The New Story – Storytelling as a Pathway to Peace

Story

Chapter 1

THE CALL

One human being. And then another, and another. That's all it takes to begin to change the world. Maybe we get caught by a flash of insight, seeing commonplace things in a new light and suddenly realize what is to be done. Though none other see it. Perhaps we have been living with a riddle, a question for a long time and one day it is mature and ready and just steps into the world. Or, it may come deeply and directly out of our being, and we just respond. We find ourselves in the middle of a situation and we just do it. Afterwards we think about what happened. And then it becomes a story.

Welcome to the world of storytelling and heartfelt good listening. This is a place where the imaginative abilities of us all can be put in service of a greater whole, supporting peaceful, transformative processes in all manner of life situations. Whether you are a parent relating to your children and spouse at home, or a corporate executive wanting to communicate with your employees; whether you are trying to mediate between warring factions or simply want to connect to a deeper source of humanity in the world – Welcome! Speaking and listening, sharing experiences within and without, is a way of being together which goes back far to the beginning of time. This is something we all know how to do, it is the birthright of every human being. You too possess this gift of entering into conversation, with yourself, with the people around you and with the deeper wisdom in the challenges and joys on your life's path. In the weaving back and forth of word and silence, stories are born. Communities of understanding can grow here. Life acquires beauty and new meaning.

This book is based on a lifetime's work, research and play with storytelling and the social arts, where two or more gather to listen and create together. Over the years a methodology has grown which develops faculties of seeing with greater heart and soul, thus expanding our capacity for wakefulness and compassion, ingenuity and radical thinking. All qualities much needed in our present time.

It is clear that living together peacefully today calls for a new development of our capacities – we need to practice new skills. Community doesn't happen naturally anymore. We seem to have lost a common language and a common ground of understanding. Estrangement from life processes and the world of nature with its living landscapes is pushing us towards alienation, and so we can feel lost in the world. Very many people experience a deep sense of loneliness and of not belonging. Wherever you turn these days, whoever you speak to or when listening to the news, there are problems of understanding each other and the needs of the earth – difficulties in communicating, coming to decisions and finding viable ways forward. Often there is a lack of, or a confusion of vision: where are we actually going, how do we navigate in life? The old forms do not hold – we see them crumbling everywhere. In spite of the strong focus on technological prowess and digital brilliance, with its promise of a united world where the machines will connect us up and free us by doing all the work for us, people are more stressed than ever, running faster and faster in their daily lives. That is, if they live in the West. Another large part of humanity is suffering depravation of life and loss of human dignity in the form of famine, poverty and exploitation. This, mind you, in a world where there would be enough food to feed us all, if we co-operated with the earth and worked it in a natural way.

The on-going eruptions of war and armed conflict in the world are direct expressions of the breakdown of speech and dialogue in a community. We know that when people are not able to express themselves with words, they turn to violence. The inner pressures of frustration, suffering and need must find an outlet. If a person cannot be creative, he easily becomes destructive. Anything to communicate. The power of the living word between people is replaced by a sword of destruction. To learn to speak and listen and take charge of your own life is fundamental and educational peace work. Storytelling activities are an excellent way of developing this practice.

Nowadays, community is a real virtue and asks of us all to be inwardly mobile and creative. At the same time, we are each confronted with the need to formulate our own values and ground of ethical living, building the world from where we stand. This is one of the big challenges for us all, in face of the many world questions and problems we are confronted with today. There are no easy answers. However, I am convinced that intimations of possible futures together in all shapes and guises lie in wait in the rich potential of our creative imagination. Nowhere else, actually. It's up to us human beings.

The work presented here comes out of a deep conviction that there indeed is something we can do about the current situation facing us in the world today. That 'something' is about coming together in freedom to connect to our common humanity and to explore the many facets of life as expressed in the individuals present. It is also about accessing the wisdom of all those who have gone before us through the myths, wonder tales, legends and spiritual legacies of the world, handed down to us through the ages by word of mouth. These stories belong to us, as the wind and the stars and sea belong to us – they come from our ancestors and contain a treasure chest full of knowledge and lived experience. But more than anything, storytelling work is about igniting the power of the human spirit, a creative spark which lives in every one of us and holds the key to, and source of our future.

GETTING INTO MOVEMENT

Some years ago, soon after the turn of the millennium, there was a football match at a big stadium in Belgium. The stands were full, the crowds were cheering, the game was full on. Suddenly one wing of the lecterns collapsed, literally broke under the weight of the crowd. People started panicking and ran in great hordes in all directions to get out. Some fell and were trampled underfoot by the surging masses. There was chaos everywhere. In the midst of all this one man stopped and stood by one of the fallen ones lying on the ground. He just stood there while the hordes of panicking people swept past, parting ways around him, no doubt with some knocking and bustling. Still he stood there over the recumbent human being. Soon another person stopped and stood by him. And then, more and more people stopped. All the while, the mad rush of the crowd surged past them. Ten, fifteen, twenty people stopped and between them, they created a space. Many lives were saved.

This is a powerful image. And something that actually happened, only recently. We can be inspired by this and understand that sometimes we don't have do anything proactively in a situation. Sometimes it is enough to see what is happening, to stop and stand by what you love and hold most dear. Stand there, against all odds. Take a stand. In such a way, others can come and join you. Those who see and hear will come. And soon there will be many. In this way you can create a space where something else happens. This space is a possibility for something new to grow. We may not be able to stop the surge over the hill, or the massive onslaught of the crowd, but we can stop ourselves and just stand and breathe and say: Maybe there is something else we want to do here. Could we have a breathing space, a listening space, see if we could come to a freedom space?

Let us turn our eyes to another part of the world, to the west coast of the United States. Here in some protected places is the home of the redwoods. Giants of time and space, these are coniferous trees rearing up their red trunks counted in thousands of years on earth. They are ancient, they are huge and they are full of money for those who want to make goodly-sized planks for multi-million dollar homes. What is a tree? Well, it is all in the eyes of the beholder, isn't it? To other eyes, a tree connects heaven and earth, and a large, old tree has a particular task in the cosmology of living beings.

One day a young woman of 19 summers turned up at a Save-the-Redwoods camp, drawn irresistibly by the beauty of the trees. She volunteered to climb up 80 meters to a 'tree-sit' on a small 2 x 3 meter makeshift ledge. The tree was under threat by a timber company but as long as someone was in the tree, they could not cut it down. Fired by her love and passion for the redwoods, she ended up living for more than two years in the tree without coming down, enduring cold winters, wild storms and times alone there. This was longer than any other experienced activist had ever spent in a tree. Her long vigil finally bore fruit and the tree was protected. Then she climbed down. Since then Julia Butterfly Hill has devoted her life to supporting people in finding what they really believe in. Find Your Tree, she calls her project, and nowadays she travels around the world as an activist and a staunch supporter and guardian of what she loves: the earth.

This too is a real story, a heroic story of our time. I can see what it does to my daughters and their teenage friends when I tell them about Julia Butterfly Hill. Their eyes light up, their fingers let go of the incessant clicking on their mobiles and the nervousness of having to stay in touch constantly. This is another way of connecting. Now the young hearts are open, willing and listening, longing to hear of something which is worthwhile and real. Longing to be part of a world of meaning, excited to hear that life is not just a virtual reality and an endless game. Of course they are! They are vibrant young people full of life and power!

Why am I speaking about this? What has it got to do with storytelling and peace-building? Many things. First and foremost, you must WANT peace and transformation. You have to put your will into it, your imagination and your longing. Without inspired passion, things will not change. And there will be resistance, both inner and outer, on your way. You must be willing to meet such resistance and keep your eyes on the light, that which you love. Secondly, without an inspired vision of what could be, we will never take another step forward in our development. Nothing exists in the world that has not first made itself known in the mind and consciousness of a human being. Even if it is just an intimation of something, this is where all change starts. The physical chair that you sit on did not come first: the imagination of it did.

The development of the powers of our creative imagination is vital to the future of the earth, its peoples and all living beings.

An old grandfather was sitting by the fire with his grandchild. Puffing on his pipe and scraping together the embers, he blew and blew on them to bring flames to the fire and warmth into the tipi. After a while he spoke.

You know child, in every human heart two wolves are living. They are fighting. One is fierce and angry and violent, full of hate and evil and destruction. And the other wolf is full of love and compassion, joy and friendship. There is always a battle going on between these two.

The little child was quiet a moment. Then he said,

Which one will win, Grandfather?

The old man looked at the little child, then he said,

The one you feed.

This book is for all who are interested in storytelling as a healing, helping activity between human beings, wherever you are in the world. You need have no prior knowledge or experience of storytelling to start! My particular vantage point is coming from northern Europe and I will be speaking about the experience of living in the Nordic countries with their own peculiarities in the people, the landscape, the weather. I hope that it will spark off some inspiration for you in relation to your own surroundings, maybe finding new ways of seeing old furniture. The Scandinavian countries have a tradition for peace-bringing initiatives and one of the realities of our part of the world is that we have not been at war for a very long time. Some of our countries were involved in the Second World War, but when it comes to fighting each other, we have to go back many generations. Our relationship to nature is very strong and quite possibly a contributing factor to this culture of peaceful co-existence.

I will also be sharing my own journey as a multi-cultural person growing up in several countries. This is a theme that has become more and more common, an expression of how globalisation is increasing in our lives. Many challenges arise from this loosening of the connection to only one land: confusion of identity and cultural belonging, the expansion into a more globally-oriented consciousness and the search for new values to build one's life on. Traditional forms of nationalism have trouble maintaining their relevance in the face of the many travelling folk and mixed marriages we see today. However, not only difficulties arise with the advent of multicultural societies: much potential for growth and development, peace and understanding lies hidden in these new constellations of peoples.

You will read here about work done in a variety of contexts where storytelling has been applied for the benefit of a greater whole or the healing of an individual. Maybe the one cannot happen without the other and indeed, one of the strengths of storywork is that it works with forms where both the individual and the group have a voice. You will find stories, exercises, cases and reflections on what it is to be a human being today. Storyteller colleagues of mine from around the world, each working within their own field, bring contributions in the form of little nugget stories, enriching the scope of this book. The ALBA Peace Project has its particular place in the whole, as it was an opportunity to do some actual research on the skills and competencies of the storyteller in peace-supporting situations. The Iraq Dialogue Meeting hosted by the Swedish government was an opportunity for me to bring storytelling into a political context. Again I saw how potent and peaceable storywork is and how it opens up new ways of connecting with the common ground of our humanity.

A long stream of projects, initiatives, workshops and symposia feed into this work, which I have developed over the years. In 2006 I founded a Nordic Healing Story Training, the curriculum of which provides the basis of Storytelling as a Pathway to Peace. It proves to be a method accessible to people from all professions and backgrounds, making it possible to connect with each other out of the richness of human culture. The aim of the training is to develop the imagination as an organ of cognition which in turn can serve and help others in need. It is built on the premise that we are all connected living beings on earth and that there are faculties of perception we can unfold to wake up in this, putting us in touch with a deeper knowing, a greater seeing and in short, making possible what one could call the beginnings of a moral imagination. This deeper seeing can help us unite with the knowledge of what is needed in each moment, and so working with storytelling in this way is not a fixed thing, there are no recipes to look up in a cook book. However, through practice and walking a path of development both on our own and together with others, our imaginative faculties can grow into a more comprehensive way of seeing, speaking and listening that is helpful to others.

Storytelling activities are a way of working that include the whole human being. You don't have to be anything, know anything, do anything special – you just come as you are. A storyteller is someone who speaks freely without outer support of texts, pictures, microphones or any other outer acoutrements, unfolding a story to a listening group of people, who do not tape it, film it or in other ways allow their attention to be distracted from the present moment of taking in the story. In film, theatre, literature, computer games and art there are of course elements of story. But storytelling per se is the living speaking human being unfolding a story through the medium of the freely spoken word. This is the skill and social artform we are interested in here. The living presence of one human being to another.

In this book I use the word storytelling and storywork interchangeably, to denote both listening and telling, exercises, reflections, stories and the actual coming together in a circle or a gathering to practice this activity. It is not about becoming a professional performer so much as using storytelling as a helping, transformative way of being with each other. In my experience, this does not preclude brilliant and moving storytelling where people speak from the heart and the wisdom of their deeper knowledge and imagination.

You can journey through this book for pure inspiration and food for thought. You might dip into it and read it from moment to moment according to theme. That is quite possible. The exercises presented are available to anyone – do read them even if you don't plan to do them right away. They will deepen your picture of the work. There is a low threshold of stepping into these kinds of storytelling activities: anyone can do them when following the basic guidelines.

However, you will also find that the material is presented in a sequence of development, gradually fostering abilities and skills which grow and enrich each other as you go along. And like any skill, which once learnt and practiced sinks down to a deeper level of knowing, thus creating a base for new abilities and insights, so it is with this kind of storywork and getting to know the world of creative imagination. If pursued with gentleness and persistence, it will yield new and unthought of possibilities for communication and presence, bringing creative ways of moving forward in a relatively short period of time. Reading the book can be a companion for anyone wishing to work with people. I offer it herewith as a practical contribution to furthering peaceful co-existence and enlivening our creative abilities in meeting the future together.

JOE'S QUESTION

Joseph Campbell was the great mythologist of the 20th century and instrumental in putting back the power of myth and story onto the map of modern times, showing their relevance to human consciousness and evolution. He taught numerous students and seekers at Sarah Laurence College and among many things, was advisor to George Lucas when he made the Star Wars films. An influential thinker and a wonderfully wry teller of stories, he gathered his knowledge to begin with in a seminal work, Hero of a Thousand Faces. In it he goes through myths from all parts of the world, indigenous and religious, Eastern and Western, from pole to pole, covering the whole globe with his vast knowlege. One of his discoveries was that all stories go through similar steps in development, bringing transformation to both the seeker and the community at large. By the end of the story, new areas of consciousness and presence have been conquered. This new-found land brought new life and vitality to the world. Campbell called this the Hero's Journey. Of course it could also be the Heroine's Journey.

In spite of his many discoveries about world myths, fairytales and mythopoetic consciousness moving through the ages, Joseph Campbell left us all with a challenge. According to him, no single myth that exists can contain the new shift in consciousness, the present movement towards global community and multi-cultural life on earth. What is the new story? he asked. What myth can encompass the whole of humanity in our richness and variety of cultures and modes of being? Many have been working and thinking on this since then: storytellers, anthropologists and philosophers – seekers of all kinds. Over the course of my life and work I have come to understand something about the conundrum we as a global community are finding ourselves in and where or what the new story could be.

This book offers a kind of answer.

Chapter 2

STORY

It was a cold winter's evening in the North, way up in the dark green forests of Scandinavia. The snowflakes were falling white and thick and fast and the wind was whirling against the windowpanes. In the fireplace, the flames were flickering upwards, giving off their wild warmth while I was sitting, pressing the phone against my ear, listening intently. I was speaking to a storyteller and mime artist from Haifa in Israel. I had recently been given his name to ring and had never met him. The line was rather bad, and what with the wind howling around my chimney top and the crackling of the phone, I was shouting, all the way to Israel.

Hello! Is that Said Salama?

Yes, yes! I heard at the other end. I imagined a thin, thin thread going from the dark and cold winter landscape I was surrounded by, all the way down through Europe, crossing the Mediterranean, and onwards to the hot and dry land of old Palestine, also known as the Holy Land.

I am ringing from Sweden. We are arranging an international symposium this summer called Storytelling as a Pathway to Peace.

Yes, yes!

I would like to know if you can come and contribute? I have heard of your good work with Arab, Jewish and Palestinian children. How you have been bringing them together through your performances with pantomime, storytelling and play. Would you like to come?

Yes, yes!

So far I had not heard him speak more than a few words and as I was the organizer of the symposium and in charge of the event, I was keen to hear through the long and crackling line what sort of a human being I was talking to. I knew from my earlier experiences, that a group of strong storytelling individuals from different countries and backgrounds, carrying a week-long gathering of 100 people with the theme of peace and reconciliation, would have to be of a special kind. This was not the place to bring your big egos, your vanity or need to be a star. This was a place where all presenters and workshop leaders came with their art, their wit and their presence to serve the theme at hand and the people who turned up. I knew hardly anything about this man I was talking to. My good friend and colleague Roi Gal-Or suggested I call him at the last minute, as someone else pulled out. Tomorrow the programme was to be printed and this was my last chance. I could not have a conference on peace and reconciliation with no speakers present from the Arab tradition. Hence this late night phone call.

Was this the right guy? How could I draw him out? This was potentially a dynamite theme, if I brought the wrong constellation of people together, the symposium could end in a catastrophe. If only he would say just a few more words! Hearing him speak would let me know fairly quickly what kind of a man I was talking to. The static on the line did its crackling dance, the snow storm moaned around the house. I was talking to Israel, my voice reaching all the way down to that mythic land, parched, I imagined in the sunlight. I was speaking to a complete stranger. How would I know? Suddenly he spoke.

Yes, yes, I will come. Pause. You know, my name is Said Salama. It means 'Happy Peace'. Said is happy in our language. Salama (Shalom) means peace. It is just like the symposium!

Yes! I said enthusiastically. It is!

But you know he said, I am very lonely!

These words were said with deep passion.

Yes? I said, uncertain where this was leading. There was a silence, then he said,

Here in Israel there are many happy people. But there is no peace!

And I could truly hear the loneliness come through his soul, through the telephone lines, all the way to me as I sat at my grandfather's desk in my home in Sweden, while the kids were asleep upstairs. I knew then, that this was the right man to come. And I knew also, for a moment, with the starry night skies spread out high above the storm, twinkling and beckoning to me, that we all belong to one humanity, come from one great ground of peace.

Very quietly I put down the phone after we had talked and agreed and thanked each other well. And I sat and listened to the wind and I felt as if I listened into the heart of the world. The suffering, the longing, the joy and the fear of never getting there, to the peaceful abode where we can live together in abundance and creative life.

Some days later, I was in the Culture House where the symposium was to be held. I was talking to the director there and I told him about my conversation with Said and how his name means Happy Peace.

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. Then he said:

That's funny. In Israel they are happy. But they have no peace. And here, we have plenty of peace, but no happiness.

Yes, yes! So true. Anyone living in Scandinavia will know that the main sources of suffering are depression, anxiety and deep melancholy. Despite all the material goods and our 'perfect' systems, people are not happy. They are often deeply troubled and sad. It is like a blanket of depression over everyone and everything. No, we do not have outer wars here, but in the arena of the soul, great battles are raging. One of the causes seems to be a loss of meaning in the face of the enormous material wealth that we possess. A lack of understanding of how things are connected and a misdirected tendency to rationalize every part of human life, coming out of some kind of illusion that life itself and human beings actually can be controlled. Could it be, that in some wise ways, we are all connected – as one humanity – and that so long as there is suffering in the world, we cannot sit down and rest, we cannot truly have 'happy peace'?

A GREAT GATHERING

Working with storytelling and creative imagination is a way of coming together, which is not based on political viewpoint, gender, status or nationality. In the weaving of speaking and listening, we access a common ground of humanity, sharing the earth and our stories in a universal language. This creates openings for the future, building relationship and trust, which is in fact the only base for friendly co-operation and peaceful co-existence. My conversation with Said Salama in 2007 that winter's night was one step in a long journey of creating spaces where this kind of working, thinking, being and listening can come in to the world between people.

Just two years before in 2005, I had taken the initiative to create the first international symposium in Sweden, Storytelling as a Healing Art. Little did I know I would find myself at the heart and head of a whole movement for the next many years, taking me out on new adventures, bringing me exciting challenges and many new friendships across the lands. Following on from a tradition begun at Emerson College in England during the 1990s by storyteller Ashley Ramsden and his associates, we were three people who prepared this grand and impossible enterprise of organizing a storytelling symposium. Grand, because the idea was wild beyond anything we could have imagined until then and impossible because practically no one in Scandinavia had heard of storytelling as a transformative method in human relationships. Way over the Atlantic sea another storytelling pioneer, Nancy Mellon, cheered us on with her vast experience of lighting the fire of healing story in human hearts, becoming a kind of godmother to our enterprise here in northern Europe. Against all odds, created out of nothing but our enthusiasm and our vision, the day arrived when 125 people from 25 countries streamed to the Culture House in Järna from all parts of the globe!

The word symposium comes from the Greek sym and posion, meaning to drink together. Certainly, that is the experience when telling and listening to myths, wonder tales, life stories and wisdom tales for days on end, expressed in a rich and living picture language that engages all our senses, speaking to the whole human being. In the end it does feel like one is drinking from the fountain of life, nourishing some deep source inside oneself.

Let me open the doors to what such a symposium can look like. People from all over the world came to Sweden: from Russia in the East to Nova Scotia in the West; from Argentina, Ireland and far away Indonesia. Two ladies took the Trans-Siberian railway, travelling four days and four nights from Irkutsk to Stockholm just to be with us. And when the week was over, they made the long journey back again to the eastern reaches of Russia, bearing with them story treasures and new friendships. Others again came strolling down the road, just five minutes from their home! Here were people from all walks of life with a variety of professions, who never would have met otherwise. What drew them all forth was a fascination and love for story and the call to delve deeper, to learn more about telling and listening from the heart in service of a greater whole and the inter-connection of all living beings. This was a practice in compassion and empathy and committing to our common humanity.

There were workshops and performances; we heard about practical ways of applying storytelling in areas such as education, social work, personal development, worklife, nature and religion. Storytellers from many different countries shared their experience and skills, delighting us all with the many exciting projects and positive results coming out of this work. Each evening we were served a feast of stories from the many cultures of the world and in moments of deep hush, we could at times experience how the wings of our greater belonging opened both our hearts and minds. People could be seen deep in conversation everywhere, around the dining room tables or out in the flowering park far into the summer nights, listening and speaking to each other with care. Many a chuckle and laughter rang out over the hedges and rose gardens surrounding the Culture House. Storytelling proved indeed to be a community-building activity across nationalities and cultures.

At the end of this first symposium all the 50 Scandinavians present formed the association Nordic ALBA Healing Story Alliance. Since then, Nordic ALBA has become a forum for those seeking to work with story in a transformational and healing way. We organize annual symposia, workshops, performances and meetings open to anybody and all interested in this particular way of working, creating and being together.

My own past is not that of a therapist or within healing environments. I am a theatre director by training and inclination and have worked with adult education and creativity all my life. I have always been interested in what I would call the social arts, where people gather to create or develop something together. Be it a play, a project or carrying the future of the community together. I am continuously mystified by the effect of creative activity on people. Not only for the individual, but also when it comes to interacting with others. Again and again I have seen how creative processes invigorate the sluggishness or stuckness that surrounds our inner spark. I have seen the flame of longing come to life and how the desire to live quickens again, as it begins its secret, inner, vibrant dance. This has a powerfully transforming effect. Whether it be on depression, loneliness or even physical illness. Or whether it be lack of self-worth, trust or a plenitude of fear. Working with the living, spoken word, formulating intent and giving voice to the vitality of imagery within and without, has an empowering effect on all involved. People light up and take hold of their lives again. Self-healing processes are set in motion. There is no healing without creative activity, these two go together. But how does it happen?

This mystery has drawn me all my life, having seen the transformation take place before my very eyes time and