LITURGIES OF THE WILD WITH MARTIN SHAW

Mythographer Martin Shaw discusses his latest book Liturgies of the Wild, a vivid exploration of myth, faith and the oldest stories of all.

In his soaring, transformative new book Liturgies of the Wild, master mythographer, author and 'modern day bard' Martin Shaw invites readers to tap into the eternal resonance of ancient stories and myths, not least the ones we each gather up, carry and – sometimes – throw away. Such tales, Shaw argues, are vital sources of solace and self-discovery and can show us a way through life's hardships, if we can only read them the way they want to be read. Shaw also shares how the ‘ancient technologies’ of myths and initiatory rites led him, after thirty years of searching, to the Christian faith and the so-called ‘greatest story’ of all.

Martin Shaw is a writer, mythographer, oral storyteller and Christian thinker. The author of seventeen books including the acclaimed Bardskull, Scatterlings, Stag Cult and A Branch from the Lightning Tree, Dr Shaw is Visiting Scholar at the Divinity Faculty of Cambridge University, a Fellow of the Temenos Academy, the director of the Westcountry School of Myth and founder of the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University. Having converted to Eastern Orthodoxy after a 101-day vigil in a Dartmoor forest, he still lives nearby to that same wood, writing and teaching. He’ll be discussing Liturgies of the Wild with local author and myth-maker Ryan J. Smith.