A Branch from the Lightning Tree

by Martin Shaw

  I have told stories in many locations: on the sides of mountains, by fires, with dogs loping around and cats peering in, in Yurts with rain thrashing the canvas, in lecture theaters, in deserts, by oceans, in bear-laden forests, in a Brownstone apartment in Brooklyn. Always people, animals, tears, conjecture, animation—the weather of the room won’t allow “the one true version.”

  I’ve told stories to the dying, the rich, leaders of industry, medicine people, and at-risk-youth, Pueblo, Welsh, African, Lakota, Tibetan, English, Russian, Mayan, Scottish, Romanian, and Irish. No one has ever failed to enter the story or been anything but delighted when they found an element from their own culture. I must emphasize that I’ve told stories poorly on occasion, but what I do trust is this inherently triadic relationship between the teller, the story, and the listener. Something happens.

  From the beginning the listeners have to work harder, to push further with their imaginations. The story will give less descriptive details of the characters and scenes. So the visual perception of the audience is pronounced; if called upon, all know the shade of the “wild third daughter’s” hair, the exact part of the chest the spear entered, the colour of Finn’s tunic. Their eyes may sometimes be closed but they are extremely active. So the story ambles through the many cultures present and offers each a glimpse of the living story. One saw the brush of tail, another a flash of teeth, another a row of nipples, another a laughing eye. No one hears quite the same story. Of course, no one quite reads the same story either, but with an oral telling the nuances change nightly, it is continually told for the first time.

  In the raucous, poignant, and often intense conversing that follows the story, the dialogue serves as container for all the imaginations present in the room. The storyteller will be awash with the images that arise from the audience. The moment is not Roland Barthes’s “time of sarcasm,” but the eternal “once upon, beside, and underneath a time.” This invocational quality should not be just rhetoric but a stepping beyond our normal frame of reference and receptivity.

  What you lose in polish you can gain authentic dialogue, and this is something also sensed in the listener—this is not acting. This is image flying off the tongue in new and sometimes uncertain expressions. It is far more connected to the inner life of the storyteller than the cluster of techniques they may have acquired to hold an audiences attention. The words should feel at home in the atmosphere of the teller, that some integration is present.

  At the same time, we are looking to feel more than personality: we are looking to see who or what stands behind them. What powers will step into the room?

  This all is implicit of a wyrd receptivity in the storyteller; the receptivity lives in the story that chose to be told in the first place, the awareness of atmosphere and audience, the openness to the insights of the participants, the honoring of all the men and women who have told this story long before you and will after you, and some intense mystery that binds it all together. So we are not impacting a story in concrete, but bearing witness to its inflections and color.

  Rather than attempting to wrestle a completely interpretative shape on the story, let it live in the room. Let it find a wider body in the liveliness of the audiences response, their passion or annoyance. The storyteller has every right to offer insights, should indeed be encouraged to do so, but the story flourishes in a larger confluence. In the triadic configuration some surprise waits that the story, teller, or participant could never have anticipated! This surprise—an observation or insight—is all part of the life-preserving aspect of myth, that it is once again living right in the heart of things.

  Without these two elements that loosen the grip of control, we risk (as is often the case) word-perfect “preservations” of story, with a fixed destination and an uncomfortable sense of excavated ground—like peering into a Pharaoh’s tomb as the guide shines his flashlight. In this world the storyteller nervously fingers their script as they try not to offend the anthropologists.

  Ben Haggerty, an accomplished storyteller, makes a useful distinction between the fireside teller of hamlets and small communities, and the professional, travelling raconteur. There is also a third element that can be present in both traditions, what we have discussed as the interiority of the practice; openness to the prophetic energies of the role, a position just as complex as something defined by financial gain or professional standing. In this light the teller stands as a true Soul Teacher.

  So, as I end this book I yelp a wild whoop of words to curl around the yellow moon and below to charm the dark-bellied whale: Let the vastness of the lion spread a net of galloping language and green silence into the mouths of all us troublemakers. Let us bend our head again to the briny murmuring of the rapacious ocean and the flinty epiphanies of the keen-eyed hawk. Let the curly horned ram of poetry sit beside all men and women of influence. Let mercy ride with daring. Amen.

  Hope therefore lies in a poetry through which the world so invades the spirit of man that he becomes almost speechless, and later reinvents a language … true poetry is what does not pretend to be poetry. It is in the dogged drafts of a few maniacs seeking the new encounter.

  Francis Ponge1

  ENDNOTES

  Foreword

  1 Friedrich Hölderlin, “Bread and Wine,” in The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: Poems for Men eds. Robert Bly, James Hillman, and Michael Meade (New York: HarperColins, 1992) p. 12.

  2 Brian Walker, Hua Hu Ching: Teachings of Lao Tzu (Livingston, Montana: Clark City Press, 1992) p. 8.

  3 Burton Feldman and Robert D. Richardson Jr., The Rise of Modern Mythology 1680-1860 (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1972) pp. 34-35.

  4 Ibid.

  5 Lawrence J. Hatab, Myth and Philosophy: A Contest of Truths (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1990) p. 19.

  6 Antonio Machado in Robert Bly, The Sibling Society (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1996) p. 212.

  7 W. B. Yeats “The Song of Wandering Aengus,” in The Rag and Bone Shop, p. 363.

  8 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “The Holy Longing,” in ibid., p. 382.

  Introduction

  1 For more on the Great Self, please refer to the work of Mircea Eliade, Victor Turner, and Robert Moore.

  Chapter One: Pirates, Nomads, Bandit Queens

  1 Webster’s Dictionary, 1913 ed., s.v. “wild.”

  2 Cole Porter, “Don’t Fence Me In,” Alfred Publishing, Co..

  3 Thorkild Bjornvig, in News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness, ed. Robert Bly (Sierra Club Books, 1980), p. 152.

  4 Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Vintage Press, 1957), p. 117.

  5 Federico Garcia Lorca cited in The Rag and Bone Shop, p. 23.

  6 Cesar Vallejo, Complete Later Poems, ed. Valentino Giannuzzi and Michael Smith (Shearsman Books, 2005), p. 49.

  7 Gary Snyder, The Real Work: Interviews and Talks 1964-1979 (New Directions, 1980), p. 156.

  8 Semyon Semyonov, cited in Holger Kalweit, Dreamtime and Inner Space (Shambhala, 1984), p. 95

  9 Henry David Thoreau excerpted from National History of Massachusetts (1842).

  10 Nalungiag, cited in News of the Universe, p. 258.

  Chapter Two: The Northern Witch and The Luminous Bride

  1 William Stafford, The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford (Harper Perennial, 1993), p. 131.

  2 James. Personal notes of author. Printed with permission.

  3 D. H. Lawrence cited in The Rag and Bone Shop, p. 20.

  4 George Bataille, The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism, transl. Michael Richardson (Verso Publishing, 1994), p.11.

  5 Marion Woodman and Robert Bly, The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine (Henry Holt, 1998), p. 177.

  6 Hilmi Dede Baba, cited in Quarreling with God, transl. Jennifer Ferraro and Latif Bolat (White Cloud Press, 2007), p. 75.

  7 Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men (Addison Wesley, 1990), pp. 199-202.

  8 Clarrisa Pinkola Este
s, Women Who Run with the Wolves (Rider Books, 1992), p. 92.

  9 Robert Moore and Douglas Gilette, The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight in the Male Psyche (William Morrow and Company, 1992), p. 165.

  10 Ummi Sinan, cited in Quarreling with God, p. 6.

  11 William. Personal notes of author. Printed with permission.

  12 Bridget. Personal notes of author. Printed with permission.

  13 Nick Cave, Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (Mute Records, 2005).

  14 Marion Woodman and Robert Bly, The Maiden King, p. 184.

  15 Daniel Deardorff, The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture and Psyche (White Cloud Press, 2004), p. 17.

  16 Magnus. Personal notes of author. Printed with permission.

  17 Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion (Harper Perennial, 1991) p. 74.

  18 Clare. Personal notes of author. Printed with permission.

  Chapter Three: The Pastoral and the Prophetic

  1 Steven Foster and Meredith Little, The Book of the Vision Quest: Personal Transformation in the Wilderness (Bear Tribe Publishing, 1980), p. 128.

  2 Nicholas Black Elk cited in Ibid., p. 128.

  3 Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality, trans. Willard R Trask (Harper and Row, 1963), p. 39.

  4 Matthew. Personal notes of author. Printed with permission.

  5 Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Foundation Inc, 1949), p. 217.

  6 Suzanne. Personal notes of author. Printed with permission.

  7 Nikolai Tolstoy cited in The Quest for Merlin (Hamish Hamilton, 1985), p. 147.

  8 Geoffrey of Monmouth in ibid., p. 144.

  9 Raymond Williams, Culture and Society (The Hogarth Press, 1958), p. xvi.

  10 Sally Pomm Clayton, Into the Hidden Country (Society for Storytelling Press, 2008), p.7.

  11 Gary Snyder, Back on the Fire: Essays (Shoemaker Hoard, 2007), p. 44.

  12 James Lenfestey, Han Shan is the Cure for Warts (Red Dragonfly Press, 2006), p. 20.

  Chapter Four: Gambling with the Knuckle-Bones of Wolves

  1 Alexandr Kushner, cited in In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era, ed. J. Kates (Bloodaxe Books, 1999), p. 47.

  2 Jay Leeming, Dynamite on a China Plate (Backwaters Press, 2006), p. 20.

  3 Fran Quinn, A Horse of Blue Ink (Blue Sofa Press,2005), p.56.

  4 Geoffrey Canada, cited in Crossroads: The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage, ed. Louis Carus Mahdi, Nancy Gever Christopher, and Michael Meade (Open Court Publishing, 1996), p. 109.

  5 John. Personal notes of author. Printed with permission.

  6 Frank Steele, Singing into That Fresh Light (Blue Sofa Press, 2001), p. 65.

  7 Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild: Essays (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2003), p. 110.

  8 Ludwig Van Beethoven cited in Fred Hageneder, The Heritage of Trees: History, Culture and Symbolism (Floris Books, 2001), p. 11.

  9 William Blake, The Portable Blake, ed. Alfred Kazin (Penguin, 1977), p. 445ff.

  10 Yggdrasil cited in The Heritage of Trees, p. 118.

  11 Peredur, The Mabinogion, transl. Charlotte E. Guest (Dover Publications, 1997), p. 124.

  12 Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation (Harvill Press, London, 1958), p.73.

  13 Kabir, The Kabir Book: 44 of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir, trans. Robert Bly (Beacon Press, 1977).

  14 Robert Bly, Iron John, p. 112.

  15 Robin Williamson, The Wise and Foolish Tongue (Canongate Publishing, 1989), p. 82.

  16 Poor Wolf, News of the Universe, p. 259.

  Chapter Five: Crossroads, Temples, and Wild Intelligence

  1 Georg Trakl, Twenty Poems of Georg Trakl, eds. James Wright and Robert Bly (Sixties Press, 1961), p. 25.

  2 W. B. Yeats, Yeats’s Poems, ed. A. Norman Jeffares (Papermac Books, 1989), p. 365.

  3 Kabir, The Kabir Book, p. 24.

  4 Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of his Soul (Hartcourt, Brace and World, 1933), p. 60.

  5 Pablo Neruda, Residence on Earth (Souvenir Press, 1997), p. 165.

  6 Daniel Goldman, Working with Emotional Intelligence (Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 1998), pp. 6 and 11.

  7 King Cormac, The Councels of Cormac, p. 31.

  8 Maurice Keen, Chivalry (Yale University Press, 1984), p. 2.

  9 John C. Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), p. 65.

  10 Henry David Thoreau, in The Rag and Bone Shop, p. 163.

  11 Hugo Ball, in George Steiner’s (ed.) After Babel (Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 194.

  12 George Steiner, ibid., pp. 38-40.

  13 Meg Bogin, The Female Troubadours (W.W. Norton, 1980), pp. 67-68.

  14 Ibid, p. 23.

  15 Basho, The Thousands, ed. Robert Bly (The Thousands Press, 2001), p. 22.

  16 Mary Oliver, News of the Universe, p. 196.

  17 Antonio Machado, Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado, trans, Robert Bly (Wesleyan Poetry, 1983), p. 46.

  18 Maurice Keen, “On Ramon Lull,” Chivalry (Yale University Press, 1984), p. 6.

  19 Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World (North Point Press, 1998), p. 13

  20 Robert Bly, Iron John, p. 6.

  21 Rainer Maria Rilke cited in Saga: Best New Writings on Mythology, ed. Jonathan Young (White Cloud Press, 1996), p. 77.

  22 Daniel Deardorff, The Other Within, pp. 44-45.

  23 Brian Maussmi, Foreword to A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, trans. Brian Maussmi (Atholone Books, 1984), p. 4.

  24 Ibid., p. 32.

  25 Daniel Deardorff, The Other Within, p. 105.

  26 William Stafford, The Darkness Around us is Deep, p. 18.

  Chapter Six: Woman that Moves in the Dark Groves of Soul

  1 Mirabai, News of the Universe, p. 277.

  2 Jay Leeming, Dynamite on a China Plate, p. 83.

  3 Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living, ed. by Diane K. Osbon (HarperPerennial, 1991), p. 72.

  4 Dorothy. Personal notes of author. Printed with permission.

  5 W. B. Yeats, Yeats’s Poems, p. 380.

  6 Howard Gardner, Artful Scribbles: The Significance of Children’s Drawings (Basic Books, 1982), p. 148.

  7 Jay Leeming, Dynamite on a China Plate, p. 52.

  8 Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, cited in News of the Universe, p. 67.

  9 Marion Woodman, Leaving My Father’s House (Shambala Press, 1992).

  10 Robert Graves, The White Goddess (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1948), p. 70.

  11 The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation: Including the Demiotic Spells, ed. Hans Dieter Betz (University of Chicago, 1989), p. 43.

  12 Pradip Bhattacharya, review of Is the Goddess a Feminist?, in International Journal of Hindu Studies (Volume 8, Numbers 1-3, January, 2004), p. 205.

  13 Ted Hughes, Crow (Faber, 1970), p. 51.

  14 Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe (Pantheon Books, 1961), p. 164.

  15 Elinor Gadon cited in Saga: Best New Writings On Mythology, p. 95.

  16 Santal, The Rag and Bone Shop, p. 408.

  17 Polly Young-Eisendrath, Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to Be Wanted, (Three Rivers Press, 2000), p. 84.

  18 Rainer Maria Rilke, The Rag and Bone Shop, p. 422.

  Chapter Seven: Deer Woman and the Velvet Antlered Moon

  1 Cesar Vallejo, Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poems, trans. by Robert Bly, John Knoepfle and James Wright (Beacon Press, Boston, 1971), p. 187.

  2 Robert Bly, Loving a Woman in Two Worlds (HarperPerennial, 1985), p. 4.

  3 Dylan Thomas, The Poems of Dylan Thomas ( JM Dent, 1952), p. 40.

  4 James Hillman, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling (Bantam Books, 1996), p. 15.

  5 Hafez, The Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz, trans. by Peter Avery (Archetype Books, 2007), p. 480.

  6 W. B. Yeats, Essays
and Introductions (Macmillan Press, 1961), p. 96.

  7 Fran Quinn, A Horse of Blue Ink, p. 47.

  Chapter Eight: The Birth of Ossian

  1 W. B. Yeats, Yeats’s Poems, p. 107.

  2 Jay Leeming, Dynamite on a China Plate, p. 10.

  3 Guirat De Bornelh, The Power of Myth (Doubleday Press, 1988), p. 185.

  4 H. R. Ellis Davidson, Animals in Folklore, ed. by J. R. Porter, W. M. S. Russell (D.S. Brewer ltd, 1978), p. 126.

  5 Guihem de Peitieu, The Troubadours, eds. S. Gaunt, S. Kay, (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 28.

  6 Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover (HarperSan Francisco, 1990), p. 125.

  7 Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World, p. 14.

  8 W. B. Yeats, Yeats’s Poems, pp. 93-94.

  9 Robert Bly, Choirs of the Gods: Revisioning Masculinity, ed. by John Matthews (Harpercollins, 1991), pp. 23, 25, 27.

  10 William Cowper, The Soul is Here for its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures, ed. by Robert Bly (The Echo Press, 1995), p. 64.

  11 Daniel Deardorff, The Other Within, p. 8.

  12 Ibid.

  13 Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World, p.180.

  14 Nils Peterson, Driving a Herd of Moose to Durango (Jotunheim Press, 2005), p.15.

  Chapter Nine: The Red King and the Witch

  1 Ted Hughes, Crow (Faber and Faber, 1970,) p. 36.

  2 W. H. Auden, The Rattle Bag, ed. by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes (Faber and Faber,1982), p.142.

  3 Emily Dickinson, cited in The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, p. 304.

  4 Humberto Ak’abal, Poems I Brought Down from the Mountain, trans. by Miguel Rivera (Nineties Press,1999), p. 67.

  5 W. H. Davis, The Rattle Bag, p. 449.

  6 Robert Bly and Marion Woodman, The Maiden King, p. 86.

  7 Seamus Heaney, New Selected Poems 1966-1987 (Faber and Faber, 1990), p. 97.