retreat on June 25! Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is MedicineOur StoryWhat if the first day of summer arrived with the icy grip of the Ice Age? Join one man on his quest for truth as he seeks answers from Ireland’s animist wisdom keepers—encountering Eagle, Otter, and Salmon along the way.Inspired by an account shared in Gearóid Ó Crualaoich’s The Book of the Cailleach: Stories of the Wise-Woman Healer, this story reimagines the tale of The Cailleach Bhéarrathach and the cold of May-Day Monday. Our GuestAs KnotWork’s 2025 resident storyteller, Erica O’Reilly is devoted to facilitating experiences where souls feel seen, held, and heard. She believes deeply in wisdom of the human body and spirit; as well as the powerful medicine of storytelling.Over the years, in coming home to the bones of her Irish ancestry, Erica has discovered that her dán [soul work] is interlaced within the sacred embrace of the Irish Mná Feasa (the Wise Women), the Mná Leighas (the Medicine Women), the Mná Chaointe (the Keening Women), and the Áes Dána (People of the Arts).As the Creative Visionary of Into the Circle Theatre, Erica is dedicated to reverently honoring the tradition of the seanchaí in a modern context. Through the weaving of Irish culture, history, folklore, and mythology, Into the Circle Theatre shares the hallowed tales of women remembering and reclaiming the wisdom of their bodies and the magic of their spirits.As an Irish-Canadian, Erica remains profoundly grateful to the traditional spirits and keepers of the land—past, present, and future—of the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation, where she was born and currently resides. Míle buíochas for the opportunity to live, create, share stories, and walk alongside you.Find Erica: Weavings of the Wise & Embodied [Substack], Instagram or her website.Subscribe now and mark your calendars for the Sunday after Bealtaine.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next members only Myth Workers' Salon on May 4 at 11 AM ET (via Zoom).Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYOn the eve of the festival of Bealtaine (Beltane), three sovereignty goddesses watch a fleet approach Ireland’s eastern shore. The new arrivals were the Sons of Mil, the first of the Gaels. Their coming would unseat the race of gods known as the Tuatha Dé Danann and change… everything. The goddesses knew this, and welcomed them in anyway.This truly is a Bealtaine tale: according to the Irish Annals the Sons of Mil arrive in Ireland on the eve of the festival:  Thursday, April 30 1699 BCE.This story is inspired by the final wave of migration described in Ireland’s Book of Invasions. Brian Walsh told his version, The Coming of the Sons of Mil, on the podcast last year (S5 Ep3). Marisa’s retelling gives us the story from the women’s perspective.This truly is a Bealtaine tale: according to the Irish Annals the Sons of Mil arrive in Ireland on the eve of the festival:  Thursday, April 30 1699 BCE.Want to dive deeper into this story? Join us for the next Myth Workers’ Salon via Zoom on May 4 at 11 AM ET. This open conversation is for folks who support the podcast through paid subscriptions to the Myth is Medicine newsletter over on Substack. Subscribe now and mark your calendars for the Sunday after Bealtaine.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next members only Myth Workers' Salon on May 4 at 11 AM ET (via Zoom).Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYThe tale of Etain and Midir is one of the great love stories of Irish mythology, and our guest Amanda Verdery brings it to the podcast just in time for Bealtaine, the springtime festival that celebrates new life  and fertility.OUR GUESTAmanda Verdery is a writer, certified shamanic practitioner, and initiated medicine woman in her Celtic ancestral traditions. A second-generation Scottish American with Irish, English and French ancestry, most of her learning hails from the Scottish & Irish mythic and mystical paths. She is devoted to helping women in particular remember and embody their dán— their soul's gift and calling. In 2022, she founded the Wild Becoming Sanctuary, a modern mystery school guiding deep & holy women of all kinds into communion with their power and capacity for self-healing. Join her in the Wild Becoming Sanctuary.She also offers 1:1 guidance to those undergoing a holy rite of passage in their lives, in her Wild Becoming Immersion. All of her work is led by the Path of the Goddess and the circle-wisdom of the Wheel of the Year. Find Amanda at www.wild-becoming.com, on Instagram @wild_becoming , and on her Substack newsletter Wild Becoming: OUR CONVERSATIONThe power of initiation and choice, particularly in women’s lives right nowThe way we look to myth for psychological insights, but also seek to understand our connection to the more-than-human world.Seeking your soul’s true name, your dánThe Claddagh ring, the hands, crown, and heart - friendship, loyalty, and love.At one point, Etain is turned into a puddle of water. What does this teach us about our romance with water and our own essence? Water as the ultimate model for shapeshifting.True love is a great threat to the patriarchy. Want to keep exploring ideas like these? Join us for the next Myth Workers’ Salon via Zoom on May 4 at 11 AM ET. This open conversation is for folks who support the podcast through paid subscriptions to the Myth is Medicine newsletter over on Substack. Subscribe now and mark your calendars for the Sunday after Bealtaine.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next members only Myth Workers' Salon happening on Zoom on May 4 at 11 AM ET.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYThis is the story of Macha, a goddess, a fairy woman, a woman of the Sidhe, who took a human lover for a year. This story, and Macha's race against the king's horses, sets the stage for the greatest epic in Irish mythology, the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Marisa returns to this story which she originally shared in 2022 and looks at it through the lens of a “post Roe world,” in which the right to abortion and reproductive freedom is no longer part of life for all Americans.She explores the many ways in which we also live in a post-privacy world, and how this influences everything from romantic to parent-child relationships.Want to keep exploring ideas like these? Join us for the next Myth Workers’ Salon via Zoom on May 4 at 11 AM ET. This open conversation is for folks who support the podcast through paid subscriptions to the Myth is Medicine newsletter over on Substack. Subscribe now and mark your calendars for the Sunday after Bealtaine.https://mythismedicine.substack.com/ Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next members only Myth Workers' Salon.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYThe old myth is well known: King Lir’s four children are turned into swans by their jealous stepmother Aoife. This retelling brings us deep into the motivations and nuances of an old Indo-European story that came to Ireland with the Normans in the 12th century.OUR GUESTEllen is currently a member of the Council of Europe's Expert Group on Violence Against Women. She is a qualified psychotherapist and group analyst. She was CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre from 2006-2016.  She gained a wealth of experience in lobbying government, designing and commissioning research studies and overseeing and publicly presenting national awareness campaigns about sexual violence, including the highly successful #AskConsent campaign.Her interest in Mythology grew out of her work as a Jungian Psychotherapist, especially her dream analysis work with clients.For 30 years she and her husband Sandy Dunlop (S5 Ep6) have organized and run the Bard Summer School on Clare Island Co. Mayo where with the group of participants,  they explore the  contemporary relevance of one of the wonderful Irish Myths. Ellen is also Guardian Chieftain of the O'Malley Clan.Find out more about Ellen on Instagram @‌bardmythologies and https://bardmythologies.com/OUR CONVERSATIONFolks tend to recall this story as being lovely - "oh, the swans!" - but it’s really about abuse of power, abuse of children, and abuse of womenEllen’s translation work with Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, professor of Irish folklore at University College DublinTransforming the archetype of the “evil stepmother” and looking at all the archetypes present in this story.Her work as a Jungian psychotherapist who worked with clients’ dreams, which often called on mythic figuresThe Children of Lir sculpture by Oisín Kelly in the Garden of Remembrance, created to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1916 rising in Parnell Square GardenThe Magdalene Laundries, 1922 - 1996, where women were incarcerated for anything from perceived promiscuity to being considered a burden on their families or the State“There was no sex in Ireland until the Late Late Show”: the late night talk show hosted by Gay Byrne played a role in transforming Irish culture. The change within Ireland that came with Marriage Equality and Abortion Referendums. Ellen’s ancestor, the story of Grace O’Malley taught her that she could do whatever a man could do. Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next members only Myth Workers' Salon.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYThe Irish goddess Boan has a sacred thirst for knowledge, and she is ready to claim her share. This classic story includes the sacred well with its salmon and hazelnuts, the good god Dadga and Aengus, the god of love, as well as the creation of the River Boyne and the Milky Way.OUR GUESTAli Isaac lives in Ireland with her husband, two sons, and daughter, Carys. She graduated from Maynooth University as a (very) mature student in 2019 with a degree in English and History, with a Special Interest in Irish Cultural Heritage and followed this with a Master of Arts degree in English Literatures of Engagement. BC (before children) Ali worked in retail management, with a short spell in the military. AD (after degrees) she worked as an education officer in her local county museum. But at heart, Ali is a writer. She has been blogging about Irish mythology since 2012, and now is the founder of H A G on Substack, a newsletter that braids female senescence with landscape - natural, archaeological, and mythical.Her writing has been published in Irish literary journals, The Stinging Fly, Sonder, Paper Lanterns, and Catatonic Daughters. In 2020, she was awarded a mentorship with author Sara Baume by Words Ireland in conjunction with The Arts Council of Ireland. In 2021, she was the recipient of a Literature Bursary Award from The Arts Council of Ireland.Her first book, Imperfect Bodies, will be published by Héloïse Press in March 2026.Fing Ali: H A G on Substack and on InstagramOUR CONVERSATIONAli has long been concerned with the way society seeks to control women, and she has a sense that “it’s all happening again,” particularly regarding the controversy over the removal of information about women’s contribution to STEM from the NASA website. At the same time, women are rising up and coming together, which is clear in the emergence of Brigid energy.The ravages of toxic masculinity and the craving for the beautiful care that is also part of the masculine. The power of Dagda’s love, and the way in which he was protective of women, holder of the cauldron Our past Bóinn stories by Laura Murphy Bóinn Re:membered and Brigid: Rebirth of the MotherA sense in Ireland that people want to move forward rather than look back. To many, the myths seem irrelevant, but that’s just further proof that we need to bring the stories back to the light.Boan is sometimes considered Ireland’s Eve because she reached for forbidden knowledge, but this story would have been told before Christianity came to Ireland. Her desire is older than that tree in Eden.The various elements that came together to inform Ali’s story of Boan including her thoughts about women’s power, as well as the willows and the waters of County Cavan.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next members only Myth Workers' Salon.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYThis week, another episode in our Myth Workers & Culture Makers series featuring an invocation of the divine feminine energy within all of us. Saoirse Connolly offers a blend of Irish language, Irish goddesses, and universal wisdom in service to the ancestors.OUR GUESTSaoirse Connolly is founder and CEO of House of Wild Publishing and the Rebel Ma Rising movement. Saoirse is a two time international bestselling author and publisher, women’s empowerment mentor, international facilitator, voice activator and dream liberator for revolutionary women here to change the world through their soul-led missions. Made in Dublin, Ireland she now lives in Bali, Indonesia with her twin flame Darragh and two kids Fiadh and Bodhi. You can also work with her 1:1 in her Liberated Woman mentorship program or come play at her annual Her Wild Feminine Leadership Retreat in Bali this July 31st to August 4th 2025. Applications are now open to contribute a chapter in the third edition of her bestselling anthology book and collective healing project Rebel Ma - Leading in the Time of the Feminine - Women's Stories of Revolution - publishing in July 2025 with divine feminine art by the legendary Irish artist Dee Mulrooney. Instagram: @sessionswithsaoirse or @rebelmarising, Substack, and at rebelmarising.comOUR CONVERSATIONThe way that goddesses associated with specific parts of the Irish landscape connect people from around the globeSaoirse’s own story of being born in Ireland, traveling to live in Australia and Bali, and how her travels have enabled her to come into relationship with her own culture in profound ways.Claiming our rites of passage as women. Her own journey through her days as a maiden, partying and caught up in corporate life, to becoming a mother and stepping into being of service in a new way. What happens when we remember we have thousands of ancestors rooting for usFollowing the yogic tradition, but seeking deities who were from her own lineageThe powerful influence of Jen Murphy’s work (hear her most recent KnotWork episode Fite Fuaite)Áine Tyrell, an Irish singer songwriter who has devoted herself to the indigenous people of AustrailaMother wisdom needs to rise up within all of us, regardless of gender, regardless of whether one has birthed children. The need for care in all ways right now. Rebel Ma and Saoirse anthology projects exist to uplift all women, but especially marginalized voices“You don’t want to die with the dance still in you”Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Get the stories behind each episode and stay connected between seasons.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYIn time for the spring equinox, a story of the gods and goddess of Ireland, Tuatha De Danann and their land of eternal youth, Tír na nÓg. We meet the Cailleach who is marked by curiosity and a craving for change. For a time, she finds herself in a world where there is cold and death and grief. Looking for a story of Saint Patrick on March 17? Check out S1 Ep8, The Unlikely Friendship of St Patrick and Oisín.OUR GUESTNicole Marie is a ritual storyteller and facilitator in the United States and Europe. She learned the art of storytelling through her years in film and theatre and spending time on the mythic landscapes of Ireland and Norway. She was part of the ritual team of Lucid Dance in Berlin Germany where they curated ritual performances for the Wheel of the Year and led ceremonies for collective and personal transformations. Nicole is currently working at the Wilderness Awareness School where they teach nature connection to both youth and adults and she offers many rites of passage storytelling circles for the programs and community. Check out Nicole’s Embodied Storytellers PodcastOUR CONVERSATIONThe power of relating myth to our own individual journey. What it means to feel your own internal Samhain (autumn/winter) even when the rest of the world might be wrapped in spring or summer. Nicole’s story of being in Ireland for the first Brigid’s holiday, surrounded by fiery, vivacious women, but she was in a different place, physically and energetically. Storytellers get their inspiration from everywhere - the land, personal story, the season of the year, academic sources, translations of the manuscripts, and contemporary creative work. Nicole’s story was inspired by Ellen Ryan’s Girls Who Slay Monsters Daring Tales of Ireland's Forgotten GoddessesThe complicated figure that is Patrick - he outlawed imbas forosnai, the druidic practice of connecting with the “inspiration that illuminates” and, he also gave us the beautiful nature poem, “The Deer’s Cry”  (also known as St Patrick’s Breastplate)Looking at masculine myths that need to be healed.The yearning to belong, and seeking cultural identity as a white American. Martin Shaw episode of Jawbone, HOW A STORYTELLER’S MADE: The Salmon, The Crocodile & The Selkie Sophie Strand’s new book, The Body Is a Doorway, a memoir about her own chronic illnessA closing ritual, and an invocation of the season, rooted in this story, calling on the elements of water and fireMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Get the stories behind each episode and stay connected between seasons.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYDid Saint Patrick have a wife? Irish folklore of the 18th and 19th centuries declared he did. Sheelah was celebrated on March 18, the day after Saint Paddy's Day.KnotWork host Marisa Goudy imagines a one-sided bedtime conversation between the couple. The story also weaves in two other women of the Celtic Otherworld - Cailleach and Sheela Na Gig.We released this story last year to offer an alternative narrative for Saint Patrick’s Day. This year, we ask this story to speak to International Women’s Day. In 2025, it feels as if we need to mark a day that focuses attention on the unique needs of women, girls, and femmes as much as we ever have.And, that means that we also need symbols that inspire and empower us to claim and protect more than 50% of the population. We need to source our energy in divine feminine power - like that of the mysterious Sheela Na Gig.Who is Sheela Na Gig? We don’t really know, but hundreds of sculptures of a figure with a skeletal head holding her vulva open wide were set into the walls of churches and castles. Some claim she was apotropaic (intended to ward off evil spirits). Others decided she was a fertility charm. Now we see a sacred symbol of the twinned nature of death and rebirth.Special thanks to past guest Dee Mulrooney whose Instagram post “Free Síle” inspired me to return to this story. You’ll also hear a clip from future KnotWork episode with Ali Isaac.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Get the stories behind each episode and stay connected between seasons.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYSaoirse has lost everything except for her dog, Bear. As they wander through The Burren of County Clare, a rainstorm hits and they seek shelter in the caves.  Along their journey, they meet Macha, the Morrigan, Brigid, and the Cailleach. Originally told at the Ottawa Fringe Festival in 2023, Erica’s story invites listeners to remember the wisdom of the body, the power of the voice, and the magic of the spirit.OUR GUESTErica O’Reilly is KnotWork’s 2025 “Storyteller in Residence.” She’ll join us regularly with tales from her extensive repertoire.A sacred storyteller, spiritual counsellor, Depth Hypnosis practitioner, and ordained minister (through the Sacred Stream Foundation; in Berkeley, California), Erica is dedicated to creating spaces where souls feel seen, held, and heard.  She believes deeply in the wisdom of the human body and spirit; and the powerful medicine of storytelling. Erica’s Into the Circle Theatre project honors the tradition of the seanchaí in a modern context.  Through the inspirations and weaving of Irish culture, history, folklore, and mythology, Into the Circle Theatre shares hallowed tales of women, focusing on the reclamation of their embodied wisdom and sovereign power. She also shares her creative voice regularly on her Substack, Weavings of the Wise & Embodied. Subscribe to her newsletter to follow her current work in progress, De thír mo mháithreacha: Of the Land of my Mothers.OUR CONVERSATIONA story about both safety and freedom. The heroine’s name, Saoirse, means freedom in Irish. The heroine's journey is one of reclamation and remembering.Seeing with what previous KnotWork guest Jen Murphy calls “the otherworldly eye”Allowing stories to work you over time before you tell it. Tad Hargrave, in his Substack, On Culture Making, talks about courting stories.An experience telling this story at the Ottawa Fringe Festival in 2023 that speaks to how interpret women’s rage in this culture.An exploration of the four goddesses who appear in this story: Macha, Morrigan, Brigid, and the CailleachMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Find more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

OUR STORYThe story of a wild and wonderful girl named Bid, who was born of a long, powerful line of Brigids. Love, loss, and magic all woven together that becomes a song of Ireland itself. Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Get the stories behind each episode and stay connected between seasons.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR GUESTA self-described lapsed botanist, Fiona Doris is a mythologist and a storyteller. She is a member of the Bard Mythologies team, acting as a storyteller and facilitator since 2020. Find Fiona on BlueSky: @fionadoris.bsky.socialOUR CONVERSATION In these dark times, we’re looking for answers, but it’s all there in the stories. It’s just a matter of remembering and telling them, not just in Ireland, but across cultures. The answers are in the land, when we connect to our roots.Cré na Cille by Máirtín Ó Cadhain, translated as Graveyard Clay - a 1949 novel that captures conversation between a number of the newly deadFiona’s story of discovering her father was a fluent Gaeilgeoir (Irish speaker)Botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s work, To Speak for the Trees, the last to receive druidic trainingThe beauty of orality, and the tricky dance with written culture. The grandmother in the story, Biddy O’Leary embodied three great expressions of Irish women’s culture and magic: bean feasa, the wise woman; bean ghlúine, the handy woman or midwife; and bean chaointe, the keener.Fiona’s dream: revive the tradition of collecting folklore, as they did with the 1930s Schools’ Collection, and gather stories from every generationPeople are storied. The stories have always been there, and we mine them. The work is to get out of the way of the story, acting as a midwife.  Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about our global creative community, The Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write with us!Join the Authors’ Knot ProgramMarisa is leading an intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”There are just two seats left! Registration closes February 10, 2025. Learn more about the Authors’ Knot.OUR STORYDee Mulrooney tells an original story based on her own mother’s childhood in Dublin in the late 1940s. OUR GUESTBased in Berlin, Dee Mulrooney weaves a rich tapestry of experiences, emotions, and insights into her creative practice. Rooted in the complexities of inhabiting a female body, her work emerges from the profound influences of her upbringing as a working-class Irish woman in the patriarchal, misogynistic landscape of 1970s Catholic Ireland. Her background profoundly shapes her identity and informs her artistic journey, where she fluidly navigates drawing, painting, writing, performing, filmmaking, and music.Through her alter ego, Growler—a vibrant, full-body vulva costume—she channels the voices of women past, transforming pain into powerful storytelling and performance. A nod to her ancestors. Growler embodies the spirit of resilience, connecting generations and facilitating healing.With over two decades of experience as an educator, Dee champions community and empowerment, drawing inspiration from celebrated artists and the potent power of women's narratives. OUR CONVERSATIONA story about childhood based on a true story that speaks to all of us. Dee is the granddaughter of two midwives who also served as “death doulas.” Dee’s own art continues to explore these themes. Homosexuality was illegal in Ireland until 1993, and it would have been notable and even dangerous for “Uncle Billy” to come home from London with his partner in the 1940s. The pressure to have so many children “for Ireland” in de Valera’s Ireland in the midst of so much abuse and secrets. At the same time, women were coping with Infant mortality and the spectre of the Mother and Baby homes.This culture was captured in Small Things Like These, the book by Claire Keegan and the film with Cillian Murphy.Ownership and belonging in the sacred sense rather than the materialist senseBeginning in the 1930, the Irish social welfare system guaranteed a home - security of tenure - for all people, which would have transformed people’s lives, particularly for working class women. This changed within a generation, and the current housing crisis in Ireland is the worst it has ever been. Dee’s family lost their home in Dublin and she and her family emigrated to Berlin where collective housing arrangements are part of the culture. Issues of housing are connected to ancestral trauma, particularly the famine and evictions. Accepting and working with the grief that’s part of the experience diaspora. Time seems to stand still after you leave a place and the diaspora plays a vital role in preserving culture.We recorded this conversation on Nollaig na mBán, “women’s Christmas” which Dee celebrated by making a drawing for her mother-in-law based on a 1913 photograph of a young Galway woman who put on traditional garb for the picture.Something Dee brings through with her Growler work: “No one on this planet can claim ‘clean ancestry.’” We’re here to stand on the shoulders of ancestors, including the murderers and the genocidal maniacs.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write with us!Join the Authors’ Knot ProgramMarisa is leading an intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”There are just two seats left! Registration closes February 10, 2025. Learn more about the Authors’ Knot. THIS EPISODEIn this Myth Workers and Culture Makers episode, we begin with a song. Our guest, Amano, offers “Cuireadh Scéine (The Invitation of the Skane),” a song she wrote in response to a visit to the River Skane, a tributary of the River Boyne, in Co. Meath.OUR GUESTAmano is a songwriter, vocalist, poet, and performing artist from Killarney, Co. Kerry. She works bilingually in Irish and English to explore themes of changing identities, cultural fluidity, language(s) and animist ecologies across a range of genres including folk, pop, sean-nós, electronic and spoken word. In summer 2024 Amano released THREAD, a collaborative Irish music project with Cork-producer Kalabanx. Songs from the record including HEART (featuring Liam Ó Maonlaí) have been played on BBC Radio Ulster, RTÉ Radio 1 and Raidió na Gaeltachta.Amano has performed at festivals and venues across Ireland since returning to the music scene in 2023 including Electric Picnic, Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, and Brigid 1500 Festival. She is currently supported by the Arts Council in developing her practice in the sean-nós singing tradition. Her next solo single, Burn, is set for release on February 19, 2025. Presave the song now.Find her at: https://amanoanseo.com, and @amanoanseo on Instagram, Substack, and TikTok.OUR CONVERSATIONAmano’s journey, from academia and a future career in heritage museums, back to the music and language of childhood Blas: the Irish word for taste that also relates to your connection to the language and means something like “rooted sound”Questions about whether we need to be “pure” when it comes to how we use and blend language. What gets lost in standardization, and what gets lost when we try to be too precise?Sean nós or “old way” - a phrase first used in the 1940s to refer to particular types of Irish song and dance.The desire to name things that we revere as “ancient,” and knowing when it’s appropriate and not appropriate to use that term.“Complicated normalcy” is new in Ireland. As someone with Japanese and Irish heritage, Amano speaks to the experience of children who have origins and stories that don’t comply with the “typical”  Irish experience.Amano’s experience of embodying the Cailleach in a series of street performances - the way the crone goddess calls us to embrace simplicity, and into relationship with plants, animals, the elements.Seeing Brigid as “task master and the goddess of fire.” Amano sees her as the perfect figure to look to when you’re worried about how your work will be perceived. Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Write with us!Join the Authors’ Knot ProgramMarisa is leading an intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.” There are just two seats left! Registration closes February 10, 2025.OUR JOURNEYThe season opens with an episode from our Myth Workers & Culture Makers series. Rather than telling a story of Brigid, Treacy O’Connor takes us on a meditative journey to feel the presence of Ireland’s mother goddess and matron saint.OUR GUESTTreacy O’Connor  is an ordained OneSpirit Interfaith Minister, guardian of Ireland's ancient ancestral wisdom, Mindfulness and Meditation teacher & Co-Founder and CEO of Creating Wellness. Her mission is to inspire and empower a return to right relationship with the self, others, the planet and the cosmos – connecting the dots through the passage of the heart. Treacy initiated a campaign to honour Brigid with a public holiday in Ireland which was inaugurated in 2023 and she was honoured by her local town with a Balbriggan Town Award, for illuminating the hearts and minds of the 24,000 residents with a Brigid Procession of Light in 2024.Brigid continues to inspire and surprise Treacy with invitations to be an expression for connection with her qualities, in many different ways. One of those invitations is taking the form of a 6 day retreat.  Restoring the Heart of Brigid, a magical  pilgrimage and retreat to be held in Ireland  May 31st to June 6th 2025, will be guided by Treacy O’Connor in collaboration with Carmela Fleury and LeeYen Anderson:  https://www.leeyenanderson.com/heart-of-brigidFollow Treacy on Substack, Instagram, or Facebook.  OUR CONVERSATIONThe emergence of Brigid into the popular consciousness over the last several years, and what it means to introduce her as not only an historical figure, but as a spiritual presence.Brigid’s Day, now a national holiday in Ireland, started with a petition in 2019 and was made a reality in 2023.Treacy’s story of being called to the very diverse town of Balbriggan, or Baile Brigín - the “Village Little Brigid” and what it was like to create a festival, including an intimate fire procession at ImbolcBrigid’s connection to both fire and water. These elements temper and bring one another into balanceHow Brigid’s energy emerges in everyone. A story of how Maud Gonne, Irish actor and revolutionary, exemplified Brigid energy.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Join One of Our Group Writing Programs in 2025!The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2025An intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”The Writers’ Knot Community, January - June 2025A creativity incubator for writers seeking camaraderie and connection. Mythic imagination meets creative expression in this long-running global writing community.Our StoryThe goddess Brigid is known to be a daughter of Dagda, “the Good God.” But who was her mother?Laura Murphy tells her own story of Brigid’s birth at Newgrange. The child comes from the milky way, the way of her mother, the goddess Bóinn. (Laura offered us Bóinn’s story in Season 2, Episode 7.)Our GuestLaura is a poet, activist, and healer. She is a passionate campaigner for Ireland’s Mother and Baby home survivors and other issues surrounding equality, environmental and social healing including the recent successful campaign to make Brigid’s Day a national public holiday in Ireland (February 3, 2025!)Watch the “Is Mise” Lightshow, Brigid’s Day in Kildare 2022.Follow Laura on Instagram.Our ConversationThe first time Brigid is recognized with a national holiday February 1, 2023, a green comet crossed the skiesArtists who are with us in the conversation, Caitlin Matthews and Dee Mulrooney. See the images on Myth Is Medicine.Power of the sacred twelve and thirteen, and yet Brigid’s sacred number is 19 (the sisters who held the sacred flame in Kildare).The significance of the cygnus constellation in this story and in Laura and Marisa’s storiesDagda: sacred masculine as midwife. Echoes of a KnotWork episode with Perdita Finn, who describes Joseph as midwife to Mary. Brigid and Mary in Celtic Christianity, which was close to the Essene tradition. Kate Chadbourne in Season 1, Episode 1, the story of Brigid as best friend to Mary, creating a diversion with the flaming harrow on the day that Mary was nervous about being “churched” after childbirth.Imbas forosnai, the energy of creation, as well as “the inspiration that illuminates” and the power of prophecy and speaking things into creation.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Join One of Our Group Writing Programs in 2025!The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2025An intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”The Writers’ Knot Community, January - June 2025A creativity incubator for writers seeking camaraderie and connection. Mythic imagination meets creative expression in this long-running global writing community.Our StoryIreland doesn’t have a creation story, but it does have Lebor Gabála Érenn, the Book of Invasions. The first "invasion" was led by Cessair, a granddaughter of Noah who took her own boat to Ireland to avoid that great Biblical flood.Our GuestCarmen Schreffler is a marketing consultant who works with purpose-driven entrepreneurs. She gives entrepreneurs the tools to cultivate rich and diverse ecosystems where they can thrive. She believes in connecting with your natural gifts—intuition, curiosity, and discernment—to guide the creation of a sustainable business that meets your needs and goals. Join Carmen on Substack for inspiration on weaving the threads of your life and business into a thriving ecosystem: https://wildpreneur.substack.com/Instagram @carmenschreffler Our Conversation This conversation was recorded in March, 2023.What stories get told and passed on. What makes a myth “real”? Who are the “winners of culture”? Which parts of civilization, culture are we meant to rewrite and rewild? Rather than tearing down the master’s house, what if we are meant to build a new boat? Is technology, including artificial intelligence “the next flood”?What’s the source of this story? Scholars say it was conceived to further Ireland’s desire to establish Christianity and a Biblical pedigree, but the myth may have been rooted into something much older: an older goddess or memory of the floods that would have come with the end of the last ice age. The power of sharing your unique story and art and bringing it through your unique lens in this age of ChatGPT and AI, as entrepreneurs and creatives.The work of Mary Reynolds, a “recovering landscape designer,” and author of We Are the Ark. Her work of Acts of Restorative Kindness in order to live in relationship with the earth.Article in the New Yorker, The End of the English Major: liberal arts as a way into so many different ways of knowing.Carmen’s guiding principle, a quote from Yogi Amrit Desai: “We exist in perpetual creative response.” We remain open minded and open to the moment without judgment and move forward from that place.Marisa’s inventions: the reason Cessair and family were not included on the Ark and her meeting with the trinity of goddesses who gave Ireland its name: Éiru, Banba and Fódla.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Join One of Our Group Writing Programs in 2025!The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2025An intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”The Writers’ Knot Community, January - June 2025A creativity incubator for writers seeking camaraderie and connection. Mythic imagination meets creative expression in this long-running global writing community.Our StoryIona. This island in the Scottish Hebrides is only three miles long, but it's home to untold spiritual, cultural, and natural magic. In this excerpt from the spiritual memoir, The Geography of the Soul, author Royce Fitts invites us to meet the wild divine feminine energies that are embodied on this sacred land.Our GuestRoyce Fitts is a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified dream worker, with a doctorate in ministry. His book The Geography of the Soul: Dreams, Reality and the Journey of a Lifetime blends memoir, political and social consciousness, and spiritual wisdom and takes you to a hidden gem in the midst of the English countryside: the Ridgeway National Trail.Royce is a long-time writing coaching client. I have had the immense pleasure and privilege of walking alongside him throughout the writing process.Order Geography of the Soul from your favorite bookseller. The audiobook edition is now available. Download it now.Our ConversationThis book grew out of Royce’s 2016 journey: a “conscious hike” on the Ridgeway National Trail, the oldest road in England and Europe.The role of dreams in our lives and the strange, evolutionary instinct to dream. Royce describes his relationship to the Crone of Iona and what he learned about his own masculinity while held by the sacred feminine.  What is it like to embody masculine “god” energy in a healthy way? Royce invites us to have an intimate conversation with the feminine and masculine divinity within us.Royce’s lived paradox: he is a mystic, wizard, shaman in this world, but his work takes him to the heart of the US military where he is a military and family life counselorAn invocation of vitality, and why it is so important to dream and to value our dreams.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groupsFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Our StoryMarisa invites you to explore the lore of the Cailleach, the winter solstice at Newgrange, and the work of the Irish mystic philosopher John Moriarty. Plus: a new oracular practice to welcome 2025, the Twelve Rays of Solstice.Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Get the stories behind each episode and stay connected between seasons.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.A special invitation for writers & creatives: Join one of Marisa’s writing groups!The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2025An intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.”The Writers’ Knot Community, January - June 2025A creativity incubator for writers seeking camaraderie and connection.  Mythic imagination meets creative expression in this long-running global writing community.In this episode:Visiting Loughcrew or Slieve na Calliagh in the midst of Storm AshleyNewgrange, and how the sun penetrates the inner chamber of the 5000 year old passage tombGearóid Ó Crualaoich’s Book of the Cailleach: He associates the Cailleach with “Conflict with and displacement by Christianity”John Moriarty’s Invoking IrelandMarisa’s new practice for the year, Twelve Rays of Solstice, is a twist on the more familiar Omen Days tradition. In the twelve days stretching from December 21 to January 1, you seek out a sign each day that foretells of the year to come. Dec. 21 corresponds to January, Dec 22 to Feb. all the way to Jan 1’s offering of what December of 2025 will bringLet's share this practice together. I'll be sharing my 12 Rays over on Instagram and in my Substack NotesMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about our global creative community, The Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Get the stories behind each episode and stay connected between seasons.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.OUR STORYRab Fulton brings us “a healing story” with its roots in 19th century Ireland. A stranger comes to northern Galway, and he doesn’t know how to be with the land or honor the stories and traditions of this new land. Thanks to a foolish choice, and a bit of magic, the man eventually becomes an integral part of the community.OUR GUESTRab Fulton is a Galway-based Scottish/Irish storyteller, author, and educator. Along with with Kerry Graham, Rab is the host of The Celtic Tales Chronicles podcast. His books include West of Ireland Folk Tales for Children and Galway Bay Folk Tales.You can find Rab telling stories upstairs in the Crane Bar in Galway’s West End  every Thursday evening. Get your tickets in advance - they often sell out!Follow Rab on instagram @celtictalesgalway for details on upcoming events, including the storytelling project 'Growing With Stories' with Amelia Perez. Find more about Rab on LinkedIn and at www.celtictalesgalway.comOUR CONVERSATIONRab tells a 200 year old story that speaks to our 21st century questions: How we deal with our anger? What’s possible when we commit to resolving our conflicts? How do we welcome the stranger and how do we honor traditions when we come to new places?What the new immigrants to Ireland bring to this land and how we weave new people into the Irish narrative.The burdens of single definitions of what nationalities are - we contain multitudes. Neither Scottish nor Irish society have ever been homogeneous.  Galway, a port city that was essentially an English city, was a very diverse city, and that diversity still carries on today.Rab’s many years of storytelling at the Crane Bar and some insight into being a working storyteller.Growing up in Glasgow in a working class family with a duality of language speaking Scots, a cousin of English sometimes called “bad English.” The only Scottish history Rab was told was about the land clearances, an act of ethnic cleansing, and it was framed as a good economic practice.  Why do we tell stories? Never underestimate the power of sheer pleasure! It’s as important to be a story listener as it is to be a storyteller.Check out the KWS episode featuring another Scottish storyteller Katy Swift: Bride and the Cailleach, S3 Ep 10 Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about our global creative community, The Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Get the stories behind each episode and stay connected between seasons.Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine.IN THIS EPISODE In this episode, Irish songcarrier Sionnáin offers an ode to the Cailleach called “The Wise One.” This is the second installment in our Myth Workers & Culture Makers series and includes a deep, powerful conversation about ancient tradition and living lore. OUR GUESTSionnáin is a singer, songwriter & musician from the West of Ireland. Her path has guided her into gathering both traditional and channeled songs from the landscape of Éire.She lives and breathes the sounds of the land, offering them up as prayers, woven with raw edges, soundscapes and the great depths of the ancient places that shape her journey.Find her on IG at shannonsoulsounds. There, you'll find another gorgeous version of "The Wise One," including beautiful visusals. Learn about Sionnáin’s upcoming program: The Descent:Dreaming with the Cailleach & Rising with BrigidContact her at [email protected] OUR CONVERSATIONThe song, “The Wise One,” was born beside the fire at the Paps of Anu in County Kerry. The Cailleach is the wise old woman, the sacred hag, grandmother essence, and according to some traditions in Éire and Alba (Scotland), the goddess who created the land itself. Cailleach is rooted in contrast - she is strong and fierce, but also soft and nurturing.Caoineadh - the ancient Irish lament tradition (Anglicized as “keen”). The mná chaointe, keening women who would perform the ritual of grief at the wake. For more: visit Mary McLaughlin, a scholar and keeper of the wisdom of the tradition.The legacy of grief related to An tOcras Mór or An Gorta Mor, the famine or the Great Hunger.The conscious choice to open and receive the ancestors, the songs, the magicTuam: the Galway town and site of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home from 1925-1961, where the remains of 796 babies were found in a disused septic tank. Ireland’s Samhain community traditions that were about sharing and visiting, rather than the commercialized version we have today.Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWORK WITH MARISA1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about our global creative community, The Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.