A Branch from the Lightning Tree: Ecstatic Myth and the Grace of Wildness

Martin Shaw's writing rattles the cages of souls. In A Branch from the Lightning Tree, Shaw creates links between the wildness in landscape and language, with myth being the bridge between the two. Shaw uses four great myths from Welsh, Norwegian, Siberian, and Russian territories that explore the process of leaving what is considered safe and predictable and journeying out into wild, uncertain areas of nature and the psyche. Shaw's work focuses on both men and women’s movement into wildness as part of the bigger awareness of climate change and ecology. It presents the old stories as keys into any debate on these issues, showing how the ability to think metaphorically and mythologically "re-enchants" our perspectives.

Martin Shaw is a mythologist, storyteller, and wilderness rites-of-passage guide based in Devonshire, England. Shaw gave up a lucrative music contract to pursue the study of myth while living for four years in a tent in the wilderness of Wales. An international teacher, he tours the United States and Canada annually and is visiting lecturer on Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Leadership program at Oxford University.