Welcome to The Art of Enchantment
A Top Ten Literature Substack
A gathering place for hags, wildlings, lovers of myth, fairy tales and depth psychology. Here, we explore the mysteries of the psyche, our relationship with place and planet, and our journey through the second half of life. It’s all about finding understanding, meaning and joy in this ever-more-challenging world – and about joining a community of like-minded seekers.
Subscribe today and receive a free gift – a PDF workbook on ‘Myth and Metamorphosis’ – for joining me. And please scroll down to find out about referral rewards.
I’m an award-winning and bestselling author and psychologist with an academic background in the mythology and folklore of Britain and Ireland, too. I have a degree in Psychology, a PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience (on anxiety and panic), MAs in both Creative Writing and in Celtic Studies, along with many other academic and professional trainings in psychology, psychotherapeutic practice, mythology and folklore. I’ve been awarded research fellowships from the Wellcome Trust and the Mental Health Foundation, have been a British Psychological Society-approved Chartered Psychologist and have worked a psychotherapist – but these days I’m a full-time writer.
Most of my work today is focused on reimagining women’s stories – especially our journey through the second half of life – and on the relevance of myths, fairy tales and folk traditions to the personal, cultural and environmental problems we face today. As well as writing five books of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestselling If Women Rose Rooted and my latest, Hagitude, my writing has appeared in several international media outlets – among them the Guardian, the Irish Times, and the Scotsman. I’ve been interviewed by the BBC, US public radio and other broadcasters on my areas of expertise. My awards include the Society of Authors’ Roger Deakin Award and a Creative Scotland Writer’s Award. My next book, Wise Women: a new mythology of older women, will be out from Virago in October, 2024.
I’m a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and I’ve taught and lectured at several academic institutions, Jungian organisations, retreat centres and cultural festivals around the world. I’m also online faculty for Pacifica Graduate Institute, California, where I currently teach an Advanced Training Certificate Course on ‘Finding Ourselves in Fairy Tales: a Narrative Psychological Approach’ and other programs for The Retreat/ Pacifica Online. I’m represented by Jane Graham Maw at Graham Maw Christie Agency.
I’m also 62 years old and fully embracing my hagitude. You can find out much more about me at my main website.
Why subscribe?
My commitment to those of you who choose to subscribe to The Art of Enchantment is to ensure that you receive something of value in return. Not just carefully crafted words, but ideas and inspiration for life. Because if I’m passionate about anything, I’m passionate about transformation – about the idea of life as a constant process of becoming. It’s only by transforming ourselves that we can hope to transform the world. And I’m also passionate about re-enchanting our relationships with the world and with the places where our feet are planted: something I’ve been writing about for many years, and ideas about which I laid out in my book The Enchanted Life, published in 2018.
Join my community by subscribing to ‘The Art of Enchantment’ for free, and you’ll receive an emailed monthly newsletter with news and reflections, book recommendations and reviews. There are occasional additional articles for free subscribers, and you will have access to that archive. In addition, you’ll receive a gift for joining me: a downloadable workbook on ‘Myth and Metamorphosis’.
As a paid subscriber, you’ll have access to work focused on myth and fairy tales, on depth/ archetypal psychology, on women’s stories, on reimagining the second half of life and on place and belonging. If you’d like to access exclusive new content from me, then for £6 a month you can have it sent directly to your email inbox. (Please note that I don’t discount annual subscriptions; I prefer subscribers to have the choice to leave at any time, according to their financial situation.) You’ll receive:
A midweek thread on The Heroine’s Journey, explored through fairy tales
Monthly ‘fairy tale salons’, in which you can join me for a monthly live Zoom session to talk about these beautiful old stories in greater depth
‘On the couch’, a monthly ‘advice column’ where I’ll give you a long-form answer to one of your questions about an aspect of our journey through life that you’d like help with
Long-form articles and opinion pieces in my specialist areas
Access to an exclusive occasional podcast in which I’ll be in conversation with a guest on one of the subjects I’m passionate about
Occasional ‘Mythopoetic moments’, for those who are interested in some of the ideas behind archetypal psychology and cultivating the mythic imagination
‘Ask me anything’ opportunities
Paid subscribers can engage with me in the ‘Chat’ section of Substack; you can also begin your own (relevant) threads there, and enjoy the conversation with the rest of the community
I believe in writers being paid for their work, but as someone who grew up in poverty I also believe in making my work accessible to as many people as possible. So if you are genuinely unable to afford a subscription but think this community is for you, please email us at sharon@sharonblackie.org and we’ll offer you a complimentary subscription, with no questions asked.
The Hearth
The Hearth is an exclusive space within this publication for those of you who want to deepen your work with story and the mythic imagination, and who would like to support my work in a more focused way. Membership of The Hearth includes all the benefits that paid subscribers have, along with four live online retreats with me each year, around the four old seasonal festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasa. These retreats will last for around an hour and a half and, like all of my work and courses, will be focused on myth, fairy tales and narrative psychology: kickstarting the imagination, deepening our sense of belonging to the world around us, and facilitating personal transformation.
In between these retreats, you’ll receive occasional exclusive newsletters and occasional extra live sessions with guest storytellers and teachers.
Hearth members will also have the chance, a couple of times a year, to win a thirty-minute one-to-one session with me.
Membership of The Hearth is currently priced at £150 per year.
Refund policy
If you have upgraded to paid status in error, you can request a pro-rata refund within 7 days of making the payment. Refund are not available in any other circumstances. I hope you will understand that, if this publication should ever be forced to close due to death or illness, refunds in such an unfortunate situation will not be possible. Admin email for all such matters is sharon@sharonblackie.org; please note that I don’t reply personally from this address.
Why enchantment?
I’ve been writing about enchantment for over a decade now; here’s what I said about it in my 2018 book The Enchanted Life:
I believe that enchantment is an attitude of mind which can be cultivated, a way of approaching the world which anyone can learn to adopt: the enchanted life is possible for everybody.
Enchantment, by my definition, has nothing to do with fantasy, or escapism, or magical thinking: it is founded on a vivid sense of belongingness to a rich and many-layered world; a profound and whole-hearted participation in the adventure of life.
The enchanted life is one which is intuitive, embraces wonder and fully engages the creative imagination – but it is also deeply embodied, ecological, grounded in place and community. It flourishes on work that has heart and meaning; it respects the instinctive knowledge and playfulness of children. It understands the myths we live by; thrives on poetry, song and dance. It loves the folkloric, the handcrafted, the practice of traditional skills. It respects wild things, recognises the wisdom of the crow, seeks out the medicine of plants. It rummages and roots on the wild edges, but comes home to an enchanted home and garden. It is engaged with the small, the local, the ethical; enchanted living is slow living.
Ultimately, to live an enchanted life is to pick up the pieces of our bruised and battered psyches, and to offer them the nourishment they long for. It is to be challenged, to be awakened, to be gripped and shaken to the core by the extraordinary which lies at the heart of the ordinary. Above all, to live an enchanted life is to fall in love with the world all over again. This is an active choice, a leap of faith which is necessary not just for our own sakes, but for the sake of the wide, wild Earth in whose being and becoming we are so profoundly and beautifully entangled.
If you’d like to know more about enchantment, and why I write about it, please visit this page.
You can find out much more about me and my books at my main website.
Rewards for referrals
If you enjoy ‘The Art of Enchantment’, I’d very much appreciate it if you would help to spread the word, and invite your friends to read it. If you refer friends, you’ll receive rewards that will give you free access.
When you use the personalised referral link below, or the ‘share’ button on any post, you’ll get credit for any new subscribers: one month free for 3 subscribers, three months free for 10 subscribers, and six months free for 25 subscribers. Simply send the link in a text, email, or share it on social media. Once you've reached a referral milestone, you'll receive an email with the reward. Please note that if you are a paid subscriber, your complimentary subscription will be applied at the end of your current billing period.
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