The Spirit Wolves of Tengger: The Wild Wisdom of the Divine Enemy-Teacher

In the heart of the Mongolian grasslands wolves and sheep herders once lived in harmony with each other. Though wolves were regarded as an "enemy" and often killed and ate the sheep these nomadic herders depended on for their livelihood, wolves also modeled strategies of survival that herders adopted enabling them to live for generations in the harsh landscape. Like the Taoist symbol of Yin and Yang, the story of Mongolian wolves is a spiritual one about living in harmony with our greatest fear, learning from our greatest enemy, and ultimately developing enough consciousness to recognize the divine-enemy-teacher residing within each of us.

Read More

Plants, Magic and Power: Folklore's Storied Plants Wield Their Quiet Power

Whether it is a giant beanstalk, benevolent flowers, wise herbs, sacred birch goddesses or mossy coats, many ancient folktales remind us how our ancestors lived in harmony with plants, relying on them not only for sustenance but also for healing, protection, wisdom, empowerment and inspiration. Ancient plant folktales encapsulate wisdom and teachings passed down through generations, reflecting the roles that flora and fauna have played for our survival, cultural identity and in the mythic imagination, often intersecting all three.

Read More

Fox Woman: The Shapeshifting Woman at the Threshold Between Worlds

Fox Woman, also known as Kitsune in Japanese folklore, is a shapeshifting trickster character who resembles the elusive, clever fox from the wild. Although this folktale comes in many different variations and her story is told in many tongues, what they all have in common is a trickster character who shifts between human and fox, sometimes androgynous, living in multiple worlds, questioning the order of things through her mischief, playfulness, wit, deception, magic and defiance of authority. The tale of Fox Woman is almost always makes visible the tension between the need for order, and its reinvention.

Read More

Reassembling Rites: Piecing Together the Ancestral Bones

There is an archetype that weaves its way through many ancient myths and folktales that centers around the sacred work of recovering and reassembling what has been disassembled. This ritual of singing over the ancestral bones, honoring, mourning over, and reclaiming what has been buried or lost, is a devotional act. In these stories, grieving takes center stage and plays a transformative role allowing the folk-heroine or mythological heroine to reach a place of wholeness, aliveness, and joy again.

Read More

Tern Teachings: Guests that Nest & Give

It is not only humans that tell stories. . . In the voice of bright white feathers and a charming black cap, a story darts its way through gusts of wind off the coast of Massachusetts hatching out of makeshift nests of pebbles and dry grasses. during the months of April and May. It is a seasonal story with themes of reciprocity and interdependence between the arctic tern, a migrating bird, and local coastal cloudberry flowers suggesting that even temporary guest can still contribute to a landscape’s thriving.

Read More