Letting Go of the Riverbank
The Bard of the Shining Brow
Greetings from the moonlit slopes of Mauna Loa, good people.
This week I’m sharing a live telling of the Welsh story The Birth of Taliesin. It was recorded on my lanai with an audience of coqui frogs as accompaniment and a pack of wild pigs thrashing just off the edge of the porch rails where civilization gives way to the forest.
I am still in the thick of the scattering, the 8th principle of the oscillation of magic, so I’m not ready to write that long-promised essay in The Art of Spell-Casting yet, but it’s close. Very close. I actually got fired from my massage job after my first storytelling gig last week. When. I mentioned this to Martin Shaw, he said the same thing happened to him after his first gig. Keep going. If the scattering is a dismemberment in order to be reassembled in order to make one’s holistic contribution, I’m right on track. I should be stressed about getting fired and not having a predictable source of income, but I’m not. To be honest, I’ve been through far worse. For once I can see that financial stress is temporary, and nothing compared to the emotional devastation I’ve gone through, the abandonments and betrayals. I have been tempered in the forge of the broken heart more than once, so often I’d stopped trusting myself.
But this time is different. For the first time in my life, I can say I truly have faith. This time it’s not blind trust, or the faith of the innocent. This time I can say, I earned my faith, though that’s not quite right either. I have been delivered unto faith. I am in the river’s flow and no part of me is holding on to the shore.
I hope you enjoy this story. I told it to a lovely trio this afternoon at The New Thought Center in Kealakekua. I’ve got a 4-part workshop series on there. The next one is January 6th, story to be determined. If you’re on the Big Island I’d love to see you there.
Here’s that story. If you feel moved to share an image or two that moved you in the comments I’d love to hear them.
I feel as though I have gained such a beautiful gift though receiving this story. So deeply enriching in both imagery and meaning. thank you <3 I particularly appreciated the piece of it that spoke of weaving a spell that held all the wisdom of the forest...brewing with the ever so steady hands of an old man and his boy, through all seasons. mmm, so beautiful.