My notes from the weekend with Martin Shaw.
May 19, 2018
Tatterhood:
- Rain movement is masculine; rain essence is feminine (Guatemala)
- The time between dog and wolf is the time between dusk and night
- Tatterhood is born the moment before the time you are born
- We each have a Tatterhood; and, our adult journey is to find our Tatterhood (wild twin)
- When Tatterhood was born she was relentless shamelessness
- My says “earn your name” — find what you stand for and earn it
- FOLLOW-UP: “lament of the dead” by Carl Jung
- In Fairytales, the one who is not named is usually “you”
- When beholding a fairytale, ask “Where is this working on my bones?”
- Cthonic = Belly of you
- Wear your shadow as your cloak
- “Pin pricks of the eternal” —> Rilke
- “Find the right kind of trouble” – Irish saying
- “Giving others a chance to wonder”
- “Confusion is a ritual device” in myth
- “matter” and sense of the story
- Matter is what happened
- Sense is your experience and the details you put into it
- Age 10 to 14 boys = 50x the testosterone
- Cinderbiter
- Brooding spots: Sit in the presence and see what it says to you
- Locker — write in with green ink so you don’t scare away the spirits
Goose Girl:
- Seeing the horse but not the rider
- “Joyful participation in the sorrows of the world” — Hindu saying
- Without chaos there is no eros
- The dead horse’s head says to Goose Girl, “Your mother would have weeped a hundred years to see what has has happened” … “What you are going through is not okay” and it is important to know that; for your pain to be witnessed
- Don’t show the gold too early
- Treating goose gathering as the holiest of vocations
- “Gathering my geese” – gathering my thoughts in the morning
- “My heartbreak is not my children’s business”
- Before two people get married, he tells them to go look at a magpie — the blue chemical makes the feather look blue from different angles
- “Live in the tension of the leap”
- Shaw decided to be a bridge rather than to leap
- “The loneliest thing is a debt free society” – Martin Shaw
May 20, 2018
Opening
- Alisa shared about her husband dying of ALS
- The commonality of ALS patients was an overriding sense of duty and responsibility
- They all had the black seed of “I am not enough” planted in them.
- “Find a way to tell your story but cut out all the lies” – Robert Bly
- As we get older we send our personal energy away
- Bit by bit we give up what we love
- How do we get out of exile? Those parts of us that we have seen away
- “If you haven’t been fed, become bread” – Robert Bly
- “Cultivate the details, and take courage” – Martin Shaw referring to the writing of his first book, which made no sense at the time. He was playing in a wedding band, working in fast food, etc.
Finn mac Cumhail pronounced Finn McCool
- Life preserving vs. life giving
- Live like a mighty river
- “If you are around a young man, and you don’t figure out a way to praise them, you are hurting them.” – Martin Shaw
- Rumi’s “Greedy soul”
- Coleman Barks “I was on television to 90m people, it was almost enough”
- Where is your longing?
- Longing will not be met but desire has a possibility
- “Holding longing well is dancing well on the tip of a spear” – Irish Saying
- “Let the souls meet” is the courtship
- The women was part fairie, woman and deer
- “What good is a feast without you?” — say that to one and other 😉
- Remember you have an audience in the other world” — make yours worth watching/telling tales about
- What are you doing to get their attention?
- “The wilder Finn got, the calmer he became.”
- If the rivers flowed with silver, and all the leaves were gold, Finn would give them all away” Try to be as generous as Finn.
- These stories will mentor you
- What has your longing given you that you have?
- “Myth is the only thing to hold what has happened”
- “proceed as if the world is alive”
- Give life to the world — e.g., the tree or the wood is your grandfather
- Depth, humor and humility — all the men
- Storycarryer — can we find a way of telling the truth?
- “Be as magnificent as the mountain, and as giving as a river” – Vijay
- Regarding saving the world, “Victory is not a priority for me.” – Martin Shaw
- “I need to write at the edge of my understanding” – Jung
- “Your incompleteness is your authenticity. You are enough…you have more than enough what you need. Take courage.” – Martin Shaw
- “Who has God blessed more than you?” – Martin Shaw
- We see thistle; William Blake would see a little grey man waving at him.
- “Don’t wait for an audience” — Martin Shaw
- Exercise: Make a timeline of when you gave away exiled parts of you away…
The Lindworm
- “We all have a dark serpent”
- Needle and thread the life you make
- “No fear, no meanness, no evil” – Grandfather
- “Soul of a man is feminine”
- “Sometimes a man stands up during super” – Rilke
- “We want a to be defeated by greater beings” – Rilke
- “I knew to be a half descent father, I would need to give some excitement and I was willing to do that” – Martin Shaw
- “How many times do you need to be consumed by an experience, before you know how to enter it” – Martin Shaw
- What serpent did you exile?
- Accountability vs consequence
Relevant Links:
A Short Video about Martin Shaw:
Martin Shaw on Soundcloud:
Martin Shaw’s recent book:
Martin Shaw’s Website: