LEAVING THE VILLAGE FINDING THE FOREST
POET AND TRANSLATOR COLEMAN BARKS
BRITISH STORYTELLER MARTIN SHAW
POET LAUREATE OF RHODE ISLAND LISA STARR
MUSICIAN DAVID DARLING

FRIDAY PERFORMANCE: June 18, 8:00 pm at Toby’s Feed Barn
Ticket Price: $20.00
SATURDAY WORKSHOP: June 19, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Ticket Price: $125.00 (includes Friday and Saturday evening performances)
SATURDAY FIRE CIRCLE PERFORMANCE: Saturday June 19th, 8:00 pm
Ticket Price: $20.00
at
Kule Loklo Coast Miwok Village, Bear Valley
Point Reyes Station, California
Over two evenings and a day, each artist will perform, teach and collaborate: a cello taking flight, the refrain from some old stories, the call and response of ancient words. Starting with an evening performance in the sweetness of a feed barn in the village and ending the following evening round a fire out in the forest, this is a rare opportunity to join world renowned poet and translator of Rumi, Coleman Barks, award-winning British storyteller, Martin Shaw, Poet Laureate of Rhode Island, Lisa Starr, and Grammy Award winning musician, David Darling in a daylong workshop exploring language, landscape and ritual.


Well....the Family Shaw are tattoing passports numbers to our arms, taking one last look at the dismal British weather, taking a nip from the hipflask and start the epic journey to Turtle Island at the end of this week. New York, Vermont, Maine, L.A., San Fran, Point Reyes - a good five weeks on the road - telling the old stories, meeting folks and generally enjoying the mad swathes of culture and staggering beauty of the deserts, forests and lakes.

I have burbled on about most of the events individually (scroll down over the entries below for evidence), but i have to have to give one last shout out for The Great Mother Conference over in Maine, Sat May 29th to Sunday June 6th.
http://greatmotherconference.com/

Here's some lines from visting poet Tony Hoagland on Divorce:

divorce is like being born again
ailimony is the placenta one of them will eat:

Loneliness is the name of the wet nurse;
regret is the elementary school
endurance is the graduation,
So do not say they are splattered like dropped Lasagna!

Coleman Barks weighs in with this in his poem Wine Poems;

if i don't do Zen meditation to wipe out deluded thoughts
then i must pace about drunkenly , spouting crazy songs.

Otherwise in the autumn moon, or with these evenings
of spring breeze, how am i to bear the idle
longing for the past that comes through me?

Terrible rumours abounded that Coleman could'nt make it this year -trapped in Africa. The rumours are unfounded. He has hired 16 Black Swans and a small nautical carriage made of mandrake root and french lingerie to charge the oceans in one night and join the tribes gathering in New England. That's not all metaphor. He's coming.

Mr Bly is gathering waistcoats and crevates and casting a wild eye to the conference too: the wood elves insist he is bringing new work and controversial opinions with him.

Music from The Frantzich Bros,and just a huge wealth of talent (most of whom aren't on the teachers list!)

I have never had so many stories in the crane - skin bag to bring over. Northern European Fairy tales, Seneca Trickster stories, Cornish love sagas, and at least one huge Myth, 8 hrs in the telling -if i get straight to the point. No idea when or if they will want to be told but they all want to come -they've got passports from the Otherworld -black leather with emerald green silk and a signature in leaves and ocean foam.

I'm rambling. I'll see you on the road. I'll still be adding entries as the creaky ship rolls from port to port.