Fenland Fragma #5

Reflections on returning home to the edge of the Fens from 'way out West'

"And I ask this...what are you going to do with it?"

Image shows me wrapped in my trusted Barbour coat, sheltering from a delightful Dartmoor storm, under an ancient horse chestnut tree, which I was sure was much closer to the house last time I sat there. Hmm...?

The words above were the final words of Martin Shaw at the end of our time together yesterday.

He led a weekend full of Celtic and Arthurian stories.

Stories of great adventures. Of heartache and of joy. Of love and of loss.

This weekend marked my fourth visit to Martin's West Country School of Myth.

The first was back in 2022, The House of Beasts and Vines

And then a double dose in 2023 with The Tent of Seven Doors & followed by The Odyssey

And then this past weekend, The Hazel Bush & The Magic Hour

This time felt different to previous visits, though, because as I drove up the narrow, long lane to the large house, a potent blend of guilt, urgency & relief came over me.

Now I've learned to really honour and lean into these big, raw emotions, and I have past teachers to thank for making that act feel like a really normal thing to do.

When it comes to feelings, Michael Meade says that:

"Raw emotions can be eruptive and disruptive, yet feelings can contain emotional energies so that they become centering, instructive and healing¹."

Part of my guilt, I realised, centred around whether I really deserved to be at school, again, and for the fourth time. I wondered, "Surely I have learned enough already. And besides, shouldn't I be saving my money"?

But, paradoxically, I think, I knew that there was something important for me to discover this time around.

And just like Meade's comments about feelings, stories can be center, instruct and heal. And that's exactly how I feel waking up this morning.

I return with a few more stories in the rattle bag, a renewed and centering sense of gravity, and, after a bumpy year, both those feel especially healing.

As for that bardic task of 'what am I going to do with it" (which I take to mean the teaching of the entire weekend!), Well, that's way too large a question for a Monday morning :)

So instead I'll leave you with another of Martin's quotes, from the glorious Night Wages (p.108), and which feels suitably apt:

"These big stories are like visiting the Grand Canyon over and over, after a while you want something more intimate, smaller—you want less".

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In case you are wondering…

Fenland Musings is my monthly dose of Substackery, which ventures out into the world on the last Thursday of each month at 12 pm UK time.

Fenland Fragma, “Fragments of my Fenland Imagination” (which is what this is), is less like a well-oiled clock and more like an irrepressible wild animal that might arrive at your door at any moment. The last time one turned up was May 2024, so this wild creature is definitely of the lesser spotted variety. Who knows when the next sighting will be?

So, I hope you don’t mind the interruption.

Wild appreciation to you all.

1. Living Myth Podcast 384 - Dealing with Emotional Storms — Michael Meade