Write With Us in 2024Do you want to write your own memoir or simply make more space for self-expression in the new year? Join Marisa in the Writers' Knot, our online writing community.Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons. Subscribe to our  on our Substack newsletter Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryPerdita Finn shares an excerpt from Take Back the Magic. This chapter, "The Land of the Dead," describes her first encounter with the place that she and I both call home, the Hudson Valley, the land once peopled by the Lenape and Esopus tribes.“We wouldn't fight wars if we knew that everyone on the other side had once been our child. We wouldn't kill children if we knew every child had once been our child, had once been our mother. There would be no sides.”Our GuestPerdita Finn is the co-founder, with her husband Clark Strand, of the feral fellowship The Way of the Rose, which inspired their book The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary.  Find out more about her devotion to “ecology not theology” at wayoftherose.orgPerdita’s book Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World is an intimate journey through her recovery of these lost ways. She speaks widely on how to collaborate with those on the other side, on the urgent necessity of a new romantic animism, and on the sobriety that emerges when we claim the long story of our souls. Find more at her work at takebackthemagic.comOur Conversation“Paperfold places”: real places that are dream places, places you feel you’ve seen before.Who are our ancestors? Everyone. This disrupts our ideas of ancestry and lineage and feels like a radical idea when we consider colonialism and we’re cautious about cultural appropriation. Civilization as a long story of genocide and colonialism that is based on stories of good guys and bad guysCyclical living, and the sense we have all been here before. Cairns on the side of Woodstock’s Overlook mountain were placed about the same time as Newgrange in Ireland. Glenn Kreisberg and Dave Holden’s research about stone monuments created by indigenous people of the northeastern US.  The heart, a sense of belonging to land, the ancestors, and the dead. So different from the fear and fascism that are so present today.Our interrelationship with the more-than-human world reflected in the destruction of the American chestnut trees.How to nourish the seeds of the heart; a practice for the new year at the Solstice.Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.comWork With MarisaJoin the Writers' Knot online writing community - the new program begins mid-January!1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to...

Write With Us in 2024Do you want to write your own memoir or simply make more space for self-expression in the new year? Join Marisa in the Writers' Knot, our online writing community.Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons&nbsp;on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryElizabeth Cunningham reads to us from her new memoir, My Life as a Prayer. For Elizabeth, "A prayer is one who prays." This excerpt brings us to the start of her journey as a writer because, for this author, writing and prayer are always interwoven.Our GuestElizabeth Cunningham is a novelist, poet, musician, and counselor based in New York’s Hudson Valley.&nbsp; She’ll be reading to us from her multifaith memoir, My Life as a Prayer. She is the author and illustrator of The Book of Madge, a graphic novel, and the source of her best known work, the four books in The Maeve Chronicles. Her earlier novels include The Wild Mother, The Return of the Goddess, and How to Spin Gold, all of which have been recently reprinted by Monkfish Book Publishing.&nbsp;Our ConversationThis excerpt from My Life as a Prayer is a request for help, and a prayer of gratitudeElizabeth chose to write through the lens of prayer because it enabled her to write a memoir without writing about certain things at the core of her life - love affairs, children, her marriageScripture as sacred storytellingThe pressure from Elizabeth’s father to be a social worker, not to be a writer; this tension is alive for many writers who fear they should be more devoted to activismElizabeth’s “best imaginary friend forever” BIFF, Maeve, the unrepentant Celtic Magdalene, heroine of The Passion of Mary Magdalene and three other booksThe need for an incarnate goddess, and a desire for a relationship with JesusThe invitation to all people be in a uniquely passionate love affair with “God” (or whatever you call the great spirit)&nbsp;Prayer and the troublesome idea that “only god can help” when we think of suffering mothers and children in GazaFite fuaite, the Irish phrase for interwoven; the idea that something can be woven, then torn, then mended, as the Hebrew word tikkun“A way out of no way, way will open”Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy:&nbsp;billyandbeth.comWork With MarisaJoin the Writers' Knot online writing community - the new program begins mid-January!1:1 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&nbsp;writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book,&nbsp;The Sovereignty Knot:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.knotworkstorytelling.com/episode/www.marisagoudy.com" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons&nbsp;on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryDimple Dhabalia reads to us from a later section of her forthcoming book, Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self. She shares a moment of deep realization: her life’s work as a humanitarian, and specifically her career as an asylum officer, was actually a direct response to her own family’s refugee history - she just didn’t know it when she started on that path. You’ll hear a part of her uncle’s story and his expulsion from Uganda during the regime of Idi Amin, followed by a conversation about the power of story, in ancient myth, in personal narratives, and in the conflict zones of today.Our GuestDimple is the founder of Roots in the Clouds, a boutique consulting firm specializing in using the power of story to heal individual and organizational trauma and moral injury. She is also a writer, podcaster, coach, and facilitator who brings over twenty years of public service experience working at the intersection of leadership, mindful awareness, and storytelling. Her first book, Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self will be available in February 2024. Listen to her podcast, What Would Ted Lasso Do? and connect with her on social media @dimpstory across all platforms.Pre-order a copy of Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self&nbsp;Our ConversationHow intergenerational trauma and other unseen influences shape our lives.&nbsp;The role of storytelling in the workplace and how it helps heal individual trauma and company cultureWe connect story healer to story healer, the contrast of working with mythology and working with modern stories from the front lines. Story healing as “creating a ministry of presence.”&nbsp;The paradox of humanitarian work, specifically Dimple’s former work as an asylum officer; how to hold onto your humanity in the face of such profound human painAncestral healing is for us and for our entire family - Dimple is healing trauma for many generations of her familyStory Healing for global conflict, including the Truth and Reconciliation Committees in South Africa and Dimple’s work with people after the Rwandan genocide of 1994Dehumanization as part of war and equating people with animals, which perpetuates the toxicity of placing the human experience above all other aspects of the more-than-human worldThe mythology of Hinduism (though it’s not myth to many); the indigenous stories told on the show Reservation DogsOur MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy:&nbsp;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&nbsp;writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her...

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons&nbsp;on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryEleanora Amendolara shares an excerpt from her book Divine Embodiment: The Art &amp; Practice of Chumpi Illumination. We discuss Eleanora’s many trips to Peru and the origins of her pioneering approach to healing and spiritual awakening. &nbsp;Our GuestEleanora is a master healer and teacher with a thriving healing practice in Brooklyn and in Warwick, New York. As the founder of the Sacred Center Mystery School and a certified Health Kinesiology practitioner, she has been training healers and individuals on the path to spiritual awakening for more than three decades.Her signature healing system, Chumpi Illumination, weaves together the indigenous wisdom of the Andes, principles of sacred geometry, the science of muscle testing, and wisdom of the ancient mystery traditions.&nbsp;Get your copy of Divine Embodiment: The Art &amp; Practice of Divine Embodiment.Our ConversationHow Eleanora received her first set of Chumpi stones: An origin story, which includes a woman’s quest, a wise guide, the great Incan myth of Pachacuti (“the world turned upside down), all aligned with the turning of the seasons.When Eleanora would ask the paqos, the medicine women of Cusco who could teach her about the Chumpi stones, they always told her to look to the mountainsOur collaborative writing practice (I am a longtime student of the Sacred Center Mystery School, and have co-written two of Eleanora’s books).Connections across ancient cultures: Cusco as the sacred center of Peru, Uisneach as the sacred center of Ireland.Power of receiving and surrendering to a healing, rather expecting a healer to do something/produce something for you.Writing and creating from a place of “we don’t know what we don’t know.” When we can embrace uncertainty, the real mystical creation happens.What ritual with the indigenous Q’ero people really looks like (it’s not what the Western-programmed mind might expect)&nbsp;Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy:&nbsp;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&nbsp;writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book,&nbsp;The Sovereignty Knot:&nbsp;www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on&nbsp;Substack,&nbsp;Instagram, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/knotworkstorytelling" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons&nbsp;on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our Story In Ireland’s Forgotten Goddess Queen-Queen-Witch (S4 Ep7), you met Mongfind. She’s best known from her role in the story of Niall of the Nine Hostages.&nbsp;In “The Last Sovereignty Goddess” I imagine Mongfind’s divine origins and tell a story about power, sacred union, and the disruption of the balance between spirit, nature, and so-called civilization. We explore the intersection between the divine and the human and the frailties that are at the core of this story of goddesses and kings.Our GuestLaura Murphy, @everose on Instagram, is a poet, activist and healer from Ireland whose work centers around the ancientIrish poetic practice of Imbas Forosnai. She has shared a trinity of stories here on KnotWork, reweaving the tales of the Irish goddesses Bóinn, Brigid, and Danu.This time, I have asked Laura, a true soul sister, to sit with me as I weave a new story.&nbsp;Our ConversationA longtime theme in my work: how we tell goddess stories in order to tell our own human stories. While at University College Dublin, I published a paper in New Voices in Irish Criticism 4, “Dethroning the Goddess, Crowning the Woman: Eva Gore-Book and Lady Augusta Gregory’s Mythic Heroines”Channeling a story that is bigger than myself and also exactly the size of my own experienceThe power of choice and consent; the Irish tradition of the Sovereignty Goddess who chooses the king, and how that tradition was disruptedThis story explores sacred sexual union, but also the terrible first kiss&nbsp;What it is to be in relationship with our younger self and younger body, without buying into the toxicity of “anti-aging”&nbsp;Some background on the connections between the Irish and Palestinian people, including the British Israelites and attempts to excavate the sacred Hill of Tara in a quest to find the Ark of Covenant in 1900The ongoing struggle with the word and concept of “Sovereignty,” particularly with the far right’s use of the term.&nbsp;Considering relationship to ancestral land through the lens of America, a country built on the disrupted sovereignty of indigenous peoples.This Last Sovereignty Goddess story is the tale of an ending, and this feels like a “Tower moment,” the liminal space between what’s dying and being born.Join Melinda Laus's Seasons for Healing Community My dear friend Melinda Laus holds space for a grief support community that blends the healing power of nature with wise and inspired grief education. Her wisdom and compassion are soul medicine, and I highly recommend her work to anyone experiencing collective grief or personal loss. Learn more at thenatureofgrief.comOur MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy:&nbsp;billyandbeth.comWork With Marisa1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative...

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons&nbsp;on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryMeet Mongfind, the Sovereignty Goddess who appears in the Book of Lecan, a medieval Irish manuscript compiled at the turn of the fourteenth century. Her story is part of the better known tale of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the founding father of the O'Neill clan.This story was written by Marisa Goudy. It is an adaptation from the translation of the original manuscript, inspired by the interpretation of the tale by Gearóid Ó Crualaoich in The Book of the Cailleach: Stories of the Wise-Woman Healer.This story originally aired in February 2022. We’re sharing it again this week because Mongfind is closely associated with the festival of Samhain (often called the Irish holiday that inspired Halloween). Listen to this episode so you’re ready for another tale of Mongfind, The Last Sovereignty Goddess, coming next week!Our MusicMusic at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy:&nbsp;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&nbsp;writingcoachmarisa.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book,&nbsp;The Sovereignty Knot:&nbsp;www.marisagoudy.comFollow the show on&nbsp;Substack,&nbsp;Instagram, and&nbsp;Facebook.

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryFite Fuaite, the Irish for “interwoven.” Jen Murphy weaves a vast&nbsp;cloak of wisdom and culture. Less a story perhaps and more of an incantation and an invocation of the many faces of the divine feminine.The lore of the Cailleach, the sacred hag known by many names including Old Woman of Beare, gives shape to Jen’s narrative. Over a dozen goddess beings, all representing facets of the Great Mother, in this story: Brigid, Sionann, Morríghan, Anahita, Bóinn, Kali, Badb, Inanna, Mis, Sophia, Baubo, and Sheela-Na-Gig.Our GuestJen Murphy is the award-winning founder of the Celtic School of Embodiment. An anthropologist and mythologist by background, Jen is a cultural dreamer whose work is dedicated to evolving the Irish mythic feminine through scholarship, the body, and the arts, in service to these times.I highly recommend Jen’s Celtic Woman's Voyage, now offered as a self-study program: www.celticembodiment.com/self-study/voyageOur ConversationThe best way to experience this story is to release the hold of the intellectual mind and let the heart be in the flow. Jen recommends you let the story move through the body and then respond through image, either by drawing or by actively seeking the images of the story throughout your life.&nbsp;This story is inspired by words from Sinéad O’Connor and Marion Woodman and inspired by work Jen did through the Anima Mundi School.A profound question to ask: What if I was created in the image of the Great Mother? Who would that give me permission to be?James Hillman: “Our dreams are prior to our thinking.”To thrive, we need an image of the feminine and the dance of&nbsp; metaphor, not just masculine, fact, and doctrine.The need to balance scholarship and research with the emotional response and the realities of cultural dreamtime. Now, scholarship and magic are completely separate, but that wasn’t so for the ancestors.&nbsp;Our MusicMusic 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.comFind 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? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, and hear the supporter-only podcast between episodes on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryIona. This island in the Scottish Hebrides is only three miles long, but it's home to millennia of spiritual, cultural, and natural magic. This story is an excerpt from the new spiritual memoir by Royce Fitts’s, The Geography of the Soul. Royce 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.This book explores relationships between physical and spiritual landscapes, personal and collective histories, and night-time dreams and how they weave together to reveal and heal the wounds of our lifetime.Royce is a long-time writing coaching client. I have had the immense pleasure and privilege of walking alongside him throughout the writing process, all the way to now as he launches Geography of the Soul with Flint Hills Publishing.Join us for the online launch event for Geography of the Soul on October 25, 2023. I’m excited to join Royce to talk about his author journey and how we collaborated through the drafting and editing process. Register here.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,&nbsp; which he took in response to a series of great life changes that needed him to change even more.The role of dreams in our lives and the strange, evolutionary instinct to dream.&nbsp;The divine feminine is at the heart of every story in this season of KnotWork Storytelling. Royce describes his relationship to the Crone of Iona and what he learned about his own masculinity while held by the sacred feminine.&nbsp;&nbsp;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: Royce 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.Our MusicMusic 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.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StoryLilith was a goddess or a demon, depending on whose holy books or sacred folk tradition you follow. Pearl Gregor channels Lilith’s divine voice, decrying all the ways she has been misunderstood and offering us a renewed story of Lilith as the rising power of the long repressed feminine.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.&nbsp; Pearl is a farmer, grandmother, a blogger and a Crone of wisdom.&nbsp;Pearl experienced years of personal turmoil beginning about age nine.&nbsp; Nothing.&nbsp; But nothing, worked.&nbsp; Then at age 43, she discovered meditation and in&nbsp;December 1988 learned that she could ask for a dream. &nbsp;&nbsp;That first dream unleashed an avalanche of change.&nbsp; Like the Myth of the Goddess Inanna, Pearl lived the descent into the underworld. &nbsp;Like the Myth of the Goddess Lilith, Pearl has lived this process of life, death, and rebirth.&nbsp;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 her at https://dreamsalongtheway.com/Our ConversationPearl’s visionary experience of the goddesses Lilith and Sophia during a reiki treatment&nbsp;The contrast of a profound spiritual opening of the divine feminine while at conference of educators whose systems had little respect for a feminine perspectiveContinuing the journey with a dream of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the ancient rites of Demeter and Persephone, which enabled Pearl to feel for the first time “I am pleased to be a woman”&nbsp;The 325 AD Council of Nicaea and Empire Constantine’s declarations establish one true church that declared the birth-death-rebirth story to be hereticalMarisa’s journey with the Church and the decision to reject it, which seems a generational difference from Pearl who stayed connected to the church through the&nbsp; Roman Catholic WomenPriest movement.&nbsp;The initial rejection and slow acceptance of Marija Gimbutas’s work by some (See more at Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA)The work of Liliana Kleiner, a Argentinian-Canadian-Israeli artist who focuses on the work of Lilith and Inanna&nbsp;Books we discussed: Perdita Finn’s Take Back the Magic, Marion Woodman’s The Pregnant Virgin, Nancy Qualls-Corbett’s The Sacred Prostitute (foreword by Woodman).&nbsp;Our MusicMusic 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

Please Support Our Show: Join us on SubstackLove KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.Our StorySophie’s new novel, The Madonna Secret, offers a lush, ecological exploration of the gospel stories of Jesus and Mary Magdalene we may think we know so well. Rather than reading an excerpt or sharing a particular story, Sophie takes us into the landscape and culture of her heroine Miriam’s world.&nbsp;Our GuestSophie Strand is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. She is the author of The Flowering Wand, The Madonna Secret, and forthcoming memoir on disability and ecology: The Body is a Doorway. Subscribe for her newsletter at sophiestrand.substack.com. And follow her work on Instagram: @cosmogyny and at www.sophiestrand.com.Our ConversationHow does a man who seems to be pro-women and deeply rooted in his own landscape become the mouthpiece for sexism, oppression, colonialism, and ecocide? How does the mistranslation of Jesus happen?A spiritual text is one that is a sensual text. The role of scents and herbs, especially spikenard.Understanding the Marian tradition as both Mother of God and Partner of God. Seeing the trinity as: The Mother, the Wife, and the Teacher.“There were lions in the old testament because there were lions in Palestine.” Shifting baseline syndrome means we’ve come to accept a desert-like Palestine. Empires committed genocide and ecocide and radically changed all aspects of the landscape in the last 2000 years.&nbsp;Written culture recorded by male elites; oral cultures make knowledge “a verb.” Miriam’s illiteracy is painful to her, but it’s core to who she is.&nbsp;Stories that were intended to be told in certain seasons. How do we transform the stories amidst climate and phenological change?&nbsp;Stories travel in bodies at the pace of a footstep.More complete show notes will be available at the Myth Is Medicine Substack.Our MusicMusic 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.comFind 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.