Story Paths

Into Dark Solstice - A Poem We have walked down this way before. Along trails hooved by deer’s morphing ancestors, where light-loving leaves give way to moist stone. We crossed these lands an orbit ago, the constellations just a little different, herding us into this shadow valley where day’s inbreath grows short, and nights outbreath long, where old calendars exhale completely, dissolving into dream around us. A valley of deepest shadow and reverence for light, when the bright one with whom we brew time is furthest from us, our fingertips barely brushing across the expanse. But now, let us pause in this descent, though we may already yearn to be passing through the valley and climbing the far slope and our fingertips to be clasping the bright one’s, then our palms and on into union. Now, let us make a hearth here on this slope, circle round and share glimpses into the nests of our travel pouches into dust-cloaked treasures given, gleamed, borrowed, birthed. From across oceans, home grown, from across constellations, sprouted in soil. As dust riding these treasures gives way to their tastes, may the biome of our heart-minds find creatures there to wriggle and enrich us, tickle our consciousness. A pause, a breath, then a passing round of the embers who heard all this. For each a gentle red pulse. For each a lantern. May we then tread down into the valley to join other circles, feel other embers and dusty treasures, and then to be in silence and let the embers go out. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Here we are. You. Me. I in my body, you in yours, they in theirs. I with my personality, upbringing, influences, opinions. You with yours, they with theirs. Yet here are ways we are more than ourselves. We overlap not only with each other, but with other species, and those in other times, and more. Wandering time and place, ancestry and other lives, from love’s dissolving of boundaries to the intelligence of species, here are explorations of of ways we are vast. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

I was cast out from my home. Or maybe I ran away. To dry lands. I’m hungry. I need to become something more, to shed a part of me that seemed intrinsic. And the waters are rising. A slow, meditative and moody song.Lyrics: I ran from all l've known to a dry land where now seeking, seeking, seeking home Fortnights passed aplenty, & was living hungry learning from the serpents who hunted with the moon. One vast & star-pierced midnight, a man emerged from darkness Said ‘These lands you love shall leave us soon.’ He told me, ‘Floods they will course all across these creatures These creatures know it rightly, see them climbing from the sands He said ‘I dwell in stony ridges, high above the waters. Come dwell with me as we wait for land.’ One dawn we were together, above the flooded badlands He said, ‘Watch the sun trail crossing the waters down below.’ Long I sat there seeking, slowly growing patient ’Til I had nowhere else to go. Stone to gold & gold to sky Bones broke & scattered, once more & again Stars who circle still long after they die Guides guide still once they are slain Floods seeped downward & flowed on to the ocean Stone arounds on the ground was all I could see The old man passed… & plenty joined me with his passing All he lived now lives in me. Now walk across these badlands, still learning from the serpents finding forlorn singers, cast out from their homes by instigating elders, wise as troubled waters I come to them in their time alone. I sing to them from heaven, deep within the waters I sing to them as air deep within the stone with a voice of slither serpents, wise as desert daughters, where I wander is where I'm home. Subscribe & Support Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

It’s time to die, old man. Past time. You’ve fucked things up. I don’t even want to see you. Damn, and you’re afraid. What dignity will you be able to die with? Alright, old man, here’s a song to help.Subscribe & Support Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Do gifts leave gaps? If I’m good at one thing, does it leave me floundering in another area? And here’s a big thoughts, on the level of our whole human species, perhaps our gifts leave holes. Here’s a meditation on self-awareness and our relationship with our living home. Subscribe & Support Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

If you’re working with stories and you’re not crazy, don’t worry, it won’t take long. Turkey vultures circle overhead. They’re not waiting until I die, though they wouldn’t turn down the meat. No, they have a message for me. Who’s speaking to you? Subscribe & Support Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Imagine a map with no cities, no provincial or national borders, no names of colonisers claiming land. Instead, this map is dotted with mythic sites. It is a record of story-sites rooted in land, and webbed together. Hear more, in this melodic meditation, quoting Sean Kane’s excellent book, Wisdom of the Mythtellers, with a passage from a Haida origin myth.Subscribe & Support Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

As a young man, with my fabric of my life dealt a sudden and grave wound, when I most needed culture, India took me in. But my relationship with Indian culture and myth is complicated. I traversed story paths walked by sages for thousands of years, heard the tales sprouting from those places, found culture and community and meaning. And there is hierarchy, racism, sexism, caste, and other violences woven in. And it’s complicated. And it’s beautiful. After years of turning away from the myths and practices that once shaped my life, I was recently invited to tell a story from the Ramayan at a Bhakti festival here on Turtle Island. This live telling moves through love, exile, and betrayal; forest hermitages and monkey kingdoms; floating bridges and secret reasons behind the prince’s banishment. Along the way, we wonder at the villains in this story, and how they may be the story’s greatest servants. Subscribe & Support Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Overwhelmed by rapid change in my life, inside and outside, I walked a beach in South India, my head spinning between continents. A fellow pilgrim’s rambling advice saved me. As did potatoes. As did a slug, years later, in a very different scenario. Intrigued? Confused? Have a listen to increase both of those. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

A tribute-song to two supernovas—Joanna Macy and Andrea Gibson—who in their passing away are spreading life-building gifts. A story-song. A metaphor. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

The rhythm of Jupiter doesn’t quite fit with the birdsong at home. Peeling potatoes and rambling might be the path to enlightenment. Frogs are always singing to someone—maybe to you. My friend Sean Shea and I sat down for a ‘business meeting.’ A mother, a deathbed, and the music of the spheres. Somewhere between devotion and dance floors, between discipline and dissolution, we stumble forward, hands full of stories, wondering whether the bell is tolling for us yet. Sean guides and encourages song writers. Maybe you? https://www.songsforpositivechange.com/ Keep an ear our for our upcoming song-story workshop. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Human skin against goat skin. Who leads, who follows? Rhythm is a language, but who speaks it best—the swirling hand or the desert wind? My friend Rasha taught me Egyptian rhythms beneath the stars. We sync, I lose the thread, we laugh. But the stars keep time, and the drums keep calling us back. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment & Subscribe Here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Bats cut the badlands sky. A traditional man softens. Who gets to cry? Who gets to weave? Another man steps into the ocean and forgets himself. He comes back with nothing. But what’s that he’s offering to the being who sent him in? The waters are rising. Step in. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

A king devoured by his own hunger. Skin dissolving into fur, into feathers, into scales. The tunnel calls, but will you step through? The sign above the entrance reads: Weird. Is that just another way of seeing? Breathe deep. Submerge. Listen. The water is speaking. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Looms clatter, voices hum, a temple echoes with recitations.Gods wander through the Himalayan foothills. Are we moving? Sliding, flying, riding: through sound, space, a weave of voices. Let your headphones slide other worlds into your noggin. Listen close. The loom is weaving. The temple is calling. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Every tool is a spell, every technology a superpower. Clamshell knives slash AI cloaks. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

What happens when God’s wife just wants some peace and quiet? Creation. If worldviews are bubbles, what happens when they pop? Listen in. Float through the bubbles. Find the third spiral. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

Voices resound on stone, and trumpet through abandoned pipes. A hum, a howl, a half-remembered hymn— Sticks whack PVC pipes, the sound swallowed and reshaped. Somewhere, a songbird forgets its own tune. Somewhere, a coyote grins in the dark. A card is flipped, a role is claimed. Sing low enough, and the walls might sing back. Step inside. You might just hear your own voice waiting. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

A fence stands, half-built, half-rotten, full of holes. Birds nest in its holes, vines curl through its cracks. This fence is language, with old myths slipping past the pickets. Step through. Again, step through. Let your ears grow fur. Three readings from three random pages of wonderful books. Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe

A poem from Rilke converses with the Hindu aesthetic system of rasa. A good book about rasa. Rilke’s full poem: The Man Watching By Rainer Maria Rilke I can tell by the way the trees beat, after so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes that a storm is coming, and I hear the far-off fields say things I can’t bear without a friend, I can’t love without a sister. The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on across the woods and across time, and the world looks as if it had no age: the landscape, like a line in the psalm book, is seriousness and weight and eternity. What we choose to fight is so tiny! What fights with us is so great. If only we would let ourselves be dominated as things do by some immense storm, we would become strong too, and not need names. When we win it’s with small things, and the triumph itself makes us small. What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by us. I mean the Angel who appeared to the wrestlers of the Old Testament: when the wrestlers’ sinews grew long like metal strings, he felt them under his fingers like chords of deep music. Whoever was beaten by this Angel (who often simply declined the fight) went away proud and strengthened and great from that harsh hand, that kneaded him as if to change his shape. Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings. –Translated by Robert Bly Free Story & Media Consultation Comment and Subscribe here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit storypaths.substack.com/subscribe