Story Paths

Book one-on-one story sessions hereRead this as an article, and share your thoughts hereHow do characters illuminate their world?We experience stories through the eyes of their people. What they seek in their world, we seek. What they find, we find. As such, to choose a character is to choose the manner of entering the story world.Truth-SeekersI recently watched the Studio Ghibli film The Boy and the Heron. It’s fascinating. The titular boy is a truth seeker, earnest wants to get to the bottom of mysteries. Because he has this nature, we enter into those mysteries with him. He illuminates the story world’s mysteries and brings us along.If he were passive, he wouldn’t delve into that same mysterious world, and we, the viewer, wouldn’t either. A character keen to discover the truth of things carries a spotlight into their world.In another Studio Ghibli film, Princess Mononoke, a young prince is desperate to bridge conflicted groups. This active role is beset with challenges, and gives him unique insight into the different sides in a mythical battle. Through his actions, he activates other characters, bringing out their true intentions. It's a great choice for a central character. The Princess, on the other hand, is dead set on defeating her enemy, but the prince illuminates her compassion.What are other ways characters illuminate their world? A detective is someone who digs into their world in a narrow, focused way. They are excavating clues to get the truth on a particular crime, and in so doing they unearth truths that are savoury, unsavoury, tactical and deeply personal.ExplorersAn explorer wants to know what is across the ocean, above the sky, beneath the earth. They seek the ruins of lost civilizations, and find forgotten wonders. Their objective is not to unearth one truth, but many.A scientist is also an explorer. They might be exploring through the medium of a microscope, and in so doing discover vistas that open up the story.Let’s say our story explores the nature of time, raising questions like: is time linear, circular, spiralling, or all of the above? Is reality a web, with time and space as its warp and weft? A scientist would bring one lens to bear. A mystic would bring another, a hybrid another still.A time traveler character is moving throughout time differently from the rest of us, and experiencing it in according to the rules of their fictional world. That’s quite a vantage.This may be very personal for them as well. Someone they love may be caught in a part of time that’s hard to reach, as though across a vast mountain range. In trying to save them, our timescape-rescuer is illuminating the temporal expanse of the story.If our story is about traveling through the chakras of a human body, and vertically through layers of self and cosmos, then we might choose a mystic character. Or, to make them more relatable, someone apprenticing with a mystic.Why Are They Doing All This?This brings us to what pushes characters to act: their motivations. This might be a simple wondering about what is out there, but it often helps to give them a focused desire. They may be sailing through time to find their lost child, or trying to connect to their previous life so that they can join with that old self and become whole. They're crossing the ocean in order to consult a wise elder, then bring back council for their ailing people. These motivations focus the tale.Whew! Could You Summarise All That?Sure, that would help me too.So there's the story world, with its particular landscapes, beings, rules, and truths waiting to be discovered. The question is, what is the journey of a character through and into those possibilities? Imagine them as a light investigating into darkness. What do they discover? How will different characters within the same story illuminate the world and each other?PromptsConsider the land where you live, and the disposition of the people there. Where I am, they are externally friendly and inwardly reserved. Like peaches, they are soft on the outside and hard to make deep friends with. What are they like where you live?Now, consider a character who would stir everyone up, who would bring out what’s inside them. For example, it would be interesting to have a character around these parts who always says the wrong thing. They take a smile for an offer of friendship. When someone says, ‘We should get together sometime,’ this character takes them at their word. They hear that it’s good to express yourself, to not repress anything, so they go into a yoga class and let out massive sighs, burps and farts.This character is a contrarian. If she's in a right wing group, she says extreme left wing things. If he's in a left wing group, he says extreme right wing things.Consider your particular situation where you live. What kind of character would reveal what's beneath the surface?They might stir things up socially, like the guy above, or in any other field. What kind of character would reveal what's interesting to you, in the place that you live?Business PromptA character is a role in a story. To emulate this in a business meet-up, it can be helpful to have different physical hats to don, each one for a particular perspective. If you're a one person show, then you could have some hats that you put on for different ways of thinking. This could be the strategic planner, the innovator, the historian looking back at how things have gone in the business so far, and guessing the future. The comparer, who looks at other similar businesses and makes patterns. These are all roles through which you can illuminate your work.What are some others, perhaps specific to your work?Until the next,happy creating,Theo This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Well met, fellow wanderer,I welcome your company, here at this riverside resting spot, with willows budding, moisture and pollen swirling in the air, and the sun arcing overhead. I must say, those are some fine tools you’re carrying in your pack. I’m curious how you learned to use them, and to hear of work that you’ve done. I’d like to know which paths brought you here, so I can get a sense of who you are. I wish to hear of your journey.Ahem. I was just speaking in story, but I’ll say an equivilent in non-fiction speech. You see, I’m curious about the work you do in your business. Please tell me, what brought you to this work, and why is it valuable to you? That way, I can get a sense of who your services are for.Back to speaking in story:What’s that? You want to bring others across this river to join you? Ah, but it is flowing fast and wide, ‘tis true. A traveler seeking your services might attempt a crossing at any number of places, but there’s no bridge, and they would struggle to ford those waters without help.Which we might say, in a non-fiction way, thusly: I hear that you want to convey to others the value of your work, and why you do it. Yet ultimately, so many events led you to this work. When you’re trying to explain why you do what you do, you struggle with what to include and what to leave out. You end up tongue-tied, or talking all around what you’re trying to say without solidly landing on it.Let’s go on with in story-form…Aye, it’s true! This river you’ve crossed is formidable, wide, and full of contrary currents. Small wonder that you were able to cross, let alone others after you!Yet just see, there beneath the surface… stepping stones! Those could let folks to come across and meet you. You say there are too many stones, no single clear way across. Perhaps, but what say we try a few ways? If you agree, we’ll walk them together, then decide which ones you’ll share with others. I say let’s try out variety of routes. What’s more, I’ll wager we can have some fun while we’re at it. Which is to say, in a non-fiction way: Let’s look at some key events in your life that led you to your work. We’re looking for events that were transformative, noteworthy. By telling this sequence of events—this story—you’ll convey the why of what you do. And that why might just be the why of your listeners too. Choosing and telling key events that led you to your vocation can not only help your people find you, it can help you yourself depeen into the why of what you do. Let’s have some fun discovering events in your life that were transformative, rich, and challenging, and which made you who you are. Now let’s merge fiction and non-fiction.Ah, you’re asking about how I knew to notice those stones? How did I come to be here by this river, helping folks like you? How kind of you to ask.Hi, I’m Theo. I’m a story worker by trade, which is to say I tell stories and help people tell theirs. Or you might say, I cross rivers and help others to cross theirs. How did moi come to this work? I fell in love with stories as a child, and gradually learned from the spells that stories cast upon me. Now I cast some upon others, and even share the spells themselves. I may be able to help you tell the tale of what brought you to this side of the river, carrying those fine tools and skills. My wish in this is for you to find kindred folks who love your work.And it so happens that I’m holding a free workshop for purpose-driven business runners (like your good self?). Inside, I’ll give you teachings about storytelling, and there will be lots of practice time to tell the tale of how and why you came to the work you do. If all that didn’t convince you, here’s the signup-style blurb:If your business has roots in a unique, personal journey…If you want to discover and communicate that story…If you want to expand, contract and adapt that story to fit websites, promotions, bios and more…Then join me for this 60-minute Speak the Work You Love workshop.In this Workshop, You Will:-Hear my own story of how I came to this work, and why I tell it as I do. -Learn to spot key moments in the origin story of your business, then string them together into a compelling and relevant tale. -Practice telling your story in real-time, then try it in different ways, for different purposes.-Receive feedback to help you hone your telling.You’ll walk away from this workshop with a deeper understanding of your business’ origin story and how to adapt it to different purposes.Testimonials from the second time I ran this:“I found a new voice.”— Peter Gillies, Writer“This space of story feels both magical and real.”—Katie Colormaiden, Website DesignerI hope to see you there,Theo This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Watch this episodeDougie’s Pacific Northwest Coast TourDougie’s website: https://storyconnection.orgMyth as Medicine course.Dougie’s podcastInstagramComment on this episodeYou’re in for a treat. Today I get into all the good things with traditional Scottish storyteller Dougie Mackay. He’s a skilled storyteller deeply rooted in the rich heritage of Scottish folklore, who works with nature connection and inter-cultural exchange.Here’s some of what we get into:The Scottish Cèilidh, pronounced KAY-lee, serves as a vibrant ecosystem where storytellers both get their start and sometimes find their life’s calling. Dougie shares the distinction between hearthside storytelling, a cozy exchange among friends, and performance storytelling, where professionals take the stage to enrapture audiences. He also talks about where these two overlap.Did you think we wouldn’t have a story? Dougie tells an old tale of a man's quest to retrieve his cow from the land of faeries. Through this seemingly simple story, we enter a narrative ecosystem, an invitation to ponder connections between nature, culture, ethics, and the mystical.Dougie describes his recent visit to Jordan, and how exchanging stories, food and song with the people there countered the cliched propaganda that media often uses to describe the Middle East.Stories shape our perspective. Where stories with good guys and bad guys foster binary thinking, many traditional tales offer a nuanced exploration of life. All this and more… This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Book one-on-one story sessions hereRead this as an article, and share your thoughts hereHere’s a greate way to conceive stages of creative work. I learned this from a friend who used them in the hospitality industry, but they’re applicable in any project.Consider three layers:1) Big picture thinking.2) Big muscle moving.3) Detailing.Let’s Say You’re Opening a RestaurantThe big picture involves choices of menu, location, audience.The big muscle stage is finding a location, sourcing ingredients, getting equipment, and setting it all up.In the detail stage we’d be arranging napkins into cups, evening out tablecloths, making sure the place smells good, and choosing appropriate music.You might take a moment to let this alchemist inside you, considering a project that’s alive in your mind.Ready?Let’s put on our swim trunks and dive in to get a better look.But as you’re getting those on, here’s a prompt. As we’re going through, I invite you to ask yourself which role do you tend toward.Of course, in any of these personality assessments, none of us are purely one type or another. We may shift between these types at different stages of a project, or in different parts of our lives. The map is not the territory, and yet maps are helpful, and this one is cool.So in we go.Big PicturePersonally, I tend towards the big picture role, thinking about stories that we live by, spending time between stories, realizing that I'm in a story when I do that… this kind of thing. I was a monk for many years, delving into philosophy. My challenge is to bring these big thoughts into podcast, books, workshops, and into community. I need quite a bit of space and time to do this kind of thinking. That's a big part of my nature.I get work done too, I promise!How far out do we want to go? If it has been decided already that we're going to open a restaurant, we can consider the big questions that come up. But what if we haven't chosen to open a restaurant? In fact, we’re not sure what we’re going to do.So first let’s fly higher. Maybe instead of a restaurant, we might open a cinema, or start an app that helps people make these decisions. Or an app that makes an app that helps people make these decisions!In this big picture thinking we're considering which portal to open. After that, there will be many more choices.In Praise of ProcrastinationI want to take a moment to honour this stage of deciding. In an overculture where many seem more concerned with getting things done than deciding what work is worth doing, I pledge support for consideration, for time given to thought.It's not lazy. It's not avoiding work. It is the best investment.While we’re at it, we can take it further. Instead of wondering which project to start, as though it’s a given that we’ll start one, we might ask ourselves, should I start a project? Or shall I become a meditator and become detached from these ambitions of starting projects and making money? Should I learn to be satisfied being an observer, watching this world. My contribution may be in sharing what wisdom glean during this slow time of being present with what is.I might fly further out still, conceiving of myself very simply as a conscious being who can act. Further still, and depending on my cosmology, I might consider myself to be one with the world, friends with one who is in the center of our galaxy and in all things, in kinship with the creator and all other beings in their essential state. An essential state that remains within us while we express ourselves in temporal manifestations in myriad ways, from wondrous to horrendous and everywhere in between.Why stop there? I may let go of duality and even spectrums with dual ends. I may let go of it all and simply be whatever being is.Geez we’re high up! We’re out as far as I can think to go.Coming in from here, I see a variety of possible worldviews, so= I'll pick a worldview and enter it. I'll meet other beings, discover opportunities, and decide which portals to enter within my incarnated life.Alright, I’ll take this one on, this particular commitment with these particular people. That feels right.I'll begin that work. I’ll enter into the next layer.To be continued in part two of two…. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Links:Laura Burns' family constellation course.Isaac Fosl-Van Wyke's music.Welcome to Story Paths.Why stories? Because they help us imagine together, for one reason. They help us see possible pasts, possible futures.Welcome welcome, welcome.Today is a special issue. The audio version has music, so do have a listen. I’ll also share an amazing course that a friend and mentor of mine is putting on.Let's start with the music. I recently traveled southward to Kentucky to visit a dear friend. There, amongst other wonderful experiences, I met a man called Isaac Fosl-Van Wyke. He was playing his songs at a little club, along with an artist who goes by the name Mother Marrow.One of Isaac's songs, Coming of Age, fits so well with the theme of these last episodes, about a Third Ethics, about becoming aware of the wider world, of the times in which we live, and the gifts and responsibilities this time bestows upon us.This song is called Coming of Age. Have a listen in the audio version.Isaac’s whole album is excellent. You can it at these links.Bandcamp, the best way I know to support artists directly.Apple Music (pays artists a bit more than Spotify)Spotify, who don’t pay artists nearly enough!Also…There’s about an upcoming course offering by Laura Burns, a friend and mentor of mine.Now, there's different ways that I could describe Laura, as I know her, and many other ways besides. And of course, describing a person in words is not the only way to behold them. Which is to say that Laura is an enigmatic, witchy, rooted, seeking, queerly questing, midnight-walking, daylight-jousting-sing-song-songbird-exchanger kind of lady. I'm glad to have encountered her work.I participated in the last course on this topic that she offered, and now she’s offering it again. It’s called:Lessons from the Field: Tending the Ancestral SoulA systemic approach to land, transformative justice and ancestral healing.Learn more here.In this course, Laura is bringing a very interesting, interwoven cluster of insights. This offers a radical way of looking at the dynamics between victims and perpetrators. This might be really interesting for people who are in the field of nonviolent communication or restorative justice, where the first goal is to stop further harm, and then to help heal the hurter, to help them become a positive agent in the world, nourishing the fundaments of life that they once harmed.The course starts soon! It’s on May 1st, then every Wednesday after that until June 5th.What’s Included?6 Weekly Sessions - 2.5hrs - plus recordings. Sessions are every Wednesday 6.30 - 9.00pm BST, Online via zoom.50min One-to-one session.Material to explore each week, including Guided Audio Meditations, and shared reading resources.In conclusion, Laura is a lovely, like, welcoming person deeply mystical, witchy and cool, and I recommend this and all of her offerings. She’s also doing really wonderful stuff with earth-soul connection ceremony and natural dye fabrics. She's just a really neat lady, so definitely sending love her way.Until the nextTheo This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Read this as an article, and share your thoughts hereBook one-on-one story sessions hereLet’s open with a poemA power outage,is not an aberration.It is the old normal worldpoking throughinto the aberrationof tech depending on tech depending on tech depending onthe world.Wind, water, weather, creature.This wild wild world.What is it to be cut off from ancestral stories?When gaps to appear between generations, between children and adolescents, adolescents and adults, adults and elders? When these age ranges become stratified. When the movement between these ranges becomes sparse.We still have our genetics, from our parents and our grandparents and on back.Going back. Each generation with two parents and each of them with two, branching back and back. Still, we have those genetics within us. We also inherit language and customs and talents and traumas.But what do we lose when the stories get interrupted? When we don't sit with our parents and hear about our grandparents. When we don't receive cultural stories from our kin, but instead are immersed in stories crafted to capture and entertain us. Crafted by those we will never meet.It used to be that age ranges mixed in everyday life, from can’t-see to can’t-see. Of hearing about those who've departed: grandparents, grand uncles and aunts, great grandparents and on. From being nested amongst the bodies of kindred relations, with stories being passed amongst us,from mouth to ear to heart to hands to mouth to ear to heart to feet to song to ear to belly to breath to song to ear.Stories adapting, stories weaving past into present and passing the present onthrough ears and hearts and hands and feetinto the future.Such a delicate, fragile form of knowledge , and yet it is the most enduring form we have. Still we have stories that are tens of thousands of years old. They’re still with us today, after plagues and floods and invasions.Thank you for staying with us.What stories will we tell when the screens go dim, when the vast cooled data banks grow silent? When the pages in books tot or burn, or people forget how to decipher the codes.What will we speak to each other about these times? What words of warning might we pass on to warn our kindred descendants of toxic zones that we created for a few decades of power. Lands which will need warning of for thousands of years to come. What stories might we tell so those people who come after may know to tend those sites, so the consequences are not as grave as they might be. Tend them when the fifty or a hundred year mechanisms containing them break down. Tend the leaks, contain the radiation. Tend and perhaps begin to remedy the great rifts and damages that they will inherit.What stories might we pass on to help those who come after?What lore might we pass on to them that will be useful for what they will surely face.What will we pass on?What lore?Until the nextHappy creatingTheo This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Read this as an article and reply hereBook one-on-one story sessions hereBringing Distant Ones CloseA Spiritual ApproachHow might I connect with the water in Nigeria, Alberta, Costa Rica, Australia? How can I come to understand that this water may well come into my own body?We learn from many spiritual teachings that all beings are in interrelation with each other. We are, as Martin Luther King said (in 1963 from the Birmingham jail) in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.Looking at religion, we find ideas that cause people to consider the wider implication of their actions.There's the concept of karma: simply put, of cause and effect. If I commit harm to another being, I will eventually have to taste that bitter fruit, whether coming from them or someone else, in this life or another. The concept of sin is similar. I may get away with something now, but in the long term, God will punish me for it.Connected with karma, dharma teaches me to do good for the sake of spiritual upliftment. For myself and others. It’s not just in dharma: this sense of acting a good way for its own sake can be found in spiritual paths throughout the world.I might approach this in a ceremonial way, bringing cups of water into my sensory space and saying, ‘This is the water of the south. This is the water of the east, of the north, of the west. I am of them, and they are of me.’ I might travel by mind to lands affected by resource extraction, travel there and witness their struggles, then consider this when I decide whether or not to get in a car or an airplane.TechnologyWhat are other ways we might bring distant places nearby? There are apps that tell me how much pollution I'm responsible for, and there could be apps that tell me the consequences of my buying this kind of lemon, which comes from 20 miles away, compared to this kind of lemon which comes from 200 miles away, or a thousand. They could tell me who my phone battery is harming. Tt could be mandatory that on every new car there’s a label, like descriptions on cigarette packages, listing that product’s consequences to people, place and creatures.StoriesStory is another way that we might bring distant beings close. By hearing the stories of refugees in other lands, of those living on islands subsumed by rising sea levels, or of those in the north who cannot hunt as they used to. To hear those stories and imagine myself in their lives, including them in my sense of self and place.Stories bring empathy. So much so that author Lynne Hunt figures that the the modern novel is the basis of the human rights movement.That’s quite something. By sitting and deciphering symbols on a page, wide swaths of people learned to enter into the minds of others. Often these ‘readers’ came to know characters even better than their families, for fictional minds are transparent. This art form, and the empathy it allows, may have kindled the kinship required to declare that all people have worth.This Green Globe is the Best Dressed in the BallIt wasn't that long ago we first saw photographs of the earth taken from space. That moment was part of a big shift for us, shifting towards a larger awareness: from first and second ethics to the third.And perhaps from here there could be fourth, considering not just our own planet, but other planets, other beings out there ,with whom we are in relation, and to whom we are of consequence. In karate, students are taught to punch through their target; by widening our perspective to other planets, we may take good care of our own. By widening into deep time, we may act well in the times we’re in.May we include within my sense of self and place this whole beautiful green, blue, brown, cloudy, watery globe, upon whom we are spinning through space.Story PromptsConsider something you've bought recently. See if you can trace down where the parts of that thing came from: where it was sourced, who helped create it. See if you can find some of the story behind it.Consider work that you do regularly, and a tool that you often use, like a computer. If you can't find specifically where each of the components came from, can you take a guess? Can you learn about some of them, and in so doing learn about the place they came from? You might learn some stories from that place, and come to consider it part of your backyard, part of your responsibility.I'll do the same.In Closing, I’ll share a poem.Questionnaire, by Wendell Berry-How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the free market and global trade? Please name your preferred poisons. For the sake of goodness.-How much evil are you willing to do? Fill in the following blanks with the names of your favorite evils and acts of hatred.-What sacrifices are you prepared to make for culture and civilization? Please list the monuments, shrines, and works of art that you would most willingly destroy.-In the name of patriotism and the flag. How much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate?-List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, and farms you could most readily do without.-State briefly the ideas, ideals or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child. Name, please, the children whom you would be most willing to kill. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Watch the promo hereThe sales stuff:I'm offering this at an opening discount of 15 dollars.Buy it on Gum Road (free account).I'm also lowering the price on my three course bundle, which includes Story Shapes 1, and Brainstorming Story Ideas, for 30.Buy the bundle of all three courses.I'll hold that until the first week of April, then they'll go up.With these purchases, you’ll be able to either watch the videos online, or download them to your own computer.Buying these is a great way to learn an intuitive approach to stories, and to support me as a creator. I greatly appreciate it.Another Way to Watch ThemIf you're on Skillshare, those first two courses are available there, and the third one will come soon. If you'd like to try out Skillshare, here's a link for a free month.So either by buying one or more courses directly, or by watching them on Skillshare, I invite you to dive into birds’ eye view story-thinking.Happy creating!Until the next,Theo This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Read this as an article and share your thoughts hereBook one-on-one story sessions hereI’ll open with a passage penned by none other than the Dalai Lama, which appears in the preface of Coming Back to Life, the Updated Guide to the Work that Reconnects, by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown.The Dalai Lama writes:Although it is increasingly evident how interdependent we are in virtually every aspect of our lives, this seems to make little difference to the way we think about ourselves in relation to our fellow beings and our environment.We live in a time when human actions have developed a creative and destructive power that has become global in scope. And yet we fail to cultivate a corresponding sense of responsibility. Most of us are concerned only about people and property that are directly related to us. We naturally try to protect our family and friends from danger. Similarly, most people will struggle to defend their homes and land against destruction, whether the threat comes from enemies or natural disasters such as fire or flooding.We take the existence of clean air and water, the continued growth of crops and availability of raw materials, for granted. We know that these resources are finite, but because we only think of our own demands, we behave as if they are not. Our limited and self-centered attitudes fulfill neither the needs of the time nor the potential of which we are capable.Today, while many individuals grapple with misery and alienation, we are faced with global problems such as poverty, overpopulation, and the destruction of the environment. These are problems that we have to address together. No single community or nation can expect to solve them on its own. This indicates how small and interdependent our world has become.In ancient times, each village was more or less self-sufficient and independent. There was neither the need nor the expectation of cooperation with others outside the village. You survived by doing everything yourself.The situation now has completely changed. It is no longer appropriate to think only in terms of even my nation or my country, let alone my village. If we are to overcome the problems we face, we need what I have called a sense of universal responsibility, rooted in love and kindness for our human brothers and sisters, and the world.In our present state of affairs, the very survival of humankind depends on people developing concern for the whole of humanity, not just their own community or nation. The reality of our situation impels us to act and think more clearly. Narrow mindedness and self-centered thinking may have served us well in the past, but today will only lead to disaster.We can overcome such attitudes through the combination of education and trainingHis Holiness Tenzin GyatsoThe 14th Dalai Lama of TibetWritten on September 7th, 1998.Beyond our SensesAs I write this, I am sitting beside a pond filled with cat tails and reeds, and I'm listening to the calls of frogs and ravens.I touch this water. Run my hand over these ferns. Caress this moss, and run my fingernails over this alder bark. If something were to happen to this pond, these trees, these ferns, these creatures… if a great industrial force with chainsaws and log lifters were to careen through here, I would know it, for I am here. The smells and tastes and sounds, sights and textures of this place surround me. My body and these bodies share the same space. My senses and the senses of these others overlap.And yet, if I were to leave here, I might find this land for sale on a property board somewhere on the internet, and if I had enough currency tokens, I might purchase it, and decide to log it. All this I could do from a distance, without bringing my senses into this space, without being culpable before the creatures who call this place home.This scenario, in miniature, is perhaps our species’ greatest challenge when writ large. It is a strange thing to purchase land and direct its destruction ,without ever seeing it; I must apologize for this land here for even imagining such things. Yet we are involved in directing such remote violence with every purchase at the grocery store, or the gas pump, or the airport, or a shop selling digital devices.Our everyday actions affect sensory environments that we may never sense with our bodies. This is something we haven't before faced as a species, at least not to this magnitude. We are attempting to come to terms with our consequence on the planet, and this attempt is showing our shortcomings. We in First World countries have the greatest impact, not because we have different natures, but because we have more capacity.Three Spheres of EthicsI propose three spheres of ethics to consider.In the first two, we are quite accomplished. The first is ethics to oneself eating well, exercising well, being careful not to take in disturbing sights and sounds. Being careful who we let into our lives. Being careful, in short, to be good to ourselves. Now, whether you or we always get this right is another question, but most of us are quite aware of it and working on it.The second sphere of ethics is in relation with our friends ,children, parents, colleagues, people in our demographic, people in our city, people in our country. In short, people whom we consider to be our people. Whether we get it right or not, most of us are aware that it's important to be in good relations with these people: to not steal, to not be violent, to respect their ways of living a dignified life.Then there is the third ethics. This ethics relates with ecosystems and people who are outside our sensory range, but who are impacted by what we do in our sensory range: by filling the gas tank, buying imported food from the grocery store, or buying a new phone. Although these distant beings are impacted by our actions, we do not directly witness that impact.I think it's fair to say that our planet, and our time, are asking us to encompass these beings with our awareness. To include them in our considerations, though we may never encounter them with our senses, as one creature is used to encountering another.We are ConnectedWe are connected to them: through scientific reports from lands where sea levels are rising and topsoil is eroding, and perhaps from symptoms in our own land, like smoke in the sky as forest fire season worsens, or coral bleaching when we go out to swim. We know that our actions have consequences not only in distant places, but everywhere in this world we call home. We know, and yet many of us, and most of us some of the time, act as if we don't know. Why is this?Perhaps it is due to some shortcoming in our makeup as a species, that we did not evolve to consider the worldwide implications of our actions. Perhaps it is because we are more socially, culturally and ecologically woven into the places where we live than to distant places, so we don't feel those other places through the web of being we do those near us. Because our cultural/spiritual/social web gets thinner as it extends from us. Or seems to.Whatever the reason, I find myself looking for ways of bringing those distant places close: ways that we as individuals and groups can feel our remote impact, so that when I consider whether to get a car, for example, I consider not just the price of the car, not just whether those I know personally would be okay with me getting a car, but also the costs to the mycelium crushed by tarmac, the First Nations folks in Alberta poisoned by tar sands, or those in Nigeria and South America pushed off their land by corporations I'm helping to fund.My choices may make sense within the first and second spheres. A journey to a distant land for self-discovery is good for me. Getting a big four-wheel-drive vehicle is good for the safety of my family. But what is the impact on the locals in the place that I'm traveling? How does my vehicle affect the air we all breathe? The fuel it uses is destructive in both its extraction and its burning, as is the mining and melting of the virgin metal used to make the chassis.These three spheres of ethics are deeply inter-related. I may act only for personal and inter-personal wellbeing, but there will come a time—and perhaps it comes subtly and immediately—when the health of the wider world will impinge upon my own well-being, and the well-being of those I know.How might I bring those larger implications into my decision making: with maturity, with grief, and with a willingness to face up for that which I am part of? How can I bring distant sensory environments into my own? Here's another way of asking this: given that my entire species evolved, as did all species, to interact with those in our sensory environments; given that I'm used to understanding what's in front of me, who's in front of me; given that I'm not very good yet at relating with ecosystems, creatures and people on other sides of the world, or even across the city I'm living in; how might I bring those beings closer to myself? How might I bring those beings, to whom I'm so consequential, into my sphere of awareness?Furthermore, how might we do this? In classes, companies, communities, workshops, churches, temples? You name it, in all the spaces that we gather.Dune’s Prophetic WitchesHere is a fictional example that indicates third ethics,. It’s a bit weirder and more scheming than what I really have in mind, but it helps to look from a fictional angle. So consider the Bene Gesserit, the Galactic Order of Witches in the Dune stories by Frank Herbert.In this story, there are various powerful houses that have been existing for hundreds or thousands of years. Sometimes they cooperate, and often they compete. There's a lot of vying for power going on in this galaxy, and all the while, there’s this order of witches. Some are married, some are not, some are young, some are eldresses, and these interwoven ladies are keeping an eye on the big picture.They may not always know whether this royal house w

For story workshops: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/06d77f86-cbe9-4c65-8486-2e723e2b33b4It is a freestyle rhythmic meditation on borders. Because just as the stories in our minds become the stories we live, the borders in our minds become the borders we enforce.This one’s better listened to (see the audio link).In we go. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Workshop: Speak the Work you Love: Storytelling for Businesses with Soul Sign up for weekly story workshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/f3dbaab7-c9bf-463b-ad5d-bfc51651ccfeHow might it feel to expand your psychic footprint back in time, to go back seven generations, with all the changes? How might it feel to go forward into the future?How would thinking in deep time change your vocational work? How would you consider succession, and who are you inheriting understandings from?In this guided meditation, you’re invited to spread yourself through time, to more fully inhabit the present. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Here's a quick little episode to share a new story. That has been swirling into creation, a pattern in the center of a sandstorm, with flows of wind coming in from different directions. This story is in the form of a virtual comic.Read a preview here.Read the full comic here.And what is this story about?Hear me, for I whisper strange wonders.In a circular stone temple, a muskrat monk awaits the coming of pilgrims. Various creatures make this journey to bring him their death-poems: condensed lifetimes of wisdom, glimpses of the beyond, in the form of scrolls.These they entrust to the monk. His duty is to burn these prayers so that they may be heard in the Otherworld, to herald the arrival of those who wrote them.However, instead of burning these verses, this monk keeps them, reads them, and places them in a miniature labyrinth hidden below the temple.He arranges and rearranges these scrolls meticulously, trying to find a pattern to satisfy him. But the core of his maze is empty. You see, he has no poem to herald his own death.This story, this comic, is both funny and philosophical, quirky and evocative. And you, O thoughtful listener, are invited inside.Here are some previews of the pages; you can purchase the virtual comic on the vendor gum road for a very reasonable rate. It’s also a good way to support this publication. Thanks!Until next time,Theo This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Sign up for weekly story playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/f15d43a9-4e89-47d1-93e0-a40c0d03d546There's a spectrum, with boring on one side and weird on the other.Let’s consider story beginnings, and tinker with the ratio between familiar and strange.Here's a way to consider beginnings.Here's a meditation.You are standing within grasslands stretching in every direction. By your feet, the land is familiar: the plants, the smell of it. But your eye follows a particular path, where you see that the land grows stranger. Out in the distance there are strange caverns that you wonder about, with curiosity and worry.All between where you stand and those distant, strange lands, there are holes in the ground. Some are burrows, and each burrow has been dug out by a different creature. Each burrow is an entrance into a story. Some burrows are close, some further away, some familiar, and some strange.Which burrow will you enter? Where will you begin your story?Perhaps you’ll start with one nearby: a tale of a character who is much like most of us, in the times in which we live. Whose life and way of thinking resembles our own, a starting point for a story that is just like slipping on a familiar sweater and stepping out the door.Or will the starting point of your story be deeper into that strange terrain, into a hole burrowed by an unfamiliar creature?That starting point might be a time in the past, not terribly far from our own time, but perhaps a hundred years back. Or a hundred and fifty, or two hundred, into a time that is connected to our own through many visible threads. Perhaps that is the starting point of the story. Or you go further back into times that are difficult for you to imagine, and will be difficult to imagine for those hearing your tale. Difficult, but possible, if you find ways to imagine them deeply, and inhabit those times.Your story may start a thousand years back. Two thousand! In another world, where people think very differently from ourselves. Or perhaps the characters of your story are not human people. Where does your tale begin? How strange is the burrow’s entrance?And here is the other question. As you go into that burrow, how quickly and to what degree does the journey become strange?A story may start with a character who is much like most of your audience, but who quickly steps into an otherworldly world. Or a story may start with someone unfamiliar to us, and then continue more deeply into strange and unfamiliar territory, while hopefully giving us enough details that we can relate with—smells and tastes and feels—that are relatable to us, in our time, with our bodies. Not so different from the bodies in that tale. With enough detail, hopefully, that we can follow this strange character deeper into this strange world.Not that we all have the same experience now.How strange is the beginning of your tale to the sensibilities of your listeners? And as the tale deepens, can you bring them with you? If you can, they may be in for the most unusual, deepening, expanding, weirding journey that they've been on since God made platypuses.Let’s hope so.For your beginning, you might choose a frame story: a story in which another story takes place.For example, I’m to a friend, and I begin to tell him about something that happened to me a week ago. The main narration moves to this story from a week ago, but we know we are still within this conversation of me talking with a friend.There are lots of examples of this. In The Neverending Story, a boy hears his grandfather read a story from a very special book. Within that book is the main story.Then there's the question of how deeply we go into the frame story. The frame story could be brief, a flitting thought around the main story, where we spend most of our time. In the example of me talking to my friend, we could have a brief conversation between me and my friend, but then most of the narrative is about this story that I'm telling about what happened to me a week ago.Or, let’s say there's plenty of story going on between me and my friend. We are journeying across the ocean, experiencing various trials and revelations as we go. In the course of all this, time to time I continue telling them about what happened to me a week ago: the story within the frame. In that case, the main emphasis is placed on the frame story and the story within it is not as deeply described.You can also ask about the relationship between the story that's being framed, and the story that's framing. For example, as we cross the ocean and experience various trials, and I tell my friend about this thing that happened to me a week ago, it could turn out that this thing that happened to me a week ago has a great deal of relevance to what's happening now. It might be just the key to overcoming a particular trial, or convincing him to go a certain direction on the ocean, when we have that chance.There are different kinds of frame stories. Can you think of some?Reading a book could be a frame, or a dream, a meditation, a vision, a memory, a letter, or back-and-forth correspondence , a storyteller.A song could be a frame, and I'm thinking especially of a song with much story in it, like a ballad, those long songs that are histories.I'm curious if you can think of any more frames for stories. If so, please share them in the comments.I’ll say one more thing before we close for this session, and it's something you may have been thinking about as I go along, is that stories are not necessarily just one layer deep. You may have a frame story within a frame story, within a frame story…You might be thinking of the film Inception, in which the frame story is of people trying to get inside the head of someone, to get particular memories. To do this, they share dreams together, and within those dreams they go layers and layers deeper.For each of the examples I've given, there could be multiple layers of depth. In a conversation, I could be telling my friend about a conversation I had, and how within that conversation another friend was telling me about a conversation they had with a shop-keeper, who was telling about where they got a particular medallion.You can go as deep as you want.There's a scripture in India called the Srimad Bhagavatam. The story goes some twelve layers deep: conversations within conversations within conversations within conversations.And each conversation has some context. We were considering before about how fleshed out the frame story is. So in this case, the first layer is someone who's heard a conversation between the sage and a king, where the sage delivered many teachings. The second layer is the main story in which the king is cursed to die; he goes to the banks of a holy river and prays for guidance.Many sages gather to him, and one sage in particular comes to speak wisdom to him. Within that story, the sage speaks of other conversations between sages and students. And within those conversations, the sages often quote other sages, because they're not just making it all up. So from sage to sage to sage, it goes twelve layers deep, and some of these layers have more context than others. Some are briefly mentioned, like, ‘Once there was a sage who spoke this to a king, and here is what he spoke.’ Others have more context: ‘There was a battle, and many people had died, and the king was heartbroken, and then the sage appeared to him and spoke the following words…’So in all these examples of frame stories, these layers can all have relationship with each other, like different floors of the same building, or strata of soil, or layers of a tree with different kinds of branches, or layers of clouds, or perhaps some other metaphor.If you have started a small business, you might consider the story of how you created that business, the story of why you created that business. You might consider that story to be within the story of your life. So your life is the frame story and the business is the story within it.If you're helping clients, you might consider which stories are nested within the stories of their lives.And so…I couldn't speak about frame stories without coming back to where we started. Let’s come back out of that hole in the ground.Usually at the end of frame stories, we come out and out of however many frames in we are in, coming back to the first one, which follows the principle of a cycle, of returning to the beginning of a story. Not that it's necessary to return to the beginning of a story, but there is a certain neatness in at least harkening back to the beginning of a story, from the end, of touching back on what brought us into that hole in the ground in the first place.So as we come out, you may want to reflect on your life as a frame story: around this article, and around all the stories you hear.That’s one way to think about it.Story Prompts:Here are some story prompts regarding the beginning of stories, how normal they are, how quickly they get weird, and how weird they get.Take a look at a story you're writing and consider that ratio: how weird it starts, how weird it gets, and how weird it finishes. You could try adjusting the recipe to see what happens.Have it start really weird. Tell it to people. How does it land? Is it intriguing? Do people lean in, or away?If it starts really normal, is it just boring? How about if it starts normal, then gets really weird… does it throw people off? You can actually get pretty weird if you start normal.So that's the prompt: to fiddle around with that recipe.In regards to business, if you have some unusual offering, think about the pathway into it.And here's some props about frame stories.The first one is simple: have a conversation with somebody about another conversation. The first one is a frame story. For the second one, if you want to go further it, talk to somebody about what somebody else told you within a conversation that they heard from somebody else, then you're already a couple layers deep

Weekly story playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/86acb049-61b0-4311-8dce-d0d833d6b76eIf I had my life over again, I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practice the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life.Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life.Without an ever-present sense of death, life is insipid, limp. You might as well live on just the whites of eggs.- Muriel SparkIn going to speak about death and story, there's no preparing for it. No way to get together an authoritative and comprehensive presentation on views of death. On what actually happens on the afterlife.And the reason there can't be a comprehensive presentation on this is that it is infused with mystery. The transition into death is mysterious. The fact that we must die is mysterious, as is our relationship with those who have died.I'm considering death these days because I realized that the altar within me that I have for death has become dusty. I used to think that having an altar to death in one's self would be strange and morbid.I feel now that death is accompanying life at all times. Death is a great teacher, perhaps the greatest, is the basis of life. We see predation, one animal consuming the life of another. And this is true for those who don't eat the flesh of other beings, for eggs and seeds and milk are also potential life.The seeds on the Himalayan Blackberry bush are intended to create more Himalayan Blackberry bushes. If I pick some of those berries and eat them myself, I'm taking that potential for life, and I'm using it for my own life, as when a snake steals a bird egg, or a wolf kills a baby caribou. Life continues, but is directed into other life.How can we live our lives to honour the lives who made it possible?Life comes from death, and death comes from life. Perhaps if we set aside these two different words, we might find that death and life are one.As we enter into this exploration of death and story, I invite you to consider your own altar for death. Who is there on the altar? Are there figures of deceased loved ones? Are there animals and plants? As you go through your life, what is your relationship with the potential death surrounding you?In many stories, the potential for death is the main driver of the story. This potential for death might be an invading army that the protagonists oppose. It might be the death of a loved one that they're striving to save. A dragon might be that potential death, raining down terror on a village. Or from the dragon's point of view, those little humans with their pointy swords coming out of the village could be the potential death. Avoiding death is a huge factor in stories and in our lives.Death accentuates life. Or rather, awareness of of death accentuates life. If a person knows they are going to die, then what life they have becomes that much more precious. Of course, we all know we are going to die, but it's possible to have this awareness all the time, and for this awareness to accentuate our lives.Even though our lives are relatively short, it can feel like a long time. Quite a lot happens in the span of eighty or a hundred years. Heck, a lot happens in a month, or a day, or an hour. It's easy to lose sight of death, of the end being present, of our lives being held in a particular container, because most of us don't know when we are going to die.However, some of us do.Or did.I've been listening recently to the David Bowie’s final album, called Blackstar. Now, David Bowie has gone through many different eras in his career, and I'm not familiar with most of them. Some of the early pop songs are cool and everything, but I never got so into them.This last album is remarkable, and I would say that this is because he wrote and recorded it while he knew he was dying.He had cancer, and his death was coming closer and closer. When a creative, expressive, deep-thinking person is served notice that they will soon die, they may well create something extraordinary.(Listen to the audio for a clip)I'm thinking also of Gord Downie. In this part of the world, he’s famous. He was the lead singer for the Tragically Hip, perhaps the most famous Canadian rock band.He got news that he had brain cancer, and an estimate of how many months he had to live. Not down to the day, but pretty close. In his last years, he redirected whatever attention came to him to indigenous rights in the far north, where situations are often dire.(Listen to the episode for an excerpt)In myth, I'm thinking of a famous example in India.A king, Maharaja Pariksit, was cursed by a young brahmin boy, to die in seven days by the bite of a winged serpent. This king was served notice: ‘Seven days from now, this curse will land on you, and you will be killed.’ He knew exactly how long he had, so he went down to the banks of the Yamuna, a holy river.He sat and he fasted, waited for his death, and prayed for guidance. Lo and behold, sages showed up, and more sages showed up, and more sages showed up, until there were hundreds and hundreds of them.A particular young sage, called Sukadeva Goswami, came last. All the sages there understood that Sukadeva was the one who would speak that day, and they too were keen to hear him.In those seven days, Sukadeva Goswami spoke day and night. Pariksit Maharaja listened and asked questions, and all this led up to the point of the king's death. He wanted to pass into that death as best as possible. Awareness of his death amplified his life.The presence of potential death, of oncoming death, amplifies a story. This death could be physical death, but it could also be other kinds of death: being parted from a person forever, the death of a relationship, the aging of a child into adolescence, the aging of that adolescent into adulthood, or the aging of an adult into elderhood.And as with all deaths, mythically speaking, and scientifically speaking, the fading life enters into what comes next. Death becomes new life, and death is therefore seen as a transformation.And what of old death?Death surrounds us: the death of previous civilizations that gave way to what we have now, the death of trees that form our buildings, our chairs, the paper, and the books we read. Old death. Mummies, graves.Many great stories have old death within them. The kings and queens of old built monuments that we still see around us, as ruins. It's always fascinating to see the layers of old cultures that still poke through into what's here in the present.If we look around the world, and dig into the history of the inventions that we use, into etymology, our own genetics, and the development of philosophy, we find that all of what we have today is nourished by beings who have lived, and entered into death, and in so doing have passed their generativity onto the next generations.There are small deaths throughout our lives.In French, sleep is sometimes called, ‘Le petit mort,’ or the little death: a forgetting of life and slipping into some other world, only to return changed. Even boredom is a kind of little death, a fertile absence of engagement from which deeper, fuller activities can be born. Sickness can be a small death. I'm feeling under the weather today, and so reminded of my mortality. I feel frail, older. It’s easier to imagine breathing my last. This remembrance can be a great companion.When I think of death in myth, with my upbringing in my part of the world, I think of the Grim Reaper: a skeletal being, hooded, dark, and cloaked. When he taps you on the shoulder, your time is up. You must go now to wherever you may go.And yet there are other ideas of death. In Buddhism and Hinduism, we have Yama Raj, the Lord of Death. He is not a skeletal cloaked man, but a king, and his responsibility is to make sure people coming through the door of death go where they’re meant to. He is conscientious, empathetic, aware, strong, and needed.Here’s a story about the goddess Kali.Early on in the creation, there was no death. This may sound good, but people were piling up. They kept being born, and without any death, there was less and less space for the living, so the demigods brought Kali in. She then brought death into the world, and things started flowing again.Life depends on death.You might also say that death depends on life. One passes into the other, and passes back. Physically, we know that decomposition is the basis for a new life. Internally, the death of one part of oneself is necessary for new life to come. Relationally, an idea of what a relationship should be—between brother and sister, child and parent, husband, wife—must die again and again, for that relationship to be alive.Can gods die? Perhaps they must, to compost and come again. If a god, or an idea, is held in stasis, this can be worse than death, an artificial holding, beyond the natural lifespan of that belief system, of that form of worship.To allow something to die is to allow it to be born again.And here's a meta point about death in stories: how about the death of a story itself? That is to say, a story’s ending.I think we all know novel series, television series, and comic series that were great in the beginning, and also really successful. But because they were successful, the people making them just kept making them. Milking that cow, getting that money. But gradually, the magic of the story drained away, and it kept going like an animated corpse.Other stories go out with dignity.Just recently, the television series, Reservation Dogs, wound up. It’s such an excellent show, tragic and hilarious. A big, wide story, and very personal as well.It was popular and could have kept going for a longer. Sterlin Harjo, the showrunner, said they wanted to tell the story of a group of young people at the cusp of adulthood, a time of great change. To explore the decisions they made, the changes that happened

Sign up for weekly story workshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/a599bdd3-d828-4b67-a036-f5f816bd56e1In part one of our exploration of belief, we began by considering a system of beliefs as a system of scaffolding, crisscrossing above the waters of life.Across watery mystery.We finished by figuring that belief might be more like a liquid stain glass orb surrounding each person, that colors the way they see the world and the shapes they see through it, and even which parts they see at all. I like this model, but it’s visually centred. What about the other senses? Are there no metaphors for them?Well, using a little nimble creature empathy, I can sidle over and see belief in a different way. Yes, I'm a visually focused human, unlike many of my interspecies neighbors.Moving over to sound, I think of the many little birds in the forest around me as I'm writing this. Mostly the birds cannot see each other, and so they depend on sound. By sound, they know whether a predator bird is approaching. And this sound is called out throughout the treetops. Birds even recognize the language of other species. So this language travels throughout the treetops, and it is the bark and leaves filtering and reflecting this sound that are the ‘stained glass filters’ of their aural perception.Also, keeping with sound, we might dive underneath the water into the ocean that's in front of me as I'm writing this. In this case, sounds are filtered through water. The sounds of orcas moving, of gray whales migrating, of ships, of rockslides and sifting silt. It’s be easy to mistake one sound for another, muted and changed as they are by the heavy expanse of water.Going below ground, into the way moles and voles understand the world, we move mainly through scent. Scent of food and predator and everyone in between. And what is filtering these scents? Soil and seed, scat and secretions. This is their stained glass.These sensory conceptions are analogies, of course. Perhaps only humans have beliefs in science or religion, morality and such. Perhaps animals just go by signals, sensory signals and response, not a web of beliefs. Maybe. To me, this seems like a limiting belief, one that doesn't give animals much room to move, before they drop out of human sight.So how does all this connect with story?Well, belief determines which stories we see through.Now, it's often easier to see such things a step removed: in fictional beings, in characters. If a character is steeped in the belief that there is good and evil in the world, they see stories of good versus evil played out all around them. If they believe God is there and God is good, they will see miracles everywhere. And where they see bad, they'll try to somehow see it in the light of goodness. Or if they see bad everywhere, they'll see everything in the light of badness, as it were.Or they might not see good and bad at all, but see paradoxes everywhere.Here's a story prompt:Put two characters together with very different beliefs about the same situation. You might start by describing the situation and their differing beliefs about it, then set them in motion and see what they do.Here’s a business story prompt.Consider an individual or a business with whom you’re connected. This could be a partnership, or you may be their client, or they may be yours. This is a little easier if it's an individual, but if it's a business, you can consider that whole business as an individual. You'll see what I mean.How would you describe their beliefs? What are their guiding principles? These may be stated or implicit. They may be stating some guiding principles, and following others. Can their true guiding principles be seen through how they conduct their business?When you consider your own guiding principles, you can see how compatible you are with them, and what might be a fruitful arrangement between you.Until next time,Happy creatingTheo This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Sign up for weekly story playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/42ce63d7-a0b4-4231-88ac-0fe8861e55e3I had a dream last night, in which my sister and I were guests in the house of a Shanghai family: card-carrying supporters of the Communist Party. I felt a gulf between us, that we could not speak across, because our brief conversations always stayed within a particular scaffolding of thought. Our hosts moved only within these thought structures, these bridges crossing troubled waters that they wished never to swim in.In the dream, my sister and I had been rescued from a downed craft somewhere in the north of China. Our rescuers had brought to this clean and pleasant home, to wait for our two governments to work out our journey back to Canada. We were ragged strangers in this house, and though our thoughts could easily question the Communist Party and just about anything else, we lacked what our hosts had: belonging.At first, I wondered why our hosts wouldn't dive off their bridges into the turbulent, wondrous waters of life. Then I came to understand that these bridges gave them what they needed. Not on the deepest level, perhaps, but could I say I had met those deep needs?We had freedom of thought, my sister and I, but we would remain outsiders even when we returned home, for ours was a nation of outsiders, of individuals unwilling to fit into a universal social system. Instead of families, we had spread-out units. Instead of dependable helpers and dependable roles, we had individuals struggling to work out their roles.At least our hosts, in some sense, belonged. At least, if they stayed on those bridges, they would receive the basic support they needed.I feel the interesting question here is not, ‘Is this or that belief true?’ but rather, ‘Why do people believe what they do?’Belonging, perhaps. A sense of safety, a kinship with the world. The assurance of a good afterlife.What will they lose if they lose that belief? And what might they stand to gain if they let go of that belief?Now, personally, I reckon that reality doesn't depend on our beliefs. If trees are sentient beings, they don't depend on my belief to become so. If gods are real, they don't need me to believe them into reality.But here's another way to look at belief. If a fir tree is a sentient being, in fact, then my belief that it is so may open the channel between us, so that I can perceive the fir tree in a deeper way. If I believe this fir tree is just wood, that channel may shut.The same goes for myself and other humans. If I hold the belief that this man across from me came to his decisions for good reasons, I'm open to hearing him. Those reasons may be mentally rational, or they could be more deeply rational: from within his emotions and psyche. Either way, my belief in the worth of his reasons keeps the channel between us open.And so this brings us to another way to look at beliefs: as a web of openings and closings surrounding us. The openings allow parts of reality in, and the closings keep parts out. By adjusting these beliefs, our experience of reality changes.By adjusting our beliefs, our experience of reality changes.Many character arcs track changes in this web of belief. A character may be hold racist views, with no channel open for the humanity of certain other humans. But by rubbing shoulders with such humans, a part of our character's web that was closed now opens, letting in sunlight bounced off this other human.Or, as the story progresses, an opening may close. This might be a tragedy, as events transpire to turn friends against each other as old prejudices cinch in to obscure their vision.Yet a closing need not be a tragedy; a closing could be a character's protector. Picture a mother and her child. The child was born a girl, but isn't so sure that's who she is inside. The mother is intent on fitting her child into the same gender role that she was put into, so much so that she becomes abusive to her child. The child was born open to her mother, believing her to be a source of love and support, but gradually, this opening closes. When the child is old enough, they pull away, believing their mother to be small-minded and cruel to the core.Well, the mother may not be cruel to the core, but this closing protects the child from further harm, and allows them to get some distance, to find some people who understand and support them. This closing, this belief that the mother is inherently bad, allows the child to step away and heal. Later, that belief may change and open, allowing the child to see their mother's own trauma, which formed her own belief web, her own shifting pattern of openings and closings. But in the meantime, the child has some space to heal.Now, in this exploration of belief, I feel us reaching the limits of this web analogy. There are either holes or webbing. Open or closed. There is no part-way, no translucent parts, and no varied colors.But belief is not just openness or closeness to reality. A fuller way to look at it might be this: beliefs are the stories that we tell about reality.Beliefs are the stories we tell ourselves.They are filters through which we see the world. They are prisms through which sunlight passes into our eyes.We see the world through stories. What is a tree? A person? Wood? An ancestor? Is the earth feminine, masculine, neither, both? Kind, cruel, or indifferent?What stories are your characters looking through? What stories are you looking through?And so, instead of a web surrounding a character, instead of an orb with simple openings and closings, imagine, if you will, a constantly shifting dance of stained-glass panels. Each panel is a belief, each angle of that glass an angle through which the character can see the world, each color within that prism the emotional tone of that belief.Picture a woman sitting in her living room. She sees a neighbor outside throwing a ball to his son. A red prism in her mind says this man is a bad father. A blue prism, another angle of her mind, reflects this man's fatherhood as another way of expressing his love for his son. A green angle of this prism reflects how a man can love his child in the same way that she herself loves her own child. A yellow angle of the prism tells her that this man is one of the good people in the world, a violet angle reflects on how she can come to love the man and his son, can appreciate their laughter, can open herself to feeling the joy between them, and all these colors twirl and twist as she leans back to peer at the neighbor and his son through a new angle, a new prism.As the character’s beliefs dance and twirl within her, the colors change. Openness becomes closeness. Green becomes red. Yellow softens to blue.Beliefs are fluid.There is a dance of belief that happens within each of us, and within each of our characters.Picture, if you will, a story in which a character opens themselves to a new belief. See them close off to an old belief. See them close off to the belief that they can never be loved, and open to the belief that they can. See them dance, twirl, and spin through all the colors and shades of the rainbow.Now, you might think this is a recipe for moral relativism, but it’s a call to see the world through the eyes of others, in all its infinite shades and hues. To see that even when someone acts in a way we find reprehensible, that person is likely dancing through their own prism of beliefs. Understanding their dance of belief can help us navigate the complex terrains of human behavior.And this, my friends, brings us to the power of stories, the power to shape beliefs, the power to challenge and transform beliefs. Stories are vehicles for empathy. They are journeys into the hearts and minds of characters who may be vastly different from ourselves. They invite us to step into someone else's gumboots, to see the world through their bifocals, to move our bones with their dance of belief.In doing so, stories have the power to expand our own prisms, to deepen our understanding of the human experience, and other experiences. So, let us tell stories that illuminate the dance of belief, that explore the complexity of consciousness, that challenge and transform the filters through which we see the world. Let us tell stories that open hearts and minds, that weave connections across diverse perspectives, and that celebrate the beautiful, intricate dance of belief that shapes the tapestry of our shared reality.Thank you for joining me on this exploration of the power of fictional and real faiths, the dance of belief.If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with others who might find it valuable. And if you're interested in joining the weekly story gatherings where we play with the prompts from these episodes, do sign up for the premium membership for just 5$/month. It’s quite a deal. Until next time, keep weaving your stories, keep exploring the dance of belief, and keep shaping the tapestry of our shared reality.Happy storytelling. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Sign up for weekly story playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/45d29452-ac79-4c0d-8d77-6991f90fbb8aCosmology is a story of how all this came to be, which leads into what is real, or, in the words of our guest today, ‘what is allowed to be real.’The world-view of a person and culture determines how they live in this world, and also the manner in which they die.Sarah Kerr sees the world as full of living beings, human and other than human, in physical bodies and in other states. She helps those who are dying, and those who care for them, through this great transition, with the help of carefully crafted ceremonies.Today we speak about the world-view that informs her work, a view which describes death as not a blank ending, but a crossing over. Those who stay behind can help this crossing through their love and grief, which can be channeled through ceremony.Sarah says,“As a sacred deathcare practitioner and a teacher, I’m passionate about helping my clients and students find the healing gifts that can accompany death and loss.I’ve been in practice since 2012, and I love helping people meet death and loss in soul-based way. I have a PhD in Transformative Learning, with a focus on contemporary ritual healing. I’ve been a student of cross-cultural energy healing for almost three decades and have studied with many Indigenous and western teachers.I’ve made my own journeys through death and loss, into healing and resolution.I offer myself in service to both the seen and the unseen world, and I work for healing on both sides of the veil.”Here’s a talk Sarah Kerr gave about animistic and western world-views, in two parts:A related conversation with artist Laura Burnshttps://open.substack.com/pub/storypaths/p/river-songs?r=1ium1j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webEpisode credits:I just want to grieve song, sung by Hanna EliseI hear the voices of the grandmothers, author unknown, found at http://www.prcupcc.orgA video about the great turning, part of the work reconnects with Joanna Macyhttps://workthatreconnects.org/resources/the-three-aspects-of-the-great-turning-wtr-training-video-series/ This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

For weekly story playshops go on here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/9bdd1000-4d0d-4c15-ba88-a5ae692cea40I'm writing this and reading this while I'm sitting by the ocean, and it feels a funny thing to talk about history here because it is, of course, such a human idea.Personal history is the story of my past, of my life. It could be the history of my ancestors, their journeys that led to me being here today. It could be the history of women obtaining the right to vote.So already we see that the kind of story we get from the past depends on which part of the past we are inquiring into, and also who is doing the inquiring.I've heard it said, and it's true, that this word history can also be read as his-story. And I've heard it said, and it's true, that the past-telling that we hear these in schools and popular media is a male-dominated view of the past, focused in particular on generals and politicians, the focal points of certain kinds of power.This is one view of history. Not one I mean to discount, but let’s inquire into other views, for the stories we tell define us, and we define the stories we tell, so it's important to choose those stories carefully, and to have a wide sampling of stories, a rich microbiome of the past to inform our understandings of the present.Let's look at the etymology of this word, history. The Greek word historia originally meant inquiry: the act of seeking knowledge, as well as the knowledge that results from inquiry. So you can see that this word originally wasn't about linking events together into a story of what happened, a story of the past, but was simply about seeking knowledge.History is inquiry.We might also use this word history as a verb: to history. The story that emerges depends on the seeker, their manner of approach, as well as that which they are approaching. The past is a vast place, and many stories can be found within its landscapes.We know this from our own lives. Have you ever had a huge shift of perspective? Perhaps there was a moment when you came to see your mother or your father in a new light, a light that re-explained so many things that they had done and said. Have you ever re-looked at a pile of mistakes you made, not as indications of you being a bad person, but as indications that you were crying out for something you needed, or in the midst of learning something that you've now learned? Our view of the past can be a very flexible thing.So when you're thinking about writing some history—for your character, for yourself, or for a culture—a good starting point is to ask yourself… what your starting point is. From whose perspective are you inquiring?I'm sitting here by the ocean and thinking, what might history look like from the perspective of the ocean? A history of new creatures coming in and swimming around her waters. A history of changing temperatures, changing chemistry, of cooling and warming, of cooling and warming again. Of large parts of her becoming ice, then thawing, then freezing again.Going back further, a history of that water shooting through outer space from a star. And somewhere near the end of this history, coming toward the present moment, we humans emerge as characters stepping from her waters onto the land, with our women carrying a little of that salt water sanctuary within their wombs.From the ocean's perspective, we humans are not central, and I find it refreshing to consider a history in which we humans are not central.It might also be interesting to look through the eyes of a creature who has lived through these great changes, like species of sharks who have continued for millions of years. And rather than look through the eyes of a single individual, to look through the eyes of the species as a whole, taken as a single being, moving through time. How might this being experience these coolings and warmings, as their habitat shifts, and they encounter other species for the first time?How might a cold weather bird who lived through the Ice Age experienced the dwindling of those cold regions, as the earth warmed?And so there are many histories, and even among human histories, it's refreshing to step outside of those commonly told. I was visiting a site on Southern Vancouver Island, where petroglyphs have been carved into the rocks by the inhabitants of that land many ages ago. There was a sign there for the public, describing some of the markings.There on the sign, it said, ‘These were carved in pre-history.’ And somebody, bless their soul, had gone ahead and scratched out the prefix ‘pre.’ In other words, who’s saying it's pre-history? That marker is often between textually illiterate and textually literate, but why set the marker there? It shows the biases of a textually literate culture, which may not be as literate in other ways as cultures who are not textually literate.These older cultures may be literate in mythical language, in reading seasons, in animistic relationship with stars. Their history is not a collection of events one after another, like connecting the dots. Theirs is a history of relationship with the beings and great powers of the world, and it need not be linear.The connected-dots version of history speaks of a linear view of time.They say history is written by the victors, but really, that's just a certain history. And some histories are not written at all.We often find ourselves in an uncomfortable relationship with history. It may be that the history we're handed is not the way we would tell the story, that it does not include the people we think are important. There may be events that are presented as wonderful, lit by the best studio lighting, which, when that lighting is taken away, are revealed to be horrendous.Take the setting sail of Columbus for the New World. As it's framed, a young, adventurous boy, curious to see the world, set out and found a new land. That's some studio lighting and makeup for you. A more barefaced account reveals Columbus as a sociopath, obsessed with gold, and willing to destroy entire people in order to get it.From the perspective of the Taino people, he came to their shores not as a youthful adventure, but as a vicious plague.We find ourselves in a time of competing histories, and perhaps all times are such. It's up to each of us, and us together, to consider our relationship with the past. Whose eyes are we looking through? Oppressor, oppressed, creature, land, ocean, sky, a star shining on our planet.Which histories are you called to tell?Here are some prompts.Explore viewing your life from different angles, moving your perspective from the usual one to look at the same events in different ways. Try considering the view of another person involved in a contentious part of your life, or the perspective of the house you lived in at the time, or a nearby tree, or a stone.Recently, I returned to the school that I attended up until about the age of eleven. I sat on a bench near the trees that had watched me play as a kid. I felt them wondering what I'd been up to in the meantime. They hadn't seen me for many years, after all, and I’d been on some adventures. They were curious about other trees in other parts of the world, about streams in those places, about rainfall. They had never seen the ocean, so they wanted to know about that.Consider your life from the perspective of a tree that was born before you were, and that you’ve seen throughout your life journey. You might consider your whole family from the perspective of the lands that they moved from, or the lands where they arrived, from the people they left behind, or the people they met.A business story promptTrace the history of your business to back before modern times. Now, you might be involved in something that seems very modern, very recent. Here I am typing on this fancy computer, a modern device that didn't exist fifty years ago, but its roots were there.What are its roots?Look at your business and consider the roots. For example, now we might look at the experience that a person has on our website, moving around this digital space. This has its roots in architecture and space design, in creating spaces that are ergonomic, and designed for particular uses.We send emails. Previously, that were telegrams, or letters. When the U.S. Postal Service first came into operation, people delivered letters between towns on horseback.A coliseum is a predecessor to social media, where many people gather in a huge crowd, and everyone can see everyone else.And here I am, creating a podcast. This has its roots in oral storytelling, and in people standing up and sharing their point of view in town squares.What are the roots of what you do? You may find that this inquiry helps you to redefine your relationship with your work, and the tools of your work, in a holistic way.And so here we are, resting in a warm cabin after our journey together. You can take this time to consider what's alive in you after hearing this talk and to reflect on the story prompts. Now these prompts are not homework but possibilities. You might respond by journaling, by speaking about them with a friend or colleague, or speaking about them with yourself while you're walking or driving.You might push back against these prompts or come up with better ones. You can share your thoughts in the comments on Substack.Or even better, let’s explore these prompts together. I'm hosting weekly gatherings where we play with stories for an hour. That's included for premium subscribers at just $5 a month. Or you might just want to let this all go, and roll along with whatever pleases you. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Learn more about Tamara Strijack’s offerings here.SIgn up for weekly playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/acc68ea7-3583-4165-b74a-096dff09b74bThis is the latest conversation in our Play Matters series.I've spoken with a board game designer about the theory of game design, and by extension, play-space design.I've spoken with a man who goes into prisons, who brings creative exercises into those difficult, stifled places, helping people unlock their hearts.I've spoken with a woman who brings play into ceremony and alternative education.I've spoken with an indigenous woman who brings play into her work of decolonization, cultural renewal, and intercultural bridge building.And now, I'm happy to bring you a conversation with my good friend Tamara Strijack, who works in education and child and adolescent support.She is a counselor and educator working on Vancouver Island, near where I'm living now, and she specializes in childhood and adolescent development. In the last 25 years, she's worked as a mentor, counselor, youth leader, program director, and group facilitator. And she's now mainly a parent consultant. She also offers workshops and teaches university courses for teachers and counselors in training.She's a mother of two and the daughter of Gordon Neufeld, and she works in the Neufeld Institute.In this conversation, we get into why play is so vital for human well-being. How it is such a mistake to consider it something that children do just to pass their time. It's an integral part of what we need to be healthy and grow at every stage in our lives, not just childhood. And it can be a space to practice what we might then do within the greater field of our life.Play is vital for these reasons and more.We also speak about how to craft zones of play for children and adults, although for adults, we might not call them play zones, we might call them something more official sounding. These can be physical spaces, but perhaps more importantly, they are emotional spaces.As you listen to this, I invite you to consider where in your life you have place spaces and where you might want to create or enhance play spaces. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

(Art by Jessie White, Seeds of Spells)Sign up for story workshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/b3e7ccb6-d735-4187-a4b6-221f1a6a0882I've recently returned from an ancestry workshop, which was deeply moving. Combined with other ancestry work, and discussions about ancestry that have gone on in my life lately, this is opening up a channel for a deeper history of myself, a deeper sense of self.Perhaps you’re on your own journey into ancestry.I am of the many beings who have walked before me. They are part of me, with myself as an individual self being the tip of the finger of a body, a great body of ancestors.For me, raised in an individualistic culture, this is quite a paradigm shift.For most people, for most of our time here as humans, it’s more usual.By the way, the lady putting on this ancestry workshop is named Pulxaneeks. She's a First Nations lady from the Xanuksiala First Nation, here in the Salish Sea.You can find out about her work here.I recommend her workshops, in-person and online.Now, I'm going to dive into ancestry as a way of understanding a character.This character might be yourself, or someone you know. It could be someone in a story you're writing. It could be a fictionalized version of yourself, or someone you know.When I think of Ancestry, I think of many rivers flowing into one, many creeks coming together into one.And what is that one river into whom they flow? That is the one who is living now, who is acting on the stage of this world. And these many streams collecting in the watershed, of course, are the different lines of genealogy that have coalesced over decades, centuries, and millennia, into that one who is walking the earth today.Into us.And each one of us is such a river, flowing into the future.In this workshop, Pulxaneeks’ partner Scott led us in a practice that I'd like to share with you.Here’s the practice.Touch your fingers to your neck so you can feel your pulse.Feel that drumming, feel that rhythm.You might even tap that rhythm on another part of your body, on your chest or leg or somewhere else, feeling that rhythm, and knowing that this pulse has been pulsing since you were born, all the way back to the start of your life.Pulsing, pulsing, pulsing, since you were born, and yes, before you were born. That pulse was shared with you from your mother's pulse; it was activated by your father's pulse.That pulsing went on in the body of your mother, of your father, throughout their whole lives, and back to when they were in the wombs of their mothers…and their mothers…and fathers….pulsing back,back, back,back.This pulse goes back thousands and thousands and thousands of generations, into the time before there were humans, such as we know ourselves now.Now, when you're considering the ancestry of a character—that is to say, the stories that flow into the story of that character's life—you may want to pick one or two streams, because it branches out pretty quick.Each of us has two parents, and together they have four parents. Altogether they have 8, then 16, 32, and it gets complex pretty quick.Many of us have ancestry from different parts of the world, so depending on which part of that branch we follow, we end up in very different parts of the world.Just choose one stream for now, and you can always go with a different choice next time. And as you’re thinking of this strand going back in time, I invite you to consider the land in which they roamed, in which they worked and loved and sang.Was there deep winter? If so, did it draw people inward, perhaps to make intricate art that took much time to create, and to tell intricate stories? Was there a harvest time, a drying time, a preserving time? Or was the land of these ancestors a warmer land, that made for easier travel, and different harvests coming at different times throughout the year?All this you might feel from this drumming pulse and feel this in your own blood and bones as you imagine your own ancestors, or the ancestors of your character.Did the ancestors of your ancestors watch the moon and stars, for navigation and to mark the passing of the seasons? Was there deep forest, perhaps not so different from forests you’ve walked in.Imagine them stepping out of their shelter, feeling the air on their skin. Into a light breeze, a heavy wind? What scents were on that breeze? And how did they move through their day? What did they eat and drink, and how did they prepare this? Perhaps there were communal cooking times, and these were times to share stories: of spirits and ancestors, of animals and other communities.As you sit with these ancestors, I invite you to ask them if there's a story they would like you to know. A story they've been waiting for you to listen to, that will give you strength, that will give you a clear view, a story that will give you courage to make a move, make a change, a story that will give you solace and rest. Whatever is needed for you in this very moment.Then sit quietly and listen for a spell. See if there's a story that comes. A story that's waiting for you to hear. And as you hear the story, you might ask them for guidance for a certain situation in your life, or the life of your character, or someone she you know.And as you sit and wait, you might feel the connection of that heartbeat that goes back, back, back. Thousands and thousands of generations into the past.And as we're sitting here and as you're thinking of the ancestors, you might consider that their lives, their stories, their challenges, their joys, their sorrows, all these things are woven into your body, your being, your spirit.What are the qualities that you've inherited from them? And what are the stories that you might want to let go of?And if you'd like, you can thank your ancestors for the gifts that they've given you, for the strength, for the resilience, for the wisdom, for the love. Whatever it is, you might want to thank them.And as we bring this practice to a close, I want to express my gratitude to you for joining me on this journey of exploring ancestry, of connecting with our roots, and of weaving stories that connect us to the past, the present, and the future.Pulse, pulse, pulse…If you found value in this practice, I invite you to share it with others who might benefit from it. And if you'd like to explore more storytelling practices, you can join me in the weekly story playshops, where we dive deeper into the art of storytelling and creativity, included for premium subscribers, at just $5/month.Thank you again for being here, and until next time, happy story weaving. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe