Sometimes a
capital letter can be a convenient way to make something more formal, more
distinct, more singularly important. The word “God”, for example, names and
makes specific one’s understanding of a spiritual guide; this is significantly
different from “god” – the generic and non-personal use of the same word. I
like to use the word “Story”, capitalized, to refer to the deep, spiritual,
archetypal, undeniable aspects of a person’s life, as the person understands it
most richly. Some of us are really good at telling ‘stories’, sometimes
colorful or imaginative, but often not embedded with the inexplicable,
transcendent, soulfulness that adds meaning, texture, vibrancy to a person’s intuitive
comprehension of their life. A “Story” actually speaks to the truth of a
person’s interconnection with all beings. A “Story” is complex, can have many
contradictions in “facts”; but a Story is unbiased; it tells the human
experience as it is, for that person,
at that time. Often, too, a “Story” will be the impetus for a Change in the
person’s life.
When I tell
people I pursue an endeavor of Storylistening, I must necessarily describe to
people just what that means. We are all storytellers. Some of us are
Storytellers, getting to the crux of the matter. Usually I give examples: a Story could be about a person’s experience
of a profound loss (a partner or mother), or about a spiritual experience that
changed them, or about a lifelong battle with a disease. This Story does not
just relay “facts” – the actual events and feelings that occurred in some
fairly objective way. A Story is much more than a simple, subjective rendition
of some event. A Story reaches into – and comes from - the depths of a person
and it is immutable. A Story has a life of its own, sometimes not even rendered
conscious to the storyteller until the moment it comes to life in their words
and expressions. Sometimes a storyteller needs help, a little “oiling of the
spiritual cogs”, to get the movement and flow of the Truest Thing to come
forth. It is emergent and fluid. When I say a Story is ‘immutable’, I do not
mean that it is impervious to change. What I mean is that the Story is
completely and honestly True in the moment and conditions of its telling. It
comes from the soul-place (heart, spirituality, intuition, creative space). As
such, it can alter its course in a person’s life (and thus, alter the course of the storyteller’s life),
if it resides in the soul-place at the time that the Soul is undergoing
“revision”. A Story is less about what happened (on the outside) and more about
what is occurring on the inside, even
as the Story is being told. It is the experience of a Story that matters most,
not just the storylines that make it something conveyable.
We all tell
stories... Stories never
end...
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
