Preparation: The Joyful Mystery of Choosing a Story -

The path is not long, but the way is deep.

You must not only walk there,

you must be prepared to leap. - Hildegard of Bingen –

The retreat begins before we begin – just as a story begins before the actual first words of the tale. What leads us to a particular story is a mystery. We might have reasons, and ideas, but as we work through our days it becomes evident that the story has far more relevance to us than we imagined. We suddenly sense that it might have chosen us. Many aspects of our own life experience, obvious and unconscious, are at play in the choice. However, we have to make a choice in order to set the work of the retreat in motion and get as much out of our time together as possible.

No matter what story you decide on, it is important to realize that it is best not to choose a tale because you want to improve your performance of that story, or you think it is entertaining for kids. Choose a story that feels personal and ut that you want to deepen , expand and harvest working on stories throughout your career and life. In fact, choose a story that feels right for you rather than even thinking about performing at this point. Then all you explore will enrich your relationship to storytelling in multiple ways.

Definitely choose a story that is worthy of the rich work we will do. What does that mean? Whether you plan to work with a tale you have told before or are just starting to invest in.. choose one that has some challenge for you. I suggest that it is not a good idea to find a picture book version of a tale. A picture book is written for the page, and also has many conditions that depend on the pictures and the layout of the book that can actually remove some of the important images and events of a story in service of the editor’s idea of what would make a really good illustrated version.

Choosing a story on the internet is fine and problematic. We often have no idea who has rewritten the tale. If you are drawn to a version on the net, please find it in a collection or a study where you can discern who is the editor or collector (or both).

Some clues to making a choice:

~ A story may bother you actually. You might not fully like all that takes place. Yet, an image or a cluster of events might touch you.

~ There is never a single moral or meaning to a tale, so avoid stories that sum up the tale with a little explanation summary at the end. That usually means that the story is manipulated by someone to prove a point. Then, it is not a story any more.

~ I love to work with fragments of epics, myths, fairytales or traditional folktales that have not been reconstructed as children’s stories.

~ If you choose a story set in print by a writer/therapist who offers commentary, find more versions of the story. Enjoy what they have written about the tale, but do not accept that the interpretation assigned is the only meaning. A good story is a bit like a dream and can play jokes on you, or say one thing while pointing to something else. This is the great fun of working the way that we do.

~ I hope you will be open to our working deeply to let the story images speak to us beyond our opinions, biases or interpretations.

~ If you have wanted to tell a particular story for a long time, this might be a good chance.

Almost anything you choose will come alive for you during the week in surprising ways. Also, we will work a lot with personal story as reflections. It usually does not work to anyone’s benefit to decide to create a personal story during the week. Then you spend all of your time figuring out what to say and how to say it. The wealth of work on finding out how to bring story to life is watered down.

Best to choose something that has a structure and is already constructed. This work will apply to your personal narratives and enrich how you are able to work with memory to turn them into story as well.

Take a leap.

Choose a story that calls to you.

Even if you do not understand it.

And be ready to deconstruct it, dive into it, look at it from many angles and put it back together again.

In order to take best take advantage of our process: Choose a story that reads between 10 and 15 minutes or less. Do not choose a longer tale. You will not be able to work with the entire story. See if you can find several versions to journey into the story more fully.

In the next blog, I will talk about some preliminary things to do to prepare to work with the story for our week.