A YEAR AND A DAY – Details, episodes & analysis

Friends,

Solstice blessings all. Here’s a wee tale for season. Warmest wishes and gentle ease as we enter the dream-time of winter. Deepest thanks for your listening! Tracy xx

Here in the North the nights are stretching longer and longer, the temperatures are finally dropping and I’m certainly feeling the tug to favor silence, rest & digest and go more inward. How about you?

Silence, stillness, resting and the permission to prioritize these experience as necessary and crucial to navigating life here in the early days of the 21st Century is a practice I’m intentionally weaving into the fallow season at hand. It’s time - seasonally, collectively & personally.

Here and now though - it is time for a story! Thank you for arriving here to listen.

I’ve been adventuring and traveling…and now it is really good to be at home. My companion the past month as been the Sumerian myth of Inanna - the Queen of Heaven & Earth and her sister, Ereshkigal - the Queen of the Underworld. While away, good fortune led me to collaborate with fellow teller and wise one, Jackie Singer and a truly remarkable group of brave & magical women where we played in the belly of this ancient story in a day long women's retreat - OPEN YOUR EAR TO THE GREAT BELOW. What a rich experience for us all.

So it's no wonder that this story is wanting to be told here as we descend into the deep dark side of the year. It is a resurrection story - of dead & rebirth, predating all Christian mythologies and I highly suggest reading - Inanna Queen of Heaven by Diane Wolkstein. for more context

To me this ancient myth is a story of the heart of courage, of the ebbing & flowing of life, of empathic allies & alchemy. It is certainly apt for the season and for our time.

Enjoy and thank you for your presence here and with this story!

Tracy

Another story! Yes another story - two actually. I’m hesitating putting these two stories out in the world. One is quite are personal, the other curiously woven to my story through the brilliance of Sharon Blackie’s book, If Women Rose Rooted. Both stories are love stories and and both tales run deep into the chthonic realm of grief, and loss. Both meet and greet the inevitable, death. They are both beautiful (to me) and they are intense…

Possible trigger warning. These tales may tap into your own well of grief. May our/your grief be clean.

`And a poem from my book, Borealis Mundi - Resting in Place, Loss & Grace.

The Well of Grief

Grief, the tiger that devours,

The strawberry that feeds,

The oven that bakes,

The ice that melts,

The bread that feeds.

Grief, the spell that casts,

The stone that skips,

The wound that bleeds,

The river that carries,

The raven that devours .

Grief, the spark that ignites

The avalanche that buries,

The wolf that kills,

The ring that weds,

The lover that ravishes.

Welcome friends. This story found me in Kildonan Museum on the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, some years ago.

Tis a tale of one All Hallows Eve when the space between the worlds is known to be thin…we are in that threshold time just now.

Enjoy and thank you so much for having a listen. <3

Tracy

The first of two offerings this month as we tip into autumn! Today I'm sharing a retelling of a story i've been carrying for over 20 years - Miz Hatie. A story i found in a library in Vermont, in a book by children's author Virginia Hamilton - The People Could Fly.

The People Could Fly is a rich contribution to children’s literature (to literature for all really) with a beautiful mix of American Black folktales.

Ms. Hamilton's voice "echoes the slaves and fugitives from her own American black ancestry as she tells the stories that keep the culture alive."

Make yourself a cuppa and settle in for this retelling - a stories of cycles, of change, of shapeshifting and of grief.

As the northern sun descends lower, bowing to the feast of our late summer gardens, as crickets ascend up through the warm soil singing songs of friction and wonder, i have a story to share.

An adventuring story of descending and ascending, a tale of three sisters, of forbidden fruit - consumed, of dragons and perhaps of justice.

A retelling of the fairy tale, The Earth Gnome from the Brother Grimm collection. Enjoy and offer up a libation to the story, to forbidden fruit and to lessons gleaned fathoms deep in the summer earth.

this month's episode of a Year and a Day, exploring how i work with stories in my 29th summer on the path of storyteller.

A story offering of the Zen Buddhist tale The Tiger & the Strawberry.

More about my work at www.tracychipman.net

Let stories move, shift and shape you <3

welcome welcome welcome.

This first episode is a beginning here on Substack and a continuation of A Year and A Day - monthly stories shared from my 29 years of listening, carrying, telling and co-creating with stories.

Welcome here in the holding of this sweet Mothering New Moon in Cancer!

At this moment, I’m held in the spell of those lunar vibes along with bird song following the most delicious summer rain shower.

May all be held by the heart wisdom of this post with two beloved soul friends, Lara and Nina who reside in the Driftless Region of Iowa. Deepest thanks for their voices here!

If this is your first listen here at A Year & a Day, welcome to this episode in the 2nd cycle of A Year & a Day exploring the archetypal season’s of women’s lives; Maiden, Mother, Mage and Crone. At each full moon I have offered a retelling of a story, then at the new moon an emergent collaboration with women whose wisdom and gifts are brilliance & balm in this crucible times!

A recap of stories:

Full Worm Moon ~ Vasilisa the Brave Full Pink Moon ~ Persephone's Return Full Flower Moon ~ The Wild Twin - Tatterhood Full Strawberry Moon ~ The Handless Maiden

Juicy & rich New Moon collaborations with: Elizabeth Jane Lovely, Adriana Forte, with a gathering of nine women sharing their first blood/first moon stories, with poets Caroline Mellor, and Steph Ament.

Enjoy and thank you for your bright listening.

These posts are 100% labors of love and do require a great amount of time and energy, Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support this offering!

A YEAR and A DAY is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

PS if you are in the northern Midwest please considering joining me for a day long women’s* retreat in a place where all dwell free. More info here

Welcome here for this Full Strawberry Moon story offering as we move into Mothering season with the powerful story of The Handless Maiden.

While this story is indeed about a young woman and that of the archetypal Maiden’s journey, this story is deeply nourished by Mother energies. This is a (literally) brutal story (head’s up) AND it is also a story of the metalic bite of severance AND the most powerful, and soulful regenerations.

Without the mothering here, there is no regeneration, no maturing of the Maiden. This mothering also comes from more-than-human entities…

Who within you, needs regenerating?

How might you connect with the mothering you need, within & beyond to heal the deepest wounds ?

May this story soak and settle in you tending, loving and regenerating what you are ready to tend, love and grow!

Also if you happen to be in the upper Midwest next month on July 19th please come deepen into this story as we gather in the wild boreal forest of Northern Wisconsin for the THE WILD WITHIN, a women’s day retreat exploring regeneration, the wild inside us through somatic practices, creativity & just being.

More info and registration info. Early Bird Rates extended until Friday June 13.

Thank you for your Bright Listening!

Tracy

PS - Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. This project is a labor of love and subscribing at any paid level helps keep this offering possible! Deep bow of thanks!

A YEAR and A DAY is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.