The Cloak on a Sunbeam: Thresholds of New Life

Maria: 00:00:22

Hello from Cork.

Jim: 00:00:24

Hello from New York.

Maria: 00:00:25

Is mise Máire, Seanchaí Corcaí.

Maria: 00:00:28

It's Maria, the Cork-based storyteller.

Jim: 00:00:31

It's me, Jim here in Fayetteville, New York.

Maria: 00:00:33

We can't wait to tell you a few stories.

Maria: 00:00:39

Oh, it's great to be here today.

Maria: 00:00:40

So we're in still the darkness of winter and we're beginning to stretch

Maria: 00:00:48

forward at this stage towards spring and in Ireland, we're looking forward

Maria: 00:00:54

to the season of Imbolc in the Irish language, Imbolc - in the stomach.

Maria: 00:01:00

So it's the time of gestation, the time of new life.

Maria: 00:01:04

The time of spring and it all starts with St. Brigid's Day on the 1st of February.

Maria: 00:01:13

And I tell you, Jim, I wish it was here now.

Maria: 00:01:17

I've had enough of winter.

Jim: 00:01:21

Well, you probably don't know this, but in the Jewish year,

Jim: 00:01:26

there's more than one new year.

Jim: 00:01:29

There's a new year for Passover.

Jim: 00:01:31

There's a new year for the High Holidays.

Jim: 00:01:34

There's another new year, but we're about to come up to the new year of the trees.

Jim: 00:01:39

It's another new year, and it's the new year of finally, there being

Jim: 00:01:45

warmth and the ability to flourish.

Jim: 00:01:48

So it sounds kind of like the same.

Maria: 00:01:50

It's, yeah, it's very similar to the Celtic calendar, like we're coming

Maria: 00:01:54

out of Samhain, and, and the winter, and the dream time and, you know, the

Maria: 00:01:59

death time and into, um, the sleep time and the dreaming into existence time.

Maria: 00:02:06

The nourishment time.

Jim: 00:02:08

Yes.

Maria: 00:02:09

So isn't it amazing how different cultures who are totally separate from

Maria: 00:02:16

one another over time come up with similar

Jim: 00:02:21

mm-hmm.

Maria: 00:02:21

calendars.

Jim: 00:02:25

Absolutely.

Jim: 00:02:26

And we, how we associate the seasons with different kinds of characters

Jim: 00:02:33

and different personalities.

Maria: 00:02:34

Yeah.

Maria: 00:02:35

You know, like we all seem to agree that winter is death.

Maria: 00:02:41

Or the deep sleep, you know?

Maria: 00:02:44

Mm-hmm.

Maria: 00:02:44

Look forward to coming back to new life in spring, so yeah,

Maria: 00:02:48

that's definitely true, you know?

Maria: 00:02:49

Mm-hmm.

Jim: 00:02:51

Well, I think you probably have a story about a woman that's

Jim: 00:02:55

associated with this time of year.

Maria: 00:02:57

I do indeed.

Maria: 00:02:58

And it is Brigid.

Maria: 00:03:00

So Brigid is an amazing figure in Ireland.

Maria: 00:03:03

Uh, she's ár Naomh Matrón.

Maria: 00:03:06

She's the primary female saint in Ireland.

Maria: 00:03:10

So everybody outside of Ireland knows about Patty's Day, St. Patrick's

Maria: 00:03:14

Day, which will be in March.

Maria: 00:03:17

But in February we celebrate Brigid's Day.

Maria: 00:03:20

And when I was growing up, that was a day for the women.

Maria: 00:03:24

So the women kind of went off together and we told one another our secrets

Maria: 00:03:29

and our mothers handed us on the mysteries and things like that.

Maria: 00:03:33

It was a lovely day of appreciating being a woman and being a nourisher.

Maria: 00:03:41

This story is about when she came ar a laeentha saoire, when she

Maria: 00:03:46

came on her holidays to Cork.

Maria: 00:03:49

So at the age of eight years old, her father called her in and she was

Maria: 00:03:54

always known as the threshold saint.

Maria: 00:03:57

She was born in the lintel of the door, and as her mother was leaving, she put

Maria: 00:04:03

her hand up on the lintel of the door and the pangs of childbirth came upon her.

Maria: 00:04:07

So she was born between the outside and the inside.

Maria: 00:04:11

So straight away she was a bridge between words, even when she

Maria: 00:04:15

couldn't even talk, even when only her first breath had been taken.

Maria: 00:04:20

Her father was the high clan leader and her mother was a slave,

Maria: 00:04:27

they think maybe from Wales.

Maria: 00:04:30

So she came between poverty and great wealth.

Maria: 00:04:33

So this was our Brigid, and this was her before she became what

Maria: 00:04:38

she's known for today, which is the great nourisher of nations and the

Maria: 00:04:43

protector of pregnancy and all of this.

Maria: 00:04:48

So when her father called her in, she thought it was because he

Maria: 00:04:51

wanted to show her a new trick of hunting, or that he wanted to show

Maria: 00:04:57

her how to run a little bit faster.

Maria: 00:05:00

But instead of that, he said, look, from now on, I want you

Maria: 00:05:03

to call me the Ceann Chomhairle.

Maria: 00:05:05

Where when we're in front of other people, which was his official

Maria: 00:05:10

name, it's like a king, Jim.

Maria: 00:05:13

You know?

Maria: 00:05:13

It's like saying Your Excellency or something like this.

Maria: 00:05:17

And she thought he was joking.

Maria: 00:05:20

You mean I can't call you my dad?

Maria: 00:05:22

And he said, No, because you are eight years old now.

Maria: 00:05:26

And when you are 14, you will be ready for marriage.

Maria: 00:05:30

And she got an awful start in herself.

Maria: 00:05:33

And she said, What?

Maria: 00:05:34

And he said, yeah.

Maria: 00:05:35

And from now on, from this day forward, you'll have to wear a gúna, a dress.

Maria: 00:05:42

And she looked at him as if he was mad, and she said, How will I be able to climb

Maria: 00:05:46

trees and go hunting and run with the boys if I am going to be wearing a dress?

Maria: 00:05:52

And he said, you will do what you're told.

Maria: 00:05:54

I'm your Ceann Chomhairle.

Maria: 00:05:57

And she thought about it and he gave her a beautiful dress, much nicer

Maria: 00:06:02

than the dresses that her mother wore.

Maria: 00:06:05

But as soon as she put it on, it felt like very constricting, like golden handcuffs.

Maria: 00:06:11

It felt really, you know, it wasn't true to her nature at

Maria: 00:06:15

all, she couldn't run any longer.

Maria: 00:06:19

But the next gift he gave her was a knife.

Maria: 00:06:23

And she thought, Oh, what am I going to learn to do with the knife?

Maria: 00:06:26

Are we going to go hunting?

Maria: 00:06:28

And he said, I need you to be able to peel things without removing too much of

Maria: 00:06:35

the flesh of the vegetable or the fruit.

Maria: 00:06:38

And he gave her an apple and she took the knife and she peeled it in one big peel.

Maria: 00:06:44

And it was so thin that it was translucent.

Maria: 00:06:48

And he hung it on the window and the sun began to shine through it.

Maria: 00:06:53

And he said, My goodness, you didn't take one bit of the flesh.

Maria: 00:06:58

You were able to separate the skin from the apple, and there

Maria: 00:07:02

was no flesh taken at all.

Maria: 00:07:04

And she was very proud of that.

Maria: 00:07:07

Now he said, go and tell your mother that we must get ready for the road.

Maria: 00:07:12

Behind me on my screen, there is a picture of an ancient forest in Ireland,

Maria: 00:07:17

and the trees were dense because when Éire was pushed up out to the sea

Maria: 00:07:23

as a volcanic island, the next thing to happen was that the trees grew.

Maria: 00:07:30

And they grew in great proliferation and they grew very close to one

Maria: 00:07:35

another, and so you couldn't run in Ireland in those days.

Maria: 00:07:41

Instead, you had to look to the ground and make sure that

Maria: 00:07:45

the roots did not trip you up.

Maria: 00:07:48

So coming down now from Louth to Cork, in these modern days, Jim, would

Maria: 00:07:54

take you about two and a half hours.

Maria: 00:07:56

Not so in this time.

Maria: 00:07:59

In this time, it would be a three day journey.

Maria: 00:08:03

And they got into the carriages, and in that night when they camped

Maria: 00:08:07

out, the women stayed in the covered carriage, and the men, they slept

Maria: 00:08:12

under the carriage, the young boys.

Maria: 00:08:15

And the older men, they slept at the periphery of the campsite to

Maria: 00:08:19

make sure that everybody was safe.

Maria: 00:08:22

And then the next day they made the next part of the journey.

Maria: 00:08:27

And when they came to my city, it was only a little town in those days.

Maria: 00:08:33

Seven Hills folded in towards the River Lee.

Maria: 00:08:38

The River Lee, which is the deepest river in Ireland, and we have the

Maria: 00:08:42

second deepest harbor in the world.

Maria: 00:08:46

What would've Cork looked like to the eyes of young Brigid?

Maria: 00:08:52

And Brigid had heard on the way down from her mother that there was a new

Maria: 00:08:58

religion, a religion full of love, where people loved one another.

Maria: 00:09:04

They loved their neighbors, they loved the higher power.

Maria: 00:09:09

It was full of love.

Maria: 00:09:11

And in this religion, instead of having many gods, there would only be one God.

Maria: 00:09:18

Well, Brigid was very interested in the fact that this religion was

Maria: 00:09:22

built on love and she could not wait to meet an tEaspaig, the Bishop.

Maria: 00:09:28

But, her father came down and he said, I need you to go to the kitchen and I need

Maria: 00:09:33

you to know how to make a nourishing stew.

Maria: 00:09:37

And so she went to the kitchen and for the first time cooked.

Maria: 00:09:42

She would become renowned.

Maria: 00:09:44

She would become synonymous with Irish stew, and she would become

Maria: 00:09:49

synonymous with nourishment.

Maria: 00:09:51

But this was to be her very first time in my city.

Maria: 00:09:56

She could not say no to her father, so down she went.

Maria: 00:10:00

And the bishop came, and the sun trod across the sky in Cork, and her

Maria: 00:10:06

mother began to question the bishop, and she found out that in this new

Maria: 00:10:11

religion women could not say mass.

Maria: 00:10:15

Women could not hear confession.

Maria: 00:10:18

Women could not be leaders.

Maria: 00:10:21

And she thought, Oh, I thought this would suit my daughter,

Maria: 00:10:25

but now, I'm not so sure.

Maria: 00:10:27

And just at that moment, Brigid rushed into the room like a gust of spring wind.

Maria: 00:10:36

She took her famous clóca, her cloak, off, and she threw it behind her and she sat at

Maria: 00:10:43

the table and she looked into the eyes of the bishop whose face had gone green, and

Maria: 00:10:48

his eyes began to pop like a frog's eyes.

Maria: 00:10:52

And he said Hello, and she said, Conas atá tú.

Maria: 00:10:56

How are you?

Maria: 00:10:57

And he said, I'm fine.

Maria: 00:10:59

And then Brigid's mother explained that women could not be leaders in

Maria: 00:11:04

this church, but the bishop stood up and he looked at her and he said, I

Maria: 00:11:11

think there will be a place for you.

Maria: 00:11:13

I am getting a sign.

Maria: 00:11:14

And she wondered at his words: what sign was he getting?

Maria: 00:11:20

And then he began to put his hands on the wall and inch his way one bit

Maria: 00:11:25

by one bit around the wall until he came to the front door, and he ran out

Maria: 00:11:30

that door like an arrow from a bow.

Maria: 00:11:33

And as far as I know, he's still running.

Maria: 00:11:37

Because when Brigid came in and she took her cloak off, and she threw

Maria: 00:11:43

her famous cloak behind her, it did not land on the nail on the wall.

Maria: 00:11:50

It did not land on the floor.

Maria: 00:11:53

It landed on a sunbeam.

Maria: 00:11:56

And as the sun lengthened across the room, the cloak had danced right

Maria: 00:12:02

before the eyes of the bishop, and her fate was sealed as a holy woman.

Maria: 00:12:10

As a woman that would lead.

Maria: 00:12:13

Sin é mo scéal, that is my story.

Jim: 00:12:19

Oh, beautiful, beautiful.

Jim: 00:12:22

I love the image of the cloak on the sunbeam.

Jim: 00:12:27

What a, what a glorious image.

Maria: 00:12:30

Yes.

Jim: 00:12:31

The transition from thinking, this is such a beautiful religion to, oh, wait

Jim: 00:12:37

a minute, there's some challenges here.

Maria: 00:12:41

Yeah.

Jim: 00:12:41

Wonderful, wonderful.

Maria: 00:12:43

Yeah.

Maria: 00:12:44

You know, and, um, there, there is still a great, um, faith to Brigid in Ireland.

Jim: 00:12:51

Mm-hmm.

Maria: 00:12:52

And it feels a little bit, uh, different to, uh, Catholicism

Maria: 00:12:59

that's practiced elsewhere, let's say it like that, you know?

Maria: 00:13:01

Yes.

Maria: 00:13:02

Yeah.

Maria: 00:13:03

Her Holy wells are everywhere.

Maria: 00:13:06

Everywhere.

Maria: 00:13:07

And in the traveler tradition of Ireland, our, our beautiful traveling people,

Maria: 00:13:14

um, they go to the Brigid Wells, and I'll bring you to see one when you're,

Maria: 00:13:18

when you're here, Jim, you know?

Maria: 00:13:20

And in a time when people couldn't read or write, they would put a ribbon on

Maria: 00:13:26

her tree, and they would leave their intention in the ribbon on the tree,

Maria: 00:13:30

you know, and you can still see those prayer trees everywhere in Ireland.

Maria: 00:13:35

It's amazing, you know?

Jim: 00:13:38

Oh, just so many connections.

Jim: 00:13:42

I'm thinking of the stories of wells and women and how they seem

Jim: 00:13:47

to be in every culture for very good reason, very good reason.

Jim: 00:13:52

Well, you know, we spoke just before we started and you said, do you

Jim: 00:13:56

have a story about strong women?

Jim: 00:14:00

I'd like to share this one with you, and again, I didn't know anything about

Jim: 00:14:04

the story you were gonna tell, but I think there's a connection, of course.

Jim: 00:14:07

Yay.

Jim: 00:14:08

In the Jewish tradition, stories come from all sorts of sources.

Jim: 00:14:14

They come from the people, they come from the Bible.

Jim: 00:14:16

They come just from all around.

Jim: 00:14:19

And sometimes in the Bible there's like one or two sentences,

Jim: 00:14:25

and they seem incomplete.

Jim: 00:14:28

And so a whole story will emerge around this one or two sentences.

Jim: 00:14:34

And the story that came to me is a story about the days when

Jim: 00:14:39

the Israelites were in Egypt.

Jim: 00:14:42

And the Pharaoh was very concerned that they seemed to be

Jim: 00:14:46

growing and growing and growing.

Jim: 00:14:48

All these foreigners were getting to be too numerous, and so he, he had

Jim: 00:14:54

an order which was that the midwives should kill all the male babies

Jim: 00:15:00

and only let the females survive.

Jim: 00:15:03

And it didn't happen.

Jim: 00:15:05

And the last little part in the Bible is that there were two women, and

Jim: 00:15:09

it's always a little unusual when a woman is named, two of the midwives.

Jim: 00:15:14

And they were Shifra and Puah.

Jim: 00:15:17

And they said, Well, it's not our fault because these Israelite women

Jim: 00:15:23

are so strong, they're finished before we can even get to 'em.

Jim: 00:15:29

Well, that just seemed like there wasn't enough information there.

Jim: 00:15:32

So a story emerged, and here's the story.

Jim: 00:15:36

The story was that this terrible decree had come down.

Jim: 00:15:41

And part of what the Pharaoh did, his first attempt was to send all the men out.

Jim: 00:15:51

And they were making clay bricks, so they're doing that out in the fields.

Jim: 00:15:55

And he said, You can't go home at night.

Jim: 00:15:57

You're wasting too much time traveling back to your homes.

Jim: 00:16:01

You're gonna have to spend the night in the fields.

Jim: 00:16:03

And he thought that way he'd keep the men and the women from

Jim: 00:16:06

getting together and making babies.

Jim: 00:16:09

Well, the women were smarter than that.

Jim: 00:16:12

And so they would come out and they would bring three things with them.

Jim: 00:16:18

One thing is, well, they bring two buckets of water just to, to have, and

Jim: 00:16:24

they'd bring a mirror, and as they would be walking from their homes to where

Jim: 00:16:31

the men were in the fields, one of the buckets of water would fill with fish.

Jim: 00:16:37

And the other would be just clear, pure water to drink.

Jim: 00:16:41

And they would get out there into the fields with the men in the evening

Jim: 00:16:47

and they would use the clear water to wash each other and clean each other.

Jim: 00:16:52

And then they'd take the fish and they'd make a nice meal.

Jim: 00:16:55

And then they would take out their mirrors and they would tease the men.

Jim: 00:17:02

And they would look in the mirror and they would say, Of the two of

Jim: 00:17:06

us, I think I'm the more beautiful.

Jim: 00:17:10

And the man would say No, of the two of us, I think I'm the more beautiful.

Jim: 00:17:15

And they would start going back and forth and back and forth, seducing

Jim: 00:17:20

each other with naming all the ways in which they were beautiful.

Jim: 00:17:25

And of course, nature would take its course and they'd be making more babies.

Jim: 00:17:30

Well, when the women got to be full with child, they would stay in

Jim: 00:17:36

their homes so that they wouldn't be accosted by the Pharaoh.

Jim: 00:17:41

But when it was time for them to give birth, they would come back out

Jim: 00:17:45

into the fields, and they would sit beneath a beautiful, beautiful, huge

Jim: 00:17:50

tree, and they would give birth there.

Jim: 00:17:55

And there weren't enough midwives to help all the women.

Jim: 00:18:00

So the angels came down, and they were the midwives for the babies born in the field.

Jim: 00:18:06

And they would treat them with honey and uh, milk, and it would just

Jim: 00:18:12

be a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Jim: 00:18:14

Well, the Pharaoh got to be suspicious, because now no women were giving

Jim: 00:18:21

birth at all in their homes, and yet there still seemed to be more people.

Jim: 00:18:26

So he sent his soldiers out to see what was happening.

Jim: 00:18:30

Well, as the soldiers were coming and all these babies are out there

Jim: 00:18:34

in the field, the earth said, we have to protect these babies.

Jim: 00:18:39

And so the earth opened up and welcomed them back into the womb of the earth

Jim: 00:18:47

until the soldiers went by, and then the men and women would plow the earth, and

Jim: 00:18:53

release the babies from the earth again.

Jim: 00:18:55

So they'd be born a second time, once from their mother and once from the earth.

Jim: 00:19:00

And then they'd come back.

Jim: 00:19:02

And by that point they were born and they were grown and the population grew.

Jim: 00:19:08

So the story kind of continues from that point.

Jim: 00:19:11

But that was what came to me as, you know, this lovely, magical thing that

Jim: 00:19:17

doesn't really carry a big message other than the power of women and the

Jim: 00:19:22

power of motherhood in particular.

Maria: 00:19:24

Yeah.

Maria: 00:19:25

I absolutely loved that, you know?

Jim: 00:19:27

Yeah.

Maria: 00:19:27

It, it painted pictures in my mind's eye, and sometimes you

Maria: 00:19:31

can't explain why that is happening.

Maria: 00:19:34

This is one of those aims, Jim, but I mean, the, the picture

Maria: 00:19:38

of the angels coming down to help the mothers give birth.

Maria: 00:19:41

Yeah.

Maria: 00:19:42

The pictures of the mothers going down into the earth, the earth

Maria: 00:19:46

that protected them, you know?

Maria: 00:19:48

Yeah.

Maria: 00:19:48

Picking up the babies again.

Maria: 00:19:50

That's all so familiar to, to the Irish psyche.

Maria: 00:19:55

We were talking about those kinds of things in, uh, the folklore and culture

Maria: 00:20:00

class today, and we were talking about the little diamond that appears

Maria: 00:20:07

in the middle of a Brigid's cross.

Maria: 00:20:09

It's a weaving.

Maria: 00:20:10

And that that shape of the diamond is on stones that are over

Maria: 00:20:16

3000 years old in this country.

Maria: 00:20:19

Mm-hmm.

Maria: 00:20:19

So it's again, a very similar idea of the death, birth, rebirth, trying

Maria: 00:20:25

to keep people apart, you know?

Jim: 00:20:28

Yes, yes.

Maria: 00:20:28

Trying to keep foreigners out, you know, that kind of thing.

Maria: 00:20:32

It's amazing that we haven't learned those lessons.

Maria: 00:20:34

Yeah.

Maria: 00:20:35

And the amount of time we've been on Earth.

Jim: 00:20:39

Well, we seem to have to learn them over and over

Maria: 00:20:41

and over again.

Maria: 00:20:42

And every new generation is a new tablet, you know?

Maria: 00:20:46

Right.

Maria: 00:20:46

So they, they come with their own, you know, if you ever look into the face of

Maria: 00:20:52

a baby, and I have a new baby in my life at the moment, my niece's baby, so she's

Maria: 00:20:57

my grand niece and her name is Emily.

Maria: 00:21:00

And when I look into her face, I just know she knows everything.

Maria: 00:21:03

She's just so wise.

Maria: 00:21:05

Mm-hmm.

Maria: 00:21:07

You know, and then over time they become the innocent children.

Maria: 00:21:11

But it's like when, when a child is born, it's like they have perfect knowledge and

Maria: 00:21:18

then we train ourselves out of listening to our heart, out of listening to our gut.

Jim: 00:21:26

Well, the other thing I was thinking is that we have

Jim: 00:21:29

to be told the stories again.

Maria: 00:21:31

Yes.

Jim: 00:21:32

That that's how we learn.

Maria: 00:21:33

Yeah.

Jim: 00:21:33

We don't learn by somebody saying, you know, wait for

Jim: 00:21:36

the red, cross on the green.

Jim: 00:21:38

Yeah.

Jim: 00:21:38

You know, we learn the stories.

Jim: 00:21:40

Yeah.

Jim: 00:21:40

And that's how we really grow.

Maria: 00:21:41

And you telling that story leads us to have this conversation.

Jim: 00:21:46

That's right.

Maria: 00:21:46

You know, that's, and these conversations are so badly needed and

Maria: 00:21:49

so nourishing and so yummy, you know?

Maria: 00:21:52

Mm-hmm.

Maria: 00:21:52

We always go away smiling from these stories, don't we?

Jim: 00:21:55

We do.

Jim: 00:21:56

Well, I think it's worth mentioning, that we are in the middle of

Jim: 00:22:02

planning some time together.

Jim: 00:22:04

We were so fortunate.

Jim: 00:22:06

We've met twice in person now.

Jim: 00:22:08

Yeah.

Jim: 00:22:08

Once in Marrakesh, and once in Woodstock, New York.

Maria: 00:22:12

Yeah.

Jim: 00:22:13

And we're about to meet again in Marrakesh again.

Maria: 00:22:16

Yes.

Maria: 00:22:17

On a great project, you know, a project of bringing stories to

Maria: 00:22:21

the children, to the schools.

Jim: 00:22:24

And we've been invited up into the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

Jim: 00:22:29

Yeah.

Jim: 00:22:29

And to, to work with people, not just in the cities,

Jim: 00:22:33

although we'll do that as well.

Maria: 00:22:35

Yeah.

Jim: 00:22:35

But to tell stories with children in the mountains, in the older villages.

Jim: 00:22:40

Yeah.

Jim: 00:22:40

And I'm sure we'll learn some interesting stories when we do that as well.

Maria: 00:22:43

That's it.

Maria: 00:22:44

You know, like Omar comes from a tribe that are in hundreds, not even thousands

Maria: 00:22:50

left of them, and the stories that he tells are so gentle and warming and yummy.

Maria: 00:22:58

And he brought those stories to the school children of Kerry when he

Maria: 00:23:03

was here last September, you know?

Maria: 00:23:06

So it's going to be such a joy to bring Irish stories back there now, you know?

Maria: 00:23:12

And to build on that.

Maria: 00:23:14

And And to hear yours, Jim, to hear the stories.

Jim: 00:23:17

Well, yeah.

Maria: 00:23:18

Yeah.

Maria: 00:23:18

To the children.

Maria: 00:23:19

Because even to the children, we've told to adults together, we've

Maria: 00:23:23

never told to children together.

Jim: 00:23:26

No.

Jim: 00:23:27

You'll discover that children are my undiscovered territory.

Jim: 00:23:33

So I, I mostly tell to, to adults, but I know that every time I tell to children,

Jim: 00:23:39

there's just a joyful energy in the room.

Maria: 00:23:43

Oh yeah.

Jim: 00:23:43

That one never gets with an adult.

Jim: 00:23:45

It's, it's a very different kind of experience.

Maria: 00:23:47

It is.

Maria: 00:23:48

You know, they're, they're different and both beautiful in their own

Maria: 00:23:51

way, but I hear what you say, you know, and I, I definitely feel

Maria: 00:23:55

it's my natural habitat as well.

Maria: 00:23:57

I, I love working with children.

Maria: 00:23:59

I love leading them astray.

Maria: 00:24:01

You know, I work a lot, I work a lot with school refusers: the

Maria: 00:24:06

most creative of our children.

Maria: 00:24:09

That's right.

Maria: 00:24:09

So, yeah.

Maria: 00:24:10

True story.

Maria: 00:24:11

So it is great.

Maria: 00:24:12

You know, I really am looking forward to that.

Maria: 00:24:15

So that's going to be happening in April in 2026.

Maria: 00:24:20

And then hopefully, uh, you know, it's, it's in train at the moment.

Maria: 00:24:23

There'll be a visit by yourself and lovely Jill to Ireland in September.

Maria: 00:24:29

So I'm looking forward to it as well.

Maria: 00:24:30

Yes.

Maria: 00:24:31

You know, and we'll just keep.

Maria: 00:24:33

Building those.

Maria: 00:24:33

Just keep going.

Maria: 00:24:34

Story bridges.

Maria: 00:24:35

We just keep doing this.

Jim: 00:24:36

Yes.

Maria: 00:24:36

Yeah.

Jim: 00:24:38

Well, the last thing I'd like to say for this episode is that we have

Jim: 00:24:43

finally reached the point where we're ready to start inviting other guests

Jim: 00:24:48

to join us, and we won't tell you who they are, but we will tell you that

Jim: 00:24:52

they're coming from around the world.

Jim: 00:24:54

Um, so do, do, keep listening.

Maria: 00:24:56

Can we mentioned though, that, that we've met a lot of them in the Wonderful

Maria: 00:25:01

World Storytelling Cafe in Marrakech.

Jim: 00:25:04

Absolutely.

Jim: 00:25:05

To underscore that when we met a year ago.

Jim: 00:25:10

It's almost exactly a year.

Maria: 00:25:12

Isn't that amazing?

Jim: 00:25:13

Uh, in Marrakesh, there were roughly a hundred storytellers

Jim: 00:25:19

there from around the world.

Jim: 00:25:20

Mm-hmm.

Jim: 00:25:21

And you might think that, how can you ever get close to a hundred people at once?

Jim: 00:25:26

But partly it was that we were all storytellers, partly it

Jim: 00:25:30

was that it was Marrakesh.

Maria: 00:25:32

Yeah.

Jim: 00:25:32

And a collection in a place that has honored storytelling

Jim: 00:25:36

for centuries, for millennia.

Jim: 00:25:38

Yeah.

Jim: 00:25:38

I have to say the relationships that I formed as part of being

Jim: 00:25:43

in Marrakesh, being at the World Storytelling Cafe, really just deepened

Jim: 00:25:50

my appreciation for story and for telling and listening to stories.

Jim: 00:25:55

So that's now part of what I have to share.

Maria: 00:25:58

Absolutely.

Maria: 00:25:58

And I think it's amazing as well that his highness, the King of

Maria: 00:26:02

Morocco, actually supports this.

Maria: 00:26:05

Yes.

Maria: 00:26:05

And because of that, you know, we're, we have to wear these honored guest badges.

Maria: 00:26:10

And so as we see other honored guests out on the Medina or on the streets of

Maria: 00:26:16

Marrakesh, we're like a storyteller!

Jim: 00:26:18

A storyteller!

Maria: 00:26:19

With come of lunch with us, you know?

Maria: 00:26:21

So yeah, it was, it was amazing and is amazing.

Maria: 00:26:25

And we have a lot to thank the World Storytelling Cafe for.

Jim: 00:26:30

We certainly do.

Maria: 00:26:31

Yeah.

Jim: 00:26:33

All right.

Jim: 00:26:33

Well, with that, I think we'll say goodbye for this episode.

Maria: 00:26:37

You never say goodbye in Ireland.

Maria: 00:26:38

We say "until the next time."

Jim: 00:26:40

Until the next time.

Maria: 00:26:41

Until the next.

Jim: 00:26:41

I'm remembering, I lived for a while in the Philippines.

Jim: 00:26:45

And I learned the native language there.

Jim: 00:26:49

And you didn't say goodbye, you said Balik, balik.

Jim: 00:26:54

Because balik means to return and they love to double words.

Maria: 00:26:59

Yeah.

Jim: 00:26:59

So Balik, balik means Come again.

Maria: 00:27:03

Come back, come back,

Jim: 00:27:04

Come back, come back.

Jim: 00:27:05

That's right.

Jim: 00:27:05

So

Maria: 00:27:06

I like it.

Jim: 00:27:07

Yeah.

Maria: 00:27:07

You know.

Jim: 00:27:08

All right then.

Maria: 00:27:10

Will we say goodbye from Cork?

Jim: 00:27:12

And goodbye from New York, but only for a while because we'll be

Jim: 00:27:16

back again with another episode.

Jim: 00:27:18

Absolutely.

Maria: 00:27:19

We can't wait to see you on the Story Road one more time, and from this

Maria: 00:27:24

time till that be safe on the Story Road.