Another Place for Story and the Heart

A space to tell and listen to stories, our stories. 'Stories touch and awaken our hearts and souls. Stories reveal our common humanity in all its colours. Everyone has a story.' Another Place for Story and the Heart will be hosted weekly on Zoom. Each week, there will be a theme or call-to-action posted to help tell a piece of our story. During the session, each participant will be invited to share for approximately five to ten minutes, depending on the number of participants. After each sharing, there will be time for the rest of the group (the listeners) to respond to the sharing if they like. Please note: The focus of these sessions is more on sharing individual experiences, perspectives, and life journeys, rather than fictional tales. In saying that, using metaphor, myth or poetry (and so on) to support the telling of your story is fine. Similar to the walking event Wild Walks Into The Heart, in focus and spirit, I aim to provide a supportive, non-judgmental, safe space during the session where people can freely open up about their lives and experiences, as much or as little as they choose to. Anything you share is confidential and shall not be disclosed outside the space. I want to stay somewhat flexible on structure, but here is a sample format: Welcome and Group Guidelines, Introductions and Ice Breaker, Time for Sharing, Silence and Interaction, Final Check-in. Sessions will last around 1 Hour and 30 Minutes. To support the group's presence, at times, I would like to use silence during the sessions and bring attention to our breathing. I hope that this can become a space where people can come together to celebrate the richness, diversity and wild nature of human experience through the art of storytelling.

Some quotes that have inspired this event:

‘In our century, for one reason or another, millions and millions of people have fallen out of their traditional story and that is serious because it is above all in a great story that we are housed. And if it is great, the story that houses us will house the stars. Will house our cows, our hens, our pigs, our horse, our ass. Will house leviathan, will house behemoth. Will house tyger, will house lamb.’ (Taken from What the Curlew Said: Nostos Continued by John Moriarty)

‘Most of us grow up in a story. We don’t grow up so much in a house built of bricks and mortar – we are housed in a great story.’ (Taken from Nostos: An Autobiography by John Moriarty)

‘A story is great when, as we tell it, it tells us. It is great when we emerge from this telling with a deeper and a surer sense of ourselves. There is a sense in which our stories create us…. they aren't only great stories, they are sacred stories. Have you become a great story? Have you, in spite of the moral contagion that infests you, become a sacred story?.’ (John Moriarty - Anaconda Canoe)

‘Have you, instead of bringing home a myth, become a myth that will deepen itself and deepen us every time it is told?’ (John Moriarty)

When story finds a way - ‘But that isn’t the story I know,’ Marilyn said, breaking and yet not breaking an ancient silence in the room. ‘Nor is it the story I knew before I started telling it to you,’ I said. ‘But that’s how it is, isn’t it, with that kind of story. Tell that kind of story with a slack rein, tell it trusting your horse rather than yourself, and it will go its own way - to new insight, even possibly to new revelation.’ (Taken from Nostos: An Autobiography by John Moriarty)

‘Our lives are like pieces of a beautiful tapestry, but we can only recognise the beauty of the tapestry when we put all the pieces together. Each person is a story, a beautiful story, but sometimes a very sad story, and we are all enriched by hearing their story. When we listen attentively to another person’s story, our shared vulnerabilities unite us, and we form a bond which changes or strengthens our relationship to them. We look at them differently, we gaze on them in wonder.’ (Taken from Fr Peter McVerry’s piece in The Empathy Book for Ireland)