Michael the Storyteller:
Biographical Notes
For 25 years, Michael the Storyteller (also known as Michael O’Malley and Michael Kasony-O’Malley) has offered his storytelling programs and his public talks, lectures, workshops, and seminars. The sharing of stories and the integration of mindfulness into daily life are integral to Michael’s life, mission, and work. As a storyteller, parson, educator, and writer, – as well as in his many personal roles – Michael brings together his loves of spirituality, culture, tradition, ecology, and lore.
Michael began his work as a professional storyteller and public speaker in 1994. He has shared stories with hundreds of thousands of people. Before this, Michael was an elementary school teacher and he integrated storytelling into each of his classes. Michael embraces his deep roots in the Youngstown, Ohio area (and his hometown of Struthers) – including his blue-collar background, his Slovak & Irish ethnic heritage, and the family lore that he and his relatives continue to celebrate and enjoy. From a young age, Michael felt a strong connection with our Mother Earth, along with a deep sense of the sacred – both within us and between us.
Stories, storytelling, and story listening fill Michael’s life in his many personal roles – as husband, father of four, grandfather of two, son, family member, friend, neighbor, stranger, acquaintance, and fellow Earthling. The intersections of spirituality, culture, tradition, ecology, and lore arise again and again throughout Michael’s daily life.
Inspirations for Public Talks, Workshops, & Storytelling
Years ago, Michael the Storyteller met the iconic storyteller Brother Blue. Brother Blue gave him what Michael calls “a blessing.”
Michael explains, “Brother Blue held my two hands in his own. He looked gently into my eyes and said, ‘Always entertain them,’ and then he paused before adding, ‘and never just entertain them.’ The power and sincerity of his touch and words brought tears to my eyes.”
In her 1942 classic book The Way of the Storyteller, Ruth Sawyer counsels that the most important practice for the storyteller is “the building of spiritual background.” Nearly every day – for the last 24 years – Michael O’Malley has devoted time to that “building of spiritual background.” Michael took Sawyer at her word, but he jokes, “What’s most embarrassing is how slowly I learn! After a quarter century of this work, we might hope someone would make a bit more progress on the spiritual path than I have!”
Despite his limitations, Michael offers his public talks, lectures, seminars, and workshops, as well as his storytelling programs, with the hope that others may find inspiration and encouragement in the many teachers, teachings, mindfulness practices, stories, legends, myths, rituals, and traditions that continue to inspire him.
Michael R. Kasony-O’Malley has always viewed his storytelling work, public talks, workshops, and lectures as “sacred,” even though it is often “sacred silliness!” He says, “Please don’t confuse ‘sacredness’ with being ‘holier than thou’ or ‘taking oneself too seriously.’ I would argue the opposite. Those who laugh with ease, walk with lightness, play with children, enjoy the natural world, and value listening to others’ stories (and appreciate the varieties of others’ stories) are the ones I look to as models of being in touch with the sacred.”
Michael considers Brother Blue’s and Ruth Sawyer’s words to be guideposts on the journey of sacred storytelling. Michael says, “As Brother Blue taught: The work of deep storytelling is always to entertain, and never to just entertain.” For Michael, spirituality, culture, tradition, ecology, and lore continually meet and intersect through this sacredness of story.
Michael’s Travels & Exeriences
Michael also draws from his life travels and experiences to enrich his talks, workshops, and storytelling. Years ago, O’Malley and his family were the only non-Japanese in attendance at a neighborhood folk festival in Tokyo. Michael has visited Christian churches and Buddhist temples in South Korea, stayed with Slovak relatives (who spoke no English) in Slovakia, and he spent two and half months on the other side of the Iron Curtin – in the USSR and other countries – before the Berlin Wall came down.
Ruth Sawyer writes, “I had the good fortune to travel. Festivals, weddings, market-days, church, and saints’ days – I missed none of them. I rode in third-class carriages, in the rural motorbuses, to take part in peasant life everywhere. There was as much of rich storing away in these experiences as in the actual gathering of stories. It built the unforgettable backgrounds for the stories I did hear.” Like Sawyer, Michael has had great opportunities to travel, and this has added richness and depth to his life and to his public talks and programming.
As a young man, Michael visited Native American Indian reservations in over ten states, worked in a homeless shelter in Ireland, helped with an archeological dig in the former Czechoslovakia, participated in a peace conference in the Soviet Union, worked for a peace organization in Sweden, did environmental work here in the States, and taught elementary school in the inner-city. In this varied work, Michael has been continuously invited to open himself to new perspectives, fresh insights, rich stories.
Beyond travel, O’Malley has also added richness and depth to his work through his education. Michael did graduate work in Social & Developmental Psychology, graduated with a Master of Education degree from Wheelock College in Boston, and received a Master of Divinity degree from the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. And, over the last three decades, through his public talks, seminars, workshops, and storytelling programs, Michael has shared his vast repertoire of stories with hundreds of thousands of listeners.
The Sacred and the Story
Michael says, “Every aspect of our lives is linked to spirituality, culture, tradition, ecology, and lore – everything is connected through story. The goal – we fail at it all the time – but the goal is to lean into the lightness, depth, and sacredness of this moment.” Michael has been a mindfulness practitioner for over 25 years. It is impossible to separate the mindfulness work from the storytelling path. This inspires Michael to integrate mindfulness practices into his talks, workshops, and other programming. Michael even offers one-on-one mindfulness coaching for others who embrace the power and value of presence.
Every place, person, thing, and living being is an invitation to presence. Ruth Sawyer speaks of storytelling as “a living art,” the story is alive in the moment of its telling. Again, this guides Michael in all his roles – as a storyteller, parson, educator, and writer – as well as in his many personal roles.
Michael says, “I am incredibly fortunate that I get to tell people stories, to share lore, to bring folk tales and spiritual stories to life. I have the opportunity to awaken my own imagination and the imaginations of my listeners every time I share and, of course, this often leads others to share stories with me. Then, I get to be the listener, the one who hears the stories of others. This happens to me as a husband, father, and son, as well as in my roles as a parson, public speaker, and storyteller.”
O’Malley continues, “People sometimes look at me quizzically when I speak of storytelling and story listening as ‘sacred acts.’ Do you want to know how important stories are? I invite you to think of a loved one who has passed away – maybe they died recently, maybe it was years ago, maybe they passed away suddenly or unexpectedly, maybe they died after a long battle with an illness. What would you give to have another thirty minutes with them to simply sit and listen to their stories? What would you give to be able to say, ‘Hey, tell me about the time when…’ and then sit back and listen?
Many of my loved ones are gone. I’m ‘the youngest child of the youngest child’ on both the Irish and Slovak sides of my family and I’m now in my mid-50’s. I think of my dad, my sister, most of my aunts and uncles, some of my old buddies who are gone. I can’t begin to articulate how much I would love to be able to sit and listen to their stories once again. I can say that sometimes I get to tell a story about one of these people, maybe to a large group, maybe to one of my own children or a friend, and, when I do, I am so deeply grateful for the stories that I have that I can share – for the opportunities I have to share a little bit of some of these people with others.”
Mindfulness & His Partner Ali
Michael and Ali met years ago as elementary school teachers. They are the parents of four children ranging in age from 11 to 30 and they have two young grandchildren. Ali has been the key behind-the-scenes person and administrator in their storytelling business since day one.
Inspired by years of experiences at Mindfulness Retreats with the Vietnamese Buddhist monk (& friend of Martin Luther King, Jr.) Thich Nhat Hanh, Michael and Ali co-founded the Buddhist Christian Mother-Earth Church (the BCMC) in 2009. Michael serves as the BCMC parson and Ali is the BCMC Youth Programming Coordinator. From 2014 through 2017, Michael was a full-time student in seminary at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO). In 2017, Michael graduated with a Master of Divinity degree and a specialization in Ecological Theology, EcoSpirituality, and Social Justice.
Michael O’Malley’s spiritual and religious studies, along with his work as a parson, are all invitations to mindfulness and to the further inter-weaving of spirituality, culture, tradition, ecology, and lore. As a mindfulness teacher, Michael now integrates mindfulness practices into many of his public talks and storytelling performances. He now leads special workshops that focus on mindfulness and, for those with a deep interest, he offers one-on-one mindfulness coaching.
Together with Ali, Michael also integrates the mindfulness work. As a team, Ali and Michael offer workshops on mindfulness for families and they offer special programs on spiritual homeschooling. Along with Ali & Michael’s dedication to professional collaboration in this work and in their work with their emergent church, Michael & Ali’s spiritual lives have been shaped by gardening; the homeschooling of their three youngest children; and (at least in their better moments!) focusing their energies on investing in community with family & friends; resisting freneticism; valuing lightness & play; and re-sacralizing our world & our lives.
Michael, Ali, and their family live (again, in their finer moments!) at the intersection of spirituality, culture, tradition, ecology, and lore – with an awareness of the value of this present moment and its “enoughness.” Ali and Michael understand that the “sticky stuff” of this life and these moments that so often bonds us is – story. As Michael says, “Stories. Storytelling. Story Listening. I am incredibly fortunate to be involved in such sacred work in my many life roles.”