Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
Page 25
Page 26
Page 27
Page 28
Page 29
Page 30
Page 31
Page 32
Page 33
Page 34
Page 35
Page 36
Page 37
Page 38
Page 39
Page 40
Page 41
Page 42
Page 43
Page 44
Page 45
Page 46
Page 47
Page 48
32 A Journal of Contemporary Shamanism VOLUME 6 ISSUE 2 FALL 2013 rive its my iPad I sprint for. But the sprint hasnt changed much in all these years. Moments of song are astonish- ingly ephemeral. A glimmer of song a few fleeting moments of rise and fall of tone and mood perhaps a fragment of lyric attached although the lyrics arent always so important and we have a sudden window into the Real World. Like a shooting star like the glimmer of the northern lights on the horizon like the crest of the full moon as it begins to shimmer its way up into the evening sky the moment passes on swift feet. I have had moments of such intense wonder so deeply moved by a moment of song that breaks through that I was certain I would never forget the melody line or the words that may have come along with it. And then an hour later I realize sadly that it has not stayed with me. Sometimes the spirits have been patient and returned with it and often with a bit of chiding at the missed step of embracing and recording the song. There have been times within a journey or even a dream at night that the song actually formed as moment of recognizable music. But those are rare for me. Usually it is a feeling that strikes me and it comes into focus afterwards as I sing or as I sit and let my fingers find it on the harp strings. But either way when the songs arrive I run. These are the bits and mo- ments that often end up traveling with me for years. Many of them become the heart of something that eventually be- comes formally recorded and released always with the permission of the spirits. Storylines The fluidity and freedom with which we can access music and narrative today is an astonishing thing. Recorded music is a cloud of sound upon us and around us. Narrative is threaded through every conceivable kind of device and technol- ogy recorded and broadcast in countless ways. There is such power in the human imagination in its capacity to dream. And yet even with the great capacity for dreaming and imagining as a species we are also somewhat obsessed with want- ing to see the whole of things. Perhaps this is so because we are physically designed in such a way that we can never see all of our physical selves without as- sistive technologies. In our world today we have put assistive technologies every- where to help solve this problem. We now have cameras posted on every street corner we use machines to see deep into the cellular layer of things and we have sent our lenses astonishing distances into outer space. But when it comes to the flow of destiny to the onward dreaming of a lifetime all the cameras and micro- phones in the world dont help much. Here is where the story steps in. The worlds stories form an archive or a map of human experience. There is logic there are leaps of faith the unseen becomes seen as a story unfoldsas it enfolds us into its wisdom. One of the great powers of working with story is the ability to glimpse the whole of things as shamans have always known. Stories are landscapes. They are spiritual and soulful terrains. Stories give us a sense of place lead us toward our destiny. In many old tales one of the key fea- tures is that the main characters are for the most part anonymous and faceless. All we know is that they were the young- est son or the youngest daughter. All we know is that they had no definable marketable skill-set. They are without a face. They are foolish enough to listen to the unseen and to trust in the crazy- wisdom of the Otherworld. These characters have the sense to offer simple kindness without expect- ing anything in return and the doors fly open and the Great Adventure is launched. They survive difficulty and testing and still somehow find their way listening to the voices of wisdom holding true even in the darkness. We are comforted and inspired and have a renewed sense of how to unfold our own myth. There is wisdom in the Story. There is nourishment in the Song. They wait for us they hunt us they call to us. The old stories dont have to be presented as epic pieces or performance art. Simple short unfoldings are enough to bring the enchantment. There is a reason these old stories have survived so long amid so many ruthless cultural cleansings. In simple and powerful ways they show us how human beings find and live their destinies. Story holds teachings together in any context. It becomes a reference point that we share for holding our ideas together. After many years and countless performances bringing stories alive on the harp has taught me absolutely that although there are many powerful stories the power of any tale is in its Telling not in the text of it. The power is not in having people read it silently to themselves. The power is not in reading a story aloud from a piece of paper. The power is not in memorizing and reciting it. The power is in just letting the story come alive Letting it breathe change pause find the listener letting the story tell us. Live storytelling is like shamanic journeying. There is an astonishing flow of connection that opens. The imagi- nation stirs and the world falls away. Although storytelling is a physical thing woven on the breath and the movements of the body the cadence and rhythm of the voice matter even more than the words themselves. As a story unfolds it becomes for a time a shared destiny a shared dreaming. It reaches from the outside world deep into our private dreaming. As listeners we are woven together for a time brought out of our separateness. In storytelling we discover profound nourishment in watching hu- man beings unfold understand and live their own myth.