Poets, Writers and Storytellers New Year: Hope Is Not for the Weak of Heart

Today's post, by storyteller and storycoach Doug Lipman, is perhaps an unusual point of view--but it is a timely one that can benefit anyone who finds this dark time of year especially difficult. Read on: 

Hope Is Not for the Weak of Heart

By Doug Lipman.

First published as an issue of eTips from the Storytelling Coach. 
http://StorytellingNewsletters.com

There's a Jewish literary story about a man named “Bontsha the Silent.” He lives an uncomplaining life, never accusing any for his suffering. After he dies, the angels ask him, “You may have anything in Paradise. What would you like?”

He answers, “Could I have, every morning for breakfast, a hot roll with butter?”

How did the angels react to his wish? You might expect them to be pleased that he remained modest in his expectations.

Instead, the angels were ashamed. That was all he could dream of? That was the extent of his hope?

This story reminds me that hope is not merely a sunny outlook, nor a denial of the hard facts of our lives. Rather, hope is an accomplishment. Like freedom, it must be re-won in every generation. Maybe in every year.

I'm writing this in December, when, in the northern hemisphere, we experience the age-old journey of our part of the earth into shadow - and the rituals developed over eons to celebrate the return to the light. We tend to focus on one part of those celebrations: the reassurance that the light is coming back. But the holidays also demonstrate that the road to the light leads, necessarily, through the longest night.

The Hardest Emotion

I used to tell a story woven around four songs, the “Ballad of Mauthausen” cycle by Mikis Theodorakis. The song lyrics, which were written by a former inmate of the Mauthausen, Austria concentration camp, take us through a series of emotions. The first represents grief; the second, rage and defiance.

The third song is about despair. Curiously, Theodorakis's music for this song is not somber or dreary. Rather, it is cheery and dance-like. Hearing this song, I am reminded that despair is, in a way, easy. It can dance into our lives like an old friend coming to console us. Only later do we notice our misery and powerlessness.

The fourth song in the Mauthausen cycle is a case study in what we have to face, in order to give up our despair or even just our complacency. It is a love song between two people who have only ever seen each other across barbed-wire fences. The singer asks of his distantly glimpsed love, “When the war is over, please do not forget me!”

And he promises that they will transform their bleak landscape into a scene of love. They will frolic in the quarries and dance down the stairs by the machine guns. “We will spread our light wherever death was. We will not leave a single shadow!”

The hardest emotions, it seems, are sometimes the very ones we need to feel, in order to hope.

Storytelling Nourishes Hope

For me, storytelling has a special role in the hopefulness I feel about our war-torn, greed-strewn world. It represents one of the forces that counters inhumanity, broken relationships, and passivity. In particular, storytelling makes me hopeful in these five ways:

1. Storytelling tempts people to listen to one another.

In a world with an ever-increasing work pace, we tend to interact with others only in terms of economic function. (You are the cashier, so just tell me how much I owe.) Storytelling is a form in which we know (mostly) not to interrupt, but to hear someone out.

Storytelling, therefore, counters the tendency toward shorter and shorter interactions in which no one pays attention to anyone else.

And we know just how to reciprocate when we've heard a story. Most of us respond to a story by thinking of stories of our own we wish to tell. Thus, story listening tends to promote more story listening.

2. Storytelling builds empathetic relationships.

Story listening helps us respond to another's words, not merely as statements to be agreed with or countered, but as an invitation to empathy and imagination. Hearing others' stories, we perceive the tellers as the protagonists in their own lives. We see them, not as objects, but as subjects.

3. Storytelling empowers us.

The telling of a story can be an act of mastery. Whether we are telling a life experience or a traditional tale, we decide what to tell and how to tell it.

As a student of literature, I learned to criticize stories and sought to articulate their “true meaning.” As a storyteller, though, I have learned to make stories my own. I seek to clarify which meaning - of the infinite number of meanings a story can have - I most want to convey to the particular listeners I am blessed to have today. I experience the active role of the artist.

4. Storytelling Can Be a Universal Art Form

If art makes us more human, what forms of art are accessible to the largest numbers of people? Zoltan Kodaly, the Hungarian composer and inspiration for an international program of music education, said that we don't have enough money to buy everyone a piano or a violin. But everyone already has a voice, and we can teach them to sing.

Like singing, storytelling requires no equipment. It is as suitable for the poorest peasant as it is for the wealthiest executive. Unlike singing, it is already practiced in some form by every one - so the learning curve is even gentler. And we begin storytelling young yet never outgrow it.

5. Storytelling Can Make Us Bigger

The content of some stories, of course, can actually diminish us. But the vast majority of stories enrich us. In general, the more stories we hear and know, the larger our emotional and social vocabulary.

Storytelling gives us a way to imagine the things we haven't imagined yet:

•        To broaden our scope.
•        To tread, as listeners, down the path trod by Bontsha the Silent, and yet to make a different choice in our own lives.
•        To have experienced, through stories, some of the wishes we haven't yet wished for ourselves.
•       To remember the dreams we gave up because we felt discouraged.
•       To ask for something more than two lumps of sugar; to ask for something really hard.
•       To rediscover both the value of the dark and the value of the light.
•       To build, one story at a time, our own forms of hope.
• 
  
  

_________________________

About Doug Lipman:

In 1970, Doug Lipman was a discouraged teacher of very resistant adolescents. One day, he told them a story. To his amazement, they did not resist, but became deeply involved. Ever since, Doug has worked to understand exactly how storytelling evokes engagement and cooperation, and to help others learn to use storytelling for personal, interpersonal, and group transformation. 

Contact Doug at doug@storydynamics.com, 

or visit his website at http://www.storydynamics.com/index.php

Poets, Writers and Storytellers New Year: Sharing Winter Joys

Storyteller, writer, poet and educator Gail Froyen lives in Iowa, a place gifted with winter snows and cold. She shares her thoughts about where she lives and the turning of the year in today's post. 

New Year’s Resolutions—I DO NOT make any. For a few years earlier in my life, I gave it a try. Never lasted. 

Some years ago I discovered “A Testament” by Anthony de Mello SJ and started using this list to reflect on my life. I review and amend this once or twice a year, on my birthday in August and/or around the beginning of a new year. I love the way the testament begins with “Things I have loved in life” followed by I have love to taste, to look at, to smell, to hear, to feel or touch. 

Thinking winter things I have loved in life, about the coming year and winter in Iowa brought me to this.

Sharing winter joys

crisp winter air

           Snow falling on pines

                      landing on my cheeks and tongue

soft silence after a winter snow

            the crunch of boots

wood and wax burning

           flames flickering and dancing

                       in fireplaces or candles

cinnamon on oatmeal

            or drifting from the oven

silence the moment before the conductor’s downbeat

             music filling the air

                        bells chiming

hope springing

____________________________________________________

About Gail Froyen:

A native Iowan Gail was born in Sioux City, the youngest of six daughters. The family moved to Des Moines and she graduated from North Des Moines High School. Her next Iowa stop was Cedar Falls attending Iowa State Teachers College. Gail was introduced to storytelling while earning a MA in Library Science at the University of Northern Iowa (same school).

 The first time she told a story to the Lowell School Second graders, she was hooked. No Velcro was disturbed on any shoes, no one poked a neighbor, all eyes were fastened on the teller and all ears drinking in the story. A few years later she began working with students who wanted to be tellers and used this project for her MA paper “The Effects of Storytelling Experiences on Vocabulary Skills of Second Grade Students” which can be found at the Storytelling in Schools site developed by Kate Dudding and Jackie Baldwin.

Gail incorporated a variety of storytelling experiences as the librarian at Lowell Elementary, Waterloo IA and the University of Northern Iowa’s Price Laboratory School, from 1980-1998. Students’ classroom units, workshops at local, state, and national conferences, and special events for schools and other organizations in northeast Iowa were among the ways she promoted storytelling. She was twice a featured teller at the Iowa Storytelling Festival. Clear Lake, Iowa, conducted retreats, and shared programs of stories for reflection during the Advent and Lenten seasons for 15 years.

Gail credits much growth as a teller through her association with Northlands Storytelling Network, the National Storytelling Network (formerly NAPPS), and the Storytell listserv. She seldom misses a meeting of the tribe at National Conferences. At 78 years of age, she is morphing from storyteller to story listener. Referring to herself as the Occasional Poet, she also composes poems and stories about her family. Currently she is writing a history of the Price Laboratory School Library from 1953-2012. Married to Len for 57+ years, they have two sons and a daughter, four grandchildren and 3 great grands.

Stories abound.

Contact Gail at gail.froyen@cfu.net  

Poets, Writers and Storytellers New Year: Waiting for Old Christmas

One of West Virginia's best poets has shared a poem for our New Years series. Sherrell Wigal weaves words with such strong imagery I feel like I can reach out and touch the places and people of which she writes. 

(Old Christmas, as you probably know, is January 6th. The date was changed to December 25th when 12 more days were added to the calendar when the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar in 1752.)

Waiting for Old Christmas

Morning falls open.

The house is quiet

as the rooms of old men,

dim as their pale eyes,

slow as their shuffle from bed

to bath, to chair, to bath, to bed.

All day I stay and expect

the unnamed to come

or to happen.

Maybe a wing will open

 like a golden promise,

a guarantee against  forgotten.

It is almost next year,

there is nowhere to go,

nothing to put away,

no one with easy words.

Still I wait. It is what I do

in late December.

In ten days I will sleep late,

wake in afternoon light.

Walk to the barn in the far meadow,

through deep snow,  under a new moon

where cattle will rise up,

and speak to me at midnight.

Sherrell Wigal

________________________________________

Sherrell Wigal is a poet originally from Roane County, West Virginia, now living in Wood County.  Until 1999, she served for many years as director of the West Virginia Writer’s annual conference, and has been the past coordinator of the literary events tent at the West Virginia State Folk Festival.  She conducts numerous creative writing workshops throughout the area, including the annual week-long Allegheny Echoes Workshops in June of each year in Pocahontas County, WV.  Sherrell is also a performance poet and has performed throughout West Virginia and surrounding states.  Her list of performances includes the Arthur Brandon Humanities Lecture series at Alderson-Broaddus College, the Rhythm and Rhyme series at Kanawha County Public Library, the annual Vandalia Gathering and the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee.  In May 2005 she was one of the featured artists in North Carolina at the Caldwell County Arts Council where she participated in a unique presentation of two and three dimension art and poetry.  Her writing appears in many publications throughout the country.  Much of Sherrell's poetry reflects her love, appreciation and connection to nature, people and the cultural heritage of West Virginia.  

You can read more of Sherrell's poetry on her blog, Sherrell's Poetry Pages.

Poets, Writers and Storytellers New Year: Visiting Our Past

December is coming to a close, and the new year comes toward us, one minute at a time. We end this year with some thoughts from my literary friends that will, I believe, inspire us to consider deeply the passing of time and the coming of the future as we watch this old year wane. 

The start of a new year often causes us to review our past and reflect on what was valuable and what was not. Here Debbie Richard, a native of Calhoun County, West Virginia, takes us back to the Calhoun of her growing-up years.

Visiting Our Past

Drowned in the media-present,

we are tempted to move away from our past,

pursuing Utopian dreams,

leaving ancestral homes behind

in the pre-electronic age.

Relics, a rhinestone belt buckle, a red

View-Master gathering dust, grandma’s

antique cash register we played with as children,

family heirlooms tucked away in a closet,

a spare room forgotten.

Seeking out pieces strewn across

the framework of our lives–

Experiences from our landscape,

green hills and mountain ridges,

The two-room schoolhouse we attended as children,

Dad’s ’57 Chevy, a 4-door Bel Air sedan,

shiny two-tone light mauve and white,

Mother’s memories of the Mount Zion

Drive-in Theater on Rt. 16 in Calhoun County.

from Mount Zion's Facebook page

The excitement of the county fair at Camp Barbe

in Wirt County, West Virginia–

the oom-pa-pa of the Beer Barrel Polka

playing over the loud speaker,

the multicolored Ferris Wheel

circling overhead as we ate hotdogs

and drank cold soda pop

to the tune of In the Good Old Summertime,

the squeal of the greased pig as my brother

(clad in blue jeans, rolled up at the cuffs,

and a white T-shirt) chased it around the ring,

competing for a blue ribbon,

the clang-clang of the Nail-Driving contest

and the Horseshoe pitching contest,

the sticky sweetness of cotton candy,

candy apples, and corndogs on a stick.

We try to forget what we never expected to find.

--Debbie Richard

About Debbie, from her website: 

Debbie Richard is a native of West Virginia. Born in Parkersburg, she spent her early childhood in the rural community of Munday in Wirt County, and lived near Walton in Roane County during her high school years. Debbie studied Secretarial Science at West Virginia Career College in Charleston where she completed her courses in 1987 with honors. 

She moved to South Carolina as an adult, following her love of the ocean. After twelve years as a Report Analyst for a healthcare organization, she resigned in March 2009 to become full-time caregiver for her mother, Naomi Karen (Maze) Richard, who grew up near Big Bend in Calhoun County, West Virginia.

It's something to sing about when Earl Hamner, Jr. praises your work! "I think the book is a valuable detailed and most honest documentation of a part of Appalachia that has not been celebrated so well until now." --Earl Hamner, Jr., bestselling author of Spencer's Mountain and creator of the beloved The Waltons television series.  

Debbie offers a short two minute video, "Hills of Home, Book Trailer" highlighting her book. You can watch it by clicking here.

Hills of Home, published by eLectio Publishing of Little Elm, Texas offers a rich literary patchwork of reflection, memoir, and humor. Though comprised of a mosaic of individual stories, the compilation reads like a novel, and is characterized uniquely with the author's personal diary entries and a sailor's letters home.

Debbie is listed in the Directory of Poets & Writers as both a poet and creative nonfiction writer. Her poems have appeared in various journals and magazines including Halcyon, WestWard Quarterly, and The Storyteller. Her chapbook, Resiliency, was published in 2012 by Finishing Line Press of Georgetown, Kentucky. She is currently working on her second book of poetry with plans to have it illustrated.

Contact Debbie at poet@debbierichard.com

For more about Calhoun County, visit the Hur Herald online newspaper.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Golden Fruit

A riddle for you: In a marble hall white as milk, lined with skin as soft as silk. Within a fountain crystal-clear, a golden apple doth appear. No doors there are to this stronghold, yet thieves break in to steal its gold. And another: A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.

It’s an egg, of course! 

When I was a young girl I wanted to raise chickens so I

ordered 500 baby chickens from a catalog. They came

 and in three days they all died. I was disappointed 

but determined. I ordered 500 more baby chicks and 

would you believe, they all died within 3 days too? 






I gave up on raising chickens but I never did figure out

 what I was doing wrong. I was pretty sure though that

I was either planting them too deep or too close together.
I’m pulling your leg with that old joke--I have kept chickens for fresh eggs since I was about



nineteen years old. It seems like there has always been a flock in my life. A contented \

clucking in the chicken pen, delighted squawking when an egg has been laid, and yes, even 

the noise of a rooster indicate that all is as it should be in life. 


My first chickens were white Leghorns that we bought for a dollar each. They had been 



cage chickens sold when they were past their peak laying time (these were about 18 months
old) and they had no idea of how to roost, scratch or do any other chicken-y kind of thing. 

Their claws were so long they curled back and their combs were huge and floppy. After a 

few weeks in their new home they learned to scratch in the dirt, to nest in boxes and their 

claws quickly wore off to a more reasonable length. They laid lots of eggs, defying the logic

of the commercial breeders that they were not economical to keep.


It wasn’t long before I wanted brown-egg hens, so we added big plump Rhode Island Reds 



that did not lay as well, ate a lot more but were calm and gentle, something that could not

be said for the Leghorns. As years passed we raised many other varieties—Buff Orpingtons, 

Araucanas, Americaunas, Domineckers, Silver-laced Wyandottes, White Rocks, Golden 

Comets and others. I love getting different color eggs; some years our egg basket would be 

filled with white, buff, blue, green, brown, tan and even lightly speckled eggs. Who needs 

to dye eggs at Easter when they come like that straight from the hens?


I have heard many superstitions about eggs and chickens over



the years. For example, did you know that some people will put an egg shell in their
coffee grounds when the coffee is perking? They claim the coffee tastes better
that way. Others will bury egg shells next to certain plants in their gardens
to provide more calcium for the growing vegetables. One lady told me that
witches will use empty egg shells for boats and go sailing around in them, so I
should always break a hole in an egg shell in the shape of a cross, or crush
the shell, to prevent that from happening. 
Finding a double yolk egg means either someone you know is getting
married soon or will be having twins.  It
might also be interpreted as a sign of good luck coming your way, or financial
improvement in your life. An egg with no yolk at all is very bad, however—a
certain bringer of bad luck.



This year we'll be getting baby chicks again, I

 think. Our hens are three or four years old 

and slowing down. What kind will we get? I'm
hoping for some Aracaunas, and maybe a few

Barred Rocks, and some Golden Comets. 

We'll see!













For more chicken riddles, check out this older blog post!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed 
without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

And Now, Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Blog!

It was a blast posting Christmas stories from so many storytelling friends, but now it's back to what passes for normal around here. I had hoped to have stories from West Virginia writers to post for New Years, but so far I've had no submissions, so that idea might not fly.

So, what's been going on around here while the storytellers were telling their tales? All the usual getting-ready-for-Christmas activities, of course! Baking, cleaning, wrapping gifts, and even completing a few projects.

My third son and his three children were here for Christmas dinner, and we had a great time.

I love getting out all the pretty dishes and putting them to use, and these three really enjoy a pretty table too. It makes a meal feel like an occasion, like something special, and my mother always said food tastes better fro a pretty dish. I think she was right.

The weather has made it easier to do the outside things that needed to be done. It has been a strange winter so far, very warm--apparently the warmest winter since records began being kept in the 1880's. It is so warm, in fact, that my flowering quince bush is blooming.

I went out to cut a few blooms for the Christmas table and had quite a set-to with the honeybees who were working the flowers like crazy.

 The quince is not the only thing blooming. Heal-All, periwinkle, and forsythia are all sporting a few flowers. And the bees are after all of them. We've been putting out honey water for the bees too, to give them something to work.

A small but satisfying project was making a few changes in the bathroom. We plan to paint it within the month but I wanted to get something done in there so we put up the vintage medicine cabinet and another cabinet that we really needed, along with a new light fixture.

I added some glass in there too--a mix of Blenko, Bischoff and other makers, all in greens and blues, and some lights behind them. I love it. It will all have to come down again when we paint, of course--cart before the horse, as my mother would say, but I needed to get the glass put somewhere, and this is as good as any place else to keep it. And it looks so pretty.

I have lots more to tell you in the coming days. For now, enjoy your Boxing Day!


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Storytellers Christmas: Let's Have an Adventure!

And so we end our Storytellers Christmas with one last tale of adventure-filled Christmas travel. This series has been an adventurous ride indeed, from stories of Bethlehem to family memories and even a few folktales in the mix. Blessings to all my friends out there who have followed along, left comments and celebrated the season with us. Merry Christmas to every one of you!

 Let’s Have an Adventure!

                                                                   Lynn Ruehlmann

                                                      

Every year before my two children went back to school after the holidays, I made sure they wrote thank you notes for gifts.   They were allowed to draw a picture instead of writing.  Then one year I got to thinking how sweet it would be if we had a family record of these holidays.  So I added another element.  They could pick anything about the holidays—something we’d done together, a gift that they especially enjoyed, anything they found memorable—and either write or draw about that as well.

One year we were going to visit family in Rhode Island.  It’s about a 10 hour drive from our home in Virginia to Rhode Island by car.  That year my husband and I thought it’d be fun to take the train instead.   It wouldn’t save us any time, but we wouldn’t have to fight holiday traffic, and the kids would experience a train trip.    It’d be an adventure!

 The night before we left there was an unusually fierce snow and ice storm.  But we were going to spend the day on a train—how much better it would be than driving!  We boarded the train, equipped with food and games and books.  The snow sparkled through the dim early-morning light.  It was a delight because where we live on the coast of Virginia we rarely have snow for Christmas.  All was festive.  That is, it was until our train began stopping and starting and stopping and starting in places that were not stations.  It turned out that during the storm the night before, trees had fallen all along the tracks.  Every time we came to one, our conductors had to get off the train to cut limbs and remove trees before the train could proceed!

And then we arrived in Richmond—still not that far from home--where we stopped midway across a trestle bridge.  We peered out the windows.  The problem couldn’t be trees.  There was nothing on either side of the train but empty air.  Far underneath us was a car dump.

picture by one of Lynn's children of the "big adventure"

It took quite awhile before conductors came through to let us know that the tracks were covered in ice, and the wheels of the train had slipped from their grooves.  We needed to wait for a handcar to come and put things right.   Needless to say, no could get off the train.  There would be no where to step except into empty space. 

We waited.  Children and adults on the packed train grew restless.  The food we’d brought with us ran out.  Train food ran out.  Restrooms became unusable.

I tried to counter child complaints by enthusing, “What an adventure we’re having!”

The handcar arrived, and still we waited and waited.  Then the conductors slunk through the cars again, their faces pinched.  The wheels of the handcar had slipped off the track.  We had to wait for a second handcar to come rescue the first handcar.

Our adventure grew longer by hours.      

Finally, the train was set free and we were off.  When we arrived in Washington, DC, still far, far from our destination, conductors said we shouldn’t get off the train because we weren’t staying long and they wouldn’t wait for anyone.  One desperate fellow-passenger Dad from the other end of our car got off anyway.  We watched in awe as he wove through the crowd at the station and disappeared.   We held our breaths for him.   Just at the very last possible moment--we could hear the train’s engine--he reappeared and hopped back on the train just before it started moving.

His arms were piled high with bags of fast food.  His children were ecstatic!  And then he came down the car, told us that when he’d gotten to the fast food window, he’d plunked down money and said, “Give me anything!  Give me everything this money will buy.”

And then he gave our kids bags of food.  We were as astounded and overjoyed as our children!  He wouldn’t even take any money from us.   Christmas had come early!

We arrived in Rhode Island late that night.  The trip had taken twice the normal length of time, but we all surely had a story to tell.  Ever since then, my children have delighted in teasing me by referring to all iffy experiences as, “Let’s have an adventure!”

About Lynn, from her website:

There once was a girl whose parents named her Lynn, another word for "cascade." She loved to watch people; she loved to lose herself in stories. As years passed, she studied literature and psychology, she played with paints and crafts, and she practiced music and theater. She loved them all, but most of all, she loved stories. As time went by she connected all the things she loved and found that it was called "storytelling." And so she tells cascading stories.

Lynn lives in Virginia but happily travels anywhere for storytelling. She performs a wide range of programs and stories. Some are designed for adult interests; some address student curriculum needs; and some are family friendly entertainment. 

Contact Lynn at: 

      lynn@cascadingstories.com

      www.cascadingstories.com

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.