Telling one’s own story is an ancient art. Nowadays, we have forgotten how to listen and how to tell. Yet the very survival of our species depends on our ability to communicate with each other in such ways as to be mutually enriched by the telling and the listening. If we cannot tell with expression, our life is mute. If we cannot listen like a mirror, we cannot reflect back the wholeness of body, soul, mind and spirit of the teller.

 

What comes forth in the story is the stuff of self-transformation. Even as we “myth” ourselves into experience, so we express ourselves into existence. Our stories about our natural selves, and our means of expressing them, lead us to courage, determination, commitment, hope, wisdom, and the will to survive, to transcend the difficulty, to go beyond ourselves. Those of us who work with people must know how to listen and respond to the stories our people tell, so that we can help them create a life that is deeper, richer, and of greater benefit to our community and the earth. 

 

This is a training for guides, trainees, and people who have had some experience with the art of mirroring. We will look at how collective mythology, universal archetypes, and archetypal dynamics are expressed in story, and how this informs the art of mirroring. We will explore different forms of storytelling and mirroring such as movement, dance, song, and artistic expression, in additional to verbal.

 

Mornings will be taken up with meetings, afternoons with solitary excursions into the surrounding land that evoke the four shields of human-nature. In the late afternoons and evenings we will tell, listen to, and practice mirroring stories that empower. The objectives of the seminar are to experience human-nature deeply; to elicit personal “mythos” through the expression of the story; and to acquire knowledge and experience of how to listen and respond to the four personas of human nature (“mirror”).