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All Those Barbarians
Initiation on a scale never yet experienced is arriving. Not choreographed by humans, but by the earth itself. Climate emergency. In a time of initiation we need an initiated language.
A time like this has no guarantee of wisdom if we can’t decipher its sacred braille.
All Those Barbarians holds up the primeval role of the storyteller as a key in such deciphering. It encourages us to get educated, and quick. What you have in your hands is a wayward kind of teaching manual. Not really a book, rather a tent with seven doors, containing stories both ancient and utterly fresh. Its call is urgent, that we as modern people could remember the way humans and the earth talk back to each other. That we risk magnificence. That we risk grief. That we could speak an almost-forgotten-tongue.
In All Those Barabarians, Shaw offers a unique weave of myth and ecology as a response to the growing crisis of meaning in these times. A rogue philosophy of how to settle into the divine havoc of being a true human being. Gathered over twenty years, these ruminations are a tent we shelter in as a night-storm rages, as we consider both the darkness and the dawn.
A time like this has no guarantee of wisdom if we can’t decipher its sacred braille.
All Those Barbarians holds up the primeval role of the storyteller as a key in such deciphering. It encourages us to get educated, and quick. What you have in your hands is a wayward kind of teaching manual. Not really a book, rather a tent with seven doors, containing stories both ancient and utterly fresh. Its call is urgent, that we as modern people could remember the way humans and the earth talk back to each other. That we risk magnificence. That we risk grief. That we could speak an almost-forgotten-tongue.
In All Those Barabarians, Shaw offers a unique weave of myth and ecology as a response to the growing crisis of meaning in these times. A rogue philosophy of how to settle into the divine havoc of being a true human being. Gathered over twenty years, these ruminations are a tent we shelter in as a night-storm rages, as we consider both the darkness and the dawn.
276 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2020
3 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Martin Shaw
22 books385 followersDr 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
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
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