Week 2, Storytelling course

In one week so many things have happened, that I cannot possibly describe everything.
But I will write some examples of what we do in the course and what happens around us.

Each week we have a theme for the teaching. The first week it was 'creation stories', this week it has been stories about 'gods and goddesses'.
Already we can see what an impact the stories have on us. It is different how each person learn a story to tell. We work with learning the story through different techniques, as writing the bones, mapping the story and walking through the map. So we practice a lot. The first week we worked in groups of three, this week in pairs, and from now on we are on our own.
Noone has worked with their story without being touched somehow by the contents.

The stories are old, they have survived for many many years for a reason. We can mirror ourselves in the messages in the story on a very profound level.
Each week we pick a story, or the story picks us.

This week I picked the story about Indra and the Ants parade. You can read a version of the story here if you like. http://www.vuu.org/sermons/lj030223.htm

It's about never being satisfied, always wanting more, bigger, better etc. It certainly hits something in me. It as if I often have the feeling that I never know enough, I need more knowledge, must read more books, must expand somehow.
In the light of the story I can realize it is not about knowing more. For me it is time to look at what is already there and use it some more.  I get this image of a piece of photopaper in the developing tray. It is nice to see when the picture comes out in its full potential.
I feel strong and powerful in a way that will during this work here at Emerson College bring out my full potential - for now. We are regularly reminded that the course is called The NOW of storytelling, because we tell with whatever we have right now. We're not try to be something we are not.
I am Danish, and I don't try to be English, so I tell with the accent and the words that I have in English.

Every day at the course is a rich learning process and I am very happy to be here.

Monday we started our felting class. In a way the felting can symbolize how the words come together as a story at a certain point as the wool suddenly sticks together as a piece of material.
I love working with the colours, so I shall be looking forward to the felting lessons. I already made my first piece.

College life is somewhat different from living alone. We are 12 people sharing a kitchen, but it still works out well.

We have fun and are getting used to each other's habit. In this picture you se peole from Korea, China, France and Denmark.

The highligt of this week on college was the celebration of the day for The Archangel Michael.
We had a wonderful dinner together after an afternoon of community work.
There were many tasks: Preparing the dinner, decorating the hall, weeding, harvesting potatoes, blessing the surroundings, and doing the flower arrangements. I took part of the flower arranging group and enjoyed that a lot. Such a nice earthly thing to do in the midst of the story about Indra, who couldn't get his palace big enough. :-)

We feed the spirit but we also need to feed the body.
And the food here is delicious!