A Visit from Dr Martin Shaw

Let’s have Martin’s own reflections carry this post…

“At security I get hauled out for extra checks, but finally I’m about to fly home. I feel like I have a good-natured hangover from a party I actually never attended. I think that’s part of the aging process. A whisky on the plane and I think sleep will wrap her tendrils over my dusty shoulders. From there my dear old friend Johnny picks me up and we snake our way back to my beloved Dartmoor.

The very end of a tour is part relief part sadness. For all those that sailed with me I wish you the very best. Thank you School of Mythopoetics. I was privy to many Canadian communities and was never not heartily welcomed. Many people attended over three weeks and I did my best to hold up my end of the ‘no-plan’ plan. Though chaos often barked at the edges of the evening, I rarely glimpsed a sour face. Puzzled on occasion, but not sour.

I finally ran out of road. No more gatherings left to lead, not this time. In a few hours I’ll feel the now-customary adrenalin begin for an event I’m not actually going to teach. A final lurch. That odd blankness before reverie. I can kip, read a book, speak to a friend. This transition will take a moment.

The live stream on the second to last night caught something rare and rather elusive that had been building from the first night in Nova Scotia. I woke the next day and realised that such a digital capture would now involve a complete re-building for the last night, yet another turn from anything foreshadowed. The next pursuit began that last night.

Now I need rest, care and old friends. I need the way my own sheets smell, the little bedroom window facing east, I need the confirming bells of my village. I’ll feed the cats and forget to unpack for at least five days. There’s a vigil going on in the forest so I’ll wander up to see how my crew are doing. I’ll smell Devon in spring and know peace.

I’ve been curating an unfolding ritual on my tongue for three weeks. The stories don’t stop and start, not really, it’s a kind of dreaming with your eyes open I’m up to. Dreaming is Otherworld thinking.

Goodnight Canada, bless your story telling, knot making, relations creating, kindness giving, wine pouring, steak sizzling, cackle-erupting, wet-cheeked and elegantly grieving nature. I’ll glimpse you some other day if we’re both lucky enough.”

#martinshawcanada2023