Storytelling 2012

This beautiful song from Sarah Slean is my wish for the New Year, for all the storytellers everywhere.
Here's to finding the "The Right Words" in 2012.
And for myself, the courage to speak, the courage to inspire, the courage to dare.
Listen to the sweet lyrics and enjoy....

Julia Cameron's Fantasy

Today I want to share with you this great quote from Julia Cameron.

I have a fantasy. It's the pearly gates. St. Peter has out the questionnaire, he asks me The Big Question.

"What did you do that we should let you in?"

"I convinced people they should write" I tell him.

The great gates swing open.

"Lake Erie Sky"

Photo by Susan Barnhart

Visual Storyteller

There are so many great storytellers out there, telling stories in so many different ways.

This morning I was enjoying Sophie Blackall, an artist who tells small illustrated stories and maker of the art in the image above. Go see at www.sophieblackall.blogspot.com and www.missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com 

Or go here for a quick look at her work that you can own. http://www.etsy.com/shop/SophieBlackall

This Storyteller blog has been put on the back burner as of late. This sometimes happens in life, but I'm going to get busy and tell some stories in the autumn. Really I am. They are percolating just now. It feels like autumn in BC but the calendar says no.

A Little Afternoon Fantasy

This is my fantasy library. Isn't it just amazing?

The only thing I would add is a really cushy chaise longue on the balcony, just behind the tree, outfitted with luxurious pillows and a cozy cashmere throw........sigh.

I cannot remember where this photo originated from, but I am only too happy to give credit to both designer and photographer.

Think of the stories told here.........................

Ode to my Father & Mother

I wrote poems as an homage to both my father and my mother soon after their passing and someone mentioned to me that I should give these poems a home here. They are after all, storytelling.

Writing these poems soon after their passing, gave me meditative time to look back over the lives of my parents, to acknowledge the blessings of being raised by them, to appreciate the lessons they taught me and to find healing. I encourage you to do the same, when the time comes for a loved one of yours to leave this life and you find an ache in your heart that needs healing.

I wrote these in simple rhyming verse, because to my parents, it wasn't a poem if it didn't rhyme.

MY FATHER

Born to a surety of purpose,
Tied to the land and its rhyme
Living in endless concert with
Mother Nature and old Father Time.

Though sometimes very challenging,
A station of grace and demand
A constant companion to animals
And a steward of the land.

Relying on the cycles of nature,
Seemingly random though
A divine intelligence orchestrates
Each sunburst, cloudburst and snow.

Born in the Great Depression
Frugality deeply ingrained
His collections stand as testament
To the birthright that never waned

In his well worn workshop
With ingenuity, mallet and wrench
He welded and wired and nailed and patched
From the post of his oil soaked bench

In his quiet role as provider
For so many in his life
Most blessed were his three children
And his dedicated wife.

He ‘saw the little sparrow fall’
And crafted from this and that
Protective shelters everywhere
Of avian habitat

Tied to the cycle of seasons,
He drew clues from subtle signs
That many tend to overlook
In nature’s wise designs

Spring brought a daily surveyance
From the perch of a steely horse
Of the lay of his stretch of acres
And the power of nature’s force

Hours and hours behind the wheel
Turning the heavy ground
Working the land where he lived his whole life
Furrow to furrow, round and round.

And from the promise of tiny seeds,
Thrust tenacious shoots through clay
Waiting for summer’s golden warmth
To yield bounty of grain and hay.

Then with the bloom of summer
His spirits would lift each day
And he told me one of his favorite things
Was the smell of fresh mown hay.

On balmy summer nights he’d sleep
Away from the urban sky
Where a symphony of cricket and frog
Are natures’ lullaby.

Then gazing south across the fields,
Through leaves in fiery blaze
White caps on gray Lake Erie
Heralded snowy days.

Under the flight path of geese,
The ring of saw and ax
Cut the silence of the woodlot
Yielding cords of warmth in stacks.

Winter arrived and the land grew harsh
But it’s meant to be nature’s gift,
An enforced reprieve from working the land
A span of rest and shift.

And for a time he loved to fill
Cold nights with guitar and song
Accompanied by whoever
He could coax to play along.

A season of turning inward
And changing daily routine
Until the winds of spring would again
Bring a promising burst of green.

And once again there would begin
That gentle tug disarming
And he would dance the subtle dance
With nature that is farming.

The man who spoke when we laid him to rest
Counseled us that meekness,
Is not to be thought of as many suggest
It is often mistaken as weakness

The true meaning of that virtue
Is ‘power under control’
And that’s one of the traits I’ll remember most
About my father’s soul.


S. Barnhart

MY MOTHER

My mother was a nurturing soul

Domesticity was her bliss
Her gardens, and baking and needlework
Were evidence of this.

The first little girl born into the house
A birthday gift for her Dad
Soon a sister and brothers and boarders as well
Filled the rooms of the home they had.

As a girl she especially loved to skate
She'd stay out until the moon rose
Flying in freedom across the ice
Ignoring her frozen toes.

Then a country man came calling
And for him she changed her life
She married and moved to the countryside
And became a farmer’s wife.

I’m sure there were numerous challenges
But love must have been a factor
Because I will tell you, before very long
Photos prove she was driving a tractor.

Creating a comfortable nurturing home
Was where her talents lay
Flowers and food and a quiet mood
Enticed visitors to stay.

She found great joy in gardening
In the blush of a New Dawn rose
Delphinium, lupines and lilacs
Elderberries for pies she froze.

She avidly studied botanical things
How to turn pink hydrangeas to blue
Why roses love garlic as well as sunshine
It seemed her green thumbs just knew

And when winter crept in with those low gray skies
The way the sky on the Great Lakes looks
She would mulch her gardens and put them to bed
And take refuge in gardening books.

Knitting and crocheting on long winter nights
From her deft needles there grew
More than a hundred afghans for brides
And bonnets and booties too.

When not working with needles or crochet hooks
She would sit at the piano and play
And for a while that’s the way she would spend
The end of a busy day.

For a time she would visit a nursing home
And her musical hands would enhance
The lives of the residents there--some started to sing
And some even attempted to dance.

She showed her care by sharing and giving
To family and friends at large
And many there were that asked time after time
For the tarts baked with love by Marj.

She raised her three children with care and concern
And was often heard to say
That later in life, while one stayed close to the nest
The others moved too far away.

In the sunroom Dad built they would often sit
And take simple pleasure there
Gazing out towards the silvery lake
From the ease of a rocking chair

They would revel in nature’s theater
Over bucolic fields of hay
And watch the cats out hunting mice
And the spotted dogs at play

The blur of a nervous humming bird
A legislature of birds on the wire
The finches feasting upside down
Or the trill of a feathery choir

They would sit and ponder what to plant
Or what a crop would yield
While watching the neighbor’s horses
Gallop across the field

They’d have a little chuckle when hearing
The donkey’s insistent bray
As if no one would pay attention
To what he had to say

She accepted the challenges her mate would leave
In a basket or pail by the door
An organic offering of what he had found
On the land and not from a store

She tried her hand at churning butter
And gloved, made nettle tea
And peeled bushels of sour apples
From a gnarly apple tree

He would pick her mushrooms from the field
But she thought that the chances were slim
That they would not be poisonous
Though she did cook them for him!

She fashioned many pink bouquets
From corn husks dried and dyed
And learned to candle and handle eggs
And stacked cords of wood outside.

Her feet were always a challenge
During life, especially later
And she told me if she could have done anything
She'd have been a figure skater.

Then after fifty five years of being
A daily partner and wife
The routines of comfort and love of that
Gave way to great sadness in life

On the day that her dearest drew his last breath
There began a great void in her life
She had never been ever alone before
Always daughter or mother or wife.

Alone in the quiet old farmhouse
Without the family and babble
She staved off loneliness by welcoming friends
For tea or a round of Scrabble.

I found a little notebook of Mom’s
And I opened it and read
“Wisdom is knowledge acted upon”
And that was all it said.

From the way that she lived her life
This is what I have come to know
This is my mother’s legacy
And by example she managed to show

The wisdom of choosing your path
And steadfastly seeing it through
Doing your very best every day
At whatever you’ve chosen to do.

The words of the man who stood and spoke
When we laid her body to rest
Included a verse from Hebrews
And seemed to describe her life best

Her confidence in the hereafter
Was strong and had always been
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for
The evidence of things not seen”

S. Barnhart

Writing Down the Bones

On the carousel to the right you will find not a single book on style and grammar. You can always reference Strunk and White for that.


The books featured here offer great inspiration and coax you to write and share your stories. Put pen to paper and move it. Or fingers to keyboard and begin dancing with the keys.


Let me tell you first about Natalie Goldberg. I have read Natalie's writings for years and I especially love two of her books 'Wild Mind' and 'Writing Down the Bones'.
'Writing Down the Bones' has sold more than a million and a half copies and continues to sell after 20 years on the shelves.


Natalie has a calm poetical way of speaking and offering encouragement. She explains that for her, writing is a spiritual practice. Enjoy this video. Be inspired. Share your stories.

Story from Japan

To be Shared...
A letter from Sendai
ANNE THOMAS 3/14/2011
published online @ Ode magazine

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.
During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out a sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.
It's utterly amazingly that where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."
Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.
We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.
There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.
Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.
And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.
They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.
Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.
Thank you again for your care and Love of me,
With Love in return, to you all,
Anne

Two Unusual Love Stories

Today I'm feeling under the weather and so I am focusing on love and want to share with you, two unusual love stories. Interspecies love stories!!





Okay.........so there are 3 I want to share.....

The Story of Touslehead

Touslehead's Plight

After my mother passed on recently, I spent a few weeks at my childhood home on the farm going through a lifetime accumulation of belongings, spending my days afloat in an ocean of memories.

One afternoon I came upon my favorite childhood book 'The Shiniest Star' by Beth Vardon, illustrated by Charlot Byi. It was a beautiful book given to me by my Great Aunt Florence. I loved it when Aunt Florence came to visit. She had skin like velvet, always always wore lipstick and smelled like attar of roses and cookie tins. Her bejewelled hands would tat, as if it were second nature for her, and it seemed as if she rarely looked down at her handiwork. And.... she gave lovely gifts.

My beloved book was a spiral bound deluxe edition with a gold foil star on the original cover and pop ups and inclusions inside, such as a tin whistle. It is now these many years later missing it's covers.

As I began to read, childhood memories came flooding back. It is a story/poem about little angels and the first Christmas star. I recalled that I had identified with Touslehead, the littlest angel. Although I loved the book, I had always been so sad over Touslehead's plight. Though she polished and polished, she could not get her star to shine.

"’My star doesn’t seem to shine

Theirs are bigger – theirs are better.

Look at theirs so twinkly bright!’

And a tear fell down from Heaven

like a raindrop in the night…”

I began to ponder why at such a young age -- probably 4 yrs, that I would identify with the angel that could not get her star to shine. It seemed vaguely troubling and I mentioned this to my sister. Her perspective on it was this. "You say that (at that young age), you had no sense yet of not being able to get your star to shine..because you knew that all stars could shine and you were sad that Touslehead didn't get it. That she was already perfect."

In the end Touslehead stays up all night polishing her star and through perseverance it is her star that shines so brightly that it is a guide for the wise men on their way to Bethlehem. Her star is the Star of Guidance and the Star of Love. A very good thing to identify with.

Amazon has copies of this book for $119.58!

Perhaps one day I will buy a reprint, hopefully a special deluxe edition like the one that is now on my bookshelf. For now, I think I will love my book just the way it is, missing the covers, the inclusions and even a few last pages.  However, the last page that is still intact, is the page that turns the story around and brings the sigh of a good ending....

"...Star of Guidance, Star of Love”

Touslehead thought , “Am I dreaming?

It’s MY star they’re speaking of!”



Secret of the Elders/Guest Post

A beautiful post shared with the permission of
Leonie Allan of Australia

Every tribe has its elders.

You know the ones. They are the ones who have navigated through long, long years of this living business.

I know older ones of course – many of them. Those who have lived, but still haven’t learned.

The elders are different though. They are the ones who have not been skewed, jaded or ruptured by the thousand moments where the heart stands still, when hope is lost, when days are sodden with grief, when things do not go according to the plan.

I am blessed. I have three.
Three women, all in their nineties.

My grandmother Marion. My grandmother is the youngest. She is 93. She still lives by herself, up until last year in the old wooden cottage we now live in and now in a set of sweet flats where elders circle to create ornate gardens and peer their head into each other’s doors. As is the way in this small town, most of them are cousins.

My grandmother has outlived her two lovers, her two sons, and one grandson. She still works two days a week in the “boutique” – an op shop. And she dresses better than I do. She wears pearls and high heels and tight fitting, dipping bright blue dresses. She has a collection of eight retro white-rimmed sunglasses. She is uncannily intuitive – knowing before anyone else in the family (including the subject) who is falling in love, who is falling out and who needs to be told they are beautiful today.

The second (on the left) is my grandmother’s sister Lucy. Lucy has deep red hair and the innocence of a fairy. She fell in love with her soul mate when she was still a teenager. He was fifteen years older, and although I don’t remember him, his kindness is spoken about in glowing whispers. My mother likes to tell a story about someone complimenting Fred on his pink shirt. In return, he took it off and gave it to them. I tell this about Fred, because it tells you about Lucy too. Fred was the gentle man who made his life’s work to take care of and love the red-haired, kind-hearted fairy girl who chose him. Lucy has Alzheimer’s disease, and though she now doesn’t remember anyone’s name, it matters not – she loves them just the same. She knows you are good. She knows you are family – everyone is.

And the little old lady who lived down the road when I grew up. I know her – as does most of our small town – simply as Nan. Nan is 96, the eldest of the elders. Nan’s eyes are the loveliest of bue, and she likes to ask intensive questions about computers and the internet so she can understand this funny online goddess job thing I have. I remember when I was 6, Nan and Pop left on a holiday. She returned without him by her side, a heart attack having taken her love. I remember the neighborhoods’ children being gathered up to meet her on the bus, each of us holding a rose for her. She got off the bus, and cried, and held us all, then introduced us to the Swiss girl she’d made dear friends with on the bus who she’d invited to live with her for a while. And she did. That is how my Nan is – a woman with an open heart who looks to love wherever she can.

Three women.

All in their nineties.

They have lost their parents, siblings, loves, children, grandchildren. They have lived stories untold – of miscarriages, abortions, poverty, pain, infidelity. My grandmother told me she once spent the night in prison with her family – because it was Christmas Eve, they were visiting the city, there were no hotel rooms available and they had no money. So the police took them in and let them stay the night with two young children. There have been breakdowns, suicides, alcoholism, of watching children waste away for years from cancer. They have lived in tents. They have been beaten. They have lived through the bombing of London. There has been two world wars. There has been the deepest of depressions.

And yet – and yet.

These women – they glow.

They are happy.

They have a deep and ferocious faith that people are good.

They believe anything can be solved with the salve of love.

The years have not torn them asunder.

They have widened them and smoothed them like a river smoothes a rock.

They glisten. They are wells of compassion, of wisdom and of laughter.

They have a secret.

I know other stories, other older ones. Those whose tapestries have warped from the threads of living, have torn and frayed and tangled. Those who haven’t become beacons in their tribes. Those who have hurt more than healed. The years don’t always mend and soften and deepen a person.
I wonder what separates the elders from the older.
And then I listen, and I see.

We drive with the elders.
Without fail, on the drive to the farm, my Aunt Lucy the fairy coos:
Oh! Those mountains! Look at those mountains! I’ve never seen anything like them! The beauty!

My grandmother is more pragmatic:
Look at this road. It’s so wide and so smooth! Such a good road to travel on!

She turns to me and says:

Leonie, you are a good mum. You look beautiful today. Ostara is the most beautiful baby, isn’t she the most lovely thing you’ve ever seen?
And your Dad, he’s an old bushy, but he’s got a good heart, and gosh he loves you children.

And my Nan, ever the heart, says about each and every day we have together:
Well, that was just the most wonderful day possible. I can’t imagine a better day.
And on, and on, and on, these women speak, singing the praises of every little thing, every little person.
Everywhere, there are blessings, there are miracles, there is a universe tending to our million needs for air, comfort, love, support, good roads, kind hearts, tending gatherings and delicious mountains.
And they are the sentinels watching for them, praising them, delighting in them, alerting us all to them.

This is their secret.
As life’s cyclones and storms and tornados tear trees and branches from limb, as earthquakes shatter and quake, as tsunamis wash and swallow, these women, they turn their faces to their sun and say:

This life is good. Just look at that beautiful sun!

May I listen, may I learn, may I know.

With love, grace and faith,


http://www.goddessguidebook.com/


 



STORIES ARE GIFTS.

Welcome to Storyteller, a blog about sharing stories.

Here you will find both prose and poetry, musings about keeping journals and probably the occasional blathering about books, since I am now resigned to this bookish obsession of mine.

I work in several journals simultaneously and I truly believe that everyone should have a journal of some kind. Many of my journals are visual rather than just written, and there will be more on this subject in the future, either here or at my other blog on creativity:  www.wildheartmanifesto.blogspot.com

 
This past winter, on every Starbucks door there appeared…

"STORIES ARE GIFTS. SHARE."

My thoughts exactly. I can’t think of a way to put it better or say it more succinctly.

Indigenous cultures have great storytelling traditions, but our evolution as a society has to some degree let the art of storytelling fall by the wayside, except for perhaps in book form. With the advent of radio, storytelling moved from the hearth to gathering around the radio to hear stories, accompanied by melodramatic sound effects and music.

And now the world wide web has brought us the gift of the global village, whereby we are able to share stories with anyone, almost anywhere on the planet. It affords us an opportunity to discover unique points of view, live vicariously through others and share the gift of storytelling.

Although the digital world will never compare to the visceral pleasure of holding a book, or working within the pages of a book, it does provide us with a great way to share. That’s just my humble opinion.

I am interested in the stories of those who are not computer literate, who may live in primitive conditions or have other barriers to overcome. I am especially interested in the stories of the elderly who may be leaving soon and taking their untold stories with them. It is my hope to find these stories and publish them here as gifts of storytelling for everyone who visits this blog.

I offer you this challenge…..
If you are acquainted with an elderly person who may not have a computer, and who has something good to share, please help shine a light on these stories. Please email me with a story that may need work on grammar or other editing to sharingyourstories@gmail.com and I will be happy to help. Please try to include a photo or two if you can (since they are apparently worth a thousand words).  Thank you so much for sharing this ‘gift’.

Here is a little video about the creative man, Brady Smith, who is a great journal keeper and his contribution to the Starbuck’s campaign "STORIES ARE GIFTS. SHARE."

Labels: Stories are Gifts.