Insight Into the Storytelling Process & Purpose

I want to share a little bit on process – storytelling process. I had a powerful experience this week, and I think it will shed some light on how you can do the same with your kids.

As some of our readers know, we’ve been working on so many additional pieces – stories, podcast, blogs, blah – that we’ve neglected some of the meat and potatoes of storytelling for a while.

I hope you’ll forgive us. Forgive me. It’s humbling to try and hold all this, to create it, and to remain light, creative, and useful. Frankly, I spend a lot of my time thinking that I’m a big faker.

But I really nailed something this week, and I want to give you some insight into how you can use the same process in your life – whether that’s with your children at home, school, grandkids, or whatever it might be. Adults too. Storytelling is for everyone, not just kids.

The Background

I’m a teacher. That’s where this story begins. I teach a group of 1st-3rd graders, and because of covid we’re 100% outside, even through winter. Masks, snow, the whole bit. But we’re a unique group, and most of these kids have known each other for years. Much of their schooling has been outdoors. We’re weirdos, but fun weirdos.

Anyway, once a week I hold Council, which is a chance for everyone to share what’s on their mind and heart. Based loosely on Native American traditions (and other wisdom traditions around the world), we go around with a talking piece and each child has a chance to share. The rest of us listen.

These kids are 6-9 years old. It’s hard. It’s hard to get a group of adults to be honest about how they’re feeling. Most of our Councils are just practice. We’ll be practicing for years.

I’ve noticed something persistent over time, and in other games and classes too. And that’s this – when someone expresses a strong emotion, value, or opinion it is very difficult for the other children to remain aware of their own. They tend to mimic each other, repeating the same phrases others spoke, and even the same attitudes.

It’s not always this way. Sometimes an individual has a clear and coherent communication all their own. But as a whole, it’s easy for the children to lose themselves in the strong feelings, opinions, and expressions of the others.

Ever notice this? Ever notice this with adults? Heck, I do it all the time.

Enter Storytelling

The reality is that I’m a student of storytelling method just like everyone else. I pretend to know stuff, but I’m not really any better or worse than most of our readers. I feel like an idiot all the time (I’m not suggesting that you are an idiot, just that I am).

But here’s what I’ve learned – storytelling is almost always more effective than direct communication. Or, I could put it this way – storytelling works well in tandem with direct communication. It makes it more memorable.

It’s easy to slough off Mom or Dad’s advice about difficult subjects. It’s tremendously easier to follow the subject through the eyes of a protagonist. It makes it less personal, less invasive.

So here I am, the author of a successful book on storytelling, trying to figure out what to do about the fact that the kids have a hard time being honest about their feelings. I know, feelings. Somebody had to say it.

I work on it, in my down time and on walks. I don’t fixate on it, but I just let my mind wash over the things I’ve observed. If I’ve identified a problem, or topic, then I search for a way to tell a story that might convey a helpful message. But I’m not a very hierarchical teacher. What I really want is just a story that helps us open the doors to communication. That’s what I was looking for this weekend.

If you’ve read our book, you may recognize this as The Storytelling Loop. We take something real, tell a story about it, then return to the real thing with a new perspective. I can’t repeat the entirety of that lesson here, but for folks just beginning the storytelling road I encourage you to look into that. What I’m going to describe is a fairly hifalutin example, but it’s entirely grounded in the simple method we describe basically everywhere.

The Storytelling Loop is a path you can follow, anyone can follow. You see something in your child’s life – a toy, an issue, a cheese plate – then tell a story about it. Nine times out of ten, it’s what I call a whimsical story. It may be funny, it may be serious, but it’s mostly for fun. By grounding yourself in the simplicity of this method, it becomes easier and easier to expand your horizons.

What’s on my plate today – creating an engaging story that gives my students perspective on how to express their authentic feelings – is only here because I’ve been writing, studying, and practicing this stuff for years. At my best, I make it look easy. Or good. But I promise that I trip and fall all the time. More often than I nail it.

But here’s the gift – it doesn’t matter! Aside from the Storytelling Loop, the other major point of our book is that storytelling is best understood as a relationship. It’s something that occurs between you and your child. It’s not so directly about the narrative itself. We add some fancy science to sell the point, but the essential message is easy to grasp: storytelling originated in Homo sapiens as a social tool to help us navigate the increasingly complex social relationships of our species. In other words, storytelling helps us connect with people. In the realm of children’s stories, we’re mostly talking about parent and child. Knock, knock, knock – do you hear what I’m saying? It’s about you, not the power of your narrative.

This is why, if your relationship is in the right place, you’ll nail your stories. This is why you remember your storytelling Grandma or neighbor so fondly. People who take the time to tell us stories remain forever bonded in our hearts. It works almost effortlessly. Children will beg for more. Because they want more you. But if you try to tell ornate stories that compete with the likes of JK Rowling, then you’re probably going to distract yourself, grow tired, and give up. At least, that’s how I am.

So, here I was looking for a story that would give us some perspective on our ability to speak our emotions honestly. Knowing what I do, I was looking for a way to describe the expression of emotion with an analogy, a visual analogy. I like stories that give us lots to look at.

The story I drafted is available below if you’d like to read it. But the story is almost beside the point. I don’t wish to present myself as an incredible storyteller, though I’m not bad. My real goal is to help you see the process for yourself. I promise you that once you practice and awaken to this gift – this gift that every single person on the face of the planet possesses merely by the fact of birth – you will find ways to transform the joys, challenges, and gifts of life into powerful stories that will enable you and your children to remember them with greater fidelity. You will not just dwell in the supernatural, but you will return to the world with open eyes and translucent skills.

Good luck. I mean it. And please do write and ask us questions if they come up. We’re not perfect, but we have some good tools and experience. It’s a pleasure to be in a position to help.

With kindness,

Joseph Sarosy

Ixandra & The Temple of True Colors

A long time ago, when the earth was still experimenting with creatures, there lived a great civilization under the sea. These people had a unique ability. They were able to change the color of their skin, much like an octopus or cuttlefish. It was an amazing and beautiful feature, and also very vulnerable. Because the color of a person’s skin told you something about how they felt, what they were thinking.

It wasn’t slow like the color change of a chameleon. It came on rapidly, almost instantly. A universe of colors – greens, reds, blues, yellows, brown and gold. And not just one at a time, but their whole body was a like a canvass which could assume different pigments and textures at any location.

It’s easy to disbelieve this. But today you can find thousands of videos on YouTube of an octopus doing this very thing. It is quite possible for mother nature to endow her creatures with skin of this sort.

The skin of these color-changing people was not merely beautiful. It gave them a great ability: the cloak of invisibility. They were not truly invisible, but they were able to control the pigment of their skin with such precision that they could blend in perfectly with their surroundings.

Imagine today standing with one leg in front of a red brick building, another leg in front of the green grass, and two arms raised to the blue sky. Such were these people that every inch of their body could mimic the color of these diverse backgrounds, rendering them almost imperceptible.

And they could shift and change color in real time! Walking from one end of their coral kingdom, their feet and legs would transition from the red of the coral to the dark milky green of seaweed, to the cool gray of a snub-nosed shark. All at the same time. Their bodies were like tv screens, rippling with color, even mimicking the undulating movement of water. It was mesmerizing.

It was not long before these people grew powerful. Their camouflage made them skilled hunters. They spread across the oceans and filled every known sea. In time, they farmed the coral reefs, domesticated whales and fish, and traveled at great speeds from one kingdom to another.

So you’d think these people were happy. In fact, they were not. Not most of them. And that’s because this unique ability also came with a curse. Or so, they came to think of it as a curse. And that was this – their skin rippled with color every time they felt a strong emotion.

Anger flashed across their bodies like a bright red stop sign. It was impossible not to notice. Sadness evoked a deep blue, and wherever a sad person went, everyone would point and laugh. Jealous people turned green and were avoided. Frustration was a sickly yellow. Happiness was a soft blue, much like the sky. But it was rare to see that among the people. They were powerful, but the one thing they had little power over was their own feelings.

It hadn’t always been that way. When the creatures first populated the oceans, they moved in small groups called schools. Every member of a school knew every other, and most of them were family. In such a setting, it was okay when one or two got angry and flashed red. The others would notice. Their skin tone was like a signal that something was off.

Reading a person’s skin was like reading their mind, or their heart. The school would move in together and help the angry people calm down. When they once again grew calm, their bodies would be able to mix and morph into any field of color once again.

And if someone in the group got sad or frustrated, the color would draw the others in. In this way, the school, or family, would moderate the ups and downs of each of its members. They grew strong.

But their strength was precisely the problem. For in time, the schools grew large and great kingdoms were born. The people no longer lived in bands of 20 or 30, but giant cities under the sea. The largest had thousands, and even millions of people.

Anaxamander was the king of one such city, one of the most powerful empires under the sea. His kingdom covered the entire reef off the coast of Australia (then known as Anassi).

Anassi was one of the most productive fishing grounds anywhere on the planet. More species of fish and crustacea could be found there than anywhere else on the earth. Pearls were grown in clams that ranged in size from teacups to small cars. The largest decorated the pinnacles and spires of the kingdom. Smaller, more delicate ones festooned the garments and weapons of the elite.

In other words, the school was immense. And the skill that had made the people great – the ability to see and diagnose the inner thoughts and feelings of their members – came to be seen as a weakness. A vulnerability. It was unwanted. No one wanted to be recognized for how they truly felt. They wanted to be and appear like others.

That was the trick that Anaxamander and his people developed. They were able to override their gut feeling and skin tone by a process called emulation. They hid their feelings by pretending to be feeling and thinking the thoughts of someone they admired. They got so good at it that they were able to trick themselves. It wasn’t that they hid their skin color. It was that they hid their true feelings – even to themselves!

Whenever someone powerful or admirable flashed an obvious color across their skin, the people would emulate it. If Anaxamander was furious (and he often was), the entire royal estate would stamp about as if there was nothing they wanted more in the world than to be angry.

And if Anaxamander would swoon into a state of sadness and hopelessness, the entire city would follow him into a deep blue. They had learned to read each other, and especially the elites, then reflect their feelings and thoughts back into the world. And it worked. Mostly. No one felt awkward anymore. They didn’t stand out in the crowd. They simply pretended to be what everyone thought other people wanted them to be.

The city prospered.

Anaxamander felt very powerful. His school controlled the most important fishing grounds on the earth. Not only that, but whatever feeling arose in his heart was instantly emulated upon the skin of his people. Everyone followed his lead, and since that had the appearance of power, he felt powerful.

But he didn’t feel happy. It was increasingly difficult to feel happy. Instead, he was angry most of the time. He was angry because other kings and queens were constantly battling at the edges of his territory. They were furious that Anaxamander controlled the most fertile part of the sea, and they were determined to gain some of it for themselves.

This kept Anaxamander busy, red hot, and volatile. The truth is, he wasn’t always angry. He was often sad, but he had little way of knowing it. Even he, the leader of the largest city under the sea, was powerless to acknowledge his true feelings. He couldn’t recognize them. As soon as he felt a sign of weakness in his body, for that’s what he called it, he would flash a sign of red hot anger. He was angry that he was unhappy!

The only moment of joy Anaxamander felt was when he crushed his opponents. So he did. Ruthlessly. The kings and queens who fought endlessly at the edges of his empire, themselves red hot and angry, were constantly being destroyed by Anaxamander’s armies.

And so red, the color of anger, came to be seen as the admirable color. It was the color of power. The flags of Anassi were bright red, and it was considered honorable to arrive in public wearing a skin of crimson. Anaxamander himself wore a cloak of royal red, studded with thousands of exquisite pearls that reflected the color of vengeance he always wore.

But there was one thing that irritated Anaxamander to no end. Queen Ixandra. Queen Ixandra lived within the very walls of Anassi, and her people infiltrated the entire city. Everyone knew it, and Anaxamander’s highest officials were constantly trying to locate her, her silent warriors, and her temple, the seat of her power.

But although Ixandra lived and reigned within the kingdom of Anassi, she remained impossible to find. No one even knew how many followers she had. It was rumored to be only a few, but the truth is no one knew. It was as if they were invisible.

The source of Ixandra’s power lay in her temple. Within its walls, her followers practiced the ancient art of the schools. They arrived in 3’s or 4’s, or even as many as 20 at a time. Their secret, their superpower, was in allowing each member of the community to express their true colors, their honest feelings.

It was remarkable how difficult this was, but when it did happen the others would not look and laugh. Nor would they emulate the feeling tone on their own skin. They were true masters. They simply allowed the person to feel and show their true colors. Like their ancestors, they would look and listen, and allow those feelings to arise without adding any judgment or unnecessary emulation. They simply allowed it to be spoken through the color of their skin. It was wordless.

What Ixandra and her people discovered is that when this was done authentically, when the feeling tone was fully expressed, without raging or blaming or complaining, but simply felt and expressed as a true color – the feeling dissolved almost instantly. The subtlety of color and skin texture returned. The person became invisible.

Not invisible, of course, but able to display the full range of color and pigmentation possible for a creature of this sort. Just like their ancestors. Just like an octopus does today.

That’s why Ixandra and her people were able to hide within the walls of Anassi. No one could find them, because they had true power. They had something that not even the king had. They were happy. They were focused. They were content.

Nobody knew how many followers Ixandra had, but Anaxamander and his people knew about the Lichens. Lichens were the warriors of Ixandra’s army, and they were comprised of men and women of all colors. They were like samurai, silent, hidden, unnoticed. It was not uncommon for one to be sitting within the very walls of the throne room – and no one could find them!

Ixandra and her army knew every secret of Anaxamander’s kingdom. They had infiltrated every part of the royal estate. With this knowledge, Ixandra was able to move her temple at a moment’s notice, keeping her people safe and her power intact.

This aggravated Anaxamander to no end. Ixandra did not claw at the edges of his empire the way other kings and queens did, she lived within it. He had no way to find her, no way to appease his anger. His skin boiled. Rage filled his body, and the only revenge he had was upon the kings and queens foolish enough to attack him openly.

Then one day, Anaxamander disappeared. Confusion leaked through the ranks like a pale sickly yellow. Everyone was so highly attuned to the varying shades of red, blue, and green that they hardly knew how to recognize one another. How to feel? What to look like? What to do?

Information flew through the castle walls. Questions without answers. Finally Exetor, Anaxamander’s most trusted general, burned a familiar and cunning red. The people felt safe. Anger was familiar. It felt empowering, particularly in the midst of so much confusion. Soon the entire city once again glowed red under Exetor’s command.

The guards, servants, and courtiers of the castle were interviewed one by one. Had anyone seen anything? No one had.

Meanwhile, a small band of legs and arms moved through the city unnoticed. Like the many arms of an octopus, it morphed and changed colors as it went, hiding itself in plain sight. No one saw it enter, and no one saw it leave. Within, hidden by the arms and legs of eight skilled lichens, the king of Anassi.

Anaxamander, under a powerful spell of confusion, watched as his skin flickered new colors he had never seen before. The red was familiar, but it gave way constantly to new and ugly shades of gray, green, and yellow, a vomit sort of color that made him feel sick. And scared. Was this fear coursing through his veins?

Back at the castle Exetor issued a command. Even without words, it could easily be read on the surface of his skin, a sleek and oily red-black like the color of curdled blood. Hatred.

Immediately, it radiated out from him into the heart and skin of everyone in Anassi. “Never forget this day,” he said, his skin crawling repulsively. It was a command everyone was familiar with: never forget. “Every citizen has but one task – find the temple of Ixandra. Let your anger be your light.”

And with that, an entire kingdom set out to search for Ixandra.

After a long and circuitous journey, Anaxamander was delivered to a small room by the nimble hands and feet of the men and women who had abducted him. The lichens had moved quickly, but gently. Even Anaxamander had recognized the softness of their touch. Their power, their grip on him, had no unified source upon which to focus his resistance.

Unbeknownst to Anaxamander, the school had maintained their poise and camouflage by constantly tuning in with each other and radiating a sense of inner calm. This was how they prevented the emulation of anger, violence, and fear emanating from Anaxamander throughout the journey.

When Anaxamander stood up and looked around, he was surprised to see the walls of a simple room carved into a bed of coral reef. It appeared to be not much more than a fishing cabin. “Can this be the temple of Ixandra!” he said aloud to the men and women who had carried him there. “It’s filthy!”

Suddenly, the walls came alive with dozens of people, people who hadn’t been there before. Anaxamander looked aghast. “Don’t worry,” came the voice of the woman in front. “We won’t hurt you.” As she spoke, waves of soft white and blue pulsed rapidly across her body, a display of light Anaxamander had never seen before in his life. It was mesmerizing.

“Who are you?” asked Anaxamander, suddenly soft. His mouth was agape. Try as he might, he could not hide his admiration. Small spots of blue appeared on his hands, his heart. This strange new place and this strange new woman was, in spite of all his attempts at resistance, making him feel happy. It was delicious.

“You know who I am,” said the woman. As she took a step closer, her skin stopped pulsing and took on the pale cream color of the giant pearls of Anassi. It was so much more magnificent than his cloak of pearls.

The movement and power of this woman was unlike anything Anaxamander had experienced in his life. His skin flickered through shades of blue, gray, green, pink, and black, like a tv screen tuned to no channel in particular.

“Ix…Ix…andra…?” he muttered.

“Perhaps,” said the woman.

“Why am I here?” asked Anaxamander, now at a loss for his anger, his vibrant certainty of color. He continued to flicker through a range of colors, as if unable to find himself.

“My warriors brought you here to heal,” said the woman. “The entire world emulates you, but you give them little.” She clasped her hands in front of her lips, and gave a polite nod to the lichens who had delivered Anaxamander to this room, this temple. Each gave a silent nod in return, flashed a soft green of gratitude, then folded themselves into the color of space, and disappeared from Anaxamander’s stunned eyes.

“They have done admirably,” said the woman, “and they too will have a chance to rest and heal in the calm waters of the temple. You have poured a great deal of anger into their flesh.”

“Is this your temple?” asked Anaxamander, suddenly flashing a charcoal hue, betraying his contempt. It was nothing like he had imagined, nothing worthy of a queen.

The woman laughed. “This is just a room,” she said gently, shifting her skin to match the scratchy red texture of the coral walls. “The temple is in your head. It’s always been in your head. That’s why you’ve never found us. You’re looking for something out there. Our temple is here.” The woman pointed to the sides of her head, just above her soft beautiful eyes.

Suddenly, a loud clanging came from outside. Anaxamander had only a moment to notice the woman recede into the background as a new band of lichens quickly enveloped him and rushed him out, then down, the back of the room. As suddenly as they had appeared, everyone was gone.

Outside, an old fisherman was pulling his trailer. He noticed not one of the hundreds of lichens spread across the coral reef. He had started his journey flaming red, impassioned by the words of Exetor, but along the way he had grown weary of his anger. Now he was just a fisherman checking his traps.

As he did, his skin glowed a soft rose. It was the color of compassion. He filled his belly and his wallet with the creatures that he caught, but he admired them too. The fluid movement of the fish, the funny but loveable lobsters. The Don Quixote’s of the sea, he called them, old knights bedecked in suits of armor.

Parking his trailer near the entrance of the cabin, he climbed inside. Cabins like these were used by several fishers in the area. This one was larger than the others, but it was rare to find someone else inside. Once he had come upon a roaming school of kids, then yelled at them when he found them scratching something into the walls. He glanced at the graffiti now. He had tried to rub it away many times, but somehow the words always stuck: Anger never forgets.

The kids had probably thought it was noble. “Never forget,” was a common expression in Anassi. Just fill in the blank – the Arno, the betrayal, the ides of September. Like everyone, the kids were just emulating the king and the elites who held power.

But Ixsy, the fisherman, wanted to forget. He understood learning from history. He grasped the importance of safety and security for the citizens of Anassi. But he also understood, perhaps more than others, how anger had burned a hole in his heart. He had been right, angry and right, for decades. It wasn’t fun to live that way. His son would no longer talk to him. His wife had left him after years of his violent rages. Now, all he had was the fish. And Don Quixote.

Anaxamander moved fluidly through the coral corridors. He made out little of the walls, but this time he didn’t resist. He followed the movements of the skilled hands and feet of the lichens. He himself continued to flicker yellow, black, and green as countless questions poured through his body. But the lichens were invisible. Covering him like a cloak, moving as one body, they turned and twisted their way through the coral reef until they reached an opening.

Suddenly, a face appeared directly in front of him. “Stay here,” she said. It was one of the lichens. The visible contours of her face helped him understand the gravity with which she spoke. Then, just as suddenly, she was gone, as were the hands and feet of the others. He felt out in search of them, for something familiar. Nothing was there.

The room was dark, but as his eyes adjusted to the faint glow of his confusion he was able to make out a small room. It was much smaller than the cabin he had been in previously, more crudely scraped into the ancient bed, now of white limestone. He began feeling along the walls for any sign of Ixandra or the lichens, but all he felt was the scratchy surface of his prison. He scuffed the wall and let out a sigh. To his surprise, there was not a tinge of red on his skin.

Ixsy heard a sound. It seemed to come from deep below the ancient coral bed. What was it? Maybe just ol’ Don Quixote clawing at the walls of his subterranean home. Who knows? Still, it wasn’t a familiar sound. As he glanced at the floor, he saw something flash out of the corner of his eye.

Ixsy leaned over and picked up a small piece of red cloth. It was torn on one edge, and one side was covered in a dozen tiny pearls. He glanced at it curiously, as would anyone in Anassi at that moment. It was obviously torn from the king’s cloak.

Clutching the scrap in his hand, Ixsy made way for the door. But suddenly the door came alive and he screamed in terror.

End Part 1

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Top photo by Kaleidico via UnSplash