Story Paths – Details, episodes & analysis

Listen to ambient sounds from other lands as you travel through your own.

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A ridiculous song written in the foothills of the Himalayas more than 20 years ago.

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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 have a listen if you'd like. She spoke about moving between circles of belonging, and gave the example of queer folks who were born in a family who are not welcoming to queerness, especially in their own children. These children experienced a crisis of belonging in their families. Those who stood their grown often found the strength to do so because of finding new belonging with other queer folks. In this other circle of belonging, that part of themselves—that integral part of themselves—was not just tolerated but very welcome.

We can’t live without belonging somewhere. How can we find the strength to disagree and stand for principles in one circle of belonging, unless we find belonging in another circle?

For myself, when I came into seeking spiritually, I didn't find much belonging in my own culture, in secular society or in a church. I found belonging in a spiritual path from another land. When I fell out of that, I found belonging in marriage, and in connection with the lands where I grew up. Now I'm seeking a diversity of belonging, because I'm suspicious of putting too many eggs in one basket, especially baskets of human belonging.

We see this moving between circles in the animal world too. If the mother of a group of ducklings is killed, they may follow another mother. We see it on an international level. When Einstein couldn't stay in Europe at the onset of World War Two, he found some belonging in the United States. When young men from the United States were drafted into the Vietnam War, and they refused to risk their lives for a cause they abhorred, they found belonging across the border in Canada.

I have a great uncle named Walter, back in England, more than a hundred years ago. His father had died and his mother lacked the means take care of him and his sister. She left them in Sherwood Forest (famous for Robin Hood). They were found beneath the trees by passer-by’s, and the call went out, ‘Who will care for these children?’

Someone took Walter, another took his sister. The people who took them in were not biological relations, but relations nonetheless. They raised the children up, and Walter married into my family. Those kids found a kind of belonging, and Walter and I are part of the same extended family, although I'm too young to have met him in the flesh.

In this way, people and animals are sometimes forced to find belonging, unsure of whether they'll find it or not, of whether they'll even survive. But for many of us, we may at least step into another circle of belonging to find some strength so we can turn and make a stand in the circle giving us trouble. Like finding belonging in a queer community to make a stand when coming out with one's family. Or taking a step into a spiritual community to come out as weirdly spiritual with one's colleagues. Or taking a step into an earth-connection group to make a stand with one's ascendant-minded congregation.

Laura Burns also spoke of a mentor of hers, who as a child got bounced around from one foster home to another, and couldn't find anything close to the kind of belonging that she needed. She found it in spirit. A spiritual belonging where she dwelled, in the absence of human belonging. Now, as she grew up, she was able to find and forge connections within fellow humans, but for some time that spiritual belonging was enough to keep her alive.

Human and Spiritual Belonging: A Figure-Eight

Laura Burns suggested that human belonging and spiritual belonging could be conceived of together as a figure eight. Energy moves around this form, with each one feeding into the next.

Human belonging can help spiritual belonging can help human belonging can help spiritual belonging can help human belonging.

When things go sideways in human belonging—because we can be strange and fickle—then there is spiritual belonging. It is more steady, though perhaps more difficult to conceive and understand for our mammalian natures seeking warm skin and food. Spiritual belonging can feel vast and cosmic, or near and intimate. Both are important, and both can feed each other.

Moving Between Vocational Circles

In business, moving between circles could mean stepping into a new field to gradually build up connections, clients, and funds; while keeping one foot in the old arena. For myself, my old arena is working with media— films, podcasts, paintings and such. I'm stepping into helping people think in stories, as I'm doing with this article. I thought I might leave the media work quicker than I have, but I'm realizing that this is a slow step, and that actually there's more connection between these two fields than I had realised. It may not be such a bad thing to keep a foot in both.

Story Prompts

Consider a circle to which you belong, which feels prescient and relevant to you now. This could be family, friends, an interest group, an area of the earth or business that you're involved in.

What do have to offer to this circle?

Of that, what is understood and welcome in the circle and what is not?

Then consider another circle of belonging.

What do have to offer to this circle?

Of that, what is understood and welcome in the circle and what is not?

Consider how you might adjust yourself in relation to this first group, and in relation to this second group, so that you can express all that you want to express, and receive nourishment in kind.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

Until the next.

Blair Francis is a songwriter friend who I've only recently met. In this conversation we speak about the place of songs in growing culture.

You can find the music of Blair and his partner Elisa on bandcamp and youtube, on these links:
https://elisaandblair.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/%C3%89lisaandBlair

Share this podcast with a friend by copying this link: https://storypaths.buzzsprout.com/

 To be notified about upcoming creative writing and art workshops, sign up for the Story Paths mailing list here. 

Trailer for Creative Writing: Brainstorming Story Ideas
Link to the course and a free month on Skillshare.

A spoken word piece.

 To be notified about upcoming creative writing and art workshops, sign up for the Story Paths mailing list here. 

Trailer for Creative Writing: Brainstorming Story Ideas
Link to the course and a free month on Skillshare.

Here's simple a song I've been working for a while.

 To be notified about upcoming creative writing and art workshops, sign up for the Story Paths mailing list here. 

Trailer for Creative Writing: Brainstorming Story Ideas
Link to the course and a free month on Skillshare.

For this episode I'm sharing a song that my lovely wife wrote as a poem, and which I adapted to music. I hope you like it. You can find more of her poetry, as well as her earthy artwork, on @seedsofspells on instagram.
Words:
 How did we lose our way of walking hand-in-hand with this world?
 I can remember the ocean sang me to sleep, as I cried salty sorrow on her sands.
 I can remember her heartbeat upon my cheek, and a rockabye lullaby sinking into my weary bones.
 I can remember the hold of her humus womb, tethering my spirit to her soil.
 I can remember the peace before we waged war within ourselves. What more have I to say than this?

Pay no mind to the critic hushing your spirit. Do not lend his harsh hand your underbelly. Save your softness for the song that longs for your voice still.

As her spirit may be spoken, ever through you, never by you.

Silence your sermons of fear. Sweep your broken bits from the floor. Weave her words within your tattered skin, as tender tendrils trellising up every vertebrae of your spine.

Beckon her to rest and stay a while.

As her spirit may be spoken, ever through you, never by you.

Sing her song

 To be notified about upcoming creative writing and art workshops, sign up for the Story Paths mailing list here. 

Trailer for Creative Writing: Brainstorming Story Ideas
Link to the course and a free month on Skillshare.

Tom Hirons is an oral storyteller, poet, acupuncturist, wilderness vigil guide and storytelling teacher, to name a few roles. I've taken three of his classes, and found him to be a wise and warm guide into stories and storytelling. Something he said piqued my interest, the idea that stories exist in layers, from primeaval myths to everyday gossip. He unpacks this concept, and we consider different metaphors that might hold this.
We also touch on grief, initiation into becoming an adult, and ecological collapse.
You can find out more about Tom's work and see some beauitful publications that he's made along with his partner in art and life, Rima Staines.

https://hedgespoken.org/
https://tomhirons.com/

Share this podcast with a friend by copying this link: https://storypaths.buzzsprout.com/

To be notified about our own upcoming creative writing and art workshops, sign up for the Story Paths mailing list here. 

Trailer for Creative Writing: Brainstorming Story Ideas
Link to the course and a free month on Skillshare.

Have you ever had an argument where you feel like your opponent has a glaring gaps in their world-view, but they refuse to look at it? How about whole groups of people who defend their gaps? How about a particular species that both you and I may be part of?
In this episode I explore how this phenomenon shows up in fiction and fact.

 To be notified about our own upcoming creative writing and art workshops, sign up for the Story Paths mailing list here.  

Trailer for Creative Writing: Brainstorming Story Ideas
Link to the course and a free month on Skillshare.

This is a  fascinating conversation. Jessie Wild guides her young drama students into building empathy through enacting powerful real-life stories. Have a listen, you won't regret it.

Jessie Wild is a mum, drama teacher, apprentice storyteller and lifelong enthusiast of learning (everything and anything). She became obsessed with both Shakespeare and Greek myth and tragedy at around 12 years old. The logical path seemed to be acting but having trained, first at uni then at drama school, she realised what she was most passionate about was the exploration period of rehearsals- the learning and growing. She toured extensively doing Shakespeare in UK schools and realised how powerful education in the arts truly is - hence her step into teaching. She is now a secondary school drama teacher of ages 11-18.
You can find her here on instagram.

To be notified about our own upcoming creative writing and art workshops, sign up for the Story Paths mailing list here.  

Trailer for Creative Writing: Brainstorming Story Ideas
Link to the course and a free month on Skillshare.