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Salmon skin drum · Mooney's Mythic Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Moony's Mythic Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Moony's Mythic Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome here.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're all welcome.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome grumpy and you're welcome tired.
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  You're welcome wishing that jingly noise would stop and you're
• 0:17
  welcome wishing
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  SPEAKER_00: there was more of it.
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  You're welcome here if you've had a bad day and you're welcome
• 0:24
  here if you've had a good day.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome here if you don't feel like you belong anywhere.
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  SPEAKER_00: if when anyone's talking, none of them are talking to you.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you're welcome if you feel right at the heart of things.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to all of you.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Mmm.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ah,
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  thank you to all the poets and the musicians and the singers
• 0:55
  and anyone who's been
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  SPEAKER_00: a guest on the pod so far.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for all that you bring.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for all that you've brought.
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  Thanks for the weeks when I felt like I couldn't do it,
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  but I knew I was doing it with you.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I did.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for everyone who's agreed to come on
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: next year, this year, in the next few weeks, in the next months.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm, I'm tired.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I was listening to Kaya Pacha.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know Kaya Pacha?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: He does a report, an astrological report called the Pele Report.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't really speak astrology, so not a lot makes sense to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I really only speak in the language of story.
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  SPEAKER_00: But he did say, wake up to this year as slowly as possible.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: step into this year as slowly as possible.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I really feel the truth and the magic of that.
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  SPEAKER_00: So wherever you are, whatever you're doing, let's breathe it out.
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  Just enter into that commitment to keep opening as slowly as we
• 2:18
  possibly can into this year.
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  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
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  SPEAKER_00: Breathing in the stillness of it.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Breathing in the softness and the silence, the depth.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've just come back from telling the Snow Queen in Shepton Mallet,
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  SPEAKER_00: just behind the prison,
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  SPEAKER_00: reminded me that I spent some time with an artist in the prison
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  sewing chain stitch onto a cloth and remembering all the women
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  that had been
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  incarcerated for being powerful or speaking out or being
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  creative or being a cult
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  SPEAKER_00: in any way.
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  I was thinking about that when we told the Snow Queen and it's
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  deepening in me,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Snow Queen story.
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  I'm hoping that we'll record it in some mossy,
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  snowy woods and I can share it with you that way.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because I can tell you the story and you may know the story,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the way that it's woven with Sarah's beautiful,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: pure singing and harp playing and guitar is something else.
• 3:36
  so I forgot to tell you last week that I was making a mackerel
• 3:39
  skin drum while I
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  was tanning mackerel because you know I was doing the I'm doing
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  this Carolyn
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  Hillier journey and as part of that she's asked us to make a
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  salmon skin drum and
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  it felt a bit it felt a lot to to start off with a salmon so I
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  thought I'd start
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  SPEAKER_00: with a mackerel wow it's really it's really good to work with these
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  If I eat meat and I eat fish and working with that mackerel
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  skin and really
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  appreciating the delicacy and the sensitivity and the radiance
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  and the sparkling
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  SPEAKER_00: colour of it.
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  was very gorgeous and I feel ready now to to make a salmon skin
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  drum so I'm just
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  preparing for it now which basically means drinking lots of
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  water because I need
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  SPEAKER_00: lots of pee to tan it because that's what you tan it with
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  And that reminded me that I read somewhere that in really
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  expensive Chinese face creams,
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  SPEAKER_00: they use very young boys' wee,
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  SPEAKER_00: which I often thought about rubbing one of Noah's nappies on my face.
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  SPEAKER_00: But really,
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  SPEAKER_00: back in those days when I was getting no sleep at all,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it would have made much difference.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the fire's really taken now.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's roaring in front of me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can feel the heat.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's so good.
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  It's so good to feel the heat because we have been graced with
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  cold weather and
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  SPEAKER_00: snow and I'm,
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  SPEAKER_00: um,
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  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm really grateful for the snow.
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  It was so precious to tell the snow queen and to know that the
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  people were going to
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  SPEAKER_00: wake up the next day and,
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  SPEAKER_00: um,
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  SPEAKER_00: and there would have been snow.
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  SPEAKER_00: That was a really special thing to do.
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  SPEAKER_00: But because of this cold weather,
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  I have been thinking about snow and winter stories and people
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  that live in the cold lands,
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  SPEAKER_00: people who live in igloos and people who,
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  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
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  I've got a friend from the Yukon and she was telling me about
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  going out into the cold.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: not being able to bear,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you just bared a limb,
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  SPEAKER_00: a finger for a moment,
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  SPEAKER_00: that it would just freeze and drop off and having to cover everything.
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  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, the way the light's different.
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  SPEAKER_00: Many stories, many stories when I was sailing with Amanda from the Yukon.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful for those stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I dug out this book.
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  And I bought this book because I used to tell the story of the
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  skeleton woman from
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  SPEAKER_00: Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book,
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  SPEAKER_00: Women Who Run With The Wolves.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I used to tell it as part of a show in Lee Woods.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well,
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  SPEAKER_00: we toured Woodlands,
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  SPEAKER_00: but that was our kind of home,
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  SPEAKER_00: Lee Woods,
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  SPEAKER_00: with the whispering wood folk.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I would tell a second half to it that just came to me one day about,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to tell you the story because...
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  SPEAKER_00: When I worked with Clarissa,
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  SPEAKER_00: Dr E,
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  SPEAKER_00: she likes to be called,
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  SPEAKER_00: when I worked with Dr E in America,
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  SPEAKER_00: she said,
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  SPEAKER_00: don't tell my stories.
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  Don't tell my stories unless you're going to use them as
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  teaching stories,
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  SPEAKER_00: unless you're going to include the commentary.
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  SPEAKER_00: And she said, go tell your own, find your own stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that was a great invitation for me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing that ever since.
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  She also encouraged me to run courses going through the book to
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  take the work of
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  SPEAKER_00: art as a whole journey and to share it in that way.
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  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, she said, particularly Skeleton Woman.
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  In this moment,
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  she was saying,
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  particularly,
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  I don't want you to tell Skeleton Woman.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a story that came from two lines of a song.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's my story.
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  And then I was in some storytelling forum and they said that
• 7:57
  the inspiration for
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  SPEAKER_00: the story had come from a story,
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  SPEAKER_00: an Inuit story called The Magic Drum.
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  And so I sought out this story,
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  I found it in a book called Tales from the Igloo.
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  And Tales from the Igloo is edited and translated by Maurice
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  Mattia because these
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  SPEAKER_00: are original Inuit stories that have been gathered,
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  SPEAKER_00: 22 stories,
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  SPEAKER_00: a group of Inuit known as the Copper Eskimos.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'll just read this little bit at the beginning to you.
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  A people who have for centuries occupied a harsh and forbidding
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  land along the
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  SPEAKER_00: Canadian Arctic coast.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I wonder if they would describe it as harsh and forbidding.
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  I wonder because when we're in something,
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  often our experience of it is very different.
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  SPEAKER_00: So this is the story.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell it to you.
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  I'm going to recount it to you because I don't feel like it's
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  really in my bones yet.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to kind of tell you it as I remember.
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  One day I hope to tell it to you as if it happened to me and is
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  still deep in my bones,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is how I like to tell stories.
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  But what I remember about this story is that there was a couple
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  who had a daughter
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  SPEAKER_00: who didn't want to marry.
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  SPEAKER_00: And young men were coming to the igloo all the time,
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  offering her salted cod and thick moccasins that would keep the
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  cold out and a
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  SPEAKER_00: beautiful thick blubber that would keep her warm.
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  SPEAKER_00: And she was rejecting all of them.
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  SPEAKER_00: She just said no, no, no, no, no.
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  SPEAKER_00: She said no to all except the final two brothers who came.
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  And there was something about them that stirred her,
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  but she didn't know what it was.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when she went outside,
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  she saw them putting their skins back on because they were
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  actually white bears.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I'm lost in my own thoughts here about us as women,
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  SPEAKER_00: as awakening women,
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  as women awakening in our sexuality of kind of where our
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  discernment is and how we
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  SPEAKER_00: choose good men.
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  SPEAKER_00: Anyway,
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  so she follows them outside and they take her away and they
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  force her into a hole
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  SPEAKER_00: in the ice and they drag her along and they drag her along.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's so brutal.
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  They drag her along until she's being eaten by all the animals
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  under the sea until
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  SPEAKER_00: she is just a skeleton.
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  And she's left there,
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  sunk to the bottom of the ocean,
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  totally left there.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there she was, lying at the bottom of the ocean, just bones.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nothing but a skeleton, just bones in the dark depth of the ocean.
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  SPEAKER_00: And she can feel on her bones some light.
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  SPEAKER_00: And even though
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  SPEAKER_00: She is nothing except bones.
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  SPEAKER_00: Still, there is that part of her that moves towards the light.
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  So she moves herself towards the light and then finally she
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  finds a crack in the
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  SPEAKER_00: ice and she climbs up to the surface.
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  She builds herself a little igloo because she remembers the one
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  that she had as a family.
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  And she remembers that they had a kind of storage,
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  I suppose,
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  like a fridge.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so she makes one of those.
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  SPEAKER_00: But she thought to herself, I've got nothing warm.
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  SPEAKER_00: I need a sleeping bag.
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  SPEAKER_00: I need some skins.
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  SPEAKER_00: I need some furs.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then she fell asleep.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when she awoke.
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  there was this big igloo outside and near it,
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  there was a freshly killed caribou.
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  SPEAKER_00: So she knew that she had skins and she had hide.
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  SPEAKER_00: She had everything she needed.
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  SPEAKER_00: She prepared the meat.
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  SPEAKER_00: She put it in her storage platform.
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  SPEAKER_00: She skinned the caribou for a sleeping bag.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this bit reminds me of the elves and the shoemaker.
• 13:07
  You know,
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  it's like he falls asleep and when he wakes,
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  magic has occurred.
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  SPEAKER_00: So from that time on,
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  SPEAKER_00: each night before she goes to sleep,
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  she'd think of something she needed and knowing that she would
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  awake the next day
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  SPEAKER_00: with it.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's such a good time for that.
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  SPEAKER_00: This in-between time, this January.
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  SPEAKER_00: But whenever you've stumbled upon this podcast...
• 13:44
  Let's make a practice of that,
• 13:46
  of just naming what it is we want before we go to sleep.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that can necessarily mean,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: fall asleep at night,
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  SPEAKER_00: although what a lovely practice to do that.
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  But also just to name out loud in presence what we want before
• 14:06
  we forget about it again.
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to record the whole of Arabian Nights.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to record the whole of Arabian Nights.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if it's going to take me three and a half years.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you.
• 14:24
  Thank you to Kate and Claire and Jess who have all really got a
• 14:30
  lot out of the
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  SPEAKER_00: story when I read it on the pod.
• 14:33
  So yes,
• 14:34
  as part of a different thing,
• 14:35
  not on this pod,
• 14:36
  that's what I want to do.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying that out loud.
• 14:40
  Yeah,
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  pause the pod if you can and say out loud,
• 14:46
  out loud what it is you want.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think that would be great.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I really welcome you to do that.
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  But she's still,
• 14:55
  even though she's got everything she wants,
• 14:57
  she still...