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Come write and dream with me in the animal den. Come explore the idea that the animals themselves are light-bearers…
In this recording of a mythic writing workshop I taught in the winter of 2023, you will be guided along animal trails using poetry, natural history, folklore and wildlife tracking principles, exploring how you might make votive offerings of your words to the animals you share your waters and trees and seasons with.
Poetic inspiration will include work by some if not all of the following—Louise Erdrich, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Galway Kinnell, Gary Snyder, W.S. Merwin, Rainer Maria Rilke and Jean Valentine (and maybe some others I haven’t thought of yet). Folkloric and mythic inspiration will include flashes of bear-lore from the Finnish Kalevala, the story of 7th century Welsh abbess and hermit, Melangell of the hare, elements of the Scottish borderlands ballad Tam Lin, and possibly more!
All of these logs on the fire will build up a great heat, around which we will create our own pieces of writing that speak in some way to the animals, and leave room for them to speak back...
You will come away from the class with your own pieces of animal-devotional writing, and hopefully a renewed sense of the living world around you.
It will help you get the most out of the workshop if you take a little time to acquaint yourself more deeply with the animal species of your immediate ecosystem, within a 6 mile radius (as far as a honeybee goes foraging), before you listen to the recording. Skim a field guide or two. You don't need to make a catalogue or a comprehensive study. Just see who catches your eye, and why. Write down some Latin names, some little notes about behavior, coloring, habitat. Bring these notes with you to enhance your experience of the class.
Class time is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Come write and dream with me in the animal den. Come explore the idea that the animals themselves are light-bearers…
In this recording of a mythic writing workshop I taught in the winter of 2023, you will be guided along animal trails using poetry, natural history, folklore and wildlife tracking principles, exploring how you might make votive offerings of your words to the animals you share your waters and trees and seasons with.
Poetic inspiration will include work by some if not all of the following—Louise Erdrich, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Galway Kinnell, Gary Snyder, W.S. Merwin, Rainer Maria Rilke and Jean Valentine (and maybe some others I haven’t thought of yet). Folkloric and mythic inspiration will include flashes of bear-lore from the Finnish Kalevala, the story of 7th century Welsh abbess and hermit, Melangell of the hare, elements of the Scottish borderlands ballad Tam Lin, and possibly more!
All of these logs on the fire will build up a great heat, around which we will create our own pieces of writing that speak in some way to the animals, and leave room for them to speak back...
You will come away from the class with your own pieces of animal-devotional writing, and hopefully a renewed sense of the living world around you.
It will help you get the most out of the workshop if you take a little time to acquaint yourself more deeply with the animal species of your immediate ecosystem, within a 6 mile radius (as far as a honeybee goes foraging), before you listen to the recording. Skim a field guide or two. You don't need to make a catalogue or a comprehensive study. Just see who catches your eye, and why. Write down some Latin names, some little notes about behavior, coloring, habitat. Bring these notes with you to enhance your experience of the class.
Class time is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.