The owl season

Monthly newsletter, October 2023

The Hagitude t-shirt and tote bag is here! Please read on – as well as for free access to a fairy tale salon, book news, reading recommendations and this month’s poem.

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Dear friends,

This month has involved a richness of folklore. First, I’ll be handing over the manuscript of my next book, Wise Women: Myths and folklore in celebration of older women, to Virago in the next week or so. It’ll be out on October 3 next year, but watch out for the cover reveal and other information/offers in this newsletter in the months ahead.

Second, I was interviewed for a few episodes of a brilliant new ten-part BBC Radio 4 series on mythical creatures of Britain and Ireland – including selkies, and the banshee and other women who are associated with death. It’s always a pleasure to come face-to-face with evidence of the still-growing interest in myth and folklore. The series will be airing around Christmas time, and as soon as I have listening info I’ll share it here.

Meanwhile, after six hectic months, we’re finally coming to the end of the big renovation projects which were aimed at making this lovely old house more functional. And while I’m talking about myth, we were part of a particularly mythic moment a week or two ago, when the drillers of our new water well (borehole) tapped into a source of water bubbling up from some deep Otherworld which was so abundantly gushing that we had to cap it and start again – at the risk of creating a new lake in this beautiful vale of Mallerstang. It reminded me of the Scottish stories about the Cailleach, who fell asleep and forgot to put the lid back on the well which she tended, high on Ben Cruachan – so flooding the valley below and creating Loch Awe. It was a reminder that it’s all very well to dream of channelling your inner Cailleach, but there are limits …

Autumn. The trees are weighed down with apples, there are otters down by the river, a ridiculous abundance of owls of all descriptions, and the thick, swirling morning mists give Mallerstang Edge a haunting and haunted air. The jam and chutney and rowan & hawthorn jelly is stacked high in the store cupboard, and I’m so looking forward to our first winter back in the north. Every year (and at 62 you might imagine I’d have figured it all out by now) I’m surprised by how quickly the transition from summer to autumn happens. One moment you’re planning on a nice warm day or two putting the garden to bed for the winter, and the next you’re shivering, windswept and soaked through.

Even though it’s frighteningly warm here for the time of year, this post-equinoctial season always lightens my heart. I love waking up when it’s still dark and slipping outside when dawn is imminent, in the hope of spotting a hunting barn owl or catching a glimpse of Sirius, the dog star, in the south-eastern sky. I’m always awake somewhere between 4.30am and 5am, and love that hour or so before David wakes up and the day properly begins. Still-sleepy dogs snoring, a little lamp light, dreaming into whatever book I happen to be working on at the time. This is the time of year when I always want to shut the world out and hunker down in my own safe place to dream and create, to slip more readily into the imaginal realms. I listen to, and read, less news. I try to limit work and social engagements. I have no time at all for time-wasters and malcontents. Perhaps at heart I’m really a bear, wanting nothing but to bed down in my cave for a good six months, and grumpy when people poke at me and won’t leave me alone.

I think that’s part of growing older, too. To me, there are two facets of elderhood: the active time, when we’re desperately wanting to be out there, offering our hard-won wisdom to the Earth and our community. And then the times that I think of as the ‘old woman in the woods’ time, when we retreat a little, when our eyes soften and our gaze turns inwards, when we want nothing more than simply to be left alone, and to be. I used to imagine that these two phases were linear: that in the early days of your elderhood, you were active and outward-focused, and that in the latter years you began to retreat a little, and dream. But for me I think it’s more cyclical than linear: each year, I go through the same process. Reluctantly, in spring, I emerge slowly from my warm hut in the dark forest and begin to interact with the world again. By the time September comes, I’m ready for the inward journey, the time of deep creativity. I’m ready to light the fire and pile up the rugs and turn all the lamps down low. Perhaps as I grow older the ‘old woman in the woods’ part of the year is lengthening. Perhaps, as the years come and now so swiftly go, I’ll learn finally to honour that more. I think for me that the greatest gift of elderhood has been learning (all too painfully slowly) how to say ‘no’, or ‘go away’ – but it’s a skill that still needs some development, for sure.

Wishing you all the joy and abundance of whatever season you find yourself in,

Sharon

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What’s new in ‘The Art of Enchantment’ community – and free access to my first fairy tale salon

Thanks again to all of you for joining and supporting the Art of Enchantment community, and making us one of Substack’s bestsellers. Here’s what’s been offered to paid subscribers during the past month:

1. A creative prompt (‘drop of enchantment’) on writing in the spirit of the season

2. A new article on selkies and the maighdean mhara in British and Irish folklore

3. A fairy tale salon on the Fairy Mélusine

4. An article with a rare fairy tale which shows the wolf in a positive light

5. An ‘ask me anything’ session with both written and video responses

6. A small giveaway of Hagitude badges (more to come!)

– And for members of The Hearth, there’ll be a Samhain-themed online workshop on Saturday October 28.

I’m very much aware that not everyone can afford a paid subscription, and so will always endeavour to provide occasional extras to everyone. And so for the next week only, that fairy tale salon on Mélusine will be available to everyone to listen to/ read:

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New: limited edition Hagitude t-shirts and shopping bags

A note from September Publishing

Calling all women with Hagitude!

Share a piece of your favourite myth-infused manifesto with our limited edition t-shirts and bags.

The perfect gifts for women who are reclaiming the second half of life, both items are made from organic and recycled cotton and printed with water-based eco inks.

Choose from our 100% GOTS organic cotton relaxed fit t-shirt or our large, recycled cotton woven shopping bag.

Orders will be taken on a pre-order basis with our shopping window open now until 13 November.  All items will be shipped w/c 20 November – in plenty of time for Christmas!

LINKS TO PURCHASE

https://septemberpublishing.org/product/pre-order-limited-edition-woman-with-hagitude-t-shirt/

https://septemberpublishing.org/product/pre-order-limited-edition-woman-with-hagitude-woven-shopping-bag/

(Hagitude® is a registered trade mark. Sharon Blackie 2023.)

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Upcoming events

I have three more bookshop events this autumn, to celebrate the launch of the Hagitude paperback:

12 October at 6.30pm, Waterstone’s, Kendal
23 October at 7pm, Toppings, Edinburgh
2 November at 6pm, The Whitby Bookshop (no link yet)

Next year, I’m delighted to say I’m already booked for the Alnwick Story Fest (February) and the Oxford Literary Festival (March). More dates/events to come.

(And a reminder that resources and material from the Hagitude yearlong membership program is now available as a self-study, on-demand course. Find out more here.)

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Last call for ‘Psyche and Eros – the Soul’s Journey Home’

Later this month, I’m offering an in-depth dive into the potent mythic story of Psyche and Eros. This gathering in the Bone Cave will consist of readings, teachings, breakout sessions, creative prompts, discussion and sharing.

Saturday October 21, 4pm – 7pm UK time (£45)

Register here

In this gathering, we’ll dive deeply into the rich old myth of Psyche and Eros. Psyche is the Greek word for soul, and above all, this story is about the soul’s journey home: the soul’s journey to and through eros. In Greek philosophy, eros is described as a universal force that moves all things towards wholeness and relationship with the divine. The many tasks which Psyche has to complete on this journey – sorting, fetching the golden fleece, acquiring the water of life, a descent to the underworld – have deep resonances for us today. How can this story inform and illuminate our own journey to wholeness? What, in the world of psychology, does wholeness actually mean?

We’ll also explore the relationship between Psyche and Aphrodite: the archetypical clash between Maiden and Mother.

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Reading recommendations

Somehow I’ve managed to catch up on my reading a little bit recently, though it’ll be a while before I make a serious dent in the ever-sky-high book pile. So I’ve two for you this month.

First off: I recently received a lovely little package of books from my editor at Virago, including this beauty: Furies – Stories of the wicked, wild and untamed. It was launched to celebrate Virago’s fiftieth birthday and is an anthology of stories from fifteen fine writers, including some of my own favourites, Margaret Atwood, Emma Donoghue and Ali Smith. In a collection like this it’s always hard to pick out just one story, but the very wonderful Stella Duffy’s ‘Dragon’ was a brilliant ending to the book. I suspect that every woman dealing with menopause will recognise those feelings!

‘DRAGON. TYGRESS. SHE-DEVIL. HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH. HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE. VITUPERATOR. CHURAIL. TERMAGANT. FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO.

For centuries past, and all across the world, there are words that have defined and decried us. Words that raise our hackles, fire up our blood; words that tell a story. In this blazing cauldron of a book, fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers have taken up their pens and reclaimed these words, creating an entertaining and irresistible collection of feminist tales for our time.

'A slick collection of clever tales, with something for bluestockings and banshees alike.' Guardian

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And finally, for now – I received a review copy of a wonderful new novel from Serpent’s Tail/ Profile Books: Night Swimmers, by Roisin Maguire. It’s out on Feb 1; do pre-order it if it looks like your kind of thing (Amazon in the UK; Amazon in the US – though it only seems to be available on Kindle in the US for now). It has the most delightful 50-year-old heroine with copious amounts of hagitude – a rare creature in the literary world today.

Grace lives alone in Ballybrady, a little village on the sublimely beautiful east coast of Northern Ireland. She fills her days with swimming, fishing, quilting, and baiting the tourists who arrive from the city with more money than sense. She hasn't left the village since a traumatic stay in London as a young woman at the end of the 1980s. One of the tourists is Evan, taking an enforced holiday from his family and work in Belfast after breaking down after the death of his daughter in infancy. He has come to try to process his grief and make himself desirable again as a husband, a father and a business partner. But he hasn't been there a week until he gets trapped by lockdown. When Grace saves his life in a kayaking accident – if it was an accident – and Evan's troubled son arrives to stay, all three are drawn together in a way that forces a reckoning with their personal traumas and draws them back into society.

‘Exquisitely written, teeming with wonderfully relatable characters and sporting a gloriously eccentric, cranky and memorable 50-year-old heroine, Night Swimmers is one of the most emotionally intelligent novels I've read in a long time’ – Dr Sharon Blackie, author of The Enchanted Life

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This month’s poem

Bone Mother

By Holly Black

The daughter is too bold
to be anything but
a cuckoo in the nest.
Good girls sit home
and sew in the dark.
They don't go seeking fire
in the witch's woods.

A rider, his horse
black as cooked blood
leads her to the house.
There, she learns to part
seed from stone,
sweet from spoilt,
fate from fortune.

The witch is old, ravenous,
fat belly and spindle thighs.
The moonlight glints off
the rusted iron of her teeth
like it glinted off
a mother's needles.
Fire that will never catch and burn.

At midday there is a rider,
his horse as red as meat.
As red as the strike of tinder
in a dry woods.
The stove gets hot fast.
The girl knows one way
to slake the witch's hunger.

There is another rider
that leads her back.
His horse is white
as fresh chopped bone.
The daughter's hands are cold
But her eyes are blazing
She has learned the making
Of her own fires.

Reproduced from The Journal of Mythic Arts; see also Holly’s website.