Tell Me Something Good

Storytellers as Listeners by Nereyda Martinez

If you have experienced Storytelling yourself, you probably have heard the phrase, "The story chooses you." I had heard it many times and it did make sense to me. You're going to tell a story that calls to you, that interests you, that you connect with. This part I understood very well. It wasn't until recently when I discovered the magic behind that phrase. I like to call it magic, anyway.

I was asked to be a presenter at a 4th Trimester Conference and the session would be Motherhood Storytelling. I was going to teach mothers how to tell their story in a way that empowered that and also could support other mothers on their journey. I was excited and nervous. This was my first time. However, Liz Warren, is the best cheerleader and I was feeling pretty confident. The only part where I was literally losing sleep over was that I could not figure out what story I was going to tell. 

I had a very busy week leading up to the conference. It only made sense that I tell a story I had told before. Yet, a story about my son that I had not yet told but have always wanted to tell kept popping into my head. Over and over. I would entertain the idea and then think, "Nope. This is a bad idea. I don't have time to craft a new story."

The days went on and I would stay up incredibly late looking at the slideshow I had created hoping that I was able to magically know the story I was going to tell. The night before came, and I decided to go to bed still not knowing what I was going to tell. Nonetheless, as I was going to bed that night, I started to really entertain the thought of possibly just telling the story of my son that I had not told before. 

I woke up super early that morning (I had only slept a few hours) and started writing out my thoughts. I started putting pieces together like a puzzle. Then I started to talk about the story and then I started to work in some crafting. My husband woke up and asked, "So how do you feel about your story?" I immediately answered, "I'm working on it right now!" He looked at me with a confused look and just let me be. 

I did it. I told the story. The story that I didn't think I would have enough time for. The story that kept popping into my head and I was trying to push away. 

After my presentation, a mother came up to me and said, "Your story about your son was literally like my story! I can't believe all the similarities and I want to talk to you more about it." 

That's when I knew. "OH. The story was for you."

This is the part where that magic that I was talking about comes in. The story wanted to be told for her. It's one of those things that you don't need to explain. You just surrender and trust and let the story do its magic through you.

Maybe as the storyteller, we are also the listeners. We are listening within to know what story wants to be shared through us. 

(The picture at the top of the post show's Nereyda presenting at the 4th Trimester Conference.)

Good Trouble by Melanie Beikman

As we learn about tricksters I keep coming back to the memory of a talk I heard by theology professor Miguel De La Torre. Rather than tricksters as villains who appear in cautionary tales, Dr. De La Torre draws inspiration from the tricksters in Latino folklore. In the face of overwhelming poverty and injustice across the world and, in particular, in the community he comes from, he proposes a theology that responds to that oppression.  

 

In doing so he is inspired by the tricksters from Latino and Indigenous cultures - Coyote, Pepito, Juan Bobo and Elegua. 

For Dr. De La Torre, tricksters provide examples of how to mess with (he uses a more profane word), the system.  So tricksters show people how to fight back with acts of defiance and even humor that turn the lens back on the authorities who were not acting in the way they publicly profess to act. He cites the example of “The Garbage Offensive” staged by a group of Puerto Rican youth who called themselves The Young Lords. In New York in 1969, they protested the Sanitation Department’s lack of trash pickup in their neighborhood by transferring bags of garbage to block traffic. After many weeks and escalating protest, they were successful in bringing services to their neighborhoods.

 

I can’t claim a connection to the culture but I appreciate his theology with a trickster ethic. I also appreciate the organizations that mess with the powers that be, and I cheer when they win. 

 

Arizona Interfaith Power and Light (AZIPL), with Rev. Doug Bland leading, garnered attention when they protested SRP’s coal-fired power plants by holding a Coal-Ash Wednesday worship service, anointing worshipers’ foreheads with coal ash in front of the SRP Headquarters. And with the Climate Crisis being a touchy topic for many congregations, Doug brought humor and lightheartedness to the topic with “Eco-fessionals”: portable confessional boxes where one could confess their ecological sins.

 

In Georgia, a sister organizations of AZIPL was frustrated that for years the surcharges on tire fees were being diverted from the Solid Waste Trust Fund to the state General fund. Fees were buffering the state’s coffers instead of being used for environmental clean-up in low income communities as required. In protest the activists built a conspicuous tower of old tires in front of the state capitol. Public outrage at the diversion of funds forced the government to start restoring polluted sites in once-neglected neighborhoods. 

 

Sometimes tricksters get into “good trouble”.

 

—

View Dr. De La Torre’s talk at the Arizona Faith Network 2022 Annual Gathering here.

The picture at the top of the post shows Doug Bland in his "eco-fessional."

Experiencing the Shahnameh by Dale McKinnon

On Thursday, April 6, 2023, I sat in a folding, auditorium-style chair to listen to Diana Dinshaw’s telling of the epic Persian story Shahnameh (“Book of Kings”). It is a habit of mine to take a couple of Advil before having to sit for more than ten minutes on an uncomfortable seat. At the end of Diana’s telling, I realized I had been transported into a world I didn’t know existed, and I wanted to know why I had never heard of the Shahnameh. As I remarked to myself, my derriere didn’t hurt. And, I wanted to know more about the culture and the author of this remarkable epic poem that begins in the time of myth and tells the story of four generations of fathers and sons from the creation of the world to historical facts of the Muslim conquests of the seventh century. And I wanted to know about Ferdowsi, the only author of this stunning epic.

All of the history I learned during my elementary and secondary education was history of the Americas, from conquistadores to US Marines in Cuba, and the two wars, Revolutionary and Civil. At least in English class, I got to read War and Peace (Tolstoy), Don Quixote (Cervantes), and Tale of Two Cities (Dickens). I was rather smug to know how literate I was. And as I listened to Diana continue to tell us of the epic adventures of the fathers and sons of Persia, its kings and princes racing their horses through deserts, valleys and forests, I gathered up the smug child in me and realized how very, very, big and rich in history and literature the rest of the world is. Particularly that part of the world that our country has been bombing, invading and tracking jihadists for the past half century. Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and the greater region of historical Persian culture, Armenia, Dagestan, Georgia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, all celebrate the Shahnameh as their national epic.

Its sole author, Ferdowsi, created this epic in thirty years, writing over 50,000 lines of 22 syllables with two rhyming couplets in the same meter. It was first published in 1010 and published in English in 1832. There have been many attempts to translate the Shahnameh into English, and some of the translations have conveyed the tragedy and beauty of single stories of the original, but unable to duplicate the brilliance of the “Early New Persian” rhyming schema in its entirety.

As I walked back to my car after Diana’s epic telling, I became aware that I had been also riding through the desert, or with family during feasts, or in deep grief with a father who unknowingly mortally wounds his son in battle, only to have that son reveal who he is just before his last breath. My derriere and back felt surprisingly well. The story was an epic distraction! Thank you, Diana!

Sources: https://iranicaonline.org/articles/sah-nama-translations-iii-English#:~:text=Ferdowsi's%20name%2C%20along%20with,poetry%2C%20compared%20Ferdowsi%20to%20Homer

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh

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

The Me of Now by Donna Martin

I enrolled in the sacred storytelling course (STO288) as means to find my way back to storytelling. A traumatic car accident left me feeling adrift in a world that I could not recognize with a repertoire I could not remember – connections were scrambled or just gone.  I wanted to find my way back to the storytelling that is "the me of now" versus "the me of before" (before the accident).

Before taking sacred storytelling, and post-accident, I was hesitant to review my body of work around sacred stories. I had spent the last 11 years telling sacred stories from the Abrahamic traditions among various faith communities. While these tellings were always well received, I questioned their value outside these communities of faith. After the first class meeting, I was very ambivalent about telling these stories in class. Several classmates' stated opinions about sacred stories went right to the root of my fears as the teller – the stories are often derided by adults as irrelevant, boring, and lifeless. I lacked confidence in my work, in my ability to bring these ancient stories to life, and in the stories’ relevance for today's world. 

It is my experience that sacred stories find me – I don't look for the story. And, typically, I struggle with a story for some time, as the stories that find me often are not stories I would choose. As I ponder the story, research it, play with images, and wonder why the story is calling me, the story comes home – sits in "the me of now." It is a mystical, liminal "thing" that I find myself craving, seeking, and relishing. 

Admittedly, each time I prepared a sacred story for telling in class I encountered a roller coaster of emotions complete with tears, a-ha moments, and a few moments of pure bliss. I continually waffled on what to tell, how to tell, and even why I tell. Sigh.

And yet . . . as a result of completing the sacred storytelling course, I now recognize that my work is representative of sacred storytelling. I am "re-finding" confidence in my work, especially around the scholarship that is uniquely "the me of now." And, miracle of miracles, I find myself looking forward to what lies ahead, with a welcomed curiosity around “the me of now” storytelling. It is pure bliss to rejoin the unique storytelling community that is South Mountain Storytelling Institute.

Growing Hope through Storytelling by Melissa Fees

Stories have always been a time-honored means to teach, inspire and entertain others. More recently, neuroscientists are studying the effects of storytelling on the brain. In this case, personal stories are read to students while their brain is being scanned. These functional MRI studies give us a glimpse into what parts of the brain are firing when we are listening and processing personal stories.

Dr. Immordino-Yang’s presented a talk entitled “We feel, therefore we learn” at the 2011 Mind and Its Potential Conference. Her conclusion is that our biological bodies and social minds are completely integrated. Today neuroscientists are helping us understand what is happening in our brains when we hear stories of struggle and resilience of real people.

The work of Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang of the University of Southern California showed the results of fMRI scans of people who had heard these types of stories and what part of the brain had increased blood flow. The results showed that the very systems that keep us alive like the medulla, the insula, and the mid-brain were activated. When people say they felt something in their gut when they heard a compelling story, they were telling the truth. 

Her work has also demonstrated that when teenagers hear stories about the resilience of others they report being inspired, even hopeful about their own future. She stated in a webinar for The Center for Scholars and Storytellers in 2019 that “. . . Hope is an interpretation that you construct. Hope itself is a story you tell yourself about the possible spaces in the future. . .”  Her lab is continuing to study the individual differences in how people create hope for their own future after listening to inspiring stories of others. Meanwhile, we storytellers will keep on crafting inspiring stories for all ages.

How Stories Don't Get Old - They just Develop Roots by Sharon Gilbert

I began my official storytelling journey in 2006 and received my storytelling certificate in 2010. So, I have been developing stories for a long time.

Recently I took another storytelling class, this time on zoom. Sacred Storytelling From Around the World, and while I was developing my last story to tell, I realized that many  personal stories are indeed sacred stories.

I knew that family stories or personal stories were going to be some of the stories I developed over the years but in the beginning most of the personal stories I told  were along the lines of a Donald Davis story with a little funny twist at the end. But always, in the back of my mind there was a desire to unravel my relationship with my mother through story. My aunts told me that my mother was painfully shy, but through my growing up years I experienced her as a stern mother who seldom shared her stories or her emotions. I was greedy for every little tidbit she told me about her childhood but what I had to build on were only crumbs. In one of my Personal Storytelling classes I told a short story that was more of an anecdote than a story and I ended up shelving it for a little over ten years. I was unaware that this was going to become the story I was trying to tell.

Storytelling is more powerful than the public believes and even if you value and understand what a treasure storytelling is, once you begin telling,  you just keep building  and learning. The more you learn and the more you practice your craft the more you understand how to take a personal story and share while keeping your audience safe, how to really think about the points that will be universal and valuable to them. My recent experience taught me that a story lying at rest is worth revisiting, it hasn’t just been collecting dust, it’s been growing roots.

So, my advice is if you're taking a storytelling class, keep taking them now and then, and if you have a little bit of a story don't throw it away, keep that idea and let it grow roots.