Shaw helps us get acquainted with the kinds of folktales and myths that can be helpful in navigating these turbulent times. He says, “They are always trying to dig into the mud of the encounter with the notion that possibly there's a little bit of gold in there. There's some information that, over time, could turn into wisdom.” Martin Shaw, Ph.D. is a scholar of myth and an acclaimed storyteller. He's a wilderness rites-of-passage guide and is internationally regarded as one of the most exciting proponents of the mythic imagination. He tells "prophetic stories" that speak deeply to the challenges we face today, in the world and in our personal lives. He has devised and led the Oral Tradition course at Stanford University, is a visiting fellow at Shumacher College, and the Director of the Westcountry School of Myth, a learning community in Dartmoor in the far west of the United Kingdom. His books include A Branch from the Lightning Tree: Ecstatic Myth and the Grace in Wildness (White Cloud Press 2011), Snowy Tower: Parzival and the Wet, Black Branch of Language (White Cloud Press 2014), Scatterlings: Getting Claimed in the Age of Amnesia (White Cloud 2016), The Night Wages: Bidden or Unbidden Initiations Come (Cista Mystica Press 2019) and Courting the Wild Twin (Chelsea Green Publishing 2020)

Interview Date: 4/23/2020 Tags: Martin Shaw, The Odyssey, transcending, underworld, depression, despair, Percival, Grail King, The Lindworm story, alchemy, Gioia Timpanelli, Robert Bly, educated heart, James Hillman, Gaston Bachelard, Hermes, Arts & Creativity, Personal Transformation, Mythology, Philosophy