Storytelling and its Intimacies

Pondering the gift of storytelling and its meaning, like fine art and its visual capacity to move the viewer, stories pass from one person to another striking deep connections. 

I contemplated the intimacy in storytelling, grasping a depth well beyond my previous considerations.  Only to realize that storytelling, which had been as abundant and fluid as a well-fed stream from high mountain glaciers fed my young girl’s imagination spilling well into adult life and subsequently nourishing Crone-time with fertile flow.   Today it pushes at me to pull stories together to share verbally with others.

How else, I wonder, could entire cultures for thousands of years survive intact, where storytelling brought the people’s history forward through voice.   Entire culture’s survival thrived in ceremonial reverence, sharing stories in kivas, roundhouses, humble churches and grand cathedrals, circled around fire, and on sacred mountains.  People listening and holding their knowledge of their ancestors and therefore, themselves, silently, sacredly.  Bringing forward, in time, through storytelling for their people, their purpose, their relationship to themselves, to one another, to the earth, to the universe. Knowing that their greatness, and the universe’s greatness, was one.  One love, one breath. A story of harmony, unification and exaltation.

Storytelling honours humanness in ourselves and in the other.  There is an intimacy when the storyteller opens herself creatively, in the moment, in heart and thought, preparing an immediate communion of her journey with her listener.  And the listener, who receives with trust and openness–the deepest most feminine expression of vulnerability—one human to another. 

Cerebral as I am, I find this exchange equal in sacredness and beauty to physical sexual intimacy.  The sensual components of voice—timbre, cadence, intonations, breath, and the proximity to the teller, combined with the storytelling gifts of spinning tales opens connections in the brain, primal and instinctual. 

Whether sung or spoken, the intimacy of human voice initiates relationship. And when revered, unfolds with a unstoppable majesty.  Respect between people builds trust and intimacy.  Trust and intimacy binds.  Building stronger unions, stronger bridges, stronger individuals who, when individuated, come together with greater brightness to bring greater light into the universe. 

I fell in love with a storyteller once whose stories he told in great repetition.  Being a person abhorring repetition, I found myself in awe that his stories could grace me over and over with equal pleasure, time and again.  He knew intimately, that repetition was the key to stories being remembered.  And the gift of a storyteller is his stories and their value.  There is a charisma to a storyteller who holds his listener in close proximity.   I felt as if I was the only person on the face of the earth in his presence.  That magnetism he shared with the world— the gift he brought as a storyteller.

Storytellers own the whole world in their minds, weaving tales of beauty and love, terror and history, birth and death, love and hate—the dualities, myths, teachings, and above all, the truths we must learn one day or another. 

We are all storytellers when we look into another’s eyes, into their soul, and share our stories.  How deeply we delve is determined by our courage to live freely, and our love of life and relationship.  Our paths as unique as snowflakes—accessing truths and stories through our personal perspectives and sharing with those whose receptivity and intimacies reaches out to meet ours.

Kat

20 February 2017

Cellular Destabilization

Hello Fellow writers,

The sun shines warmly today. My bones feel the heat and my heart is beating more closely towards the light—stronger against the wall of flesh and skeletal frame holding it contained. A winter of cold grey wet darkness slowly, albeit very slowly, is shifting and my entire being hungrily tracks the sunshine and warmth. 

Our human body and the environment must track each other continually or life  would long ago have become extinct, said Richard Lewontin, American biologist, evolutionary geneticist. I know this inside on a core level and understand how sensitive I am to all incoming data--electronic, environmental, emotional,  physical and spiritual--minute shifts in light, warmth, and sound—all these energies. "Because anything that touches it might destabilize it," says herbalist, author, poet, Stephen Buhner.

This deep sort of communication—words, phrasing, posture, and physical  relationship to the environment and oneself all matter and impact our internal dialogue on a cellular level. Which ultimately determines what we create and how we generate a  response outwardly to the world. 

Let the sun shine, the skies open to their blueness, and the warmth penetrate  into our souls.  May your inspirations for creating beauty and richness, word-by-word, be forever happening for you on this sunny blue-sky day.  And just in time for the Fisher Poet Gathering 2017 in Astoria this Friday Saturday and Sunday.

be well and inspired
Kat
23 February 2017

Galaxies Imaginable and Probable

Cruising the galaxies, one foot in earth-time and the other in wide stance, catty wonk, attempting alignment in the aether—I am tilted, stretching upward catching higher vibrations, head and arms outside a window, viewing, flailing, sensing time, space and the infinitesimal vibrational pull at my core, teasingly, coaxingly, to continue my journeying into this outer orbit beyond familiarity in the earthly realm—although an intimate home to my soul’s topographical knowing.

Galactic vastness of spaciousness, possibility and even probability, yet of no matter, earthly or orbital.  A moment unfolds facets new in these gracious vibrational baths.  Breath stilled.  Breeze, too.  Elation and wonder insistently expanding my rib cage, erupting higher vibrational rhythms into my throat chakra, upwards through moistened lips with corners rising acutely, eyes squinting sharply laying crow’s feet, sweetened lines, deeper, longer—the signature of joyfulness in moments connecting consciously, intentionally, vibrationally.

Galaxies transporting souls whose flights weigh heavily in earthly time and nimbly, lightly on the aether.  Of two worlds, our humanness once dividing, now marrying dualities–yin and yang, light and shadow, awake and asleep—dream time, all time—existing harmoniously parallel and intertwining in this galactic space.  With no beginning, no ending, connected and fluid without pause for matter of either.

When galaxies merge and vibrations intersect in their flow of correctness, when fluid breathing and softened vision tracks vibrational parallels of hearts’ delight, sensual quickening—erotic connecting, dance—a timelessness unfolds, sparking energies melding, overlapping, coming, quieting, then back again, and again. While of less earthly matter, but not insignificant, the soul seeks unrelentingly this communion of heart, spirit and body—a lifetime of journeying and many more lifetimes, until found.

Galactic flight transcends earthly knowing when souls meet in heightened time and space.  Within the special ethereal continuum, life unfolds love.  Boundaryless containment—their air, passing over, beneath, through all matter, defining improbable statistical alignments—yet when these souls prepare and present Life, the dreams dared dreamed and held with love and care, magic happens.

Kat

2 January 2017

There is No 911

There is no 911 to call on this cold wet blustery winter day

when the second feline looks hesitantly toward the other, already nestled between my thigh and pillow supporting my research dungeon—the “happy” Apple computer—when that front left hesitantly placed orange paw tells me he wants to lie with us—near his brother and on my lap.  How can I say anything less than, “Come, mi amore.”

There is no 911 to call on this wet cold winter day, when my cup of herbs runs tepid and low, when the pot on the stove hisses overflowingly in that rhythmic reminder to not fill so full next time.  Cinco’s tongue licks affectionately on Jewel, who took him in tenderly when both arrived within months of one another ten years ago, in a cold winter season—both orange, both castaways, both irresistibly, themselves.  Entwined now, pot overflowing, teacup cool, pen empty of ink—and underneath their purrs, a computer beckons me away from my love of pen and paper, to tell of love.

There is no 911 to call on this cold wet blustery day when a writer’s home has pens further than an arm’s length away and the one in hand has run dry and persistently so.  Cat-presence nourishes, quelling even the writer’s desire to hold the muse for but one moment more.  While they need one another, the writer and her muse, she comes because these feline heartbeats warm our cagey souls and wrap our tenderness’s together, bringing us close and still.

There is no 911 to call when the dregs in the teacup are thick and chewy and cold.  The sinewy bitter bites of osha and ginger roots giving their fullest, right to the end that most often stew unexamined in those remains.  Over-full pot of medicinal tea hissing with metronomic perfection, will change  rhythm—the wave-pattern— in time, mixing with perfection the background hum of electric and gas stove heat.  This rich silence mixed with cat and human breath, weave our tapestry another love beat.

There was no 911 to call then as we lay together, feeling our  body's' warmth greater as three, now as one, sharing heartbeats—our love for one another—as there is no 911 to call today.  There is no moment to hold onto but the moment love takes you and makes you part of it.  Noble felines choose whom they honour in their lifetimes—who is worthy of their gentle discerning souls.  

Kat

12 December 2016

Greens in Winter Rains

The rains continue drenching my garden beds that lie naked in standing water. What grew in sunshine and warmth of longer daylight hours,  absent now from the view through my window.  Alongside on the walkway, thick moss builds up in cushioned verdant patterns--dense, low and vibrantly green.  The key to all golf course putting greens lies in the amount of water,  I conclude.  No wonder there are some that look like deserts all year 'round and others, like moss gardens.

Another month of shorter days before we turn about at the Solstice towards the lengthening daylight.  We still have time, though, to settle deeply within, to search for something that this longer darkness might offer to those who pay attention to seasons, timing, relationship to themselves and others and to the context of life itself.

And the rain keeps giving.  In waves.  Like an oscillating sprinkler pelting rhythmically against my window. Its dependability centers me with its constancy and intensity.  At times, with an urgency that suggests perhaps, just perhaps, it is time to write.

I wrote a poem about rain the first winter I moved here.  I had no idea of rain's consistency and volume until these last few days.  Perhaps more poems about rain will be born this week.  Someone told me recently that Scorpio's were Valentine creations.  "Ah," I said back.  And laughed. All these years, I wondered about all the Scorpios in my family!  My parents were true romantics.  I might have another go at a rain poem if the monsoon pelting my windows doesn't ease up a tad bit.

See you soon, fellow writers--inspired by whatever pushes you to your edge!

Kat
24 November 2016

A Dialogue Within--Duality Converses and Converges

Love and Fear, life’s paramount duality, expose the perfection of exceptional meaning and impact on Soul’s journey—molding life’s internal climate, moment-by-moment through the conscious action of choice.

We journey in this lifetime surprised, unsettled and often upset by the complexity of this simplest-seeming action. Lacking understanding of its critical force upon our unique landscape—in the face of tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, fire and pestilence—all taking their toil when we have neglected to seek balance within and are driven to our outer edges by centrifugal force, choosing fear.

Not unlike the Outback, the deserts can dry us beyond a healthy hydration stasis.  Their dearths forcing us deeper within, withering us, dragging us searching for illusive answers we thirst for. 

It is a conscious choice of love that revives us when wavering in our trust in the flow of life, raising us to a higher vibrational state—choosing love over fear.

dialogue within

“Now? Here? Alone?”  Words spill forth, shaken and staccato with tremors and uncertainty.

“In this moment, all is beauty and as it need be, perfect.”  The reply, calm, melodic, hypnotically reassuring.

Where? When? How? Alone?” An edge heightened with anxiety and obvious building dis-ease.

“Breath, deep belly-breath, stillness and reflection sustain our humanness and ease our heartache,” breathed within deep rhythmic verse upon the ethers.

“Darkness, coldness, aloneness, sadness—alone?  Trembling words slipped off lips loose and moist with briny tears spilling from above dripping off flesh once tight and dry.

“It’s inside. It’s all within—each and every ounce of our capacity to heal the torment and aloneness and awaits precious discovery.  And when we do, it’s ours forever,” she said lovingly from within.

Kat

13 November 2016

Epiphanous Moment

I ached, my body and that place where Soul resides—was it my chest, lungs, stomach, back—they ached as if Soul wandered about wherever it desired—that is the freedom I hear told of the Soul—it seeks flight upon wings that send it into free-flight without boundaries, without judgments, without loss—but forward, with spirit of ease of adventure and will—taking it wherever Souls desire—always with joy and peacefulness.

Yet here I found myself aching in tears, engulfed in grief over losing my husband, my doctor, my spiritual teacher, my soul mate, my lover—all in one man, one person.  I was attempting to grasp a way to go forward—with my own inner compass. 

I’d been attached to my story of Don’s spiritual seeking and path our entire 17 years together—only to discover that one evening in an epiphanous moment,  I, too, embodied God—I, too, was a divine being and as long as I loved myself, respected myself, I would be aligned in my spiritual path and not alone.  The sense of joy engulfed me.  My heart and body-aching dimmed and I began to feel a deep peacefulness. I cried new tears in sheer gratitude of my existence.

Kat

15 November 2015