One of my favorite memories from the last few months involves my walking down, seven blocks or so, to a house on Sherman Heights where, in the backyard on a Sunday evening, I sat around a blazing fire with a group of fifteen San Diego creatives who remembered the power of simple story telling. Our circle began with the wonderful song & dance embodiment of the tale of Osiris and Isis by local goth & steampunk starlet Zoe Tantrum. Zoe's lilting voice, rising with the passion of a woman's wrath over the death of her brother, as well as the simultaneous loss of her lover, and falling with the fluidity of the sands of time as the snake slithers and the bird flies across a desert sky was punctuated by syncopated metallic beats, floating reed sounds and a consistent rattling shaker. And I was entranced.
On this evening, I was joined by a few of my brothers: one, the lead singer of a hip world-fusion band, prepared his story - a yarn from his past, complete with props and all! - ahead of time; the other, a successful PhD professor and author well known in the Burning Man community, recited the tale of Maya, from the ancient Hinduism Philosophy that he has spent years researching. I, on the other hand, felt nervous. I challenged myself to not prepare ahead and to, instead, practice sharpening my improvisational, off-the-cuff story telling skills. Which, I admit, are quite rough around the edges!
Yet, as you maybe aware of, what I know is what I write. I write "the truth" as Regal once said. So, this is what I speak into, as well. "This is a story about a time when hope was nearly lost," I began.
Here is what I wrote in a blogpost a few days after the telling. But what I wrote after the fact wasn't really what I said. Instead, I kept my soliloquy relatively short, by simply stating that the artists, lovers, healers and human beings (musicians, dancers, poets and singers) coming out of their shells to tell story, while encouraging others to join them in doing so, were ushering in a period of the great remembering and that this tale was, right now, in the process of being told so, "let it be told." Then, I passed my talking stick to the person on my right.
On this night, I crashed and burned in terms of my delivery and performance. Instead of aiming to be the best story teller, I took a risk by being vulnerable. In the process, I failed at ascending that evening's social hierarchy. It's never fun to be waved off, as though my strengths and gifts are somehow less than. And, granted, it is I who can control how I choose to respond in every given moment - someone's "rejection" of me, is simply a reflection of either their own rejection of themselves or a reflection of my sense of self. Allowing myself to "fail" and then sitting in the face of my own disappointment is healthy. It is a practice that keeps my ego in check. Fall down, climb up, take the reigns, lead, fall down, get back up again. We could all use to implement this medicine into our day-to-day lives more often.
