Parenting Amidst the Ruins of Childhood’s Mythologies

“Mom, I know magic isn’t real.”

My just-turned-eight year old made this grave declaration at the bus stop the other day. As the cars ripped through the filthy slush on our back country road with a sound that tore the morning in two, I felt something rip in the fabric of this childhood we’d co-created with our girl.

I wasn’t ready. Lately, we’ve been going through a lot of emotional ups and downs with this daughter I have always called my “little mystic.” It’s impossible to know how much can be blamed on the disruptions and fears stirred up by two years of Covid and how much of this was always destined to be part of her path, but this child, the quintessential old soul, has access to the depths of the depths. And some of those depths are dark. 

We’re getting her the help she needs to regulate her own emotional terrain, but as we huddled together on a frigid February morning, I wondered where my help was to deal with “I know all magic is just made up.”

Living, Writing, and Parenting According to the Rules of Magic

Now, as you likely know, I am a woman who has built much of her creative life and work on this word, “magic.” I call myself a word witch because I know my superpowers lie in the weaving of language. I believe that we cast a spell when we craft well-made sentences. I believe stories are formulas for miraculous transformation.

I have never flown on a broomstick, watched sparks fly from my wand, or seen anyone turned into a toad. I don’t think burning just the right number of candles will attract a lover or help you get revenge. I know that tarot cards have nothing to do with predicting the future but have everything to do with reframing the current narrative.

And yet, I do believe in magic.

And in this moment of revelation, I wasn’t sure how I would relate to a child who didn’t want to speak the language of unicorns, dragons, and fairies.

The Stories We Make Up. The Stories We Make Real.

By bedtime that night, she knew that Daddy assembled the toys and Mom filled the wooden shoes with candy from Sinterklaas (and kept up with all of the global holiday traditions she learned about at school and wanted to make part of our tradition). She knew we tossed Rudolph’s carrots into the yard and put Santa’s cookies back in the tin because we were too full of sugary carbs by midnight on Christmas Eve to enjoy them.

The next morning, she was saying “I’m so sorry I realized magic wasn’t real.”

There was real sorrow there, but also a sense of pride, I think. We celebrated her curiosity and her wisdom. We told her that we were proud of her for being brave enough to ask questions. We showed her that we wouldn’t lie to her.

Her biggest fear, as we picked our way up the icy driveway for another school day, was that she might start telling other kids. ( I had asked her to promise not to share this revelation as it’s important that everyone come to their own realization about how magic works in the world). The believers in her second grade class are safe. I trust and admire her thoughtfulness, even as I wish I did have a functional magic wand to instantly restore her peace of mind.

I think we arrived at a good place. We discussed that, though she lost something in losing her belief in leprechauns who leave gold on March 17 and a sleigh that circumnavigates the earth in one night, she had gained something that was even more… magical.

Now she knows what the grown ups know:

Magic isn’t about watching wishes materialize in an instant. Magic isn’t about mythical beings creeping into your house in the middle of the night and leaving gifts in exchange for gingerbread. 

Magic is about the love that families have for their children. 

Magic is about the great collective stories that get made real.

On the Other Side of a Belief in Magic Is… More Magic

I still believe in what Dion Fortune says, “magic is the ability to change consciousness at will.” Someday, maybe my daughter will, too.

Despite the heartache that comes from realizing this chapter of mothering is closed and knowing we all must enter the stage when Easter baskets become ceremonial offerings of parental chocolate rather than the gifts of an egg laying bunny, I am breathing into the magic that is found in this change.

We get to talk about all the forms of magic that are in the world, from science to love, from the beauty of a sunset to the way a cardinal swoops by your window when you need it most. We’ll learn together how to court wonder in a non-magical universe and make room for those mysteries that still can’t quite be explained. 

And, we have a daughter who has learned that her mother and father will tell her the truth, even when the stories seem prettier. She gets to understand how devotion creates delight, and how well-loved she truly is.

So yeah, she may know magic isn’t “real.” But she also gets to find out that the real world can be magical in ways she never imagined before.

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What about your stories of magic, heartbreak, and realization?
Have you been giving yourself the time and space to consider them and put them on the page?

I think of our online writing community, he Sovereign Writers’ Knot, as a creative cauldron. Over our thirteen weeks together, you’re giving yourself a chance to explore, imagine, draft, and craft some of the stories you’ve longed to tell.

Do Ancient Stories Mean More To Us than Modern Life’s Luxuries?

The irony of launching a podcast when your power and internet are down is as deafening as a gas-powered generator.

This weekend, I continued to recite the new podcaster’s creed “please listen and subscribe to my new show, KnotWork Storytelling” while the power was out all over the Hudson Valley, and along much of the east coast.

As we waited for the electricity and WiFi to return, I wrangled with the strangeness of pouring so much time and passion into retelling ancient stories on a modern medium that is much more fragile than we care to imagine.

But then, we always create at the crossroads of disruption and daily life, don’t we?

Paradox is a key ingredient in the mix of modern existence.

And, if we’re aware of it, we can use those paradoxes to our creative advantage.

We were fortunate and made it through the “Great Icing of 2022” with only a twenty-four hour power outage. According to NPR, residents in twenty-five states were affected by this weather front, and many fared far worse than we did. I’m deeply grateful for a partner who is prepared for anything and for good friends with whom we could ride out the storm. 

The Mystery of Finding Comfort in the Midst of Catastrophe

On Saturday, after the skies cleared and the sun streamed through the ice-laden branches, we popped champagne, devoured take-out, and shared ice cream cake. We had a birthday and a creative milestone to celebrate. For a little while, we were carefree. Underneath, we were conscious of how the luxuries of modernity and friendship wrapped around us the way dangerous layers of ice wrapped around the outer world. 

As with all of the joys of life right now, this gathering felt decadent, necessary, impossible, and well-deserved. 

Has life always been this paradoxical?

Have delight, pleasure, and connection always taken place against a vast, frozen “out there” where the night is dangerous and lonely?

Of course they have.

These days, we know that the divisions between the “haves” and “have nots” isn’t an accident of destiny or the will of the gods. It’s got everything to do with institutional racism, classism, colonialism, sexism, and the structures inherent to the capitalist patriarchy.

It can be hard to have those conversations though. Those words can get stuck in the throat when everyone is supposed to be having a good time. Folks don’t want to bring down the mood by welcoming the worries and the inequities through the door. (I am grateful for friends who will “go there” with me, because any party at my house is bound to include several book recommendations, an eclectic playlist, and a curse upon myriad forms of social injustice). 

But, of course, this resistance to hard conversations is why we have stories. Stories help us explore the difficult emotional and intellectual territory that can be too hard to explore in its raw contemporary form. 

What If Stories of the Past Are More Familiar than Many of Modern Life’s Luxuries?

Back to the paradox I began with: the strangeness of launching a project about ancient mythology and folklore on a purely digital platform while marooned atop an icy hill with minimal access to the online realms.

As I’ve dedicated myself to the idea that ancient stories are medicine for our modern maladies, I have worried that I am looking in the wrong direction. Am I slipping into nostalgia when I should be finding ways to root into the present moment? Shouldn’t I use my skills and creativity to contribute to solutions to the problems that plague the future rather than lavishing all that attention on imagining the past?

I keeping asking myself whether I am burying my head in the “good old days” of my long ago academic career and the fantasy realms we call the Celtic world.

That inner conflict is largely resolved after this weekend.

When we couldn’t heat our homes or power our lives as usual, friends gathered together. We let the kids run wild as the adults raised a glass. We laughed and we lingered. We discussed the state of the environment, culture, and society. We made room for some tears when the difficult, intimate stuff came up. We listened. We created our own warmth and light on that long, dark night.

Our lives are ruled by the towers, satellites, and transoceanic cables that make up our global web of electricity and information. Very few of us actually understand how those work, however. (That well-prepared husband of mine, an electrical engineer, is an exception).

Mostly, we only think about how the tech stuff works when it doesn’t.

Digital creatures that we may be, we are actually a lot more like our ancestors from hundreds and thousands of years ago than we realize.

We might panic about getting through one night without central heating in a way that would make our foremothers and forefathers scoff, but the stuff we know in our bones–the importance of nourishment, companionship, and a powerful story–is a lot more immediate and intimate than our knowledge of electrons, waves, and particles. 

Even though we’re 21st century creatures, we could connect in the most human and important way without any of the modern trappings of life. 

When you look at it through this lens, really, what do you understand more readily: the innovations that makes our cellphones and power grids function or the experience of a 17th century Irish woman who lost her greatest love and then found a way to keep her home and children safe?

On the KnotWork Storytelling Podcast: A Most Ferocious Lady of the Castle

The newest episode of KnotWork Storytelling offers you the story of Máire Rua MacMahon O’Brien, an Irish noblewoman who was known for pushing at least one of her many husbands from the roof of her County Clare castle.

There is so much more to this story, of course, and my friend, the brilliant storyteller Maura McMahon, illuminates the nuances of this story in Episode 3 of our show. This woman’s story is really about love, loss, survival, and sovereignty. (And if there was a murder or two thrown into the mix, well, that part of the reason we’re still so fascinated with this story four hundred years later.)

I hope that you have access to all the modern conveniences to listen to this episode now.

My deeper prayer? You have good friends with whom to share it. 

Brigid: Goddess, Saint, and the First Heroine You'll Meet in the KnotWork Storytelling Podcast

Brigit, with all her guises (goddess, saint, a sacred Celtic blend of the two).

Brigit, with all her spellings (maybe she’s Brigid, or Bridget, or Bríd?).

Brigit, with all her power (fire, healing, hospitality, poetry, beer, smithcraft… and that’s just the short list). 

With all her names, faces, and skills she has spoken to the soul of the individual and the collective for millennia. 

Throughout my life, Brigid has been my soul’s guide. The first time I heard her name, I felt like I had found a companion, but it was only when I sat down with Kate Chadbourne for the first episode of my new podcast, KnotWork Storytelling that I fully connected with the idea, “Brigid is a friend.”

In Episode 1 of KnotWork Storytelling, Conspiring with Brigit, Kate tells two stories of Ireland’s matron goddess and saint.

A Story of Friendship: When Brigit and Mary were BFFs

Now, everyone knows that Mary and Jesus lived in Ireland for a time, right?

A cozy cottage with Brigit in the midst of a long Irish winter sounds like the perfect place to recover from childbirth. Brigit, after all, is the saint one calls upon for all matters of fertility, pregnancy, and birth.

At the start of February, when it was time for Mary to return to mass, to be “churched” after Jesus’s arrival, Mary didn’t want to be the center of attention. Brigit, always a mother of invention, had a solution.

Listen to the entire episode to hear the story of Brigit’s “flaming headdress” and how a grateful Mary decided that Brigit’s Day (February 1) would always be celebrated before her own feast on Candlemas (February 2).

 A Story of Resourcefulness and Kindness: When Brigit Saves a Fox and Outfoxes a King

A woodcutter killed a fox in defense of his chickens. Unfortunately, that fox was a favorite of the king. The king was heartbroken and threatened the woodcutter with death.

Brigit, in her goddess form, riding in her great chariot, hears the laments of the woodcutter’s daughters and offers her aid. This is a tale of power, both the foolish and the compassionate kind.

Is Brigid a Goddess or a Saint?

Brigid, of course, is both.

Irish and Scottish folklore are rich with tales of Brigid. Our greatest source for her stories, including what we know of Brigid as a goddess, are the weird, wild, and wonderful stories recorded by the Church in various volumes called the “Lives of Saint Brigit.”

These stories offer us the entire tapestry of Brigit’s traditions: Brigit as goddess, as saint, who we know through hagiography, and through the oral tradition. 

As Kate says, “If it sparks you, it belongs to you…. Stories are deeper than bloodlines.”

What is KnotWork Storytelling?

On this new podcast, we’re on a mission to untangle our myths and reweave our stories.

In each KnotWork Storytelling episode, you’ll hear a story from mythology, folklore, or history. Then, my guest and I will explore why these ideas and characters still resonate today.

I’m your host, Marisa Goudy. I created this show because I’m so passionate about Irish folklore, Celtic mythology, and heroines’ tales from around the world.

We'll explore sacred stories and traditions from around the world, particularly Ireland and the region known as "the Celtic fringe." Join us as we wander through these ancient storylines as we set out on a quest to learn from the past, better understand the present, and craft a sustainable future.

Every episode reminds us that ancient stories are medicine for our ancient maladies.

Fáilte: Welcome to the KnotWork Storytelling Podcast

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.

Why I Use the Word "Sovereignty" A Lot Less These Days

Have you ever considered how a knot can be both a terrible tangle of string or an intricately crafted design, like in those ancient Celtic manuscripts?

Right now, I have knots on my mind but, once upon a time, like three years ago, every story I told was woven around big idea: Sovereignty.

Sovereignty is a gloriously complicated word (as all the best words are, like love, freedom, mystic, petrichor, onomatopoeia).  As I understand the way sovereignty works in my own life, it's about personal agency, the quest for self-knowledge, and the commitment to greater wisdom. In my lived understanding, it is about channeling that power to help others find their sovereignty so the collective can become more equitable, healthy, and evolved.

When we all have access to our own sovereignty, then we can pool our strength. And when that happens, we just might have a chance of cleaning up our act and cleaning up our earth.

Of course, sovereignty has its other aspects. It's a word that describes the borders of nation states. And, it is a word that can be applied to how you wish to control the borders of your own body. Reproductive rights are a matter of deeply important body sovereignty.

When you reflect on a phrase like “body sovereignty,” it makes sense that folks who question the validity and the necessity of the Covid vaccine call on "sovereignty" as one of their reasons for resisting the shot. (Of course, sovereignty tends to get lost in the midst of all the conspiracy theories, and that is a separate yet inextricably related issue best left to other writers to explore on another day.) 

It’s important to note that by "it makes sense" I am saying that I understand that certain people who are attracted to the concept of "self-governing" choose to call their anti-vaccination position a "sovereign" stance. What doesn't make sense to me is how folks would willfully risk place even more strain on a healthcare system that is at its breaking point and further jeopardizes populations that truly can’t be vaccinated. 

That said, I'm not seeking a conversation about vaccines right now. (Really, please don't email me about what you think of the politics, science, or spirituality of the shots. That's not why I am telling you this story.)

Instead, I am writing about vaccinations and the discourse around them because I've been quietly pulling back from "sovereignty" for a while, and it felt important to tell you why.

As creatives, we fall in love with a new idea and describe its development in detail. It's all too rare that we describe why we're taking stock, pulling back, and allowing the past season's words to serve as compost for the new ideas to come.

We'll leave this part of the conversation here: back when I wrote The Sovereignty Knot, I advocated sovereignty in service to the collective because, then as now, there's no wisdom in imagining every decision you make is yours alone.

These Days, It's All About the Knot

My book, The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic, came out in February 2020, just as this novel coronavirus was starting to make headlines. Never could I have expected our world to be tied in such unspeakable knots and to see sovereignty come up so often in conversation. 

In light of all the individual and collective struggle of the last two years, the knot seems even more compelling–and full of creative potential–than my original concept of sovereignty.

The knot allows for the reality of the tangle and the beauty and strength of deliberate design. It lets us be who we are. The knot also allows us to do better, weave our words and actions more intentionally, and recover from past mistakes. 

The knot is about commitment and the ties that bind. The knot is about community and the support that comes with sharing ideas, asking hard questions, and living in the uncertainty together.

In Light of All This, I Am Committing to the Knot Throughout 2022

Here are three ways to join me as we spiral through the knots and work out the tangles as we go:

The Open Writers’ Knot is the first free community writing practice of the year. It's coming up next Wednesday, January 19 at noon ET.

When we write together, and form a community even for an hour, we strengthen the creative container and all gain the courage to confront the knots of narrative and ideas that may confound us when we write alone. This event is for writers and non-writers, leaders and dreamers, seekers and wisdom keepers who are ready to meet themselves on the page

As I hope you’ve heard by now, the KnotWork Podcast debuts on 2.2.22.

The new show is devoted to untangling our myths and reweaving our stories. Each episode features a story from mythology or folklore and a deep dive discussion into why that old tale still matters to us today. Please follow the show on Instagram and Facebook, and plan to subscribe to the show in a few weeks!

• Finally, the Sovereign Writers' Knot, my online community, will form again in early March for another 13-week journey.
  
  If you’re seeking a supportive community and a creative incubator to conceive or continue your writing project, this could be the ideal group for you.