A THREE-PART SEMINAR ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LIMINAL SPACE IN STORYTELLING
Part One: One Plus One Is Three; ‘Liminal Space’
Accessing, Ordering and Integrating Knowledge
When we listen to a story, we continue to experience the world around us and we perceive the soul-scape of the tale at the same time. As these two sets of consciousness overlap, they create a third. This third space is the liminal space. We can use this liminal space to access deeper levels of knowledge, to order inner chaos and to integrating stored memories. By telling stories, we can give this gift to our families, our friends and our communities.
Part One: One Plus One Is Three; ‘Liminal Space’
Using storytelling, conversation, individual and group work, I will show you how to mark the shift into Liminal Space by:
- Preparing the ground with ritual story openings
- Stepping across the boundary into Story
- Returning home with ritual closings
Part Two: I’ll Hold Your Story While You Tie Your Shoe!
Storytelling, Community Building and Social Responsibility; It’s All About Communication
Community storytelling bridges difference and brings us together. Because stories tell truths that are essential and common to all humankind, folktales globalise our feelings through empathy.
A Storytelling with ‘turning about’ conversation helps us become aware of our different points of view and our interconnectedness. Because we build this awareness through imagination, we can become mindful and competent; we are able to think and feel differently about our situation, individually and communally, in new and more resourceful ways.
Storytelling develops ethical imagination and helps us see parallel relationships where none existed before, empowering us to act with integrity and compassion. Community Storytelling cultivates an awareness of ‘the community as witness’ and ‘the community as protector’ and awakens social responsibility.
This workshop combines storytelling, contemplation, ‘turning about’ conversation, individual and small group work.
My approach will show you how to:
- Unpack a story and find the key-images
- Practice ‘turning about’ conversation and use it as a tool for community building
- Create ‘public liminality’ to open communities and groups to transformational change and social responsibility
Part Three: The Storyteller’s Awareness
The Telling Difference: The Moral of the Story or Moral-Ethical Imagination
Whether we are seasoned storytellers or just dipping a toe into the ocean of stories we all face a question: How do I approach this story so that I can tell it?
In essence, this is a question of awareness – our storyteller’s awareness.
The awareness we bring to the stories we tell will affect how alive they are, how accessible they are to the people who are listening, whether our stories are a wholesome seed each person can grow in freedom, according to their needs, or a piece of toxic propaganda.
You will build your awareness of:
- The profound difference between reading and listening
- How to contemplate story images
- Mapping and structures
- The listeners’ freedom; recitative speech or dramatic presentation
- Moving from ‘the moral of the story’ to ‘supporting ethical imagination’
