Tell Me Something Good

Cootie Catcher: Sparking stories and breaking ice by Bryce Barraza

A ‘cootie catcher,’ a story prompt, and a group of strangers walk into a room…

No, this is not the start of an ill-attempted joke. This actually happened… and it was fun!

In February of 2022, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop titled, “Playing for Keeps,” facilitated through the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute. The workshop introduced participants to the use of toys and games as a tool to help “spark memories that lead to stories.”

While participating in the workshop, it was one toy and game in particular that not only helped spark memories but was also described as a good “ice-breaker” for groups of people in a variety of settings –the cootie catcher!

Yes, the cootie catcher! The strategically folded piece of paper that you remember from childhood sometimes called a ‘fortune teller.’ This cootie catcher, in lieu of omniscient fortunes, was prepared with story prompts to help spark memories that could later be crafted into full stories.

For example, one story prompt read, “Tell me about a time you survived…” and the participant would subsequently conclude the thought.  In my case, I recalled surviving the crippling anxiety of waiting in line to ride my first upside down roller coaster, loving the ride experience and since conquering roller coasters in several other amusement parks!

Breaking the Ice

While not-so-meticulously folding my piece of paper to create the cootie-catcher-story-sparker, I latched onto the workshop facilitator’s statement of how this toy could be a great ice-breaker for newly acquainted teams.

The workshop experience was fortunate timing. I had the opportunity to leverage the cootie catcher during a team building event for work just a couple weeks later. This team building event brought the entire team together, in-person, for the first time in over 18 months. There were approximately 20 of us, a few new faces to the team, and we had only really engaged via video meetings as a result of the pandemic. So, this in-person team building event was long overdue.

As I introduced the activity and distributed the cootie catcher templates, I was met with curious smiles. But the team was up for the game! After breaking into groups and reading the first prompt, the room erupted with energy and sparked stories. And while we connected through play, here are a few things that I observed:

• It’s Kinetic: It gave the team something to do with their hands when initially folding the cootie catcher. And the toy requires hand movement throughout the activity. If you’re like me, sometimes you need to bounce or move to release nerves until you’re comfortable. No bouncing necessarily required for this activity, but you get to use your hands as a nice consolation.
• It’s Collaborative …and competitive: Off the bat, team members were leaning into one another to offer reminders to their partners about how to fold a corner –collaborating in the creation of the cootie catcher. But in the spirit of play, we walked away with a vivid memory of one team member proudly declaring they had been the first to complete their cootie catcher –and subsequently, who was the last. Friendly competition is part of games and play after all.

Additionally, by design, the game requires at least two people –one individual to use the cootie catcher, and the second to respond. The cootie catcher helps facilitate the dialogue between the two people or larger group.

• It’s a Tool to Celebrate Unique and Common Experiences: Diversity is a characteristic of a strong team. It’s people’s unique experiences, life lessons and skill set that add to a team’s ability to manage challenging situations and be more creative in developing and testing solutions. Story prompts help celebrate the diversity in team members’ varied experiences –no two stories seemed quite the same.

On the other hand, story prompts helped highlight common human experiences. More than one team member referenced skipping school or sneaking out of the house in response to the prompt, “Tell about a time you got in big, serious trouble…” A common experience –but also different.

The team reconnected after 18 months through play and sparked stories. Just as I pinched this activity from the workshop, several team members asked for the template so that they could deploy this activity again in the future with their teams.

Make Your Own Cootie-Catcher-Story-Sparker!

In practice, the cootie catcher is not overly complicated to enact. You can find a free template online to download and customize with your own questions or prompts, and then you play! And if you’re like me who needs a little extra instruction, you can find numerous videos showing you how to fold the cootie catcher template.

As for the story prompts, get creative! You can customize the questions to your specific team or event. Below are the story prompts that pulled me into the game!

• Tell me about a time when you survived…
• Tell me about a time when you saw something super crazy!
• Tell about a time you got in big, serious trouble.
• Tell about a time everything changed.
• Tell about a time when you experienced your first…
• Tell about the first lesson you learned from your first job with the department.
• The silliest thing I ever did was…
• Once upon a time, not long ago…

I hope you have fun. Go play, go spark stories!

Story Infographics by Liz Warren

Story Structures Infographics by Liz Warren

Elements of Good Storytelling for Affirmative Feedback by Liz Warren

Affirmations are the foundation of the coaching model we use at the SMCC Storytelling Institute. After someone tells a story, we tell them what we liked about the story and what we noticed they did well. The more precise we can be in telling someone what they did well, the more useful the feedback is to them.

Below are some common elements of good storytelling to listen and watch for as someone is telling a story:

Voice:

• The teller’s voice can be heard.
• The teller uses vocal variety – louder and softer at the right times, emotions and attitudes expressed, characters differentiated.
• The teller is conscious of pacing – faster at exciting parts, slower at thoughtful parts.

 Embodying the Story:

• The teller’s facial expressions enhance the story.
• The teller’s gestures and postures enhance the story.
• The teller has a confident physical presence in front of the room.

 Story Structure:

• The story has a strong, clear beginning.
• The story flows smoothly.
• The story has all the elements of a story (5 Ps, Inverted World, Hero’s Journey).
• The end of the story leaves a clear picture and a distinct emotion.

Distinct Characters:

• The characters in the story are distinct.
• Listeners can “see” the primary character.
• The teller incorporates dialogue between characters in the story.

Relating to the Audience:

• The teller makes eye-contact around the room.
• The teller seems comfortable relating the story to the listeners.
• The teller incorporates the audience and their reactions.

 Creativity:

• The teller brings a fresh approach or interpretation to a well-known story.
• The teller has updated a story to connect with a modern audience.
• The teller has added something to the story – poetry, music, audience participation – to make the story more engaging.
• The teller has taken a risk or tried a new technique.

Teller’s Connection to the Story:

• The teller seems to like the story.
• The story is a good fit for the teller and his/her personality.

 Images and the Senses:

• The images in the story are clear - We can see the setting, the colors, and relative sizes.
• The story proceeds like a movie in the listener’s minds.
• The senses are incorporated – smell, taste, touch/temperature, sound.

Research:

• The teller has researched variants of a story, or the facts of a story.
• The teller is familiar with the cultural/historical background and context of the story.
• The teller states the source of the story and his/her connection to it.

Modality:

• The teller is aware of and makes good use of the modality in which they are telling the story – in-person, online, etc.

The Affirmative Model for Coaching Storytellers by Liz Warren

We have used an affirmative coaching model in our classes since the beginning of the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute. We learned the model from the work of Doug Lipman at National Storytelling Network conferences in the late 1990s. It is similar to the well-known Critical Response Theory developed by McArthur Awardee Liz Lerman.

The first director of the Storytelling Institute, Lorraine Calbow, was the person most responsible for us adopting this approach. As a counselor, she was very aware of the prevalence of criticism in our culture and our classes, and the destructive impact it often had on students. She was adamant that a feedback model based in critique, on what was "wrong," was out of alignment with the goals of the Storytelling Institute.

The affirmative coaching model is based in just that – affirmation.

Once someone tells a story, the first thing they are told is what the listeners noticed that the teller did well and what they liked about the story. Any subsequent feedback is at the complete discretion of the teller.  The facilitator will ask the teller if they have questions for the listeners. If they do, they ask and get responses from the listeners. The facilitator will then ask if the teller would like questions from the listeners, and if they do the teller then responds to those questions. Suggestions are not the focus of the model, but if the facilitator deems it relevant, they will ask the teller if they want some suggestions. If the teller says no at any stage after the affirmations, the facilitator accepts that and moves on.

Lipman says that tellers know somewhere in themselves what the story needs, and that through the questions and dialogue about the story, whatever needs to be addressed will come to light. And over time, as the tellers become more experienced, they get better at troubleshooting their own stories and asking for what they need. 

The affirmative coaching model is meant to insure that the power and authority for the story remains with the teller. This can be challenging initially, as instructors are socialized that it is their job to be the authority and provide instruction and correction. It can be frustrating for students, too, who are used to being told what to do. I’ve often been asked at the beginning of a class, “How am I going to get better if you don’t tell me what I’m doing wrong?”

Having used this model for years, I can attest to its power and effectiveness. Here are the main reasons it works:

• The affirmations: People hear what they did well. They know to keep those elements in their stories. They begin to see patterns in the feedback, and that leads to an understanding of their style and its strengths. Receiving affirmations from others also helps strengthen the bonds between tellers.
• The questions to and from the teller: This is where any growth points can be specifically addressed. If, for example, the teller asks if a certain part of the story was clear, and it wasn’t, the listeners have the opportunity (and the obligation) to respond honestly, politely, and in the spirit of collaboration.  Similarly, if a listener asks the teller about a part of the story that was unclear, or that they wanted more information about, the teller can reflect on that as they continue to hone the story.
• Teaching tellers to maintain their authority in the process: New tellers sometimes say to their listeners, “Just tell me how I can make the story better.” This effectively hands the power for the story over to the listeners, which is what we are trying to avoid. When this happens, I intervene and remind them to ask specific questions. This can be challenging, as sometimes the teller just has an uneasy feeling. Part of learning the model is to encourage tellers to ask something like, “I felt uneasy in the part about leaving home. Did anyone else feel uneasy there.”
• Repetition: Over time, as students engage in this process as tellers and listeners, they see its positive effect on themselves and others. They see the effective techniques that others use, and they see what comes up in the questions and how people integrate that information in their next stories. They get used to taking the responsibility for their own creative products, and to eventually relish that.
• Suggestions: Sometimes a suggestion must be made to insure that the teller isn’t inadvertently causing offense or putting themselves in a bad light. This usually has to do with a point of fact or pronunciation. But sometimes it does have to do with cultural values and assumptions that the teller may not be aware will alienate or be offensive to listeners. As you might imagine, this requires care and sensitivity to address.  Sometimes it’s best to speak with the teller privately, but it often must be addressed in the whole class so that others know they are safe and can have continued confidence in the facilitator.

Lerman, Liz, and John Borstel. Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for getting useful feedback on anything you make, from dance to dessert. Dance Exchange, Inc.; 1st edition (July 1, 2003).

Lipman, Doug. Improving Your Storytelling: Beyond the Basics for All Who Tell Stories in Work and Play. August House; Illustrated edition (January 1, 1999).

Lipman, Doug. The Storytelling Coach: How to Listen, Praise, and Bring Out People's Best.  August House; 1st Edition (October 12, 2006).

Collecting and Recording Traditional Folktales: A Guide for Students by Kathy Shimpock

Traditional folktales were shared orally for many, many, years. Over time, however, when the oral tradition, became less prominent, these stories were saved by folklorists who thought they were important enough to write down. Perhaps none are as famous as the Brothers Grimm who traveled throughout Germany recording stories in the 1800’s. Jack Zipes writes, “The[ir] tales are about children and families and how they reacted to the difficult conditions under which they lived. The Grimms thought the stories and their morals emanated naturally from the German people in an oral tradition, and they wanted to preserve them before the tales were lost forever.” Many other scholars also had the desire to save stories before they were forgotten.  That is why we now have written versions of folktales from throughout the world.

Sometimes folklorists recorded these stories accurately. But other times there were “problems” with either the translation or the transcription. For example, The Brothers Grimm produced several editions of their tales. The earlier more violent versions were closer to the actual stories told, while the later versions were edited greatly in a desire to share the stories with children.

As storytellers, we may assume that all the stories worth telling have already been recorded. But that is not true. Much of the known collection of Irish folktales was written down in the twentieth century. In reality, there are probably many folktales and story variants that have never been recorded. Further, even more stories still need to be translated into English.

So, if there are traditional tales that you were told as a child or if you have grandparents or other elders in your family who know them; you can honor these stories by writing them down and sharing them with others. Perhaps you are able to translate some folktales into English. These stories might be variants told in your town or geographic area. They might even be stories that no one has ever heard before. Either way, record them in an audio file or write them down! You’ll have a record of the stories told in your family, which can be shared with later generations.

But before you begin, there are some things to remember; for recording a story, is a very different process than telling a story. The following are issues to consider:

• Record the story accurately. When we become a folklorist, we want to provide an accurate written record of the story. We want to be sure not to embellish the story or fill in any missing elements. We do not want to edit it. That is what we do as storytellers but not what we do as folklorists. Translate or transcribe the tale, as you find it as accurately as possible.
• Beware of cultural issues. Even if we are recording a story from our family, it may have originated from another country. Do we understand all the cultural issues of the story? Is there any part of the story that doesn’t make sense? It’s easy to misunderstand or misinterpret stories from another culture or mistranslate words from another language into English. Ask questions when needed. The less assumptions we make, the more likely we are to be true to the story.
• Historical elements. Does the story seem to explain an event in history, an historical figure, or a geographic landmark? If so, a little outside research may be helpful to understand the story.
• Words having unique meaning. Words can have unique meaning in particular cultures. For example, a word might have both a common and a slang meeting. Using the English definition might miss the actual meaning in the context of your story.
• Meaning of the story. Many folktales have a moral, teaching or “meaning.” Understanding the values of the story’s culture is important to recording the story accurately.
• Metaphors and Humor. Humor and metaphors contained in stories are especially difficult to translate. For example, the saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” could be interpreted literally as being about apples falling. If so, that translation would miss the meaning that sons and daughters are often very much like their parents. If you are able, ask additional questions.
• What you hear may be different. Folktales often include songs and sound effects. Work to retain the original word patterns or rhymes. Retain any repetitions of words or phrases. Explore words that are used for sound effects. For example, a pig says “oink” in English, but it says “Boo Boo” in Japan!
• Remember the source. Be sure to record the source of your tale. If you are translating the story, what is the original source? Provide full bibliographic information. If you received your story from a family member or elder, be sure to record their name, how you know them, when and where the interview took place.

The bottom line is to honor the story and record it as shared. This is what is required to record these stories in its original form. For information on interviewing and recording a story in an audio file, review the “Collecting and Recording Family History” guide.

Telling the Stories Collected

Once the folktales are recorded, it’s time to pick one story to tell! Telling stories is very different from recording the story. Remember as storytellers we stay true to the tale’s narrative. But we are also free to expand upon that to describe the environment and the characters, provide dialogue and sound effects, etc. In essence, we bring the tale alive.

Still there are things to be aware of in telling this story. Understand the story within its culture and history if possible. Use the language of the story, correctly pronouncing the names and places. (Google does a good job of giving you an accurate pronunciation.) Some tellers employ a bilingual approach to a story using terms found in the original culture. This approach can provide the audience with a greater understanding of the story in its original form.

Writing a Book

Folktales are often turned into books.  This is when a traditional folktale or fairy tale becomes part of a literary work. There are many ways this can be accomplished. The first is a simple retelling of the story. These are often published as children’s books. Storytellers sometimes write the stories they tell orally (that is their own unique version of the tale). These are identified on the title as being “compiled by,” “based on a folktale,” or indicated to be a story variant.

The second approach is based on creative writing. Authors of these works expand on a traditional fairy tales or folktales. They can place their own creative twist on the story. They might change one event. How would the story shift if that occurred? What might happen after the story ends? The options are endless. These stories are fantasy stories of individual authorship. The works are not identified as authentic folktales.

For more information on culture and storytelling: Stotter, Ruth, "The Storyteller: Bridge Between Cultures," in About Story - Writings on Stories and Storytelling (np: Stotter Press) 1994.

The image at the top of the post comes from here, another excellent source on collecting folklore.

 

 

Mothers, Daughters, Sisters by Janet Fraser Means

I learned today that Janet Fraser Means passed away earlier this month.  She was so important to the development of the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute in the early 2000s, and to the recognition of the importance of storytelling in our broader community. Funny, creative, and fiercely intelligent, she was a remarkable storyteller, supporter of storytellers, and teacher of storytelling. She loved folktales - the quirkier and darker the better. The post below is from a longer essay she wrote in the mid-2000s. I love it because she helped me visualize how folktales and legends grow out of personal experience. The photo at the top is Janet at her Storytelling Graduation. She already had a PhD in psychology, and had studied with the Jungians in Switzerland. She brought that deep familiarity with symbols and archetypes to her telling and her teaching. Go here to see a post I wrote about her in 2009.--Liz

Mothers, Daughters, Sisters by Janet Fraser Means: Every family has its myths and legends, those stories that are passed down from generation to generation, no one ever knowing for sure if they are true or if they began with a grain of truth and then just grew like topsy. They are the family’s own folktales. Imagine this. We are sitting in a cottage a long time ago. It is small but cozy and well kept. The walls have been whitewashed and brightly colored curtains cover the window. The window is shuttered now for it is winter and the snow is piled up outside. In the corner of the room is the ladder that leads up to the sleeping loft above. A fire crackles on the hearth and an old woman stirs the soup. The table is set. Soon the family will gather for their evening meal. Tonight there will be a visitor at the table for the tailor is staying with the family while he makes their clothes for the coming year. The old woman ladles the soup into the waiting bowls and sits down at the head of the table. Her son sits across from her, and three little children sit side by side on a bench. A baby sleeps in a cradle in front of the fire. There is just room for the tailor to take his place across from the children, next to their mother. As soon as the meal is finished, and the plates cleared away the children with one voice say " Granny! Granny! Tell us a story. Tell us about the time you and Uncle Hans were lost on the woods" So once again Gretel tells her grandchildren about how she and Uncle Hans got lost.

"They called him Hansel then," she begins, because he was a little boy, just a little boy. And I was even younger. We loved each other so much that we always stuck together. And a good thing we did too for once we got lost in the woods. We were so very, very poor that we often didn't have anything to eat for days at a time. We couldn't get any help from our neighbors because everyone was as poor as we were. So we just had to do whatever we could to keep going. This little house where we live now is like a castle compared to the one, I grew up in so long ago."

Everyone listens with rapt attention while Gretel goes on to tell her story about how the family was starving and finally there was nothing more to eat all. "Finally, she says, "Mother convinced Father to take the two of us out into the woods and leave us. She said she couldn't bear to watch us starve to death and it might be possible for the two of them to survive if they didn't have to feed us too. Mother said that maybe someone would find us and take care of us. Besides, children were considered replaceable in those days."

"Did somebody find you Granny? Did they?" asks one of the children, although she already knows the answer. Granny tells about the old woman who found them and gave them food and let them stay with her until they could go home again. The story is becoming a family legend now. It has been told over and over and with each telling the details change a little bit and parts are added. The mother becomes meaner and meaner. The woods more and more scary. One person's experience begins to transform into a folktale. The tailor carries Granny's story with him to the next place he stays. He changes the story to make it more exciting, and to make it his own. Maybe he was the one who turned the old lady who rescues the children into a witch who entraps them. And so, a folk tale is born.

Eventually the Grimm brothers will collect the story of Hansel and Gretel and change the mother who abandons her children into a stepmother to make it more palatable. No one wants to acknowledge that mothers can and do abandon their children to die in the wilderness. They did so in the time of Hansel and Gretel, and they still do so today.

I Lost a Lake by Rebecca Love

So….I lost a lake. It could happen to anyone.

I’m taking a Personal Storytelling class, and I want to tell a story to my son about the lake house my paternal grandmother had in Connecticut when I was growing up. We would spend weeks and weeks there every summer. Uncles, aunts, and cousins would all converge on the mid-century modern treasure at the edge of the sparking water with the best screened-in porch in the world housing the best Ping-Pong table ever. I want to tell him about picking blueberries from the wild bushes among all the trees, including the white birches I only ever saw on vacation. I want him to run and jump off the dock with me doing cannonballs into the water and crack open freshwater mussel shells to get bait for fishing the sunnies, perch, pickerel, and bass.

But I’ve run into a huge problem. My memory is fallible, and I have completely fabricated the name of this lake. I am convinced to the marrow of my bones that my grandmother’s house was on Pinehurst Lake. But among the over 3,000 lakes and ponds in Connecticut, there is no such body of water. Google Earth is no help. The office of tourism is no help. And as I also don’t remember the street address of the lake house, I’m going to have to get some help from a live person in some county recorder office (and of course each county has their own property records) to find out if my grandmother owned property in the county. I have to find this lake!

But my fallible memory doesn’t mean I can’t tell my son some stories of lake house adventures. I’m trying very hard to move out of the mindset that my fact-based and personal stories have to be mirror-perfect representations of people, places, and events. There are some things I just can’t know for absolutely, positively sure. I can be true to what I know, research what I don’t know to the best of my abilities, and then tell stories with good intent that are respectful and true to the spirit of the people, places, and events involved. I can work with my imperfect memory, and still tell meaningful stories.

And when I find that missing lake, I’m traveling across the country to take my son for a swim.

Maybe So, Maybe Not by Marilee Lasch

There is a Chinese folktale with a refrain that goes, “maybe so, maybe not.” Here is a summary: A farmer and his son had a work horse, but one day the horse ran away causing the neighbors to exclaim, “What terrible luck!” To which the farmer replies, "Maybe so, maybe not.” The next day the horse returns with a herd of wild horses, and the neighbors praise the farmer’s luck. But the farmer replies “maybe so, maybe not.” The story goes through multiple misfortunes, which later become lucky, and each time the farmers response is the same: “maybe so, maybe not.”

What a valuable lesson. To be able to forget the sorrows of the past, and worry not about the uncertainty of the future, but to live in the present moment.

This is a learning lesson that I am going through right now. Three years ago, I had to sell my house, but I sold it to a man that was willing to rent it back to me for ten years for half of what my house payment had been. What good luck my neighbors exclaimed, and I got myself thinking the same, until two days later after the closing. The new owner was killed in a plane crash, and he had no will!!  Oh no my friends exclaimed, what bad luck, and I did feel the same. But a couple of months later, the house resold to an LLC, and they agreed to the honor the past lease terms. Oh, what good luck my friends all said, but by now I was learning to say, more to be revealed

Three months ago, I got a letter that said the new owners want to go with a month-to-month lease. What bad luck everyone said, “they want you out.” But once the sales contract was reviewed it showed it had to be a year lease. But the sales agent mentioned nothing about the rent being raised, and we all know what is going on with rentals and home prices. Do I get to say, “what bad luck?” I could, but a better response for me is, “more to be revealed.”

I need to create a little distance between the story of this situation and what the ultimate reality might be. As I lay in bed, I remind myself that only time can tell the whole story. But the more important thing is, what is and what will be my attitude be when the next situation comes along? Will I cry and moan, “what bad luck” or will I have the ability to be present in the moment, and believe that there will be a good outcome?

(The picture of Marilee's house at the top of the post can be found here.)

 

I keep reminding myself that at least there will be a story, no matter what the end result will be. More to be revealed.

Stories of Hope by Sally Jo Bannow

There are a multitude of spiritual and religious celebrations and observances, including Christmas, at this time and all through the year. Many of them are steeped in rich and meaningful story. This blog entry is about Christmas, which I observe. It is a time of year that I love. There are many traditions of the Christmas season that I love; the lights, giving gifts to my family and friends, decorating my home with lights and items that are passed down through the generations. As I place certain items, I take time to think of where they came from and the people associated with them. To avoid my least favorite part of the season, the commercialism, I have most or all of my gifts purchased or made by Halloween. I am probably one of the few ‘mature people’ who likes snow and would run out to build a snowman to this day, if only Phoenix weather would oblige.

Yes, I am dedicated to playfulness. Maybe that’s why my favorite part of Christmas is its stories.

There are a plethora of stories and they all seem to be about hope in one way or another – just turn on the Hallmark channel! Hallmark has found a way to tell the same story over and over in (sometimes only slightly) different ways; a woman becomes single because of some tragedy or rough breakup, moves to a small town, falls in love with the vet who saves her beloved pet, there is some misunderstanding and the woman bolts out of fear, the vet shows up at her door with some small cheesy but meaningful gift wrapped in a big red bow, they laugh at their foolishness, her heart melts and suddenly she realizes that this is true love after all. Fin. People flock to this channel like crazy.

To be honest, I have never seen a Hallmark Christmas movie. As you see above, I don’t need to see one. I already have the gist. I have friends who put on their Hallmark Christmas movie t-shirts (Hallmark ain’t stupid) and curl up for marathons. The thing is, these movies are all about messages like “there IS romantic love out there for you,” “you ARE worth saving,” and “you CAN begin again.” Hope. It is at its core a season of hope for humanity.

I am not a Hallmark channel gal…yet. There are many stories of the season that I do love. A Christmas Carol is about a man who has closed his heart after too many painful events in his life cause him to lose hope for a bright future. I think this story is particularly poignant now, because of our collective experience in current events. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is another holiday favorite. It’s the story of someone born with a unique physical attribute that is different from the others. He is shunned, until he is needed (that part is upsetting, but sadly human). Through that need, minds are changed. He is seen and valued just for being himself and everyone sees the error of their ways and opens their hearts to acceptance. Fill in the blanks on the meaning there.

Any oppressed individual or group can play the part of Rudolph in this story. The elf in this story, Hermie, is not shunned immediately because of how he looks, but because of who he is inside. The Island of Misfit Toys is full of ‘unlovable’ toys who don’t fit the preconceived mold. There are many parallels to be drawn in the story of Rudolph.

I could go on and on; The Little Drummer Boy, The Year Without A Christmas Tree, The Grinch, A Charlie Brown Christmas, etc., etc., etc. They are all stories of the hope for change for the better. That’s my favorite part of the Christmas season - the hope I find in the stories I’ve heard and seen since a child. 

Tell Someone I’m Here By Mindy Tarquini

In the early pages of Arthur W. Frank’s Letting Stories Breathe: A socio-narratology, (© 2010 by The University of Chicago Press), Frank recounts a very short story by South American writer Eduardo Galeano titled “Christmas Eve” in which the protagonist, a young doctor, already very late for celebrations at his family’s Christmas Eve, takes a last pass through the ward to ensure everything is in order. A young boy bearing the pallor of impending death follows, slips his tiny hand into the doctor’s, then begs: “Tell someone, I’m here.”

Such a sad story. So evocative. So hopeless. A story I’ve returned to time and again. A story that’s attached to me like a barnacle, rising at odd moments. A story that makes me wonder – why?

Why this story? Why now? Why not in the times I’d read it before?

Because right now I’m taking Personal Stories and at its heart, “Christmas Eve” is a story about the need to be remembered, to be understood, to be seen, to be heard, if only for an instant.

See, a personal story is birthed in memory, a memory that sticks, a memory triggered at odd moments -- by an image, a smell, a sound – because that memory is bathed in emotion, an emotion that needs to be processed. The events filed with the memory provide the emotion structure, give it form. Perhaps so the memory can be crafted into a story. A story that might be passed to a listener, a story that might attach to the listener like a barnacle, evoking the listener’s own distinct memory, the listener’s own emotion. An emotion that sticks. An emotion that demands, like the little boy in the story, “Tell someone I’m here.”

Mindy Tarquini is the award-winning author of three critically acclaimed novels that feature fables, foibles, fairytales, pandemics, past lives & lost loves. Find Mindy and her stories at www.MindyTarquini.com

(Photo Credit: Image by John Hain from Pixabay)

Do You Know? by Carly Davis

Do you know someone whose face “froze” in a grumpy position?

Do you know how your grandparents met?

Do you know what went on when you were being born?

These are three of the 20 questions developed by Marshall P. Duke, PhD, of Emory University. This list, called the “Do you know” scale, measures a child’s familial knowledge. As research items, these 20 questions have two qualities to note; they are designed to be a yes/no answer, and they test knowledge that a child could not have learned firsthand. The child wasn’t present when their grandparents met – so someone had to have told them that in a story. Here we get at the magic of this list. These questions get at the family’s storytelling habits. On a car trip, at a holiday gathering, at the birthday dinners, is the family telling each other their stories? Because when children grow up hearing these stories, and thusly being able to answer these questions, the child is more resilient. They are better able to manage disappointments, have higher self-esteem, and lower anxiety. These good outcomes are the result, writes Duke, of a strong sense of an intergenerational self. The child knows that they belong and where they belong within the family. It is this knowledge that bolters them through life.

That is also why just knowing the answers isn’t enough. Don’t go make 20 flashcards. But go tell 20 stories.

These questions were developed to measure a child’s familial knowledge, but for us storytellers, they make excellent prompts.

“Do you know the names of the schools your father went to?”

Yes.

Lakeland High School, which is where my sister went some 35 years later, and she had their same English teacher!

How rich is that for a story?

I can talk about our small town in Florida, about my parents meeting there, my sister returning there, I can talk about dear Mrs. Harris who my dad thought was old back then!

As we look ahead to the holidays, or look to reconnect after a long quarantine, or just look for new story ideas, take a tour through these 20 questions. Read more here. 

1. Do you know how your parents met?
2. Do you know where your mother grew up?
3. Do you know where your father grew up?
4. Do you know where some of your grandparents grew up?
5. Do you know where some of your grandparents met?
6. Do you know where your parents were married?
7. Do you know what went on when you were being born?
8. Do you know the source of your name?
9. Do you know some things about what happened when your brothers or sisters were being born?
10. Do you know which person in your family you look most like?
11. Do you know which person in the family you act most like?
12. Do you know some of the illnesses and injuries that your parents experienced when they were younger?
13. Do you know some of the lessons that your parents learned from good or bad experiences?
14. Do you know some things that happened to your mom or dad when they were in school?
15. Do you know the national background of your family (such as English, German, Russian, etc)?
16. Do you know some of the jobs that your parents had when they were young?
17. Do you know some awards that your parents received when they were young?
18. Do you know the names of the schools that your mom went to?
19. Do you know the names of the schools that your dad went to?
20. Do you know about a relative whose face "froze" in a grumpy position because he or she did not smile enough?

My Grandmother’s Fruitcake Recipe by Matthew Knotts

My grandmother’s fruitcakes were infamous. Wrapped in paper towels soaked in half orange juice and half whiskey, they packed quite a punch. When I was younger, my parents wouldn’t let me eat them, because she used moonshine from the still in the woods behind my great aunt’s house. Only after the stiIl broke and she had to buy whiskey off the shelf was I allowed to try it. I can still remember the mischievous glint in my grandmother’s eye as she offered me my first taste of alcohol - a teaspoon of whiskey at age 15. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to drink it, but it was delicious in cake form.  

One December, my grandmother announced that I was to carry on the tradition, because she and I were the only two in the family who ate fruitcake. She was going to teach me her fruitcake recipe, and we would create the traditional two cakes. One was for her house, and one was for mine. She sat down at the kitchen table while I stood ready at the counter. I had everything I needed - a pen and paper to record the ingredients and steps, a container of red and green candied cherries, and a large mixing bowl. 

“Step one - Open the cupboard,” she said. We’re off to a good start. 

“Do we have any allspice?” I responded in the negative.  

“Oh, it’s not a problem. How about nutmeg?” We didn’t have any of that either. 

“Well, we’ll make do,” she said. 

Wait! My analytical mind couldn’t process this information. How can you have a recipe where the ingredients don’t matter? How can I be expected to learn a tradition in an afternoon when it took her years of trial and error to know what works and what doesn’t?

I felt the same way as a fledgling storyteller. How could I be expected to craft a story when there are so many options and so few rules? Your story ends with, “Maybe it did. We’ll never know.” That’s fine! Your story begins with a princess stuck in a cave. We have to accept that’s where she’s supposed to be! 

When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I fall back on the basic elements of a story as defined by Donald Davis in his book, Telling Your Own Stories for Family and Classroom Storytelling, Public Speaking and Personal Journaling. Davis’ 5 P’s are: 

• People - My grandmother and I 

• Place - My grandmother’s kitchen

• Picture - Tasting whiskey for the first time; Standing at the counter organized and prepared

• Problem - There is no recipe!

• Progress - Accepting the loss of a tradition

Unfortunately, my grandmother and I never completed that fruitcake, and the tradition died with her. I still cherish the memory of the times we shared, and I am now able to take an uncertain story with no happily ever after and share it with you.

Stories, Grandmothers, and Biscuits - or As Big as You Have Ever Been by Melissa Soza Fees

I love grandmothers.  Today I’d like to thank the grandmother of Donald Davis.  She was an excellent storytelling coach, and her grandson, whom she never met is a storyteller extraordinaire.  She imparted great wisdom to her grandson by teaching his father how to tell his own story.  You see, storytellers know when a story is not ready to be told.  Often that is because we don’t know how it will end or because it’s just too soon to tell it without everyone ending up in tears, especially the storyteller.  Sometimes it is a little of both.  In real life, we don’t get that opportunity to age our story.  We live it every day. 

 

People live through life-changing events all the time, but it's their life circumstance that are changed, not necessarily themselves -- not right away.  Psychologists differentiate between change which is constant, and transition which is the change happening inside the person’s mind.  According to the work of William Bridges, after a life-changing event or ending, there is a period of transition where things are unclear and confusing.  During this transition, you haven’t had a chance to grow and understand what has happened.  At this juncture, the story people tell themselves about the event will greatly impact how they emerge from the transition phase.  If they tell their story once before their emotions have caught up with their thoughts and actions, the narrative can get cooked.  It can get “cooked in the squat” like a biscuit before it rises in the oven -- and stay that way.   

 

This is where Grandma Davis comes into play.  She guided her son to tell the story of his leg being injured with an ax and guided him to tell it from different perspectives and over time.  She said that if a person didn’t tell their story, it could sit on them like a rock.  She told him you are not telling the story to change what happened; you are telling the story to change you.  Stories have the power to change people because the truths they reveal can change a person’s thoughts which can change their feelings and their actions.  Grandma Davis helped her son change his relationship to what happened to him and turn a tragedy into the prologue of his amazing life.  

 

When you are a child and something happens to you, you think you are “BIG” because you are as big as you have ever been.  As time goes on and you revisit the events of your life, you will find that you might have been much younger or smaller than you remember.  Your judgment of yourself and others needs to mature and grow with you.  We can all learn from Grandma Davis and reexamine stories from our own lives to see if they may have been “cooked in the squat” before we were able to keep telling them from different perspectives and over time.

The Big List of Story Prompts by Liz Warren

Over the years I've created dozens of lists of story prompts.  Here is a compilation of my favorites, and the ones that have proved most productive in sparking memory. Enjoy!

The Big List of Story Prompts!

• You and your friends got in trouble in school or college
• A date or an appointment or a meeting went wrong
• The moment you knew you were on the right path – what happened, how did it change you?
• A moment of inspiration or understanding that made a difference for you
• Someone who believed in you and your path – what happened
• A mentor who has guided you, opened doors for you, changed your life
• Someone you admire and how they inspired you
• A key obstacle to you becoming who you are today and how you overcame it
• Something you worked very hard on turned out great – or didn’t – and why.
• A story of a tragedy that didn’t have to happen
• You embarrassed your mother (or father, siblings, spouse, children)
• Your mother (or father, siblings, spouse, or children) embarrassed you!
• A super dramatic, life-changing experience
• That time you beat the odds!
• You were embarrassed by your mother (or father siblings, spouse, children)
• You needed to be rescued or you rescued someone
• You had to make a mid-course correction – what led up to it and what did you do?
• Your most interesting relative – what they taught you?
• You didn’t get blamed when it was your fault – or you did get blamed when it wasn’t!
• A time you faced your fears – what happened?
• You broke or damaged yourself in some way
• You learned a family secret
• You got in big, serious trouble
• You lost your temper, or you caused someone to lose his/her temper – what happened?
• You misjudged someone, or you were misjudged – what happened?
• You needed help and you got it
• You got lost
• You took on a physical challenge
• You advocated for a cause
• You took on a difficult journey
• A journey that was supposed to be easy became difficult
• You were stranded
• You travelled to someplace that was frightening, or made you uneasy
• You went on a hero’s journey of personal growth
• A normal journey turned into a hero’s journey
• You survived something difficult
• You found yourself in a dangerous situation
• You put yourself in harm’s way to help someone else
• Your life or character was enhanced by troubles you survived
• You explored the dark and dangerous corners of . . .
• You forged a path into the wilderness – actual or metaphorical!
• You took a big risk
• You followed through on a bold and crazy idea
• You took a bold step into the unknown against the advice of others
• You found yourself in dangerous weather
• You pulled yourself out of a bad spot
• An environment you thought you knew turned difficult or dangerous
• You made an adventurous beauty or fashion choice
• You made an adventurous relationship choice
• You had a culinary adventure
• You lived to tell the tale!
• Your best friend moved away
• You had your first kiss
• Your first serious relationship came to an end
• Your friend or friends, or significant other came to your rescue
• You came to the rescue of your friend or significant other
• You were caught in the middle between two friends
• A rough beginning to a good friendship
• You survived, or didn’t survive a rough patch with a loved one
• A misunderstanding led to deeper understanding and more love
• You had to let a loved one go
• You received a special gift from a friend or loved one
• A date went wrong
• You said yes to the wrong person
• Love caught you by surprise
• You experimented with on-line dating
• You introduced a new boyfriend or girlfriend to the family
• You got in big, serious trouble
• You played matchmaker, or someone made a match for you
• You had to apologize, or received an apology
• You experienced a wedding disaster
• You experienced a wedding miracle
• You understood the saying, “Friends are God’s apology for relations!”
• You attended disastrous family dinner
• You took part in a family holiday disaster
• You needed to be rescued or you rescued someone
• You experienced the benefits (or the downside) of being the oldest (or the youngest, or the middle) child
• Someone in your family made a bad situation better
• You were sick and someone in your family knew just what to do
• Your most interesting relative – and why!
• You learned the truth (or delivered the truth) about Santa Claus
• You broke something valuable in your or a relative’s house
• You broke or damaged yourself in some way
• You learned a family secret
• You lost a family member
• You got a new member in the family
• You introduced a new boyfriend or girlfriend to the family
• You took a road trip, or vacation, with the family
• An incident that brought your family closer – or pushed them apart
• The joke was on you
• You went to summer camp when you didn’t want to – or you did want to
• You took an endless family vacation, in a car, with your siblings/children
• You got in trouble in the water, or on a hike, or with a campfire
• You had an encounter with a snake, or a bear, or . . .
• Your trip to Disneyland didn’t turn out like you thought – or it did
• You had a problem with a tent, or a camper, or a sleeping bag
• You had the longest airport delay ever
• Your traveling companion surprised you by . . .
• Your hotel was supposed to have something it didn’t have
• You got stranded and you didn’t speak the language
• You were sent to your relatives for the summer
• You had to go to summer school while your friends had fun
• You saved for a big vacation, but . . .
• You thought you knew what you were ordering, but
• Your car broke down in the middle of . . .
• You thought you knew how to work the barbecue, or the fireworks, or whatever
• You attended or threw a memorable party
• You attended or organized a summer picnic
• Your GPS stopped working
• Your reservations were lost
• You got bumped from the airplane

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

 

Story Telling and Story Reading by Diana Dinshaw

I am going to start right off the bat and assert that storytelling and story reading are different. I am not saying one is better than the other especially when it comes to young children who are early readers. I am just saying they are different.

Storytelling is the art of orally telling a story handed down from the oral tradition to one or more listeners. 

One could argue and say that a folktale read aloud to a group of second graders fits the definition of storytelling. And this is where I would explain that for me the key phrase in the definition above is, “the art of”. What makes storytelling an art is the creative freedom the storyteller has to infuse their own personal element into the story without the binding limitations set by having to read a story.

Personal Element

When telling a story, the storyteller is free to create and craft the story. That is why you may hear a well-established story and it will sound different when a different storyteller tells that story. This is because the teller has incorporated their own personality into the story. 

Chesin states, “The storyteller is free to present the tale as he knows and loves it” ¹

At a recent Summer Solstice event I told the very well-known myth, “The Abduction of Persephone.” While I had told this story a couple of times before, for this event I decided to craft it a little differently and told the story through Demeter, Persephone’s mother’s point of view. Though this is quite a serious and some may say a tragic story, I did add some humor to it because that is my style. Later I was told by a guest that she really enjoyed the story and while she knew the story well and had read it to her grandchildren many times, she had never heard it being told this way.

While the story elements; place, characters, plot, were the same, as a storyteller I had the freedom to create a piece of art through which the audience got a glimpse of my personality. 

Binding Limitations

With storytelling the storyteller is not bound by the words printed on paper (or in this time of technology on a device). The storyteller can take a well-established story and make it their own. 

A couple of months ago, I heard a book on CD read aloud by Tom Hanks. He did a fantastic job of bringing the book alive by using different voices for the different characters and changing his pace and tone to express emotion. Nevertheless, he was bound by the words of the author, and he was expressing the emotions of the author.

Because the storyteller is not bound by printed words you may hear a storyteller tell a story again and it will sound different. The storyteller has the freedom to lighten the mood by adding humour if they see the listeners getting too stressed or get the listener’s waning attention by adding a sound effect to the story.

Words are not the only limitation readers encounter. They are also faced with the barrier that a book presents, coming between the reader and the listener.

As a teacher I want to reinforce the importance of reading stories aloud, especially to young students who are emerging readers. And even as an adult I like having a story read to me and often listen to a book on CD on my commute from work. While story reading is important, it is not storytelling.

Storytelling	Story Reading
Storyteller and the listener	Story reader, listener, and the book
Creative and improvised	Bound by the words of the book
Takes effort and work to create	Is easier to do

Watch this short video of Debra Weller demonstrating the difference between storytelling and story reading.

The image at the top of the post can be found here. Is she telling or reading?

Wear A Story Like an Interchangeable Necklace by Anna Blocher-Rubin

In the past, I have heard of a story as a string of pearls. While I was creating a story that was to be about 20 minutes long, I was finding that I was getting caught on the length of the string of pearls. I was questioning what parts of the story were really needed to meet the objective of my story. I realized the story I was trying to create was more of an interchangeable necklace.  Unlike the string of pearls, I realized I could make the story longer, or shorter; change out the events in the story, like a pendant and decide which parts I want to share or hold back depending on my audience. 

 

A story naturally changes as the storyteller matures and changes in life. I found that as a storyteller, I needed to expand on my idea of a string of pearls and maybe my pearls were turning into interchangeable pendants. The symbolism of an interchangeable necklace allowed me to stop worrying about the length, and including every detail detail of the story, but rather focus on the structure and which parts I wanted to highlight in my story; just as I would decide on a pendant or two, to wear with an outfit.

 

I hope this metaphor may encourage storytellers to reflect on their story repertoire and see how many pendants they can find in their stories, to be changed out, to make an old story new again. 

Transformation Comes from Within By Mindy Tarquini

Every story has a hero. We call that hero the protagonist. Every story has a nemesis. We call that nemesis the antagonist. The hero wants something. So does the nemesis. And in a twist often not clear for much of the story, the hero and the nemesis want the same thing. And in a further twist, the true nemesis is not the antagonist.

During the war of 1812, after the Battle of Lake Erie, Commodore Oliver Perry famously reported, “We have met the enemy and he is ours.” In an equally famous paraphrase, over a hundred and fifty years later, Pogo, a stumpy, somewhat pithy character created by cartoonist Walt Kelly, declares, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

That moment becomes the reason for just about every story, the moment the hero realizes it’s not a matter of having more spells, or more bullets, more bombs, more allies, or better arguments. The moment the hero realizes the outcome is out of her hands, that the only event over which the hero has any control is her attitude, her thoughts, her response. The moment the hero accepts that truth is transformational. The hero may achieve her story’s goal, she may not. At that transformational moment, whatever the story’s outcome, whether the hero lives or dies, the hero has already succeeded.

Mindy Tarquini is the author of three critically-acclaimed novels featuring fables, foibles, fairytales, pandemics, past lives & lost loves. Find her and her social media links at www.mindytarquini.com

Ramblings of a Teller of Tales: Lots of Questions, Not as Many Answers by Diana Dinshaw

In 1996 I was a special education teacher at a private school for children with Learning Disabilities in Greenwich, Connecticut. At the end of a PE class in which we had played dodgeball one of my students asked, “Ms. Dinshaw which team won?” His team had no doubt lost but being a ‘good’ teacher, I replied, “Both teams won, Ryan, because we played fair.” Ryan turned to his teammate and I overheard him saying, “Teachers just say that to make us feel better. We definitely lost.” 

This mindset of “making people feel better” has seeped into my daily life and I see it in my storytelling as well. When people compliment me on the telling of a story I have just finished, my immediate response is, “Oh you can do it too.”  Really? (asked rhetorically).

Just because you have a story to tell does that make you a storyteller? After all, haven't we been telling stories since the beginning of time? Those stories might not be in words as we know them now but the etchings in caves and cliffs do inform us of an incident that happened eons ago. Then the question arises whether an incident is a story or is it just an anecdote?  Liz Warren in her book, The Oral Tradition Today: An Introduction to the Art of Storytelling writes, “Anecdotes relate an event; stories place the same event in a larger context of meaning.” 

This leads me to wonder then how a person would do that, place the event in a larger context of meaning. The obvious answer could be by learning the art of storytelling i.e., what are the types of stories, story structures, where to find stories, how to memorize stories and the list goes on. 

The next question that comes up for me is, is it sufficient to study storytelling to be a storyteller? To this question I would say no. Just like any art studying it is not enough, practice and coaching are integral parts of becoming a storyteller. After all, just because I learned ballet when I was young could I say I am a ballerina?

The natural question that follows is, can you be a storyteller without studying storytelling? To answer this question, I would have to first define ‘studying’. When we look at the preservation of stories through the oral tradition over hundreds of years and we learn how storytelling was taught and studied it is evident that ‘studying’ was definitely not how storytelling is studied today. Just by its definition ‘oral’ tradition was passed down from master to student, whether the student was a family member or an apprentice the master would take on, through verbal transmission. Just by the nature of the story the story structure was learned by the student not taught explicitly the way it is today. The student would spend years memorizing stories that would be told over days. And only after the student had multiple such stories under his belt would he be able to call himself a storyteller.

And that brings me to the million-dollar question; lacking the rigor of becoming a storyteller from the past can I truly call myself a storyteller? Maybe I am just a teller of tales.

The Threshold Guardian by Mindy Tarquini

In storytelling, the threshold guardian is the obstacle, the limiting factor, that which must be overcome if the hero is to continue. In stories, the threshold guardian may be the ferryman on the River Styx, the three-headed-dog sleeping before the gates of hell. Threshold guardians might be liminal entities, wardens of crossroads, or borders, seasons or times of days, present only so long as their purpose persists.

In oral stories, those threshold guardians are often easy to pick out, bearing flaming swords, or speaking enigmatic languages, able to steer wind or weather or coax a mountain to breathe fire. But in real life, threshold guardians are sometimes subtle: the bank manager who won’t approve the mortgage, the grad school admission clerk who insists the paperwork arrived too late, the doctor laying out the possible courses of treatment, each of which is an equally bad choice.

In real life or story, the guardian may be visible, or hidden in a traumatic past. The guardian may manifest as age, disability, loss, grief, perhaps temptation. Always, the hero needs to move forward and the threshold guardian, whether benign or malignant, mentor or companion, at that particular junction has one purpose, either by conscious action or unaware positioning--to be IN. THE. WAY.

In most stories, the hero succeeds, gets past the Ferryman, kills the dragon with the flaming sword, finds another way to finance the venture, replaces a traumatic experience with a good one. Real life is different. The guardians often win and the only way to find meaning in the guardian is to find meaning in the threshold the hero does not breach, the lessons it imparts, of limits and confines, actions to be avoided, mistakes to vow never to make again. That’s why stories are preferable to real life.

But real life is where we live, and those lessons have value. To appreciate what we’ve lost, to nurture what remains, to assess time and opportunity by a different measure. Of satisfaction in work done well, joy in a relationship cultivated, accomplishment in a new solution.

Then we go on, just like the hero, to meet the new challenge.

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

The Need for Storytelling in an Increasingly Connected Yet Never More Disconnected World by Laura Mazzocchi

The thing I’ve noticed most in learning about personal storytelling this semester is its ability to connect people. Even in this virtual world, across distances far and near, between introverts and extroverts, among people of various upbringing and experience with perhaps nothing in common, we have formed connections through our stories.

Even before this ongoing pandemic made it necessary for all of us to further isolate ourselves, we were an increasingly disconnected society. Social media has created this disingenuous type of relationship, where users mistake likes and followers for real connection. But you cannot create real connection in 280 characters or through a carefully curated collection of posts and pictures. So instead what we get is advertising from “influencers,” empty laughs, more ways to avoid being present and aware, further distraction and isolation from each other and the real world, and lots of excuses for not thinking about it or our place in it.

Personal storytelling requires reflection and deeper thinking. Random thoughts or memories aren’t simply blurted out. They’re considered and combed-through for lessons learned or progress made, then crafted into complete stories. This isn’t as easy as you might think. It requires honesty, vulnerability, and creativity. I did not know this, prior to taking a storytelling class. I always figured the people who told the stories I listened to just a) had more/better lives and stories to tell than I do, and b) were just somehow naturally good at telling stories in front of large groups of people.

What I’ve discovered in this class is that almost everybody thinks they don’t have any interesting stories to tell, but we all do. Anybody who has lived a life has stories to tell. And listeners will benefit from hearing your stories, perhaps not every listener, but you will always reach some. Your perspective is unique, even if your life and thus your story seems mundane to you.

I’ve also learned that many storytellers are, in fact, introverts, like me. For them, storytelling requires vulnerability not only in considering yourself and your past honestly, but also in sharing your stories with others, whether they are strangers or friends or family. Knowing this makes me admire these storytellers all the more. I can tell you from experience that this is not easy, but most listeners are sympathetic and will admire your courage, and you will reach them, even if you’re nervous.

Storytelling requires an honesty and vulnerability that is not often seen nor required in social media. It is precisely this vulnerability that creates real connection, which is something we all need more of these days. Many have been looking for it in all the wrong places and feeling let down and lost when they don’t find it. Perhaps they should try telling their stories instead.

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

You Don’t Know Jack - but here's why I think you should by Rebecca Love

You know Jack, right? Yeah, that guy with the beanstalk, magic harp, and golden egg-laying goose. But did you know there’s so much more to him?

Jack has been keeping me company for the last few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. And I found out that his adventures are not limited to the beanstalk, but that he fights many different giants (not just the Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum kind), the Devil, a Mossyfoot (a huge, scary monster with the flaming red eyes and enormous feet covered in moss) and has all kinds of other adventures. Jack’s stories have been uplifting when so much of the world seems to be falling apart and everything feels so depressing.

Finding something humorous during a pandemic can be a difficult task, but Jack can save the day. Sometimes Jack makes foolish choices I can chuckle at, like trying to carry milk home in his pockets because his mother told him specifically to use his pockets to carry home his work earnings. Jack has even climbed under a confused, braying donkey to try and carry it home on his back. The princess who saw that ridiculous sight laughed, and I laughed along with her. Jack has even taken delight in his marksmanship while perched in a tree, shooting food off the ends of giants’ forks, causing confusing and comic chaos on the ground. These unusual moments of unexpected humor have hooked me. When I can’t stand watching the news on TV anymore, Jack is there to make me smile.

And though Jack can be a bit of a clown, he is also clever. I appreciate a young man using some smarts when umpteen real-life people can’t be counted on during the pandemic to make healthy choices. In one story Jack outwits some witches, depending on his mother and faithful dogs to save him, because it’s okay to ask for help. Jack also assesses what resources are available to him to proactively help himself, like liberating a silver sword by drinking a potion and then luring giants through a very small tunnel to their doom. Jack likewise learns to adapt his behavior and thinking, for example when he was looking for his first job. Because he had no experience, when shop owners asked what he could do, Jack said nothing, and then was disappointed he wasn’t hired. Jack figured out that he needed to change his answer, and the next time a shop owner asked what he could do, Jack said anything. He was hired on the spot. During this pandemic there has been misinformation and poor decision making. Jack gives me some hope, because he’s able to learn and adapt in positive ways, so maybe real people can, too.

Maybe even more than humor and quick thinking, Jack’s sense of adventure is appealing during this time of forced isolation. Many of Jack’s stories begin when he is a young man ready for some independence. He is forever going off into the wide world to seek his fortune. Jack usually doesn’t have a direction in mind, and he doesn’t always know what his fortune may look like. But that uncertainty doesn’t stop him. Maybe Jack’s fortune will be a real coin he can actually hold in his hand (sometimes he’s never seen one before), or his fortune might be in goods earned through labor or goods traded for what he imagines (not always correctly) are better goods. Sometimes Jack’s fortune is owning nothing at all, because then he isn’t tied down in the world and maintains his freedom. Stuck at home during a pandemic, I appreciate Jack for his willingness to bravely strike out into the unknown world, unclear about what he might find, because he has such a deep sense of adventure and gratitude for the gifts he finds, earns, or are bestowed upon him by sheer luck.

Jack encounters many challenges and some scary situations in his stories. Scary situations and challenges barely begin to describe life during the COVID-19 pandemic. But if Jack can be upbeat and persistent, then we can, too. So, when you need a break, get to know Jack. He’s a good companion on this journey.

The image at the top shows Berkeley Williams, Jr's cover illustration for the 1st edition of Richard Chase's Jack Tales.

Eating Stories by Dean Shapiro

At Passover, the Jewish festival of liberation, we EAT a story. It is the great narrative of our people: we were enslaved; now we are free.

Families gather from all parts. Some clean and cook for days. Tables are set with finery (and often an extra chair or three) and Haggadot – the guidebooks that describe the steps of the elaborate seder meal, complete with explanation. The word “Haggadah” comes from the Hebrew verb “Le’hagid” – To Tell. At the center of it all rests a seder plate, gracefully holding the symbolic foods.

As we tell, sing, and ask the story of the Exodus, we eat foods to heighten the experience – matzah, the bread of affliction, salt water, to remember tears, charoset, a sticky concoction that reminds us of mortar, and maror, the bitter herb. When we bite into bitterness, we experience it directly. That way, we will recognize the bitterness of oppression when we see it in others.

The story of the exodus isn’t told in a linear manner. It is, rather, impressionistic and experiential – like the writing of Virginia Woolf or Marcel Proust, one memory or idea leads to the next. We expound, we digress, we skip, we add a footnote from someone who lived 1000 years ago right next to a question seated next to us.

According to Jean Houston, a myth is a personal narrative written so large that everyone can see themselves in it. That’s the power of the Exodus story: every Jew can identify it as their personal story. In the seder, each person should experience that they, themselves, had left Egypt – if not the literal Land of Egypt, then the confinement, limitation, and suppression that Egypt represents. That’s what makes it our sacred story.

This year, as last, my community gathered on Zoom for a large seder – well over one hundred people! Many of us are good friends who haven’t seen each other in person for twelve months. To combat isolation, to prepare us for re-integration, and to honor the spirit of the Festival (and our Personal Storytelling Class), I divided participants into breakout groups, and asked them to tell a 2-minute story based on one of these prompts:

Tell about a time when...

• You felt free.
• You had no choice.
• You went on a journey.
• You bossed someone around.
• You floated.
• You stood up for yourself.
• A pet died.
• You were in the dark.
• You hid.

What story would you tell?

Magic by Sally Jo Bannow

Stories have always been magical to me. I remember my dad reading stories to me every night before bed. My dad specialized in telling long story-jokes to anyone who would listen. He held the listeners’ attention with fun details and voices, always ending with some corny punchline. And now, like him, I’ve spent my whole life telling stories in one way or another. As a child, I wrote plays for kids in school to perform, I constantly listened to music, and lived the stories that those songs told. I imagined I was the subject of the song, and sang it with the intention of conveying the story behind the song. Later, I got friends together, and hung up a sheet to put on a play; some simplified children’s story that I had concocted.

No surprise that I ended up in the theatre as an actor. I fell in love with being part of an ensemble of theatre artists: actors, directors, choreographers, set and costume designers, prop designers, etc. I am in love with the live theatre, and with film. The idea that adults can sit down, just as I did as a child, and be transported by someone else’s journey into a deeper understanding and experience of themselves, and of another life.

The stories we tell in the theatre and on film are magical to me.

I started directing for the theatre. It’s like giving birth! Combining all of the elements of live theatre into a precisely timed live performance with all of its rising and falling of storyline is an astronomical feat.

Then I began writing plays and musicals. In this practice, the work was mostly internal, and allowed my creativity to go wherever the story led. Most of the stories I’d experienced to that point were fictional.

Then a friend introduced me to the artform called “Playback Theatre.” Playback theatre falls under the category of theatre for social justice. In this form, a teller from the audience tells a true moment, or longer story from their lives. The actors and musicians (who are all improvising), then recreate the story exactly as they heard it and perform it for the teller. There are many ‘aha’ moments, as the teller observes their experience in a new and creative way.

The thing that moves me to my core about all of these art forms, is that through the telling of these stories, the audience members reach a connection – an intimacy, and deep level of humanness.

Now, years after my life in entertainment began, I have ‘stumbled’ into the art of oral storytelling. I am in the process of learning to find stories from my own life, to craft and shape them into pieces of verbal art. It feels foreign and familiar at once. It is an art, and it is magical. It has the power to connect people who seemingly have no other connection. It reminds us of our humanity and of our shared experiences and how very much alike we are. It helps us to know each other and to find the empathy and compassion that lies deep within us all. That is a fine magic trick, indeed.

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

This Is Not a Lie by Bridget Murphy

I come from a long line of Irish storytellers. We love nothing more than to while away an afternoon over coffee, tea (or beer) talking… about anything.  We talk about politics, we talk about what made us mad that week, we talk about the family, we tease each other (relentlessly) over our idiosyncrasies, but our best trick is to take the last big family argument and dissect it later for jokes. People who have witnessed this marvel at my family’s ability to move past our grudges so quickly.  This, I reason, is because we love storytelling MORE than grudges.  We make a game of who can construe the best story out of the last conflict, no matter how devastating the conflict seemed at the time. Who has time for grudges when you are racing to see who can tell the best story.  We can’t wait to see who will spin our weaknesses into a story of redemption, who will make us laugh at ourselves, who will make sense of the senselessness.

When I set about trying to develop my first story for Liz Warren’s Personal Storytelling class, I planned to tell about an event that happened 40 years ago.  I had a scrap of dialogue and a few sketchy details, so I called my brother and asked what he remembered about that Mother’s day.  He said he only remembered what I had told him over the years.  And my parents, who were also there on that Mother’s day, have from what I can tell allowed their scraps of memory to be swayed by whomever they spoke to last.  I was alone to reconstruct the story from my own unreliable and vague memory. And then I got stuck.  I couldn’t figure out how to construct the story without all the facts. I began to question whether I had a story at all. 

Then I ran across a passage from Jack McGuire’s book The Power of Personal Storytelling where he makes this claim: “By engaging in personal storytelling, we unlearn a lifetime of subtle social conditioning not to think or act creatively.”  It was true.  I was surprised at how obliged I felt to tell the story accurately, chronologically, fairly.  McGuire goes on to say that the biggest obstacle for “would be” storytellers is not “the lack of memories, low self esteem or stage fright. Rather, it’s a culturally induced fear of being inaccurate, or misrepresenting things, of failing to be objective, or of committing a lie.”  

I quickly realized that in order to tell my story I was going to have to lie, well, not lie exactly, but I was going to have to somehow fill in the gaps, to make the story whole.  Stephen King once said:  "Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground ... Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world." I love this twist on the idea of the truth.  In this scenario, storytellers are going back to honor sacred ground, digging up dusty memories, carefully reclaiming and preserving the underworld of lost details.  However foggy or degraded, these remnants of our pasts are powerful artifacts that help us make meaning of our past, present and future.  Marilyn Torres says, “our stories are our birthright.” Indeed. They explain the world, each other, and ourselves.  We need to fight for them.  

And if in the end we still have holes in our stories, we can “act creatively” by cultivating devices like metaphors, symbols, and repetition to build on the emotional truth (as Liz Warren says) that lies at the center of our story.  Like any artist, a storyteller curates the details. We pick up the shards of memory and start to piece them together like a mosaic.  We decide what shape it will take and what pieces go where.  

This is not a lie.

Daniel Taylor says, “True means accurately reflecting human experience.” What I have come to understand is that storytelling is a form of meaning making.  It is a work of art.  It is true. 

(The image at the top of the post shows Bridget with her family. The one at the bottom is Bridget with her grandfather in Dingle in 1981.)

Seeking Upstream by Matthew Knotts

In a recent blog post, Liz Warren described telling a story as providing stepping-stones across a river.  Jack Maguire notes in The Power of Personal Storytelling, “An essential part… is having a clear sense of where you’re going when you tell a story - which ‘stones’ you need to reach, in what order, to go from where you begin your story to where you want to wind up.”   

I have found this metaphor useful when constructing stories.  On one stepping-stone I may want the listeners to feel uneasy or that their footing isn’t solid.  The next stone may seem too far a leap for the listener to take with you.  Other times, a wide, dry stone provides them a moment to relax and reflect on the peril they’ve come through with the storyteller.  

However, sometimes when I’m charting my path through the story, I’ve reached the other side of the river too quickly.  Alternately, the opposite bank may not hold the meaning I intend to convey.   In that case, I try seeking upstream. 

Imagine yourself walking the bank upstream from your story idea.   Which events, choices and relationships brought you to this point?  How did that river branch, and how might you take a different path to reach the opposite bank?  You may find moments which set up or explain the story better.  You may also discover this story idea was part of a larger pattern.  Finally, you may uncover other stepping-stones that you file away as the start of another story.   

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

Story vs. Speech by Liz Warren

In our Creating and Telling Personal Stories class last Thursday night, Shelly Siegel asked an important question: What’s the difference between a story and a speech? That stayed with me, and this is my attempt to concisely describe some of the differences between these two narrative forms. Oversimplified? Probably, but not untrue.

• Function:
  • A story is meant to engage (entertain, transport, evoke).
  • A speech is meant to inform (convince, argue, persuade).

• Direction:
  • The energy of a story is horizontal (flat, egalitarian, populist, visiting).
  • The energy of a speech is vertical (hierarchical, pedantic, academic, informing). 

• Action:
  • A story is meant to synthesize and connect.
  • A speech is meant to analyze and parse.

• Delivery:
  • A story is told from memory.
  • A speech is read from a text.

• Both will get you to the other side, but:
  • A story is like stepping-stones.
  • A speech is like a bridge.

• Parallel forms:
  • A story is an oral cartoon.
  • A speech is an oral essay.

• Essential elements:
  • A story links a series of images to create meaning.
  • A speech links a series of ideas to influence and persuade.

• Success:
  • A story succeeds by first engaging the senses.
  • A speech succeeds by first engaging the mind.

• Meaning:
  • The meaning of a story can be explicit or implicit.
  • The meaning of a speech must be explicit.

• Focus of engagement:
  • A story engages the heart, and if the mind comes along, well then, that’s fine.
  • A speech engages the mind to sway the heart.

• Truth and Facts:
  • A story relates truth that may or may not be verifiably factual.
  • A speech is based in provable facts and evidence.

• Role:
  • The storyteller is the guide.
  • The speaker is the expert.

• How they work:
  • A story narrates a sequence of events and leaves listeners with a sense of new or enhanced understanding, or of how something is different or has changed since the beginning of the story.
  • A speech asserts a thesis, provides evidence to support that thesis, and then restates the thesis at the conclusion.

For example, in Ben Cooper's recent story about his relationship with death, he intentionally used a string of pearls structure which is not unlike an essay format. But right away, he engaged us in the images and emotions of his life to show what he wanted us to understand about his experience. If he’d written a speech or an essay on the same subject, it might have had this structure:

Thesis: Grappling with death is a common childhood experience.

Argument 1: The loss of a pet.

Argument 2: Witnessing a death.

Argument 3: Coming to terms with their own mortality.

Conclusion: While painful and confusing, experiences with death are an important part of child development.

If he’d given this speech, we could have used aspects of his personal story to support his evidence, but that evidence would have had be verifiable, in a publication or some other way external to his experience. Since he told a story, Ben connected with us by relating episodes from his life that left us with an enhanced understanding of him and his experiences.

The image below speaks to me, as it combines the ideas of story as stepping-stones and storyteller as guide. 

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

Busted! by Kate Craer

“I’ll be here all week busting up stories”, said my colleague at a week-long event where she would lead a group of 10 professionals on a self-discovery journey. And she did.  Anytime she heard someone talking about things they wanted to change but couldn’t, she’d interrupt with “busted!” and help them to see if there was another way to look at the situation.  Maybe there was something they could change after all, or something about the way things were that was positive. Anytime she heard someone going down a self-esteem spiral of not being good enough, out would come the “busted!”, followed by a series of questions to help the person see a different perspective that cast a light on being good enough in the end.  She did it with such grace and humor, and impeccable timing, you almost couldn’t wait to hear “busted” during the week to see what kind of self-reflected reframing of a story she’d draw out.

That was one of the first times I really understood what it means when they say the stories we tell ourselves are the way we know who we are in the world.  My colleague knew that to interrupt a story and ask for a different version is to ask the person to try on a different version of themselves. In a way a test to see if perhaps there is a different perspective, interpretation of the “facts”, or forgotten plot twist. It was a gift she gave us, pulling us out of the stories we had been repeating and fine tuning in some cases for decades about the way things are, always were, and gosh darn it always will be. I imagine she would have been a very good editor for those choose-your-own-adventure books I loved as a child! I also know she would have loved Donald Davis's TED Talk, How the Story Transforms the Teller.

Fast forward to today, I try to catch myself in the stories I tell to the internal audience of one (she’s a tough critic sometimes!) in the shower, on long drives and when I should be falling asleep.  Partially because I want to see if any of the stories are worth sharing externally (surely something interesting has happened to me!). And partially because I believe that when I’m at my best in life, I can see there’s more than one possible story happening within any given event and set of characters.  It’s helpful for being enrolled in a personal storytelling class, and sometimes challenging when I feel frozen by the choices to consider, but at the very least it’s practical for enjoying my commutes more.  Because the next time I catch myself telling a story about how the driver that cut me off must be doing it to annoy me, I might hear “busted!” and reach for a new story about why they have a need, a need for speed, that actually is about doing something good.

The "Aha" Moment by Shelly Siegel

Storytelling can bring about the "aha moment". Not just for the listener, but for the teller as well. Oprah Winfrey defines an "aha moment" as, "A moment of sudden inspiration, insight, recognition or comprehension." I'm wagering that most who have heard someone tell a compelling personal story, have had some type of emotional response. Or perhaps there were moments that triggered similar memories.  There is evidence that having these types of reactions stimulates the brain by activating the mood enhancing chemical, dopamine. That's one of the many reasons why storytelling is so engaging. 

I am at the beginning stages of learning this creative art form. I'm a first-time student in Liz Warren's course, "Creating and Telling Personal Stories", offered through South Mountain Community College's Storytelling Institute.  Students are given the opportunity to develop personal stories by crafting them, telling them, and then receiving feedback from others in the class and the instructor. Developing a personal story is a process, and also involves making a series of decisions. The class begins with various exercises allowing students to play around with prompts that help to generate memories. This allows us to sift through them and choose one as a base to work from. After some serious fishing around through my lifelong collection of memories, one somehow floated to the top.  Aha! I found my first story. Then came the hard part. I needed to give my story a shape.

I experimented with a suggestion we had learned in class; say your story out loud to yourself. I was alone in my car at the Costco parking lot.  I began reciting my story while watching shoppers go in and out of the store.  Suddenly, I lost all sight of them. As I spoke, I was transported back in time. I saw the expressions on the faces of my story's characters, and I was clearly inside the rooms, hallways, and buildings where my story took place. As I went on reciting, new ideas began to formulate.  Aha!  Later, when I practiced telling my story to a friend, they asked questions which gave rise to aspects that had never occurred to me. I reworked several parts, and my confidence grew. Finally, when I told my story to the class, the feedback was astonishing and surprising.  My classmates gifted me with new insights that had me thinking about myself and my story in new ways.

Oprah was also quoted as saying, "I always love those moments when I sit down to talk to somebody and they say things that make me look at life or a situation in a completely different way." When listening to someone's personal story, they grant us permission to enter their world.  We begin to see and feel what they experienced. Once the "aha moment" happens, the synapses suddenly begin to ignite, as the brain makes connections to bring about a new understanding.  I invite you to pay attention to the "aha moments" in your life, and use them as a guide.  I invite you to use them in your own storytelling journey. Perhaps something unexpected and wonderful will come to light!

(The picture at the top shows Shelly and Bridget Murphy at the Desert Botanical Garden during their first trip to AZ to visit the SMCC Storytelling Institute.)

What Story is Sitting On You? by Melissa Soza Fees

I almost missed it.  The power of personal stories to transform a person’s worldview as presented by Donald Davis in his TedTalk, “How the Story Transforms the Teller.”  It’s in his closing remarks and I think the first time I listened to it my mind was still visiting one of the images he had created for me - the family farm, the parking lot behind the bank, his father holding him on the train.  The second time, it landed with a weight. Donald Davis said he learned more about what he does “by helping people discover the stories that are sitting on them, and crawl out from under them …. because “the story has the remarkable power to completely change our whole relationship to what happened.”  Full stop.  My mind was filled with the implications of that powerful idea and I quickly shared it with my husband and five children.

I study storytelling on a dual-track.  The first is learning about the oral tradition and craft of Storytelling and the second is the use of personal stories as a transformational therapeutic tool.  My first experience with storytelling used in a therapeutic context was from Seena Jacob, Bookwallah Founder.  The therapeutic work of Bookwallah uses the triangle of book, child, and storyteller to build a social-emotional connection.  She focuses on fairytales because of their use of hope and happy endings and Bookwallah works to transform lives through the bonds of child and storyteller through these stories of hope.  

Then in my studies on Folktales came the Hero’s Journey module and I began to see the potential for teenagers to imagine themselves in their own Hero’s Journey.  The original idea of including a fact-based narrative with the psychological assessments I was completing was quickly joined with the idea of the student co-creating a story or Hero’s Journey of their own. Recently, several high school seniors shared that they were at their best with no stress.  That indeed would be a fairytale for today but what if instead, they understood the components of the Hero’s Journey and could incorporate their “stress” into such a framework.  Students could try different strategies and see them as the setbacks any Hero has on their journey and not abject defeat or the end of the story.

Donald Davis’ words have also begged another question.  What stories are sitting on the children who come for help and can the assessment process give them another story of themselves or better yet, help them crawl out from under a story and transform their relationship to it?  The work continues.  For now, I am imitating Claude Piaget and practicing on my own children as I continue to learn and grow as a Storyteller.  

The picture of Seen Jacob at the top of the post can be found on her Youtube page.

Humble Magic: Being a Storyteller is More than Telling Stories by Liz Warren

“Everyone is a storyteller.”

I’ve read or heard that sentence, stated as an emphatic and definitive truism, more times than I could ever count. 

It is not true.

Everyone has stories, and sometimes they tell them, but not everyone is a
storyteller.  Here’s a parallel: Most people can cook, and some people can cook very well. But to be a good cook is not the same as being a chef. A chef is someone who has been trained and become expert.  She is someone who has deep facility with traditions, techniques, and tools.  She is responsible for building on those skills to innovate, to train others, and to serve people with fine dining experiences.

It’s the same with storytelling.  Most people can tell stories or can learn to tell stories. Lots of people can and do tell stories to great effect in their homes, careers, or on public stages.

To be a storyteller, however, is to intentionally take on a specific calling in the world. As with the chef, a traditional storyteller has been trained and has developed a deep facility with oral traditions, story creating and refining tools, and performance techniques. Once so equipped, storytellers then use these skills to make a difference in their communities. They entertain, train, and impart wisdom.  They organize, teach, connect, and advocate. They listen and help bind up the holes in their communities with empathy and insight.

Novelists, filmmakers, cartoonists, marketers, and journalists all rely on and utilize the power of story (“narrative” in academic terms) to connect, inspire, delight, surprise, inform and affirm in essential and profoundly meaningful ways. I am an enthusiastic and regular consumer of many of these forms of story.

The kind of storytelling I practice, and that the SMCC Storytelling Institute perpetuates, is the foundation of all these modern forms: traditional storytelling. It is oral, face-to-face, and done in real time – the timelessly relevant art of telling stories to other people in person. Even when we translate our stories to online, written, or recorded formats, we rely on the deep, enduring, and global practices of traditional storytelling to inform our work.

Listening to a well-told story can transport us to another world, even as none of us leave our seats.  It is a transparently magical experience; a humble magic that all our ancestors understood and is still relevant and important for us today.

But that by itself is not enough to make someone a storyteller.  I have been deeply moved by hearing the stories of accountants, nurses, chefs, and athletes. That is what effective stories do.  They engage our hearts, minds, and spirits.

What effective storytellers do is to intentionally use the knowledge they have gained, the skills they have learned, and the talents they have honed, to wield the power of story to make the world a better place. That includes traditional oral storytellers like me, poets and writers, filmmakers, and truly anyone with that specific, committed intention for their work with story. Barry Lopez, quoted in his recent obituary, states it clearly:

“I can tell you in two words,” he said when asked about his motives for writing. “To help. I am a traditional storyteller. This activity is not about yourself. It’s about culture, and your job is to help.” (Barry Lopez, 1945 -2020.)

(The picture at the top of the post includes Irish storytellers Aideen McBride, maroon sleeveless top, and her father, Jack Sheehan, holding the hat, after telling for the students in Study Abroad Ireland in June 2017.)

We Are History by Myranette Robinson

Lizzo says in her song, “Juice", "that I’m out here making news." The fact of the matter here is that all of us are.  It was hard for me to believe that my little every day existence is going to be a part of history until I took Creating and Telling Fact-based and Historical Stories this semester. The people I met in the stories were trying to live their best lives during the time period that they lived.

I met a woman who caught my attention in a “Google Doodle”. She was interested in showing African American women in beautiful and smart as well as seeking fair treatment for all people.  I can say with a great deal of certainty that having her likeness drawn as a “Google Doodle” for being the first African American cartoonist in syndication was not her motivation.  My next story was about a Grateful Dead fan who is Black. He does not listen to their music with that in his mind. He, like the rest of us simply listen to music that he enjoys. In my assignments I met a woman who lived the life that she was supposed to live for her time. She even kept secret that she had about not being happy shortly after childbirth because feeling that way was wrong.  Twenty years later, she found that she was not the only woman that had those feelings and that she could get help without shame.

Historical stories also show what life was like in a certain time period through a specific event.  I learned about the lives and working conditions through an event Mary Gay Ducey tells about a fire in a shirtwaist factory in New York. We also learn about what New York was like at that time.

Yes, one day someone will tell about this time period. Don’t be surprised if part or all of your life is being told while you were just living the best that you could.

A Trip to the Zoo, by Kaden Sheffield

        To get into the Phoenix Zoo you must cross a bridge over a long lake. Pigeons walk along the bridge, strutting out of your way as you cross, while turtles bask on half-submerged logs many feet below.

         Whenever I used to visit the zoo, I would notice the pigeons and turtles, but only in passing. I was on my way to the entrance, taking out my wallet to buy my ticket, thinking about what I’d like to see, planning my route around the park.

         Once inside, I’d start out briskly in the direction I’d planned. But as I walked I began to feel my pace slacken. I became aware of the sounds of the many animals around me, and of children’s voices on the breeze.  The colors of the merry-go-round blended with the colors of people’s clothes as they passed by. The smells of popcorn and cotton candy slowed my steps as I passed by the concession stands. As I continued on my tour, I found myself stopping at cages and enclosures I hadn’t remembered seeing before, captivated by an exotic bird or curious about some small mammal scurrying around.

         As I slowed from a stride to a stroll I began to feel the freedom of choosing not only where I went, but how I’d get there, and at what speed. I could even stop if I chose, and just gaze at the life in front of me. There was always something surprising to see—a free-roaming peacock sitting in a tree preening its feathers, a group of lemurs hiding under a bush, staring at me as if I were the exhibit. Over the span of an hour or two, the world seemed changed, brighter somehow, richer and fuller of wonder.

         But the biggest change came as I exited the zoo and re-crossed the bridge. Suddenly those pigeons walking near me on the bridge were exotic, exquisite things. I was transfixed by the iridescent flashes of purple and teal as they strutted in the sun, the muted metallic sound of their cooing. And the turtles, oh the turtles! I could now see how each had a unique pattern on its shell, could see how there were tiny silver and sable fish swimming near them in the water. I realized that it wasn’t the world that had changed. It was me. I thought I’d come to the zoo to see the animals, but I’d really come to have my senses sharpened, to have my life intensified.

         Storytelling is like going to the zoo. Whether you’re perusing your own mind for ideas, searching for the images and forms to craft your bit of life into a story, or listening deeply to the story of another and entering into their crafted world, you think you’re engaging in looking at something outside yourself and how it changes. But it’s really you that’s changed.

Folktales: Skirting on the Edge of Reality by Diana Dinshaw

Recently I created a list of stories I had crafted and told and stories I would like to tell and roughly categorized these by type: personal stories, fact based stories, myths and legends, wisdom stories and folktales. I wasn’t surprised to see that the highest number of stories were listed under the personal stories category. However, what was surprising was the joy I felt when reading the titles of the stories listed under folktales (including wisdom tales). This was completely unexpected   

As a budding storyteller the first folktale I told was from Pakistan, “Diamond Cut Diamond” as part of the requirement in the Art of Storytelling class. And while I enjoyed telling the story as a story, I didn't fully understand what a folktale was. Of course, I had read the chapter on “How to Tell a Folktale” from Liz Warren’s The Oral Tradition Today: An Introduction to the Art of Storytelling. but I was missing a key experience, the delight in telling a story.

After a two-year gap, when I returned to storytelling, I took the class on Multicultural Folktales and I went in with a biased attitude that I wouldn't like folktales. Being a very practical person, I had a difficult time connecting to folktales because of the magical transformations and events skirting on the edge of reality. They seemed unbelievable to me. Another part of folktales that was challenging for me was seeing the value of hope instead of oppression in a story like Cinderella. But what was heartening was that I could tell a wisdom story and that would count because wisdom tales are a type of folktales.

Then I read Rabbi Rossel’s words.

“You craft a story by making choices as to what the story should sound like. Stories sound different to a different generation.

“That’s what the old storytellers used to do in order to make the stories their own..”

These words opened up a whole new world of stories for me to tell. It was like I now had permission to craft and tell a version of a folktale that reinforced the values of our time. In my version of the folktale “The Wicked Stepmother” a Cinderella folktale from Kashmir the passive protagonist changed to one who was active in creating her own destiny. In crafting the Brothers Grimm’s “The White Snake” I took the liberty of changing the protagonist from being male to female giving her the role of saving the prince instead of a poor servant boy going through trials to win the hand of a beautiful princess.  Once I found this freedom, I also found the delight in the mystical transformations. My constant reminder, however, to myself when crafting my version of a fairytale is to refrain from overexplaining the departure from reality. I am learning to trust the listeners imagination rather than enforcing my interpretation. While I create the images in the story it is the listener who imagines how the event occurred.

As I evolve as a storyteller I recognise that my responsibility is to continue the oral tradition of not only storytelling but telling folktales because as a Native American storyteller said, “Stories are living things and we keep them alive through telling.”  

Finding New Life in One’s Root System: A discovery through the Crafting and Telling of Personal and Historical Stories by Diane Saunders

“That’s it!” I exclaimed as I was browsing through my pictures of a family trip to Yosemite last summer in celebration of my husband’s 60^th birthday.  My daughter had snapped   this picture of me standing in front of this expansive root system of a Sequoia tree in the Mariposa Grove.  Now the picture here illustrated a new meaning for me.   It mirrored what I had been experiencing in crafting my personal and historical story on my grandfather.  I’ve discovered that I am part of a vastly interconnected system and strength through my Scottish ancestry.   There is a mystery here I felt I was unearthing.  Yes, I am deeply woven into this root system, in the past and most surprisingly, in the now.

 My grandparents emigrated from Scotland soon after they were married.  They grew a small family of two daughters, in a land far away from their own families, Scottish culture, geography and history.  In growing up around my grandparents, I came to know a little bit about Scottish culture by the values and character that lived within them.   They were proud, yet humble people.  It was considered distasteful to talk about one’s self.   An exemplary family value, yet it left us after their passing, with little tangible connection to the family and culture they came from.  And the culture we came from too.

               A whole new world has opened up to me through exploring their stories.  I have discovered that in spite of a lack of information, their culture, values, history, preferences, aptitudes and ethics are vibrantly alive within me and my family members.   Even though the land and people of Scotland are continents and oceans far far away, something lives in us even though we can’t see it, or be surrounded by it.  We are rooted in it.

This image of the massive root system of the Sequoia helped me name what I was experiencing.  It got me to thinking as to the magic in the telling of personal stories.  In class when hearing one another’s stories, we have often reflected on how personal fact based stories hold as much magic, if not more, than folktales, fairytales and myths.  How can this be?  We would ponder this as we would hear over and over again of the incredible synchronicities and happenstances that would emerge through exploring one’s ancestor’s lives, stories and history.  This magical synchronicity seemed be a consistent experience.   Somehow lost pieces of information or connections, found as in a puzzle piece, would bring together reconciliations and offer new insights and understandings.   These ‘providential convergences’, seemed to bring lost parts together again, to make what was once fracture, missing or broken, whole. 

We often create family trees to help us understand the place and people who are part of our family.  There is great value in that.  But maybe, if we thought of our families more as hidden and intertwined root systems, it might enhance the purpose, grace and gift in exploring one’s history.  These root connections run deep, our stories and history are important, complex and intertwined.  It is core to who we are.  This is especially true in our American culture where we have come together from many different cultures and families over the last 200 plus years.  Our stories and histories are present, yet invisible, just like the Sequoia’s.

In discovering this deep inner resource within me it has felt like, “wow my hands and legs are beginning to work together in a new way!”   I am connected to something, to someone, and it’s large, mystical and magical.  I have come to discover this magic isn’t there just for me, but for my living family, children and grandchildren.  It is a magic ‘super’ power, one that is living, active, and transformative.  It is nourishment from the very source of where one comes from, from relationships, and from stories that are all very, very, real.

Exhaling by Marilee Lasch

 

I read once in the Thesaurus of Trivia, also known as Reader’s Digest magazine, a story about a Big Rig truck trying to go through an under pass that was three inches too low for the height of the trailer and got stuck. The police were called, and they couldn’t do anything, so they called a wrecker. When the wrecker inspected the situation. He discovered that the rig and trailer was too big for his truck to try to pull it out, so another company was called that had the equipment to satisfy the need for the situation. When they arrived and hooked everything up and started to pull the rig out, concrete from the upper section of the underpass came ripping off and crashing everywhere. The police that were standing near-by determined it was too unsafe to continue. So, the rescue operation was called to a halt.

Meanwhile, a little boy was standing with the bystanders, and asked what was going on. One of the adults, responding with great authority, said removing the truck has become an impossibility and there doesn’t seem to be any viable solution. Looking over the situation, and all the people that had tried to solve the problem with no success, the boy responded, “Why don’t they let the air out of all the tires until they’ve gone down four inches and then back the rig out?”

We all know the importance of breathing in, to bring the much needed oxygen to the lungs, but scientists tell us letting the air out is equally and sometimes even more important. Only when you exhale properly and fully can you breathe the toxins out and allow fresh oxygen to fuel our body. Our inhales lift, energize, and expand us, while our exhales ground and stabilize us. And, they allow the body to back out of a stuck situation.

Every time I am preparing a story to tell, I can feel the inhale, a deep full breath and I drive full force into the underpass. And that’s where I get stuck. Is it fear, lack of confidence or the fact that I don’t see myself as an academic that so frequently halts my forward movement? And I forget to exhale. I have done enough self-help to take a moment and remember that letting the air out at this time of stress, feeling scattered, and overwhelmed will help neutralize these feelings and settle both my mind and body.  

With all the classes, and book learning I have gone through to prepare myself to become a professional authentic storyteller, I keep having to go back to the first learning lesson: let four inches out of the tires and back out of a stuck story. Find a different road to get to where I want to go and move on.

In Context by Mindy Tarquini

The other day I told the story of Ada Gobetti, the woman who is credited with starting the Italian Resistance. Before I could tell Ada’s story, I had to set the scene, that of a woman passing out pamphlets on a street corner on a major thoroughfare in the city of Turin in September of 1943. A woman who believed Benito Mussolini’s fascist nightmare to be over and that Italy would finally head into a fresh and hopeful future. A woman stunned to see a string of Nazi automobiles drive right past her.

To tell that part of Ada’s story, I needed to give a little history of Mussolini’s rise to power, his relationship to Adolf Hitler, as well as Ada’s already more than a dozen-years history of resisting the rise of Italian fascism. That meant I had to talk a little about Italy at the end of World War I, in debt, smashed up, ripe for being lulled by fascism’s false promises. I had to speak about Ada’s handsome young husband of the time, his resistance to Mussolini, how his fight got him killed. I had to speak of the unusual bits of Ada’s resistance as a young widow with a young son, of Mussolini’s propaganda arm, ironically titled La Luce, which means The Light. I had to relate the propaganda films to a story for children Ada published in the thirties about a rooster that was sneakily anti-fascist. I had to relate that children’s story to Ada’s post-war publications, parenting help for Italians raised only in fascism who were starting families of their own. I had to speak about the core of Italian culture, her history, the fabric that holds Italy together, Italy’s heart, her home: the Italian family.

And I had to do all that in ten minutes. Because without the context, Ada’s story of a woman in a patriarchal society starting the resistance falls flat, might be confusing. A story told to an audience who may have heard of Mussolini but not understand his role in the twenties and thirties, his part in the Axis powers, his effect on Italian history might feel like no more than a listing of dates and events.

All those bits and pieces are referred to as context and context is everything. Without context, it may be difficult for an audience removed from an event or a person by decades or centuries to connect to the happenings, the attitudes, the nuts and bolts that may have shaped a life, yet finding sources for the context, those bits and pieces that define the times may be difficult.

I am a novelist. A few years ago, I published an article for writers on unconventional sources to round out a historical novel. The article is linked below, the research ideas given as applicable to oral storytelling as to written.

The secret to providing context is the choice of what context to give. The storyteller will find plenty of information that will never make it into the finished story, yet that information provides the web that supports the story. If the story is to be used in an educational application, all that deep research might find its way into discussion questions, or part of a workshop given after. In my process, I write the story down – the main points. Then I note the smaller points I want to make. In time, what context must be included so the audience will understand the story’s purpose become obvious. Context is adaptable to the audience. Careful consideration should be given to the ages of an audience’s members, their backgrounds, where the story is being told, what history might be mother’s milk to them versus history of which they may have no knowledge.

In American folklore, Paul Bunyan is a largish lumberjack on the east coast, by the time he makes it out west he is enormous and carrying an axe big enough to dredge the Grand Canyon. In the east, spaces are closed in, surrounded by trees. Out west, landscapes feel vast, overwhelming. I think Paul Bunyan grew to reflect the changing environs and experience of the people telling his story. I consider Paul Bunyan’s metamorphosis a reminder that I need to be sensitive to the experience of my audience in deciding the context in which to set my stories.

Link to Writer’s Digest Article:

https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/unconventional-resources-historical-fiction-research

Link to the translation of Ada Gobetti’s Partisan Diary:

https://www.amazon.com/Partisan-Diary-Womans-Italian-Resistance-dp-0199380546/dp/0199380546/

Will We Learn? by Rhonda Brewer

What will our world will look like on the other side of this social experiment we have all been living through for the last six weeks?  Will we be able to sustain any of the positive changes we have made?

 

Will families spend Friday nights cuddled on popcorn-strewn couches laughing and teasing or will we once again fill the dark theaters where talking is prohibited? 

 

Will we rush to answer the phone when friends and relatives call or will we let it go to voice mail?

 

Will we smile at neighbors from our porch as they walk around the block or will we hide behind our Ring doorbells and security doors?  

 

Will we spend weekends at the park grateful for the grassy areas in which to run or will we spend Saturday at the office catching up on our work?

 

Will we think twice about spontaneous trips to the mall or will we go back to filling our tanks and skies with pollutants?

 

Will we sing and dance around the kitchen while preparing the family meal or will we pay for pizza, a babysitter, and dinner out?

 

I fear most of our old habits will reappear.  We will go back to filling the spaces in our lives with things, people, and activities we don't love, need or even like.  But I hope that a few positive changes and habits stick around.  Maybe if we are willing to leave some spaces in our lives open and wait for things, people, and activities we love and truly bring us joy to fill them, we will be able to retain some of the lessons we have learned!

 

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

Validation Through Listening by Ken Shaw

A few years ago, I took a Santa job at a retail store. Their purpose was to allow the families to spend time with Santa and get some great pictures. There were many memorable people and children that came through this venue. One family came in with a girl around age six and her little brother who was around three. The young little lady was so well spoken and all she really wanted was to keep her brother calm and have a good family picture with them both. The little brother was not having it; he was in full blown fit mode. He was screaming ,scratching, hissing, but the sister was so patient and kind and soft spoken.

The mother started apologized profusely and explained to me that the boy was autistic. Listening to the mother and understanding how most autistic people react to stimuli gave me an idea. I do a little magic show with lights in my fingered gloves. I also at that moment changed my behavior as Santa. Most autistic people need to make the decision on their own without external pressures. Also, too much stimulation causes some autistic people much stress. And the only way they can deal with that stress is to lash out. My whole demeanor changed, I became very calm very stoic, (no extremely jerky movements or facial expressions), and my voice became very soft.

I worked with the older sister first to show the younger brother that I was not a threat. I perform a little bit of magic with the little lights in the fingers of my gloves which got the boy's attention. In just a few minutes the little boy wanted to be with Santa. We took many pictures. After the session was over, the mother came to me with tears in her eyes saying that was the first time her son has ever been able to take a picture with Santa.

It’s very important to listen to what people have to say. If we listen and hear and then modify our behavior, we can get much more accomplished.

Scaling Down by Kaden Sheffield

Just a few short weeks ago my life, like yours, was normal—full of trips around town to stores, movies, theaters, museums, restaurants, classes, parks, full of meetups with friends, full of plans for future outings. My extroverted, never-a-dull-moment, Red Bull American Dream seemed thoroughly on-track.

Then came The Virus, followed by The Shutdown, and suddenly everything changed.

Like everybody these days, I find myself scaling down my life, re-centering it closer to home, and while much that I enjoyed has been taken away, The Shutdown has given me one great gift: it’s given me permission to do less, and be more.

You’d think that, being retired, doing less would have become the norm by now, but as my friends who retired before me had told me, “You’ll soon find yourself doing more than you did before retirement.” They were right. There’s a sort of continual social pressure throughout our lives, it seems, to always be out there doing, running, socializing--life as one endless beer commercial. And so we hurry along out of habit, even in our Golden Years.

So I’ll admit, during the first week of The Shutdown I was restless. I found I was always thinking about the things I used to do outside my home, the places I used to go. At first I found the lack of places I “needed” to be and things I “should” do strange. But I’ve been surprised at how quickly they’ve ceased occur to me, and at how little I miss them, for the most part.

To be honest, because I’m lucky enough not to have to play a front-line role in this pandemic (so far), my life seems to have actually improved. Each day, I wake when I wake, get up when I feel like it, put on whatever old comfortable thing I’d be ashamed for anyone to see me in, and begin the bliss of puttering—wandering about my house and yard, doing whatever comes to mind. I read, write, play and compose music, draw, paint, garden, pet my cats. Sometimes I just think. Bliss.

I’m also started doing things that if you’d asked me a few short weeks ago I would not be doing.

I’m reaching to the back of the pantry, pulling out ingredients and spices long neglected, searching for recipes to use them in. I’m not sure I’m cooking any better, but at least I’m cooking more interestingly.

I’m reading and binge-watching things I’d have eschewed a few weeks ago as “useless trash,” and loving it. I’m freeze-framing head shots of my favorite newscasters’ broadcasts from home, checking out their décor and especially the book titles on their shelves, shamelessly nosy and judgmental.

I’m wasting time relearning “cool skills” I had as a kid: whistling, yo-yoing, juggling sock balls over the laundry basket as I fold the wash.

But amid my new petty banalities also blooms something more. I find myself storying—remembering, creating, crafting, preserving and sharing—and having deeper conversations than I used to, both virtually with friends and family, and in person with my husband. Even with myself. The gift of time, quiet and solitude allow me to converse with myself in ways I haven’t since my college years, when, sitting under a blazing red tree under a blindingly blue Indian Summer sky I wrote this:

We unspool into life, slack,

Responsive to the slightest breeze.

Then, slowly at first, we are stretched, pulled

Tighter and tighter, until we become

One thin line, and we never again know

Whether the breeze is blowing or not.

I sensed even then what modern life would bring, would do—and it did, at least to me.

But now I find “the slack is back.” Life has cut us all a little slack, even as it stretches us to the breaking point. I think we used to call this collection of odd symptoms “real life.” I like it, and I don’t think I want to go back to the way things were before.

Patience Pays by Mario Avent

Once there was a king who held a contest for someone to be his personal assistant. Several villagers came to fill the position. The King gave them all the same task:  they had to take a pot and empty the lake with it. “There is one catch,” said the King, “The pot has a hole in it, and you cannot cover or plug the hole. You must use the pot as is.”

Many of the villagers left at the sight of the pot. Other villagers tried but left from the frustration of water leaving the hole. But there was one man that kept at the task. He filled the pot with water and took it on land, watching the water fall to the ground. He became frustrated but he kept repeating his action, filling the pot with water and letting fall to the ground. Eventually, his efforts paid off and when all the water was gone out of the lake, he noticed a huge shiny diamond at the bottom of the lake. The man gave the diamond to the King. The King gave the diamond to the man as a gift for his patience. The King also gave the man the position as his personal assistant.

In times of crisis, the most important thing we need to learn is patience. We cannot control what will happen in life. Like the man, sometimes we are given a pot with a hole in it, and we must persevere even when we are frustrated. Face with frustration, and stuck at home, I decided to start gardening.

I got sod, lavender, and other types of plants and flowers. My favorite flower that I purchased was a hibiscus. I love saying the name hibiscus and tasting it in food and drinks. Hibiscus makes me happy. When I bought the hibiscus, I saw buds, but no flower. I told myself to water and watch. After two weeks, every other flower I had bloomed except the hibiscus, and I was getting frustrated.

As I sat on the couch frustrated, I read the news of people protesting about being quarantined because of the COVID -19 virus. I thought to myself, “How ridiculous. Why can’t these people stay in their houses, enjoy their families and environment, and just wait?” Then I went outside and watered the grass and garden. I noticed that my hibiscus still had not bloomed, and I thought to myself, just enjoy it for the beautiful flower it is and wait.

The very next day my diamond shone; the hibiscus bloomed. I am so excited for the others to flourish as well, but I will be patient.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. Lao Tzu

Make Me Care! by Kathy Eastman

Interpretation is one of those words in which the meaning is derived from the context in which you use it.  Interpretation generally refers to a form of communication, especially with an audience in pleasure seeking mode.  Examples of venues where interpretation is used include parks, recreation sites, museums, art galleries and even wineries and breweries.  In interpretation the communication has a theme and is aimed at creating connections with visitor.  It is easy to confuse interpretation with the downloading of facts to your audience.  While interpretive communication is fact based, the primary goal is not to impart a list of facts.  The goal is to create connections and make people care! 

Of course with pleasure seeking audiences, first you need to capture and hold their attention.  Storytelling is the perfect communication style for capturing and holding your audience.  Storytelling is the best way to create connections and make people care!  We want to inspire our audience to think and care about our venue.  If you have created the connections, people will seek out more information/facts which interest them.

My experience is in museums, which are primarily object based venues.  It is resource intensive to house, conserve and display objects, whether they are art, science or artifact based.  During challenging times, like we face now – is it worth the resources?  How do museum professionals convince funders, including tax payers, the objects are worth the investment?  Parks, recreation sites, museums, art galleries, and even bars are all closed.  Some venues are creating online work sheets, gallery tours and even take away for the pubs.  But, it is critical the sites develop and tell stories!  They need to have their audiences emotionally connected.  We know from experience, our leisure/pleasure audiences will listen to stories. 

In creating stories for interpretive sites, keep it short.  It is important to remember your audience is in a leisure/pleasure seeking mode and looking for a variety of engaging experiences.  Next find an object, tour stop or place which fits into your interpretive theme.  Ask yourself questions about the object, especially about what is it, the importance, history, etc.  Remotely it is hard to think through this frame, but your “home stay” is the perfect venue to practice in.  We are all stressed by the sudden and unexpected changes in our “world turned upside down”.  Think of something which gives you comfort during this time, examples include an old shirt, pets and making art.  The next step is to develop a story to make me care.

A chef I know has had to close her award winning restaurant, losing a lifetime of accomplishment almost overnight.  She has a favorite bowl and uses it every day to prep food, plan a cook book and for meals.  Go and find your “bowl”.  From the pictures I’ve seen, the bowl is not unique or impressive, so why is it special?   If the bowl were a museum object, how could we make people care about it?   Since you already know your “comfort” object, look for your emotional connection to the object.  What is the story behind it?  Why is that one old shirt, bowl, pet, or painting technique so special?  Using the facts about your special comfort object, make a story about it. 

You are all storytellers and know several story structures.  You will know which structure is best suited to your comfort object.  I find with museum objects using the “straight 5s” is effective and an easy start.  The five Ps include:  people, place, problem progress and point.  Think of the object as the people “p”.  Now you have a story, and it is easy to justify why that old shirt, bowl or even scruffy pet is so important.   You’ve made me care!

The Healing Power of Story by Anna Blocher-Rubin

The healing power of storytelling has been demonstrated many times in the classes and events I have attended over the last couple of years. It’s a way for us to connect to one another in a given amount of time without necessarily knowing one another’s name or past. The field can become fair for all of us to play on, if we open ourselves up to listen to the teller, and if the teller allows themself to become vulnerable enough to let connection take place.

The exciting part of this is anyone can tell a story. The scary part is telling the story. How can this be? I asked my teacher this once and she told me the fear is because I care about the story. She told me to relax and let the story come through me.  

How does one do that? Take a deep breath, release your fear back into the earth. Imagine your body is a clear tube that is a conduit for a story, transitioning from a nervous Betty to a steady vessel that allows the story to be told. In other words, get out of your own way!

I know this is easier said than done. So maybe do some deep breathing, or yoga, or if you're short on time have a glass of wine. If you are really tight on time, take a shot of courage, and go out and let your story be told!

"The ripening of maturity, beauty to behold!" by Diane Saunders

This semester I have had the opportunity to discover two valuable sources that have helped me immensely in navigating these unparalleled times in modern history with the advent of the Covid 19 pandemic.  I have worked over the past years with a Catholic parish community in East Mesa called St. Bridget of Kildare Catholic Community.  As a parish community we embrace the spirituality of St. Bridget as the parish patron saint.  St. Bridget was an abbess for a monastery of both men and women, and believed to be an ordained bishop, in 6th century Ireland. In her time Christianity adopted the Celtic notion of wells as holy sources of divine encounter.   This became a central understanding of the Irish people and their spirituality.  Many travel still today to Kildare, Ireland to visit St. Bridget’s well and the historic site of her monastery.  

I have leaned into this imagery for today as relatable in living in desert environs and in a challenging polarized society that often can feel dry and lifeless.  Inviting the search for wells of nourishment and life can enliven and empower people in the development of their own spiritual lives. Like Jesus, in his encounter with the women at the well in the gospels, they didn’t meet one another in church but in the marketplace.  In their encounter at the well, she discovered the Good News of a life of God that lives in her, through a well that never runs dry. The notion of ‘wells’ has offered a new metanarrative for spiritual growth as a Christian community today. 

In this post I would like to share with you two wells that I have discovered in this season of unparalleled world challenge.  Both, when brought together, can work to raise us up a bit, offering a path for the cultivation of maturity for today. My hope is in encouraging a ripening of maturity for these times, it might offer a shift beyond our deadening western right and wrong cultural grip. 

One well is the work of Dr. Carole Whitaker, a scientist whose current work focuses on the science of spirituality.  The other well is the Storytelling Institute at South Mountain Community College.  Dr. Whitaker has her doctorate in Chemistry from UCLA and taught as a college professor for many years. From UCLA she also gleans from the Mindful Awareness Research Center for her work today. She also was a Catholic religious sister for 18 years before beginning her doctorate.  She has brought at this season of her life both fields together to offer workshops, classes and lectures on the Science of Spirituality.  Dr. Whitaker in her workshops uses a chart that demonstrates the ways of knowing in relationship to growth and human consciousness.  I would like to share her chart and how I imagine storytelling as the tool to foster maturity.

She identifies from the bottom of the pyramid going up Ways of Knowing and the consciousness it cultivates:

1. Spirit accessed through sacred silence produces the Mystics’ Gift. 
2. Soul accessed through feeling producing the Shaman’s Gift. 
3. Mind accessed through reason producing the Philosopher’s Gift.  
4. Body accessed through the senses producing the Scientist’s Gift.  

She suggests that our Western culture has elevated the Mind as the primary way of knowing.  She demonstrates how this can be extremely limiting and narrow. Additionally, when people as individuals or communities experience pain, grief and trauma they can get trapped in their mind causing stunted growth and illness.  I found this helpful in naming how we have possibly become a culture in regression, a culture of blame and shame response, creating polarization. The result is disintegration of individuals and society as a whole. 

I have been greatly inspired in observing the utilization of Storytelling in the class on Using Storytelling for a Variety of Settings. It has been awe inspiring to discover this tool and the shifts it invites.  I would like to propose how Storytelling can begin to dismantle the frozen polarized state in both individuals and communities.  My suggestions for growing maturity in ways of knowing are below:

1. Soul level of knowing matures to Wisdom through stories. Stories engage feelings and stir the imagination, opening access to soften the hardened, closed heart. I would like to suggest that storytelling cultivates Wisdom, and Wisdom grows maturity.
2. Mind level of knowing matures to Understanding through stories. Stories open the mind to dialogue and an exchange of knowledge and ideas. Understanding represents the maturity of knowledge, having engaged with others thoughts, cultures, ideas and information. This fosters a welcome of ideas and knowledge found in the other.
3. Body level of knowing matures to Expression.  Stories call upon the senses through the opening of experience.  Our senses can get frozen in the body having negative effects on health.  Stories offer the freeing of the senses through personal expression. 
4. Spirit level of knowing matures to Insight. Stories invite a person to reflect on life’s bigger questions reflecting on the meaning in life and the question of call and purpose.  Stories invite transformational growth, aha moments filled with the grace of new Insight. 

My musings invite the mingling of these two wells in the hope of storytelling lighting the spark of inner transformational growth.  Thus, calling forth maturity in knowing, with the growth of Wisdom, Understanding, Expression and Insight.  Maturity offers the possibilities of breaking through the hardened polarized ground of these desert times in the Right vs. Wrong, Red vs. Blue, Fox vs. CNN, Boomers vs. Millennials mentalities.  I am grateful for the discovery of this remarkable well of storytelling.  I hope to find ways to invite others into its nourishing magical refreshment in all aspects of life, in our desert community and times.

Best Practices for Video-recording Stories by Liz Warren

We're all going to be communicating more on video, and as storytellers we will be asked to video-record stories for use in a range of contexts.  I've been researching and experimenting and here are some tips and best practices I've learned for recording your stories:

• Lighting: Try to use natural light that illuminates your face fully, but doesn't wash you out or leave you over exposed.  If you are using artificial light, make sure it is in front of you, not behind you. And as with natural light make sure your face is bright but not overexposed, and that it doesn't leave one side of your face with shadow. This is accomplished by placing the light at the correct distance and angle. Many people recommend using a ring light, and there are lots of these available at a wide range of prices. Check out Angie's video on how to look good on zoom calls.  Her advice applies to recording, too. 
• Camera position: Get the camera at your eye level or slightly above by adjusting your chair, or raising or lowering your computer (tripod, stack of books).  It's not enough to just angle the camera.You want it pointing pretty much directly at your eyes on a horizontal axis. Looking directly at the camera makes it seem like you are looking at the listener.  This gets easier with just a little practice.
• Body Position:  Mostly fill the frame with your shoulders and head, with the top of your head just below the top of the frame.  Record yourself and watch how your gestures are working with the framing you've chosen.  You may need to show more of your body so the gestures are consistently in the frame.  Or practice them so that they are effective in the closer angle. Look how brilliantly Bill Irwin does this, as well as how he uses his face and timing in this video.
• Video quality: Record with the best quality that you have at your disposal. For example, the webcam on my desktop is sufficient for our zoom meetings, but the camera included in my iPad is much better for recording.  Play around with your devices to find which one is best.
• Background: Go for simple or something intentional/artistic and not too busy. Try not to have your bed or your kitchen or doors or windows behind you. Avoid glass in frames that will reflect the light back at the camera. The photo at the top shows Travis in his home studio. This is the kind of set-up that is most often seen in professional contexts. As artists, we may have more flexibility with what we have behind us. Bottom line: think about what best serves your listeners' ability to focus on the story you are telling.
• Clothing: Go for solid colors that complement you. Some sites say to avoid white, but it depends on your skin tone, the lighting, and the background.
• Makeup: There are hundreds of makeup tutorials online about how to look good on video for both men and women. It's a deep and potentially expensive rabbit hole, but I've found that some simple tweaks to my makeup can make a noticeable difference in how the video looks. Even if you don't regularly wear makeup, analyze how you look on video and decide if you want or need to use some. This is especially important if you are creating a product for a professional application. 
• Story: Be completely confident in your story so you can relax in front of the camera.  There are so many other things to manage; you don't want to be worrying about that, too. Video done this way with the emphasis on the face is very intimate, like telling a story to a friend over a cup of coffee.  Bring all your storytelling gifts and skills to bear, while also shooting for a relaxed and conversational vibe.
• Practice and Experiment:  Play with what works best for you as an artist, and with your style and repertoire. Experimenting helps you get more comfortable using the camera and will result in a quality product that is engaging for listeners and accurately represents you as a storyteller. As with most things we want to get good at, it just takes time.
• Ask for feedback: Ask your friends and trusted allies for feedback.  Record something and share it.  Ask specifically for what you want to know about, or for anything they particularly liked, or if something pulled them out of the story or distracted them. 
• Perfection is not the goal: As with in-person storytelling, effective engagement is the goal - not perfection. Record your story and watch it. If you can enjoy it yourself and take some joy in it, go ahead and use it. For example, I recorded this story for Doug Bland's Earth Day project. I shouldn't have worn a patterned shirt and I feel like I was too close to the camera, and the background is busy.  But at the same time I made my own self laugh when I watched it, so I went ahead and sent it to him.

Go forth and make content! This is the time for all of us to up our skills and get proficient telling stories in this way.

 

Guests At Our Table by Diana Dinshaw

In 1972 when the Nationalization of Pakistan hit my father’s small business, clearing and forwarding of shipments, overnight he lost his largest client. We went from living comfortably in abundance to not having much at all. To me as a seven year old that meant that on my birthday that year and many years to follow instead of getting a new dress, new shoes, new hair ribbons (you get the picture) I got what I needed and some years that meant getting a new school uniform.

But no matter how tight things were there was always room for guests at our dining table. While my parents were always generous and gracious hosts my childish heart was resentful and fearful of there not being enough. 

My dad’s eldest brother lived in the lower portion of the house and once he retired from his bank job he would join us for dinner every night. He had a great penchant for betting on horse races and the race course being across the street from our house didn’t help. You could tell if he had won or lost at the races. If he had won he would share some of his winnings with my sister and me telling us to buy something nice for ourselves One time I bought a pair of pumps for myself from a very fancy shoe store which I could not have imagined going to otherwise. If he had lost he would come quietly and leave quietly after dinner.

Every Sunday morning the doorbell would ring at 9:00 am and my dad’s cousin would join us for breakfast. She was the eldest of six siblings and had never married, She had spent her life first taking care of her siblings and then her ailing mother. While she lived by herself she would come to spend the weekend with her brother and his family who lived in the house next to ours. But Sunday morning she would be at our table. I don’t remember much of what was said and discussed during those mornings but I do remember that she did most of the talking. 

Every so often my grandmother’s friend would come to visit my mom in the evening. She would stay until dinner time and when my mother would invite her to stay for dinner she would object saying she could not impose, my mother would insist, she would hesitantly agree and then from her bag she would take out one naan. This dance happened every time she came and my sister and I would wait for her to take out the “one” naan and then giggle. My sister and I called her “naan-walli” aunty (aunty with the naan). We couldn’t understand why she would bring only one naan.  One day after she left, with resentment I asked why couldn’t she bring naan for all of us and my mom explained that she was poor and didn’t want to impose on us. We could add water to the curry or lentils to make it go further but there was only that much bread or roti to go around. 

It’s been a long time since I have  thought of these assorted people who blessed our table and at this time of scarcity and fear they have constantly been in my mind. My childhood resentment towards them has turned to gratitude for giving me the opportunity to witness the act of generosity and hospitality. 

(The photo at the top is of Diana and her sister with their uncle.)

Interesting Times by Mindy Tarquini

Think about this:

My second novel is set during an interesting time. It is set against the backdrop of a pandemic. A pandemic which was overshadowed by a world war. In 1918 Philadelphia. My novel got a feature in the Historical Novel Society’s print edition, won a couple of awards, was a Today Show Winter Book Selection, was the subject of interviews, discussed during a couple of panels at the Tucson Book Festival, given a very nice write-up in Phoenix Magazine.

I learned a lot about viruses while I researched the novel’s history and setting. I also learned so much about Philadelphia of the time period. For examples: I learned about my own family’s ancestry, the Curb Market on Ninth Street which still exists today. I learned the price of everyday items such as butter or ready-made shirtwaists. I learned what kind of tools a cobbler uses, what drugs doctors prescribed, that there was an Italian hospital in South Philadelphia, also an Italian church that was the first stop in this new land for many, many Italian immigrants, and the proper way to make a variety of Italian pastries. I learned Italian sayings and stories, reacquired the accents and speech cadences of my great-aunts and uncles, my grandparents and great-grandparents, the subjects of my story, set during a time when they were young, new to America, full of beans and vigor and possessing nothing but hope for the future.

And I learned life goes on. Wars happen, tragedy strikes, people die. Then life goes on. Because new people are born, ideas innovated, science uncovered and applied.

For now, as then, our times are interesting, our lives feel precarious, our futures uncertain. But every day the sun rises, every evening the stars shine. Rains fall, flowers root, and—I don’t think this is my imagination—the air is clearer, the water cleaner, and my attitude calmer between the bouts of anxiety.

I live in interesting times. But nothing’s changed. Life is always uncertain. This will pass. All things do. In the meanwhile, I’ll do what I do. I’ll write. I’ll share stories. I’ll find ways to be useful and be grateful for those gifts I’m given: Every day that those I love are whole and healthy. Every moment I’m free to create. Every dozen eggs I score in the grocery delivery.

I live in interesting times. So does everybody else. Everybody. In the entire world.

Every. Single. Person.

And we’re all living here together.

Distanced, but together.

Finally.

Think about that.

(Mindy Tarquini is an oral storyteller and award-winning author of three novels, Hindsight (Sparkpress, 2016), The Infinite Now (Sparkpress, 2017), and Deepest Blue. (Sparkpress, 2018). She loves connecting with people on Facebook and Instagram @MindyTarquiniAuthor. Stop by. Say hello.)

There's No Place Like Home by Marilee Lasch

In the movie The Wizard of Oz Dorothy is whisked away by a tornado, and lands up in a beautiful color-filled land, full of interesting and  adventurous people, but is she happy?  Nope. All she can think about is that she wants to go home. 

After being given the red slippers by the good witch, she starts her journey to find a way home.  She meets along the way the tin man, the scarecrow, and the lion. They become good friends, but is she happy? Nope, she just wants to go home.  Adventures await her, some good, some very frightening, does she pause and reflect on the meaning of any of them? Nope, she just wants to go home. 

When she finally gets to Oz and meets the great Wizard, her only wish is to go home. She misses the boat (balloon), but is finally told by the Good Witch that she had the ability to go home all along. All she had to do was to say “There's no place like home,” three times.

So here we are in the middle of a tornado (pandemic) with stay-at home orders from our leaders, but many are finding out that that isn't where they want to be!!  Many are convinced that there is another place that will make them happy, Just like Dorothy sang “Somewhere over the rainbow,” I, too have sung that song so many times wishing for a magical wonder land, knowing that any place is better than this place.

As a member of a 12-step recovery group we are frequently reminded that geographical moves aren't the cure. We take ourselves with us wherever we go looking for that magical cure. Although many of us have tried it over and over again: if I move there, I'll be happy. Seattle is so much better, only to find the rain and drab so discomforting once we are there. We wallow in dissatisfaction, and self-pity and contemplate a move to someplace else. And if we can't physically move the desire for escaping leads to the promise of drugs and alcohol that they are our friends.

As I sit on my patio watching the morning sun come up and seeing the birds peck at the feeder, I am reminded of  Ram Das's words that we all must learn to BE HERE NOW. In this moment of contemplation there is a sense of peace that erases all my desires to be someplace else, doing something else, with someone else.  That is HOME, the attitude within myself that I am at exactly where I am meant to be in this moment.

Over the years, with all my moves, all my adventures, and all my friends, male and female, it has taken me a long time to discover that I am already there. Home isn't a place or a time or an experience, it is a state of mind that I carry with me wherever I go. I just need to click my heels together and say, “There’s no place like home,” three times, be in the present moment, and I'm there.

Doctor’s Appointments in the Time of Coronavirus 2020 by Myranette Robinson

I had a doctor’s appointment; I wasn’t sick just a checkup. I was surprised when I was told that the appointment was still on. (Isn’t there a shortage of PPE ?) Upon arrival, there were two nurses at a table outside. There you filled out a check list of Covid-19 symptoms with a place for your signature indicating that the information was true to your best knowledge. The nurse took the pen with an alcohol wipe. Then you were swiped at the forehead to get your temperature. The nurse then pumped hand-sanitizer for me. Then the door was opened automatically. I was the only patient in the reception area to check in. You had to put your signature on a touchscreen acknowledging that your account was current. (Didn’t a nurse just pick up my pen with an alcohol wipe?) Then I was given a form to take upstairs. The clerk asked if I had a pen. There was another woman upstairs and we distanced ourselves socially. I signed the form. My hands felt liked they needed to be cleaned again, so I went to the bathroom to wash them using the information I received on proper hand washing. I wondered if my hands were ever clean my entire life. I cut the faucet off using the towel used to wipe my hands and tossed it.

I was called to the examining room. I was asked if I wanted to check my weight. Like any woman, I said no. When I got to the exam room, the nurse sanitized her hands and took my blood pressure. When she finished, she sanitized her hands again and advised me that the doctor would be in shortly. I was relieved that I didn’t have to give a urine sample. The doctor arrived, sanitized her hands and socially distanced herself. We talked about the new normal, proper hand washing techniques and that all elective surgeries were cancelled. She sanitized her hands before leaving. She gave me the new farewell greeting, “Stay Safe”. I sanitized my hands, turned in paperwork downstairs and left.  I asked for sanitizer when I got outside.

My next appointment may be virtual!