59 episodes

In each KnotWork Storytelling episode, we'll explore a different story from mythology, folklore, or history, particularly from Ireland and the Celtic World. Then, my guest and I dive deep into why these ideas and characters still resonate today.

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, and a has an MA in Irish literature from University College Dublin.

Join us as we wander through these ancient storylines as we set out on a quest to learn from the past, better understand the present, and craft a sustainable future.

Every episode reminds us that age-old stories are medicine for this modern moment.

KnotWork Storytelling Marisa Goudy

    • Society & Culture
    • 5.0 • 24 Ratings

In each KnotWork Storytelling episode, we'll explore a different story from mythology, folklore, or history, particularly from Ireland and the Celtic World. Then, my guest and I dive deep into why these ideas and characters still resonate today.

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, and a has an MA in Irish literature from University College Dublin.

Join us as we wander through these ancient storylines as we set out on a quest to learn from the past, better understand the present, and craft a sustainable future.

Every episode reminds us that age-old stories are medicine for this modern moment.

    Patrick + Sheelah Forever (Maybe) | S5 Ep1

    Patrick + Sheelah Forever (Maybe) | S5 Ep1

    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. Find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons.
    Subscribe to our on our Substack newsletter Myth Is Medicine.
    Our Story
    Did Saint Patrick have a wife? Irish folklore of the 18th and 19th centuries declared he did. Sheelah was celebrated on March 18, the day after Saint Paddy's Day.
    KnotWork host Marisa Goudy imagines a one-sided bedtime conversation between the couple. The story also weaves in two other women of the Celtic Otherworld - Cailleach and Sheela Na Gig.
    Our Guest
    Martha Wright is the perfect combination of maternal and bad-ass, she devotes herself to helping people embrace their inner divinity. She is a vessel and facilitator of divine energy - whether that is a healing session,  her own writing, or leading a class or retreat. As you’ll hear in our conversation following the story, Martha has apprenticed as bean chaointe,  the Irish tradition of keening and as a shaman.
    Find her at marthawrightshaman.com or on instagram @Marthawrightshaman 
    Our Conversation
    Sheela Na Gig: a figure of a woman with a skeletal head holding her vulva open wide that was carved into medieval churches and castles, a representation of death and rebirthApproaching a story of Ireland’s patron saint with a kind of holy ambivalence - responding to the call to the ancient, often hidden divine feminine, and also the beauty and the scholarship of early Irish Christianity, but acknowledging that Catholicism became such a punishing, diminishing force in Irish culture. Reclaiming the tradition of divine coupleship as the full humanity of the people in the story. They are both spiritual beings and as sexual beingsThis story was inspired by the famous “Pillow Talk” scene from Ireland’s greatest mythological epic, The Táin. Intimacy, at the emotional and at the physical level. Marisa borrowed from Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, particularly its refrain “I bind unto myself this day”The tradition of celebrating Sheelah’s Day seemed to emerge in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in the Irish diaspora, as a way to extend the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations one more day (and to avoid the Lenten abstention for one more day)Martha as bean feasa (wise woman) and bean chaointe (keening woman), as shaman, as emerging author who has uncovered so many layers of her own identity in the process of telling the story that is truly hers to tell“Wildness” and what that really means in our modern world.
    Our Music
    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...

    • 51 min
    Take Back the Magic with Perdita Finn | S4 Ep12

    Take Back the Magic with Perdita Finn | S4 Ep12

    Write With Us in 2024
    Do you want to write your own memoir or simply make more space for self-expression in the new year? Join Marisa in the Writers' Knot, our online writing community.
    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. Find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons.
    Subscribe to our  on our Substack newsletter Myth Is Medicine.
    Our Story
    Perdita Finn shares an excerpt from Take Back the Magic. This chapter, "The Land of the Dead," describes her first encounter with the place that she and I both call home, the Hudson Valley, the land once peopled by the Lenape and Esopus tribes.
    “We wouldn't fight wars if we knew that everyone on the other side had once been our child. We wouldn't kill children if we knew every child had once been our child, had once been our mother. There would be no sides.”
    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.  Find out more about her devotion to “ecology not theology” at wayoftherose.org
    Perdita’s book Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World is an intimate journey through her recovery of these lost ways. She speaks widely on how to collaborate with those on the other side, on the urgent necessity of a new romantic animism, and on the sobriety that emerges when we claim the long story of our souls.
    Find more at her work at takebackthemagic.com
    Our Conversation
    “Paperfold places”: real places that are dream places, places you feel you’ve seen before.Who are our ancestors? Everyone. This disrupts our ideas of ancestry and lineage and feels like a radical idea when we consider colonialism and we’re cautious about cultural appropriation. Civilization as a long story of genocide and colonialism that is based on stories of good guys and bad guysCyclical living, and the sense we have all been here before. Cairns on the side of Woodstock’s Overlook mountain were placed about the same time as Newgrange in Ireland. Glenn Kreisberg and Dave Holden’s research about stone monuments created by indigenous people of the northeastern US.  The heart, a sense of belonging to land, the ancestors, and the dead. So different from the fear and fascism that are so present today.Our interrelationship with the more-than-human world reflected in the destruction of the American chestnut trees.How to nourish the seeds of the heart; a practice for the new year at the Solstice.
    Our Music
    Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com
    Work With Marisa
    Join the Writers' Knot online writing community - the new program begins mid-January!1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to...

    • 36 min
    My Life As a Prayer with Elizabeth Cunningham | S4 Ep11

    My Life As a Prayer with Elizabeth Cunningham | S4 Ep11

    Write With Us in 2024
    Do you want to write your own memoir or simply make more space for self-expression in the new year? Join Marisa in the Writers' Knot, our online writing community.
    Please Support Our Show: Join us on Substack
    Love KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.
    Our Story
    Elizabeth Cunningham reads to us from her new memoir, My Life as a Prayer. For Elizabeth, "A prayer is one who prays." This excerpt brings us to the start of her journey as a writer because, for this author, writing and prayer are always interwoven.
    Our Guest
    Elizabeth Cunningham is a novelist, poet, musician, and counselor based in New York’s Hudson Valley.  She’ll be reading to us from her multifaith memoir, My Life as a Prayer. She is the author and illustrator of The Book of Madge, a graphic novel, and the source of her best known work, the four books in The Maeve Chronicles. Her earlier novels include The Wild Mother, The Return of the Goddess, and How to Spin Gold, all of which have been recently reprinted by Monkfish Book Publishing. 
    Our Conversation
    This excerpt from My Life as a Prayer is a request for help, and a prayer of gratitudeElizabeth chose to write through the lens of prayer because it enabled her to write a memoir without writing about certain things at the core of her life - love affairs, children, her marriageScripture as sacred storytellingThe pressure from Elizabeth’s father to be a social worker, not to be a writer; this tension is alive for many writers who fear they should be more devoted to activismElizabeth’s “best imaginary friend forever” BIFF, Maeve, the unrepentant Celtic Magdalene, heroine of The Passion of Mary Magdalene and three other booksThe need for an incarnate goddess, and a desire for a relationship with JesusThe invitation to all people be in a uniquely passionate love affair with “God” (or whatever you call the great spirit) Prayer and the troublesome idea that “only god can help” when we think of suffering mothers and children in GazaFite fuaite, the Irish phrase for interwoven; the idea that something can be woven, then torn, then mended, as the Hebrew word tikkun“A way out of no way, way will open”
    Our Music
    Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com
    Work With Marisa
    Join the Writers' Knot online writing community - the new program begins mid-January!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.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her book, The Sovereignty Knot: a href="https://www.knotworkstorytelling.com/episode/www.marisagoudy.com" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

    • 42 min
    Tell Me My Story with Dimple Dhabalia | S4 Ep10

    Tell Me My Story with Dimple Dhabalia | S4 Ep10

    Please Support Our Show: Join us on Substack
    Love KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.
    Our Story
    Dimple Dhabalia reads to us from a later section of her forthcoming book, Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self. She shares a moment of deep realization: her life’s work as a humanitarian, and specifically her career as an asylum officer, was actually a direct response to her own family’s refugee history - she just didn’t know it when she started on that path.
    You’ll hear a part of her uncle’s story and his expulsion from Uganda during the regime of Idi Amin, followed by a conversation about the power of story, in ancient myth, in personal narratives, and in the conflict zones of today.
    Our Guest
    Dimple is the founder of Roots in the Clouds, a boutique consulting firm specializing in using the power of story to heal individual and organizational trauma and moral injury. She is also a writer, podcaster, coach, and facilitator who brings over twenty years of public service experience working at the intersection of leadership, mindful awareness, and storytelling. Her first book, Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self will be available in February 2024. Listen to her podcast, What Would Ted Lasso Do? and connect with her on social media @dimpstory across all platforms.
    Pre-order a copy of Tell Me My Story—Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self 
    Our Conversation
    How intergenerational trauma and other unseen influences shape our lives. The role of storytelling in the workplace and how it helps heal individual trauma and company cultureWe connect story healer to story healer, the contrast of working with mythology and working with modern stories from the front lines. Story healing as “creating a ministry of presence.” The paradox of humanitarian work, specifically Dimple’s former work as an asylum officer; how to hold onto your humanity in the face of such profound human painAncestral healing is for us and for our entire family - Dimple is healing trauma for many generations of her familyStory Healing for global conflict, including the Truth and Reconciliation Committees in South Africa and Dimple’s work with people after the Rwandan genocide of 1994Dehumanization as part of war and equating people with animals, which perpetuates the toxicity of placing the human experience above all other aspects of the more-than-human worldThe mythology of Hinduism (though it’s not myth to many); the indigenous stories told on the show Reservation Dogs
    Our Music
    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.comFind more of Marisa's writing and get a copy of her...

    • 40 min
    Divine Embodiment with Eleanora Amendolara | S4 Ep9

    Divine Embodiment with Eleanora Amendolara | S4 Ep9

    Please Support Our Show: Join us on Substack
    Love KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.
    Our Story
    Eleanora Amendolara shares an excerpt from her book Divine Embodiment: The Art & Practice of Chumpi Illumination. We discuss Eleanora’s many trips to Peru and the origins of her pioneering approach to healing and spiritual awakening.  
    Our Guest
    Eleanora is a master healer and teacher with a thriving healing practice in Brooklyn and in Warwick, New York. As the founder of the Sacred Center Mystery School and a certified Health Kinesiology practitioner, she has been training healers and individuals on the path to spiritual awakening for more than three decades.
    Her signature healing system, Chumpi Illumination, weaves together the indigenous wisdom of the Andes, principles of sacred geometry, the science of muscle testing, and wisdom of the ancient mystery traditions. 
    Get your copy of Divine Embodiment: The Art & Practice of Divine Embodiment.
    Our Conversation
    How Eleanora received her first set of Chumpi stones: An origin story, which includes a woman’s quest, a wise guide, the great Incan myth of Pachacuti (“the world turned upside down), all aligned with the turning of the seasons.When Eleanora would ask the paqos, the medicine women of Cusco who could teach her about the Chumpi stones, they always told her to look to the mountainsOur collaborative writing practice (I am a longtime student of the Sacred Center Mystery School, and have co-written two of Eleanora’s books).Connections across ancient cultures: Cusco as the sacred center of Peru, Uisneach as the sacred center of Ireland.Power of receiving and surrendering to a healing, rather expecting a healer to do something/produce something for you.Writing and creating from a place of “we don’t know what we don’t know.” When we can embrace uncertainty, the real mystical creation happens.What ritual with the indigenous Q’ero people really looks like (it’s not what the Western-programmed mind might expect) 
    Our Music
    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.comFind 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 a href="https://www.facebook.com/knotworkstorytelling" rel="noopener noreferrer"...

    • 34 min
    The Last Sovereignty Goddess | S4 Ep 8

    The Last Sovereignty Goddess | S4 Ep 8

    Please Support Our Show: Join us on Substack
    Love KnotWork Storytelling? Support the show, find the in-depth show notes, get special supporter-only podcast episodes, and stay connected between seasons on our Substack, Myth Is Medicine.
    Our Story
    In Ireland’s Forgotten Goddess Queen-Queen-Witch (S4 Ep7), you met Mongfind. She’s best known from her role in the story of Niall of the Nine Hostages. 
    In “The Last Sovereignty Goddess” I imagine Mongfind’s divine origins and tell a story about power, sacred union, and the disruption of the balance between spirit, nature, and so-called civilization. We explore the intersection between the divine and the human and the frailties that are at the core of this story of goddesses and kings.
    Our Guest
    Laura Murphy, @everose on Instagram, is a poet, activist and healer from Ireland whose work centers around the ancient
    Irish poetic practice of Imbas Forosnai. She has shared a trinity of stories here on KnotWork, reweaving the tales of the Irish goddesses Bóinn, Brigid, and Danu.
    This time, I have asked Laura, a true soul sister, to sit with me as I weave a new story. 
    Our Conversation
    A longtime theme in my work: how we tell goddess stories in order to tell our own human stories. While at University College Dublin, I published a paper in New Voices in Irish Criticism 4, “Dethroning the Goddess, Crowning the Woman: Eva Gore-Book and Lady Augusta Gregory’s Mythic Heroines”Channeling a story that is bigger than myself and also exactly the size of my own experienceThe power of choice and consent; the Irish tradition of the Sovereignty Goddess who chooses the king, and how that tradition was disruptedThis story explores sacred sexual union, but also the terrible first kiss What it is to be in relationship with our younger self and younger body, without buying into the toxicity of “anti-aging” Some background on the connections between the Irish and Palestinian people, including the British Israelites and attempts to excavate the sacred Hill of Tara in a quest to find the Ark of Covenant in 1900The ongoing struggle with the word and concept of “Sovereignty,” particularly with the far right’s use of the term. Considering relationship to ancestral land through the lens of America, a country built on the disrupted sovereignty of indigenous peoples.This Last Sovereignty Goddess story is the tale of an ending, and this feels like a “Tower moment,” the liminal space between what’s dying and being born.
    Join Melinda Laus's Seasons for Healing Community
    My dear friend Melinda Laus holds space for a grief support community that blends the healing power of nature with wise and inspired grief education. Her wisdom and compassion are soul medicine, and I highly recommend her work to anyone experiencing collective grief or personal loss. Learn more at thenatureofgrief.com
    Our Music
    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...

    • 1 hr 6 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
24 Ratings

24 Ratings

AnitainVa ,

Stories for anyone

Don’t be misled, thinking this is only for the Irish fan. The storytelling, magic, and love lessons are good for anyone.

FollowThatPodcastBird ,

Beautiful stories. Myth becomes relevant! Wonderfully produced

You don’t have to live Irish literature and myth to get something out of this podcast. It’s such a welcome mental escape and shift. Marisa and her guests’ stories are just beautiful and they do a fabulous job of connecting myth to modern day.

PuertoGeekan ,

Amazing storytelling!

Marisa is such a gifted storyteller! She takes old and ancient myths and brings them to life in a way that shows how timeless these tales really are and what we might still learn from them about ourselves and our world. If you’re interested in in the magic that a good story can bring to your life and want to be transported through time and space and back again… you’ll want to listen to Knotwork Storytelling! Highly recommended.

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