Healing Salve of Storytelling - Listen to Your Mother

The four universal healing salves.

In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions.

When did you stop dancing?

When did you stop singing?

When did you stop being enchanted by stories?

When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?

Where we have stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence is where we have experienced the loss of soul.

Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves.

~ The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Healer, Teacher and Visionary by Angeles Arrien

Today is a day that will go down in history. At 7:00 pm, the cast of 2016 Listen to Your Mother Southwest Michigan will take to the stage. LTYM is an amazing event, conjured up in the creative genius of Ann Imig, a Stay-At-Home Humorist. 

(from the website) Listen to Your Mother is features live readings by local writers on the beauty, the beast, and the barely-rested of motherhood, in staged community shows celebrating Mother’s Day. All shows are recorded and shared on our LTYMShow YouTube channel, boasting a catalog of nearly 1500 diverse stories of motherhood (daughter/son/father/Grandparent, etc).

In 2016, LTYM is happening in 41 cities in North America! Please go to the website to find nearest show, and if one is not close enough, get a plan and bring it to your community next year! Why? Because LTYM changes lives…

These are the 12 absolutely amazing women and one man who make up the Southwest Michigan 2016 cast. 

Our stories may well make you cry, cause you to belly laugh, and change your heart forever. Why? Because the sacred art of storytelling is healing...

 

I found this amazing line in a blog about ancient theater, and I could not have said it better: "To the ancient Greeks, the theatre was a divine place of transformation. It was a place of ritual, of entertainment, and of medicine, for it had the power to bring about an emotional catharsis of joy, sorrow, rage, and awe."

You will be able to see all of the stories from each of the venues on YouTube later this year. You might enjoy a sneak preview of some of what happens inside cast members, as well as behind the scenes. 

I had not known how affected I would be. You might not know you would cry when hearing of a child's having had 20 (this is not a typo) foster mothers before coming of age. You might be surprised how hearing about the lives of perfect strangers touches you so deeply. 

I wrestled with disappointment when many I love were unable to be here for the live show.

I faced the inner demon of the "Imposter" comparing my story to others and fearing mine fell short. 

Just when I assumed I had no SHOW TIME nerves, my quivering legs gave me away.

A friend stopped to pick up tickets a bit ago. She asked what the goal of the show is. Obviously, giving a voice to writers is part of it. And bringing together a community. But something bigger takes place as we remember our shared humanity. 

Something about LTYM speaks to a hungry space within each of us that is only open for meaning. Telling our stories is one of the four healing salves. Thankfully, Listen to Your Mother offers our world again the sacred art of storytelling so rich in our roots.

A Still Waters Day

I brought my 2015 Blessing Jar with me today, and poured its contents out on the floor at my feet. I sit in the grape-vine rocking chair looking out at the ancient oak tree as I read a few: grateful for a working furnace and a comfortable home; grateful for a good nights sleep; grateful for enjoying watching a favorite TV show.

I meditate for a while before slipping comfortably into napping, still sitting in my rocker. I sip a cup of tea upon waking and then decide to go out and enjoy the beautiful spring day.

Walking out to the labyrinth, I recall having been told in 1988 I had osteoarthritis and needed a hip replacement. Fortunately, they did not do that surgery because I was deemed too young....

I feel so fortunate I am able to walk.

 

Aware that I've been coming to Still Waters for over 20 years, I feel profound gratitude to and for Delcy and Tom Kuhlman for creating and maintaining this space.

Walking the labyrinth, I appreciate just being where I am, putting my feet on the earth in front of me.

 

I momentarily ponder the person I was those many years ago when I first came here before settling back in to being present on the path. 

Loving the beyond-their-peak-but-still-fragrant daffodils, I think of a woman I introduced to Still Waters who had come and helped plant some of these many bulbs. I wish her blessings on her path. 

For just an instant, I feel nostalgia about not keeping a paper-and-pen journal at this time in my life. 

I hear hawk in the woods nearby. Crow caws. Butterfly and bee are my companions among the blooms in their phases of letting go. Below the hill, by the lake, Mr. and Mrs. Canadian Goose seem to be planning a family. 

I bend to pick up a small branch in the middle of my path. It is perfectly the shape of a dowsing rod.

I enjoy that there are no choices I must make of which way to go here in the labyrinth. Day-to-day life is filled with many crossroads, and we must choose. 

 

A favorite poem, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, comes to mind:   

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 

And sorry I could not travel both 

And be one traveler, long I stood 

And looked down one as far as I could 

To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair, 

And having perhaps the better claim, 

Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 

Though as for that the passing there 

Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay 

In leaves no step had trodden black. 

Oh, I kept the first for another day! 

Yet knowing how way leads on to way, 

I doubted if I should ever come back. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh 

Somewhere ages and ages hence: 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— 

I took the one less traveled by, 

And that has made all the difference.

Lost or Found?

We were traveling on Interstate 75, driving from Florida, through Atlanta, on our way to Tennessee to surprise our grandson, Brad Zelenak. Brad was going to be performing his original musical compositions on the Rock Bottom Brewery Rooftop, 111 Broadway, downtown Nashville at 7:00 pm. 

We were in the HOV lanes all the way through Atlanta, and we were making great time. We were going to make it. 

Although we have made that trip dozens of times, we somehow accidentally ended up on Interstate 85.
 

Darn!

Traffic slowed to a crawl… A pungent odor waffled into the car. We realized it was our car. A look revealed a redish fluid all over everything under the hood. The temperature gage did not register high and the engine did not seem hot, so we merged back into traffic heading onto the 285 bypass, now going w-a-y east of the city. 

It was difficult not to kick ourselves for the navigational error as we watched the clock. Time was crucial if we were going to make it to hear Brad. Just before 285 was to merge back into I-75 North, we experienced another traffic slowdown. This time, steam spewed out from under our hood! 

We no choice: we had to see what was going on. We took the next exit with heavy hearts. 

The road we were on came to a T and we went left. On the left, we saw a body shop, and pulled in. "I have some kind of liquid spewing out under the hood. Can somebody take a look and tell me what is going on?" my husband asked. 

"We don't do any mechanical work at all, but right next door is the best mechanic in Georgia."

He motioned to the adjacent building, and was talking about Robert, at Canton Road Muffler & Automotive Center in Marietta, Georgia. 

I choked back tears as my husband told Robert we were trying to get to Nashville to hear our grandson perform.

"If I order this part from Chrysler, it will not be delivered until tomorrow. I have made this part before. I can get you back on the road. You'll make it to hear him…." 

Robert said he sings, too, and that he would be performing in his church on Sunday. 

I spoke aloud the gospel truth: "We thought we had gotten lost, but we know now we had help finding you!" 

We were being guided even while thinking we had made a wrong turn and were lost. Brings to mind everything that is going on in the world, doesn't it... 

We walked into the room just as Brad was ready to sing. Love you, Brad Zelenak!