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KnotWork Myth & Storytelling

Marisa Goudy

On KnotWork, we explore the mythology and folklore of Ireland, and beyond.

Episodes begin with a story, followed by a deep dive conversation about how this age-old tale still resonates today. Our guests include oral storytellers, writers, artists, musicians, and spiritual leaders.

Occasionally, in our Myth Workers and Culture Makers series, our guest offers a song, a meditation, or another bit of creative magic. We talk about what it means to live a myth-inspired life.

These conversations explore our relationship to land and to identity, particularly related to what it means to be Irish and a member of the Irish diaspora.

Whether you’re drawn to Celtic culture or the mysteries that linger at ancient sacred sites, or whether you just like a good story and expansive conversation, you’re in the right place. Welcome. Fáilte.

Your host is Marisa Goudy, author of The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic. She is a myth worker, a story healer, a writing coach who lives on the lands of the Lenape people (New York’s Hudson Valley). She holds an MA in Irish literature from University College Dublin.

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S7 · E21
October 15 · 47 min
The Hare, the Witch, and the Tower with Katy Swift | S7Ep21
OUR STORY Deep in the forest in the Scottish Borders, there’s a hidden cottage that’s home to a shapeshifting witch. In this ghost story, a handsome, duplicitous laird falls in love with the woman who can turn into a hare, and his entire world is turned upside down. OUR GUEST Katy Swift is a storyteller, maker, mother, and lifelong gatherer of the stories, skills, and ways of living that root us back into the more-than-human world. A Northumbrian lass with Highland and island heritage on her father’s side, she has made her home in Scotland for nearly twenty years and carries that lineage forward through her love of the Gàidhlig language and the old tales. Today she lives in the Scottish Borders with her partner and their two wee boys, in a landscape thick with ballads, hawthorns, and haunted towers. These threads come together in The Wildcraft Way, her online course and community for families who want to walk the Celtic Wheel of the Year together through foraging, herbal remedies, seasonal recipes, Waldorf-inspired songs, traditional skills, and the stories that have always marked the turning of the year. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mama.moon.storytelling The Wildcraft Way: https://www.epiphany-learning.com/program/wildcraft-way-samhain-and-introduction OUR CONVERSATION This story takes place at Littledean Tower, a lesser-known Borders ruin where visitors still report a feeling of unease From the Flames We Rise, a 2023 gathering at Traquair honoring the folk burned as witches in Peebles, and the new memorial on Tweed Green Stories as living, evolving things, retold and embellished around the cèilidh fire all winter long Isobel Gowdie of Auldearn and her 1662 confessions of hare shape-shifting, flight, and the King and Queen of the Fairies Listening from both places: skepticism, belief, and a Gaelic otherworld that waits at crossroads, woodland edges, and beneath the hawthorn Guising, turnip lanterns, and what American Halloween has kept and lost of Samhain Laying a place at the table for the year’s dead How to Kill a Witch by Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi of the Witches of Scotland podcast SUPPORT THE SHOW Love the show? Subscribe to Myth Workers’ Hearth on Substack to support KnotWork Myth & Storytelling and join our community of myth, land, and living wonder. www.mythworkers.com WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com
S7 · E20
October 8 · 46 min
The Buried Moon with Mitlé Southey | S7Ep20
OUR STORY We return to the archives for a story of the Fens of East Anglia, retold by Mitlé Southey. The moon becomes trapped in a marsh pool. Without her light, the bogles and beasts of the darkness take over the Fens. Through a combination of community care and the wisdom of the old woman at the edge of the bog, the local people finally find and liberate the moon. OUR GUEST Mitlé is a Circle Holder walking the ancient path whilst contributing to a modern movement. The founder of Circle School, she teaches internationally and has facilitated circles, retreats and courses since 2016. She believes in the power of connection, community and circle to provide a path of integrity back to ourselves, and authentic relationship with the more than human world. As a woman of British heritage, Mitle’s circles and courses are deeply rooted in the old Western wisdom traditions and British native mythology. As a former lawyer now learning the old ways, she is seeking ways to fracture the current systems that uphold oppression and is committed to increasing her capacity to hold diverse, inclusive and safer spaces for those marginalised by those systems. When not in Circle, she can usually be found out walking or in a cosy corner with a book and a cup of tea. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gatherwithmitle Substack: https://mitle.substack.com/ OUR CONVERSATION We can see ourselves in every character and every element of the more-than-human-world in this story. This is a story of community and connection and of Sister Moon who is so caught up in overgiving that she loses track of her own needs. The power of the unknown and finding answers when people come together as a community. The mark of the heroine: the “do it together” ethic as an alternative to the hero’s journey. Mitlé’s experience of holding circles, both in person and online, and how we are called to continue to adapt How the “architecture of circle” can help us today. What is being included or suppressed in a circle? What is said or unsaid? The power of silences and words? Conversations about power and biases, and what perspectives are welcomed into a space. Western culture’s limits of time and how it contrasts with indigenous cultures where circles last as long as they need to go. What we can learn from indigenous traditions that gathered in circle. Questions of cultural appropriation and Inclusion. Mitlé’s source: from the folklore collected by Mrs. M.C. Balfour from the 1890s. WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com
S7 · E19
October 1 · 11 min
Not End Times, But Mountain Time | S7Ep19
OUR STORY Mis staggers away from a gruesome battle on Kerry’s Dingle coast and finds a home in the mountains. Over 200 years, she becomes at one with the wild, covered in feathers and living completely apart from the human world. Eventually, the harper Dubh Ruis finds a gentle way to bring her home. HEAR THE WHOLE STORY This preview episode is part of our Turas series. Upgrade your membership to support KnotWork Myth & Storytelling and unlock your access to Turas, the subscriber-only podcast series, plus monthly invitations to gather live with the Myth Workers' Hearth community. Subscribe: www.mythworkers.com IN THIS EPISODE Why "apocalypse" doesn't mean the end of the world, at its ancient Greek root, but an uncovering or unveiling Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor's new book End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World, and the "politics of Hereness" inspired by the Jewish Labor Bund The Battle of Ventry, instigated by the invading Dáire Donn (the self-styled King of the World) How the story reads differently at different points in a life, from a young feminist grad student to now Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill's essay, ‘Mis and Dubh Ruis: A Parable of Psychic Transformation in Irish Writers and Religion Sources for the story: The Druid's Cauldron retelling — https://thedruidscauldron.org/2022/10/17/mis-and-dubh-ruis/, and Brian Ó Cuív's edition via Corpas na Gaeilge — https://corpas.ria.ie/index.php?fsg_function=3&fsg_id=492 WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com
S7 · E18
September 24 · 57 min
From the Archives: The Driftwood Man with Dee Mulrooney | S7Ep18
OUR STORY “Driftwood Man” is a timeless tale of longing and belonging, existential homesickness and ultimately coming home that’s at once deeply Irish and unmistakably global. This original story emerged as artist-performer-activist Dee Mulrooney emigrated from Dublin to Berlin and speaks of the longing for home, land, and belonging. OUR GUEST Based in Berlin, Dee Mulrooney weaves a rich tapestry of experiences, emotions, and insights into her creative practice. Rooted in the complexities of inhabiting a female body, her work emerges from the profound influences of her upbringing as a working-class Irish woman in the patriarchal, misogynistic landscape of 1970s Catholic Ireland. Her background profoundly shapes her identity and informs her artistic journey, where she fluidly navigates drawing, painting, writing, performing, filmmaking, and music. Through her alter ego, Growler—a vibrant, full-body vulva costume—she channels the voices of women past, transforming pain into powerful storytelling and performance. This character is a nod to her ancestors. Growler embodies the spirit of resilience, connecting generations and facilitating healing. With over two decades of experience as an educator, Dee champions community and empowerment, drawing inspiration from celebrated artists and the potent power of women's narratives. Find Dee at deirdre-mulrooney.com, on Instagram, Tiktok, and FB WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com Love the show? Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth on Substack to support KnotWork Myth & Storytelling and join our community of myth, land, and living wonder. www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E17
September 17 · 44 min
The Reddest Red & the Brightest Sun with Matthew Stillman | S7Ep17
OUR STORY Nobody believes Phaeton's claim to divine heritage: Helios, the sun god, is his father. The boy sets out on a quest to find his dad, and when they're finally united, Helios promises to fulfill one wish. Phaeton asks to drive the chariot of the sun for a day. It all ends in fire, ruin, and a geomyth. OUR CONVERSATION Matthew opens with Z.R. Ghani's poem "The Reddest Red." Full text of poem. Ovid's telling of Helios and Phaeton as a geomyth, a story that may preserve the memory of a real meteor that streaked over Greece centuries before it was ever written down How myth takes time: a "mythically literate" people needed centuries to turn a single terrifying event into a story that could be held and retold A detour into Manchán Magan's theory that Cú Chulainn's warp spasm may encode a meteor sighting, too Travel, the personal spiritual quest, and the "forward-leading wake" that changes a place as more people go there to experience it Matthew's course, Committed to Heart, Committed to Memory, and his "conviviums," communal practices of memorizing and reciting poetry together online OUR GUEST Matthew Stillman is a life-long New Yorker, a lover of language, culture, and a practitioner of bigger questions, wondering aloud, and sitting in mystery. He has spent a lifetime studying and practicing with aspects of Eastern and Western spiritual discipline, alongside years of deep engagement with long-form improvisational comedy. He is the author of Genesis Deflowered, a book of biblical erotica written in Elizabethan English that looks at how we might heal the fracture between sex and spirit in our culture. Matthew is also the conceiver and producer of The End of Poverty?, a feature-length documentary about the origins of poverty and why it persists in a world with so much wealth. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Directors' Choice commendation, and Matthew has spoken at the UN four times about it. He started a skin care company, Primal Derma, where he works to reclaim older, forgotten threads connecting the health of place, animals, and humans. At the end of the episode, you'll hear about Matthew's current project, in which he teaches the dusty and deeply beautiful skill of poetry memorization and recitation through his online course, Committed to Heart, Committed to Memory. Classes are starting now. Learn more at stillmansays.substack.com Find Matthew at: @stillmansays (IG) / Committed To Heart, Committed To Memory (FB) WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com Love the show? Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth on Substack to support KnotWork Myth & Storytelling and join our community of myth, land, and living wonder. www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E16
September 10 · 8 min
Because She Could Not Stop for Death: An Irish Goddess in the Afterlife | S7 Ep16
OUR STORY According to traditional Irish myth, Tailtiu, the foster mother of Lugh of the Tuatha Dé Danann, uproots a vast forest with an axe and her own two hands. The plains she clears become the site of the great festival of Lughnasadh and once the people begin planting crops on these vast fields, agriculture comes to Ireland. She wasn't there to see it. She died from exhaustion, having done all the work alone. One source says that Tailtiu was in bondage to the men of Ireland, but what does that actually mean? In this retelling, Tailtiu is a queen and a goddess who belongs to several worlds. The question Marisa asks in this story: was Tailtiu ordered to clear those fields, or did she merely believe she had no choice? And then what happens after Tailtiu dies? In this reimagining of what comes after the traditional story ends, Tailtiu arrives in Tír na mBan, the Land of Women, where she comes to understand her worth is rooted in so much more than her capacity to work. Past KnotWork episodes featuring Tailtiu: A Mother’s Love, A Mother’s Sacrifice: Tailtiu and Lugh | S5 Ep9 The Eagle Remembers: A Bardic Vision for Lughnasadh with Jonathon Huet | S7 Ep13 HEAR THE WHOLE STORY This preview episode is part of our Turas series. Upgrade your membership to support KnotWork Myth & Storytelling and unlock your access to Turas, the subscriber-only podcast series, plus monthly invitations to gather live with the Myth Workers' Hearth community. Subscribe: www.mythworkers.com WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com
S7 · E15
September 3 · 52 min
Grandmother Spider: Trusting the Threads with Kara Simons | S7 Ep15
Join Us at the Retreat! Meaning-Making: Claiming & Interpreting Signs November 6-8, 2026, near Philadelphia Kara will lead us over a weekend of asking for, recognizing, and trusting in the signs that the universe is constantly sending your way. Marisa joins as a guest facilitator teaching about Myth Working for Meaning Makers. Space is limited. Learn more and register now: www.joyfulresonance.com/retreat OUR STORY A raven, a spider, a river. Kara Simons shares the story of a visionary journey that helped her navigate a health crisis and then rebuild trust in her own body and her own creativity. OUR GUEST Kara Simons, founder of Joyful Resonance, is an author, attorney, and oracle deck creator. Her original decks, Prairie Majesty Oracle and Song of the Grandmothers Oracle, have sold thousands of copies worldwide. Through inspired wordweaving, Kara anchors portals in her workshops and retreats for experiencing magic as real. Feeling leads to believing leads to trusting—and taking action. Her latest book, You Belong Here, has just been released. Find Kara at www.joyfulresonance.com OUR CONVERSATION A thyroid diagnosis became a message about how Kara had tried to earn love through productivity. This is the story of what it took to actually listen to her body and her own needs. Grandmother Spider's role as Kara's creative guide Reframing grandmother energy as something ageless and genderless, not confined to a kitchen or a bloodline “Make believe" and "real" are a false binary when it comes to imagination and spirit The quest for signs, symbols, and nudges from the universe Kara's new book, You Belong Here, and its exploration of identity, safety, and purpose. WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com
S7 · E14
August 27 · 40 min
From Anu to Saint Anne: Stories of Grandmother Wisdom with Perdita Finn | S7 Ep14
IN THIS EPISODE Perdita Finn returns to KnotWork for the third time to talk about the grandmothers, the mothers behind the mothers. She shares a story told in her latest book, Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of Our Ancestors: discovering a hilltop church built by 19th century Irish immigrants and dedicated to St. Anne, the mother of Mary who holds the magic of being mother to us all. OUR GUEST Perdita Finn is the co-founder, with her husband Clark Strand, of the feral fellowship The Way of the Rose, which inspired their book The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary. They are currently at work on their next book together, Circles Not Lines: Spiritual Community Beyond Patriarchy. To find out more about her devotion to "ecology not theology," visit wayoftherose.org. In addition to extensive study with Zen masters, priests, spirit workers, and healers, she apprenticed with the psychic Susan Saxman, with whom she wrote The Reluctant Psychic. Perdita now teaches popular workshops on Getting to Know the Dead, empowering participants to activate the miracles in their own lives with the help of their ancestors and recover their own intuitive magic. Her book Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World traces her recovery of these lost ways. Her newest book, Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of Our Ancestors, is a map back to the maternal wisdom that has always been ours. She lives with her family in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains. Find Perdita at: https://takebackthemagic.com/ OUR CONVERSATION St. Anne as folk memory of a goddess of Ireland and the Indo-European tradition: Anu or Danu. They contain "every story and no story.” Legends beneath the chapel: buried bones, caves, a mirrored room, and miracle healings that drew pilgrims for decades Perdita’s grandmother’s mason jar of saved chicken wishbones. What it means to hold a wish in reserve for real crisis rather than spend it casually What gets transmitted between grandmother and grandchild without ever being spoken, including the Calabrian grandmother's sacred "No" We’re invited to understand we are being mothered by the dead and by the land, since "the dead and the land are one" PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth (via Substack): www.mythworkers.com WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, memoir, or visionary creative nonfiction, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing community, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com
S7 · E13
July 30 · 1 hr 6 min
The Eagle Remembers: A Bardic Vision for Lughnasadh from Jonathon Huet | S7 Ep13
OUR STORY “Lugh was a new type of hero, a hero that was needed then, a hero that is needed now. A hero who listens to everyone and anyone, and never strikes unless it's a just cause and never from anger or from revenge, but for the benefit of the whole.” In celebration of the festival of Lughnasadh, we receive a story of the god of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Lugh. Our storyteller, Jonathon Huet, steps into the role of Tuan mac Cairill, the seanchaí of old to unfold this tale. OUR GUEST Jonathon Huet is a woodsman, shamanic practitioner, naturalist, and bushcraft instructor. He is a creative, professional storyteller and speaker trained in bushcraft, woodcraft, and expedition leadership. Over the last thirty years he has researched and studied the folklore of the natural world of the British Isles, running workshops that explore the deep spiritual practices rooted in the sister islands of Britain and Ireland. His practice is grounded in full inclusivity, working with trauma, mental health, and wellbeing. For the past ten years he has trained with Caitlín Matthews and other teachers on the Walkers Between Worlds Shamanic Training Programme, which has deepened his connection further to nature and his ancestral lands. Substack: https://woodlandbard.substack.com/ Website: https://www.walkwithtrees.com OUR CONVERSATION The bittersweet nature of Lughnasadh, which is both a harvest festival and moment of sacrifice and grief. The first Lughnasah marked the goddess Tailtiu's death after she exhausted herself in the clearing of the fields. Both Yeats and Blake had unique language for joy and sorrow woven together The question of a man’s relationship with the goddess and the unique guilt that emerges when examining the connection to the earth. The reclamation of wild masculine figures like Cernunnos and Herne the Hunter Jonathon's work with young people in care: holding space without judgment and offering experiences with the land and with nature. References to the work of John Moriarty: refusing to be "blackmailed into being a modern man" and understanding Ireland through Fódla consciousness rather than Éiru consciousness. Additional resources in this episode: William Sharp (writing as Fiona Macleod); RJ Steward; Caitlín Matthew’s book Sophia; Shonaleigh a drut’syla, a storyteller in a Jewish tradition: https://shonaleigh.uk/about/; Jennifer Murphy of the Celtic Creatives WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir, or are a wellness professional or 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: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E12
July 23 · 37 min
All Ground Is Sacred Ground, A Story and Conversation with Mary Reynolds | S7 Ep12
"If you want to save the planet, then start with your own patch of it." OUR GUEST Mary Reynolds is a reformed landscape designer who launched her international career by winning a gold medal for garden design at the Chelsea Flower Show in London in 2002. That story was later told in the movie, Dare to Be Wild. She is a bestselling author, activist, speaker, writer, RTÉ Guide columnist, and occasional television presenter. She is the founder of the global movement "We Are the ARK – Acts of Restorative Kindness to the Earth." Her mission is to inspire people to become guardians, not gardeners, of the land. Find more about Mary's Land Prayers, her books, including We Are The Ark: Returning Our Gardens to Their True Nature with Acts of Restorative Kindness, and all of her work at https://marymary.ie/ OUR STORY Mary tells us a story that could be the story of any little girl who finds her kin in the wild world. But it's not just any girl's story; it's Mary's own story of building a loving, enduring relationship with the plant kingdom. OUR CONVERSATION Mary's childhood experience in a fairy field as the origin point of her practice of listening to land. We can also experience that magic in a window box. What it means to be in true relationship with a place rather than in control of it. We find hope when we can see how quickly nature can recover. John Moriarty's line "all ground is sacred ground." (Listen to our episode with John's niece, Amanda Carmody in S6 Ep37.) The particular experience of Americans and Canadians and others living on colonized lands or places to which they do not feel connected. How to reckon with the history of settler colonialism and show up for the earth at this moment. Mary's case for ignoring the system rather than fighting it. How can we build parallel structures instead? Building community (meitheal) through the Irish language. Marisa's own parallel with a garden named "Obair," the Irish for work. Mary's reading of "An Oath of Entwinement," one of her land prayers WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir, or are a wellness professional or 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: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E11
July 16 · 16 min
May the Roads Rise to Meet You: Following Macha’s Trail | S7 Ep11
"The moment she reached the shoreline, she began walking, walking, walking. She didn't need a road, not when she had a stride this purposeful and undeterred." That's Macha, goddess and woman of the Sídhe, arriving in Ireland from her home in the Otherworld. It's the start of the terrible, fascinating tale from Irish mythology about the pregnant woman forced to race against the king's horses, and it's the heart of Marisa's latest full-length Turas episode, May the Roads Rise to Meet You: Following Macha's Trail, available exclusively to paid members of Myth Workers' Hearth over on Substack. In this episode, you’ll hear the story of Macha’s year with the mortal man she chose to love and the great betrayal that brought their affair to a devastating, world-altering conclusion. Does Macha run? Does Macha win? The full episode follows Macha's roads out past the finish line, into landscape, history, and myth well beyond Ulster. Join Myth Workers' Hearth to access the full episode and the complete Turas series. www.mythworkers.com KnotWork Myth & Storytelling is hosted by Marisa Goudy. New public episodes are released each week. WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, a memoir, or you’re seeking to weave the mythic perspective into your creative work, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings.
S7 · E10
July 2 · 47 min
To Fall from the Sky, To Cross Over the Sea: Stories and conversation with Kaitlin Curtice | S7 Ep10
OUR STORY In the Potawatomi origin story, the pregnant Sky Woman, Giizhgokwe, falls from Sky World. She is caught by a flock of geese and lowered onto mshiké, Turtle, whose back becomes this continent we know as Turtle Island (known in Potawatomi as Mshike Minis). Our guest, Kaitlin Curtice weaves her ancestral story with her own story. As a young mother, walking a trail outside Atlanta while nursing her baby, she felt the presence of her ancestors. These were the women who had walked before her, those who mothered their own children on the 1838 Trail of Death when 800 Potawatomi people were forced from Indiana to Kansas over a two-month-long trek. OUR GUEST Kaitlin Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, and enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi Nation. She writes and speaks at the intersections of indigenous spirituality, identity, and the stories that shape us. Her books include Native, Living Resistance, and her most recent, Everything Is a Story. She also writes at The Liminality Journal and is co-founder of the Aki Institute. Kaitlin lives near Philadelphia with her family. Find her at kaitlincurtice.com IN THIS CONVERSATION As the United States marks 250 years, Kaitlin reflects on indigenous grief around the Fourth of July. “Chemokmankik” which loosely means “land of the long butchering knives” is the Potawatomi word for the US. Spéirbhean, the sky woman of the Irish aisling tradition, and how Kaitlin found her resonance with Giizhgokwe across ocean and culture Azho gami, the Potawatomi word for "across the sea," and what it means to carry that word onto an overnight flight to Ireland The sacred reciprocity of kinship: why we need each other to grieve, to dream, and to build toward future generations Start a practice of writing love notes to Segmekwé, Mother Earth, in order to begin repairing a fractured relationship with the land WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir, or are a wellness professional or 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: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E9
June 25 · 8 min
The Village Beyond The Dunes | S7 Ep9
It's the middle of the night. A wealthy woman sits alone by the fire, carding wool, when the first knock comes at the door. Open! Open! I am the Witch of One Horn! This is the opening of The Twelve Horned Women,” from Lady Jane Wilde's folklore collection Ancient Legends of Ireland. It’s one of several stories that Marisa weaves together in our latest full-length Turas episode, The Village Beyond the Dunes, available exclusively to paid members of Myth Workers' Hearth over on Substack. The Twelve Horned Women come down from Sliabh na mBan, the Mountain of Women in Co. Tipperary. They take over the woman’s house and make impossible demands. These witches from the Otherworld nearly get away with murder. But here's the question that haunts this story: were they invaders, or were they reclaiming what was always theirs? In the full Turas episode, Marisa explores how stories like this one teach us about community: its magic, its failures, its longing, and its wounds. From Tír na mBan to Avalon to a deserted village on Achill Island, The Village Beyond the Dunes walks the terrain of everything we've lost, everything we've dreamed, and everything that might still be possible. Join Myth Workers' Hearth to access the full episode and the complete Turas series. www.mythworkers.com KnotWork Myth & Storytelling is hosted by Marisa Goudy. New public episodes are released each week. WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, a memoir, or you’re seeking to weave the mythic perspective into your creative work, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings.
S7 · E8
June 18 · 54 min
Choosing the Mystery with Perdita Finn | S7 Ep8
Our Story The rosary has long been used to shame women and restrain sexuality, but what if it is actually the umbilical cord that connects us to The Mother? When the rosary emerged in the 11th or 12th century, the Church offered a narrative that began with Eve’s sin and ended with apocalypse. Ordinary women were living and telling a different story. Theirs was a story that was expressed in a great circle, not in a straight line of patriarchal history. Perdita Finna unfolds the mysteries of the rosary, reclaiming the prayers and practice as an act of power. What if, all along, the beads are a story of women’s empowerment that’s been hidden in plain sight? Our Guest Perdita Finn is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World, Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of Our Ancestors, and with her husband Clark Strand The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary. She teaches popular workshops on connecting and collaborating with both the dead and the animate everything. She lives with her family in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains. Joining Perdita’s free class coming up on June 25 at 8:30 PM ET. Register now for Long Story of Your Soul WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, a memoir, or you’re seeking to weave the mythic perspective into your creative work, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E7
June 11 · 42 min
A Tale of Two Poets with Kate Chadbourne | S7 Ep7
This episode is a medieval Irish permission slip for every creative who has ever felt too raw, too unformed, or too messy to call themselves a writer. It’s for anyone whose inner critic has tried to kill the emerging work before it could grow. OUR STORY From the Book of Leinster (c. 1160): a strange, silent boy who hasn't spoken in fourteen years. A blacksmith father who knows how to protect what isn't ready yet. And the chief poet of Ireland, who recognizes genius before anyone else does — and has to decide what to do about it. OUR GUEST Kate Chadbourne is a storyteller, singer, harper, and poet, professor of Irish language and folklore, and founder of The Celtic Wisdom School. Her debut novel, The Poet on the Train, was published in 2025. Find her at https://www.katechadbourne.com/. She tells stories each week over on YouTube @katechadbournebard IN THIS EPISODE: The Irish proverb (or seanfhocail) Bíonn gach tosú lag. Every beginning is weak. You contain both poets. Amergin, the instinctual, unschooled self and Athairne, the credentialed institutional self are both necessary. The danger is when one swings an ax at the other. Feel for the bruise. Pick up your poem like an apple and find where the energy has gone soft — then ask every part to rise to the aliveness of the best part. Put a flower on your house. Blátham — I bloom, I flourish. Making beauty for its own sake, even a sticker in a journal no one will ever see, is the practice. Completing something changes you. Kate shares the moment midway through writing her novel when the inner Athairne told her to stop. She kept going. Finishing, by your own standards, for yourself, is its own transformation. Write with Amergin, revise with Athairne. Kate and Marisa's upgrade on Hemingway's "write drunk, edit sober." Father Dineen's Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla The Poet on the Train by Kate Chadbourne WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, a memoir, or you’re seeking to weave the mythic perspective into your creative work, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E6
June 4 · 7 min
Island Consciousness | S7 Ep6
OUR STORY The shoreline is a threshold. When we stand at the place where the ocean meets the land, we know we’re standing in between the worlds. In this preview of S7 Ep6, Marisa tells the story of King Canute, the Anglo-Danish king whose famous confrontation with the tide has been misread for centuries. His real message–about faith and hubris and our relationship to the power of the elements–turns out to be more urgent now than it ever was. But the Canute story is just the doorway. The full Turas episode is a guided journey along the shorelines of the imagination and your own beloved countries. We explore the art of arrival and the power of liminality, and question what it means to truly inhabit a place rather than just pass through it. The extended episode includes three writing prompts which invite you to explore your own history of arrivals, and your relationship with change and erosion. This is the work that happens at Myth Workers' Hearth. Every Turas episode is built for the listener who wants to go deeper — into the myth, into the land, and into their own story. Hear the teaser on KnotWork Myth & Storytelling: KnotWorkStorytelling.com The full episode is waiting for you when you upgrade your subscription to the Myth Workers' Hearth: mythworkers.com WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, a memoir, or you’re seeking to weave the mythic perspective into your creative work, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E5
May 28 · 58 min
Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Cú Chullain, the Outsider by Peter Wucherpfennig | S7 Ep5
OUR STORY Cú Chullain is Ireland’s most renowned mythological hero, and his story comes what’s seen as the greatest of Irish epics, the Táin Bo Cualigne. And yet, we’ve never told his story on KnotWork. Clearly we were waiting for the right storyteller. In this episode, Peter Wucherpfennig offers an outsider perspective on Cú Chullain’s early life told through a modern frame: a young Phil Lynnot, front man of the iconic 70s band Thin Lizzy conjures the elements of myth. You’ll also hear WB Yeats’s "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death." OUR GUEST Peter Wucherpfennig is a German harpist and storyteller based in Darmstadt. After graduating in 1986, he completed fifteen months of compulsory service in the Bundeswehr before training as a nurse — a path that would prove unexpectedly resonant with the warrior myths he would later carry as a storyteller. He has worked in intensive care units since 1991. In the mid-nineties he picked up the harp and found himself in the company of Scottish storytellers. He gave his first public performance as a harpist and storyteller in 1996 (his word: disastrous) and has spent the years since traveling between the worlds of the hospital, the workers' council, and his own calling as a bard. IN THIS EPISODE Cú Chulainn is remembered as the greatest hero of the Irish epic, the Táin Bó Cúailnge, and was a powerful inspiration during the 1916 Easter Rising. Peter imagines him as the outcast hero. The power of the mentor: just as Cú Chulainn found Scáthach, as an adult, Peter was adopted by a landlady who said "you are my third son." Such relationships open an entirely different world. The significance of the island apart. Whether it's Tír na nÓg or Scáthach's island fortress, this isn’t a place to stay forever, but is a place to gather new tools. What does it mean to seek out those threshold spaces in our own lives? The power of fellowship. Peter and Marisa remember meeting at the Bard Summer School on Clare Island in County Mayo. WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, a memoir, or you’re seeking to weave the mythic perspective into your creative work, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E4
May 21 · 8 min
We Are the Grandchildren of the Selkies Who Stayed | S7 Ep4
OUR STORY The selkie story is one of the most enduring tales in the Celtic imagination. A woman caught between two worlds, a stolen skin, and the impossible choice between the sea and the shore. But what if the story doesn't end when she slips beneath the waves? What if it lives on in her descendants, in us? Hear the myth on KnotWork Myth & Storytelling: KnotWorkStorytelling.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. The full Turas episode is available exclusively to paid subscribers of Myth Workers’ Hearth on Substack. When you're ready to go deeper, the full meaning of the story is waiting at Myth Workers' Hearth: mythworkers.com WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a novel, a memoir, or you’re seeking to weave the mythic perspective into your creative work, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors' Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E3
May 14 · 1 hr
The Silver Wheel with Jen Murphy | S7 Ep3
OUR STORY Jen Murphy tells us the core tales Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, the great epic of Welsh mythology, beginning with King Math and his Goewin, his “virgin footholder” and concluding with the story of Arianrhod. Jen concludes her telling with Blodeuwedd, who you met in S7 Ep 1. OUR GUEST Jen Murphy is an Irish mythologist, anthropologist and founder of The Celtic Creatives. A Dubliner born and bred, from the time she could talk, Jen's grandmother Frances O'Sullivan filled her ears with tales from Irish myth and folklore, fuelling a now 40-year fascination with the stories of her lineage. Jen's apprenticeship to following her soul's breadcrumbs has guided her formal studies in Medieval Irish and Celtic Studies, Anthropology, and Jungian Psychology. Jen supports people to remember that they have a shining soul, to dream Celtic spirituality into their modern lives by making the Celtic soul a living aesthetic—centring the soul in the everyday experience of life—through mythwork, dreamwork, and the body. Find her on Instagram @celticreatives and at https://celticcreatives.substack.com, https://www.celticcreatives.com/ IN THIS EPISODE How stories choose their tellers - Jen had prepared a different tale entirely, and then this telling of Arianrhod insisted on being told Jen takes us on a beautiful tour of the moon's monthly cycle as a map of our own becoming Arianrhod as living initiator: Jen maps the three refusals: name, arms, marriage - onto her own creative journey toward the Sunset Journal, a ritual practice rooted in beginning the day at dusk Reclaiming the night: Jen gives up the 5am productivity myth and discovers that creating by moonlight, as a confirmed night-owl, born just before the winter solstice is simply becoming more of her nature Jen's Sunset Journal is launching by Lúnasa (harvest season). Be the first to know when it’s available: https://www.celticcreatives.com/sunset WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir, or are a wellness professional or 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: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com
S7 · E2
May 7 · 31 min
The Invitation to Tir na mBan, the Land of Women | S7 Ep2
OUR STORY We’ve told the story of King Bran and the silver branch several times on KnotWork. This time, we the woman’s story, the story of the Bean Sídhe who speaks her fifty quatrains of poetry and invites us all across the sea to Tír na mBan, the Island of Women. ABOUT THE NEW SERIES: TURAS Turas, the Irish word for journey, is a paid subscriber series within KnotWork Myth & Storytelling. Each episode takes us deeper into the imaginal landscape of Tír na mBan, the Island of Women from Irish mythology. Every other week, through Samhain (early November), you’ll receive a story, an exploration of its modern echoes, and the invitation to further your own journey through writing prompts. Turas is available exclusively to paid subscribers of Myth Workers’ Hearth on Substack. Join us: www.mythworkers.com IN THIS EPISODE Tír na mBan is a matrifocal rather than matriarchal society. Riane Eisler’s Partnership Model and the distinction between dominator and partnership cultures. The bean sídhe as Otherworld messenger — not a harbinger of death, but a woman who moves between worlds and weaves the energy between them. The Amazons in contrast with the women of Tír na mBan. WRITING PROMPTS This is a story of invitation. To be invited somewhere new shows you a whole lot about the aperture of your own being. The Bean Sídhe is standing beside your dinner table and suggests you drop the fork, drop everything, and come. Feel into your first response. Then, feel further. How open or closed is your heart, your mind, your imagination? The Bean Sídhe invites us to the Otherworld, to a land without death or suffering, without laziness or drunkenness. She invites us to a place of song, color, abundance… That description is pretty open ended. What does your Otherworld look and feel like? Remember, it’s not about escape, it’s about relationship… this world and that world have something to offer each other. An Island of Women? What do you think… Perhaps that’s all the prompt you need. Or, try this: I told you my own story of censored desire, of silencing my own longing for matrifocal wisdom and women rooted knowledge. What desires are you too well-behaved to name, explore, inhabit? WORK WITH MARISA 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir, or are a wellness professional or 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: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook. Music by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. As a paid Myth Workers' Hearth subscriber, you'll have access to Turas and be invited to our monthly Myth Workers' Hearth Gatherings. Subscribe to Myth Workers' Hearth: www.mythworkers.com

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