On my new podcast, KnotWork Storytelling Podcast, we’re on a mission to untangle our myths and reweave our stories.
I started this show because I know in my bones that mythology is medicine for our modern maladies. We use the ancient stories to understand our lives all the time. Thing is, we usually just aren’t aware of it.
Let’s start here, with storytelling, because everyone has a relationship to storytelling, even if they think they left that stuff behind or that storytelling is “mere” entertainment.
Here’s one way for me to tell my story of story
I grew up on Disney movies, classic novels that every American girl “should” read, and the best (and worst) of 1980s and 90s TV. I grew up on my mom’s stories of both the terrible and the beautiful nuns at parochial school, and my dad’s stories of riding his bike across town to football practice. I grew up on stories from my French Canadian grandmother and my Irish and Scottish grandfather, but they talked about long Canadian winters on the Miramichi River in New Brunswick, not the ancient stories their ancestors might have brought from Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.
We’re all made of stories, the stories that create us in childhood and those we find, and those that find us, along the way through adulthood.
In my early teens, the folklore and mythology of Ireland found me. Call it passion or obsession, the words, spirit, and land of the Celtic world swept me up and made me feel like I was home… even when I was a high school kid on Cape Cod, Massachusetts doodling Celtic knots in the margins of my math book or a student at Boston College with a stack of history and poetry books and plays by Irish authors. I would go on to study at National University of Ireland in Galway and get my MA in Irish literature and drama from University College Dublin.
And then… I lost track of those Irish stories for a while. They were set in the background of an American life I never expected to have. That ticket to grad school was supposed to be one-way and take me all the way to a PhD and a professorship, but we never can predict how each chapter will end. Or where we’ll be when the next one begins.
Of course, stories were always part of my life. We are a culture made of stories, whether it’s the latest show everyone’s binging, or a conversation that begins, “Oh my goddess, did I tell you what happened???”
Put simply, stories are essential to us. They are the essence of who we are. And that is why I have created KnotWork Storytelling. Each episode opens with an ancient story from mythology, history, or folklore and is followed by a conversation about why these themes still resonate in the heart and spark our imagination today.
This first season will span at least 13 episodes.
You’ll hear many stories from Ireland because those stories are dear to me and are closest to my expertise, but my guests are bringing tales from their own traditions and ancestral lineages. In future seasons, I hope to cast our story net further and further and call in storytellers, characters and plots from around the globe.
All of the tales you’ll hear on KnotWork Storytelling are original in that either myself or my guest is offering their own version of a story that might be centuries or millennia old. I’ve written many of the stories you’ll hear and I consider it an act of re-mythologizing to tell the stories of Irish goddesses like Macha, Mongfind, and the Cailleach. I work to balance the material from the original manuscripts and the tales collected by folklorists with the modern sensibilities that really make these stories come alive.
Some of my guests are sharing their own written stories and I’ve asked them to source their retellings not just from their own mythic imaginations, but from the original sources as well. A few of my guests are brilliant oral storytellers. I hope you’ll tune into episode one, Conspiring With Brigit and Episode three, A Most Ferocious Lady of the Castle, which each open with some fabulous performances.
Occasionally, I’ll welcome an author who has created their own new story, but I can guarantee we’ll be exploring how the novels of today are influenced by those ancient origin legends, heroes’ journeys, and heroines’ tales of old.
Each of these stories is fascinating in itself, and can transport us to another time with a different set of worries and a different set of values and ways to measure success.
But here’s the thing… the differences are often less striking than the similarities. Human nature and our need to connect with nature have not changed all that much over the course of recorded history. The themes and schemes, despair and passions that feature in these old stories prove to be relevant in countless ways. The conversations I have with my guests in the second half of each episode seek to explore the threads of meaning that tug at us most insistently.
And what’s the idea about knots and knotwork?
I’ve been working at the knots of life and story for a long time. My book, The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic really began that discussion publicly. Here’s something from the book:
We are creatures of curves and spirals, of circles and spheres.
We navigate the contradictory nature of our roles and goals, dreams and fears everyday.
We are a beautiful, intricate design. We are a terrible tangle.
We glow with the artistry of creation, even when we burn in the face of its chaos.
We are heroines. We are heroes. We are creative beings who have been put here to do so much more than survive. We are here to interpret the rich tapestry of the past and to pluck out the old tangles and bring old wrongs to right.
We are here to make sense of the threads we’ve wrapped around daily life, to discern what ensnares us and what holds us together.
We’re here to weave a future that’s more than just bearable. We’re here to live and craft new stories that are beautiful and bold, stories that weave together all the parts of ourselves that have been denied, all the people of the world who have been marginalized. And we’re here to recommit ourselves to the earth and to nature, to this great planet of ours that cares nothing for our words, but which depends very much on how we live out our stories.
Can stories heal the world? Well, stories can heal us. And only people who have healed the old wounds of this lifetime and who have paid heed to the wounds and triumphs of the ancestors who came before us are going to have a chance to do our part and make this world a better place.
I’m so excited that you’re entering the Knot with me. I hope these stories will challenge, console, and entertain you. I would love to hear what you think of the stories we tell on the show and how they resonate with the story you are living, healing, and telling right now.
Do find us on Instagram and Facebook and do spread the word about KnotWork Storytelling.
The further we cast our nets of story, the stronger the fabric of life will be.
