by Mark Jeffers
Summer 2007
Have you ever hit the pause button and then re-wound the movie because you wanted to see that one part again? If you did then you have begun to travel into the world of storytelling. To take a story apart and put it back together again is the essential exercise of the storyteller. This ten thousand-year-old plus tradition/occupation is at the root of our human psyche and is now becoming endangered. It is the love of the language and the wisdom it imparts that drives the storyteller onward into the mystery of the spoken and written word.
Our media today is at fault for scrambling our minds into a confusion of news events, chatter, and information about the prices of things. The very speed at which data comes at us prohibits the digestion of it. Yes, we consume media content and with the onset of the internet, it is becoming perhaps our most desired consumable.
Like anything that we consume or take into ourselves it has its reverberating affect health wise. There is such a thing as 'junk food media content' media content that comes into us that we have a hard time digesting and absorbing into our system. Some of it, like the gratuitously presented murder and violence we see on television becomes 'everyday' and 'matter-of-fact' in our thoughts and feelings. As adults we are entertained but not concerned, but as for our children they can feel uneasy and become fearful. We see their behavior sometimes stirred by their feelings into pandemonium in their play.
Good stories, on the other hand, are medicine to the listener. Heard from a skillful storyteller who communicates fully from the heart, a story can actually transform the listeners attitudes about themselves and their world.
The Heart is seen in some medical traditions as the central organ of the body and is a transceiver, that is, it transmits information as well as receives it. I believe that when we listen deeply with our heart a greater human intelligence, present since the beginning, tunes into the frequency and receives information that we are aching to bring into ourselves for growth and healing.
What makes a great story? One that restores and rejuvenates us!
Generally speaking the older the story the better the story, if only for the simple fact that the longer it has been around the more tried and true the lesson of humanity it contains. We all want to know how to succeed as human beings, old stories give us some of that information.
Most cultures evolved from an oral tradition. Written language is comparatively new in the history of human existence. This fact has presented us with several problems that have yet to be adequately resolved; 1. What is worth talking and writing about? 2. What is worth teaching?
I had met the poet Gary Snyder for the first time and I figured that he would be a great person to ask what is worth teaching, so I tried. After several tests on my character to prove that I was in earnest he finally reveled “the cyclical nature of life is worth teaching”. This made sense to me being a teacher at the time. And so I began to bring life cycle lessons to the children and was amazed.
What makes a story worth telling or writing about?
A good story well told is comparable to a time-release capsule of medicine, you know the tiny time pills that release their power right when you’re feeling that headache pain. We humans have the ability to replay experiences we didn’t quite understand after the moment they occurred, the re-play in our minds is us trying to learn our own story in our own way. When we know good stories we can call on their medicine to assist us in understanding whatever challenge we are facing at the time, inside or outside. A myth is a kind of story that accomplishes such a human healing function.
Myth: a story from a Religion that when told within its own cultural religious context empowers the people with the spirit of their own ancient past right through into their present.
Story historian Joseph Campbell has said we are living in a time of "No Myth". What I take that to mean is that the myths of all the worlds religions have seen each other and now know each other as being that, plainly Myth. We here in Christendom are still waking up to the fact that our Christianity is as much myth as historical fact. It is the difference between thinking that Jesus was born on December 25th and celebrating the day of his birth on Christmas Day. Most religions acknowledge up front that their stories are so old that they have become mythologized. How many people in the world today worship Zeus or Poseidon. "We don’t have to throw it all away", says Campbell, but we must choose the one we want to live by and stick to it so that we can experience enlightenment and go to heaven or live in a heaven of our own creation.
Find the stories that you want to learn. Some stories are learned from books. Some from movies and tv, but the best are learned from a real live storyteller. And when you hear a story, a song or poem that you want to remember commit it into your memory so it can stay there to help you along the way. Does anyone remember the song or tune that your mama or papa sang to you as an infant? There is the magic in that.
A story is a pattern like a constellation of stars set before us to think upon and wonder about. Sometimes a story ends and you keep going, with your imagination ending it again in your own way or you naturally play parts of it over in your mind. This again is your endeavor to tell your own story.
'I’m Nobody’s Story but My Own' the title of this article, is a line given by Robert Redford to Jane Fonda in “Electric Horseman”. He, as a cowboy is on his own personal mission to save a horse and she, as a reporter wants to get his story. He doesn't want her to have it. Each of us has our own story to tell. Tell yours in the many ways that you learn. Through art, through writing, through speaking, e-mail and much more. If you need some help in your life to tell your story call upon the storyteller who will guide you through the labyrinth.
All of your years, all of your times, all of your moments are woven together into a magical blanket of stories for you to keep near your heart to warm you on the very cold nights of your life.
And the Earth Lived Happily Ever After . . .
__________________________________
Mark Jeffers M.ED has been a professional storyteller for more than 30 years performing for tens of thousands of people throughout Hawaii, the Pacific and the US mainland. He is a producer of children's media programming in Hawaii and the executive director of Storybook Theatre a company which he founded in the late seventies.
Have you ever hit the pause button and then re-wound the movie because you wanted to see that one part again? If you did then you have begun to travel into the world of storytelling. To take a story apart and put it back together again is the essential exercise of the storyteller. This ten thousand-year-old plus tradition/occupation is at the root of our human psyche and is now becoming endangered. It is the love of the language and the wisdom it imparts that drives the storyteller onward into the mystery of the spoken and written word.
Our media today is at fault for scrambling our minds into a confusion of news events, chatter, and information about the prices of things. The very speed at which data comes at us prohibits the digestion of it. Yes, we consume media content and with the onset of the internet, it is becoming perhaps our most desired consumable.
Like anything that we consume or take into ourselves it has its reverberating affect health wise. There is such a thing as 'junk food media content' media content that comes into us that we have a hard time digesting and absorbing into our system. Some of it, like the gratuitously presented murder and violence we see on television becomes 'everyday' and 'matter-of-fact' in our thoughts and feelings. As adults we are entertained but not concerned, but as for our children they can feel uneasy and become fearful. We see their behavior sometimes stirred by their feelings into pandemonium in their play.
Good stories, on the other hand, are medicine to the listener. Heard from a skillful storyteller who communicates fully from the heart, a story can actually transform the listeners attitudes about themselves and their world.
The Heart is seen in some medical traditions as the central organ of the body and is a transceiver, that is, it transmits information as well as receives it. I believe that when we listen deeply with our heart a greater human intelligence, present since the beginning, tunes into the frequency and receives information that we are aching to bring into ourselves for growth and healing.
What makes a great story? One that restores and rejuvenates us!
Generally speaking the older the story the better the story, if only for the simple fact that the longer it has been around the more tried and true the lesson of humanity it contains. We all want to know how to succeed as human beings, old stories give us some of that information.
Most cultures evolved from an oral tradition. Written language is comparatively new in the history of human existence. This fact has presented us with several problems that have yet to be adequately resolved; 1. What is worth talking and writing about? 2. What is worth teaching?
I had met the poet Gary Snyder for the first time and I figured that he would be a great person to ask what is worth teaching, so I tried. After several tests on my character to prove that I was in earnest he finally reveled “the cyclical nature of life is worth teaching”. This made sense to me being a teacher at the time. And so I began to bring life cycle lessons to the children and was amazed.
What makes a story worth telling or writing about?
A good story well told is comparable to a time-release capsule of medicine, you know the tiny time pills that release their power right when you’re feeling that headache pain. We humans have the ability to replay experiences we didn’t quite understand after the moment they occurred, the re-play in our minds is us trying to learn our own story in our own way. When we know good stories we can call on their medicine to assist us in understanding whatever challenge we are facing at the time, inside or outside. A myth is a kind of story that accomplishes such a human healing function.
Myth: a story from a Religion that when told within its own cultural religious context empowers the people with the spirit of their own ancient past right through into their present.
Story historian Joseph Campbell has said we are living in a time of "No Myth". What I take that to mean is that the myths of all the worlds religions have seen each other and now know each other as being that, plainly Myth. We here in Christendom are still waking up to the fact that our Christianity is as much myth as historical fact. It is the difference between thinking that Jesus was born on December 25th and celebrating the day of his birth on Christmas Day. Most religions acknowledge up front that their stories are so old that they have become mythologized. How many people in the world today worship Zeus or Poseidon. "We don’t have to throw it all away", says Campbell, but we must choose the one we want to live by and stick to it so that we can experience enlightenment and go to heaven or live in a heaven of our own creation.
Find the stories that you want to learn. Some stories are learned from books. Some from movies and tv, but the best are learned from a real live storyteller. And when you hear a story, a song or poem that you want to remember commit it into your memory so it can stay there to help you along the way. Does anyone remember the song or tune that your mama or papa sang to you as an infant? There is the magic in that.
A story is a pattern like a constellation of stars set before us to think upon and wonder about. Sometimes a story ends and you keep going, with your imagination ending it again in your own way or you naturally play parts of it over in your mind. This again is your endeavor to tell your own story.
'I’m Nobody’s Story but My Own' the title of this article, is a line given by Robert Redford to Jane Fonda in “Electric Horseman”. He, as a cowboy is on his own personal mission to save a horse and she, as a reporter wants to get his story. He doesn't want her to have it. Each of us has our own story to tell. Tell yours in the many ways that you learn. Through art, through writing, through speaking, e-mail and much more. If you need some help in your life to tell your story call upon the storyteller who will guide you through the labyrinth.
All of your years, all of your times, all of your moments are woven together into a magical blanket of stories for you to keep near your heart to warm you on the very cold nights of your life.
And the Earth Lived Happily Ever After . . .
__________________________________
Mark Jeffers M.ED has been a professional storyteller for more than 30 years performing for tens of thousands of people throughout Hawaii, the Pacific and the US mainland. He is a producer of children's media programming in Hawaii and the executive director of Storybook Theatre a company which he founded in the late seventies.
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