Re-Sacralize it all………..Why not?
“It’s been a long time since somebody told me a story.” – Elderly Woman in Northeast Ohio Storytellers like myself will often tell you that our favorite section of the library is 398.2. In the Dewey decimal system, 398.2 represents the folk and fairy tale area of the library. If […]
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“The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was three o’clock; the church bell tolled as I […]
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“The sacred lore of tradition is a living, moving thing, flowing like water from one age to another, reforming itself from one generation to the next, adapting to the needs of the new…What beneficial traditions have you inherited? How do they work best now?” – Caitlin Matthews, The Celtic Spirit, […]
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“Look [at the man who is]…the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself…Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden, p. 7. There is […]
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“I think an instinct for selection goes with the art of storytelling… There is…[this] very personal relationship that exists between all storytellers and the stories they tell…I am firmly convinced that certain storytellers are allergic to specific stories…Herein lies a part of the storyteller’s integrity, to be honestly aware of […]
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“When I was a kid, most stories had one basic message: If you’re strong, if you’re brave, if you’re honest, everything will turn out all right. It’s a good message, but we can add other important messages. One I include quite often is that if we work together, we can […]
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“In the stories we tell let the spoken word be…of a compelling and imaginative nature. Let it…charm the ear and arrest the mind, to build with perfection and delight…[to be] in itself…worth remembering. But let there be substance equally good.” – Ruth Sawyer, The Way of the Storyteller, p. 156-157. […]
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“When I spent a winter at Princeton…I used to visit an old man who lived near the campus…He was a mathematician, a friend of Einstein’s. Every time I came, which was usually at night, he would open the door for me and take me in close to the fireplace. Then […]
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“It is not necessary to make an effort to think in a particular way…We just think with our whole mind, and see things as they are without any effort. Just to see, and to be ready to see things with our whole mind…This is called mindfulness.” – Shunryu Suzuki, Zen […]
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“The painter works with his colors, mixes them, tries out effects, knows before he begins just what his box and palette can provide him with. He leaves nothing to chance…He feels for a divine relationship between what he wishes to say and the colors in which he wishes to say […]
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“At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me….” – Chris Van Allsburg, […]
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“The tea ceremonies of Japan are conceived in the spirit of the Taoist earthly paradise. The tearoom…is devoid of ornamentation. Temporarily it contains a single picture or flower-arrangement…The simplest object, framed by the controlled simplicity of the teahouse, stands out in mysterious beauty, its silence holding the secret of temporal […]
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“Old Man’s Cave is part of the Hocking Hills State Park near Logan, Ohio…According to legend, Richard Rowe lived at least briefly in the cave beginning in 1796…He eventually settled in the Hocking Hills, and he is purportedly buried in the cave. As a result of Rowe’s occupancy of the […]
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“In studying anything work with the head, get all you can out of it. Then put it away for a month and when you come back to it you will find much that you never dreamed of before.“ – Hans von Bulow, Letters (see Ruth Sawyer, The Way of the […]
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“The old stone circles that predate the Celtic era by centuries were the first meeting places, erected to put people into correct alignment and spiritual communion with past, present, and future, and with all the beings no longer living as well as those yet to be born.” – Caitlin Matthews, […]
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“Reading brings the presence of other times, characters, and cultures into your mind. Reading is an intimate event.” – John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes, p. 55. What happens when we read deeply – when we truly enter the story that we are reading? In a little book that we can toss […]
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“Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.” – William Butler Yeats, The Celtic Twilight, p. 7. Storytelling is an act of […]
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“It isn’t necessary to continually blurt out everything that is on your mind. You can say what you have to say, gently, and then you can stop. You can let someone else talk, or you can appreciate the silence.” – Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, p. […]
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We are in “a deeply fragmented culture…It seems that we are in a huge crisis of belonging.” – John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes, (Introduction p. xxiv-xxv). Belonging grows out of a shared set of stories. It is nurtured when we create the space for shared story to develop. For shared story […]
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”Slovak folk art has always abounded in eastern Slovakia…The Eastern Slovakians are…known as great folksinger and story tellers.” – Stefan Blasko, ABC Slovak Language (Volume 5 – Slovakia: Geography and History), p. 193 (1973) They explained to me beforehand who I was going to see. When we arrived at the […]
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“Imagination is the…priestess who against…the wishes of all systems and structures insists on celebrating the liturgy of presence.” – John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes, p. 217. We may think of the dreamy storyteller as anything but present, but are they? As a teller of tales, I spend much more time listening […]
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“Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk…hope is subversive…The language of hope and the ethos of amazement have been partly forfeited because they are an embarrassment…partly squelched because they are a […]
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“The house of the [Scottish] story-teller is already full, and it is difficult to get inside and away from the cold wind and soft sleet without…There are many present – men and women, boys and girls. All the women are seated, and most of the men. Girls are crouched between […]
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“Go out and look: If you want to know the stars you have to go out as often as you can and look at the sky…The number of constellations is not overwhelming…If you know thirty constellations…you have a good working knowledge of the sky. Make the acquaintance of two or […]
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“First we are the apprentice, painstakingly learning the basics of our craft; then we become journeymen, trained apprentices who are able to travel from place to place practicing our craft; finally we become masters of our craft and are honored as repositories of skill.” – Caitlin Matthews, The Celtic Spirit, […]
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