A Storyteller’s Guide to Accessing the Muse

A STORYTELLER’S GUIDE TO ACCESSING THE MUSE

As a professional storyteller, in the past I’ve told stories that last four hours. Often, after long story performances, people ask me, “How did you memorize all that?” My answer is always the same: “I don’t memorize anything. I work with my Muse.”

All right, you might ask, what is the Muse?

Our familiar words “music”, “museum” and “amusement” derive from it. It goes back to an Ancient Greek word that described the Nine Muses, the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts in Greek mythology.

“Inspiration” means “to breathe in.” And that’s exactly what the Ancient Greeks thought happened when an artist, let’s say a storyteller like Homer long ago, started to perform one of his long tales. Homer would call upon the Muse named Calliope. Her name means “beautiful voice”, and she was the Muse of Eloquence. According to the belief, she would appear invisibly behind the storyteller and breathe ideas into his head as he spoke.

But before starting off, he would ask for her help. He would “invoke the Muse.”

The first line of Homer’s The Iliad reads:

“Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Akhilleus’ anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead men…”

Homer is about to “sing” a very long story about how Achilles, the greatest warrior at Troy, became furious with the Lord High Marshall, Agamemnon, for daring to take Achilles’ girl. Homer is also about to pluck a lyre while he’s singing his story. He’s what the Greeks called A Singer of Tales. He and others like him were the cinema of the day around 700 BC. There wasn’t much else in the Bronze Age.

But notice that Homer isn’t saying, “I am now beginning my poem.” Actually, he’s surrendering responsibility for his act to “the immortal one”–to Calliope, instead becoming her vessel. As he begins the daunting task of performing a poem over 15,000 lines long, he’s asking for the Muse’s inspiration.

According to the myths, Calliope was the daughter of Mnemosyne, the Titan of Memory, and Zeus, the King of the Gods. Quite the pedigree in those times.

Homer invokes her again when he begins The Odyssey:

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.”

Centuries later, when John Milton, the English poet born in London in 1608, wrote Paradise Lost, he invoked the Muse, too. However, since the Greek gods were long gone and he was a Christian, he invoked the Holy Spirit, not a goddess, for help:

 

“I thence

 Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,

 That with no middle flight intends to soar

 Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.”

 

He was trying to outdo the “Aonian mount,” otherwise known as the mountain home of the Greek Muses, of which he was quite jealous, it appears. “Hey, you oldsters ain’t got nuthin’ on this blind Brit.”

Humor aside, what does all this have to do with you accessing your Muse? Here, in modern times? To learn to tell stories in your own words, direct from your imagination? I think we can add imagination to the long list of what the Muse is. Buried inside the word “imagination” is the word “image.”  Since imagining is the summoning of mental images, let’s say that your Muse begins to work when you consciously create mental images.

I’ll explore with you my method for developing clear, living mental imagery in later blogs.

Countless times I’ve stood backstage in the semi-darkness with my 12-string guitar, walking around behind the drawn curtain, tuning and playing musical motifs I’ll use in the story. Beyond the curtain, the low roar of the audience tells me it’s almost time to step out there, sit in my chair with my microphones ready, and begin. Since I stole this trick from Homer and Milton and many others, I invoke my Muse. “Oh Muse,” I’ll say aloud, “please come to me tonight. I’m just a tiny human being and all these nice people are waiting. Please help me.”

Now you don’t have to believe in the Muse to be inspired by it. In modern language, some might call it the unconscious mind, or human creativity, or the soul, or the Holy Spirit, or simply imagination. Whatever you’d like to call it, I perform this simple ritual anyway to make myself feel better.

And usually, it works. The imagery pours into my mind and I step into a movie I can see, hear, smell and touch. After that, the words begin to flow.

More to follow.

May the Muse be with you.

 

–Odds Bodkin

You can find my stories at my online download shop.

IN A WORLD OF WOE, THERE IS A CLASSIC OASIS

IN A WORLD OF WOE, THERE IS A CLASSIC OASIS

Simple, beautiful spoken-word stories from peoples around the world, all told with original, culturally flavored acoustic music.

Storyteller Odds Bodkin’s classic audio stories. A mentally healthy, simple gift for your kids so that they can understand the wisdom literature of other people.

Age coded for appropriate listening for ages 4 to forever.

THE EPIC DRIVE: 19 full-length storytelling albums.

Plug it in. Transfer files to music software. Start to listen.

“a consummate storyteller”—The New York Times

Feast on Viking Food, Drink Mead, and Enjoy Two Norse Myths Sunday April 3 in Cambridge MA

Feast on Viking Food, Drink Mead, and Enjoy Two Norse Myths Sunday April 3 in Cambridge MA

For a total immersion into an ancient mythic world, join Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin for a storytelling concert: ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS. A full 90 minutes of imagination entertainment.

Grab a table with friends, eat heartily, and then sit back for Thor’s Journey to Utgard and The Mead of Poetry, two Viking myths performed with character voices, sound effects and music on two different 12-string guitars. Plus a Viking lore introduction told with Celtic harp.

Children over 12 are welcome.

“Bodkin’s enchanting voice, musical prowess, and larger-than-life persona have earned him an illustrious career as a master storyteller.” — The Harvard Crimson

“a consummate storyteller”—The New York Times

“a modern-day Orpheus”—Billboard

ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS

Odds Bodkin

Sunday, April 3, 2022 at 5 pm

Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square

Tickets: $25

ABOUT THAT AWFUL SCENE IN EARTH OVERTHROWN

ABOUT THAT AWFUL SCENE IN EARTH OVERTHROWN

 

“a modern-day Orpheus”—Billboard

“a consummate storyteller”—The New York Times

“one of the great voices in American storytelling” —Wired

 

When her husband Ouranos jails her latest babies (four gigantic monsters) in the dark depths of Tartarus, Gaia demands to know just what Ouranos thinks he’s doing. “I didn’t approve this!” she cries, feeling anger for the very first time in all her eons of life.

“When they grow up, they’ll be more powerful than we Titans, Gaia!” her worried husband pleads. “It’s too dangerous! Look how huge they are already!”

“I do not give my permission for this,” she retorts, insulted at his behavior. After all, she created Ouranos and chose him as her husband and king. Together they raised twelve perfect Titan children. But now that she’s birthed a few monsters—he is the father, after all–he thinks he can imprison them? And and go against her will? Because he’s afraid of something that may happen in the distant future?

“You do not have my permission!” she hisses.

“I don’t need your permission!” he snaps back, locking the young monsters in their cells.

A darkness overpowers Gaia and she decides Ouranos will no longer be king. Assembling her twelve Titan children before her, she brandishes a razor-sharp blade. “Who among you will wound your father?” she demands, “And take his power?”

Only Cronus, her last born, the one with no talent other than ambition, agrees. In his low, hateful voice he asks, “If I do this, mother, you promise I will become king?”

“Yes,” she replies.

“How shall I wound him, mother? What shall I cut from him?”

Gaia widens her eyes. Her well-behaved, creative children have never seen her in a fury like this. “What makes a man a man?” she asks darkly.

———————–

This chilling, and yes, quite adult scene is part of EARTH OVERTHROWN: GAIA AND THE TITANS. What Cronus does next, and how Aphrodite in her famous seashell is born from Ouranos’ blood, is just part of this revelatory Greek myth. Backstory after backstory. All the way to the conniving grandson, Zeus, and the war he declares on his parents.

If you’ve ever been curious about where the Gods of Olympus—imaginary as they are–came from, well, here’s your ticket.

The tale is accompanied by a live score performed on 12-string guitar. It’s for adults only.

EARTH OVERTHROWN: GAIA AND THE TITANS

An Odds Bodkin Storytelling Event on Zoom

Thursday, March 3, 2022 at 7 pm EST

Tickets $30 per screen (buys your login and password)

 

 

Pox On You All! You Ain’t Gettin’ This Ship!

A POX ON YOU ALL! YOU AIN’T GETTIN’ THIS SHIP!

After Phineas Krull murders the Grand Builderguilder and he and his pirate crew steal The Waistgold, they think they’re free of the denizens of Port Sqwunk. But that’s not the case. Their pursuers want one thing: The Waistgold and her gem-studded wood.

Me spyglass reveals a damn sixty-oared frigate,
Five times our size easy and loaded with Sqwunks.
With at least ten sails up and her cannons, 12-pounders,

Bebristlin’ her rails, she looks ready fer blood.
Below in ‘er galleys, big Roachers be rowin’,
Singin’ songs ‘o the spirit to pass off their pain,
Hungry eyes on each other to see who’ll die first.
Never thought they’d be comin’, but then I sees why.
‘Tis a damn Builderguilder, not ‘im who be dead,
But another––he the brother?–– with a glass to ‘is eye.

Right, the dead one’s brother or a partner in crime
All hot full ‘o vengeance and wanting ‘er back.
Seein’ me seein’ ‘im as we stares ‘cross the space,
I says, “Pox on you all! You ain’t gettin’ this ship!”

Here’s a quick video introduction to this new performance work by Odds Bodkin:

Be in the audience at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square this coming Sunday the 27th for the live show!

VOYAGE OF THE WAISTGOLD

A Premier Performance

Sunday Feb. 27, 2022 at 5 pm EST

LIVE AT GRENDEL’S DEN on Harvard Square

Tickets: $35

Origin Myths

Long before geology and science in general led to a revolution in our understanding of Earth’s ancient story, pre-scientific peoples asked the question, as all of us do: where did all this come from? This Earth? We humans? The life systems of rock, oceans and sky that sustain us? When and how did it all begin?

Those questions remain profound ones, questions that we’re still working to answer. Our human origin story is more finely honed with each passing archeological and genetic discovery—and there are plenty more to be unearthed—while Earth’s origin story, and that of our Solar System and the Universe, is deepened by astrophysical discoveries every day.

However, pre-scientific peoples were just as smart as we are, they just didn’t have our modern tools. Did that prevent them from using their raw senses and storytelling skills to explain where they themselves came from? Certainly not. After all, what’s an ancient father or mother to do when their child asks, “Mommy, where did the stars come from?” Better say something by way of explanation, otherwise your child will think you’re a know-nothing.

And so, around fires in caves and eventually in mud huts and stone cities, origin myths were born. Every band of humans had one, unique to their surroundings.

The ancient Greeks were especially detailed in their fantasies, and no Greek more so than the poet Hesiod, who lived around 700 B.C.

I have based EARTH OVERTHROWN: GAIA and the TITANS, on Hesiod’s Greek genesis story, The Theogony.

In this origin myth, Gaia is the Earth. Her children the Titans create the ecological systems upon her surface. They all take both human and elemental forms, switching easily back and forth, and all have human failings, just like we do.

That makes The Theogony an interesting tale indeed. Jealousy, horror, dashed expectations, war and betrayal stalked the Titans, just like they do we moderns, who fancy that we know so much more than the ancients.

There’s even some humor.

STORYTELLER ODDS BODKIN

EARTH OVERTHROWN: GAIA AND THE TITANS

MARCH 3, 2022 at 7 pm EST on Zoom

Performed with 12-string guitar

Tickets: $30

Part I of a 3-part series, POWER MYTHS OF ANCIENT GREECE in March/April

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Live and Online Adult Story Performances by Odds Bodkin Coming Up in March and April 2022

Live and Online Adult Story Performances by Odds Bodkin Coming Up for March and April!

Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin announces four LIVE shows coming up at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA, plus POWER MYTHS OF ANCIENT GREECE, a compelling 3-part series over Zoom starting March 3rd.

“a modern-day Orpheus”–Billboard

Feb. 27 (Sunday) at 5 pm: VOYAGE OF THE WAISTGOLD, the world premier of Bodkin’s original pirate fantasy tale in verse. Live at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square, the artist reads aloud his outrageous new literary work, narrated in “pirate patois.” GET TICKETS

 

 

March 3 (Thursday) at 7 pm EST: EARTH OVERTHROWN: GAIA AND THE TITANS, the “Genesis story of ancient Greece,” performed with a 12-string guitar score. The first in his POWER MYTHS OF ANCIENT GREECE series on Zoom. Watch from anywhere. GET TICKETS

 

 

March 17 (Thursday) at 7 pm EST: THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR’S FEAST, his debut telling of this wondrous and gruesome myth performed with 12-string guitar. The second in his POWER MYTHS OF ANCIENT GREECE series on Zoom. Watch from anywhere. GET TICKETS

 

 

March 20 (Sunday) at 5 pm EST: BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE, his beloved telling of the original version of Beowulf. Live at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square, Bodkin evokes the old Viking world with voices and 12-string guitar. GET TICKETS

 

 

April 3 (Sunday) at 5 pm EST: ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS, his performance of two powerful Norse myths, Thor’s Journey to Utgard and The Mead of Poetry on two 12-string guitars, with a lore introduction on Celtic harp. All before a live audience at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square. GET TICKETS

April 14 (Thursday) at 7 pm EST: THE ILIAD: CAPTIVES, PLAGUE AND FURY, his tour de force telling in modern language of Book I of Homer’s Trojan War classic, The Iliad. The third in his POWER MYTHS OF ANCIENT GREECE series on Zoom. Music on thunderous 12-string guitar. Watch from anywhere. GET TICKETS

 

 

April 17 (Sunday) at 5 pm EST: THE FALL OF GAIA, his in-person version of Hesiod’s Theogony, with a panoply of character voices and music on 12-string guitar. This show is live at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square. GET TICKETS

 

 

 

If You’re in Boston…

If you’re in Boston this February 27th, make your way to Harvard Square. There, tucked away down a set of brick stairs, you’ll find Grendel’s Den, a legendary watering hole. You’ll see a small stage beneath lights that sports a lectern and a microphone. Be sure you’re vaccinated (they won’t let you in otherwise) and find your table. You might even be given a free test kit, new from MIT.

Music will be playing over the sound system, but it won’t be long before I’ll appear onstage and the music will fade. I won’t have my usual 12-string guitars or harp; instead, I’ll open a simple manuscript.

“Voyage of the Waistgold: An Untrue Tale in Doggerel Rhyme by Odds Bodkin,” I’ll begin in my ordinary American English, the one I use to talk to people in the real world. “Chapter One: The Builderguilder’s Boat.”

Ah, but then, Captain Phineas Krull will begin to speak. He’s a terrible, murderous pirate on a fantastical sea, my narrator and the one who lives my 90-minute adventure. His voice is rough and gritty. He even sounds dangerous.

“So I hires me a crew o’ drug suckin’ thieves/To help me to steal ‘er, that fine filly ship./With one goodly mast, like Priapus himself,/Buried deep in ‘er hold ‘neath a parquetry deck/And a gem-crusted wheel fer the high dudgeon winds/ The Waistgold, we seen ‘er, my silver sea slipper/Tied placid ‘twixt other and far lesser boats.”

So begins the saga of how Krull murders the local Builderguilder and escapes with the salvaged Waistgold, only to discover that the gem-laden ship has a mind of its own. A dark magician himself, he’s baffled by his new boat’s powers. And he’s worried, because he doesn’t know how to control them. It makes more sense when he finds a dead scribe’s book, written in blood. In it, Krull reads about Queen Ood, the enchantress who built the boat, who or may not be alive.

This story reads somewhere between William Burroughs’ The Naked Lunch and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

According to Wikipedia, Swift claimed that he wrote Gulliver’s Travels “to vex the world rather than divert it”. Voyage of the Waistgold is much the same.

For Adults Only.

Voyage of the Waistgold

A World Premier Event

Februry 27, 2022 at 5 pm EST

Grendel’s Den, Cambridge MA

Tickets: $35

 

TONIGHT! Odds Bodkin Tells The Odyssey on YouTube Live.

Tonight, Odds Bodkin tells The Odyssey on YouTube Live at 7 pm EST, 4 pm PT. Join the crowd for a blast of storytelling excitement, and experience a master storyteller at work. Surging music, vivid characters and compelling narrative bring this classic of Greek Mythology to life.

Meet Odysseus, the weary warrior at Troy. Go inside the Trojan Horse. Meet the languid Lotus Eaters on their perfumed island. And finally, be trapped in the Cave of the cannibal Cyclops with Odysseus and his men.

“a modern-day Orpheus” — Billboard

This 70-minute live performance comes with an intermission. Claire Hennessy of Six Feet Apart Productions will MC the show.

Get your tickets now! And stay after the show to chat with Odds Bodkin.

 

The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast

Odds Bodkin, Master Talesman

Sunday, Jan. 30 at 7 pm EST on YouTube Live

Tickets $25-$30

 

Sunday Night at 7: The Odyssey Told with Music

Sunday night at 7: The Odyssey Told with Music.

Master Talesman Odds Bodkin plays 12-string guitar as he tells The Odyssey. The musical pace quickens, then explodes, then returns to serene beauty as the tale unfolds. Bodkin uses “leitmotifs”–musical cues like Darth Vader’s ominous theme in John Williams’ Star Wars music. If you’ve never seen storytelling like this, you’ll enjoy the heightened energy and vividness.

The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast

A 70-minute Tale with Intermission

Jan. 30 at 7 pm EST and 4 pm PT on YouTube Live

Odds Bodkin

Tickets: $25-$30

A Week from Today: Odds Bodkin tells THE ODYSSEY

A week from today, Odds Bodkin tells THE ODYSSEY on YouTube Live. This rescheduled performance (Omicron interfered but all is well) begins at 7 pm EST, 4 pm PT. Produced by Six Feet Apart Productions and hosted by Claire Hennessy, this 70-minute tour de force storytelling performance combines thrilling music with vivid characters acted in real time.

Journey back to Homer’s world of Greek mythology and the Trojan War with a Master Talesman.

“a consummate storyteller” — The New York Times

“a modern-day Orpheus” — Billboard

Odds Bodkin

The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast

Sunday, Jan. 30 at 7 pm EST

Tickets: $25 – $30

The Omicron Tailspin

The Omicron Tailspin happened this week.

Truth be told, there was a blizzard coming to New Hampshire on Monday. A big one. Ten inches of snow. Nor’easter winds. But it wouldn’t start until after midnight, so Gavin would have time to get back home Sunday night to his girlfriend, Katelyn, at their place in Keene, about an hour away. This was my plan as of Saturday night.

My plan collapsed, however, when Gavin’s text came in Sunday morning at nine o’clock.

“Hey Dad. We’ve both been diagnosed with Omicron.”

A flood of worries hit me about his health, but also about what I’d do now about my Sunday night Odyssey show. Not only is the inimitable Gavin Bodkin my son, he’s also my Zoom producer. Without him, I can’t do shows.

  Gavin Bodkin

I once had a flu that kept me flat on my back for three weeks and almost killed me. Another time, I had a cough that was so deep and persistent that I injured something down in my left lung—I think I bruised my diaphragm—and a couple of weeks later a huge purple bruise appeared on my left torso. It had traveled all the way through to the skin, even though the cough was long gone. Well, after that, I’ve been wary of fevers with coughs, especially Covid, since the first variant probably would have killed me if I’d contracted it. All this time—all of 2020 and 2021–our three boys and their loved ones had been circumspect about Mil and me. They’d labored mightily during the pandemic to make sure mom and dad didn’t fall ill. Up until now, we still haven’t caught the darn thing. Knock on wood.

But if Gavin came over tonight, I thought, even masked, he’d give it to us for sure. He half-heartedly offered to come anyway, but it was an easy decision for me to make: son, stay home and get better.

I decided to postpone the show. No choice.

In time zones, California is three hours behind New Hampshire. Nine o’clock, here where I live, is six o’clock out in California. Good grief, I thought, Claire, Mark and Regina are still probably asleep. To cancel tonight’s show meant they’d need to email all the ticketholders to let them know. The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast was the Zoom performance in question. Claire, Mark and Regina are the principals at Six Feet Apart Productions.

Were they early risers? Already sipping coffee at 6:00 a.m.? Or were they still happily asleep, unaware of this screwup in New Hampshire?

“I’ll email them at least,” I thought, and shot off a bad news email to Claire. Emails don’t wake people up. Claire hosts the show.

  Claire Hennessy

I paced around until 10:00 my time. No response from Claire. “All right, I’ll call her,” I thought, and rang her cell. Got her voicemail. Still not awake. Heck, it’s Sunday morning. Why should she be?

There was my Taylor 12-string, gleaming with its fresh set of strings. It was set to the Odyssey tuning and ready to go. I always string my guitars the day before a show to get that fresh, bright bronze sound and let the strings settle in.

An hour later I was pacing around my kitchen when Claire rang on my cell. I apologized for calling so early and explained to her what had happened with Gavin. In her lovely British accent she sounded remarkably composed as she chalked it up to “life happens.” She shared how her daughter had come down with Covid over Christmas and how they’d all been forced to stay apart. Her comment made me feel much better. She understood.

Yes, she’d email all the ticketholders from Eventbrite and let them know the show was off for tonight. I suggested we reschedule for January 30, two Sundays away. After a little back and forth, she agreed.

And she did email everyone. Within the day she’d even updated the show logo and sent it over, along with updating the tickets link. We updated our site shortly thereafter, and the deed was done.

Gavin has nearly recovered, I’m happy to say, and Katelyn is back to 100%, she says.

And so on January 30th, Gavin will join me in the Zoom studio and we’ll do my 70-minute Odyssey show and have a lot of fun. It will be good to see him, as usual. It will be good to see my audience, too, since after the show, I’ll be taking questions. The actual story will be on full screen.

My guitar is still sitting there with those fresh strings.

And we’re still selling tickets, too, by the way.

 

Odds Bodkin

Bradford, New Hampshire