Story Paths

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 ConsultationComment & 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 ConsultationComment 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 ConsultationComment 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 ConsultationComment 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 ConsultationComment 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

Leaving monkhood was easy. I just got in a cab and changed out of my robes.But what about the aftershocks?The lost rhythms, the misfit loves, the phantom schedules?My friend Sean Shea and I sat down for a ‘business meeting.’I do love our business meetings.Or rather, our deep and personal conversations.Sean also reflected on helping his father pass through the portal of death.Somewhere between the ashram and the grocery store, between devotion and despair, we roamed.Bring some potatoes, onions, and your feelings about death. Let’s share a meal together.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 ConsultationComment 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 ConsultationComment 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 ConsultationComment 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 ConsultationComment 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 WatchingBy Rainer Maria RilkeI can tell by the way the trees beat, afterso many dull days, on my worried windowpanesthat a storm is coming,and I hear the far-off fields say thingsI can’t bear without a friend,I can’t love without a sister.The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives onacross 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 dominatedas 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 eternaldoes not want to be bent by us.I mean the Angel who appearedto the wrestlers of the Old Testament:when the wrestlers’ sinewsgrew long like metal strings,he felt them under his fingerslike chords of deep music.Whoever was beaten by this Angel(who often simply declined the fight)went away proud and strengthenedand 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 BlyFree Story & Media ConsultationComment 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