Imagine a map with no cities, no provincial or national borders, no names of colonisers claiming land.

Instead, this map is dotted with mythic sites. It is a record of story-sites rooted in land, and webbed together.

Hear more, in this melodic meditation, quoting Sean Kane’s excellent book, Wisdom of the Mythtellers, with a passage from a Haida origin myth.Subscribe & Support

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment and Subscribe here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

As a young man, with my fabric of my life dealt a sudden and grave wound, when I most needed culture, India took me in.

But my relationship with Indian culture and myth is complicated.

I traversed story paths walked by sages for thousands of years, heard the tales sprouting from those places, found culture and community and meaning.

And there is hierarchy, racism, sexism, caste, and other violences woven in.

And it’s complicated.

And it’s beautiful.

After years of turning away from the myths and practices that once shaped my life, I was recently invited to tell a story from the Ramayan at a Bhakti festival here on Turtle Island.

This live telling moves through love, exile, and betrayal; forest hermitages and monkey kingdoms; floating bridges and secret reasons behind the prince’s banishment.

Along the way, we wonder at the villains in this story, and how they may be the story’s greatest servants.

Subscribe & Support

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment and Subscribe here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Overwhelmed by rapid change in my life, inside and outside, I walked a beach in South India, my head spinning between continents. A fellow pilgrim’s rambling advice saved me. As did potatoes. As did a slug, years later, in a very different scenario.

Intrigued? Confused? Have a listen to increase both of those.

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment and Subscribe here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

A tribute-song to two supernovas—Joanna Macy and Andrea Gibson—who in their passing away are spreading life-building gifts.

A story-song. A metaphor.

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment and Subscribe here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

The rhythm of Jupiter doesn’t quite fit with the birdsong at home.

Peeling potatoes and rambling might be the path to enlightenment.

Frogs are always singing to someone—maybe to you.

My friend Sean Shea and I sat down for a ‘business meeting.’

A mother, a deathbed, and the music of the spheres.

Somewhere between devotion and dance floors, between discipline and dissolution, we stumble forward, hands full of stories, wondering whether the bell is tolling for us yet.

Sean guides and encourages song writers. Maybe you? https://www.songsforpositivechange.com/

Keep an ear our for our upcoming song-story workshop.

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment and Subscribe here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Human skin against goat skin. Who leads, who follows?

Rhythm is a language, but who speaks it best—the swirling hand or the desert wind?

My friend Rasha taught me Egyptian rhythms beneath the stars.

We sync, I lose the thread, we laugh. But the stars keep time, and the drums keep calling us back.

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment & Subscribe Here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Bats cut the badlands sky.

A traditional man softens. Who gets to cry? Who gets to weave?

Another man steps into the ocean and forgets himself. He comes back with nothing.

But what’s that he’s offering to the being who sent him in?

The waters are rising. Step in.

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

A king devoured by his own hunger.

Skin dissolving into fur, into feathers, into scales.

The tunnel calls, but will you step through?

The sign above the entrance reads: Weird. Is that just another way of seeing?

Breathe deep. Submerge.

Listen. The water is speaking.

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment and Subscribe here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Looms clatter, voices hum, a temple echoes with recitations.Gods wander through the Himalayan foothills.

Are we moving?

Sliding, flying, riding: through sound, space, a weave of voices.

Let your headphones slide other worlds into your noggin.

Listen close. The loom is weaving. The temple is calling.

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment and Subscribe here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Every tool is a spell, every technology a superpower.

Clamshell knives slash AI cloaks.

Free Story & Media Consultation

Comment and Subscribe here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe