I recently called a small group of well-wishing friends together around a fire for a story share. This is a culture-weaving practice, where one person shares their life story with others. My friend John Wolfstone did this when he was leaving our island in the Salish Sea, speaking themes of ancestral healing that were present for him in his time her…

Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here Book one-on-one story sessions here Here's an interesting vista of reflection. Consider the meta-layers of narrative in your life, and how they cause you to interface with the world. What's a meta-layer of narrative? It could be mythical explanations of constellations; it could be their scientif…

I recently watched Studio Ghibli’s new film, The Boy and the Heron. Perplexed and fascinated, I watched it again. The film has many layers, and not neatly stacks. Metaphors, history, personal experiences, imagination, mythology: there are many aspects to focus on. I’m especially drawn by the films’ two worlds, and how they intertwine. One is a coun…

Book one-on-one story sessions here Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here Here’s something a little different, a fictionalized story of my own life. You may find resonance with your own canyon crossings. For a version with music and sound, listen to the recording. In we go. A man is crossing a sandy, stony plane. As he passes, long-…

Book one-on-one story sessions here Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here Let’s open with a story. Tiger Farming Termites Neat rows of wood are crisscrossed to draw in delectable foragers, though truth be told, Tiger tastes termites in a pinch. Waiting. Crouched. Poised. Bored as the boards he's laid out, until an unconscious ungula…

Book one-on-one story sessions here Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here In part 1 of this two-parter on belonging, we were getting into moving between circles of belonging. I attended a class recently with the wonderful artist-teacher-ceremonialist-textile practitioner: Laura Burns. I interviewed her some time ago; dig back and ha…

Book one-on-one story sessions here Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here Let’s open with a poem. Now is the Time Now is the time to remember that our green globe is the best-dressed in the ball lit through with organic filaments bombastic living miracles. Now is the time to turn off the engine and set down exhaustion into lakes tha…

Book one-on-one story sessions here Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here Let’s open with a poem. Belonging. She gives you all you need. Friendship. Safety. Meaning. Being rid of that pesky loneliness. With her you overlap others. Share deep parts of yourself. Yet if you want this always, you must compromise. Give up the parts of yo…

Book one-on-one story sessions here Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here Let’s open with a parable. A king, powerful and wise, goes into his city, moves among his people, dressed as a commoner. He wishes to see how they regard him, truly, when they do not know who walks amongst them. As for me, I mingle with such kings and queens e…

Book one-on-one story sessions here Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here How 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-Seekers…

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 …

Watch this episode Dougie’s Pacific Northwest Coast Tour Dougie’s website: https://storyconnection.org Myth as Medicine course. Dougie’s podcast Instagram Comment on this episode You’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 herit…

Book one-on-one story sessions here Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here Here’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 Sa…

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 cou…

Read this as an article, and share your thoughts here Book one-on-one story sessions here Let’s open with a poem A power outage, is not an aberration. It is the old normal world poking through into the aberration of tech depending on tech depending on tech depending on the world. Wind, water, weather, creature. This wild wild world. What is it to b…

Read this as an article and reply here Book one-on-one story sessions here Bringing Distant Ones Close A Spiritual Approach How 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 interrel…

Watch the promo here The 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 …

Read this as an article and share your thoughts here Book one-on-one story sessions here I’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…

For story workshops: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/06d77f86-cbe9-4c65-8486-2e723e2b33b4 It 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 epis…

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-bfc51651ccfe How 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?…

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. I…

Sign up for weekly story playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/f15d43a9-4e89-47d1-93e0-a40c0d03d546 There'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…

Weekly story playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/86acb049-61b0-4311-8dce-d0d833d6b76e If 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 b…

Sign up for weekly story workshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/a599bdd3-d828-4b67-a036-f5f816bd56e1 In 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 liqu…

Sign up for weekly story playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/42ce63d7-a0b4-4231-88ac-0fe8861e55e3 I 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 a…

Sign up for weekly story playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/45d29452-ac79-4c0d-8d77-6991f90fbb8a Cosmology 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…

For weekly story playshops go on here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/9bdd1000-4d0d-4c15-ba88-a5ae692cea40 I'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 histo…

Learn more about Tamara Strijack’s offerings here. SIgn up for weekly playshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/acc68ea7-3583-4165-b74a-096dff09b74b This 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 w…

(Art by Jessie White, Seeds of Spells) Sign up for story workshops here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/b3e7ccb6-d735-4187-a4b6-221f1a6a0882 I'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…

Which real-life story does this remind you of? Comments here (paid subscribers): https://storypaths.substack.com/p/67d05587-82ae-4533-bb51-fd1c1041e9c6 Termites of the garden. The first dawn in the garden was simple but intense. Intensely hot. And next came the torrential rain. Massive plants sprouted up, followed by great beasts lurching about the…

Pulxaneeks website, including upcoming events. I’m glad and grateful to be presenting the following guest. Her vocation is as an Indigenous relations consultant, which is to say she helps settler folks like myself learn to be in good relations with the original peoples of this land. This involves far more than introducing people and smoothing commu…

Sign up for story workshops like this on Substack for just $5/month. Workshops are one hour weekly on Thursdays at 10-11 PST. https://storypaths.substack.com/p/7233d334-6564-4d50-bf60-2a022a34140c This episode captures the essence of our first story workshop, a weekly gathering exclusively available to our premium subscribers for just $5 per month.…

Write your guess on Substack here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/36b06c3f-ca37-4095-aa09-810f2e61f58d Can you guess which real-life story this is? A river once flowed freely, a source of abundant fish for the people, until a monstrous presence established its lair at the headwaters. This creature voraciously consumed the fish and discharged bol…

Here's the associated article, with pictures. You can add your comments here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/9e7267ab-518f-4599-beff-0530e80208f6 Welcome to the Story Paths newsletter and podcast. This is a Storyteller’s diary edition. As I tell the tale of this one life, may it help you to tell your tales. If you missed the first parts, I spoke…

Become a paid subscriber for $5 and get access to 4 workshops per month! https://storypaths.substack.com/ Welcome. This writing comes to you from the shore of the ocean in the Salish Sea. There's a woodpecker who's going at it on a Gary Oak just nearby, seeking some bugs. There are seagulls landing and strutting about on a rock outcropping, and I s…

Which real-life story does this remind you of? Comments here (paid subscribers): https://storypaths.substack.com/p/18522076-40a8-4569-80b0-71ec20b9699c There is a boring plywood door, in a boring plywood room. Many people make their lives in this room, but if they were to open that door, then on the other side, they would find dozens more doors. On…

Reply to the story prompts in this episode here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/59ab0f86-2c8f-4168-bf08-7ec3eb672e75(Available for paid Substack subscribers) You can learn more about Jennifer’s work here. Is ceremony a grave affair for adults, or can it be something playful which includes children? Or perhaps all of the above? Playful with adult…

Share your stories on the newsletter here: https://storypaths.substack.com/ Welcome to the Story Path newsletter and podcast, a Story Elements Edition. Journeys: Part six: The Return. In the previous parts of this exploration of journeys, in story and in life, we looked at different possible destinations, the amazing journeys of different creatures…

Write your guess on Substack here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/90569a1b-7787-4636-a3b4-27a969f6b513 Can you guess which real-life story this is? In the playground, two boys began to fight. It got intense, so the second boy ran off to perch at the top of a slide. It was there that a third boy found him and asked, "Do you know that you don't ha…

Here's the article for this episode, with pictures and prompts: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/555eb054-2321-4811-b15c-a6746d84cdd2 Welcome to the Story Paths newsletter and podcast. This is a Storyteller’s diary edition. As I tell the tale of this one life, may it help you to tell your tales. In part one, I spoke about how I met an old friend o…

Welcome to the Story Paths Newsletter, a Storyteller’s Diary edition. Reply to the story prompts in this episode here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/b44f0ad4-f7b9-4d14-b975-1b34ebc4dee2 (Available for paid Substack subscribers)You'll also find images connected to this episode.--- I'm on pilgrimage again, but it's different this time. Before, it…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit storypaths.substack.com Share your stories on the newsletter here: https://storypaths.substack.com/ Welcome to the Story Paths Newsletter and Podcast. A Story Elements Edition. Journeys: Part five. Oute…Thoedore Lowry of Story Paths

Which real-life story does this remind you of? Comments here (paid subscribers): https://storypaths.substack.com/p/e817b97e-6206-4107-aa85-e6cbcfce7631 In the playground, a boy pushed down another child, and kept them pressed down while he rifled through their pockets, taking one thing after another. Then he let them go and said, ‘Every day you hav…

Reply to the story prompts in this episode here:https://storypaths.substack.com/p/fdce5cda-f28e-49fa-ad02-d8bbf05a27cc(Available for paid Substack subscribers) Find out more about Mr. Rodriguez’ work here: https://www.luisjrodriguez.com/ Welcome to the Story Paths newsletter and podcast. I'm Theodore Lowry. Today, I'm glad to be presenting you with…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit storypaths.substack.com Share your stories on the newsletter here: https://storypaths.substack.com/ Welcome to the Story Paths Newsletter and Podcast. A Story Elements Edition. Journeys: Part Four Outer …Thoedore Lowry of Story Paths

Write your guess on Substack here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/fb3a8ee4-f3d8-4df3-92ae-2070f2136363 Can you guess which real-life story this is? A confidence man, a modern-day coyote trickster, arrives in town. He brings a cart filled with stone slabs, each one soaked in luminescent oil. Distributing these slabs, he leads the unsuspecting tow…

Here's the link to the article with pictures and prompts: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/9d6551a9-bd4d-48dc-b50c-1b33337d19c9 An Old Friend Part I: Crossing a River Welcome to the Story Paths newsletter and podcast. This is a Storyteller’s diary edition. I met an old friend of my father last night. As a teenager, he was also my friend, and a men…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit storypaths.substack.com Reply to the story prompts in this episode here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/2486375c-6dd6-4b22-9398-b4b75c8d3f9f(Available for paid Substack subscribers) Welcome to the Story Paths newsletter and podcast, a story elements edition, where we explore the ingre…

Which real-life story does this remind you of? Comments here (paid subscribers): https://storypaths.substack.com/p/57633e41-bf9e-42b6-bc1f-48410d5d1a6f There was a boy, out walking with his tribe, who came to the encampment of a different group. His tribe jeered and threw bits of wood over, but the boy was curious about those other people. He wishe…

Reply to the story prompts in this episode here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/de0c4826-9ab0-43f2-9f63-291a9f883ea3. (Available for paid Substack subscribers)There, you'll also find pictures of Matteo test-playing his games. To watch the video of this conversation, go here: https://youtu.be/Rr0PG7HBusYFind out more about Matteo's work here: htt…