How to weave the hidden web of your ancestors, epigenetics & stories (transcript)

Please note: We are a small team and not able to check through the transcript our software provides. So you may find some words are out of place and a few sentences don’t make complete sense. If you do see something utterly ridiculous we’d love you to let us know so we can correct it. Please email any howlers with the time stamp to team@bemythical.com.

Full show notes here.

Episode Transcript:

Lian (00:00)

Hello my beautiful mythical old souls and a huge warm welcome back.

Could your ancestors be closer than you think and could their stories hold the key to both your struggles and also your healing? In this week's episode, I'm joined once again by the wonderful Caitlín Matthews.

Caitlín is an internationally renowned author, a teacher of shamanic training programs, a facilitator of systemic ritual and the co-founder of the Foundation for Inspirational and Irracular Studies. Together we journey into the systemic context of shamanism, exploring the hidden web of our ancestors, epigenetics and the stories we each carry.

We reveal how our personal narratives are deeply intertwined with ancestral legacies, shaping who we become in powerful and often in visible ways. We talk about how personal experiences can activate ancestral stories within us through family histories, cultural rituals, or even moments of theatre or storytelling, and why recognising these connections is essential for genuine healing.

Throughout our conversation, we explore the metaphor of the spider's web as introduced by Caitlín, inviting you to reconnect with the hidden threads in your own life recognising your place within this web of ancestral and collective stories, exploring how you might weave new paths of healing, transformation and understanding.

And before we jump into all of that good stuff, I am delighted to let you know I have finally, after weeks and weeks and weeks of promising, opened the doors to my brand new Crucible for Women called Beauty Potion. It's the alchemical antidote to the beauty wound. So if you're called to awaken your own mythic beauty, come join me. All the information and how you can join us is at the link, bemythical.com slash beauty. And if you're struggling to walk your soul path in this crazy modern world and would benefit from support, guidance and kinship, come join our Academy of the Soul, you know.

You can find out more and join us at bemythical.com slash unio or click the link in the description. And now back to this week's episode. Let's dive in.

Lian (02:22)

Hello Caitlin, a huge warm welcome back to the show.

Caitlin Matthews (02:26)

Thank you, Lian. It's lovely to be back. I'm sure that we're going to have a very interesting time today.

Lian (02:32)

my goodness, it's a, as you were just saying, each time we've spoken, we've ended up going in all kinds of weird and wonderful places. And my sense is perhaps with this one more than before, but let's see.

Caitlin Matthews (02:44)

Yeah, there's quite a lot of scope for that today.

Lian (02:49)

Yes. So let's begin right there. So we're talking about the systemic context of shamanism. I don't know if that's exactly how you would have named what we're talking about. I think that's kind of roughly what we're talking. Yeah.

Caitlin Matthews (03:01)

It's kind of like the

field we're operating in, isn't it? So

Lian (03:06)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (03:07)

suppose that most people are used to coming to see any kind of practitioner, whether it's a doctor or a shaman, as an individual. And the whole of our society is predicated on things being for the individual, because we're all individuated now, aren't we? Post Jung.

And often people are bringing things that obviously are stuff that is going on with them. However, the context of what's going on is a much wider one because every time someone walks into any kind of consulting room, they bring in their family, they bring in their workplace, they bring in their belief system, they believe in that they bring in their ancestry, all those different contexts. So a person is not just...

Lian (03:39)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (03:57)

a one person by themselves completely, discreetly in a little box. They're actually connected like a spider's web is connected. I mean, in fact, I suppose that's quite a good analogy that the spider, well, at least spiders in our country, in Britain weave their webs by first of all putting in the long threads that connect places where the web's going to be strong. And then they do the windy, windy, windy part, yes?

Lian (04:07)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (04:27)

I know that different spiders in different countries have different webs, but all our lives are like that. We're all connected to different things. So, as you know, a web is completely connected by its long threads. And if you walk through one of those long threads, it all kind of goes, hmm. And so do our lives. So if something happens in your family, there's a displacement in your family, somebody dies, or there's a terrible...

row or something then obviously it's going to have effect on the whole of your web and if there's something wrong at your workplace and they're laying people off and there's uncertainty and fear then that's going to have an effect on it. And then I suppose you know going more globally that if world events are going on those are also changing and you know wobbling your web so that there's

fear and uncertainty again. So I think when a shaman is doing healing work, they're not just seeing an individual, they're actually treating the family, they're treating the ancestors, they're taking into account all those other things.

Lian (05:45)

Gosh, that metaphor of the web is so powerful. And I was visualising, as you're saying, someone coming to a doctor and looking like they're one person. But actually, if you have the sight to see it, they're bringing in this whole host of people with them. And I don't want to take this out. I'm sure, knowing us, we will kind of dip into these places. But without wanting to take it out too far,

Caitlin Matthews (06:10)

Thank you.

Lian (06:14)

Are you at this point mainly focusing on their human family? Because obviously context can mean all sorts of things. You you mentioned, for example, what could be going on in the political climate that's around them. It could be currently, I'm studying with an indigenous Mongolian shaman and

realising from that

that point of view, how important the spirits of the land are in a way that can really affect us, you know, talking about nature spirits, naga's and how that can be a really, in our Western view, a really misunderstood part of that context. But I think, although I'm not saying you're dismissing all of that, I think you're saying for the moment, let's focus on the family context.

Caitlin Matthews (07:04)

Absolutely.

I mean, obviously, for example, at the moment, we've just had this mid North Sea collision with an oil spillage, which is obviously going to have a profound effect upon the ocean immediately upon all those living in the ocean and all those living either side of the North Sea, because they'll be dealing with the fallout of all of that.

So, and that's a man-made disaster in the environment, but it will nevertheless feature very largely in the life of people who are dealing with that, and how that

Lian (07:43)

Hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (07:46)

I think, you know, whatever a client comes in with, we have to have the context. We can't just deal with them as an individual who has a few symptoms.

Lian (07:59)

Hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (08:00)

We also have to take into account that larger picture. And when people present, they will present their symptoms, but they won't necessarily present the context. And so those are the things we always have to ask about, aren't they? They're always the... So are you currently in a relationship or how many children do you have? The usual kinds of questions that we will ask, but also...

Lian (08:17)

Hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (08:29)

I suppose the main thing, there's been some unusual change in someone, obviously if they're seeing a shaman anyway, that they're not coming for a cut finger and they're not coming for a bit of a psychological appreciation, they're looking for something much deeper because there's something mysterious going on. And so we always have to ask the questions concerning the epicenter of that occurrence, if it's known.

because very often it isn't known.

often people will present if the thing is very mysterious and they feel, they're beginning to feel got up. So we're at that exact same edge where people begin to go into that, maybe something really weird is happening, you know, in that. And then the next step beyond that is superstition because

Lian (09:24)

Hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (09:25)

It's actually the same superstition that you would find in the 17th century, which is, my car's not well. Hang on, what's different? Oh, I know, I spoke to my neighbour last week, and suddenly there's a whole kind of new story beginning to go on, and a witch, a witch, and, you know, and nastily.

Lian (09:36)

Yeah.

Caitlin Matthews (09:44)

But people go very quickly to that point. They often come and they will say, I think I'm under a curse, will be quite standard.

Lian (09:46)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (09:54)

this would be very very rational people who these words are reluctantly being dragged out of them or you know I think someone's doing some magic on me and so of course one usually to follow that up you know you have to ask well if you think magic's being done on you in what way if you have any sense of the you know of that happening have you been hanging out with a coven, know, have you offended someone deeply? What has been going on? And they usually can't tell you. So then it's the sort of the what's behind that. So we need to look into lots of different areas to be able to establish what that is because the mysteriousness of it may be that it's something that's happened recently. I mean, I can give an

Lian (10:28)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (10:48)

I mean, you know, one's culture and background is also very important in this, have to say. And so I remember seeing

Lian (10:54)

Hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (10:57)

a young student who was training to be a doctor. And with him, there really was some magic going on because, you know, he would come over to this country from overseas and he was

fulfilling a very good and interesting career and then suddenly he couldn't walk more than a mile anywhere. Soon as he walked a mile of somewhere, he would stop breathing completely. So it was almost like he was on a long rope and so he would walk. So my next question was, okay, you know, tell me more about your family. So he did.

Lian (11:22)

Gosh.

Whoa, and it was like precisely a mile.

Caitlin Matthews (11:43)

and he'd come over and was staying in the house of a distant cousin. this particular culture, he was from Pakistan,

I knew that there might be possible problems, so I was sort of asking, so tell me, how is it living at your cousin's house? And it was like he didn't have a room of his own, it was immediately clear.

He was allowed to work in a little back room, was kind of what we would call the scullery, know, the bit off the kitchen where you wash the clothes and do the dishes. And he slept on the settee, which did seem like a really good idea. And I said, have you noticed any strange or different things happening at home? And he said, yes, when I go to put my shoes on in the morning, there were little pieces of paper with writing on them in my shoes. So I said...

Okay, I think we know what's going on. They put an earth gin on him basically, so you know, so immediately, you know, these weird, this weird symptom of not being able to go anywhere was at least we've kind of thought. But it was jealousy, just family jealousy, which was in that case, know, which was precisely what everyone thinks when they're under a curse, is really what's going on.

Lian (12:43)

my gosh!

you

But as you say, that's probably the rarity that someone genuinely is under a curse.

Caitlin Matthews (13:13)

I mean, I don't see this in this country, you know, yes, there is a lot of ill wishing and nastiness, but that usually arises in a professional and family context. And people aren't sticking pins into anything. They just hold malice for someone and that, you know, play out in many ways. But generally speaking, when people come about, kind of things that are mysterious, I'm sure someone's doing this to me

Lian (13:26)

Hmm.

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (13:39)

or I'm sure I'm being cursed. When you explore how do you think you're being cursed, we then begin to hear that other members of the family, either in the extended family or going back further in time into the generations, have suffered something similar. And so then you really need to be looking at what's ancestral causation. And the ancestral causation can be all sorts of things. can be

Lian (13:56)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (14:07)

terrible.

unfortunate things that have happened to people who have come into this country, you know, via migration, whether forced or economic migration, and coming here to be in this country to be safe. And now they are physically safe, but the sort of the anxiety and fear that was in the family is still going on. And so

Lian (14:33)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (14:36)

The picture begins to build and so you begin to know which areas you need to go to in order to look at where those long threads of the spider web are broken or have been walked through.

Lian (14:47)

Yes.

Caitlin Matthews (14:49)

So I think those are sort of some of the things that we see in this case. But for someone themselves, they do not see that certain things would be incredibly important to know. So if we go through a whole case history with someone and then I say, is there anything else you think that I should take into account here? And then.

Lian (15:03)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (15:13)

That's that sort of that hand on the door when the person turns towards the doctor and says the real question that they've come to ask. And usually you go, oh, well, I was one of twins. think, oh, that was the thing. That was the thing. know, one twin is dead now, you know, so of course there are problems that need be sorted out.

Lian (15:21)

hahahahah

You

That's so familiar.

Yes.

Caitlin Matthews (15:41)

those sorts of things. And so you give everyone every possible opportunity, but they didn't think that that would be an important piece of information.

Lian (15:50)

There's so much here that's arising. So firstly, I was pondering how in ancient times, when we lived much more in communities with real connections to each other, to the land, these things would be known, not just known factually, not just known in terms of what happened to our grandmother, for example.

But the meaning of that would also be known, would be sort of saturated within that way of living. And of course we've completely come away from that way of living, that understanding of what happened to our family, our ancestors, and as you say, and the meaning of it. And I was thinking, it's interesting how science is beginning to catch up with, for example, the study of epigenetics, where it's like, huh.

Caitlin Matthews (16:26)

So.

Thanks.

Yes.

Lian (16:48)

Maybe it does affect us, but it still feels as though there's a lot to still kind of come into focus where we truly understand what that means and also how it affects us and how we can work with it. There's so, because I think sometimes we might, like in the example of the, you if we've lost a twin in childhood, for example, we might know factually that that's happened.

Caitlin Matthews (16:56)

Well, thanks,

Yes.

Yes.

Lian (17:14)

but with no understanding that it would had any impact. I just was recalling something personally that in the first year or so of my shamanic training, we were doing some ancestral work and it suddenly dawned on me where my great, I think it's my great-great-grandfather was awarded an MBE.

And I always knew, well, I don't think I always knew that, but at some point I'd known that for a long time that had happened. And I had this realization in a ceremony of how almost like the weight of that had kind of like impacted the subsequent male descendants with this almost like burden of I need to live up to that. And then the effect that had had on each generation of man since then. it's just not been something in my awareness. It was just.

Caitlin Matthews (18:06)

Yes.

No, not really.

Lian (18:11)

wasn't in my way, so suddenly it

was just so obvious and I'd like I'd never seen that before and it now makes so much sense.

Caitlin Matthews (18:17)

And

having a hero in the family feels like it might be a very wonderful thing, it's an honor to your family, but for other family members it's not often seen as that because it is a burden and there's been several cases where that's been going on and people have felt really no I can't live up to it, can't do it.

Lian (18:29)

Mmm.

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (18:38)

And so they really, were sort of conscious

Lian (18:38)

So I won't even try. You know, some generations are just like, just be a

Caitlin Matthews (18:43)

And also the way that the love in the family is redistributed. Of course, you know my son is here, and all the other children stand around going, we're not really here, are we? It's all very difficult. But you mentioned epigenetics, and I think that this is something that a lot of people are not perhaps very familiar with.

Lian (18:48)

Mmm.

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (19:09)

We understand that our genetics gives us our colour of our eyes and hair and all the rest of it. The epigenetics, the part of our, you know, the behaviour of our ancestry and how people have done or responded to things is also equally important. the epigenetic factors, when they replay, are really significant.

and I was just thinking about this earlier on and thinking you I've seen lots of very ordinary replays of things when a whole set of circumstances have come around again which have caused everything to reignite and it's almost like the dips which is in the ordinary DNA turn off or on depending on you know what has happened.

Lian (19:58)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (20:04)

And then strange behaviors begin to happen and ordinances which are quite alarming sometimes, and memories. And I find it very interesting that not only when those things happen again, like at work someone says a particular thing, after you've had a terrible circumstance and suddenly you're in the same situation that some ancestor was in a few generations back.

Lian (20:17)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (20:34)

But also I've had two cases where going to the theatre has been the trigger, where obviously a story is being presented on the stage either in a dramatised or musical context and both clients in this instance were sitting in the audience feeling, how wonderful, I'm in the theatre, isn't this great, my, and it's so and so, playing whoever. And suddenly they felt this kind of sense of dread.

or a sense of being almost like shafted by something that's kind of come into them because the story is actually enacting an epigenetic instance of something. I had one recently. In that case, it was a memory of abuse that had arisen as a result of being in quite a nice, friendly, ordinary kind of show, but there it was dramatically being represented again.

Lian (21:34)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (21:34)

Whole wave of stuff came out and in another instance someone was at a musical and I can talk about this instance more particularly because the client has now died but she'd gone to the theatre with someone who was not her husband who kept saying to her, I will marry you but I've got to get rid of the wife I have and I've got to make arrangements for my family etc.

there she was and I think it was some kind of, it was either musical or a play edition of Pretty Woman. So it's where there were some unclear relationship situations and she was really enjoying it and then suddenly the whole, her situation, there it was on stage and then...

Lian (22:17)

Mm.

Caitlin Matthews (22:32)

all sorts of things began to come up and she wanted to commit suicide from that moment on. And when we unpicked that and looked at it, it was that in the previous generation that someone had been in exactly that position of not being able to be properly married or living in a situation where the relationship was unclear.

Lian (22:38)

Goodness.

Mmm. Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (23:02)

and it had turned

into a whole history of suicide which was very very different and suddenly that was all suddenly on the plate as they say in France so it was a very difficult situation and she went from being a perfectly ordinary and you know quite cheerful person to someone who wanted to commit suicide and she had to be institutionalised and I'd seen her as she just came out from that.

So the situation was pretty hopeless. Everyone had really sort of given up on her and said that she could go home and they'd just have to take care. was the care in the community period. We can't look after all these people. It was really really hard situation. So I think we have those sorts of things are really quite hard and very mysterious to people.

Lian (23:48)

bless hell. It's really

Hmm. There is something about even knowing these things are happening beyond what we typically think is rational, but they are still true. There is something that I think we've really lost the understanding of culturally that, you know, what we're talking about here is so helpful to recognise. Like things don't have to be,

what we understand rationally and logically, they may not, and yet they can have these profound effects on us.

Caitlin Matthews (24:30)

It may not

It may not be our stuff. because we're such individualists, just kind of think, one, are my family's nothing to do with me? Of course it is. But I think the collective, you know, the systemic collective understanding is really important. And it's only quite recently that people have begun to look at what used to be called hysterical illness.

Lian (24:33)

Mmm.

Yes.

Caitlin Matthews (24:59)

you know, things that happen, you know, to individuals and sometimes to collectives of people. But now they're now being seen as functional neurological disorders, which is different. So that means this stuff is going on, actual symptoms are being experienced, our behavior is going on and nobody can understand it. And this is having effect on the whole organism, which is of course our Western.

Lian (24:59)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (25:28)

medicine regards this but of course from a collector or shamanic point of view we can see something completely different and I suppose that in for example Italian culture, southern Italian culture that the you know the the whole tyrantism where where women just have a complete breakdown and a sort of semi-collapse and then

the only way that they can be brought back into society again is for musicians to come and play the Tarantella rhythms or the dances of purification, which are extraordinary. And a violinist or some other percussionist or someone will come to the bedside of that person, play those rhythms, which are very interesting. They're either the Tarantella rhythms, the da da da da da da.

kind of rhythm but also that sort of that long 6-8 rhythm which is it gets you up and gets you moving and of course then the women dance and they dance out what is in them and very often seem to dance like a spider which was was how they called that but but that was so you those those things were happening in a culture which was very restrictive to women

Lian (26:31)

Mmm.

He he.

Caitlin Matthews (26:54)

But everyone nevertheless understood that this would happen and these were the things you did. There were rituals and containers for that. It would help bring healing.

Lian (27:05)

Mmm.

Yes, I love that so much. There was something about your story. Well, there's your story about stories, actually, the way that we can witness a story being told on the screen or a theatre and it can activate an ancestral story within us. And I was thinking again about how that's also something that we've...

lost and I think us was starting to reclaim a connection to again in in traditional cultures. So much of our understanding of the context is held in the stories. And, you know, we we share this, we share these collective stories, these myths, these folk tales that are passed down, that tell us these things, we know these things. And I was just as you were saying that I was like, my gosh, it's

Caitlin Matthews (27:46)

Yes.

it's kind of...

Lian (28:03)

I see that all the time in the work that I do with people where we can suddenly recognise ourselves in a myth, in a story. And that could be, as you say, actually in a film or a book. But there's something in that that I feel is part of what this kind of missed our current misunderstanding of context that relates to story. So I'd love to love to know if there's anything that activates in you.

Caitlin Matthews (28:10)

Yeah.

We've been talking about the traumatic end of this, but actually the other end of that is the one is the story that saves us, the story that puts us back into context and the retelling of that. of course this is all based upon the retelling of the story, the representation of the story.

Lian (28:44)

I love just to say, I love a happy ending, Caitlin, so I'm glad that we've gone here.

Mm.

Caitlin Matthews (28:56)

ritual context or in a liturgical context and I suppose you know most people who are watching would understand you know that if you go to any kind of high church around you know Easter week then you have the chance to do exactly that because and I'm you know I'm not going to apologise for using this as an example because I think it's one everyone could understand which is that you know Good Friday is a representation you know.

The Maundy Thursday is a representation of the Last Supper. Good Friday is a representation of the crucifixion. And everyone undergoes that. It's told, the church, all the songs are sung, the statues are covered. It's, you know, people come to the cross on their knees if they're in a Catholic church and they kiss the cross. And then the tabernacle where the host is kept is left open on that day. So the tomb is empty.

Lian (29:35)

Hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (29:55)

and then on Easter Sunday you all go for the Midnight Mass and it's like, is risen, vos esternou vos klesio, you know, as they say. so it's an extraordinary experience that everyone undergoes that story and is part of that story and it's it's this massive identification, you know, with that sort of high point of the Christian story.

These are what the ancient mysteries did. We went and suffered with Persephone. We went into the underworld with her. And in the greater mysteries we came out again.

And it was believed that people who had done that would not suffer punishment after death because they had undergone the purifications of Persephone.

these great, great stories. And of course, in a tribal context, there are similar great deeds, great myths, great stories. But a myth is something that is entirely true. And I hate it that our language, you know, made it now. And we talk about, you know, the myth of aspirin or the myth of, you know, something else as if it were an untruth rather than the truth.

Lian (30:56)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yes, to me it's the opposite. Yes, it's the deepest

Caitlin Matthews (31:11)

The whole thing about myth is

Lian (31:11)

truth.

Caitlin Matthews (31:13)

what, know, Celestius, was the, he was the emmanuensis of the Emperor Julian, who tried to reintroduce paganism into the Roman Empire. And he wrote a wonderful book called Concerning the Gods, and he said that a myth is something that has never happened and is always happening. Meaning this is a story that is in a form that can be understood and remembered by even the most boneheaded of us.

Lian (31:31)

Mmm.

Hehehehehe

Caitlin Matthews (31:41)

because you're not going to be forgotten. Working

with the British mysteries, of course, you see that all the time. You can squawk at anyone in this country and say, tell us about King Arthur and they'll know several things. I'll know he had a round table, they'll know that there was a man in there at some point and that there was a grail. And if you say the grail, you mean the Holy Grail. So people may not know the stories and could not tell you them in great detail, but they know an awful lot.

Lian (31:48)

Hmm.

Hmm.

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (32:09)

So the national myths that we have are also there and of course they are both our saving and of course they can be our curse. I don't know if you saw, there was a program just before the Balkan War when there was a program which was looking at Radelan Karadzic and there he was, he was going up to a mountainside with some chums and they built a fire.

Lian (32:20)

Hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (32:39)

and they started singing songs. And I knew what I was looking at. I could see what was happening there. And I called John in from the kitchen and said, you have to look at this. I said, this is really scary because what these guys are doing is they're reenacting the white eagle of Serbia. doing the whole, we were injured by Muslims, now let's arm ourselves to do it. And it was just like the Nuremberg rally.

Lian (33:08)

my goodness, I got full body chills hearing that, yeah.

Caitlin Matthews (33:09)

It was really scary,

but they were going into that atavistic end of the ancestral story to bring it out again to say, will have all of this, we will conquer. And of course we know what happened after that, which was unspeakable. When people are fuelled by their story in that way, we're seeing very similar things now happening in different parts of the world.

Lian (33:18)

Hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (33:38)

plugged into that ancestral story, which is a vengeance and let's do the other side down as badly as we can, whatever. That's a whole other end of the story and a whole distressing scenario about to carry on. yeah, the story can save us and it can take us into these very dark places too. So we need to always understand.

Lian (34:04)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (34:07)

where we're responding from. Are we responding as ourselves or are we responding as a people? I mean, I would defy anyone. I mean, if you go to a football match, you know, you're rooting for one side or the other. If you don't care a bit about anyone's game, you know, or know anything about football, you become involved. And I think, you know, we are humans, so all of those things are possible all at the same time.

Lian (34:28)

Hmm.

Yes, gosh. As ever, I really love the examples you bring that really help to illuminate and make, you know, there's one thing being able to talk about these things in a way that is, you know, almost like the metaphysics or the first principles of things. But I think these are, you know, I guess the power of story in itself, the way that you bring this alive with examples.

Caitlin Matthews (34:58)

It's acting up all

the time, isn't it? It's not separate from us. We're always part of it. I've been working with the group over the last 14 or 15 years, which is dedicated to looking at the spirits of institutions. It's such an interesting study, and it's the most difficult one because we're also part of institutions. If we want to look at the post office.

Lian (35:05)

Hmm.

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (35:27)

We are also people who write letters and send and receive mail. If we want to talk about the NHS, we are also patients of the NHS. Being able to look at things systemically and whether they're doing their job or whether they're not doing their job, you have to have bit of perspective. suppose that, shamanically speaking, when we do exactly the same thing, we're looking at

Lian (35:39)

Mm-hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (35:56)

situations which could be national, familial, to do with the workplace, to do with all sorts of things. And we are ourselves also parts of networks and systems and so on. So having shamanic neutrality to be able to look at it was, you know, as I suppose really the not to be affected by what is going on with someone that you're treating.

Lian (36:25)

Hmm.

Caitlin Matthews (36:25)

being

able to call upon the spiritual help which sees the other side of these things.

that's an important factor in that, which doesn't mean we don't care. Of course we want all the goodness that someone can receive from the world, but it's not we who are bringing it. We're wranglers as shamans. We're the wranglers. We're not the healer. we wrangle the healing.

Lian (36:38)

Hmm.

Mm.

Caitlin Matthews (37:00)

we go and get the horses.

but we do that according to what, you know, the spirits are showing us for the good of somebody.

Lian (37:11)

Hmm. So knowing, knowing all of what we've just spoken about, unbelievably, we're, already coming up on time. so of course, you know, amongst, people listening to this, there's going to be people who are in some way, shamanic practitioners, and there's going to be lots who aren't, but I do feel this conversation is relevant to anyone, everyone, all of us.

Caitlin Matthews (37:12)

So.

So, let's do this.

this.

everyone.

Lian (37:41)

So as we start to understand what we're talking about here about the systemic context that all of us are living in, what would you suggest to someone listening, what can they do from here? What is that? Like, how do we work with that? How do we become aware of that?

Caitlin Matthews (37:57)

Yeah.

Well,

I think, you know, something very, very, very ancient. There was a Stoic philosopher called Hierocles who lived in the first century in Alexandria. There are two Hierocles, but the one I'm talking about is the Stoic one. And I think of all the people in the ancient world, he was the one that sort of nailed this quite well, because he said, I mean, his society was one that had, you know,

had come to a point of, we're individuals in a city state and we can do this, that and the other and we have certain responsibilities and so forth. So he was quite a modern person in that respect and not a very ancient, ancient person in prehistory. But he said, you know, we need to consider the circle that we stand in, that we stand in our own so here is ourselves. And then there's another circle outside of us. Here is our family.

here beyond our family are sort of more distant family and here beyond them are those who are our fellow citizens and beyond that, you know, there is the world, there is the universe, there is spirit. So he had that sense of how we behave towards each other and that we include within our everyday understanding, whether it's within our prayer or the way in which we behave.

that we stand in relationship to all of these things. And one of my teachers, Dan Van Kampenhart,

used a similar kind of model. said, if we look to the east, we have our family, the context from which we've come. We have our society, the context in which we live and interact.

which can be quite exclusive. So you know, you're either a Guardian reader or a Times reader or a Daily Star reader, you you don't read all of those papers, you read one of them. So in the same way we associate with different kinds and groups of people, then there's ourselves, we have our own individual sort of soul area, and then there's that much wider universal soul area which is, which we're also a part of. So whichever of those models you use.

whether it's hierarchies or Dan's version of that. If we just spend a little time every day at the end of the day, it's like how have I been with myself today? Am I pleased with what I've done? Did I, have I really fouled up when I sort of spoke to my boss this morning? Whatever it was. But I mean just sort of looking at those areas of interaction and where you stand with them and the prayers that you would have with them or all the realisations that you need to

you know, know there are things to be worked out. But those are areas that we can use, I think, in our daily lives, just in our ordinary spiritual practice, to give ourselves a sense that I'm not just me, you know, as we're back to John Donne's, no man is an island entire of itself and neither are we. We are completely interconnected. And really, that's what we've been talking about all this time, isn't it, which is the...

Lian (41:09)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (41:19)

the interconnection of ourselves with the rest of universe, which is the most fundamental of the animistic principles, that what we do here affects something over here. We're thinking it, feeling it, saying it, doing it. Those things have vibration, movement and effect.

Lian (41:33)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (41:47)

Just like the spider knows exactly if we go back to the spider and the spider's web. The spider's web is beautifully balanced. It knows when there's something there, when there's a wind, when there's someone near, when there's been a big sound, it moves. So that we can make our own web a little bit more stable if we are aware of what's going on and how we come back to the center of it again.

Lian (42:11)

Hmm. Yes, there's something. There's a sensitivity in what you just described that feels so tangible. You know, the, the spider isn't just sort of sitting there and only, only aware of things when they're kind of right in the spider's face. The spider is like there. It's so intrinsically part, almost like the spider and the web are one.

Caitlin Matthews (42:40)

Yeah.

Lian (42:40)

is the

web is an extension. There is something so beautiful in that. Something that came, well, firstly, we had talked about potentially talking about a different topic today and you just touched on that topic, that kind of like the idea of a daily spiritual practice. We haven't got time to go into that now, but I'm taking it as a sign that perhaps we do need to come back and do an episode on that actually after all.

Caitlin Matthews (42:43)

to pay.

Yes.

Yeah.

Absolutely

and what that might consist of. Yeah, think it's really important because, you know, the instability that's in the world at the moment is such that we need to have some really grounded ways, you know, whether we're believers in anything or not. But, you know, we know that these things impact our world and that, you know, that one...

Lian (43:12)

Hmm, I think there's

Caitlin Matthews (43:37)

one thing that happens in one place is now going to affect everything in the whole world.

So.

Lian (43:44)

And that

feels just to go back to what you were saying at the beginning around, you know, people might have this sense that they've been cursed and usually they haven't, but there perhaps is some truth that there, for example, has been jealous thoughts or envious thoughts aimed at them. And I think that's also something that we are slowly beginning to reclaim the awareness of that.

Caitlin Matthews (44:00)

Yes?

Lian (44:10)

not everything that happens has a visible rational cause and effect. And the more we understand that, as you say, every part of the spider web has an impact on the rest of the spider web.

Caitlin Matthews (44:22)

also move the web. It's like we're not people to whom things are done only, we're also people who do the doing. So, you know, I think that's always a very important consideration is like, you know, I just had an example of it this week. Someone put up something on Facebook, which was something she believed to be true. I shared it, it became clear that it was a meme that someone had

Lian (44:27)

Mmm.

Yes. Yes.

Caitlin Matthews (44:51)

dreamed up and she immediately policed it and so did I. but it was like we didn't want to more time spreading disinformation about something that comes out. But I mean, our responsibility is also to, like I always, I always apologise when I do walk through a spider's long thread. And I always try and, I always try and get hold of it and put it back.

Lian (45:02)

Good.

Hmm.

It's really okay. That's exactly

what I do.

Caitlin Matthews (45:20)

Sometimes you

just don't see it because the sun's not shining on the medicine.

having...

Lian (45:24)

The spider's

probably looking just thinking well I like I like the effort that they've done but they've done a terrible job I would not have put it there.

Caitlin Matthews (45:34)

So, know,

we've got areas that we can work on.

Lian (45:38)

I think what you've really brought to life here, and particularly the last thing you said, is the recognition that, of course, we are in the centre of our web, but then there's all these other webs that kind of overlap and are intrinsically linked to our web. And all of that is interweaving, interplaying, affecting each other all the time.

Caitlin Matthews (46:01)

Yes, it is, you know, and if suddenly, you know, your daughter gets up and says, you know, I need to go and live in Iceland, you know, for five years to practice, you know, counting moss or whatever it is, you know, it's not having an effect on the family, you know, isn't it? Because that will be someone that they are not with anymore and they'll be somewhere else. So everything we decide, you know, moves the world. Absolutely.

Lian (46:29)

I feel like we've taken such a beautiful tour around the context and there's been so much in this that I think has just been brought to life so viscerally. I'm so glad that you mentioned the web right at the beginning because I feel like it's one that we just allowed us to keep coming back to.

Caitlin Matthews (46:47)

With all my students I always use this as an example because

I get them to stand up and appreciate how that is. So we actually set up a web so that they can feel that for themselves. think is, spiders are great teachers.

Lian (46:58)

Mmm.

Yes, yes, absolutely. Well, that's the episode bringing to a close for the moment. Where can listeners find out more about you and your vast body of wonderful work?

Caitlin Matthews (47:11)

Thank

Well, I have a website which is www.hallowquest.org.uk and my courses are on there but my shamanic practice is not because I don't advertise. People usually have to come to me via

word of mouth because I just wouldn't be able to see that number of people. But they can see me there. They can see me on Substack where my name, Caitlin Matthews at Dash, Hallowquest Sanctuary. They can read me there. All my new writing is there. And I occasionally put up shamanic posts as well as other things. yeah.

I have a wide interest in many things and so I write about those things and there are courses as well that people can do online. But otherwise my shamanic work in terms of teaching is only in person. I don't do online courses. I can talk from now to clean and come as I've just demonstrated. I really cannot teach on this and online. I just want to make that really clear.

Lian (48:14)

Mmm.

Caitlin Matthews (48:37)

I need to see someone's work and I need to see what comes out of it. And to be there and to have the context of the understanding.

Lian (48:46)

I so appreciate that about you and also just the sheer breadth and depth of your work, really do. Well, this has been absolutely wonderful as ever. Thank you so much.

Caitlin Matthews (48:59)

Great. We'll do it again sometime.

Lian (49:02)

I very much hope you enjoyed watching that and if you did and you're not already subscribed then do hit that bell thingy and subscribe to automatically get each fresh new episode as it's released each week. If you'd like to find out more about the work we do at Be Mythical to guide and support old souls in this new world to live their own unique myth…

Do hop along to bemythical.com and you'll find out all the ways you can join us and go deeper with us on your own mythical journey.

Lots of love for now.

See you again next week.

 THE BE MYTHICAL PODCAST

With hundreds of episodes to choose from, illuminating your path with myth, magic, archetypes, and practical ways to thrive in this crazy modern world. Subscribe to our free weekly podcast ranked in the 1.5% most popular shows in the world!