Mooney's Mythic Podcast

In the thick of the heat, Sarah sits with Donkey Skin — the dancing, the impossible dresses, the prince as the first green shoot pushing through — and finds a way to move difficult feelings like toffee instead of chewing them over. From there: treasure held underground, the last auk’s disappearance, a garden as mirror for self-care, and a folk song recorded to defend Felton Common from Bristol Air...

Opening music: Ritual Door No.1 by Queen Space Baroque Sarah records this episode in the aftermath of an accidental encounter with cactus acid and two visits hospital having her eyes rinsed out with saline — which turns out to be the perfect portal into a meditation on salt, flavour, and what we’re worth. Moving through Cap o’ Rushes, Donkey Skin, a North American corn myth, and the story of the g...

Opening music: Ritual Door No.1 by Queen Space Baroque Sarah records from a closed curtain, a lit fire, and the aftermath of two hours of singing on an empty stomach — and discovers that drooping under the weight of your own blooming is a perfectly good reason to stay in. This episode wanders through the names of old roses (Rosa Damascena, Deep Secret, Hidden Harmony), stumbles into Edward Young’s...

Sarah recreates a medieval landscape for the Arthurian myth of Lanval — the knight overlooked at Arthur's Pentecost feast who wanders to the river's edge and is called into the mist by a Lady of the Fae. With atmospheric heavy lifting from the Avalonian Free State Choir singing Gaudette and Dragonfly performing La Belle Dame Sans Merci . Intro music: Ritual Door No.1 by Queen Space Baroque. This i...

Opening music by Queen Space Baroque Sarah returns from a day storytelling and running a poetry workshop inside a men's prison — an experience that cracked her open. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahmooney.substack.com

But first, a story she didn’t get to tell in her Women Who Run With the Wolves group last week. From there, Sarah moves into the myth she and theatre director Joanna Proctor have chosen as the heart of a new immersive mythic experience they’re co-creating: Echo and Narcissus. Stripped of her words by Hera, able only to repeat what she hears. Him, raised without mirrors, learning to see himself onl...

Recording on the Spring Equinox — She shares a week that began with a surprisingly complex Florence Nightingale school session, honouring the many women who served alongside her in the Crimea, before falling headlong into Greek mythology at one in the morning after her Alice in Wonderland finale in Glastonbury. The nine Muses — daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory — become an invocat...

Waking in the Flower: Madness, Medicine & Marmalade Opening music: Ritual Door No.1 by Queen Space Baroque A wandering, intimate episode threaded through with grief, wonder, and the week’s many mythic currents. Sarah reflects on the first in-person Women Who Run With The Wolves circle — a gathering she describes as “nectar” — and a deep resonance with the story of Bluebeard: the girl who ignores h...

Alice, Archetypes & The Garden of Innocence I am recording from a hotel room in Bradford during World Book Week, fresh from telling Alice in Wonderland stories to schoolchildren 27 times across three days. Come down the rabbit hole with me. The concept of lysis (story resolution) from Clarissa Pinkola Estés — and why a nightmare is simply a story without an ending Alice in Wonderland as a metaphor...

Opening music by Queen Space Baroque Ritual door No1 Sarah recaps a Valentine storytelling evening with musicians Rossi and Imogen, and a Rose Cabaret in Glastonbury where she compared alongside Jenny Bliss, Tom Widdicombe, and storyteller Beth Webb. At the cabaret, she performed the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet — a meditation on young love and naming that opens into a wider reflection on w...

Mooney’s Mythic Podcast - Episode: The Lady and the Swine Opening music by Queen Space Baroque, Ritual door No. 1 Sarah explores themes of love, transformation, and embodiment through the lens of Alison Uttley’s folk tale “The Lady and the Swine.” After discovering the pig is sacred to Aphrodite, she reimagines this seemingly cautionary tale as an initiatory journey into sensual embodiment—moving...

Opening Music Ritual Door 1 by Queen Space Baroque Recording from Bride's Mound on Imbolc, exploring themes of emergence, new beginnings, and finding one's true self. Features reflections on receiving a Finnish harp, performing at Bullizinis’ circus show, Fire and Ice. With Ruby Daly's beautiful telling of "The Ugly Duckling." This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other...

Sarah goes deep into the dark of January, excavating shame around money and visibility, then surfaces with stories of fighting, apples, and circus showmanship. This is an intimate, wandering episode that moves from personal shadow work (financial shame, abandoned inner child) to folklore (poisoned apples, witch trials) to warrior tales (Scáthach and Cú Chulainn) to circus patter (George Sanger’s e...

Intro music Ritual Door by Queen Space Baroque * A candid story about shame, sexuality, and being natural * Unpicking the Eve narrative and feminine guilt * The tradition of wassailing and mummer’s plays * A recitation of beautiful apple varieties * The tale of Bran and the Isle of Silver Apples * Choosing cycles and seasons over perfection Featured: The Langport mummer’s troupe Shovel Dance Colle...

Sarah shares from her week at Halsway Manor (National Centre for Folk Arts) - the library behind a hidden door, feeling like a rabbit in the headlights among musicians, and telling the story of King Orphy (the ballad version where they COME BACK). Plus: Mother’s Christmas (January 6th, Irish women celebrating), Sian Reid teaches “The Hag with the Money,” and navigating imposter syndrome with a hol...

While Sarah is at Halsway Manor (National Centre for Folk Arts) working on stories, she’s asked Owen Staton from “Time Between Times” podcast to share a tale. Owen (ex-copper, extraordinary voice) tells “The Lantern of Cwm Ddu” - a Welsh ghost story from Carmarthenshire about a father’s love that transcends death. In this episode: “The lantern walker was no omen of death. He was a father who could...

In the stillness between Christmas and New Year, Sarah offers three stories for your winter dreaming: Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Rose Elf” (love, murder, and jasmine’s revenge), plus two original tales - a girl searching for her dreams in the darkness, and a boy who dances with bears to bring peace. In this episode: * The silence and languish of this stretch between holidays * Mic in a bowl of...

A Winter Solstice Story Opening with the Avalonian Free State Choir singing “Carol of the Bells” (originally a Ukrainian folk song called “Shchedryk” about a swallow proclaiming spring), Sarah shares the story of the Dear Mother - the deer who carries the sun in her antlers on the longest night. In this episode: Shaking off stress like a bell - this is winter stillness time The origin of “Carol of...

This episode is sponsored by The Tarot - that portable, symbolic alphabet of the soul. After weeks of terrible sound (finally fixed by Joolz Barker, Ataya Tarot the tarot-reading bass player!), Sarah sits down with Kathy Jones: crone priestess of Avalon, founder of the Goddess Conference, and visionary behind Mother World. “Don’t receive the lie. Know that you are really just extraordinary and ama...

Episode: A Journey Into Winter Stillness New Episode: Winter Stillness Guided Journey Feeling too busy for a podcast - until a vision came during choir practice. This week: pure medicine. A guided shamanic journey into your winter stillness, bookended by ancient songs. No story. No analysis. Just: close your eyes, drop your shoulders, and step through the portal. 17 minutes. Pure offering. In This...

William Blake & The Doors of Perception New Episode: Re-Enchantment Through William Blake Lying melty on my bed like a Dali painting, I explore William Blake’s 268th birthday through poetry, doors, and contradictions. In this episode: * Charlotte Mabon’s “On the Mountain Path” (from Rivers of Soul album) * Blake’s Tiger Tiger Burning Bright & Auguries of Innocence * The Doors of Perception: Blake...

Episode: Rumpelstiltskin - Naming What Has Power Over You Tagline: Myth as a doorway, story as soul retrieval, folklore as a friend Episode Overview Fresh from a Women Who Run With The Wolves group session, Sarah shares the full recording of her Rumpelstiltskin story (the version she sent to musicians Ross Moore and Imogen May for their upcoming show) and then unpacks what she’s discovering in its...

Sarah sits down with Maya Love - musician, bagpiper, and singing retreat facilitator - to explore the healing power of pure notes, the magic inherent in every word, and how sound can call cells back into alignment. Opening with Maya’s stunning bagpipe performance, they discuss Florence Farr’s Victorian experiments with voice and psaltery, the difference between piano tuning and bagpipe tuning, aut...

Sarah returns after last week’s depleted episode to explain “spoon theory” (Christine Miserandino’s metaphor for chronic illness and limited energy), share why her spoons have run out (swollen thyroid, her son moving in with his dad), and offer the Scottish tale “Prince Brekhan and the Hag of Corryvreckan” - a story with no happy ending, perfect for entering winter. Ted Waters performs “A Billion...

Host: Sarah Mooney, Storyteller Intro music by Queen Space Baroque Episode Overview A tender, vulnerable episode where Sarah acknowledges she doesn’t have the “spoons” to fully arrive this week. Instead of pushing through alone, she contradicts the belief that “only she can do it” by inviting beloved artists into the space - Elizabeth Jane Lovely shares a haunting story about ancestor statues, and...