Story Farmer – The Year of Story

The phone rang just now. Loved ones. Far away. Ava answered, surprised by the sound of her phone ringing and seconds after “Hello,” began stringing a story together. A story of yesterday. A story of cutting wood and her dad getting hurt, bruising, possibly breaking his big toe, her and her sister needing to haul wood for hours and hours, her frostbitten cheeks. It was just the story of a day, not even a full day, a moment in a day. And yet it is a story that will become a memory, a time we will look back into and say, “remember that time Dad broke his toe cutting wood,” … a story that will take on a life of it’s own, a story that will live in us, a story that will live us …

Story.

Opening to the indigenous wisdom of the Dagara Medicine Wheel from Burkina Faso, this year, 2024 is a Mineral Year. What does that mean? It is said that mineral energy invites us into truth, into story, into remembering. Imagine all of the stories the rocks around us carry. Imagine all that they have seen and heard as life and people pass them by. Imagine the well of stories each one of us carries within us, in our bones, stories that define us, stories that open us, that remind us, stories that connect or disconnect us. Stories that invite us to remember.

And so, I’ve been thinking a lot about story, about claiming this space as a storytelling space, about becoming and being a story-catcher, a story harvester, a story farmer. 

There are ant farms and salmon farms, mushroom farms and dairy farms, potato farms and flower farms. But a story farm? A story farmer?

The farmer in this house readies the field, digs his fingers in the soil, pays attention to what it needs if there’s any hope of anything growing, plants the seeds, tends to the seeds, cares for the plants that grow from the seeds, prays for the plants and listens to what they need, offers the outcome over to that which he can not control, harvests the grain, shares the bounty. Repeat.

Perhaps I might do the same with story.

Open. Pay Attention. Tend. Nurture. Pray. Listen. Offer. Harvest. Share. Repeat.

Perhaps that’s what I’ve been doing here all along, but for some reason, right now, it feels more clear that my why is to witness, to embrace, to open, to share stories. ”Because stories,” as my favorite storyteller, Brian Doyle says, “are holy, stories are prayers, stories are food, stories are nourishment, stories are ancient. All of life is a story. We trade stories back and forth, that’s who we are, it’s what we are composed of.”

I sat around a table this past weekend with people I barely know, people who are familiar, people who’s basic biography details I know some of, but not much. At the center of the table on top of cross-stitched Ukrainian linens, a braided bread kolach and a container of salt, the traditional Ukrainian way to welcome guests. Together we shared traditions brought over from our ancestors generations ago, mostly food, of course, and stories. Stories that made us laugh until tears, stories that invited tears of deep feeling, stories of long ago, and stories of just this past week. Stories of memories and of who we are and stories of what is yet to come. Hours and hours, we sat around the Ukrainian form of a campfire … the table with food … and shared stories back and forth, back and forth. Riffing off one another, one story sparking a memory or a connection and each of us taking turns, adding our specific and unique ingredients, as we stripped away any pretense, any armor and met each other in the sacred place of sharing ourselves with one another, creating something one of a kind.

Michael Meade offers the image of the three layers of life,the first layer is the social layer – “How are you, how’s the weather, beautiful day, things are going good, what’s new.” We like to stay here. The third layer is the deepest contact, a profound sense of community and connection and belonging. The second layer is vulnerability, grief, deep feeling. He says we can’t get to layer three without going through the second. I don’t think this means we need to confess our deepest darkest secrets, we just need to share what’s true for us, to offer our stories of being human … it’s there that we can truly meet one another.

Story is inviting me in.

Stories of place, of memories, of once upon a time, of growing and changing, of mundane moments, of lessons learnt and those that are currently underway. Stories of love and grace, of deep joy and deep sorrow, of bumbling and fumbling, beauty and ordinary humanness, which to me is the most exquisite story of us that there is.

Right now I am not too sure what this means, but I’m just throwing my hat over the fence and trusting that it will catch up to me.

I wonder sometimes about the why of sharing my stories, have spent years swinging back and forth between sharing parts of me online and then deleting it all, but I know it’s mostly not about me at all, stories have lives and energy of their own.

Malidoma Some says, “you must become the story that helps others remember their stories.” Dipping into the well of memory or aliveness I pull up a story, a story that might then tap you on your shoulder and invite one of yours. It’s the attentiveness to living and noticing, it’s listening and witnessing the beauty in others, leaning forward and opening the heart, being genuinely curious, it’s harvesting and expressing that beauty, that which might be why we are all here to begin with?

We’re here for a little window, and to use that time to catch and share shards of light and laughter and grace seems to me the great story. I am here to witness. I was sent to sing. I am here to catch and tell the story. Stories are our connective tissues… stories matter, stories are who we are at our best, who we might be still, because without stories we are only mammals with weapons.

– Brian Doyle

"... never be such a horse's ass that just because you can tell a story that you have found all it's truth ... stories need to rattle around your brain for years before they reveal a hidden grain of truth. 
What is a true story? ... The question ... is not whether the story is true, but whether it has Truth inside it ... the kind with a capital T, and that is a mystery only time can solve."
  - Joel ben Izzy "The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness - A True Story"

Of course, there is the delicate dance of what is mine to share and what is true … I’ll likely bumble and fumble, be a horse’s ass and assume I understand the gift or truth of a story, say the wrong thing, trip over my own feet, overshare, say too much or too little, repeat myself, jump to conclusions, face the demons that leave me wanting to delete it all, hide, forget … and yet to show up and share anyways, to discover what might be hidden inside stories enlivens me, for as Brian Doyle says, “I’m here to point at shards of holiness. That’s all. That’s enough.”

Open. Pay Attention. Tend. Care. Pray. Listen. Offer. Harvest. Share.

Until Next Time …

N