Click here to listen to Soul and Your New Story: Stepping Into the Fairy Glen in the season 2 archives on buzzsprout
What do you do when the old ways don’t work anymore? When the roles that you’ve played, and the activities that have engaged your time, must change? What do you do when your ideas about the world and about yourself must evolve? When you need a new story to live?
You turn to soul and your soul life, that imaginative capacity in your nature that enables you to bridge what exists and what could be. Soul—that imaginative ground– is a portal that is always available, to take you into the liminal space where transformation occurs.
Listening to a story like we do here on this podcast, is one way to enter this soul realm.
In this episode, I have a story that tells us something about soul and the liminal space, and the possibilities that can be found there. It’s a Celtic story called “The Man Without a Story,” and I hope it helps you find your way to the edge of the fairy glen.
Transcript of Soul and Your New Story: Stepping Into the Fairy Glen
Hello my friend, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology, and why myth matters to our lives today. I’m your host and personal mythologist, Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours you are part of this story circle,
What do you do when the old ways don’t work anymore? When the roles that you’ve played, and the activities that have engaged your time, must change? What do you do when your ideas about the world and about yourself must evolve? When you need a new story to live?
You may have faced these questions before. I have, and the changes that came about were so radical, so unexpected, that I must use the word “transformation” to describe it. At the time of my metamorphoses, the rest of the world was humming along, the sociopolitical container felt durable, reliable. In many ways, I was like a seed planted into the earth, my changing form was supported by the stable ground.
Now, today, we are in a different situation, together.
We are in a very important in between time my friends, in between the past and possibility, what could be called a liminal time, a liminal space, a space in which the old forms are dissolving, and new things, new possibilities, are emerging. There are many questions right now about what might come next. What to do? Where can you turn to meet the challenge and promise of this time in the best way possible?
I think it’s a turn to soul, to your soul life, that imaginative capacity in your nature that enables you to bridge what exists and what could be, that exists as a kind of psychic middle ground between the conscious and the unconscious, between your waking life and dream, between the visible and the invisible realms. In this space, from this soul perspective, events become experience. This is where meanings are made. Where epiphanies are recognized, lessons are revealed, and shifts are felt. The clues to your destiny emerge. Soul—that imaginative ground– is a portal that is always available, to take you into the liminal space where transformation occurs.
A powerful example of transformation, literal and metaphoric, is the transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly. Called by destiny, the caterpillar encases itself in a chrysalis and dissolves into a soup of imaginal cells, cells that contain the qualities of the old form and the latent, hidden characteristics of the butterfly that will emerge. The ancient Greek word for butterfly is psyche, which also means soul.
Soul is the source and agent of our personal transformation. To step over the threshold into that liminal space, the space of possibility, and to awaken to our transformation, is an act of imagination. Listening to a story like we do here on this podcast, is one way to enter this soul realm, and today I have a story for you that tells us something about soul and the liminal space, and the possibilities that can be found there. It’s a Celtic story called “The Man Without a Story.”
I invite you to relax and let the story take you where it wants to take you. Note the moment or detail in the story that catches your attention. Those moments that reach out to you are a clue about your place in the story right now, and the meaning you might find there.
The Man Without a Story
Once there was a man who cut rods and made baskets, and he made a reasonable living doing this. He was able to support himself and his wife, well enough for a time. And then the rods began to become scarce, they got harder and harder to find and he was able to make fewer and fewer baskets until their larder got quite bare, and they were regularly hungry.
Now, the man knew that there were some rods for baskets in the fairy glen. But the fairy glen was kind of a tricky place. People didn’t go there unless they had to, and so when he told his wife that he had decided that their only option was for him to go into the fairy glen, she really didn’t like the idea. She tried to discourage him but he said, “Everything will be okay. Don’t worry. I’ll just go into the edge. I’ll get a few rods for some baskets, and I’ll be home before dinner.”
Well, the next morning, she packed up his lunch and he gathered up his tools and he went into the ferry glen, and began to cut rods.
He worked for a while and the day was quite warm. He got tired, he was hot. He was hungry. So, he stopped for some lunch and then stretched out under a tree to take a little nap. Who knows how long he slept.
When he woke up, the wind was starting to blow and he noticed that a fog was creeping in. It was moving across the ground and slowly curling up around the trunks of the trees and it wasn’t long before he couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. “Well this is a fine state of affairs,” he thought and he began to gather up his belongings when suddenly a big wind whooshed in and it picked him up, twirled him around, east west, north south, carried him up into the air and dropped him who knows where.
The man looked around. It was dark. It was an unfamiliar landscape. And then off in the distance he saw some lights twinkling and thought to himself, “Where there are lights, there must be people,” and the man walked in the direction of those twinkling lights. Eventually, he came to a hut in the middle of the forest. He knocked on the door, and an old man opened it and motioned him inside.
The old man and his wife were just sitting down for supper. “Would you like to join us?” they asked the man, and he discovered that he was quite hungry and said, “Yes, that would be very kind of you, but I’m afraid I don’t have anything to offer you in return.” “Well, that’s okay,” they said, “why don’t you just tell us a story. We could really use a good story.”
Hmm. The man said, “I really don’t know any stories.” “Ah, well, that’s a shame,” they said, “Now you can make yourself useful. Why don’t you grab that bucket over there by the door and go out to the well and bring us some water.” The man was happy to do this little chore. He picked up the bucket and he went out to the well, tied the rope on it and lowered it down. Just as he pulled it up, and sat it glistening with fresh water on the edge of the well, a great wind whooshed in. It picked him up and twirled him around east and west and north and south, and before he knew it, it carried him off and dropped him who knows where.
The man peered all around him. He saw a light twinkling off in the distance. “Where there’s a light, there must be people,” he thought. So, he walked toward the light. Eventually he came to a house, and when he peered inside, he saw a group of people sitting with a corpse and a coffin.
Well, he was about to leave when a young woman with long black hair noticed him. She got up and came to the door and motioned to him to come in. Wow. He didn’t know what to expect but he followed her into the room and when she indicated the seat next to her, he sat down. The people gathered sat there for a little while in silence. Finally, a big man said, “Well, it really is time for us to send for the priest.” The young woman with the long black hair said, “We don’t need to send for priest. I mean, we have the best priest in all of Ireland, right here with us.”
She looked at the man. They all looked at the man. “Who me?” he said.
“Why, yes,” she said, “You will perform the service.” Well, he really didn’t know what to make of this but before he knew what was happening, he was delivering the sermon and making the prayers and offering the eulogy, and when he was done, everyone agreed that it was the best funeral service they’d ever heard. “Well now,” said the big man, “it’s time for us to call for a fiddler.” “Oh, we don’t need to do that,” said the young woman with the long black hair. “We have the best fiddler in all of Ireland, right here with us.”
She looked at the man. They all looked at the man. “Who, me?” he said.
“Why yes,” she said and someone handed him a fiddle. And before he knew it, he was playing every jig and every reel and the people were dancing, and at the end of the evening, they said, “wow, that he was the best fiddler they’d ever heard and that was the best wake dance party they had ever attended.” “Now,” said the big man, “It’s time for us to bury the body.” The four men who were pallbearers went to the coffin and they each picked up a corner. But alas, it turned out that one of the men was way too tall. “Well,” said the big man, “we’re going to have to call for a surgeon.” “Oh, we don’t need to do that,” said the young woman with the long black hair. “We have the best surgeon in all of Ireland, right here with us.”
She looked at the man. They all looked at the man. “Who, me?” he said.
Well, before he knew it, someone gave him the doctor’s kit and he sawed a piece off of each of the tall man’s legs and put his feet back on and then pallbearers picked up the coffin, and off they went to the graveyard. When they reached the grave, a big wind whooshed in and it picked up the man and twirled him east and west and north and south, spun him around and dropped him who knows where.
He peered into the darkness and saw a light twinkling off in the distance. “Where there’s a light, there must be people” he thought and walked toward the light. When he got closer, he realized he was back at the hut that belonged to the old man and the old woman. And there on the edge of the well was that bucket full of water, still wet and glistening.
He picked up the bucket and went into the house. The old man and woman were still sitting at the table. They looked up at him expectantly. “Here’s your water,” he said, “and, boy, do I have a story to tell you.” He told them the story then, about the young woman with the long black hair, about the funeral and the wake party, about the fiddling and the dancing, about the procession to the graveyard. And when he was done, they agreed that it was the best story that they had ever heard. Now it was late and the fire had burned down low. “It’s time to go to bed,” said the old woman, and she gave the man a blanket and a place to curl up by the fire on the floor. The three of them went to sleep.
The next morning when the man woke up, he found that he was lying on the ground in the fairy glen, his head resting on a bundle of rods. He picked up his belongings and made his way back home.
When he got home, his wife was so happy to see him. “Are you alright,” she asked, “did everything go okay?” “Oh, yes,” he said, “I have some rods and even better, I have quite a story to tell you.” The man told his wife the story and she agreed that it was a very fine one. The man told his story many times after that, and they never were hungry, or wanted for anything, ever again.
There’s much to ponder in this story, it offers many puzzles and images. I want to say a few things about the decision to step into the fairy glen and how this may be accomplished, but first let’s pause for a moment, so you can consider your moment or detail from the story. You may want to pause this recording and jot down a few notes that you can work with later. I know that I invite you to notice your response to the story that I tell every time, and frequently suggest that a story can be a type of Rorschach test, and yet this time, when transformation is underway on a global scale, I am compelled to give you extra encouragement. You may want to write to or about it, or make art about it, you might call the story to mind when you’re out for a walk, having a cup of tea, washing the dishes. What might you learn about your soul life and the personal transformation currently underway in you?
Taking the story seriously and allowing your moment in the story to be significant, is one way to approach the fairy glen. When the old ways no longer work, the new forms, the new story, are first understood through soul. You may feel the compulsion to make a decision, take action, but participation, awakening, begins with inviting uncertainty, with allowing for the unexpected, and this requires imagination. The path is different for each of us, but to enter the fairy glen you need to go to places in your life where the unexpected might appear. You need to go to edges, so to speak, and pay attention. That openness, involved in that move, is an act of imagination, which is “soul.”
Here are some ideas. You could physically go outside and wander, perhaps find the company of a tree or take an unfamiliar path without checking the time. Or you might approach some activity that’s been calling, for which you haven’t made time, or a feeling or thought that’s been popping into consciousness or pushing at you, that you routinely disregard. You might pause between tasks, even sit in your chair in front of the window and watch the shadows fall. You might actively engage with your dreams, maybe ask them what they need.
You might reflect on the roles that you play in your life– mother, husband, cat servant, dog walker, or what occupies your 9-5, for example— or you might reflect on what seems fixed in your identity, and imagine the alternatives.
You could experiment with suspending your opinions, judgements, and/or predictions. Rather than speak as if you know, you could say “Hmm, let’s wait and see.” You could have your morning coffee or tea with a poem rather than the latest news. You could write a poem.
I was gifted with a new poem by my friend, poet and fiber artist Cindy Rinne, called “Passages of Time.” This poem evokes the liminal space of the fairy glen for me and I’d like to read it for you.
Passages of Time by Cindy Rinne
Peering
Down the tunnel
Columns outline my gaze
A few graceful steps
I find an iridescent leaf
Good for potions
Rubbed on skin
Heron
Glides across the ceiling
Under purple moon
Forgets
This is impossible
Pockets of light
Orbs guide me
To an involved
Conversation
Between a fortune teller
And the bird
They wonder
What forever means
Tears
Overflow my cupped hands
I’ve avoided
This place hoping to
Decay enough
To understand
The ephemeral
Flight of water
Inside the crystal ball
Thank you so much Cindy, for gifting me with that poem. I interviewed Cindy for this podcast when it was still called Myth in the Mojave, and will post a link to that episode with the transcript for this one, so you can learn more about Cindy’s process and hear her read some of her poetry, if you are interested.
Other ideas about how to approach the edge of the fairy glen. You can give yourself a mantra, like “I am willing.” You can drum, shake a rattle, dance, make a collage.
You can pray, in whatever form comes to you, and appeal to the unseen presences in your life, the ones that you know exist when you are your soul life, whether you call them goddess, ancestor, river spirit, cosmic consciousness, or deep self. Because it’s time to live and tell and share a story that hasn’t been heard before, and you will not find that in the mind that lives your everyday, in the mind that has forgotten to wonder.
I received a recording of a much-loved poem by Mary Oliver that conveys the peculiar blend of fear and optimism and need and dream that often accompanies the step into the unknown.
One thing that strikes me about the man in our story, is that he’s clearly in desperate straits and he must feel some fear about the fairy glen and yet there’s something almost anticipatory, don’t you think, in his gathering up of the tools. Some optimism. Some sense of potential, as he steps into the glen and finds the rods that he needs. As he pauses for lunch. As he lies down in that magical place to take a nap.
Well, this Mary Oliver poem is called “Journey” and is read by Rags Rosenberg.
The Journey by Mary Oliver
| One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice — though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voice behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deepe rinto the world, determined to do the only thing you could do — determined to save the only life that you could save. |
Thank you Rags Rosenberg, for that beautiful recording.
When we talk about this being a time of transformation, when we say that we need something new– a new system, a new government, a new culture, a new way of living, a new story– what we are really saying is that it’s time for us to show up in a new way. Time for us to live differently. Time for us to bring something forth that may be hidden, may be the latent characteristics in that soup of imaginal cells.
The story suggests that there is a connection between the soul life, having a story, and knowing the source of story is in soul, that this is the source of life’s riches. This is also the way we discover who and what, we are. The man in our story found that he is so much more than he thought, he’s not “only” a basket maker. Could it be that if we are attached to what we think is our story, and we think that we are, that we may miss out on the magic of the next chapter?
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. You will find a transcript of this podcast at my website, www.mythicmojo.com, along with links to other resources you might find useful. I want to welcome the new subscribers and give a big thank you to the new patron on Patreon– a longtime listener from Portland, OR. Thank you so much my friend!
And thank you for listening and spending some of your precious time with Myth Matters.
Please take care of yourself and until next time, happy mythmaking and keep the mystery in your life alive.
Links to resources that may be of interest
My interview with Cindy Rinne on Myth in the Mojave
Cindy Rinne’s website: http://www.fiberverse.com
About Mary Oliver at poetry foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-oliver
Metamorphosis, butterflies, and imaginal cells in nature: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/
