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Liturgies of the Wild: Myths That Make Us
“Here is a rosary of soaring myth, gripping narrative, and deep wisdom, all told with breathtaking verve that enchants and sweeps us along, from first word to last. A superb, inspiring read.” —GABOR MATÉ, author of The Myth of Normal
From "one of the greatest storytellers we have" (Robert Bly), an urgent invitation to allow the oldest stories—and the Greatest Story—to reshape our own.
There’s an old Irish belief that if you aren’t wrapped in a cloak of story you will be unprepared for what the world will hurl at you. You remain adolescent at just the moment a culture worth its salt requires you to become a real, grown, human being.
In Liturgies of the Wild, acclaimed mythographer, storyteller and Christian thinker Martin Shaw argues that we live in a myth-impoverished age and that such poverty has left us vulnerable to stories that may not wish us well. Drawing on the “ancient technologies” of myths and initiatory rites, Shaw provides a road to wholeness, maturity and connection. He teaches us to read a myth the way it wants to be read; provides vivid retellings of tales powerful enough to carry you through life’s travails; and shows you how to gather and reshape your own thrown-away stories. Most vividly, he shares how these ancient technologies led him—unexpectedly—to Christ, “the True Myth,” by way of a thirty-year journey and a 101-night vigil in a Dartmoor forest.
Combining scholarly erudition with nimble storytelling in the tradition of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Liturgies of the Wild is a thrilling counsel of resistance and delight in the face of many modern monsters.
From "one of the greatest storytellers we have" (Robert Bly), an urgent invitation to allow the oldest stories—and the Greatest Story—to reshape our own.
There’s an old Irish belief that if you aren’t wrapped in a cloak of story you will be unprepared for what the world will hurl at you. You remain adolescent at just the moment a culture worth its salt requires you to become a real, grown, human being.
In Liturgies of the Wild, acclaimed mythographer, storyteller and Christian thinker Martin Shaw argues that we live in a myth-impoverished age and that such poverty has left us vulnerable to stories that may not wish us well. Drawing on the “ancient technologies” of myths and initiatory rites, Shaw provides a road to wholeness, maturity and connection. He teaches us to read a myth the way it wants to be read; provides vivid retellings of tales powerful enough to carry you through life’s travails; and shows you how to gather and reshape your own thrown-away stories. Most vividly, he shares how these ancient technologies led him—unexpectedly—to Christ, “the True Myth,” by way of a thirty-year journey and a 101-night vigil in a Dartmoor forest.
Combining scholarly erudition with nimble storytelling in the tradition of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Liturgies of the Wild is a thrilling counsel of resistance and delight in the face of many modern monsters.
251 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 3, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 182 reviews
March 24, 2026
This will be in my top 10 books of 2026. Martin Shaw writes in a tone very similar to Paul Kingsnorth but focuses in on myth, our personal stories, and how to interpret out lives. Several chapters caused me stop in my tracks, analyze my pilgrimage in this world, and begin to make sense of the story God is writing. Shaw is the narrator of his own audiobook which takes it to the next level. He inspires me to desire a wilderness vigil someday soon.
February 6, 2026
Dear Martin,
I have been waiting for someone to write this book. I’m glad it was you.
Signed,
The Wolf
I have been waiting for someone to write this book. I’m glad it was you.
Signed,
The Wolf
February 10, 2026
I do not cry much—hardly ever. It’s not in my temperament, perhaps. But yesterday afternoon, after posting the first version of this review, I came close to tears twice. The first moment was watching Olympic figure skaters Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava, having just finished a miraculously beautiful pair routine, sink to the ice in an exhausted but triumphant embrace. Then they rose to their feet, each quietly making the sign of the cross.
The second moment came just a few hours later, as I absorbed word of the sudden, senseless, and violent death of a 15-year-old boy on the periphery of my acquaintance. Rising from my prayers that evening, I thought back, strangely, to this book, and realized that my perspective on it, and what it seeks to accomplish, had already deepened.
“Being made,” “getting grown,” finding the “Ancient Good,” is a matter of life and death. So terrible are the wounds of the world, so divine is the calling of human body and soul—the mysterious dynamic of the heart between these two realities will either destroy you or turn you into what Martin Shaw likes to call a “praise maker.” And we cannot find that path alone.
Original review follows.
* * *
There was once a boy who dwelt with his mother and father in a wide cultivated valley. Sometimes, his mother would take him beyond the green hills to his grandfather’s wilder kingdom by the sea, where he would wander in the mornings through misty forests, picking berries, and in the evenings play chess with his grandfather by the crackling hearth. Yet there was a nameless sadness in this boy, an unspoken fear, one his good parents, who gave him so much and shielded him from all outer darkness, could not understand, any more than the boy could himself. Then hard years came. The boy’s grandfather died, and exile followed: the boy’s father, seeing his livelihood among the fields of black and gold diminish and poverty threaten, sought a more secure fortune in a distant city, and the boy left his childhood home forever. Deep loneliness fell upon him in this new place, where the people were numerous, but all seemed busy in search of money and seats of power, things the boy little understood. Soon he found a book of stories, and his dreams grew bright with unseen lands as fair as those he had left, and almost more real to him than his waking life. But he also found a darkness in these worlds of imagination, a darkness that reflected his childish fear and grew in him silently. Some years later he left all to seek his own fortune, carrying away a small red stone that his mother had pressed into his hand. He studied under men and women wise in the world, and found success and praise in his every endeavor, but his dreams and darkness followed him. Yet in his studies, he also discovered the nature of the red stone from his mother: that it was, in fact, a seed of paradise. And a fresh hope blew into his life, that he might by this seed restore what he had long lost. So he planted it in the land of his exile. Not very well, for the soil was hard, and the boy knew almost nothing about gardening. For a long time, there was no sprout, and the boy spent his days hunched over that little bit of soil, his head often clouded with darkness. What did finally appear seemed a sorry plant indeed, and in it, the boy could see nothing of paradise. But he knew that this was his only hope, so he remained by it. As it grew slowly larger, as its branches began to reach outward, birds began to gather there. Around its stem he built a chapel, and he sang to the birds songs the wind had taught him, which he believed to come from his lost home. And he hoped that one day the tree would grow so tall that he could ascend by it, and leave the vaporous darkness behind, and find among the stars his own true country again.
What is the end of this story? I don’t know yet.
Martin Shaw advises us to tell such stories about ourselves, to take our dreams seriously, to let ourselves be “made” by the right myths. There are some readers who will dive into Liturgies of the Wild expecting an argument or manual of some kind, takeaways conducive to bullet-point format, and will end up frustrated. Shaw is not above a little preaching, but his approach to truth is typically allusive, wandering through personal anecdotes and ancient narratives that bleed freely into one another. His decades of meditation on life and story may have been brought into new focus by his self-startling conversion to Orthodox Christianity, but the “mossy face of Christ” he adores is a presence, not a thesis. And he wants us all to share in that presence. Boil away the rich Martin Shaw-ness of it all, and perhaps the residue is just religious truisms; but that approach would be to miss the point. This book is for people who want to take a journey with Martin, whose particular genius is to remind us, with the most charming whimsy, of what may we already know to be true but perhaps have not given due attention.
As I sit in my little study beneath a cheap reproduction of the Panagia Portaitissa, and under the bowed gaze of Charbel Makhlouf, I again ponder the image on the dust jacket of Liturgies of the Wild. I have often prayed in this study for a guiding star, for the peculiar path that will lead me most surely to the Ancient Good. Where are the wise elders in this day, the men and woman whole-formed and clear-sighted? Shaw would not claim any title like staretz or spiritual father for himself, and we too would be unwise to attribute it to him. Give him a decade or two in trail of the Cross. But what he suggests here is the possibility that we can deepen our lives and bring them into contact with Divine Ground by simply accepting our own littleness, by sinking our minds into the great silence of the heart and waiting for illumination. Some things “can’t be said with effect until they’re known, and God has his timing for that. How do we find something we were once gifted by grace? We can’t. We simply can’t. But we can take heart from the fairy tales….” The old stories teach us patterns of spiritual maturation; they give us metaphors to interpret our course into the trackless waters of the future. And there must be few more genial and gifted guides to those stories than Martin Shaw.
If I have a critique, it is that Shaw does not sufficiently consider what his own Orthodox tradition calls prelest, delusion. Much he says, especially in his chapter on evil, resonates with Evagrian psychology and the later tradition, but he dismisses the hesychastic suspicion of dreams and imagination with barely more than a hand-wave. He is clearly aware that “enchantment” can go bad, and as this issue goes to the core of his Romantic project, I wish he had devoted more space to marking spiritual pitfalls. How often are the stories we make of our lives fundamentally false and self-serving? But as the flame lit at his baptism licks over ever more of his life, perhaps he will have more to say on discrimination in future.
For now, there is much to be found in the affirmative path. It is a rich feast indeed to which Shaw beckons us.
The second moment came just a few hours later, as I absorbed word of the sudden, senseless, and violent death of a 15-year-old boy on the periphery of my acquaintance. Rising from my prayers that evening, I thought back, strangely, to this book, and realized that my perspective on it, and what it seeks to accomplish, had already deepened.
“Being made,” “getting grown,” finding the “Ancient Good,” is a matter of life and death. So terrible are the wounds of the world, so divine is the calling of human body and soul—the mysterious dynamic of the heart between these two realities will either destroy you or turn you into what Martin Shaw likes to call a “praise maker.” And we cannot find that path alone.
Original review follows.
* * *
There was once a boy who dwelt with his mother and father in a wide cultivated valley. Sometimes, his mother would take him beyond the green hills to his grandfather’s wilder kingdom by the sea, where he would wander in the mornings through misty forests, picking berries, and in the evenings play chess with his grandfather by the crackling hearth. Yet there was a nameless sadness in this boy, an unspoken fear, one his good parents, who gave him so much and shielded him from all outer darkness, could not understand, any more than the boy could himself. Then hard years came. The boy’s grandfather died, and exile followed: the boy’s father, seeing his livelihood among the fields of black and gold diminish and poverty threaten, sought a more secure fortune in a distant city, and the boy left his childhood home forever. Deep loneliness fell upon him in this new place, where the people were numerous, but all seemed busy in search of money and seats of power, things the boy little understood. Soon he found a book of stories, and his dreams grew bright with unseen lands as fair as those he had left, and almost more real to him than his waking life. But he also found a darkness in these worlds of imagination, a darkness that reflected his childish fear and grew in him silently. Some years later he left all to seek his own fortune, carrying away a small red stone that his mother had pressed into his hand. He studied under men and women wise in the world, and found success and praise in his every endeavor, but his dreams and darkness followed him. Yet in his studies, he also discovered the nature of the red stone from his mother: that it was, in fact, a seed of paradise. And a fresh hope blew into his life, that he might by this seed restore what he had long lost. So he planted it in the land of his exile. Not very well, for the soil was hard, and the boy knew almost nothing about gardening. For a long time, there was no sprout, and the boy spent his days hunched over that little bit of soil, his head often clouded with darkness. What did finally appear seemed a sorry plant indeed, and in it, the boy could see nothing of paradise. But he knew that this was his only hope, so he remained by it. As it grew slowly larger, as its branches began to reach outward, birds began to gather there. Around its stem he built a chapel, and he sang to the birds songs the wind had taught him, which he believed to come from his lost home. And he hoped that one day the tree would grow so tall that he could ascend by it, and leave the vaporous darkness behind, and find among the stars his own true country again.
What is the end of this story? I don’t know yet.
Martin Shaw advises us to tell such stories about ourselves, to take our dreams seriously, to let ourselves be “made” by the right myths. There are some readers who will dive into Liturgies of the Wild expecting an argument or manual of some kind, takeaways conducive to bullet-point format, and will end up frustrated. Shaw is not above a little preaching, but his approach to truth is typically allusive, wandering through personal anecdotes and ancient narratives that bleed freely into one another. His decades of meditation on life and story may have been brought into new focus by his self-startling conversion to Orthodox Christianity, but the “mossy face of Christ” he adores is a presence, not a thesis. And he wants us all to share in that presence. Boil away the rich Martin Shaw-ness of it all, and perhaps the residue is just religious truisms; but that approach would be to miss the point. This book is for people who want to take a journey with Martin, whose particular genius is to remind us, with the most charming whimsy, of what may we already know to be true but perhaps have not given due attention.
As I sit in my little study beneath a cheap reproduction of the Panagia Portaitissa, and under the bowed gaze of Charbel Makhlouf, I again ponder the image on the dust jacket of Liturgies of the Wild. I have often prayed in this study for a guiding star, for the peculiar path that will lead me most surely to the Ancient Good. Where are the wise elders in this day, the men and woman whole-formed and clear-sighted? Shaw would not claim any title like staretz or spiritual father for himself, and we too would be unwise to attribute it to him. Give him a decade or two in trail of the Cross. But what he suggests here is the possibility that we can deepen our lives and bring them into contact with Divine Ground by simply accepting our own littleness, by sinking our minds into the great silence of the heart and waiting for illumination. Some things “can’t be said with effect until they’re known, and God has his timing for that. How do we find something we were once gifted by grace? We can’t. We simply can’t. But we can take heart from the fairy tales….” The old stories teach us patterns of spiritual maturation; they give us metaphors to interpret our course into the trackless waters of the future. And there must be few more genial and gifted guides to those stories than Martin Shaw.
If I have a critique, it is that Shaw does not sufficiently consider what his own Orthodox tradition calls prelest, delusion. Much he says, especially in his chapter on evil, resonates with Evagrian psychology and the later tradition, but he dismisses the hesychastic suspicion of dreams and imagination with barely more than a hand-wave. He is clearly aware that “enchantment” can go bad, and as this issue goes to the core of his Romantic project, I wish he had devoted more space to marking spiritual pitfalls. How often are the stories we make of our lives fundamentally false and self-serving? But as the flame lit at his baptism licks over ever more of his life, perhaps he will have more to say on discrimination in future.
For now, there is much to be found in the affirmative path. It is a rich feast indeed to which Shaw beckons us.
June 2, 2026
If I could give this book 6 stars I would. Every Chapter has an innumerable amount of lines that just causes one to want to sit and be present to them. The last chapter on praise is something really breathtaking. This has been one of the best spiritual books I’ve read in many years. I know I’ll be going back to it regularly and I encourage others to read it.
June 13, 2026
Okay, I see you New York Times - worthy of a bestseller for sure.
Read
May 14, 2026Audiobook read by author. Do not listen to chapter 4 while driving because you will cry and have to merge in traffic while crying. But he is an excellent story teller and otherwise it’s a great listen. 👂
May 23, 2026
"We are being prepared for eternity every time we behold beauty."
It was fun listening to this book narrated by the author. He has a great British accent. Some chapters were so much better than others and I thought the book could be half as long as it was. It was still a great reminder that we are physical and spiritual creatures. The created world is good and is meant to be a reflection of the eternal. The more we remove ourselves from creation, the more removed we become from the Author of Life. Touch grass.
It was fun listening to this book narrated by the author. He has a great British accent. Some chapters were so much better than others and I thought the book could be half as long as it was. It was still a great reminder that we are physical and spiritual creatures. The created world is good and is meant to be a reflection of the eternal. The more we remove ourselves from creation, the more removed we become from the Author of Life. Touch grass.
July 22, 2026
This book made me a deeper person. It stirred something primal and spiritual in my bones. Since I started reading it three weeks ago, I’ve been writing poetry, contemplating uncharted trails of my own story, and ruminating on the myths of my homeland. Sagely wisdom is rare, but it is everywhere present as he discusses initiation, death, passivity, passion, prayer, guilt, etc. When I occasionally disagree with something, it’s always with a nod of respect.
Martin Shaw is a story-teller, a mythologist, and at the height of his powers he’s blessed us with this book: a raw, myth-infused journey to re-orient your life and grow you into a full human being. It is in the wilderness that we discover God, ourselves, and the stories worth telling. And it’s in the recovery of stories—our most “ancient form of technology”—that our culture might begin to heal.
Martin Shaw is a story-teller, a mythologist, and at the height of his powers he’s blessed us with this book: a raw, myth-infused journey to re-orient your life and grow you into a full human being. It is in the wilderness that we discover God, ourselves, and the stories worth telling. And it’s in the recovery of stories—our most “ancient form of technology”—that our culture might begin to heal.
April 25, 2026
I don’t know if I lost the plot of he lost the plot but I don’t think I could tell you the plot. Still some helpful things to think about and some cool stories.
February 27, 2026
I had to eventually bail on this one. What seemed like an interesting concept became a cascade of anecdotal nonsense that ultimately provided no real point or position.
If this is what serves for thoughtful analysis and argumentation these days, I’ll pass.
If this is what serves for thoughtful analysis and argumentation these days, I’ll pass.
February 15, 2026
Audiobook read by author. Highly engrossing, yet dense. I already want to revisit it. May get a hard copy so I can take notes. Vital wisdom for our times.
April 10, 2026
Wonderful!
March 13, 2026
Liturgies of the Wild is a lovely, meditative read. Though I did not feel I was the target audience for this book--it seems to be written for people searching for more meaning and healing in their life--I still very much enjoyed reading Dr. Martin Shaw's latest book. At times his writing is cryptic and a little hard to follow, but at the same time, I recognize that is what makes his message poetic and perfectly mysterious, giving the reader space to reflect. There were several poignant paragraphs I came across and thought, I want more of this. I want a whole chapter or book on this. Near the end, I was most interested in his point that when the Christian church/denominations “abandons its saints and delicious eccentricities" they open the back door to "New Age woo-woo." I agree though I want to hear more from Dr. Shaw on this as I am still a bit turned off by some of Catholicism's devotions to relics, for example, even after converting many years ago. I was brought to tears on a few occasions, while other chapters didn't offer much for me, but definitely would for someone else. It's a very personal read. I also love the way he refers to Jesus as the Galilean Druid and the devil as Old Scratch - that was a freshness I didn't know I needed. Thank you, Dr. Shaw, for your contribution to our story-deprived, right brain-deprived culture, sharing myths that reach in and touch us to our core.
June 4, 2026
I read this book on "dinner breaks" while working the night shift in a public high school. I was installing fire alarm wire in each and every classroom, giving me the chance to observe, read, and ponder all of the different posters, banners, slogans, quotations, and other decorations the educators are using to environmentally supplement their teaching. Some of it was wonderful, some just nuts, some rather scary. Lonely nights rummaging in the bones of an old school, left to study the inscriptions of a foreign culture as if I were some sort of Dr. Jones (minus all the grave robbing).
I say all this to remember the impression Dr. Shaw's book had on me. He is all over the place in his writing to the point where I wondered why they even tried put his sayings into paragraphs. It's like seeing a dog wearing pajamas...he is an oral storyteller, and when you try to dress him up for the page he just doesn't come across the same. Reading him was like wandering the halls of this school, reading random sayings, pondering anime posters, and trying to assemble a common theme in each room that somehow told you what the kids were supposed to be learning there, regardless of what the subject said on the outside of the door. His chapter headings were like that. You step into a class on biology, only to find yourself thinking endlessly about why the dog chases its own tail in all the old stories, never learning new tricks...and is this what's happening to you, as you're connecting dots with red fire alarm wire alone in the middle of the night.
Basically, oddly appealing, but with the sustenance of a strawberry...at least on the lips. It's amazing what the mind can do with a strawberry.
I say all this to remember the impression Dr. Shaw's book had on me. He is all over the place in his writing to the point where I wondered why they even tried put his sayings into paragraphs. It's like seeing a dog wearing pajamas...he is an oral storyteller, and when you try to dress him up for the page he just doesn't come across the same. Reading him was like wandering the halls of this school, reading random sayings, pondering anime posters, and trying to assemble a common theme in each room that somehow told you what the kids were supposed to be learning there, regardless of what the subject said on the outside of the door. His chapter headings were like that. You step into a class on biology, only to find yourself thinking endlessly about why the dog chases its own tail in all the old stories, never learning new tricks...and is this what's happening to you, as you're connecting dots with red fire alarm wire alone in the middle of the night.
Basically, oddly appealing, but with the sustenance of a strawberry...at least on the lips. It's amazing what the mind can do with a strawberry.
April 17, 2026
my goodness, this book has so many positive reviews here.
Take my words with a grain of salt because I couldn't even make it through half the book, but to me there was nothing truly deserving of the label "wild" in these pages. The writing style and content to me seemed more like that of a snake oil salesman than a storyteller.
Take my words with a grain of salt because I couldn't even make it through half the book, but to me there was nothing truly deserving of the label "wild" in these pages. The writing style and content to me seemed more like that of a snake oil salesman than a storyteller.
February 17, 2026
‼️DROP EVERYTHING TO READ ‼️
April 29, 2026
Very nice read. I’m definetly gonna buy some folklore or fairytale collection/anthology.
Read
July 24, 2026I need to sit with this a little longer before I can write a proper review. This is a thoughtful book. It needs to be considered slowly. It reminds me of Jordan Peterson's books, in the way it makes me think. That might be a strange comparison, but my mind makes strange connections. 😊 I listened to the audiobook read by the author. He is a great storyteller. I especially loved his story about dreams.
June 15, 2026
Stories alone are not the answer. The author displays his ignorance in the pages of this book. Stories do not always tell the truth, they can be used to make us believe lies if they are told well enough.
July 8, 2026
Shaw writes as rambly as he speaks. I enjoyed this book, especially the chapters on evil and nature. He gives an experienced and nuanced take on how to respect nature and mystery while remaining skeptical of all that is bound up in the current infatuation with “enchantment”
April 15, 2026
Brilliant. Much needed theology — and mythology(?) — on Christianity that is sorely lacking in the Western church. Where’s our imagination? Where’s our chutzpah?? I needed to read this just as much as anyone else. I want to read some Russian fairy tales now too!! This one is definitely going in the toolbox.
April 15, 2026
I need to read this annually. So deep and rich. I love the way it helped me think of evil and evil people and reframe that trauma. I am grateful for the way the author expresses the value and importance of story and sharing story. The healing in nature, the value of “darn night of the soul” among other things!
June 22, 2026
In its beginning I was a bit confused regarding the point of the book, but I carried on simply because the writing was so beautiful it carried me forward. Now that it's concluded, I want to read it again and again. To be shaped by it. I don't really have the words to tell you about it, other than to recommend that you read it.
July 11, 2026
I wish for everyone I know to read the first half of this book.
February 28, 2026
This is a very interesting book. It is a story about stories. By that, I mean that the author tells us why stories are important and why it is important for us to have a story about why we are the way we are. What was interesting was that I can't say that I knew all of the stories that he retells, but they felt familiar at the same time. I suppose that proves his point somewhat. We are in a world that is in need of stories, and we are people that love stories. It is a little bit more mystical than what I usually read, but it is definitely worth a read.
June 1, 2026
I didn’t expect Liturgies of the Wild to feel so personal—but it did.
This isn’t a book you read for answers. It’s a book that unsettles you in the best way, quietly asking what it means to belong; to the land, to story, and to yourself.
If Braiding Sweetgrass felt like being gently taught how to listen, this felt like being led into the woods and told to remember.
Martin Shaw writes in myth, not instruction. The stories don’t explain themselves, they work on you. And if you let them, they begin to feel less like fiction and more like something you’ve always known but forgotten.
What struck me most was the idea that we’ve lost our rituals. Our ways of marking grief, change, becoming. In their absence, we drift. This book doesn’t offer a neat solution, but it does offer something rarer: a language for the ache.
It reminded me why stories matter. Why the characters we love feel real. Why the wild, both in the world and in ourselves, can’t be ignored forever.
This isn’t an easy read, but it’s a meaningful one. The kind you sit with. The kind that lingers.
This isn’t a book you read for answers. It’s a book that unsettles you in the best way, quietly asking what it means to belong; to the land, to story, and to yourself.
If Braiding Sweetgrass felt like being gently taught how to listen, this felt like being led into the woods and told to remember.
Martin Shaw writes in myth, not instruction. The stories don’t explain themselves, they work on you. And if you let them, they begin to feel less like fiction and more like something you’ve always known but forgotten.
What struck me most was the idea that we’ve lost our rituals. Our ways of marking grief, change, becoming. In their absence, we drift. This book doesn’t offer a neat solution, but it does offer something rarer: a language for the ache.
It reminded me why stories matter. Why the characters we love feel real. Why the wild, both in the world and in ourselves, can’t be ignored forever.
This isn’t an easy read, but it’s a meaningful one. The kind you sit with. The kind that lingers.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC.
Unfortunately, this book is not at all what I expected from the description. There are some strong sections and I enjoyed On Death and On Passivity. However, it became increasingly meandering/hard to stay with as it progressed, and increasingly focussed on Christianity and Christian interpretation. A religious lens on storytelling and mythology is obviously fine but not something that I would have picked up if it were made clear from the outset. I struggled to finish this book but hope it finds its audience as the writing is good and there is wisdom in there waiting to be pulled out by the right reader.
Unfortunately, this book is not at all what I expected from the description. There are some strong sections and I enjoyed On Death and On Passivity. However, it became increasingly meandering/hard to stay with as it progressed, and increasingly focussed on Christianity and Christian interpretation. A religious lens on storytelling and mythology is obviously fine but not something that I would have picked up if it were made clear from the outset. I struggled to finish this book but hope it finds its audience as the writing is good and there is wisdom in there waiting to be pulled out by the right reader.
April 22, 2026
This book did inspire me in ways I did not expect, and though I enjoyed the writing style and much of the content (although calling Christ a “Druid” got a little shaky after the first mention), it was quite swirling and slightly repetitive.
Would still recommend tho
Would still recommend tho
June 28, 2026
I loved this book! It was strange yet inspiring. It was spiritual but grounded. I am a huge fan of this narrative based outlook on life. Learning more about myth specifically added a new layer of understanding and wonder to the story of humanity and ultimately Christ. This is the type of book a non believer could enjoy and gain deep insight from. Though Shaw ties all things to Christ, he leaves the ultimate decision to the reader. Shaw is not a Roman Catholic, but his Eastern Orthodox faith lends itself to the Catholic imagination, and his myths appeal to all of humanity.
One of the things that surprised me most about the book was how familiar some of the myths were to me. I'm not sure where or how I knew them but it was fascinating to find out that odd little story from my youth was connected to some ancient native tribe I had never heard of. This was especially joyful for me to meditate on this week as I was experiencing summer camp again after a decade. Myth , stories that claim our community or our country, they bind us together. They give us something to help us understand life, to impart the virtues in us. It was exciting to think about the little 'myths' we created at camp and how those imaginations can shape our campers.
Shaw says "Mythic awareness moves us from seeing to beholding life" how wonderful! He goes on to say that "It is always a mistake to tell a myth exactly what it is ...we are left with an allegory not mystery". Wow. I felt convicted by that line especially. We in the West can tend to overanalyze our faith but the Christian story is ultimate one of mystery. There is so much concrete data we can gain from it and discern from it...and doing such theological work is joyful, but at the end of the day it goes so much further than we could possibly comprehend and I think fostering that sense of wonder in our own souls is imperative.
I loved too the chapter on death. He explains how we have done death a disservice in the modern age by ushering it out of sight. He argues that we need to sit with dead bodies and be present to the reality that we will all someday die.
And the chapter on prayer?! Beautiful. "A prayer should be a spell, magic in the most redemptive sense should be present. Not magic as a bending of existence to your will but magic as a capacity and a wonder and a trust in a God who can do all".
He explains that all these myths have three movements: severance, threshold, and return. It is the story of all our lives, the story of life, and each myth can help us understand ourselves a little better. While examining prayer he talks about how these stories can help us face the harshness of what we really say and do. I loved the imagery of this line .."Think of the courage of 'thy will be done' when you're crucified in the underworld of your terror, that's ghastly". And so it is precisely in story, in Christ, in myth, we learn to surrender those fears, to enter the ghastly dungeon of our sin and fear to slay our dragons!
Here are some more quotes I loved ...enjoy reflecting on them. And brace yourself for this book. Again...it is a bit odd but ultimately very insightful.
-----"Stories are the most delightful vehicles for the brightening of consciousness"
-----"Dreams are shifting inner mythologies prompting and provoking us under the cloak of sleep. When we give them space and attention unusual things can happen."
-----"Christianity is a dream in which the very best of us is encouraged to emerge. A dream that challenges and inspires. A dream in which God speaks directly to us."
-----"We are being prepared for eternity every time we behold beauty. You can't crucify beauty without steadily walking into hell "
One of the things that surprised me most about the book was how familiar some of the myths were to me. I'm not sure where or how I knew them but it was fascinating to find out that odd little story from my youth was connected to some ancient native tribe I had never heard of. This was especially joyful for me to meditate on this week as I was experiencing summer camp again after a decade. Myth , stories that claim our community or our country, they bind us together. They give us something to help us understand life, to impart the virtues in us. It was exciting to think about the little 'myths' we created at camp and how those imaginations can shape our campers.
Shaw says "Mythic awareness moves us from seeing to beholding life" how wonderful! He goes on to say that "It is always a mistake to tell a myth exactly what it is ...we are left with an allegory not mystery". Wow. I felt convicted by that line especially. We in the West can tend to overanalyze our faith but the Christian story is ultimate one of mystery. There is so much concrete data we can gain from it and discern from it...and doing such theological work is joyful, but at the end of the day it goes so much further than we could possibly comprehend and I think fostering that sense of wonder in our own souls is imperative.
I loved too the chapter on death. He explains how we have done death a disservice in the modern age by ushering it out of sight. He argues that we need to sit with dead bodies and be present to the reality that we will all someday die.
And the chapter on prayer?! Beautiful. "A prayer should be a spell, magic in the most redemptive sense should be present. Not magic as a bending of existence to your will but magic as a capacity and a wonder and a trust in a God who can do all".
He explains that all these myths have three movements: severance, threshold, and return. It is the story of all our lives, the story of life, and each myth can help us understand ourselves a little better. While examining prayer he talks about how these stories can help us face the harshness of what we really say and do. I loved the imagery of this line .."Think of the courage of 'thy will be done' when you're crucified in the underworld of your terror, that's ghastly". And so it is precisely in story, in Christ, in myth, we learn to surrender those fears, to enter the ghastly dungeon of our sin and fear to slay our dragons!
Here are some more quotes I loved ...enjoy reflecting on them. And brace yourself for this book. Again...it is a bit odd but ultimately very insightful.
-----"Stories are the most delightful vehicles for the brightening of consciousness"
-----"Dreams are shifting inner mythologies prompting and provoking us under the cloak of sleep. When we give them space and attention unusual things can happen."
-----"Christianity is a dream in which the very best of us is encouraged to emerge. A dream that challenges and inspires. A dream in which God speaks directly to us."
-----"We are being prepared for eternity every time we behold beauty. You can't crucify beauty without steadily walking into hell "
July 15, 2026
This is a review of the book and what made me read it. I loved the book but it is not for everyone.
Liturgies of the Wild: Myths That Make Us
by Martin Shaw
Kenneth McIntosh's review July 1, 2026 ·
"I want to talk to the mud in us, and use holy breath to do so" says 21st century bard Martin Shaw, and he leads us on a deepening, vivifying odyssey, story by story, clod by clod of earthy detail. He tells of his spiritual journey, beginning with a Lakota Medicine Man, continuing to 101 days of telling stories to Dartmoor forest, leading to encounter with "The Galilee Druid," and embracing "a Christianity as huge as the forest, as magnificent as the stars that swirled overhead, as Endless as the River Dart I heard rushing past." He creates a hunger in the reader for stories that will deepen us, make us human, and lead us home. Then, story by story, he guides us to re-see the great themes of life, showing not prescribing each step of the hero's journey. He speaks candidly of passion ("endless rutting is not sexy"). Prayer ("wafted aloft by holy ancestors...Brendan...Brigid...St Kevin a bird nesting in his palm"). Guilt (go to a wood...dig a hole deep enough to rest your mush (face) in...say the thing that cannot be said"). Dreams (As in other chapters, the story he tells--John of the Dreams--says it better than trying to explain). The unpleasant matter of evil ("Job's house--maybe like ours, maybe like much of Christianity--has been blown over; it's wolf-wisdom or nothing at this stage.") And in the very end of the book he summons us (this is not a terrible spoiler) "Rumors tell of a Wild Mountain. To be of service to the Ancient Good. Don't let a chance like this go by." And I hope that you won't let the chance to be shaped by this magical book pass by. Readers interested in mythology, Celtic Spirituality, free-range Christianity, fairy tales, transformation, The Hero's Journey, or gritty reality merged with hopeful imagination will want to sit and hear every word as Shaw weaves his tales.
Liturgies of the Wild: Myths That Make Us
by Martin Shaw
Kenneth McIntosh's review July 1, 2026 ·
"I want to talk to the mud in us, and use holy breath to do so" says 21st century bard Martin Shaw, and he leads us on a deepening, vivifying odyssey, story by story, clod by clod of earthy detail. He tells of his spiritual journey, beginning with a Lakota Medicine Man, continuing to 101 days of telling stories to Dartmoor forest, leading to encounter with "The Galilee Druid," and embracing "a Christianity as huge as the forest, as magnificent as the stars that swirled overhead, as Endless as the River Dart I heard rushing past." He creates a hunger in the reader for stories that will deepen us, make us human, and lead us home. Then, story by story, he guides us to re-see the great themes of life, showing not prescribing each step of the hero's journey. He speaks candidly of passion ("endless rutting is not sexy"). Prayer ("wafted aloft by holy ancestors...Brendan...Brigid...St Kevin a bird nesting in his palm"). Guilt (go to a wood...dig a hole deep enough to rest your mush (face) in...say the thing that cannot be said"). Dreams (As in other chapters, the story he tells--John of the Dreams--says it better than trying to explain). The unpleasant matter of evil ("Job's house--maybe like ours, maybe like much of Christianity--has been blown over; it's wolf-wisdom or nothing at this stage.") And in the very end of the book he summons us (this is not a terrible spoiler) "Rumors tell of a Wild Mountain. To be of service to the Ancient Good. Don't let a chance like this go by." And I hope that you won't let the chance to be shaped by this magical book pass by. Readers interested in mythology, Celtic Spirituality, free-range Christianity, fairy tales, transformation, The Hero's Journey, or gritty reality merged with hopeful imagination will want to sit and hear every word as Shaw weaves his tales.
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