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OUR STORY

A magical tree grows apples that assure the fertility of the community, but suddenly the fruit stops appearing each morning. The story, which comes from the Nart Sagas of the Ossetia region in the Caucasus Mountains, includes an initiatory journey, a marriage, and is ultimately about the union of the land and the sea. 

OUR GUEST

Stephanie MacKay is the founder of Mythology Club and is co-founder and Director of Fianna Wilderness School. She specializes in ancestral knowledge, earth-based skills, ceremony and myth. Stephanie has a degree in literature, which has been enriched by over 15 years of transformative practice and study. She has delved deep into the realms of myth and initiation through trainings with Animas Valley Institute, Haven Institute, Wilderness Awareness School, and over a decade of study with Martín Prechtel. Her work is deeply informed by the time she spent in Alberta collaborating with Blackfoot and Métis elders as a part of the Rediscovery Initiative. She has held the role of senior guide and director at nature-based organizations across Western Canada. 

Stephanie is dedicated to uncovering the vestiges of intact cultural origins within the body of old European mythologies. Drawing from the wellspring of these old mythologies, she seeks to uncover the hidden pathways that lead us to our cultural origins—reviving traditions long forgotten and holding space for the rehydration of ancestral wisdom.

Find her at www.stephaniemackay.ca and facebook.com/MythologyCultureRemembered

OUR CONVERSATION

• First questions to savor when you first receive a story: Where do you place yourself in this story? What image stands out for you? Can we meet the story from a place of soul?
• This story is connected to a Celtic story from the Isle of Skye, “The Cup of Healing.” The Narts are connected to the Celtic peoples through Indo-European migration.
• The contrast of working with myth for the purpose of psychological insight, compared to the more ancient, animist, land-based understandings of the stories
• The power of romance in the creation of the world. In this story, she is water goddess, he is a warrior of the land.
• John Colarusso, translator of the Nart Sagas
• Stephanie’s work with First Nations elders of the Haida, Blackfoot, Métis. Her need to look to her own ancestral origins to feed her own land based work on on the land of the Sneneymuxw, Gabriola Island.
• The discomfort and aliveness that comes with reckoning with the stories of the lands you live upon as a descendant of settlers
• We might read this story as the old “hero selects a woman” narrative, but it’s ultimately a story about the marriage of the land and the sea and the creation of the Nart people.
• This story is an initiation story for all, not just a singular hero’s tale. Everyone has a magnificence and a royalty of the soul (Martín Prechtel)/
• How to become receptive to story rather than a consumer or a decoder of story.

Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

WORK WITH MARISA

• 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com
• Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups

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