Introducing the International School of storytelling (new member)

[School of Storytelling]

Dear Swog friends,

We are very happy to join this forum. The International School of Storytelling, founded in 1994, is the longest running centre of its kind where the craft of the storyteller is practiced and honoured. Our home base is Emerson College in E.Sussex. It’s a beautiful rural site surrounded by fields, meadows and woods with its own accommodation, close to the thriving village of Forest Row. Woodland is a natural environment for telling and working with stories,nature and the imagination. We are a registered charity working around the world helping people and their stories come alive and serve performers, healers, teachers, the business world, the environment and the wider community.

As a woodland owner/lover you may wish to explore the possibility of bringing some story magic to your community!

Many of our courses work with environmental themes and some explicitly explore the connection between stories, landscape and nature.

Please visit our website www.schoolofstorytelling to learn more about the work we do.

Here is one example of a new course we are running this year-

Earth Speaks - Communicating with the Living Landscape

22- 24/06/2012

Geomancy, the art of Earth divination, explores the Earth's vital energy flow. Every landscape has a story, an 'identity', a consciousness made up of it's features and elemental life. Similar to the human body, the Earth functions through different interlacing layers namely the physical, etheric, astral and spiritual.

Just like with the human body, we can find imbalances in the energy field of the land, brought about by traumatic events in human history, distorted earth energies, mismanagement of natural resources and disrespect to the inner life of the Earth.

Working with Geomancy is a powerful way to support our own healing, we begin experiencing this when we realise our connection with the living earth for what we change in the earth can bring about a similar change in ourselves.

In this workshop we will develop our listening skills so we can begin to perceive with all our sensory organs the subtle layers of a place. We will begin to identify energetic features such as underground water currents, blind springs, electromagnetic patterns etc.

Listening to the story of the land, we will tap into the experience of the interconnectedness of all things and re-member the art and joy of communing with all aspects of life; animals, plants and the elemental life, so that we may resume our role of responsible co-creators. Once we have experienced this connection, we will lend our voices to the land to speak and sound the stories humanity needs to hear in this time.

We welcome on this journey all those who love and care for Nature and the future of The Earth, parents, teachers, walkers, environmentalists and storytellers who are searching for some good and important stories to serve. No previous experience is needed.

We are looking forward to meeting you all.

For more information and for other courses please visit us on www.schoolofstorytelling.com

[Stephen1]

Hello

Could you give us a specific example of how Geomancy might inform our relationship with the land we work with?

There is so much implicit in your introduction, but so much of it can be interpreted in so many different ways! Dare you be a bit more explicit with what you mean by "resume our role of responsible c0-creators". With Whom or What do you perceive us to be co-creators - and perhaps tell me/us a bit more about what you perceive the role to be that we might be able to 'resume'.

Many thanks

Stephen

[School of Storytelling]

Hello Stephen,

Thank you for your inquiry.

A specific example where geomancy could inform our relationship with

the land could be when planning a location for a mine, to map out any

important energy centers that may be in the area so that we are not

disturbing a point that may be vital for the energy distribution of

the place.

When I say co- create I mean co- create with nature itself, in the

sense that we can make land management decisions and conservation

practices that take into account the various aspects of an ecosystem

including it's subtle / energetic features. I say 'resume our role of

responsible co-creators' because this type of communion with the

land exists in indigenous cultures and has existed throughout the

early civilizations but is now by and large not practiced in the

western world in planning / decision making and conservation issues.

This is not a science of course and is indeed open to many

interpretations. The perceptions of the subtle layers of the land are

very difficult to describe in an analytical and and objective way and

in my experience are understood best through experiencing the

sensation and emotion that these subtle layers evoke. Our aim in this

course is to introduce people to the possibility of a 'conscious'

aspect of the land and to see what stories and interpretations we may

come up with.

I hope I have answered your questions.

Respectfully,

Karmit

[School of Storytelling]

Dear Friends, we have 4 places left on this workshop, you are welcome to join us!

Earth Speaks - Communicating with the Living Landscape

22- 24/06/2012

Geomancy, the art of Earth divination, explores the Earth's vital energy flow. Every landscape has a story, an 'identity', a consciousness made up of it's features and elemental life. Similar to the human body, the Earth functions through different interlacing layers namely the physical, etheric, astral and spiritual.

Just like with the human body, we can find imbalances in the energy field of the land, brought about by traumatic events in human history, distorted earth energies, mismanagement of natural resources and disrespect to the inner life of the Earth.

Working with Geomancy is a powerful way to support our own healing, we begin experiencing this when we realise our connection with the living earth for what we change in the earth can bring about a similar change in ourselves.

In this workshop we will develop our listening skills so we can begin to perceive with all our sensory organs the subtle layers of a place. We will begin to identify energetic features such as underground water currents, blind springs, electromagnetic patterns etc.

Listening to the story of the land, we will tap into the experience of the interconnectedness of all things and re-member the art and joy of communing with all aspects of life; animals, plants and the elemental life, so that we may resume our role of responsible co-creators. Once we have experienced this connection, we will lend our voices to the land to speak and sound the stories humanity needs to hear in this time.

We welcome on this journey all those who love and care for Nature and the future of The Earth, parents, teachers, walkers, environmentalists and storytellers who are searching for some good and important stories to serve. No previous experience is needed.

We are looking forward to meeting you all.

For more information and for other courses please visit us on www.schoolofstorytelling.com

[Toby Allen]

Boll******!

[RichardKing]

My built in crap detector just went off scale.

[Keith Williams]

Come on guys, this stuff isn't what I'd be comfortable with either, but no need to be disrespectful.

[Stephen1]

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Mr. Allen,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

I've spent a lot of time with those of fringe beliefs, and whilst it's true most of it is "bollocks", and usually any courses offered are very expensive "bollocks", I don't think we need to be rude to folk.

Most people involved with this sort of thing are very well intentioned. Unfortunately they have a very townie/disneyfied view of the natural world - for instance what they might consider a "traumatic event" for the land and they usually also have unusual ideas of the power/right of humans to initiate their idea of what healing might be.

I say it's well intentioned "bollocks" from people who have little contact with the natural world - they have more contact than people they know, so they think they have a lot of experience of 'primal' raw nature - but they don't.

As we're a group of people who do have this experience -i.e. lots of time in the same bit of woodland in all seasons and most importantly a long term connection and experience of the same place - perhaps we could offer them some of our knowledge/experience rather than just shooting them down as fools?

Perhaps we might learn something from them and they from us - who knows they might accept some of their ideas are mistaken and perhaps open our eyes to something they do have of value to offer....?

[greyman]

Well I can't say I feel quite as tolerant as yourself Stephen1 but I do think as a public forum we need to moderate the language. My detectors went all the way up to eleven too because, along with Spinal Tap, I had mine specially made for my cynical nature.

Love and Bananas, with increased consciousness and an eye on the wizard standing behind the blasted oak with his staff in his hand.

Greyman

[Binz]

Well put Stephen1, a well balanced response.

It looks like the OP is offering something with good intent on a forum where they probably thought people may be open to an understanding that there is more to life than the physical. The religious intolerance displayed by some other posters, and the way it is expressed, is best kept off this forum. No problem people having different views but there's no need to be offensive in expressing them.

I'm not a geomancer and wont be signing up for the course. But I do know that working with a different perception can be very beneficial.

If they cause no harm then they should be able to do what they want.