We are 'storytelling animals'

Dear Friends:

I am a storyteller. 

In fact, all of us humans are storytellers. We are the ‘storytelling animals’. Our marvellously complex brains are wired for story. Stories are how we understand ourselves and navigate the world and make sense of our experiences. Our cultures, civilisations and societies are built on foundations of story. In short, we all swim in oceans of stories that shape our sense of reality.

As Ben Okri put it: ‘Some people say when we are born we’re born into stories. I say we’re also born from stories.’ 

Perhaps you, like me, still treasure those early precious story jewels that captivated your imagination as a child. The stories that taught us what it is to be alive - all the magic, mystery and wonder, as well as the fears, struggles and uncertainties. The stories that taught us to dream and endure and persevere.

The stories that lifted the veil to let you experience a glimpse of other peoples’ minds, hearts, cultures and countries - distant epochs and far away galaxies. You could recognise the universal in those stories - both the deeply familiar and the deliciously new. How the world expanded, as you came to also know yourself a little better.

As a writer and journalist, I’ve worked with stories my whole life. Over these past few years, I’ve journeyed farther and more consciously into the story realm, investigating many questions: 

How do stories work their magic? Or, conversely, do their harm? What makes them so powerful? And how can we shape our stories and harness their powers more intentionally towards making the changes we desire in our lives and our societies? 

I don’t have all the answers, of course. But exploring the questions from many different angles has become my passion. 

I think of Grandmother Spider - a figure of Native American folklore. In one version of a story I have seen, she weaves an endless tapestry of life, bringing forth rivers and forests and mountains into infinity. This is what we do as humans: collectively and individually, we weave our worlds into being through story. Just as we weave the patterns of our own unique self into a larger tapestry - forming as we are being formed.

Like many other people living at this moment in time, I am sensing that one of our deepest and most urgent needs, as humanity, is to transform the stories we are weaving. Like so many others, I have been asking: How can we work, through story, to shift the nightmares of climate change and biodiversity loss, the cultures of extraction, separation, domination and greed that are running rampant and laying waste to human and non-human life? As individuals and collectives, how do we change the stories we live and tell? How can we shape and share and manifest those fertile, generative and regenerative stories that we are all so desperately needing at this time? 

This exploration has been so liberating and enlivening for me. And that is why I am inviting you to join me. 

Living Stories is my ‘storyteller’s journal’. Every other Friday, from now on, I’ll be sharing a new dispatch with the juiciest parts of my journey. I warmly invite you to sign up, and share far and wide with your friends and colleagues who may be interested. IT’S FREE, you can unsubscribe easily whenever you like, and you’ll make my day!

In each dispatch, you’ll find much levity and fun, alongside the headier stuff. I’ll be delving into the stories and the questions that fascinate me - and sharing the most enlivening and inspiring thoughts and ideas that I discover. 

I hope you will join me, and that you will find much here that is nourishing, delicious, adventurous and fun. After all, I believe we all can help to breathe life into those stories that celebrate life, and restore our enchantment with this wondrous living planet Earth that is home to all of us.

With love,

Megan