In Between Poverty & Memory: A Conversation with Stephanie Mackay (Part I)
I want to introduce you to someone who might be new to you and whose work might become your new favourite thing.
This is a full-throated, all-chips-in, please tag all your friends, my whole reputation is behind this level of endorsement.
I’ve been waiting for over a year to tell you about this.
If you’re drawn to the works of people like Martin Prechtel, The Emerald Podcast, Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, Sharon Blackie and Michael Meade (but also nature connection and traditional skills) then I supect you will love her work.
Stephanie MacKay studied in Bolad’s Kitchen with Martin Prechtel for twelve years and it shows.
I’ve rarely met anyone with such a gift and capacity for exploring the Indigenous Soul of European folklore as Stephanie Mackay.
For the past year and a half, I’ve been attending her humbly began and masterfully facilitated Myth Clubs in BC.
The first one I attended filled me with a profound feeling of regret at all the ones I’d missed before that.
In each session, Stephanie would take the sacred bundle of an old folktale and unfurl her in front of us, helping us to see the immense, staggering, cultural, laboured after beauty within.
I would, monthly, drive hours to attend these sessions.
Sometimes delving into the same story multiple times in different cities (i.e. Duncan, Victoria, Gabriola and Courtenay).
She is, finally and to my immense relief, offering her Myth Club online and I can’t possibly recommend it highly enough.
For years, Stephanie has a been a local gem, not hidden but humble. Her work is understated but potent.
If you're curious, this work is a perfect way to dip your toes into the waters of her work.
Join Her Hour Long Introductory Class, Mythic Memory: Initiation in a Time of Forgetting, On August 12th @10am PST.
In This Conversation You Will Learn About:
Stephanie’s earliest memory of story
How her myth club got started
What she sees connecting the four threads of her work: ancestral knowledge, earth-based skills, ceremony and myth
Why she chose to get a degree in English Literature.
A bit how the time she spent in Alberta collaborating with Blackfoot and Métis elders as a part of the Rediscovery Initiative.
What she is focused on working with the vestiges of intact, ancestral cultures
The buried seed jars of story
The importance of settlers of European descent in connecting with their own ancestry
How to grapple with the ‘white guilt’ and shame that seems so pervasive.
How to be a good ‘story listener’.
The Interview:
About Stephanie:
Stephanie MacKay is the founder of Myth Club and is co-founder and Director of Fianna Wilderness School. She specializes in ancestral knowledge, earth-based skills, ceremony and myth. Stephanie has a degree in literature, which has been enriched by over 15 years of transformative practice and study. She has delved deep into the realms of myth and initiation through trainings with Animas Valley Institute, Haven Institute, Wilderness Awareness School, and over a decade of study with MartÃn Prechtel. Her work is deeply informed by the time she spent in Alberta collaborating with Blackfoot and Métis elders as a part of the Rediscovery Initiative. She has held the role of senior guide and director at nature-based organizations across Western Canada.
Stephanie is a fiercely compassionate facilitator, mentor and guide in search of perspectives and practices to deepen the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Grounded in her training in trauma-sensitive facilitation, dreamwork, the way of council, and ancestral rites of passage, she embarks on a profound journey of healing and transformation that encompasses both the individual and collective realms. Stephanie is dedicated to uncovering the vestiges of intact cultural origins within the body of old European mythologies. Drawing from the wellspring of these old mythologies, she seeks to uncover the hidden pathways that lead us to our cultural origins—reviving traditions long forgotten and holding space for the rehydration of ancestral wisdom.
As a 5th generation settler, now living on the lands of the Sneneymuxw Nation, Stephanie recognizes the importance of searching within our own origins for a culture worth living for, that we may come to the table of reconciliation free from the hunger of spiritual poverty. Stephanie is dedicated to the path of allyship and reconciliation, ever broadening her awareness of social justice and anti-oppression. She cultivates spaces of authentic dialogue and communal wisdom, where voices are heard and hearts are held.
All the money raised from your pledges to this Substack go to support the work of indigenous, cultural activist Kakisimow Iskwew.
This has been a great listen. thank you. I'll definitely check out Stephanie's Mythology Online Club. Looking forward to part 2 of this!