Tell Me Something Good

Friend Zone or Life Partner? by Vanessa Thomas-Wilson

 

 

 

 

 

 

My story telling began with personal stories. I’d been unknowingly around storytellers all my life. I was officially introduced to South Mountain Community College’s Storytelling Institute several years before I joined in. Liz Warren’s Personal Storytelling class came into my life during a very stressful period and was instrumental in the processing of my father’s death, which demonstrated for me the healing power of storytelling. I enjoyed hearing other tellers share folktales but finding an appreciation for telling folktales myself took some time. Until I realized that for the teller, storytelling is a lot like dating.

First you meet the story. Perhaps you like it right from the start. Maybe something seems familiar in that initial encounter. Some qualities capture your attention and you appreciate each other. You may be familiar with their background already or you may have the desire to delve more into their origins and past. Sometimes the initial encounter is less than pleasant and thus endeth the relationship. Other times you may encounter each other sporadically and realize you have more in common than you initially thought. You decide to spend more time together and develop your relationship to a deeper level. Once a congenial relationship is developed you may come to realize a love for each other. You might discover a story is your soulmate and goes with you everywhere. Or perhaps you have many story lovers, each one holding a special place in your heart and coming out with you when the occasion arises.

Just like dating not all stories stay with you forever. Some are only for a one-night stand but may still provide fond memories. Other stories might never appeal to you even if they look good on paper they may never fit comfortably in your repertoire. You may have to kiss a few frog tales while building your story collection. It’s never advisable to poach someone else’s story without their permission, although there may be no harm in looking around at other stories.  It is important to be honest with your stories if you want a lasting relationship. Connect with your stories every so often to keep the relationship fresh. It is vital to keep the stories you love close to your heart or one day you may find out you have grown too far apart.

(The image at the top of the post can be found here.)

Time and Story by Kaden Sheffield

           I have almost completed the Storytelling certificate program here at SMCC. I came to it indirectly, through a dear friend, never intending to stay and become a storyteller. But here I am, two years later—a storyteller. It has been a journey far deeper and richer than merely learning the skills necessary to craft a story and tell it to an audience. It has been a journey through time.

           I read recently that our current concepts around time only date from about 1500. That’s when the people formerly known as serfs began moving into cities in large numbers. Before that time, they lived an agricultural existence, in which time moved in seasonal cycles, with times of intense labor balanced by times of relative leisure; a time in which every person performed many different jobs, which although tedious, at least varied throughout the year. This was the time of traditional storytelling too, when families and communities told tales from their past and their present, building strength for the future.

           Time back then wasn’t “spent,” it was “passed.” You passed the time, as though it were a feature of the landscape which you could hurry by or linger and appreciate. Or, in another idiom, time itself passed, like a river flowing by you, whether fast or slow. You stood on time’s bank and contemplated. This was “once upon a time.”

           Then came urbanization. People traded their seasonal cycles and passing time for wages. Now time had to be measured—the first clocks came into being, placed on towers so they could rule over urban lives and work. Time was carved up into hours.

           This has changed everything. The metaphor governing our language about time now is “Time is Money.” We can spend, waste, or save time. Spending time is good. Wasting it, meaning not using it to make money, is bad. And saving it means either doing things faster or doing many things at once. All to save time for…what?

           Ideally, for passing it in liberating and restorative ways. In allowing ourselves to contemplate time as it passes, our lives as we pass through them. In meeting, truly meeting, the others with whom we are sharing this time, and finding out about their journeys. In short, for sharing our stories.

           And so, I discovered in storytelling a different way to relate to time, to others, to myself. To be a storyteller is to be both teller and listener—a fellow traveler from the now into the past or future. It is to escape our mechanized and materialistic approach to our lives and reenchant them.  It is to return to the “once upon a time.”

(The image at the top can be found here.)

Africa Hunters' Tales, Social Ecology, and Post-African U.S. Archetypes by Súle Greg Wilson

We’ve all been brainwashed to accept that efficient agriculture allowed social specialization and hierarchy to occur, which led to “civilization;” the best there is.  “Civilization” has also led to overpopulation, a horribly MAN-ipulated ecosystem, and a hurting Mother Earth.  Maybe we should have stayed hunter/gatherers, small groups of co-responsible, eco-sustainable folks, where everybody knew your name.

For some idea of what that pre-sedentary, pre-agriculture world was like, we can look within traditional tales of West and Central Africa, to a genre of stories called Hunter’s Narratives, stories—often with songs, too—about people with skills passed down since before we had farms; stories of people who could brave the chaotic, untamed, Spirit-filled Natural world, kill something, and return home, uncursed.  The Hunter, who moves between the world of the Wild, and the Civilized, must manage, mediate and mitigate huge amounts of spiritual power, set loose when any living thing is killed.

The Mongo Cycle of Lianja of central Zaire, and the Buffalo of Do episode of the Sundiata Epic of the Mande of West Africa, are examples of these “throwbacks” to pre-agricultural society: Hunter’s tales.

Steven Belcher (2009) finds three key features of the genre of Hunters’ Narratives: the “magicality” of the hunter; their ability to transcend normal reality/society; and the story’s portrayal of where the hunter stands in relationship to normal society—which is always a bit outside it, for the hunter has special, abnormal powers.

In these stories, the hunter, pitted against a fantastic beast, already in the midst of a killing spree, does not always win.  In these stories, “conjugal relations” often enter, as does the appearance of “animal women,” changelings who come to seduce the hunter.  Wow; what’s more Life-and-Death than that?

Belcher’s “Three Key Points” of the Hunter’s Story ring true for the African American hero ballads I have been collecting and studying!  These tale-songs: Stagger Lee, Lost John, Railroad Bill, Shine, Betty and Dupree, Frankie and Albert, Duncan and Brady, Casey Jones, the Traveling Coon, Mysterious Coon—created by the first generation of Blacks born outside Slavery, all match Belcher’s criteria.  There’s “something special” about the characters; they act beyond the bounds of normal culture; the story shows the outcomes of living “outside the lines”.

As Hunter’s Narratives teach the balance the Hunter must keep between the Civilized and Wild World, these AfrAm tales document Post-Bellum Black culture creating its own definition of man—and woman-hood—outside the Wildness of the institution of slavery, in the new, free civilization they were carving for themselves, through the time of Reconstruction and beyond.

Too soon, these songs passed into EurAm and consumerist culture, and were warped—stories of magical pride and power degraded into buffoonery.  Concurrently, Coon Songs appeared, “counter measures” against assertions of positive AfrAm culture.

The same backlash occurred a century later, in the 1990s, when the first generation of children raised in a “de-segregated” U.S. created a new art form: Hip Hop.  Early Hip Hop had a huge Afrocentric, positive component, until it, too, was co-opted by mass media/EurAm culture.  Stories of “Rise Up” turned into East Coast/West Coast rivalry, and images designed to fit the old “thieving,” gangsta,” misogynist stereotypes flooded the market.

Within these ancient African tales, within these 19th century ballads, within KRS-One and Tribe Called Quest, are clues, keys to a different way of seeing the world, where Black Lives Empower, mediate the wilderness, and secure society—from partially outside it—and change the world.

(The image at the top of rock art from Namibia can be found here.)

What Is Old Is Made New Again by Marilee Lasch

Today I was making a fairy garden on my beloved grapefruit tree that has died. I had gathered bits and pieces of glass, rocks, tile, and little statues of fairies I had collected over the years. My kids call me a "pack rat,” but I learned early that when something has fulfilled its purpose and is ready for the garbage, I save it for new a purpose.

Growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota in a very large family. My mother never threw anything away. By the time a pair of blue jeans had gone through four siblings and got to me, I made it into a purse. And all those old dresses, pants, sheets, and table clothes that had served their time and purpose were torn up and made into rag rugs. Nylons that had runs in them were put to multiple purposes of plant protectors, covers for valuables, storage for baseballs – and they made protectors for sterling silver. Worn Chenille bedspreads were cut and made into warm bathrobes and slippers.

Did I appreciate all this? ABSOLUTELY NOT! I was embarrassed when my friends came over to spend the night and whipped out their cotton bathrobes, and slippers bought from a store.  I would always hide the rag rugs, and when complimented on my denim purse, I lied and said I bought it J.C. Penney.  Roars of laughter were expressed when my brothers would bring the nylon stocking out with all their baseballs neatly stacked up in a panty hose leg. Our playmates didn't appreciate the fact that never a ball was lost under a sofa or eaten by a dog when stored in those nylons after a playground game.

George Bernard Shaw wrote, " It's a pity youth is wasted on the young.”

Storytelling has turned me into quite a reflective person, and as I reminisce, I am filled with the appreciation that I should have had as a child of the Lowe family, and a little remorse.

One thing life in Jamestown taught me I now understand is that honoring the old is a valuable experience.  One has only to watch Antique's Road show to be amazed at what those old things are now worth.

As I married, and had children of my own, the "old" became new for my family.  Purses from blue jeans, flowing Batman caps from old sheets, tents from soiled and torn tablecloths. And the wonders of what pantyhose with runs can do even turned a couple of ideas I submitted to Hints for Heloise which were printed. Did my kids appreciate it?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Crass commercialization has hit three of my four children.  Batman caps are bought from Target, only a "real" tent from a sports store will do, but the biggest joke of all is rag rugs have become all the rage, and very expensive.  When I volunteered to make them some, I was told, “Oh we just want new.”

Oh, but little do they know that mom, grandma or Nana is very sneaky.  Picture frames made from my button collection, mosaic pots from broken tile they were going to throw away, a planter made for their back yard from bricks I took from their junk pile. Great fluffy sofa pillows from a tablecloth that they threw out. I'm Having the last laugh now!

(The image at the top can be found here.)