“When I was a kid, most stories had one basic message: If you’re strong, if you’re brave, if you’re honest, everything will turn out all right. It’s a good message, but we can add other important messages. One I include quite often is that if we work together, we can accomplish things that we can’t do alone. Another is that if the world is going to last, we must make better choices about how we live. And if we all do our part, a hundred years from now our grandchildren will be making up their own stories and retelling the ones we’re making up today.” – Pete Seeger, Pete Seeger’s Storytelling Book, p. 209-210.
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We are at a moment of cultural and environmental crisis. In terms of mental health, most humans in modern society are largely disconnected from their roots in the natural world; we are suffering mentally, emotionally, psychically, socially, spiritually, and we continue to further disengage from our relationship to nature and our identity as nature’s own. Along with our human health, we are blinding ourselves to the greater health of our planet. Three strangely complementary systems of rejection and denial are at work: 1) There is the simple denial that there even is a problem to be confronted in the health of our planet, our ecosystems, and the lives of our plants, animals, and humans; 2) There is the denial that humans have much if anything to do with the health of the Earth and/or the problems that our Earthen environments are currently facing; and 3) Even among those who accept our Earth’s health problems (and are even deeply troubled by them), there is a third, subtle, treacherous denial at work: the world-wise denial that anything can be done to alleviate our Earth’s problems; a sickly, sophisticated embrace of our powerlessness; a focus on our impotence as “a given;” a negating of all worthy efforts as foolhardy, “too late,” “not enough,” or simply impossible. Sardonic wins. Everyone loses.
The potential for stories and storytelling in the healing of our planet and ourselves is paramount. It may be that the sardonics have it right, maybe humans will offer too little too late in the healing of our planet – but, if there are positive possibilities for wholeness and healing, storytellers must be among the physicians. And even if our efforts do not lead to the best or hoped-for outcomes, they may lead to better outcomes than would otherwise result from no effort at all. And even if “the results” are negligible, the true storytellers know that the storytelling is never “in vain.”
Stories are for the benefit of listeners. Those who hold and remember and recall worthy stories receive nourishment long after the teller has departed. A nourishing story is food. Sometimes a tale is health-giving, providing needed sustenance. Sometimes we are beyond the possibility of good health, but the worthwhile story still provides something – an easing of pain, a soothing of anxieties, an acknowledgement of loss, or maybe some positive unknown for future generations; stories are sometimes elixirs with restorative powers that ripen in times beyond the present. Worthy stories are needed food, feeding us, our children, and our descendents in times of want and hunger.
Our Earthen home is in need of healing. We are in need of healing. Storytellers are not the only doctors, but we are influential physicians, essential specialists. Healing and inspiring stories provide needed medicine. In the midst of the storm, we storytellers must be calm, mindful, selective; we must mix, concoct, and share the finest medicines available to us; we must experiment and continue to learn, searching all the shelves of our medicine cabinets, drawing from all of our history and training, for the right prescriptions and dosages in this time of needed healing.
I saw Pete Seeger tell tales and sing stories at the National Storytelling Festival years ago. In between tales, he paused, looked at the crowd and stated it simply: If humanity survives, a key part of the reason for our survival will be because of the stories, the storytelling, the story listening, the story listeners, and the storytellers. Our work is the healing of ourselves and the healing of our home – the healing of our Earth.
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Recall a single story or tale that has left an indelible mark of inspiration on your life. It may be a folk tale, a literary story, an anecdote from your life or from the life of another.
Stories inspire…and heal. We, as humans, are caretakers of this planet and we are members of the Earthen family. Every time a person cares for a plant, an animal, a park, a forest, a nature preserve, a fellow human, they are caring for the Earthen family. Recognize every act of compassionate caring as an act of healing for ourselves and our lovely planet.
Listen to stories that highlight our interconnectedness and inspire us to act with magnanimity. Share tales that nourish us, heal us, and offer a beneficial balm to our planet in need of healing.
(Music: Courtesy of Adrian von Ziegler, “Sacred Earth.” )