Latest / Mooney's Mythic Podcast / Death and Hard Ons

Transcript

Death and Hard Ons · Mooney's Mythic Podcast

• 0:05
  [music]
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to season three of Mooney's Mythic Podcast.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I want to dive straight in.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about death and hard-ons and everything that's been moving for me,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: that's been stirring in the depths.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know how you are.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've got so much that I want to share and listen to, but...
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kind of holding my horses because I want to create this space really well
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: so that it's a great container for the whole season.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking after my friend's little dog and she sneezed there.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so distracted by distraction for That is where I'm at.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like pieces of me have been scattered all over the summer.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a kind of pair of socks hanging over the sun and bits of me spattered on
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: the ground, scattered across festivals.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so...
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'd really like to summon all those bits,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: the bits that have been spread wide,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: that have been thrown up in the air like juggling balls and swirled around,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: cooked in the heat of this summer.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to create something that's not a split carrier bag of chaotic thoughts,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: but something that we can all move and deepen with.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing my thoughts like rolling out of a carrier bag down a hill,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know, I don't want that.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking about the earth and I'm thinking about Grecian vases
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: because I've been dreaming into this journey group that I'm doing online and
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: in person, kind of inspired by and guided by Greek myths.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll talk a bit more about that later,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm thinking of the earth now and I'm thinking of clay and an urn
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm calling you in, earth, that we can really ground together.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want to do.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I picked a card, a guidance card before I started this pod and it said decompose.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my favourite thing to do in public,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: but here I am,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: one hand on the vegetable peelings and one hand on the, but it's all earth.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's all earth.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so here we are calling in the earth,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: calling in the ground,
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: calling in a safe container and And I'm rubbing my hands together just to create
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: a little bit of warmth and putting my feet on the earth, putting my feet down.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I had one on a chair and one to the side, but now I'm putting them down.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And imagining I've got a little bit of earth in my hands and I'm creating a vessel.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm creating a vessel as it's getting bigger in my hands.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm calling out to the earth with this vessel that like mycelium,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: we can all connect together,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: that my vessel can connect with your vessel,
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: that we can share and grow with each other.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this pod's not just like a ticker tape that goes on in the background.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know some people say they love listening to it and it sends them to sleep.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's totally fine.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I would love to be a...
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Something that can really touch you,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: that it can reveal evermore the authenticity of yourself to you
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: and you can feel really good about who you are and how you are in the world.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm holding this vessel.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about the other elements.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about the air and I'm calling in the air for your protection and blessings air.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm holding my hands out like they're moving out as my lungs breathe in
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: and out like their wings, like this.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: The air has given this vessel wings and as it grows out, I'm seeing it like a bubble.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that we can all be contained within that vast bubble.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: We can have a kind of protection around us.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as I see the corners of the bubble, the roundness of the bubble, I'm thinking about water.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you rain to gently rain upon us.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: That we can get the waters that we need.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: That we always have clean water to offer our guests.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: That we can really flow with ourselves this winter.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: That we can flow with each other.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And as the water sort of flows and the air is kind of blowing the kind of the dross
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: of me,
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: the brown leaves of me,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm feeling this little spark inside and I've got a candle lit here and I'm looking
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: at this candle flame now.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm summoning you fire to keep us strong,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: to keep us warm, to keep us ignited, to keep us passionate.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite a lot arriving here.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using a new computer here because my old computer died and I really want
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: to thank my patrons for that because my new computer was a second-hand computer
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: but it was bought for by your contributions and that's enormous for me
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: to be supported in that way.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And to get what I need to be able to come through with my creativity,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: my sole purpose, really, really appreciate it.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so if that's something that you want to do,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: you want to support this Patreon,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: then you can become a Patreon by looking on the Patreon page,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Mooney's Mythic Podcast.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: even if you're just feeling the generosity and you want to exchange in some way,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: then,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: tell someone about the podcast,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: invite them onto one of the online or in-person journeys.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's all gather.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just keep gathering.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm here recording this first podcast of the season and the summer is ending in me.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was the lunar eclipse a couple of nights ago and I stayed up all night to watch
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: the shadow of the earth covering the moon with a dear friend
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: and it was very special.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm feeling that in my system and I'm sure we're all feeling it somehow,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: that the moon has been in shadow and that we can just allow what's happening,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: we can I enjoy the not knowing,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not feeling like there's very much doing,
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: like we're at the liminal space of the sort of in between the in-breath and
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: the out-breath of summer and autumn.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: As though there's a lot of allowing that needs to happen.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it might not be the same thing for you,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: but Because right now I'm grieving because a really close friend has died
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm understanding that grieving can look like a lot of different things.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It can look like attachment to something.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: It can look like distraction.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: It can look like numbness.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: It can look like joy.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: All kinds of different things that have a sort of,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, kind of metallic taste to them or something.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just feeling a little bit out of
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in this grieving place.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm simmering, sometimes I'm boiling, sometimes I'm just completely nothing.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to also tell you,
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: because I was very privileged to be with this magical person as they were dying
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: and very privileged to be their friend.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Really the first person who I had a spirit connection with,
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: where I had this inner landscape where I could see visions and understand
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: and hear things that she was able to say,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: oh other people experience that too and I experience this and she opened up
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: a whole world for me and I'm very grateful for To the generosity and kindness
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: of her family that meant I was able to be so close to her in death,
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: which was like the ultimate kind of pathway of spirit.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I get to work with people in these deep ways.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I get to work with people through story,
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: through myth-making,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: through circle,
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: in these transitional places,
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: these liminal places, these places where a story can be kind of holding a space.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's that word again.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know that bubble that we were talking about earlier can be creating that,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: a sort of safety of landscape, of mythical landscape,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Birth different parts of ourselves and where we can let go and die
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: of different parts of ourselves.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in this time when my friend's body was dying,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: when her life was ending,
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I felt at once I could see her
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Opening up, it was like she was untying different coats of herself.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: First of all,
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I saw her with a duffel coat,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: like unbuttoning a duffel coat and then another coat and then another and
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: then another.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And as I watched her,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I saw that she was untying herself from different relationships in her life,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: from being a daughter,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: from being a wife,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: from being a mother,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: from being a friend, from all the different roles that she had held in her life.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I saw her sort of untying, untangling herself from them as if they were different coats.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I saw all these colours like a big rainbow above her
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: until she'd taken off all of these layers and there was just this blue light
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: which came out.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Out of her and joined, kind of became the blue of the rainbow above her.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Really extraordinary and I thought then I know tie cutting procedures,
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know tie cutting ceremonies and rituals and I just allowed myself to help her on
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: that etheric plane to the kind of letting go of the layers and the places and And
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: then at one point I thought, oh, I should do a tie cutting with her and I.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was about to do it, I could feel her.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was like these were her spirit hands.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: She hadn't moved for many days.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I felt her hands on my shoulders, real as if they were there.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, you've done a really good job, but I'm going to take it from here.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I kind of really allowed myself to accept that she was dying.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that I felt was really important whilst I was there
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: that I wanted to share with you was that it felt really important to have
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: a candle lit today.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it felt really important to have a fire outside.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the fire outside was a lot to do with people coming and going and that kind
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: of clearing of the energy that the fire does.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And also that in these last places of death, we're throwing off a lot.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're throwing off,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: we're forgiving ourselves,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: we're forgiving other people, we're Letting go of all kinds of things.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: We might be really angry, you know, anger might be coming out that we've suppressed for so long.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I do believe all those suppressed emotions start coming out and coming out.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it was great to have a fire that was roaring to really eat up, munch up those places.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I'm going to be doing.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I'm going to be doing this year is this winter is to fold
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: that experience of death into my stories.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I love about even stories I've been telling for 20, 30 years.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: They expand and contract with all these experiences.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we did as storytellers, I believe.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: In the past was we would fold our wisdoms into these stories
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: and they've become more sort of didactic and teacher-y,
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: sort of psalms and morals,
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: but also they are maps and they can go as deep as you can go with them
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: and they can include all,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: any and various stars in So I hope that you can have that experience
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: with stories this autumn winter.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know how you all are and I am also aware that's a really annoying question.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody asked me how I was the other day and I felt full up with it and then
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: when I was driving in my car I was just answering it for myself
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: and I was thinking I'm mad,
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Bad, wild,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: frightened,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: nervous,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: uncertain,
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: full of power, deranged, confused, ecstatic, magical, forlorn, yearning, satisfied.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then as I was driving along,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I saw this tree and its trunk was vast and it looked so juicily kind of plowed into
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: the ground.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And as the trunk went up,
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: it was twisted and it's Branches were all sort of flung up into the air and
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: then I thought, yeah, and I want to be a tree.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: So wondering how you are in all of your places.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, more fingers and thumbs recording this pod, guys.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you receive it with the elegance with which it's intended.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I was thinking about them, they.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because someone had done me a favour over the summer and I gave them a gift
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: and it had Wonder Woman written on it.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when I gave it to them,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to give it to them, I saw they had a badge that said they.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this person said, yeah, I'm them, they, when they saw me looking at it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And because I was camping,
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: so I was really close to the earth and I had that great night time time to really...
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Feel into, which I don't feel like I have done before, really feel into for myself.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Them, they as a pronoun.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt myself kind of fan out like a pack of cards,
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: like how permissive them,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: they is in terms of it,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: including all the different archetypes in terms of saying,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: yes, I'm this and I'm this.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a complete contradiction.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many different contradictions inside me.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many different people and personalities and powers inside me.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me think about the Manawi story in Women Who Run With The Wolves.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's about the dual nature of woman,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: that you have to teach a man that he is,
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: that you are dual,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: that there's lots of different contradictions inside you and
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: that he also has those places.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I was thinking about them then,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've been a bit resistant to it because I felt Remember fighting hard
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: for female only spaces,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: fighting hard to be valued in celebrating,
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: honouring and uplifting the feminine for moon lodges at festivals,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: for goddess worship.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I remember hearing about the first time that the goddess conference happened
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: in Glastonbury and the goddesses were They're just processing up the high street,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: celebrating the goddess,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know, and they got jeered at and booed and stuff, throwing things at them.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And there's the contradiction.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, it's like it's it's so inclusive that then they and I really, really celebrate that.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yet there's another place where where I feel resistant to it.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: For myself or for I sort of worry and tighten about something that I feel I've Kind
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: of claimed in my lifetime being destroyed.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's the nature of it all, creation and destruction, creation and destruction.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I love about stories.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love that we've been doing that.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: The older the story you get, the more kind of secrets it's got wrapped up in it.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that every time I tell a story,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: It opens up,
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: it yields a little bit more to me,
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: it reveals a bit more to me and that I can,
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: in the same way, I can put my experience in those stories, within those stories.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just love it.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I also feel like it's a responsibility as a storyteller to keep growing,
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: to keep opening, to keep listening, to keep reaching out, to keep connecting.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's all available in the stories.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite a responsibility to be a storyteller, I feel, or I'm feeling in this moment.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the stories I've been looking at this week are Greek myths because I'm doing
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: an online story wintering course.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've done a few of these story wintering courses where we meet together online and
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: in person and we work with stories.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I've done fairy tales and I've done Inanna and I just really wanted to do Greek myths.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to work with the muses.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to work with the fates.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to work with different myths so that we can...
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Disconnect with something very ancient together and create our own stuff.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: at the moment,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at oracles and I just want to tell you a little bit
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: about what I've been learning.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've always loved a bit of oracling.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's been like,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: as a teenager, wanting to look at the tarot or the Ouija board or crystal divining.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's so many different ways that we can...
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Ask for guidance or connect with something other than us, something bigger than us.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what it's about.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what it's about as a teenager,
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: as I got interested in the occult and looking at tarot.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there is something that I feel...
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the tarot was the first way that it could sort of manifest for me in front of me
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: that I could have words to or guidance to.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that also it's useful to know what our internal yes and no is so that
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: when we see some kind of divination or guidance,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: we can feel in our body how we react to it.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that reaction is just as important.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you can throw bones,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: you can,
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: some people have listened to the cooing of doves and some people have,
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: you know, that famously Boudicca would hold a hair and let it go.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to read you this from Robert Graves' book, what's it called?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Greek Myths, complete edition, which has just got me clucking with excitement and delight.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, And a certain good genius.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know that's a big mouthful, but I promise you, keep listening.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really worth it.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: To the brother of Trophonius, who helped him build the temple.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's all the pre-amble, yeah.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: But what's coming up now is what got me really excited.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: When fit to consult the oracle,
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: the suppliant is led down to the river by two boys,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: 13 years of age, and they're bathed and anointed.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Next, he drinks from a spring called the Water of Lethe,
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: which will help him to forget his past, and also from another close by.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they are.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when I talk about these patterns, I'm talking about my patterns.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying I don't want to spend this winter alone and disconnected.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to connect.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I want to story each other.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to be together.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Opening at the bottom through which he thrusts his legs,
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: holding in either hand a barley cake mixed with honey.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: A sudden tug at his ankles and he is pulled through as if by the swirl of
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: a swift river and in the darkness a blow falls on his skull so that he seems to die
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: and an invisible speaker then reveals the future to him besides many secrets.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as the voice is finished,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: he loses all sense and understanding and is presently returned,
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: feet foremost,
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: to the bottom of the chasm,
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: but without the honeycakes,
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: after which he is enthroned on the so-called chair of memory and asked
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: to repeat what he has heard.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Finally,
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: still in a dazed condition,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: he returns to the house of the good genius,
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: where he regains his senses and the power to laugh.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I just dropped something, but I'm hoping you're still with me.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love that we can create some kind of ritual where you have to bake cakes.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And offer them and receive wisdom.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's play, isn't it?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's play and it's ridiculous and it's deadly serious.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I really feel like this kind of ritual enactment,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: this kind of immersive experience in story,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: in theatre, it's a really big reclamation of our power.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: We've had all this taken away from us and it's really...
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: We really get a sense and feel, I believe, that we're powerful and our lives belong to us.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: They don't belong to these big voices out there telling us from TV screens
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: and newspapers and whispers that this is happening,
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: that is happening, and we have to do this and we have to do that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to find us ways where we can feel powerful, where we can really be back in our lives.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really why I'm doing these, particularly these Greek myth courses.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I would love you to come.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love you to come.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just want more than ever,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: more critically than ever,
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: to just keep gathering and gathering and gathering us together in all kinds
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: of different ways.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in Glastonbury for seven weeks from October to November,
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: then come on to the Women Who Run With The Wolves course and
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: the Greek Wintering journeys.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've had some women from Wales and some women from Gloucester that want to come.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what I'm going to do is go there.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: It just feels like a lot to get women to come.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can gather a group of eight or nine women in your area,
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: then I'm happy to come and do a journey or retreat or something like that.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, the story wintering stuff, it's gather.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel like,
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: oh, this isn't really for me, this isn't what I'm up for, it doesn't resonate.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Please still find some ways to sit in circle, to be together, to connect.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't disappear.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Don't disappear, guys, this winter.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Don't disappear into your screen, into your tidying up one cupboard, tidying up the shed.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll keep on inviting you.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'll keep on encouraging you to gather in some of these crazy,
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: wild ways that I really believe are going to fill us with ourselves,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: with our fruit,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: with the excitement for being alive,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: which reminds me that I was going to call this pod Death and Hard Ons
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: because I've been working with the Synthonic Orchestra brilliant band.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been doing a little bit of comparing and backing for them,
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: which I'm very grateful for.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to,
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to say his name because he'll probably hate me for it,
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: but I said to this person who plays the synthesizer,
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: when I got to know them a bit better,
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I said, do you ever get a hard-on playing the synthesizer?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a waste height,
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: and it's like, you're playing music, I can't think of anything more exciting.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he said to me, no, he said, the music is the hard-on.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that just got me to thinking like, what's my hard on?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when I feel horny, I don't think now about, oh, I want to relieve it or feel it in some way.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, hmm, what have I got a hard on for?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I do it and I get involved in it.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really great for me.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to bring through.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to come and see me over the coming weeks,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: these are the places that I'm going to be.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to see you.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: On Sunday, I'm going to be at Ham Hill.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be at Ham Hill storytelling all day, 10 till 4.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're around, please come and say hello.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: On the 11th of September,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be comparing for a concert in Glastonbury called the Rose Concert.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Be more than happy to see you there.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there's loads of other,
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: there's a band called Maythorne playing,
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: the Symphonic Orchestra are playing,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Moonfire, there's lots of different stuff going on that night, should be fun.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the 30th of October,
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do an evening at St. Ben's in Glastonbury with Susanna Tedwaters.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: She's a great musician, really super, super gorgeous.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to do something super deep for that threshold time.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I am doing a threshold workshop.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's on the 17th of September, Autumn's Threshold.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a Patreon, you can come for free.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, I think it's £20, but you can bring a friend with you.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I just really love you to be there because it, yeah, like I'm looking out.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, who's there?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Whose hand can we hold?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Whose heart can we feel?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get connected and stay connected and keep being creative,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: creative and loose and juicy on the inside.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's coming from a place where I got very stuck in my grief.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: I felt very stuck.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I didn't have any idea how to allow the release or express this kind
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: of vast mountain of grief that was inside me.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I sort of touched on it, then I would kind of run away from it.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was with my friend Felix and he sings ragas, which are these ancient Indian scales.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he played this scale, which he said encompassed grief and ecstasy in one scale.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think now that's got to be how it is for me.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to feel all of it.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want us all to feel all of it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the best way that we can respond to life.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to play for you a track to end this pod, which is by Marlon Lewis.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they play the bagpipes and they make their own bagpipes.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing to make the instrument that you play.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hard on right there.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And this song is called, I'm sorry if I pronounce it incorrectly, it's a Welsh word, Hraith.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a word that doesn't have any translatable, easily translatable language.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: But that can mean
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: longing for a home or something that one has never experienced.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm feeling that sort of ache.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: On the inside, like almost kind of for something so exquisite.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's like the feeling of experiencing something really exquisite
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: that we know is going to pass.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like just in that moment when we're really enjoying it and then we're feeling like,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: oh, this is not going to last forever.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And Yeah, I'm going to play it to you.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is their version.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to play it to you.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And my invitation as I play it is to feel your summer,
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: to feel all that you did and all that you didn't.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: The harvest,
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: the compost,
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: the longing,
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: the ecstasy,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: the grief,
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: like dance it,
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: move it, feel it, punch a pillow with it, touch your body with it, all of it.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be back next week with another pod.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, guys.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for creating this space with me.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Blessings and peace.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 33:02
  Thank you.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.