Yule2019#6: Listen

Later today I will be taking a train South. To Devon. To Dartmoor. I will be spending the weekend with the West Country School of Myth. It is part of a year long thing I have signed up to called The Wandering Court. I will spend the weekend in the company of about fifty other souls, listening to stories – old stories, traditional stories, stories from around the world. There will be other things too: poetry, music, laughter, tears, feasting, libation, fires and dancing. But at the heart of the thing are these stories.

These stories will be told to us by a masterful storyteller. A guy called Dr Martin Shaw. That helps. To have someone tell you these stories well takes enormous skill. Shaw has the ability to make these stories inhabit your own life. Suddenly you recognise that you are the Princess alone in the dark woods. You are the youngest son riding on the back of the wolf. And then the stories begin to seep into your present life. You start meeting dragons in the supermarket. Firebirds arrive bearing messages. Your own life becomes mythic. It is a strange and disorientating feeling. But one that I am learning to embrace.

There is no wifi where I am going. I will turn off my phone for the weekend. There will be no screens. That in itself will be a relief. I am tired of looking. My eyes hurt. Instead I will be listening. I think we all need to close our eyes and listen a little more. So, my posts over this weekend will be ones you listen to. I hope that you enjoy them.