Story Paths

A ridiculous song written in the foothills of the Himalayas more than 20 years ago.Free consultation for your creative projects: https://tidycal.com/theodorestorypaths/15-minute-meetingComment here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/1c1e2383-21c4-4cf3-a9a1-23af8a074de3 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

For many years I learned of sensuality and spirit as being different, or opposites. Here I discover ways that they are the same.Special thanks to Ji for beatboxing with me at the end. Recorded at the Freezer Burn Festival (Alberta Regional Burning Man) in Summer ’24.Free consultation for your creative projects: https://tidycal.com/theodorestorypaths/15-minute-meetingComment here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/e197d8e0-7b98-4c0f-9e46-a80b8232b1e3 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

Listen to ambient sounds from other lands as you travel through your own.Free consultation for your creative projects: https://tidycal.com/theodorestorypaths/15-minute-meetingComment here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/1c1e2383-21c4-4cf3-a9a1-23af8a074de3 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

Welcome to Season 5.What is a podcast?Simply put: sound.Any kind of sound.Let’s take this medium for a spin.Comment here: https://storypaths.substack.com/p/6c6ec518-3a64-483c-910a-ca278c5eb0b5 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 recently called a small group of well-wishing friends together around a fire for a story share. This is a culture-weaving practice, where one person shares their life story with others. My friend John Wolfstone did this when he was leaving our island in the Salish Sea, speaking themes of ancestral healing that were present for him in his time here. After being here for about two years, I felt the moment had come. I’ve noticed a tendency I have, when arriving somewhere new, to become silent. To observe, to share little about myself. Then, if I feel safe and ready, I come out. This is my coming out. It was vulnerable, because I don’t have long-term relations here. Yet there are those I felt I could call on to be present, and I feel blessed by how they showed up and witnessed me. Friends backed me up with singing and guitar to accompany my own drumming, story and song. My life remembered is a prism of portals: each one opens to detailed sensory and emotional experiences; what to choose? I thought of organizing my life story according to a theme, like my relationship with spirituality or eros. It felt too abstract. I settled on arranging my story according to land: places that have homed me. The lakelands to the east of this continent, the grassland-mountain regions where I grew up, the arid regions of recovery and introspection, the far eastern lands with dense mythical patterns forming a story skin over hill and plateau, and the bombastic temperate rainforest I now call home. With land, people. With land, memories.I feel blessed to have lived this and shared it.To hear more about it, do listen to the audio above. Are you called to share your story?Perhaps you’ve passed through a difficult trial, and feel called to be witnessed. Perhaps you’re leaving a place, or coming somewhere new.People also share stories with pictures when returning from travels, as another friend of mine did upon returning from Australia, expressing detailed insights into the ecology there.Life rarely ties up neatly in a bow, and many of us don’t have the full and constant community we might want, yet perhaps for you, as for me, the time to share your story has come.I hope so.This also marks the end of this season. What’s coming next? A podcast is, in its essense, sound. That could be interviews and musings. It could also be audio documents of travel, music, riffing on stories real-time, and much more besides.This podcast and newsletter has an exploratory, curious, community-weaving nature. Kind of like a friendly dog, sniffing around, charming people and getting them talking. This coming season, this podcast-dog is going off-leash.Hear you then.Happy storying and being storied,Theo 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

Read this as an article, and share your thoughts hereBook one-on-one story sessions hereHere's an interesting vista of reflection. Consider the meta-layers of narrative in your life, and how they cause you to interface with the world.What's a meta-layer of narrative? It could be mythical explanations of constellations; it could be their scientific explanation, or a hybrid of the two. It's an understanding that doesn't come from your own life alone, but which affects your experience of yourself and the world. They are filters between us and our world. Not necessarily blocking the world, but perhaps letting a certain quality of light in.In a culture with a strong oral tradition, the stories that are told and retold about orca, raven, buffalo, magpie, spider, selkie—all these inform people in their relationships with those being.Modern media has its meta-narratives too. This is true in the case of nonfiction news, giving a specific account of the world, emphasizing certain parts, and de-emphasizing or omitting others. When we receive information from that news source, we are receiving a particular perspective on the world. That news source is like a collective sense organ and brain that gives information about the world to whoever is connected to it.We’re also informed by fiction, which in the way it lands in us, is not as different from non-fiction as we might imagine. Reading the Lord of the rings, we see great heroes, simple hobbits, crafty wizards, agile elves, and ancient trees. We may find ourselves inhabiting those characters in our day to day lives.In contemporary stories, we may find queer characters, neurodivergent characters, characters happily outside media beauty norms. We may inhabit those characters in their story, which will change how we we inhabit our lives, and our collective lives.Which meta narratives are you influenced by, and how do they affect your experience of the world? 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 recently watched Studio Ghibli’s new film, The Boy and the Heron.Perplexed and fascinated, I watched it again. The film has many layers, and not neatly stacks. Metaphors, history, personal experiences, imagination, mythology: there are many aspects to focus on.I’m especially drawn by the films’ two worlds, and how they intertwine. One is a countryside estate in Japan during World War 2. The other is an underworld accessed through a mysterious tower.While it will be helpful for you if you’ve seen the film, and there will be spoilers, I reckon this will be interesting either way.To help with this exploration, I brought on my friend Chandler Passafiume: storyteller, game designer, writer and poet. When we met, both of us staying in an island farming community, our story minds connected. He’s so good that he may even become one of a few regular, rotating co-hosts on the show. You can find him at Substack at Wandering Cloud.Overlapping worlds is a huge theme in mythology, as in modern stories, and aren’t we each moving in different worlds that affect each other? The world of work and home life, of one group of friends and another, of diverse lands we moved between. We discuss the boy hero’s approach to the otherworld, how the same characters appear differently on each side, how some characters move between the worlds, the role of the trickster heron, and even mutual causality between worlds. As this one was a lively conversation, I’ve chosen not to make it into a written article as well. It’s available on any podcast player; just search under Story Paths.Until the next,Theo 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

Book one-on-one story sessions hereRead this as an article, and share your thoughts hereHere’s something a little different, a fictionalized story of my own life. You may find resonance with your own canyon crossings. For a version with music and sound, listen to the recording.In we go.A man is crossing a sandy, stony plane. As he passes, long-tailed mice with huge ears hop behind wiry bushes who are as thrifty with water as a posse of poor widows abandoned by their children are with their coppers.The boy is thrifty too.His energies run beneath his skin, burrowed in his bones.It's been such a long journey.And just when he's getting swing in his stride, and learning to avoid the little cactus balls hidden all about, he stops short, kicking pebbles down into a canyon so deep that the bottom is lost to dark mist.He steps back, looks across. Of course, his trail continues on the far side. As usual, he could turn back, though he's not convinced that the land wouldn't shift to confound him on back here again. Or some parallel place.Also as usual, there are people between him and the canyon's far side, skating on the air above the great drop as thought playing on invisible ice.He is no longer fooled by their grace. Now he sees the hitches in their movements, the quavers, the dropping down a foot before rising triumphantly again. The dust embedded in their clothes, the rouge covering wrinkles and red scars.F**k it, he says. Then bless me, my lord, and something about universal abundance. A couple words for Odin, for Zeus. Krishna, Mohammed, Jesus, Coyote, Raven, Cailleach and the Creator and Creatrix while he's at it.Then he steps out.It's even further down than it looked. The fall is slow, like a leaf. The wind is silky and succulent on his skin, full of moisture. A river runs beneath him, roaring up the walls, though he can’t see it yet.The fall is so slow that on his way down, he has time to consider his entire journey, from start until now. The creatures who helped and thwarted him. The half dozen other canyons he's crossed. He even manages to release envy for those b******s skating up above. Or loosen it, anyway.And of course, when he lands, it is on the near side of the river.Fording it is wet, precarious work.The far canyon wall looks like it will be a hell of a climb. The last ones sure were.He takes a few breaths and starts up.He's getting stronger. 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

Book one-on-one story sessions hereRead this as an article, and share your thoughts hereLet’s open with a story.Tiger Farming TermitesNeat rows of wood are crisscrossed to draw in delectable foragers, though truth be told, Tiger tastes termites in a pinch. Waiting. Crouched. Poised. Bored as the boards he's laid out, until an unconscious ungulate wanders warily, to nibble green blades. Tiger pounces, rolls, breaks the creature’s soft neck. Crushes termites.The dying words of the aardvark are ‘Oh brethren bugs! Warn my kin.’When the feast has passed, Tiger grumbles for weeks, hungry.Are Stories Good or Bad?If we ask the question of whether a given story is good or bad, this binary approach quickly falls apart. For this exploration, let’s use the word ‘story’ in the broadest sense. This story could be an old myth that nourishes a people's relation with the land, or an old myth that pits people against others. It could be propaganda, put out by a political group or corporation to corral people into certain behaviors. A story could provoke racism, casting certain people in victor roles and others as villains. A story may cast us humans as masters of the Earth, with dominion over all others, or rather as newcomers to this wondrous place, and the most dependent of all the other beings who preceded us. Is there anything as powerful as a story? The stories that we take in determine our behavior, over our lifetimes and over generations. A story can be about everyday people from our own time and place, and the happenings in their lives may divert us from the difficulties in our own. The tale in a television series might capture the minds of millions, season after season, so much so that viewers know more about these fictional folks than they do about the historical figures upon whom they're based. For the minds and motivations of the historical figures are opaque, but those of the characters are transparent, allowing us, the viewers, to enter in, get a sense of who they are, and why they act as they do. Living StoriesIs a given story good or bad? Instead of a binary rubric—rooted in computing and notions of piety and sin, good and bad karma, or a scale of justice—I instead propose an animistic understanding. I'm sitting now by a pond where I often write these articles. I see old man's beard moss hanging on willow trees, and sword ferns with spores dotting their undersides. I feel the sun shining on my forehead, hands and chest. A mosquito lands on the moss, a raven steals eggs from another bird's nest. As the season goes on, this sun’s cool light will increase in heat until I must retreat indoors in the full of the day. Are these things good or bad? The mosquitoes bad for me, but good for the birds who eat ki. The willow is beautiful to me, but is out-competing reeds and ferns around ki. The sun nourishes our entire planet, and yet can bring death-dealing heat. So let us drop this consideration of good or bad, and even a spectrum between them. Let’s instead consider the willow, the raven, the sun, the mosquito, as beings with their own natures and wills, and their own intricate relationships with each other. Now, let’s bring this allegory of an ecosystem to stories: their identities, their natures, and their relationships with other stories. As there are predatory creatures, there are predatory stories: propaganda that divides and conquers, setting kin against kin, fomenting nations into war. As a bear upturns a stone and digs up the larvae underneath, some stories cause people to enter the homes of others and take whatever they want. Those stories say, ‘They are lesser than you. You deserve this.’ The bear doesn’t need stories to do this, but somehow we humans do. Migrating StoriesA stream of water will gradually wear a trough into the land. That trough, given enough water and time, will become a canyon. So too with some stories who begin in an unassuming way, then grow and grow until they’re wearing a canyon into minds and hearts of listeners. Consider the story of Christianity: a rabbi and his followers preached revolutionary love at a time of colonization and war. After his death, that story gradually spread from land to land, and as it did, it adapted to people's hearts and minds, or you could say they tamed it for their own purposes. The story appeared one way in eastern lands, another in the West, North, South, and indeed in every individual who came into contact with that story, be they believers or not. So too with the spread of Buddhism: from a man's teaching in northern India, it spread north into what's now called China, Tibet and Bhutan, south into India and Sri Lanka, east into Japan, and now in pockets throughout the world. In each place this story adapted to the landscape of minds, hearts and culture, just as moss will grow differently on an aldar or on an oak. Story SporesThere are stories that support empires. Empires arose in Europe, China, Japan, South America, United States, Germany, Italy, Rome, and Vijay Nagar, and elsewhere. Each had standing armies, central power, and stories to live by, which told them that they had a right to rule others, a right to expand, to take, to tax. Yet the stories within them had many different flavors in different times and places. Perhaps the stories justifying empire are like spores on the wind, finding purchase in different cultures and changing according to their host. Are spores good or bad?The old animistic view considers stories as beings. As people. Just as we're negotiating situations throughout our lives—setting terms, considering what kind of connection we want with this person or that person—so too let us consider our relationship with stories. Just as our relationship with human people is not fixed but shifting, so too is our relationship with stories. PromptsReflect on a story that migrated into your life from a different culture or background. How did it adapt to your inner landscape?Think about a story that supported or challenged an empire-like structure in your life (e.g. a restrictive relationship or community). How did this story challenge the old guard? Where did that story find strength?Explore a narrative that your business or industry promotes. How does this story interact with the broader cultural landscape?Reflect on how the marketing of a similar product varies between audiences. For example, how do you see different kinds of vehicles being marketed, or brands of ice cream? Which stories take root in which soil?Until the next,happy creating,Theo 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

Book one-on-one story sessions hereRead this as an article, and share your thoughts hereIn 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-EightLaura 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 CirclesIn 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 PromptsConsider 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. 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