The Princess in the Mirror
It’s amazing how long a picture from a fairy tale can stay with you. For years, I have had a picture in the back of my mind. A princess has been turned into a withering old woman with balding red hair and grey wrinkled skin. She’s stuck in a dusty garret in a castle...
The Story Keeper
I know this woman. She’s a story keeper. Her hair has gone white now, but right away you would notice the snapping light in her eyes. Her skin is crinkled and grey, and her hands are covered in spots. The joints are knobby and arthritic, but she still writes. She’s...
Entering the Land of the Soul
The fairy tale has been called "the land of the soul." It's a terrain we can enter. We can gaze into wells, wander through forests and castles, swim in lakes, and climb glass mountains. We can dive deeply with the mermaids or soar to the heavens on the back of the...
Stillness Rising – A Song for Earth Day
"Stillness Rising" is a meditative song that takes us into a quiet place to consider what we might hear from the Earth with the rising of stillness.Stillness Rising There is too much noise between usNo stillness yet,Listen for it and so shall IAnd the channel will...
Original Thoughts
Pity the tight, constrained, over-edited lines living their conventional lives lined up in perfect order little scouts, doing what they're told unable to speak for themselves… Original Thoughts Oh, do you mind? May I break through the lines to ask a few questions on...
Daughter of Erysichthon
In Metamorphosis, the Roman poet Ovid tells a story about a man named Erysichthon whose exploitive behavior leads to a harrowing end. At the same time, he has a daughter who offers a very different way of thinking about humanity's relationship with the natural world....
The Falcon’s Cry
Over the holiday, I rediscovered "Down in Yon Forest," a mysterious old ballad that I performed at the Toronto Storytelling Festival many years ago. I stood alone on stage and sang it in a childlike a cappella voice, imagining it to be sung by an absolute innocent....
Missing Pieces – A Reverie
Early this morning I woke thinking about the steadfast tin soldier. He often comes to me at Christmas time, that noble fellow who has lost a leg in the manufacturing process. The boys who play on the floor with the soldiers don’t use the one-legged soldier, so he’s...
Latest Flight of the Broad Mind!
Every now and then I hear about the flights that my little book “The Broad Mind” has been making around the world. The other day I received a note from Colleen Reichrath-Smith, a certified Global Career Development Facilitator who is working in the Netherlands. She...
To Perform or Not to Perform … That is the Question
I love creating things that can be shared with an audience, but I struggle with the notion of performance. It’s hard to go out there and put myself on the stage. I’m not a natural extrovert, and I know I’m not the only performer who feels reluctant to leave the wings....
Oliver Sacks on Awakening
No story has gripped me more than the real-life "sleeping beauty" story that Oliver Sacks tells in his magnificent book, Awakenings. For years I have been fascinated by the symmetry between his experience of patients with encephalitis lethargica and the fairy tale,...
Voices from “The Dark Princess”
In mid-April, I held an online course called "THREADS" in collaboration with Storytelling Toronto. THREADS is an annual workshop series that invites participants to move into a single fairy tale and find their own threads of meaning. This year I chose Richard...