A Conference on the Mythopoetic Imagination
Come exercise your mythopoetic imagination with us!
More 2023 teachers coming soon!
Registration for the 2023 conference is now open!
Let's go!“I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the experience of attending this year's Great Mother & New Father Conference. The connections I made; the personalities I met; the parts of myself I got acquainted with; the fears I was able to let go of . . . Thank you, thank you, for making the scholarships possible. I never would have been able to attend without financial assistance.
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2023 Reading List
Here is a list of books, podcasts, and texts of all kinds that are related to this year’s theme or story. Feel free to take them as inspiration before this year’s gathering. The Mabinogion Translator:…
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2022 Reading List
Book Title Author Wisdom of the Mythtellers Sean Kane The Epic of Gilgamesh Translator: N.K. Sandars The Night Abraham Called to the Stars Robert Bly The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy Edited by…
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What are you reading in 2021?
Some of us are reading Braiding Sweetgrass and some of us are reading My Grandmother's Hands and some of us are re-reading Women Who Run With the Wolves and many of us are reading poetry…
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2020 Reading List
Trinity Sight Jennifer Givhan The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller Circe Madeline Miller Rosa's Einstein Jennifer Givhan Landscape With Headless Mama Jennifer Givhan Protection Spell Jennifer Givhan Girl With Death Mask Jennifer Givhan Iron John:…
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The Pursuit of Dermot and Grainne
The Pursuit of Dermot and Grainne An Irish story. A telling by Martin Shaw. Finn alone as dawn comes. Not the visionary, prophet, warrior, but Finn as bleak widow, of spasmed back, fragile knee, grey…
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Dear Friends
Dear friends, As soon as March lopes in, your faces start to get a little clearer, your dearness more acute. One more push into spring and will be entering the marvellous back at Camp Kieve…
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2019 Reading List
Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale Andreas Johns Invoking Ireland John Moriarty Over Nine Waves Marie Heaney The Dream and the Underworld James Hillman The Night Wages(February 2019) Martin Shaw…
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The Huntress
The Huntress An Inuit story. A telling by Martin Shaw. There was a woman who dreamt of the sea. Back when there was a village called Tikeraq, there lived a man and a woman. But it’s…
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2018 Reading List
Book Title Author Scatterlings: Getting Claimed in the Age of Amnesia Martin Shaw A Branch from the Lightning Tree: Ecstatic Myth & the Grace in Wildness Snowy Tower: Parzival and the Wet Black Branch of…
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Crossing the Waters
An excerpt from a forthcoming interview in OYA online magazine. Consider gathering with Tony Hoagland and Dr. Martin Shaw mid-Decemeber in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Details here. ….Many of us are lonely. And not…
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Story and Poetry In Santa Fe
THE KING AND QUEEN MUST WED THE LAND: Romanticism as Activism An Evening of Story and Poetry with Dr. Martin Shaw & Tony Hoagland Friday, December 15, 2017 7-9PM Myth insists that in each of us a great…
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Present
Present A poem by Ann Arbor written on June 1, 2016 during 42nd Annual Conference I’m here on the back deck made of rusty nails and weather beaten boards. Here where the chokecherry blossoms…
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AGE OF THE SERPENT
Workshop with Martin Shaw and Paul Kingsnorth We live in strange, shifting times. The impossible becomes normal every day, and those who are supposed to understand how the world works - media, pollsters, pundits -…
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How I Became a Tedious Eco-Poet
How I Became a Tedious Eco-Poet A poem by Sam Mansfield Be joyful / though you have considered all the facts. – Wendell Berry It was after I considered all the facts It was because…
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On the Way Home from the Wildlife Sanctuary
On the Way Home from the Wildlife Sanctuary A poem by Dale Rosenkrantz You found no arrows in the rainy forest – Elizabeth McKim On the…
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And I Let the Fish Go
And I Let the Fish Go A poem by Abbot Cuttler When certain emotions show up I find it is best to dismiss them as if they are careful vassals entering the court of my…
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Waking
Waking A poem by Audrey Gidman I step into my body as though I am a temple making holy the dirt. Here I crack myself open like an eggshell…
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2017 Reading List
Book Title Author The Odyssey Homer (translation, Robert Fagles Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad Eva Brann The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters Adam Nicholson Regarding Penelope: From Character…
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The Listener
The Listener From the Seneca story: Haton-dos, the Listener. A telling by Martin Shaw. There was once a boy making trouble in the village. There’s always a boy making trouble in the village. He was sent…
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2016 Reading List
Book Title Author Ensouling Language and the Art of Non-Fiction Stephen Buhner Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm Stephen Buhner Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin Patrick Donnelly The Charge Patrick Donnelly The Eternal City…
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Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy – Film (2015)
Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy - Official Trailer (2014) from Haydn Reiss on Vimeo. Robert Bly: A Thousand Year of Joy A Film by haydn Reiss Robert Bly is one of America’s most…
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In Beauty It’s Begun
In Beauty It's Begun A song by Doug Von Koss In beauty it's begun In beauty it's begun In beauty it's begun In beauty it's begun It's beautiful to left of me It's beautiful to…
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Snowy Tower: A Book Talk
Snowy Tower A book talk by Martin Shaw In Snowy Tower, Dr. Martin Shaw continues his trilogy of works on the relationship between myth, wilderness, and a culture of wildness. In this second book, he…
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Gabriel: A Poem
Gabriel: A Poem An excerpt by Edward Hirsch Edward Hirsch reads from "Gabriel: A Poem," a heart-wrenching elegy for his son, who died in 2011. Mixing sorrow, bewilderment from death, strange hope, and human grief,…
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2015 Reading List
Book Title Author Tristan Gottfried Von Strassburg trans: A. T. Hatto We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love Robert Johnson The Tree of Meaning Robert Bringhurst Becoming Animal Trans: David Abram Feral George Monbiot Landscape…
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Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul
Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul A book by Stephen Jenkinson A book about grief, and dying, and the great love of life. © 2014, Orphan Wisdom Film by Ian MacKenzie
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The Crow-King and the Red-Bead Woman
The Crow-King and the Red-Bead Woman A Yakut Folktale telling by Martin Shaw *** What follows is the bones of the Crow-King story and then a stanzas version that is arising from the actual experience…
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Combing the Dragons Hair: The Earth-Gnome
Combing the Dragons Hair: The Earth-Gnome A version by Martin Shaw There was once an elderly King with three daughters. As he grew towards the end of his life, he became obsessed with an apple…
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Inside this Clay Jug
Inside this Clay Jug A poem by Kabir, Translation by Robert Bly Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains, and the maker of canyons and pine mountains! All seven oceans are inside,…
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2014 Reading List
Book Title Author The Souls Code James Hillman The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration Edward Hirsch Folk Tales from Russia Olga Shartse The Earth-Gnome Wanda Gag Stealing Sugar From…
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Sending a Voice
Sending A Voice Written by Martin Shaw As I sit by the window looking out at the spluttering rain that seems to constitute a Devon spring, it seems hard to conceive that in just six…
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The Woman With The Gold Between Her Teeth
The Woman With The Gold Between Her Teeth The Four Tasks of Desire A letter by Martin Shaw The Great Mother Conference June 1st-9th 2013 “Between my breasts there are quails, they must think I’m…
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Requests for Toy Piano
Requests for Toy Piano A poem by Tony Hogland Play the one about the family of the ducks where the ducks go down to the river and one of them thinks the water will…
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2013 Reading List
Book Title Author Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine Erich Neumann Alchemy of the Soul: The Eros and Psyche Myth as a Guide to Transformation Martin Lowenthal The Golden Ass of Apuleius:…
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Stealing Sugar from the Castle
Stealing Sugar from the Castle A poem by Robert Bly We are poor students who stay after school to study joy. We are like those birds in the India mountains. I am a widow whose…
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Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea A Poem by Matthew Dickman I like the inner lives of the silverware; the fork, the spoon, the knife. I appreciate how they each have a different reference toward god, how the fork is Muslim, the spoon, like…
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The Raven of Chaw Gully
Walking the Story A Story by Martin Shaw What follows is a 'walking the story' - Martin Shaw walking the land (in this case Dartmoor National Park in England) - covering a physical geography that…
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How This Wealth Came to Be
How This Wealth Came to Be A Poem by Robert Bly It's hard to know how all this wealth came to be. Ishmael was not created from a fight with a whale. The ocean is…
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Unraveling Magic
How can we possibly unravel the package enough to allow the magic to weave each one of us together? It doesn’t feel like it’s been two months since I have had to tell everyone to…
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Growing Wings
Growing Wings A Poem by Robert Bly It's all right if Cezanne goes on painting the same picture. It's all right if juice tastes bitter in our mouths. It's all right if the old man…
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Video: Friend Hope for the Guest While You Are Alive
Robert Bly Reads Kabir in 2011 Accompanied by Marcus Wise on tabla and David Whetstone on sitar. Friend, Hope for the Guest While You Are Alive Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.…
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Video: Call and Answer
Call and Answer A poem by Robert Bly Tell me why it is we don’t lift our voices these days And cry over what is happening. Have you noticed The plans are made for Iraq…
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What Was Said to the Rose
What Was Said to the Rose A Poem by Jalaluddin Rumi, Translation by Coleman Barks What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest. What was told…
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The Greek Ships
The Greek Ships A poem by Robert Bly When the water holes go, and the fish flop about In the mud, they can moisten each other faintly, But it's best if they lose themselves in…
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Cleaning Up After the Poetry Salon
Cleaning Up After The Poetry Salon A Poem by Doug Von Koss It's not always easy. Proper nouns are manageable. They stack well. Biggest on the bottom The Great Plains, Idaho, Mt. Rainier - then…
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The Emperor Has No Clothes
The Emperor Has No Clothes An Article By Robert Bly In reality, the horrible event called the Bush presidency is over now. It remains only to start the sort of planning that enabled MacArthur to…
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