Sense of Soul - Dragons, Fairies and Goddesses wth Morgan Daimler

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul we have international best-selling author and Witch, Morgan Daimler. Morgan is one of the most renowned Pagan authors of the 21st century, having sold 100,000's of copies of her books. She has been a Witch since the early 1990s, she is autistic, a parent and part of the LGBTQ+ demographic. She’s going us today to tell us about folklore, myth witchcraft and the magic of our world as part of her promotion for her latest title - Into Shadow.  Morgan Daimler teaches classes and writes about Irish mythology and magical practices, fairies, and related subjects. Morgan’s writing has appeared in a variety of magazines and is also the author of a variety of fiction books such as the urban fantasy/paranormal romance series. Including, Between the Worlds, and non-fiction through Moon Books including bestsellers Fairy Witchcraft, Pagan Portals: The Morrigan, Pagan Portals: Brigid, and Fairies: A Guide to the Celtic Fair Folk. You can find Morgan’s books at amazon.com/Morgan-Daimler… Learn more about Sense of Soul Podcast: https://www.senseofsoulpodcast.com Check out the NEW affiliate deals! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sense-of-soul-affiliates-page Check out the Ethereal Network! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/ethereal-network Follow Sense of Soul on Patreon, and join to get ad free episodes, circles, mini series and more! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul Follow Sense of Soul on Social Media! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sos-links

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world, sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes, monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us international best-selling author and witch, Morgan Dahmer. She is one of the most renowned pagan authors of the 21st century.

She has sold over 100,000 copies of her books. Morgan's background is in witchcraft and paganism. Morgan teaches classes on Irish myth and magical practices and related subjects, both here in the States and internationally. And she is one of the world's foremost experts on all things fairy. And she's joining us today to tell us about her new book, Into Shadow. And I can't wait to talk to Morgan about dragons, fairies, and goddesses. So please welcome Morgan. Hello. Hi, Morgan. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. I'm Shanna. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. You are a fiction

writer. Am I right? I do a little bit of everything. You? Okay. Yeah. So my primary work is nonfiction. Okay. The fiction is sort of my fun writing. It's what I really enjoy doing. We've got a little bit of poetry out there, but nothing, nothing a lot. Yeah. Okay. But you know, it's just, you know, you have obviously a creative lens, I would say. Yes. I think that's fair. I, when I was in school, I was very into visual arts. I wanted to be a fine artist. And then I hit my senior year and sort of realized that there's not a lot of career opportunities in fine arts. And I had always. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really an underappreciated thing, I think, particularly now with everything that's going on. But, you know, even 20 years ago, it wasn't something that you could really easily make a career in. And I always

wrote as well. Like my senior year, my friend and I started writing a book, which thankfully never saw the light of day. But yeah, I think I still have it actually. One of these days I should read it just to like entertain myself. Yeah. But you know, it's always been something I've been interested in that creative expression for sure. Yeah. You know, I also find that it's a great way to get out your emotions. You know, if you're a person that's more inward, you know, is important. My little girl wrote a book. She's only 11, but she wrote a book. I think it was last summer.

Good for her. She was like, right. And then she'd send it off to her friends and it was this mystery and there was this darkness to it. You know, she was being chased, you know, from her school and then kind of seemed like they went into a portal. I mean, it was really, really cool. But you know, it does, you know, and actually maybe you can take me into the world of your newest book and how you, you know, came to see that creative art come together.

Sure. So yeah, Into Shadow. It's been out for a little over a month now. I also have an urban fantasy series, which I self-published, which is where I've put like most of my focus. But I always had this idea of wanting to do high fantasy, which is a whole different thing. Yeah. Explain that before you even go on. High fantasy, what's the difference? Yeah. So high fantasy, you're really creating an entire world it's it's its own unique separate place it's not um it's not the human world in any way although a lot of times it's sort of based loosely on some some human world concepts um but you have to do so much world building with it. You have to make it a place that seems real and lived in, you know, for the characters,

which is not something you have to do with other sorts of fiction where, you know, even urban fantasy is still set in this world just with supernatural things going on. With high fantasy, it's you're starting from the ground up and just building this world that makes sense so when you talk about california in a book everyone knows and has a visualization of that when you talk about a place in your book you had to set the stage right exactly like if i was going to write um not high fantasy and set it in like ire France. Those are places, even if people haven't been there, they have some kind of understanding or expectation for what that is like. And you know what it's like to be a human in the 21st century or even historic fiction. I think that's

the biggest challenge with high fantasy is you don't want to info dump and just throw it all at the reader right at the beginning, you know, and have this whole exposition about this is the world and this is what it's like, but you have to have enough of it, you know, sort of woven into the story that everything seems like a real place. You know, it seems like it has rules that it follows and culture and all of that so yeah it's it's definitely more of a challenge and you know for for a couple years now I think I've been sort of contemplating this idea of you know in most high fantasy stories because you you often in fantasy will have magic and you know besides humans, elves, dwarves, and what have you, and dragons. And a lot of the books, the whole point of the book is getting to

the dragon. And that's sort of the ultimate moment in the story, fighting it and then killing it in a lot of the books. And I wanted to write something sort of looking at what if killing the dragon was the beginning of the story not the end okay you know so yeah you're like I'm switching this up yeah I just always wondered like you know what if what if we normally perceive as the ending is actually what starts the story? Oh, I think it does in most times. Right. It's just the beginning of a new one or. Yeah, exactly. Wow. You know, just recently I was doing some research on Lilith as in like Adam's first wife, that legend and myth. And there's also the story about her and Gilgamesh. And she has a dragon that's at the bottom of this tree that is located

in the garden. And he comes and takes his ax and he kills the dragon and scares Lilith away and becomes like a hero. And the whole time I'm just like, how is this like a hero story? I'm just like, wait, we're so conditioned to believe certain things, you know, but that, yeah, that actually was something that was found, I think not that long ago, you know, on some sort of ancient rock or something. Interesting. Yeah. And then there was some, you know, rare bird that lived at the top of her, her tree, but you know, one, you know, slay the dragon. Well, not saving the princess really. It was more damning the women off to the desert is actually the story. Yeah. You know. Usually the dragon is protecting, right?

What does that stand for for you? For me personally, because I study a lot of folklore, I tend to have sort of a variety of different views on dragons and what they are and sort of how they fit into things. And I know that in a lot of the fantasy that's out there right now, the idea of dragons is definitely changing. People are tending to see them more as teachers and wise and really characters in their own right. So clearly my book sort of goes against the tide on that one. In the story and into Shadow, the dragons are sort of avatars in a way for one of the goddesses in that world. And so they represent like her power and her energy in that world. And there's only a certain number of them. They were created when the world was

created. They're basically immortal, very, very difficult to kill. Most people think it's impossible, which is sort of where we start with the story. But they're not intelligent per se. They're basically like an animal. Not to say animals aren't intelligent. I just don't know how else to phrase that. You know, they exist the same way like a fox or a wolf or a bear kind of exists in this world. But they're much, much larger and magical. And so basically my main character, her family ends up being killed by the dragon.

Not intentionally. It sort of is a series of events that happens um where the dragon ends up sort of knocking their house over when um you know her children are inside it and so that's sort of what sets her off on this path of feeling like she needs to kind of get revenge in a way and she does succeed uh which isn't much of a spoiler because that's kind of how the book starts but um she kind of quickly realizes that it was a mistake that you know revenge is never a good idea and it right the story sort of goes from there, from her realizing that she really shouldn't have, you know, done what she did and that there's certain consequences then because of what she did

and that she has to move forward. Like there's no way to fix it, which I think is a very real world maybe approach to it, but it's more of a, you know, how do you deal with the situation now after what you've done? You know what, tell me Morgan, you know, I see, I love, I love books like this. And I really encourage even my children to read books like this because it's something that keeps them entertained, but yet there's, you know, a lot of lessons, like you said. And when I think of Into the Shadow and I think of Dragon, you know, I think it was Christina McElhaney who had been on my podcast like a month or so ago. She talked about that inner shadow being a dragon, like facing your dragon, right. And also when I think about that revenge comes in that shadow, right. With that. So it's, it's funny that, you know, I mean that ego part of us that wants

revenge, right. That can't see the light and things. And there's so many lessons in, you know, stories told like this, especially when you can just fall in love with the character and, and see her go through you know the struggles and the challenges like yeah you know what is the lesson that is told yeah I think a lot of stories if we look at them like if you look at fairy tales um for example I was just recently at a conference that was the whole theme was fairy tales. And a lot of them, really the idea is these sort of moral lessons or, you know, lessons about life, but they're disguised in these stories that are, you know, meant to be interesting. And you, you kind of don't even notice that there's

a lesson or a moral in it. Some of the times you just really like the story but if you stop and really contemplate it then you can see sort of underneath that top layer how much else is going on you know and some of them of course because some of them are very old and maybe aren't necessarily morals that we resonate with as much anymore. But other things I think are, are sort of universal in other senses. You know, the idea to feel like you belong somewhere, the idea to be careful with things that might be dangerous. Like the boy who cried wolf, I think is a story that still kind of resonates with people today

like you know be careful with lying and telling these stories to get attention because when it's true no one's going to believe you that's that's still applicable right exactly but some of them have evolved for sure you know like we no longer, you know, especially for women, you know, I mean, you know, there's always the, um, Danzel in distress and the man to save her from the dragon and all the things, you know, I'll be honest with you. When I first heard the idea of goddess years ago, I was like, goddess, like princess. And I was like, wait a minute. If there's a God, why wouldn't there be a goddess? There there's a god why wouldn't there be a goddess there's a father why wouldn't there be a mother wait a second what's happened here yeah so how did you get your goddess um I mean in the story the the way this particular world works

is there's seven main deities there's like a creator goddess who kind of is the original, started everything. And then there's six others, three gods and then three goddesses. And it's sort of in the theology of the book, which I don't get super into, but kind of everyone has their particular things that they're associated with or connected to. And I wanted to make it a little different, maybe from, again, like people's normal expectations, like it's a creator goddess. It's not a creator god. The goddess deity who's associated with magic is female you know um which is a little different from the way you know certain cultures view it in in our world um and i just wanted to show a little more variety i think with. And that sort of that, this is going to sound really cheesy when

I say it, but I don't know how else to say it in this way, sort of that anyone can do anything sort of a thing. Like the main character in the book is a woman who is in her late thirties. She had four children. She'd been married for like 20 years. So she's not like the typical heroic protagonist in these sorts of stories. You know, it's usually if you pick up most high fantasy novels, the main character is mostly going to be male. Even if it's not, even if it's, you know, a woman, then they're going to be young. They're, you know, usually either like late teens or early twenties or sort of just finding their place in the world. And, and this character is not any of that. You know, she, she really thought her life was free. She's like me. Yeah. Yeah. She's like

a lot of us out there, I think. And she's, she's not someone who ever thought of herself as a hero. Like she wasn't a warrior. She wasn't like a martial kind of person. She's actually a scribe. You know, she sort of writes things down for a living. And, you know, it wasn't until the thing with the dragon happens and she sort of teaches herself how to use a bow. And that's her weapon of choice she would have access to and be able to use and you know I just wanted to show readers that our idea of who and what a hero is you know can be expanded it can be different

from what we always tend to see it as or usually tend to see it as. I freaking love that. And I appreciate that so much because we're so conditioned by those concepts. Yeah. I mean, I read a lot, obviously. I love reading. I love writing. Those two go together. And I read a lot, particularly of urban fantasy and high fantasy. And it was just, I started to notice this pattern where it's like, okay, I love these stories. I love these books, but it's hard for me now that I'm not 17, 18 anymore to really resonate with some of these main characters because, I mean, I remember what it was like to be that age, but it's maybe nice to see a main character who's, you know, not a teenager. Right. Oh, my God. I love this. And, you know, I think that a lot of those stories are what molded our society.

Yeah. You know, told over and over in Hollywood and in, you know, fairy tale books. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned Hollywood too, because that's an excellent point. Like if we look at what we're consuming in a multimedia kind of sense, it's still this idea of, you know, the hero's usually going to be a man. If it isn't, it's still going to be generally someone who's younger. Then we just sort of perpetuate that because we just assume, well, this is still going to be generally someone who's younger. Then we just sort of perpetuate that because we just assume, well, this is what it should be. This is, you know, how this is supposed to be in the story. And I think that there's a lot more variety out there. I actually

have someone I know who lives in my state who, her name is, see Betty Bono she writes stories with particularly older people as the main characters you know going out and saving the world from all sorts of nonsense kind of things people in their like you know 60s 70s 80s which I love because yeah it's it's we don't expect it because normally we think when you know people are that age if they're in a story they're going to be like the old wise person sitting in a corner or you know they're going to be yeah they're going to be the person the main character goes to for advice or whatever and no this in this you know her books those are the main characters and they're the ones out doing all the fun stuff.

Yeah. So had you ever tackled a book like this before? Not like this. No. And I was a little concerned when I started it because there is a lot of sort of dealing with grief that goes on in the story. And I didn't want that to really weigh it down. Right. on in the story and I didn't want that to really weigh it down right and have it feel to people like this is just sort of all about you know about that but that is kind of the character's main motivation for what starts the story um you know so mama bear yeah you know she She loses her four children, which is why she decides she has to go kill a dragon. And then sort of immediately realizes that, first of all, that did not change anything. It didn't help. It didn't make it better. So she kind of immediately regrets what she did.

But also, she still has to find a way to move forward with her life. So I realized the way I just described it makes it sound really heavy, but like I said, I tried to write it in a way that that's a background theme, but it's not super overwhelming. Yeah. One of my beta readers, I think described it as darkly wholesome so well that's awesome that's good right yeah yeah high praise yeah so when you when you were writing this book was this something that evolved as you wrote it or did you really see it all before and was like I gotta put this on paper? I think by the time I sat down to write it, because I had kind of been kicking the idea around for a little bit, I had a pretty strong idea of, you know, where everything was going

to go. And I always find with writing, when I'm writing the characters, it's almost like meeting them. You know, I sort of get to know them as I'm writing them the same way the reader gets to know them when they're reading the book. So that part evolves a little bit as you sort of realize, like, well, this character wouldn't quite do that that I was thinking here. So we're going to kind of go in a different direction that makes more sense for that character but yeah for the most part I think I had a strong idea of most of it and where things were going to go going into it so yeah so and you said you have been thinking about it for a long time so was it something that was playing in your mind and growing into, you know, a whole story?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, some of the details, like when I was initially thinking of it, I knew I wanted the main character to be female. Because, again, that's just not what we normally think of as, you know, someone out slaying dragons. And I knew that I wanted the story to start with the death of the dragon and sort of the consequences that come from that. But the idea for her to be a little bit of an older, middle-aged character and her motivation being the death of her children like that sort of came a little later that was something that got filled in as I was thinking about it it kind of started with that kernel of an idea of let's sort of put a a twist on that

trope of the dragon slayer you know I like it I like it a lot. Yeah. Um, you know, it's interesting because I don't know. I think that I wonder if that ever happens to where, you know, you come up with a concept and then you're like, wow, that's a real thing. Like, that's real. Like, whoa, I received that. And I just thought, whoa, how how creative creative of me to think of this but yet that's a real thing like someone else talked about this before and had the same theory do you ever come across that that seems to me or yeah I've I've definitely had that with my urban fantasy um uh because I you know that's a longer series at at this point and I've spent more time living with it. And there's certainly been things in there where I was like, you know, oh, I'm being so

creative. I'm going to put this in there. And then found out that no, actually like, you know, it was creative on my part because I didn't know it existed beforehand. But then I, then you find out like, oh, actually this is sort of an idea that's out there or you know this is something in folklore that I wasn't aware of um because I draw on folklore a lot um for inspiration and sort of for um yeah what's your favorite stories what's your favorite kind of you know myth or tale my favorite yeah my my favorite story is probably when it's called The Adventures of Conla. It's the oldest Irish language story that features fairies, features the good folk. And it's basically this woman of the other world shows up when this Irish

king and his son and the king's druid are sort of on this hill and only the king's son can see her. And she starts talking to him and basically says, you know, I want you to come back with me to my world. And the king is very quickly like, no, no, no, no. And, you know, gets his druid to use magic and to try to keep them apart. But the son sort of falls in love with the woman and they they go through this whole thing and eventually he decides he is going to leave with her and so they they leave together and get on a boat sort of sail into out of this world and I've always really liked that story even though it's one of those endings where you don't know for sure what happens after

they they sail away but I just I like the concept of it I know I'm those I'm always like waiting for the second version of it even if they're older you know sequel yeah I've read some really good books that are based on like some of the Scottish ballads like Tam Lin or Thomas the Rhymer that are sort of looking to do that like they're modern books but they're like well what happened yeah at the end of that you know like it it the um you know Tamlin ends with the the human woman Janet winning Tamlin away from the fairies so that he can go be her husband and then that's where it ends yeah um so then what happened that way like in Gone with the Wind I was like ah and then they came up with the second one. It definitely was, you know, not even close.

It was different. Yeah, it's very different. Ruined it for me, but okay. But, you know, I, along my journey, when I first was telling you about when I first heard of goddesses, the very first one that was coming to me was goddess Bridget. Like it was more than a coincidence. I mean, it was synchronicity. It was every corner I turned Bridget, Bridget. I mean, in songs, my daughter has a dream about this redheaded angel. It's got long red hair and a burgundy trim on this green dress. She tells me about it around the same time. I mean, I mean, it just was like, boom, boom. We had episode after episode talking about Bridget. Then a woman comes on and her name

is Bridget. Well, then I looked at my real name is Shannon and there's a goddess Shannon myth in Ireland that she goes into the well, you know, trying to uncover the hidden wisdom. She doesn't come out the well. And I'm like, well, there you go. I changed my name to Shanna. And so I'm so not going to accept that fate. Ireland obviously has a very strong, you know, goddess. A lot of that going on. Yes. You almost look like goddess Bridget to me. You know, you have the pretty red hair. Yes. But you know, it is such a powerful kind of feel that red hair. And, you know, speaking about Ireland, I do, I mean, I feel like goddess Bridget, you know, very strongly in talking, you know, about all this.

How do you feel about Ireland and the stories of the different Celtic gods and stuff and goddesses? Oh, sure. So that's a lot of the nonfiction I write is about Irish mythology. Really? Yep, different Irish deities. And you said nonfiction. Let's make that clear. Yeah, nonfiction. I actually do translation work from Old and Middle Irish into English.

So it's an interest, you could say, for sure. I'm part of the Irish American diaspora. So my grandfather was from Ireland. I've been over multiple times, you know, for various things. So yeah, I mean, I think it's a really beautiful culture. I think the folklore and the mythology are really rich. And there's a lot more to a lot of it than sort of what we tend to find, you know, in the pop culture versions of things. So sort of the more you dig into it, the more you get to know about it, the more there is to learn.

So, yeah, I love it. You know, I'm writing a book right now too. And at the beginning of my book, I have to tell how it fell into this or fell into the well, literally. And Bridget obviously was a big part of that. And so when I was looking at, you know, a lot of the mythology around a lot of the different, I'd say, goddesses really, truly, but also other characters that have been sainted. I found that they, a lot of them were not actual people, that there was actually no proof that they were people or they were highly spoke of in a way that they were almost worship. So then the church said, let's make him a saint.

This will be safe. We'll just call him a saint. And I found that for several of the characters in the beginning of my book, it was really, really weird because there was like this pattern of that. And some people say that about Bridget, like was Bridget of Kildare an actual person? Yeah, no, that's, that is sort of the eternal question. I guess pun intended there. Cause we know that there was a, an Irish goddess named Bridget and, you know, we find her in the mythology. We don't know a lot about her, like in the myths that we have some information, very connected to poets in particular, but we don't have like a lot of detail. And then we have St. Bridget of Kildare who, you know, comes in, I believe it was the fifth

century. And we, you know, have some information about her, but a lot of what we have is so sort of mythologized at this point. Like, you know, it's said that when she was born, she was, you know, fed from the milk of a white cow and, you know, born on the threshold in a doorway. And like, there's all this other like mystical sort of stuff that was going on with her. If you look at her stories,

that it has led people to sort of speculate like how much of what we know about the saint is actually, you know, ideas that were connected to the goddess and, you know, how much overlap is there? Was she a real person? Was she not? You know, and we just will never really know, I don't think, because there's just not enough. There's not enough information. Nothing will stand up in court. You know, I don't think, because there's just not enough information. Nothing will stand up in court. You know, the same thing happened with Sophia.

So there's, you know, there's the Hagia Sophia in the center of Istanbul that actually was supposed to be the center of Christianity at one point. There's even a Saint Sophia Cathedral in Ukraine, right there in the middle of the capital in Kiev. And nobody even knew who the hell St. Sophia is. Obviously, since my book is about Sophia and the Gnostic gospel, Sophia, I went deep on that. There's no evidence of an actual Sophia. And if there was, it said that her name was Sophia and they were all martyrs and she had three children, faith, charity, and love. I mean, come on. And they were all martyrs, but yet even popes have actually tried to,

you know, validate the authenticity of them and haven't been able to. So it, and so they're like, call her a saint. You know, I mean, when you think about St. Michael's, Gabriel's, St., you know, all those, I mean, they were just named after archangels. It's like the same thing. Right. Yeah. There's a lot of overlap, I think, between the mystical and saints. Yeah. And just actually, I'd say, but you know, there's always a little truth too, right? So how do you feel about that? Because people say that, like, you know, there's always a little truth in the myths that are told. Are they speaking of like the lessons that we talked about, you know, when we first started?

Or is there a little truth into, you know, the story? Yeah, I think it's all of the above. And I actually tend to get a little worried about people who only read myths one way. Either it has to be literal or it has to be metaphor. It has to be, you know, whatever, because I think it's all of that really, you know, was there a historical incident or whatever, or person originally, maybe there was, maybe it's based a little on that, but there's also layers to it that are metaphor and layers to it that are, you know, speaking of those moral lessons, those things we can learn. I think the best way to take any mythology or any hagiography

or, you know, any, anything that relates to the spiritual is to let it be what it is and not try to over interpret it i see this a lot with the irish mythology where people really try to make it history and try to argue like okay well you know because the the oldest um irish mythology the book of the book of invasions not the oldest but one of the the frameworks for how we understand irish mythology the book of invasions tells the story of these five different groups who invaded ireland and settled them were eventually driven out and then humans are the ones who come in at the end and kind of take everything over and i see so many people who try to argue that like, no, each of those five groups

was an actual historical population. And you just, you take all of those other layers out and you simplify it down into something that almost then doesn't have any meaning. But in the same way, if we take it just as metaphor, then you take all the anchoring in the world out of it and it becomes just a metaphor. It wouldn't matter. You could change the names, change the places, you know, it would, you know, it doesn't have that connection. I think you have to have all of those layers for it to work. Because, I mean, you just being a reader behind, you know, a story like that, you know, you just wonder how much of it was, you know, in their life, right? Or something in their lens. And so I just think I find it fascinating.

You know, when you talked about overlapping, too, I'm sure that you've seen that. I mean, sometimes, you know, this one goddess, she's by this, but she's of many names. And same with the gods. I mean, you have like, there are even similar tales told all around the world, different cultures, you know, the same flood mentioned even. And so they're just called by different names. I think, you know, I think we're all just trying to understand these sort of immense concepts the best way that we can, you know, through our perspective and through our filters and, you know, our own backgrounds and all of that. And that many paths to one well sort of a thing, as long as we're all getting to sort of the same positive place in the end. I think that's more important sometimes than how we're getting there. If that makes sense. I just, I love it when you meet somebody

and they've had like the same story. Oh my gosh, like that so happened to me and this led me to that. And it's like, if that's on a small level, how come that couldn't be on a huge level too, you know, that we all really came from the same story, right? And, you know, we're all one. I think people really underestimate the power of stories, you know, whether it's spiritual stories or fiction or, you know, whatever, like the stories that we read or hear or watch, you know, whatever, they really become part of us. You know, it's like we consume them in a way. And it sort of helps shape and direct who we are, I think. So we shouldn't underestimate like how powerful that is in what we're reading and what we're looking at. And I think it's a good thing to give some thought sometimes, you know, even to the fun

stuff we read, you know, how that sort of changes our perspective on things or what we'd learn, even from, you know, like a simple children's story. All of that stuff contributes to who we are in different ways, I think. Wow. I think you're right too. I mean, cause when you think, you know, I had heard this one time, if you want to know what's going on with your kids, listen to the songs that they're listening to, listen to the words of the songs that they're listening to, you know, it's so true. You know, I mean, I remember, you know, middle school is into, you know, Debbie Gibson, I'll love you, Debbie.

Yeah. But, you know, it's, it's the same with, of course, you know, probably with a reading, what they're watching to, you know, what they might enjoy, but it's, it's, I think that inner narrative to what story are you telling yourself? You know, so important, like over and over, what story are you trying? Are you the damsel in distress and you continue to tell yourself that you are like, where did that root from? Did it root from, you know, sleeping beauty or what? Yeah. Well, and that's exactly like we, we take in all these stories that sort of tell us how the world is supposed to be, even stories that are fiction or fairy tales or what have you. And it does tend to give us these expectations of like, okay, you know, if it's beautiful, then it's good. Because that's a huge thing in a lot of stories and particularly fairy tales. And, you know, if, if you're female and in distress,

then, you know, someone's going to come along and save you. Because again, that's a lot of these stories are kind of framed that way. And how much of that are we taking in? How much of that are we then sort of assuming is how the world works. Which again, it's another reason I like that there's a trend right now to sort of retell some of these stories in ways that are more empowering for the characters that are in the original versions are not as powerful. You know, there's a really good book called Cinderella is Dead. I love the title. Yeah. You might really like it.

It's a good book. It's, I think, technically young adult, but it's kind of on the darker end. Not true horror, but, you know, it's got its moments. But the premise is actually this kingdom that the story of Cinderella is like their religion. And every household has to have a copy of the story. And all the girls, when they hit that certain age, have to go to the big ball in the kingdom and hope that they find someone to marry them. And the main character is sort of one of these people who sees through all this and is kind of like, well, what's really going on? Like what what happens to the people who don't get picked at the ball?

Yes, I love this book. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Give it give it a read. I can't remember the author and I apologize that I can't remember the author's name. No, I love it. But Morgan, what about the witches? Because this is one thing for myself, you know, I have Marie Laveau in my tree, you know, she was definitely demonized. As I thought, I thought she was a boogeyman, you know, did research on her. And as I put together my family tree, and went real deep on her, and she was nothing more than a sainted woman actually quoted Paul. So that's what she was named in her obituary.

You know, then I did my, so ancestry is a huge part of what I do. I did several other trees that one of my best friend, Mandy, who used to be a co-host, she had one of the, one of the last, she had the oldest witch, supposedly quote unquote, I won't even say witch, the oldest woman to have

been killed during the witch trials in Salem. Rebecca Nurse? No, not Rebecca Nurse. What's her name? Prudiator, Ann Prudiator. Yeah. Okay. And she, yeah, she was like 60 or something like that. And she made soap and she was a widow of two men, but yet that made her witchy. And so, yeah. And which, you know, I, it just really was, you know, and Mandy also, this was also disturbing. It didn't necessarily have to do with her, which I don't think, but I mean, there was one ancestor she had that her, she had her tongue cut off. That was her punishment. I mean, like, oh my God, no wonder why Mandy, she definitely speaks her mind more than anybody I know. So gone are the days of that.

Yeah. But I, I mean, I definitely would have been burned at the stake. My hair would have gotten me in trouble. Red hair used to be viewed with a lot of suspicion. Right. Even Lilith is always portrayed with red hair, right? Yeah. Yeah. Red hair is supposed to indicate like people who might not be human or, you know, are up to magical, no good. So there's a lot of superstition about redheads. Yeah. It's one of the things, another thing that I really like with the current round of fictions out there is the way they're retelling those stories. You know, you have like Wicked, which is telling the story of theictions out there is the way they're retelling those stories. You know, you have like Wicked, which is telling the story of the Wicked Witch of the West,

you know, from her point of view, kind of putting out a different narrative. You have the School for Good and Evil, which is another young adult book series, but also a very good movie. I think they have it on Netflix, which kind of flips the script a little with, you know, the person that we assume would be the witch, the bad person, is actually the good person. And the person who kind of puts herself forward as the good princess ends up in the school for the villains. And it just sort of shows that like, life is a lot more complicated, and people are a lot more complicated. And there is no simple, you know, good or evil, when it comes to people, witches aren't the bad guys, princesses aren't the good guys. You know, it's... I love how Disney actually did the whole zombies thing. And I know

a lot of, I mean, some people were even protesting against it because of that. And here I was thinking, this is beautiful. And I'm so glad that my daughter got to grow up in this type of era in seeing that, you know, just because you're different, you're green or whatever, hairy werewolves or whatever they were. Could still be a good person. Yeah. Yeah. I liked what Disney did with the descendants for that reason too. Yes. Great. I thought that was really, really cleverly done.

And again, just showing that like, you know, what, what matters is what's inside a person and how they act and who they want to be, not who they've been sort of pigeonholed as because of where they are in life or who their parents are or any of that. You know, I think that's, I think that's really cool. Yeah. Cause it also, I think opens people up to looking outside of just what's in front of them. Cause you know, learning about different goddesses and stuff really expanded my history, my historical knowledge. And then actually recently, my kids and I, there is this, we've had a lot of rain in Colorado,

but I have this perfectly little mushroom circle. And in the middle of it, actually, there's even a heart of just dirt. And my kids were like, mom, look at this. And of course, you know, here I'm thinking, crap, I just put a fairy door on the tree right next to it. A little tiny fairy door, you know, and it's, I have a very gnarled tree. And my daughter likes to swing from it. So she's got like a swing in it.

And it is very fairy fairy like we even put fairy lights last year on it and it's mystical the tree because it's so twisted and it's got that energy to it yes so we put the little fairy door on it and then here all of a sudden we have this little magical circle right that grows next to it and I just don't feel right messing with the circle oh sure fairy rings it can be a circle of mushrooms it can be a circle of dark grass or lighter grass supposed to be a place where fairies have gone to dance um so you know some of the folklore anyway says that where they dance at night then you get the the fairy circle the mushroom circle the next morning sort of indicates their presence.

I love, I love the tale. Definitely a good idea not to mess with it. Yeah. Especially since I went ahead and did the whole door first and then it happened. I was like, well, you know what? I'm not going to close the door on them after I open the door just in case. Better safe than sorry. The whole thing about it is so for me it's like how do you feel right if I went outside and felt something dark and evil and not right you know I would have been different but we all felt something light and fun and we felt um mystical and excited and almost like childlike about it so it's for me and i've taught my kids that you know how do we feel you know yeah because you know we're witches in our own so we have to

yeah yeah there's actually a really funny episode of bluey i don't know if any of your kids are young enough to like bluey um what do you mean blue like bluey um yeah she's she he she is a little blue dog yeah it's australian oh yeah no yeah different show um okay yeah look it up very popular with the with the children these days okay but they they have an episode with fairies in it where there's a fairy circle and there's dancing and it's it's actually a really cute episode the fairies cause a lot of mischief yeah thank you I will definitely tell my my kids to look that up they'll love that yeah my son is 10 and he still likes it so that's so funny you know what so the reason why we didn't kind of know a little bit about fairies in the first place well

labyrinths one of my favorite movies hands down excellent choice yes and mike so my i taught my old side kids from 26 to 11 but my older kids that's their favorite movie even my younger kids because i always introduced them i mean sometimes we'll just look at each other and i'll be like you remind me of the babe and they're like what babe and we do it like back and forth it's just it's so so i love that it's such a good movie yeah i think they just had the 40th anniversary of the movie um happened recently labyrinth yeah i want to say it came out in 83 yeah that's about right it was on hbo i remember because i was like one of the only people that had hbo back then and fancy but i remember my mom loved david bowie yeah and so we would all just dance

the whole movie that's such a good movie and there's there's surprisingly a lot of folklore in it i guess they did a lot of research into yeah into like the actual folklore so there's hidden folklore if you're familiar if you're you know educated on that yeah yeah things that you'll you'll spot in it but it's also just such a fun movie it's so good such a good movie even now when i'll watch it and he throws the baby up oh you can tell it's a doll as he's had yeah but it's like and then the little trolls or whatever he says smack that baby make him bleed. And actually, I'm not sure for sure.

Of course, you know, movies back then were so like we spoke earlier were not very appropriate. It was a different time. It was a different time. But I even tried to one time like put on the closed captions so I could see what exactly it was saying. Yeah. I'm like, what? The only scene that really used to freak me out was the fireys when she goes into the forest the little red bird looking guys who can take their arms and stuff off yeah when they're like you know come on take off your head and she can't and they're like they get

all mad at her and then chase her like that used to freak me out when I was young. You know, the story of Huggle, I loved Huggle. Yeah. It was one of those movies that wasn't typical. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that a lot of the point of Labyrinth is it's all about perspective. You know, like when she's trying to get into Labyrinth to her, it looks like just a solid wall. And then she learns that no there are openings but there it's like an optical illusion you have to you know try and a lot of the labyrinth is like that you have to learn how to see things kind of a different way in order to get through it I always loved that me too I love that little worm where he's like don't go that way never go that way you'll go straight to the castle yep yeah I would have

solved all her problems right at the beginning oh I know but you know that's the journey right yep I love it there was a big lesson in the end she wasn't such a brat in the end yeah I know and she learned to appreciate her brother learned to be a little bit stronger as a person which is always good. So, and she made friends. So what I'm hearing from you or what I got from you, which I never expected to get today, which I'm excited about is that maybe we could create a labyrinth with like a mom with four children who, right. Or an old man who's 80 you know that might go you know conquer you know the end of the story and yeah yeah a different narrative that maybe is not so typical yeah i

think it's important for us you know the the empirical us here to start to see that like anyone can be the protagonist in a story and anyone can be the hero, you know. Different probabilities. I love it. Yeah. I really, really do. I really thank you for coming on.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, it was so fun. And I look forward to reading your book. And can I just get it anywhere or on Amazon or where can it be found? Yeah, it should be available anywhere. Brick and mortar stores, if they don't have it in stock, you might have to ask because there's so much out there now, you know, but it is traditionally published. So theoretically anywhere, obviously Amazon is pretty easy.

Barnes and Noble is another option for online ordering. And yeah, it's gotten some pretty good reviews so far. People seem to like it. So that's always encouraging. Very cool. It sounds great. And then do you have a website or something that you would like to share that they can find all of your stuff? Sure. So John Hunt Publishing is my, I write for two of their imprints, but that's like the main publisher. You can find my author page through them. It's got my nonfiction. It's got Into Shadow. My Amazon author page also has my self-published

stuff. If you're looking for Irish language translations or, you know, an urban fantasy series, you could go there. And otherwise in general, I'm just kind of all over social media. It's always under my name, Morgan Daimler. So not too hard to find. Cool. Which the goddess Morgan also is very similar to Bridget. It's funny. I get a lot of people asking me if my name is based on the Irish goddess, the Morrigan.

And it's not. It's my mom just really liked the horses, the Morgan horse breed of horse. So it totally fits you though. you um an irish goddess i'll take it was she actually a real person too i mean is there a story about a real morgan goddess um the irish morgan, she seems to be more traditionally mythic. The Welsh Morgan Le Fay, who is a different, but people often kind of confuse the two. She may have been originally a historic person and also some goddess mythology kind of got mixed in there. But there's a lot of theories that King Arthur might have been a real person in the fourth

century. And then his stories kind of got told and retold and turned into these legends and myths. That's interesting. Yeah. Maybe I should even send you my chapter on it to make sure because I want to be factual about the myths. I understand. Okay. Well, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me on you're very welcome thank you have a good day you too thanks for listening to sense of soul podcast and thanks to our special guests for joining me if you want more of sense of soul check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com where you can work with me one-on-one or help support

Sense of Soul podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.