Fairy Tales & the Noble Feminine Heart: On Princesses, Witches, and Awakening with Michelle Tocher

Fairy tales, symbols, and the transformative power of stories weave through this conversation with Michelle Tocher, award-winning Canadian author, storyteller, and founder of Wonderlit.

Together, we explore the noble feminine heart of the princess, witches and fairy godmothers, Briar Rose and the wisdom of awakening, spinning straw into gold, creativity, and how fairy tales continue to illuminate our lives through living images.

Connect with Michelle Tocher’s work:

Website: https://michelletocher.com/

Wonderlit: https://wonderlit.com/

The Broad Mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMHf9Oi5m_Q

✨ Women & Mythology Podcast is a soulful exploration of myth as a living force in our contemporary lives.

Hosted by Maria Souza — Comparative Mythologist, Poet, and Educator.

📖 Learn more: www.womenandmythology.com

🎧 Follow on Instagram: @womenandmythology

💌 Subscribe to the Mythic News newsletter for stories, reflections, and upcoming events: https://www.womenandmythology.com/subscribe

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello myth lover, I'm Maria. Welcome to the Woman and Mythology podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

And what's fascinating about the Briar Rose story is that it isn't a prince who owns her. There's all these failed suitors. They come to the castle, they try to break through this thorn hedge, which has an intelligence all of its own. And they can't defeat nature.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Woman and Mythology. Today's conversation is all about fairy tales, not as stories we leave behind in childhood, but as living companions that continue to shape our imagination, illuminate our lives, and offer us new ways of understanding ourselves. It was a true joy to sit in conversation with someone who loves fairy tales as deeply as I do. There is something profoundly nourishing about speaking with another person who has spent years listening to these stories, dwelling within their symbols, and allowing them to become companions throughout life in an authentic and very real way. I think you'll hear that shared love woven through every part of our dialogue. My guest today is Michelle Toker. Michelle is an award-winning Canadian author, storyteller, and creator of the Wonderlit Course, where she guides readers and writers into the transformative world of fairy tales through imagination and story. Her work beautifully bridges storytelling, creativity, and the inner life. She is the author of several remarkable books, including The Tower Princess, The Broad Mind, The End of Prim, and Outside the Big Oak Doors, among other works. In this episode, we wander through many of the images that have shaped Michelle's life and work. We speak about the many-sided nature of symbols, the awakening of Briar Rose, the noble feminine heart of the princess, the wisdom hidden within witches and fairy godmothers, the ancient motif of spinning straw into gold, and the difference between imagination and fantasy. Above all, we explore how fairy tales continue to guide us, not only by offering fixed interpretations, but inviting each of us into a living relationship with story. It is a conversation filled with beautiful images, unexpected insights, and a deep reverence for the enduring power of fairy tales. So, wherever you are listening from, I invite you to settle in, perhaps with a warm cup of tea, and enjoy the conversation with Michelle Toker. Hi, Michelle. Thank you so much for being here with us. It's such an honor.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Oh, hi Maria. I'm so glad to be here. It's a delight. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

So let's dive right in. One of the ideas I loved most in your work is that we don't need to rely on universal interpretations to appreciate the wisdom of fairy tales, that we are invited to discover our own relationship with them. As a comparative mythologist myself, and someone who has lived in many different cultures, I found that there are always many ways of relating to the same symbols and motifs. Could you speak about your own journey towards this understanding? And how do you personally enter into a story in order to discover the meaning it has for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Well, I entered the world of the stories through the storytelling tradition in Toronto. So I was mentored by uh people who were steeped in the oral tradition and the themselves have a perspective that is very much uh giving permission to every individual's interpretation of story and of the symbols in the stories. And so I was basically kind of tutored that way initially, and I I read a great deal and many interpretations of fairy tales. The the one quotation that really resonated with me was from P. L. Travers in What the Bee Knows in an essay where she spoke about the stories as a crystal in a window, and it's multifaceted, and each of us sees our own uh facet in the story. And I found that so freeing because I wasn't having to rely on somebody else's interpretation. I really gave me permission to enter the story and and and validate my own subjective perspective and then find the universals through that.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Do you believe there is a universal?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

I believe that there is a common ground and that these stories persist for a reason. The ones that are picked up and carried uh are picked up and carried because they mean something to us collectively. And I've enjoyed so much as a facilitator of storytelling, bringing people into the space of the fairy tale where they find their characters and their perspectives, and then they can communicate with one another through those perspectives and then learn something about the whole of the story. So it's it's um it's a beautiful way in to validate your own perspective.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

I couldn't agree with you more. I work with stories from different traditions as a comparative mythologist, but then I feel also in my personal life as an immigrant. I'm from Brazil, I live in Australia, I studied in the UK and lived abroad for many years now. And I found that yes, there are so many ways to experience a story and find meaning in a story. Maybe there are as many ways as there are women in this world, but then at the same time, there is a universal thread. There is something beneath that speaks to all of us. And uh, in my programs where I have women from all over the world, I can really see this. Women from New Zealand, they resonate for something that is being spoken from a woman in Myanmar, you know, and a woman in Brazil echoes something, a woman in the United States, and the story speaks to all of us. I would love to bring the quote you mentioned, actually, from PL Travers to our listeners, because I feel they would really appreciate this. So PL Travers was the writer of Mary Poppins, and you add this quote in your beautiful book, The Tower Princess. I didn't know this quote, and I came to it through your book, so I'm very grateful for it. And I thought it was so beautiful. So let's have it here. We go to the myths not so much for what they can mean as for our own meaning. Who am I? Why am I here? How can I live in accordance with reality? The myths never have a single meaning once and for all finished. They have something greater, they have meaning itself. If you hang a crystal sphere in the window, it will give off light from all parts of itself. This is how the myths are. They are meaning for me, for you, and for everyone else. A true symbol always has this multi-sideness. It has something to say to all who approach it. I really love this image of the symbol and this many-sided, like a crystal catching the light, and the light being very much alive, like a myth, right? Very much alive, changing, transforming. And uh I would love to hear from you how this idea of uh different ways of approaching different meaning has shaped you in your own mythopoetic journey, but also as a writer.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yes. Well, it's so interesting that you caught on to this one quote because it was so pivotal for me on my journey with stories and it released me. It it really was such an important moment when I found that quote. So I I really delighted that it means so much to you as well. Um, and essentially, my my path has been that I started out in communications, and I wanted to really find the deep story. I was always going for deeper and deeper stories. So I ended up in out of journalism, came into communications, and then started creating uh programs for people and education and stuff like that. And I soon realized when I came to Toronto and met the storytellers that stories were the essence of human communication, that they were the best way to communicate, that they were the most democratic way to communicate, because it doesn't have to have a moral. Everybody takes something for themselves from a story, so it's more of a gift or a feast, that kind of a metaphor. And and then I started to tell the fairy tales. And when I started to tell the fairy tales, I didn't understand their deep meanings. I was drawn into them, uh, and I was transported by them. And when I told them, I was transported and brought everyone with me on this journey into the other realm. Uh, and I kind of felt for a while like I was walking around the perimeter of these stories, you know, that fairy world, not sure how to enter. And I remember Joseph Campbell once saying that about the grail heroes, that they all entered the forest from their own place and made their own path as they went. And and that, along with the quote from P. L. Travers and and uh this sort of awareness that I could actually go right in and find my own meanings, uh, became very important to me. Uh, and I started to tell the story of the Briar Rose, the grim sleeping beauty story. And I would bring people into the story. So I would tell it, and then I would guide them in to a scene that they were drawn to. And then I would start to open up their imagination so they received impressions of the scene that they were in, and they looked at the characters and they listened to what was going on in the atmosphere, and they felt the light, and and each one of them came out of that story with a particular scene. And uh, and then they, once they were kind of out of the dream of the story, then they began to record what they had experienced and then interpreted for themselves. And then these conversations would begin, and they were absolutely fascinating because it was as if the soul of every person emerged in the story. You know, if somebody was a failed suitor, they were dealing with trying to, you know, get past their intellectual mind into the heart, and they were failing to do that. And the the frogs who were trying to answer the wish of the queen were often caregivers who really wanted to help others. And it was just a fascinating way of seeing people and then recognizing the common themes of the story, the the sleep and the awakening and what all of that means to each of us. So and I started to understand more and more the richness of the stories through that embodied experience.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

This is fascinating. I love seeing how the people who would come to study stories or experience stories with you were marked by it and moved by it. I have two kind of burning questions in me as you spoke about Briar Rose. Why Briar Rose? As your first tale, is there something specific that called to you in that tale?

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Oh, I have been all my life since the very beginning, haunted by the story of the Briar Rose for so many reasons. It is one of those stories that I've lived through my whole life, and it's kind of in the background as the reference story that I go back to to locate myself at different times of life. Um it has it's hard to answer the question of why, uh, because there are so many answers to the question, but I think what I'm fundamentally interested in is the awakening experience. And then going back from there in the story, if you think about what happens to her in the story, that she's she's cursed by these so there's these wise women. They come to her christening and and they all give her gifts, but the thirteenth wise woman who's left out of the christening comes in and she curses her to that she will prick her finger at the age of 15 and she'll fall into a deep sleep. And the king who tries tries to prevent this and he uh he gets to his feet and he orders that all the spindles in the kingdom be gathered and burnt. And so all these images have been so essential to the question of what it means to awaken. The child grows to 15 and becomes very interested uh and curious, but she's realizing that people are keeping secrets from her, and she finds when she's fifteen on her fifteenth birthday, when this is supposed to happen, that the king and the queen have left. Everybody's left the castle, and it's all there. So she runs around and she finds this old tower, and she comes up the stairs and she comes in to see this old woman spinning. And her wonder about this thing that isn't in the world is just burning. And she says, What are you doing? And the old woman says, I'm spinning. And she reaches for the spindle and pricks her finger, and then she is overtaken by this extraordinary powerful sleep, and she falls into sleep, and the sleep extends over the whole kingdom. Everyone falls into the same sleep, and it goes on for all these years. And what's fascinating about the Briar Rose story is that it isn't a prince who owns her. It there's all these failed suitors, they come to the castle, they try to break through this foreign hedge, which has an intelligence all of its own, and they can't defeat nature. And then a hundred years later, this prince from far away comes on the very day that she's destined to wake. So when he arrives, the Briar Hedge is opening and it's gloomy arms that open to greet him as he comes in. And he finds her right at the moment when she surfaces and wakes. And so the kiss is a kiss of the beloved coming up and awakening from dreams and the other beloved coming uh coming from the from far away. And for me that is the kiss of the creative experience. It's the kiss of the experience of love, it's the kiss of the experience of mythic imagination. It's all of those things. And so, yes, I mean, there are so many conversations in this one story, but it has just meant so much to me as a person who has actually, you know, was struck, was pierced by a fate that was unexpected. I fell into the state of chronic pain when I was in my late 30s. It was completely unexpected for me that I would be meeting with doctors who were saying you may be in pain for the rest of your life. So get used to it are it made me aware that our culture doesn't prepare us in any way to meet our fates, and that fate is part of awakening. So all these themes in the story have resonated deeply.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Thank you so much for sharing the story in the way you did, because it felt so alive and with so many images. For me now, there were two images that really stood out: the spindles being burned, all of them in the kingdom. And uh then when you said the thorns having an intelligence of their own, and that right timing. And that whole right timing reminds me a little bit of psyche as well, learning about right timing from Aphrodite.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

And um, it it is a beautiful tale. So thank you for sharing with us.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yes, it has within it that that notion of kairos, that Greek notion of kairos, the wrong time. And uh it puts us in a different time, in a different thought space about time, because it's not about deadlines and it's not about, you know, sort of uh strategic human clockwork time. It's about the natural time for ripening when each of us ripens in our own lives.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

That is such a powerful lesson, isn't it, for women? I feel as a woman, as a creative woman, to understand the right timing, the time of this ripening, when it's time to bring something forward, and when it's time to just lay there, to be an incubation.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yes, and to come into contact with our what is our creative time is very different of thinking.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

I love that in your book you hint at many mythic motifs and archetypal images of fairy tales. And one of the images that you have there, one of the things you mentioned is the spinning of gold. And this spinning thread into gold is a beloved motif, I believe, especially for women. And it's an image that can be understood as well in countless ways. I would love if you could speak a little bit about what this motif means to you personally, and what does it mean in your own life to spin gold?

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yes. Well, when I was going through chronic pain and depression, um, the motif of the spinning woman was very strong, and it really came through uh my writing, especially in poetry. And I remember I once wrote a poem called Inside Jobs, and it was uh spoken um through the voice of the princess, is what I identified this voice as, because it was distinct from every other voice that I contacted. Uh so it went, here is my work in the room without doors, here is my wheel with the straw on the floor, here is my reason for spinning for birth. Here is the seed I have thrown on the earth. Here is the all I have ever wished to be, the all that truly terrifies me. Not because it's greener where eagles soar, but because there's so much straw here leaning on the floor. Straw is all it is till the spinner makes the weed. The gifts and what is given. Gold's and what believe. We cannot know the name of things when we stood upon the wheel. The gold is made of what we love. what we believe is real. So stay here in this room without doors. Give it all up and accept what is yours. Hold nothing back and lament no more. What else was all that seeking for, but to bring you here and sit you down in the room of impossible dreams. Come back. Come back. The queen has asked for a spinner. That was that poem.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

That was so heartfelt. Thank you for sharing that. I am left with a feeling of surrendering. And then also of agency of coming forward of choosing to stand in some ways.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yes that that all this difficulty that we experience in life is the raw material. It's the straw on the floor and the gift is is in the spinning it the the the ability to spin, the remembered gift of spinning and you mentioned the fires earlier on and that too has been such a strong image for me in the story of the Briar Rose because those spindles it's as though women's understanding of how to spin straw into gold was lost during the burning times. During the times when women themselves were burned, these dark, dark times in our history there there was a loss of enchantment that is with us to this day. And I really believe that women are on the rise and that they're remembering their gifts of how to spin straw into gold whatever that means in each one of our lives we have these creative and uniquely feminine gifts.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

That was so beautiful and so inspiring. We have our unique ways of spinning our straws what life gives us what we carry and how do we make that into gold into aspect of our creative life into gifts for others gifts for ourselves and our community since we are talking in this realm of fairy tales I know that you adore the idea and the archetype of the princess. I also always loved the princess in the tales. Actually my story with myths and fairy tales and this whole love for it began through the princess stories. And I get very upset when people come with the misconception that princes are passive or they lack agency or they're weak. I have learned so much from them. And I think because we study stories we know that it's not about that at all that they are actually incredibly brave and courageous, filled of inner and outer resources. You speak in your book as the princess, as the one with the noble feminine heart. I love that definition. I love it. And I'm going to quote you when I mention it because it's absolutely beautiful as a way of speaking of the princess. Could you elaborate and develop a little bit of what this noble feminine heart means and what the princess represents to you.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Well like you I had a lot of difficulty with the way the princess is being represented in popular culture. It was not at all what I was experiencing when I was reading the stories and telling the stories that but what happens to the princess is the very fact that she does get poisoned, exiled, handicapped um mutilated all kinds of things happened to her and she to me represents uh the one in the family who absorbs the the the shadow who absorbs the the pain and the trauma um that feminine heart and when I say that I don't even mean that it might might belong to a man it doesn't or any other gender it's it's the feminine it's a quality of the feminine heart and uh a sensitive soul that takes things in. And because we live in this culture that is all expressed in doing and not so much knowledge do we have about being the figure of the princess to me is the one who takes that difficult stuff and finds the way through it and makes something out of it and is always true to her heart. So she believes that her that the power of love and compassion and um beauty will will will will find a way through it. And indeed that happens. And what's fascinating to me as well with the fairy tales is that when she takes her path through the allies who come to her are often allies from nature. If you think of you know Cinderella or even the myth of Kwan Yin the the the elements of nature help her to separate the wheat from the chaff that birds come to Cinderella and you know the different animals come to Kwan Yin it's it's something that just happens as a result of the openness and the receptivity of a noble heart. So that happens in life as well and and these miraculous and beautiful things that happen in life um often happen to people surprisingly when they're in difficulty like you know they've had a cancer diagnosis or they um have fallen into pain or they're they're dealing with a very very uh difficult piece of family business. Uh if they stay open, they find that they're getting support from really unexpected places. Even if it's just a bird who comes to you, you know, who is related to the death of your mother or your mother loved a cardinal and a cardinal comes to you and lights on the fence when you're in a in a dark place and you're and yet you're asking you know you you find that the the natural world is speaking in this way that you've never noticed before.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

This openness of the noble feminine heart or the princesses to the natural world is actually a quality that we see across many stories. Rarely a princess will go through her tail without having allies and these allies most of the time they come from the natural world. If they are not necessarily an animal or like a creature of the natural world they inhabit very much the natural world. So we could think of the dwarfs in Snow White and they come from that place of the depths as well of being in extreme connection there with the natural world. And we can read this in our life what are the symbols that can allow us to see a little bit beyond and to find something within us.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Yes yeah and even if you review your stories of you know what happened what happened to you when you were in a dark place and you found your way through just looking back and restorying that can be very enlightening for people because they realize oh gosh I had that sort of serendipitous experience or I had that help or I had that dream. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Sometimes the smallest things in nature can be the most healing or the most nurturing or the biggest guides we can find. And well in the Tower Princess you of course talk about the archetype of the princess but you also speak about a gathering of fairy godmothers on the dark side of the moon. There's even an illustration there which I thought it was really nice. And you know it's the kind of image that brought a smile to my face but before I turned the page and got to that illustration just the words itself fairy godmothers on the dark side of the moon that touched me so deeply I stayed with that image for a while. And I was wondering if you can speak a little bit about this image and what it means to you and what role as well do you see fairy godmothers playing in stories and in our real lives as women.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Yes yeah those fairy godmothers they were a big surprise I was I am I was imaginatively receptive and I was whisked into this other place on the dark side of the moon to this gathering of these very eccentric um women of all different types and sizes and with all their different familiars their atmospheres were surrounded with different animals and various things that they they had with them. And they were all disenfranchised so they'd all been disconnected from the human race and they were trying to figure out what the reason was for that. And so I just kind of was there for their meeting and witnessed it to begin with. And this question that they were raising what what has caused our disconnection really resonated with me because I felt myself that there was a a part of our feminine nature that was unavailable to us because of the disenchantment of the modern world. So we are kind of surrounded in this narrative that is very material and it's a very material narrative and these are spirit mothers who are trying to connect with us and when we're receptive we can receive things like you know dreams and imaginative impressions and and all kinds of creative gifts but if we're closed none of that is available to us and along with that is a lot of wisdom about how to spin straw into gold and how to work with the the net the the challenges and conflicts of life. And so they meant a great deal and going back to the the briar rose there they are again in the briar rose all gathered at the christening and they've all got their gifts and it makes me think about how when we come into life we're all given gifts we genetically we have all sorts of possible potentialities and and it's a great mystery why we have certain gifts and and how certain generations are brought how do we know what the next generation will bring in in terms of their genetic gifts we don't have answers to these questions and these archetypes um are the expression of these energies of these ones who give gifts and in the Greek tradition going all the way back to many of the different mythic traditions they show up as the as the fates who spin the thread of life and measure the thread of life and cut the thread of life so they're very very much involved in who we are why we are and how we proceed through life.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

I love bringing this image of them holding the thread of life and it is in those moments as well as they are defining let's say our path in a luminous way that they can give us a blessing isn't it because the fairy godmother at least in many tales it comes across as an aid as someone who can support in many stories the woman the princess loses her own mother it's a very common motif to begin a tale showcasing that she is left to stand on her own to feet she needs to find herself and discover who she is away from that mother eyes and mother protection and mother ways of being but in her own self she needs to find her own self. And the fairy godmother has mother in there she is mother in many ways from that magical realm.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Can you see other women perhaps acting as fairy godmothers in your journey oh yes um yeah for sure I mean just just one thing that comes to mind when you ask me that question is I I was doing a workshop with um I it was it was called the storytelling journey and the Wonderlook course is based on that workshop. So I bring people through the stories that they've chosen and guide them through. And two women in the group had chosen Cinderella and then one and they one of them was really turned against the fairy godmother she was very cynical about the fairy godmother and had to create her dark sister in order to relate to her at all. So that was very interesting. And the other one was um dealing with depression and was really drawn to Cinderella herself. And as they worked through the story and the magic started happening it just was fascinating because these two women got very close and they became coaches to one another. So one became a coach to the other and helped her with her she is very fashionable and stylish and she helped her with her whole sort of physical appearance and you know the she was the one who was depressed started to feel better about herself and then she started coaching the other woman because she knew a lot about career journey and so on. So they they became coaches to one another which is so funny because in the story of Cinderella of course that Perot version you've got the coach Karen Cinderella to the the castle and so the reverberating meanings of the coach became really important to both of those women and they were in a in essence acting as fairy godmothers to one another. So these things happen.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

They do right and I feel it goes back to the princess archetype in the sense that we need to have the openness to allow the fairy godmother to appear in our life and for us to recognize women around us as fairy godmothers. And how can we be fairy godmothers to others as well yes exactly exactly yeah so I feel that in a conversation around fairy tale which we talk about princesses we also must talk about the witches. Some are difficult companions for me the witch in Rapunzel that's a very hard witch for me to swallow I am a mom of two babies you know this idea of a witch coming and taking my baby feels absolutely visceral and dark and I I have trouble sitting down with her because one of the practices that I do as a mythologist especially when I'm going to tell a story that has a witch in it I invite her for a cup of tea, a cup of coffee a glass of wine a whiskey whatever she wants and I sit down and I grab whatever I'm drinking and I really imagine her sitting across from me normally at a distance never super close because you're not going to be sitting very close to a witch. And I just try to understand to visualize imagine so I can also tell from that place of imagination others I have grown deeply fond of like I love Baba Yaga for example she is a witch that I adore talking about and telling in my tales and describing her home. And I wonder what role do witches play in fairy tales for you? What can they teach us women? And what are some of the misconceptions around witches that you see in our contemporary world how might modern women work consciously with these figures today so lots of questions around the witch whatever you feel comfortable and resonate for you to share I would love to hear yeah well that's so interesting the way you are work with your witches I love that bringing them in for a cup of whatever it's great.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Yeah I I the witches um I when I first encountered my first witch close up it was Dame Gothel from Rapunzel and I was I was terrified of her I was very receptive and I felt that I was walking into forbidden territory to go into the story imaginatively as deeply as I did. And I had no idea what influence she would have on my receptive heart. And it it turned out that um I found her really quite sad like at first it I I was very aware of the power that she had but I was also very aware of how hard she tried and how she always failed. And so in a sense that was very tragic and um and then also funny like I found her quite funny because she just was so wrapped up in in perfection and getting things done this tiny little hobbled ball of fury was trying to reach perfection all the time and that contrast just sort of had me uh laughing a lot. And so she was giving me this kind of backhanded gift and that changed my attitude towards a number of witches in fairy tales because I thought okay you know they are wounded characters and in their own right uh I do very much believe that it is essential to uh meet a character or all any character really on their own terms like on their own ground I couldn't change Jane Gothel into a a nice granny living next door. I just you know couldn't couldn't do that. I had to accept that she was capable of stealing a child and growing that child up according to her own very strict standards of perfection. That's the way I saw her. And by seeing her that way I was able to see my own uh history and also the shadow figure of Dame Goffle in me and that part of me that's always driving me. Um and in the Tower Princess that these fairy godmothers call that the serious effect that that star syndrome that thing that drives you all the time and that I've had to just deal with in in my own psyche it's something I um find quite problematic. Uh so anyway the witches give us that access to ourselves and it and Dane Gothel also gave me access to my own fury and I remember her showing up you know because I was so frustrated with my um body not being able to do what I wanted it to do that she would show up you know and when I was in traffic and I was like get out of my way because I had to get somewhere you know I was bending down in the kitchen and my back was killing me and I was furious. Dame Gothel there she is again so I found her in my own anger and frustration and and and then could laugh because she gave me that gift of seeing how pathetic I was in those moments. So yeah so I think that there are a number of uh dark characters in fairy tales who are wounded the 13th wise woman who comes into the uh christening feast and disrupts the entire thing she is a wounded character and so when we get in touch with them we get in touch with some really deep material and oh I think that they're extremely valuable because they are the ones who are suffering um the problems that we're we're looking at in the stories.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

I find that to be so true as well that they are the one pointing us to something that has been in exile because they have been in exile the witches they are in exile so they're also bringing and touching on things either this desire for perfectionism or rage or grief as well aggression, violence anything that we have shame, anything that we have sent there into exile they're bringing it back and showcasing it to us in a very clear way. I wonder if you feel besides that what a witch now in a story might teach us women. And if when you write your stories, if you consciously connect with a a witch in a fairy tale or something like that to bring it into your stories or into your workshops, into your programs, do you work with the archetype or the figure of the witch in that way?

SPEAKER_01 44:28

I work with the figure of the witch as she comes up for people who have the witch coming up for them. So yeah, it it's uh there are certain I'm I I think it's important to say that there are certain witches that can be worked with and certain ones that can't be worked with, either because we're not ready to do that piece of work or because the character itself is not um prepared to make a change. And I really respect the characters in these stories. And there are certain characters that I just find are they they are very willful and I can't do much with them. I can't maybe somebody else could but I find that they um have too they're too per they're too willful to be worked with. And I I kind of think of those as unredeemable characters. Like if you can't if you can't imagine a way in which they can find healing and work but then towards something because they themselves are are entrenched, I just leave them alone. And there are some of those characters like the the the mother in um the gold spinners or the the water lily that that story the the the mother who has her daughters spinning um and working like she's basically got them employed. She's bought into a system of profit and employment and she is she just won't sh I can't shift her. So um but you know and it it it it it's I I think it's really helpful to to know that about certain characters. I definitely see them in the male characters too like Fitcher in Fitcher's bird these dark sorcerers who's who's who have an agenda to actually harm and manipulate and trap and those characters um get us wrestling with the problem of evil and I think that it's a very that in itself is a gift because uh it's a it's a tough question to um look at these characters and examine them from the point of view of you know evil.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

That's a very interesting thought when you mentioned flitchersbird it kind of all came together for me. Also I would look very much flitchersbird and bluebeard very similar there in that archetypal evil really. And uh I find it useful to work with them as our inner predator and how do we sabotage ourselves when there is goodness in us and this goodness could be a a love for someone a love of a mother for a child or a feeling of creating something anything that comes from light that archetypal force that is indigenous and innate to all of us will be attracted to it and try to grab it very much like the flitch bird or bluebeard right and then we need to dismantle it we need to break it apart we need to weaken it and I I do agree with what you say that they are what was the word you used? Unredeemable yeah because you will never you will never change them and transform them and you will never fully kill them either. I do believe we can weaken it.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

And through through our understanding of it and certainly through our understanding of where we find that in ourselves for sure. Yes. But it's it we there was I always find it interesting that you know it was kind of the difference between imagination and fantasy um shows up in different ways. Um I remember working in a workshop with the story of Red Riding Hood and um uh the one one of the people in the workshop uh really felt strongly that the wolf had had the had bad PR and needed to be you know domesticated in a sense and so she wrote this story that made the wolf a different kind of character and it felt to me like that was a beautifully written fantasy but it wasn't it wasn't addressing the wolf because the wolf in Red Riding Hood is that predatory character uh and we we have to kind of evolve to the place where we can meet that character on its own terms and wrestle with that.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Absolutely and specifically with Little Red Riding Hood it's an everlasting tale because it is a cautionary tale that speaks to something very real. Yes and trying to transform it just showcases in some ways our inability to see it for what it is see the wolf for what it is to see the predator to see the dangers that are out there for us. And one thing you mentioned as well about imagination and fantasy is for me imagination is life giving it allows us as we imagine things it allows us to inhabit a life more fully with more depth and with a deeper understanding of reality. So it allows us to come deeper into reality while fantasy is an escape. And the world of fairy tales is a world of imagination through fairy tales we understand our world better rather than escape from it. Wouldn't you yes agree?

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Absolutely I have this I have the the image of two wands when I think about imagination and fantasy as like fantasy is this glittering glamorous wand like a sparkler in the night and it's it attracts attention to itself and it's it's really entertaining and wonderful and transporting but it doesn't shed any light on anything whereas the the other wand the golden wand is like a candle in the night and you bring it into dark places and it exposes what's there.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

That's a beautiful image. So we spoke a little bit about the Tower Princess and we're coming to the end of our time of conversation. So I would love to talk to you about your book The Broad Mind feels so heartfelt and profound in a simple way very much like a folk tale. It's full of symbols that speak to something very rudimentary yet deeply true. The illustrations are extraordinary I loved it and it's such a different kind of book from your other novels I was wondering I was very curious about it and if you can tell us a little bit the story behind it where did the inspiration come from and how did this book take shape?

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Okay um well that that story came to me in the 90s when I um was doing uh quite a bit of storytelling and I was really struggling as a writer because I had this tendency to focus on the way that I was writing like the words and I was I'd write a paragraph and then I'd kind of go back over it and I tear it apart and it was very frustrating. But the storytellers were teaching me a different way of writing without knowing it they were teaching storytelling but they would say what you see and though just that those few words were like a mantra to me say what you see. So I started writing in that same way what you see like validate the impressions that are coming to you and then put it down and and as I started to do that I started to get these mythic tales and a lot of them appear in a book called A Seeker's storybook which I didn't send to you but it's it's and it goes back quite a while but there's a number of these mythic stories in there. The Broadmind was the first films. So uh that I started I just started to say what I saw and allow my give myself permission to see whatever my imagination was bringing me. And and I was at the state in my life when I was moving from one kind of story to another kind of story and you know that driven sort of narrative was a a little broadmind's story the way the giant children were making him race and cutting off pieces of him so he could race better and all of this stuff. I was recognizing my own condition there. And then what was so fascinating about this kind of writing was that the impressions didn't just stay in the diagnosis of the situation. They moved the imagination moved me to well what is the broad minds means of liberation and all of that was new. I hadn't lived it really I just you know it was coming from a deeper source of of knowledge or wisdom. So those stories were like pearls on on a on a chain or beads on a chain for me that was a uh a very important story that kind of showed the new wing.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

Thank you for telling me a little bit of how it was conceived I know that many of our listeners they dream of writing or they're already writers and it is something about creating a life around writing around books pursuing a life as an author. And I was wondering if you can give some advice for someone who is beginning that journey and what place do myths and fairy tales have in cultivating a rich and enduring writing practice?

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Yeah great question um I think that I'll if people are interested in myth and dreams and fairy tales, folktales, I think that one really great way in is by reading fairy tales and reading your own impressions of them and moving into the stories because the stories provide a container for your imagination and I wouldn't really recommend like this is a this is my personal way in but it has helped a lot of people too the first chapter of the Wonderlit course um gives you this it's free and it gives you this way into the story which is through your own pictures like what are the pictures that keep welling up for you what has called you to itself and and doesn't kind of give up you know like you might have this picture that just comes out of the blue of Jack with his magic beans or um you know Cinderella who is at the grave of her mother planting the hazel branch or something that's resonant in you and doesn't give up. That is the kind of picture that I think all of us as writers um can really get a lot of value out of if you validate it and you go in and you work with it with your imagination and you see what you see and you go to that place. So I think a lot of what blocks us as writers is that we don't give validity to our imaginative impressions. And there's a kind of receptivity to imagination that I think is really important.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

And once you start to see the pictures and walk onto the ground of that place where you're being drawn you often hear a kind of voice there's a kind of music to what you're getting cadence and I think a lot of myths and writers hear what they write uh and I know Ursula Le Guin said this in her book on writing she wrote first thing she recommended was that you read aloud read aloud what you've written put it into the air see it in the air make the air substantial feed it and uh think less about the words and more about what you're seeing and hearing that's beautiful it goes back to that advice you receive as well about the stories say what you see write what you see my practice of inviting a witch for a cup of something it also comes from this place to see to hold that vision there to grown a custom observe the details see how you feel in that presence and then tell from that place.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Yes and I think when you're in this imaginal realm coordinates are very important. So as you're saying you see the witch in the setting you see her in the here and now you have a place where you've grounded her and when you're going into a fairy tale it's very important to know where you are in story space and time. Because the minute you consider your coordinates and you know where you are then things start to become clear.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Do you want to tell us a little bit more about the coordinates?

SPEAKER_01 58:09

Yes so when I was inviting people into the Briar Rose for example what I would do is I would say go to the scene that you're that you're drawn to so you know they might come to the feasting hall so okay you're in the feasting hall you're in the space of the story and look around and now where in time are you in the feasting hall? Because that's going to be very important. You might be at the moment when the curse is happening or you might be at the moment when the king is ordering that the spindles be burnt but you've got to know what moment he is speaking to you and then it all floods in.

SPEAKER_00 58:50

I love seeing it that way yes the moment in the time of the story right where do you find yourself in that time of the story in the story time yes these stories are a space and in that space we find our times our moment Michelle your work is so beautiful unique in many ways and so rich I was wondering if you can share with our listeners where is the best place for them to get to know your work if there's one of your books that you would recommend them to begin with I know my listeners love to read so I'm sure they would be interested in that. And if there's also a specific link they should find you.

SPEAKER_01 59:35

Yes so a portal to my whole body of work is Michelletalker.com so it's M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E-T-O-C-H-E-R dot com and everything is there and you can go to places from there. Uh the fairy tale course is called Wonderlit or it's at wonderlit.com and uh and there there is everything. I I would say if you're really interested in the fairy tales and the kinds of things that we've been talking about with the princess and the gifts and the witches and all that um the tower princess is is it's the it's this it records how I learned how to navigate in the fairy world. So um I think there is probably a lot of good stuff there. And uh yeah I've written a few other things that are sm uh shorter and um and more contemporary if people are more interested in sort of modern stories. The end of Prim is a is a fun and short read uh takes you somewhere and is illustrated. So yeah so those are those would be some thoughts. And also the Broadmind has been animated so it is on on the site. You can see the broad mind in full animation.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

This is great. Thank you so much. I will make sure that your website the Wonderlit course and the animation for the Broad Mind are all on the description of this episode. And then from there I'm sure that people can find their way into what nourishes them the most thank you so much Michelle for sharing all your wisdom with us. It's been a great honor. I am just I'm just so grateful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Oh thanks Maria it's been a wonderful conversation thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

And to our dear myth lovers see you in our next episode. Until then remember your life is a story only you can tell. Stay close to what feels true and sovereign within you