Martin is just finishing up a new book on wilderness rites of passage, due out in September 2019. This is not a book for everyone, he says, but he hopes it's of use to one or two. Here are a few lines from the introduction: *** Winter gods lope the forest Strike you with their wolfskin glove And the counterfeit life Takes its carrion demands Back to the blue deceits Of the one who first folded you. I trust words like that more than therapy talk, or
We managed to briefly lure Martin away from his desk to share a few words from a new book he’s been labouring away on. If he doesn’t growl too often we’ll try again. *** What I want to do here is make a concerted plea for you to become a story carrier. I say this as seriously as I would the labour of becoming a shield-maiden for Boudicca, or being on one knee in front of Arthur, or sitting in the longhouse as the snow falls and
The first leg of the Into the Marvellous UK tour was a sell out success, with invitations still coming in. Martin and the Cista Mystica team were overwhelmed with goodwill and a warm welcome in Brighton, London, Devon and Cornwall, and are now busy planning the next tour in July. “Thank you to everyone who came, every single venue sold out and there was so much good will and excitement. We loved it.” -Martin
The Cista Mystica Press sent out its first publication The Night Wages, Dr Martin Shaw's latest and deepest book yet that he has described as a 'poetic hit of contemporary romanticism'. Hundreds of people from across the world had pre-ordered this book and all received copies personally signed by Martin.
Dates for the first UK leg of the Into the Marvellous book tour were announced this week following an overwhelming response from folks from afar afield as Australia, Alaska and California. A deluge of invitations initially came in unbidden after a few promotional evenings were announced, sparking an adventurous plan to travel far and wide with The Night Wages. Martin put out a request on social media for interesting venues and the floodgates opened. The first tour will take in Brighton, London, Devon and Cornwall in February
We hear it everywhere these days. Time for a new story. Some enthusiastic sweep of narrative that becomes, overnight, the myth of our times. A container for all this ecological trouble, this peak-oil business, this malaise of numbness that seems to shroud even the most privileged. A new story. Just the one. That simple. Painless. Everything solved. Lovely and neat. So, here’s my first moment of rashness: I suggest the stories we need turned up, right on time, about five thousand years ago. But they’re not
An Interview with Martin Shaw WHAT IS YOUR WORK ABOUT? An on-going nostos—a homecoming—to the heart, I suppose. There’s an old image in folktales of people that bury their heart under a tree so they can acquire more power without the distraction of conscience. I don’t wish that for myself alone, or as a father, or for the wider culture at this point. There is an inheritance, which the West has largely turned its back on, that I am very interested in. We glimpse it sometimes in
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