KnotWork Myth & Storytelling

Marisa Goudy
KnotWork Myth & Storytelling

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.

  1. HÁ 1 DIA

    Maggie’s Doll by Dee Mulrooney | S6 Ep3

    Write with us! Join the Authors’ Knot Program Marisa is leading an intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.” There are just two seats left! Registration closes February 10, 2025. Learn more about the Authors’ Knot. OUR STORY Dee Mulrooney tells an original story based on her own mother’s childhood in Dublin in the late 1940s.  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. 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.  OUR CONVERSATION A story about childhood based on a true story that speaks to all of us. Dee is the granddaughter of two midwives who also served as “death doulas.” Dee’s own art continues to explore these themes. Homosexuality was illegal in Ireland until 1993, and it would have been notable and even dangerous for “Uncle Billy” to come home from London with his partner in the 1940s. The pressure to have so many children “for Ireland” in de Valera’s Ireland in the midst of so much abuse and secrets. At the same time, women were coping with Infant mortality and the spectre of the Mother and Baby homes.This culture was captured in Small Things Like These, the book by Claire Keegan and the film with Cillian Murphy.Ownership and belonging in the sacred sense rather than the materialist senseBeginning in the 1930, the Irish social welfare system guaranteed a home - security of tenure - for all people, which would have transformed people’s lives, particularly for working class women. This changed within a generation, and the current housing crisis in Ireland is the worst it has ever been. Dee’s family lost their home in Dublin and she and her family emigrated to Berlin where collective housing arrangements are part of the culture. Issues of housing are connected to ancestral trauma, particularly the famine and evictions. Accepting and working with the grief that’s part of the experience diaspora. Time seems to stand still after you leave a place and the diaspora plays a vital role in preserving culture.We recorded this conversation on Nollaig na mBán, “women’s Christmas” which Dee celebrated by making a drawing for her mother-in-law based on a 1913 photograph of a young Galway woman who put on traditional garb for the picture.Something Dee brings through with her Growler work: “No one on this planet can claim ‘clean ancestry.’” We’re here to stand on the shoulders of ancestors, including the murderers and the genocidal maniacs. Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: a href="https://www.knotworkstorytelling.com/episode/billyandbeth.com" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

    58min
  2. 5 DE FEV.

    The Invitation: Song and Conversation with Amano | S6 Ep 2

    Write with us! Join the Authors’ Knot Program Marisa is leading an intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.” There are just two seats left! Registration closes February 10, 2025. Learn more about the Authors’ Knot. THIS EPISODE In this Myth Workers and Culture Makers episode, we begin with a song. Our guest, Amano, offers “Cuireadh Scéine (The Invitation of the Skane),” a song she wrote in response to a visit to the River Skane, a tributary of the River Boyne, in Co. Meath. OUR GUEST Amano is a songwriter, vocalist, poet, and performing artist from Killarney, Co. Kerry. She works bilingually in Irish and English to explore themes of changing identities, cultural fluidity, language(s) and animist ecologies across a range of genres including folk, pop, sean-nós, electronic and spoken word.  In summer 2024 Amano released THREAD, a collaborative Irish music project with Cork-producer Kalabanx. Songs from the record including HEART (featuring Liam Ó Maonlaí) have been played on BBC Radio Ulster, RTÉ Radio 1 and Raidió na Gaeltachta. Amano has performed at festivals and venues across Ireland since returning to the music scene in 2023 including Electric Picnic, Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, and Brigid 1500 Festival. She is currently supported by the Arts Council in developing her practice in the sean-nós singing tradition.  Her next solo single, Burn, is set for release on February 19, 2025. Presave the song now. Find her at: https://amanoanseo.com, and @amanoanseo on Instagram, Substack, and TikTok. OUR CONVERSATION Amano’s journey, from academia and a future career in heritage museums, back to the music and language of childhood Blas: the Irish word for taste that also relates to your connection to the language and means something like “rooted sound”Questions about whether we need to be “pure” when it comes to how we use and blend language. What gets lost in standardization, and what gets lost when we try to be too precise?Sean nós or “old way” - a phrase first used in the 1940s to refer to particular types of Irish song and dance.The desire to name things that we revere as “ancient,” and knowing when it’s appropriate and not appropriate to use that term.“Complicated normalcy” is new in Ireland. As someone with Japanese and Irish heritage, Amano speaks to the experience of children who have origins and stories that don’t comply with the “typical”  Irish experience.Amano’s experience of embodying the Cailleach in a series of street performances - the way the crone goddess calls us to embrace simplicity, and into relationship with plants, animals, the elements.Seeing Brigid as “task master and the goddess of fire.” Amano sees her as the perfect figure to look to when you’re worried about how your work will be perceived.  Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com Work With Marisa 1:1 Writing...

    56min
  3. 29 DE JAN.

    Brigid’s Cloak of Light with Treacy O’Connor | S6 Ep1

    Write with us! Join the Authors’ Knot Program Marisa is leading an intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.” There are just two seats left! Registration closes February 10, 2025. OUR JOURNEY The season opens with an episode from our Myth Workers & Culture Makers series. Rather than telling a story of Brigid, Treacy O’Connor takes us on a meditative journey to feel the presence of Ireland’s mother goddess and matron saint. OUR GUEST Treacy O’Connor  is an ordained OneSpirit Interfaith Minister, guardian of Ireland's ancient ancestral wisdom, Mindfulness and Meditation teacher & Co-Founder and CEO of Creating Wellness. Her mission is to inspire and empower a return to right relationship with the self, others, the planet and the cosmos – connecting the dots through the passage of the heart.  Treacy initiated a campaign to honour Brigid with a public holiday in Ireland which was inaugurated in 2023 and she was honoured by her local town with a Balbriggan Town Award, for illuminating the hearts and minds of the 24,000 residents with a Brigid Procession of Light in 2024. Brigid continues to inspire and surprise Treacy with invitations to be an expression for connection with her qualities, in many different ways. One of those invitations is taking the form of a 6 day retreat.  Restoring the Heart of Brigid, a magical  pilgrimage and retreat to be held in Ireland  May 31st to June 6th 2025, will be guided by Treacy O’Connor in collaboration with Carmela Fleury and LeeYen Anderson:  https://www.leeyenanderson.com/heart-of-brigid Follow Treacy on Substack, Instagram, or Facebook.  OUR CONVERSATION The emergence of Brigid into the popular consciousness over the last several years, and what it means to introduce her as not only an historical figure, but as a spiritual presence.Brigid’s Day, now a national holiday in Ireland, started with a petition in 2019 and was made a reality in 2023.Treacy’s story of being called to the very diverse town of Balbriggan, or Baile Brigín - the “Village Little Brigid” and what it was like to create a festival, including an intimate fire procession at ImbolcBrigid’s connection to both fire and water. These elements temper and bring one another into balanceHow Brigid’s energy emerges in everyone. A story of how Maud Gonne, Irish actor and revolutionary, exemplified Brigid energy. 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 writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: a href="https://www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

    52min
  4. 22 DE JAN.

    Best of KnotWork ~ Brigid: Rebirth of the Mother by Laura Murphy | S5 Ep20

    Join One of Our Group Writing Programs in 2025! The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2025 An intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.” The Writers’ Knot Community, January - June 2025 A creativity incubator for writers seeking camaraderie and connection. Mythic imagination meets creative expression in this long-running global writing community. Our Story The goddess Brigid is known to be a daughter of Dagda, “the Good God.” But who was her mother? Laura Murphy tells her own story of Brigid’s birth at Newgrange. The child comes from the milky way, the way of her mother, the goddess Bóinn. (Laura offered us Bóinn’s story in Season 2, Episode 7.) Our Guest Laura is a poet, activist, and healer. She is a passionate campaigner for Ireland’s Mother and Baby home survivors and other issues surrounding equality, environmental and social healing including the recent successful campaign to make Brigid’s Day a national public holiday in Ireland (February 3, 2025!) Watch the “Is Mise” Lightshow, Brigid’s Day in Kildare 2022. Follow Laura on Instagram. Our Conversation The first time Brigid is recognized with a national holiday February 1, 2023, a green comet crossed the skiesArtists who are with us in the conversation, Caitlin Matthews and Dee Mulrooney. See the images on Myth Is Medicine.Power of the sacred twelve and thirteen, and yet Brigid’s sacred number is 19 (the sisters who held the sacred flame in Kildare).The significance of the cygnus constellation in this story and in Laura and Marisa’s storiesDagda: sacred masculine as midwife. Echoes of a KnotWork episode with Perdita Finn, who describes Joseph as midwife to Mary. Brigid and Mary in Celtic Christianity, which was close to the Essene tradition. Kate Chadbourne in Season 1, Episode 1, the story of Brigid as best friend to Mary, creating a diversion with the flaming harrow on the day that Mary was nervous about being “churched” after childbirth.Imbas forosnai, the energy of creation, as well as “the inspiration that illuminates” and the power of prophecy and speaking things into creation. 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 ata href="https://my.captivate.fm/writingcoachmarisa.com" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

    1h1min
  5. 15 DE JAN.

    When Tides Rise, Build Your Own Boat: Cessair’s Arrival in Ireland | S5 Ep19

    Join One of Our Group Writing Programs in 2025! The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2025 An intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.” The Writers’ Knot Community, January - June 2025 A creativity incubator for writers seeking camaraderie and connection. Mythic imagination meets creative expression in this long-running global writing community. Our Story Ireland doesn’t have a creation story, but it does have Lebor Gabála Érenn, the Book of Invasions. The first "invasion" was led by Cessair, a granddaughter of Noah who took her own boat to Ireland to avoid that great Biblical flood. Our Guest Carmen Schreffler is a marketing consultant who works with purpose-driven entrepreneurs. She gives entrepreneurs the tools to cultivate rich and diverse ecosystems where they can thrive. She believes in connecting with your natural gifts—intuition, curiosity, and discernment—to guide the creation of a sustainable business that meets your needs and goals.  Join Carmen on Substack for inspiration on weaving the threads of your life and business into a thriving ecosystem: https://wildpreneur.substack.com/ Instagram @carmenschreffler  Our Conversation This conversation was recorded in March, 2023.What stories get told and passed on. What makes a myth “real”? Who are the “winners of culture”? Which parts of civilization, culture are we meant to rewrite and rewild? Rather than tearing down the master’s house, what if we are meant to build a new boat? Is technology, including artificial intelligence “the next flood”?What’s the source of this story? Scholars say it was conceived to further Ireland’s desire to establish Christianity and a Biblical pedigree, but the myth may have been rooted into something much older: an older goddess or memory of the floods that would have come with the end of the last ice age. The power of sharing your unique story and art and bringing it through your unique lens in this age of ChatGPT and AI, as entrepreneurs and creatives.The work of Mary Reynolds, a “recovering landscape designer,” and author of We Are the Ark. Her work of Acts of Restorative Kindness in order to live in relationship with the earth.Article in the New Yorker, The End of the English Major: liberal arts as a way into so many different ways of knowing.Carmen’s guiding principle, a quote from Yogi Amrit Desai: “We exist in perpetual creative response.” We remain open minded and open to the moment without judgment and move forward from that place.Marisa’s inventions: the reason Cessair and family were not included on the Ark and her meeting with the trinity of goddesses who gave Ireland its name: Éiru, Banba and Fódla. 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....

    54min
  6. 8 DE JAN.

    Best of KnotWork: A Sacred Detour to Iona with Royce Fitts | S5 Ep18

    Join One of Our Group Writing Programs in 2025! The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2025 An intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.” The Writers’ Knot Community, January - June 2025 A creativity incubator for writers seeking camaraderie and connection. Mythic imagination meets creative expression in this long-running global writing community. Our Story Iona. This island in the Scottish Hebrides is only three miles long, but it's home to untold spiritual, cultural, and natural magic. In this excerpt from the spiritual memoir, The Geography of the Soul, author Royce Fitts invites us to meet the wild divine feminine energies that are embodied on this sacred land. Our Guest Royce Fitts is a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified dream worker, with a doctorate in ministry. His book The Geography of the Soul: Dreams, Reality and the Journey of a Lifetime blends memoir, political and social consciousness, and spiritual wisdom and takes you to a hidden gem in the midst of the English countryside: the Ridgeway National Trail. Royce is a long-time writing coaching client. I have had the immense pleasure and privilege of walking alongside him throughout the writing process. Order Geography of the Soul from your favorite bookseller.  The audiobook edition is now available. Download it now. Our Conversation This book grew out of Royce’s 2016 journey: a “conscious hike” on the Ridgeway National Trail, the oldest road in England and Europe.The role of dreams in our lives and the strange, evolutionary instinct to dream. Royce describes his relationship to the Crone of Iona and what he learned about his own masculinity while held by the sacred feminine.  What is it like to embody masculine “god” energy in a healthy way? Royce invites us to have an intimate conversation with the feminine and masculine divinity within us.Royce’s lived paradox: he is a mystic, wizard, shaman in this world, but his work takes him to the heart of the US military where he is a military and family life counselorAn invocation of vitality, and why it is so important to dream and to value our dreams. 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 writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about group writing opportunities: a href="https://www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

    54min
  7. 18/12/2024

    Twelve Rays of Solstice | S5 Ep17

    Our Story Marisa invites you to explore the lore of the Cailleach, the winter solstice at Newgrange, and the work of the Irish mystic philosopher John Moriarty. Plus: a new oracular practice to welcome 2025, the Twelve Rays of Solstice. Please Support Our Show: Join us on Substack Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Get the stories behind each episode and stay connected between seasons. Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. A special invitation for writers & creatives: Join one of Marisa’s writing groups! The Authors’ Knot Program, February - November 2025 An intimate 10-month online writing program for thought leaders, memoirists, and heart-led visionaries working on a book or another “big project.” The Writers’ Knot Community, January - June 2025 A creativity incubator for writers seeking camaraderie and connection.  Mythic imagination meets creative expression in this long-running global writing community. In this episode: Visiting Loughcrew or Slieve na Calliagh in the midst of Storm AshleyNewgrange, and how the sun penetrates the inner chamber of the 5000 year old passage tombGearóid Ó Crualaoich’s Book of the Cailleach: He associates the Cailleach with “Conflict with and displacement by Christianity”John Moriarty’s Invoking IrelandMarisa’s new practice for the year, Twelve Rays of Solstice, is a twist on the more familiar Omen Days tradition. In the twelve days stretching from December 21 to January 1, you seek out a sign each day that foretells of the year to come. Dec. 21 corresponds to January, Dec 22 to Feb. all the way to Jan 1’s offering of what December of 2025 will bringLet's share this practice together. I'll be sharing my 12 Rays over on Instagram and in my Substack Notes 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 writingcoachmarisa.comLearn about our global creative community, The Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writers-knot-communityFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: www.marisagoudy.com Follow the show on Substack, Instagram, and Facebook.

    34min
  8. 20/11/2024

    A Storyteller, A Story Listener with Rab Fulton | S5 Ep16

    Please Support Our Show: Join us on Substack Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together. Get the stories behind each episode and stay connected between seasons. Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine. OUR STORY Rab Fulton brings us “a healing story” with its roots in 19th century Ireland. A stranger comes to northern Galway, and he doesn’t know how to be with the land or honor the stories and traditions of this new land. Thanks to a foolish choice, and a bit of magic, the man eventually becomes an integral part of the community. OUR GUEST Rab Fulton is a Galway-based Scottish/Irish storyteller, author, and educator. Along with with Kerry Graham, Rab is the host of The Celtic Tales Chronicles podcast.  His books include West of Ireland Folk Tales for Children and Galway Bay Folk Tales. You can find Rab telling stories upstairs in the Crane Bar in Galway’s West End  every Thursday evening. Get your tickets in advance - they often sell out! Follow Rab on instagram @celtictalesgalway for details on upcoming events, including the storytelling project 'Growing With Stories' with Amelia Perez.  Find more about Rab on LinkedIn and at www.celtictalesgalway.com OUR CONVERSATION Rab tells a 200 year old story that speaks to our 21st century questions: How we deal with our anger? What’s possible when we commit to resolving our conflicts? How do we welcome the stranger and how do we honor traditions when we come to new places?What the new immigrants to Ireland bring to this land and how we weave new people into the Irish narrative.The burdens of single definitions of what nationalities are - we contain multitudes. Neither Scottish nor Irish society have ever been homogeneous.  Galway, a port city that was essentially an English city, was a very diverse city, and that diversity still carries on today.Rab’s many years of storytelling at the Crane Bar and some insight into being a working storyteller.Growing up in Glasgow in a working class family with a duality of language speaking Scots, a cousin of English sometimes called “bad English.” The only Scottish history Rab was told was about the land clearances, an act of ethnic cleansing, and it was framed as a good economic practice.  Why do we tell stories? Never underestimate the power of sheer pleasure! It’s as important to be a story listener as it is to be a storyteller.Check out the KWS episode featuring another Scottish storyteller Katy Swift: Bride and the Cailleach, S3 Ep 10  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 ata...

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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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