Wolf Milk: Chthonic Memory in the Deep Wild

by Martin Shaw

Wolf Milk is Dr Martin Shaw’s reflection on almost two decades leading vigils in the wilderness. Through myth, poetics and hard-won brooding he offers a way for modern people to enter an ancient ceremony. This startling book suggests a wingspan of both mystical experience and civic duty underpins the encounter.

“It is your task to walk back from the vigil with an animal, not a pelt, not a corpse, but something alive. Curate that energy, feed it, don’t domesticate it, make culture from it. It should be walking alongside you, not slung over your shoulder. You build your structures from its growls.”

Genres: Mythology, Psychology, Spirituality, Philosophy, Fiction, Nature

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Dr Martin Shaw is an acclaimed teacher of myth. Author of the award-winning Mythteller trilogy (A Branch from the Lightning Tree, Snowy Tower, Scatterlings), he founded the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University, whilst being director of the Westcountry School of Myth in the UK.

He has introduced thousands of people to mythology and how it penetrates modern life. For twenty years Shaw has been a wilderness rites of passage guide, working with at-risk youth, the sick, returning veterans and many women and men seeking a deeper life.

His translations of Gaelic poetry and folklore (with Tony Hoagland) have been published in Orion Magazine, Poetry International, Kenyon Review, Poetry Magazine and the Mississippi Review.

Shaw’s most recent books include The Night Wages, Cinderbiter, Wolf Milk, Courting the Wild Twin, All Those Barbarians, Wolferland and his Lorca translations, Courting the Dawn (with Stephan Harding). His essay and conversation with Ai Weiwei on myth and migration was released by the Marciano Arts foundation.

For more on Martin Shaw’s work:
cistamystica.com | drmartinshaw.com | schoolofmyth.com | martinshaw.substack.com

Reviews

[Angela Natividad · Rating 5 out of 5]

On what to expect from a wilderness vigil (not enlightenment one can Instagram, or enlightenment at all), and how to treat stories well: preparing them, and yourself, for telling, assuming you suit one another. Stories are spirits, not allegories! More egregore than archival plate. This explains so much.

To understand all this in practice, I lustily recommend seeing Martin Shaw live. He’ll awaken something childlike and strange in you; it will dance and also growl.

[Fredrick Niles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb blend of folklore and instruction.

[Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shaw explains the process of his school’s wilderness vigils: four day guided camping trips while fasting. I was initially thrilled by Shaw and his storytelling capacity, but then noted how often he uses Indigenous traditional stories and generalized comments about aboriginal lives. I am disappointed by this, BUT I am slowly uncovering other storytellers rooted in their own traditions–and really just discovering the whole oral storytelling genre in general–so I am sure I will find other storyteller-writers to read. I do enjoy Shaw's work very much, but I am perpetually uncomfortable with how he talks about indigenous people.

[Joseph Matheny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. I recommend it to all seekers of personal insight and story tellers.

[Victoria Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a gift to me at the start of 2020. The first Martin Shaw book I have read, and I hope to read more. I read this book just before I read Sharon Blackies 'Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women', and they sort of married together beautifully for what I have been researching into and working on in terms of the mythic mind and the imaginary. It is a rich book, full of imagery and poetry with methodologies of storytelling, stories upon regional dialects and vigils and much more. I have chosen to read this again now as it is coming to the closing of this year, as so much has happened so I fancy a reread, perhaps with new eyes, and being the first of his works, a very rich book.

[Clivemichael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guidance and perspective well articulated.

[Alin Jurca · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much I have liked it.