Like Operas into Sofas

This year, OCVO asked Sherri and me:  How about you facilitate that one-day workshop you have been dreaming about? The Master Archer – Reloaded? Our YES! must still be ringing in the ear of every upholsterer from Bavaria.

It took place on Thursday, April 30th, at the Richelieu Vanier Community Centre. An ideal venue for this, and not only because of its accessible price, friendly staff and free parking facilities. When you intend to spend a whole day working on your creativity indoors, you want the indoors to support you. Our room was not only spacious: Through the skylights, windows and glass doors, sunlight streamed in and your eyes could roll over the vast garden greens. And green matters, as you know.

Who came?

The Ottawa Innuit Children’s Centre, the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library, the Shepherds of Good Hope, the International Development Research Centre, a Community Association of Kanata, and the Cooperative Development Foundation of Canada. Six is a good number. Even: Perfect for working in pairs. Small-ish: Friendly to longer-ish stories. Beautiful: It creates intimacy where there appeared to be only six strangers.

What did they do?

• In a circle, they set their intent for the day. They listened to “The Master Archer.” The watched us deconstruct the circle drawn around the bullseye without taking down one single note! Thank to the StoryGods, they asked questions. Then, in pairs, they went searching for the elusive bullseye of the experiences-for-story they had brought. And if you ever went down the What is your story about? road, you know: This “about” is not only elusive, it’s a changeling. So we kept curiosity high and perfectionism low. And we divided into two smaller circles to walk a little further down that road.
• By the time lunch arrived (compliments of OCVO), they all had a bullseye to aim at. And that is a good thing. It adds to the flavour of those nuts and sun-dried tomatoes in your salad. It makes the bread of those triangle-shaped sandwiches softer and fluffier. It turns those rich, dark chocolatey dessert squares into sheer story form. A tray of fresh fruit to lighten things up, a cup of tea sipped in the spring-affirming breeze outdoors, and afternoon, here we come.
• The first thing they did that afternoon was show how much what we care about matters, even if what we care about is as simple as jelly salad or liver. Believe it or not, some listeners will react very passionately to liver. If you are the teller, how you feel about liver will affect your body language, your narrative pace, the tone of your voice.  As will anything that you feel strongly about (strongly for or strongly against). So, in a circle, they gave that a little attention. Then they went into pairs for the three-step response.
• For three consecutive times, tellers told their stories. First, from their ear. Second, from their nose. Third, from their skin and hands. For three consecutive times, listeners listened and gave feedback. First, about what words/images had stuck with them. Second, about what feelings they had experienced when. Third, about what else inside the story they would like to know. When they had finished, those story-bones had grown their own flesh, skin and hair.
• In a circle, they watched one teller who had been given no other task than to stand silently before them until someone said “Thank you. That’s enough.” Then they watched the same teller who, this time, had been given this task: “Stand silently before them and journey through your story as you stand.”  If you ever wondered whether thoughts affect matter, try that.
• By the time the awe-dust had settled, it was time to go quiet.  Some went for a storywalk, some sat and drew, some doodled on their notebooks, some relaxed into their chairs and gazed out the glass doors. We played music. And when it was time to gather in the circle for the last time, they played music.

Because this is true: When you tune into your experience so consciously, you turn that past into present. You are no longer recounting a memory. You are there. Playing it live. We hear what you hear. We see what you see. We feel what you feel. And because we have felt, we will remember. We will remember because now your story not only happened to you. It happened to us. That is the power of story.

And one for the road:

Once, long ago, storyteller Ruth Sawyer wanted to have her sofa upholstered. Good fortune brought the master of a guild to her door. A little man he was, and very old. He was so old, that he’d been young before Germany was Germany. He only got to measure the front of her sofa, before he told her his story. He had been born in a little town in Bavaria, by the Danube. When he was twelve, he began his apprenticehip in Wurzburg. And when he became an under-master he went to work at the palace of King Ludwig. Every year, King Ludwig had all who worked for him take part in an opera. You could sing? You went to the chorus. You could play? You went to the orchestra. From the great cities, the King brought soloists. From Dresden, the King brought a conductor to direct the orchestra. Even the great Wagner came! For a week the feast was held. Then everyone went back to work. And what this Bavarian upholsterer said at last, Ruth Sawyer always remembered: “All the goodness, the lift of the heart, that we got out of playing in those operas, we would put back into our work – in the draperies and tapestries we hung, in the cabinets we made. Nothing was lost.”  He said to Ruth Sawyer: “Madam, something of those operas will go into your sofa!”

I believe this. In Story, nothing is lost! Everything we gain in crafting and sharing the stories of the work we do in this world will carry that work forward, and the music we play will find its way into the world, yes!, like operas into sofas.

Friend & Storypartner Sherri Yazdani and I would like to acknowledge the following

Sources and Thanks:

Ruth Sawyer’s The Way of the Storyteller

Sheila Bender’s Shaping Your Life Experience for the Page (special thanks to Alette Willis who left it on the “Marta-Must-Read” shelf of her bookcase)

Questions posed by Elizabeth Ellis during her workshop Giving Voice to Our Bodies

Story-In-A-Sentence, an exercise I learnt in a creative writing workshop facilitated by Alette Willis.

“The Master Archer” awaits you in Chapter 4 of The Story Factor, by Annette Simmons.

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