When I was a kid the last people we wanted around were our parents!  “Please, get a life,” we thought. Our parents didn’t want us around them either.  They had things to do. That’s why they invented the outdoors. We had to play imaginatively, our parents wouldn’t let us in. we had no idea we were actually engaging in what the experts call in the NPR  article , “Old Fashion Play Builds Serious Skills” by Alix Spiegel (storyId 19212514)

Complex Imaginative Play: This is play where your child plans scenarios and enacts those scenarios for a fair amount of time, a half-hour at a minimum, though longer is better. Sustained play that last for hours is best. Realistic props are good for very young children, but otherwise encourage kids to use symbolic props that they create and make through their imaginations. For example, a stick becomes a sword.

In Toy Story 3, the plot revolves around using toys imaginatively. Let’s not forget however that I was watching a movie about kids playing with toys imaginatively.

The trap was set.  Watching someone play an instrument doesn’t teach me how to play the instrument .  Watching someone run doesn’t make me strong. To learn a skill, I have to practice the skill. To assist children deepening their  imaginative abilities, I have to give them the opportunity to practice being imaginative.  That means creating an environment that is safe and free of distractions like TV’s, computers, and battery operated toys. It means saying no to the mass culture of consumerism.  It means saying yes to less stuff, noise, anxiety, scheduling and control. It means understanding that watching Toy Story 3 is enjoyable but passive and that a child’s time ( and mine too honestly) is better spent making a ribbon into a worm than watching Toy Story 3.

He dragged himself to the cool shade under a large rock and there he began to sob large salty tears.  Just then, Coyote was trotting by.  He stopped and said,”What is that song?  It is beautiful!  I must learn it.”  He followed the sound until he found River Turtle.

“River Turtle,”  said Coyote.  Teach me that beautiful song.”

“I am not singing, I am crying.  Don’t you know the difference between singing and crying?”

“I know the difference and I say you are singing.  Teach me the song.”

“I am not singing, I am crying.  I cannot teach you a song.”

“You had better teach it to me or I will eat you!” and Coyote bared his teeth at little River Turtle.

Now River Turtle understood what was happening.  He puffed out his chest and said, “Go ahead.  Try it.  I will choke you!”

“Teach me the song or something very bad will  happen to you! ” yelled Coyote.

Now Little River Turtle was small but brave. He used this moment to help himself.

“The only bad thing you could do to me.  No, no I won’t say it.”

“Tell me so I can do it to you.”

“Well, the only thing I really fear is to be thrown into the river.  That would be terrible, horrible, I am frightened just thinking about it!”

“Ha ha!  That is what I am going to do to you!  You told me what to do and didn’t even realize it. ”

Coyote put his sharp teeth around Turtle’s shell and ran down to the river.

The whole time River Turtle was saying “No, no don’t throw me into the river!”

Coyote was saying “nn hh dddooo  wnnwnne,mnr.”  His mouth was full.

Coyote tossed River Turtle into the water.  River Turtle popped his head out of the water and said “Thank you Coyote.  I would have died in the desert if you hadn’t saved me by throwing me into the river.”

Away Little River Turtle swam.

Coyote stood on the shore and howled.  He never did learn the difference between singing and crying.

In the classic myth, Eros and Psyche, Psyche has to untangle the mess she creates by lighting a candle and looking at her lover, Psyche.  She has been tricked by her sisters into thinking he is a monster.  The candlelight reveals him to be delicate, sweet, beautiful.  He is exactly like she knew him to be before seeing him.

My father in some of my family member’s eyes is a monster.  Quick to anger, quick to slap, quick to touch, quick…  The candlelight of time, memory and maturity reveals him to be a man who untangles the delicate and fine thread that was our family.  A monster sometimes, a god sometimes, a man always.  Tangled, but human.  My father.  A man who loved me.  My father’s greatest teaching was to love regardless of how it looked.

Each cage said  adopted, adopted, adopted, adopted. A volunteer said, “We have one more dog out back.” Spooky.

Inside an enclosure a man was playing with a large Yellow Lab Shepard mix named Byron.  The volunteer said, “This is a great dog. He knows alot of tricks.” and then he had to do something suddenly in the building.  Sam and I stared at Byron.  I said, “Honey, not this dog.  He’s Big.  He’s male.  He is not a lap dog. “  And then we really looked at him.  He is the size of a deer.  So skinny his ribs were like a zylophone.  Big brown eyes.  Gentle.  Friendly. A boy’s dog.

Ok, he has some charm. But Big. Male.Big.

Sam is excited about the tricks part so he tests him.

“Lie down Byron!” He lies down, bowing his head as he slowly drops to the grass.

“Roll over!”  He complies but in the middle he pauses and extends his feet all the way into the air and wiggles his paws.

“Jump!  He is like a stallion on his hind legs.

“Dance!  He does the rhumba.

“This is our dog!” we say simultaneously.  Sam and I hug and Byron jumps up onto his back legs and puts his paws on our shoulders and hugs us.

We buy him.  He’s in the back seat.   The entire back seat.  He’s nervous and anxious because he has been at the pound for a long time now and it’s hard on a dog.  He is drooling all over us and I distinctly hear him say to me, “Thank you.”

How did I know I had brought home a Prince?

Eight years later he is sick and ending his life.  The Cancer. I love you, will you bury me.  I have never witnessed the natural death of an animal.  I have only been with my pets at the vet’s while they are being “put down.”  The technology exists for dogs now so they can be kept alive with very elaborate, costly and time consuming therapies, treatments and medicines.  People have this too. I keep hoping Byron will die peacefully on his own timetable.

The deal about loving someone is that you make a promise to be there at the end.  To be there for them, whatever they need and that will mean I have to decide when enough is enough.  And I don’t want to.  Who does? No one.

So, as usual, I am swimming in this ocean of life and death with my dog. This Prince of an animal  is making me decide when enough is enough. I made an agreement with him when I brought him home that I would do what it takes forever.  I don’t want to.  But I will.  My turn to say to him “thank you.”

Isn’t he magnificent?

The Ojai Festival was wonderful.  It was the first time I had ever been invited.  Some of my favorite tellers were there; Donald Davis, Antonio Sacre, Dan Keding, and a new favorite, Billy Jonas.  Actress Jude Narita opened up on Sunday and found out how powerful storytelling is.

The town is beautiful and very inviting; quaint, friendly AND WHEN YOU STEP OFF THE CURB THE CARS STOP! This does not happen in New York.  Trust me.  Don’t try it.

I had some anxieties about the festival, mainly the Naughty Tales on Saturday night with Antonio.  I knew my material was good.  Derek Burrows kindly coached me through Skype.  I also knew Antonio’s material was great and I wanted to be as good as he is.  Well, as with all anxieties, let it go and enjoy.  The show was a huge success.  All weekend, I  was reminded of the generosity principle; when you give it, you also receive it.

This is a photo of the storyteller’s chair at the Ojai Art Center.  isn’t it gorgeous?  Any town that has one of these, is worth visiting.

I was on the plane to St. Louis to tell some stories and listen to more when my plane was rerouted to Lansing Michigan.  My aisle mate, a young woman, pulled out two devices, talking into one and using her magic finger to command the other.  I was impressed.

She said, “This is the third time I’ve tried to get out of Ithaca to go to California for an interview. “  So, for the third time in two days she headed back to Ithaca, never to make the interview.  However, maybe fate was playing a little trick on us. I told her about my work and Stories with Spirit.  She told me about the internship she hoped to have in California at Kindle or Apple or ebay (she got that one).  We parted and I felt lucky to have met her.

When I got home there was a message from her saying that a friend had died in a bus accident and would I have time to meet her?  We met and I listened to her story and the story of her friend’s life and the impact he had on her and their other friends. There is something remarkable about this woman, LaiYee, the computer whiz.  We met again and a third time, this one included three friends from home.  Each time, the story of Troy’s life came into the room and I saw how his death saddened and strengthened them.

I think the secret to being a good storyteller is to be a good listener.

A short while after that, LaiYee sent me an invitation to this TED talk contest.  We collaborated on this one minute piece.  I share it with you.  I think it’s so beautiful and LaiYee did an amazing job.  Please share it with others. Vote on it on YouTube.

Thanks

Here is the video:

But sometimes lightening does strike twice. Diving and Emerging goes a step beyond Bendable Barbies to combine Carpenter’s glorious singing voice (think Judy Collins), her beautifully crafted stories, and Peter Dodge’s haunting, lovely instrumentals. Diving and Emerging is a CD that I will listen to over and over again (a rarity for me). It is a work of art and it deserves accolades. Carpenter has gone deep into the waters, pulling from its murky depths the heart and soul of life’s rawest moments and making them palatable for the uninitiated. Not everyone will understand, but just because I do not understand Picasso does not mean that he is not a great artist. Those who recognize the spoken word as an art form will be captivated by these soul-wrenching tales.

The first story on the CD, The Lucky Caul, begins with Carpenter’s rendition of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child before segueing into the story of her difficult birth, one in which both mother and child died and were brought back. Questions that began that day still haunt mother and child today. One cannot help but wonder if having the answers would make a difference. Life is a quest that is not meant to be tied into a tight little bundle.

Dead Man’s Float is set on the St. Lawrence River, the largest fresh water seaway in the world, where Carpenter walks on fifteen inches of ice in the winter and sneaks fishing trips in the spring and summer, all the while birthing and sharing childhood myths. The river, she tells us, is like a mother, both loving and treacherous. The joy it births is tempered by sorrow. And yet a little girl who can demonstrate perfectly the proper form for the dead man’s float cannot stay away, anymore than she can stop breathing.

Woman of the Sea is a Selkie tale that speaks to loneliness, star-crossed love, and the magnetic pull of home. We may have children and we may nurture a family, but that does not change who we are at our core. Like the woman in this story, some cannot resist returning to that from which they came.

Hidden Treasures presents as a metaphor for life a recurring dream set in water that is the texture of “parfait in a Tupperware cup.” Life is a constant diving and emerging in a search of one’s self. Sometimes it can take years to find the truth of what you are looking for.

The music that Peter Dodge composed to accompany these stories perfectly sets and sustains the dreamlike quality of the recording. It is soothing, like a calm river on a still summer’s day. Dodge and Carpenter are a well-matched team.

I cannot wait to share this CD with my friends. There is much substance in these stories that will keep us chewing for hours, perhaps even days. They may even prompt us to bear our own souls in an attempt to answer life’s never-ending questions. These are the kinds of stories that give birth to more stories. What a rich and wondrous gift!