Soaring Stories

Today is a rainy day in Brooktondale. My house, which I love, is really a birdhouse situated on top of a hill overlooking another higher hill, pond and trees. This morning it has rained the lover’s moves of precipitation- gentle, forceful, lazy but persistent. A fog is moving in and I am settling down for [...]

Last Friday,  Christine Brouwer (www.mirasmovement.org) and I went to Rochester, NY so I could tell stories to the children in the Golisano Children’s Hospital.  Along the way, Christine shared with me the story of her daughter Mira’s struggle with cancer and ultimate death in April, 2008.  Mira was 4 years old.  Her original diagnosis was [...]

“I had a great weekend at the Tcha Tee Man Wi Festival in Corvallis, OR.  Regi Carpenter, Joel ben Izzy, and Oregon teller Anne Penfound were featured. I’d never heard Regi before…what a delight!  And the work she is doing with sick children is amazing.  Her workshop on creating personal tales really got my creative [...]

I’ve just returned from telling stories at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.  I was invited by the gracious support of the Memphis Storytelling Guild members. After my performance at the National Storytelling Festival last October, Dixie Brown called and said that the guild would like to sponsor me.  [...]

Inspired by the work of Hospices for children dealing with grief issues and experiences,  I have begun a new storytelling initiative called “Stories with Spirit.”  SwS will bring live and recorded storytelling performances to hospitals, hospices and homes of ill children.  Last week, I finished the first CD for SwS.  It was amazing, grueling, fun [...]

I am so lucky to work with Mary Stewart, a storyteller originally from Florida and now living in Vermont.  Mary is a tall and strong woman, with chapped hands and red cheeks. She lives a simple life in a cabin in a small Vermont town.  She cooks, grinds corn, grows her own food and plants [...]

I went to my healing school today , www.IMschoolofhealingarts.com, to observe a third year ritual,  called the presentation.  It is the culmination of lecture, energy work and inquiry into characterology structure and ways of being, fulfillment and being with what is rather than what one wishes. Make no mistake, this is hard, hard work that [...]

“Where is thumbkin?” Young children love  to recite finger  stories . It helps them sequence the story in the proper order, it stimulates their small motor skills and brings them delight as they present their “character” and character voices.  This simple chant is a way for you to prepare your child or class of children [...]

I am busy reading so many new stories, listening to new storytellers and genuinely enjoying the chaos of new pieces as the year gets going again.  There’s always new things to master but I ask myself, is this just entertainment, if so, so what?  What a great thing to make people laugh.  If you have [...]

My friend Linda Ruth, is an astrologer who often speaks about Chiron, the wounded healer.  I thought of the story “The Fisher King” and whether I have the facts right or not, I remember that the horrible wound the King has is healed by the one who asks “What ails you?”  No advice, no knowledge, [...]