Pearls of Wisdom

Dora Fowler - New York State's Oldest Teacher

Dora Fowler retired this month at age 91 – she was New York State’s oldest teacher. Three years ago, the Catskill Teacher Center honored her by producing a documentary about her career called “A Life Worth Living.” Her experiences in the classroom and beyond – three-day camping excursions in a local park with her fifth graders and “learning to fly” like Peter Pan with the help of a professional acting troupe that visited her school – are the stuff of great stories. The details of her life enrich all those who take the time to listen.

On Sunday, March 13 at 3:00 The Pearls of Wisdom Storytellers will share their collective wisdom at The Provincetown Playhouse in New York City. The Pearls are a touring ensemble of elder storytellers directed by ESTA – Elders Share the Arts – an organization that affirms the creative potential of older adults and upholds their time-honored role as bearers of history and culture by using the power of the arts to transmit their stories and life experiences.

On March 13^th, Shirley Young will take you to New Orleans on a Saturday when she helped her mother, a domestic, clean her employer’s house.  However, returning home on the public bus turns out to be a dangerous adventure.  Rose Fontanell will share her experience of trying to get revenge for discrimination at a class reunion. Juliette Holmes, who was born in Savannah, Georgia, proudly tells of how her mother taught her wisdom.

Thelma Ruffin Thomas says she rarely shared personal stories when she became the artistic director of the Pearls back in 2000. Since then, she has learned the value of giving voice to history as experienced "from the ground up."  The lively, spirited, interactive, and authentic presentations of the Pearls not only uphold the value of elder stories but also inspire audience participants to share stories of their own. “Go out and tell your stories wherever you go,” says Thelma.

Provincetown Playhouse
133 MacDougal Street, New York City
(between West 3rd Avenue and Washington Square Park)

A note from Odds Bodkins, Sharing the Fire Keynote speaker

Hello, fellow storytellers,

I’m looking forward to my keynote at Sharing the Fire and to heading out of isolation in New Hampshire to mingle. Just tell me there’s no snow in Rhode Island. I just snowblew another six inches on top of what must be fifteen storms’ worth up here. The end of my driveway looks like a closing heart valve.

Anyway, Healing the World One Story at a Time couldn’t be a better topic for a keynote, at least for me, since I’ve just published online a project years in the making, one that attempts to heal with a story. I guess you could say it works to heal the wounded empathy of young Americans. Big item, I know. Still, I think I have a good story for it with a workable approach and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you. Plus I’ll play some Celtic harp and 12-string for your enjoyment during the keynote and try to fit our craft into the context of revolutions, from the ongoing digital one to those in the Middle East, as well as into the context of human evolution, highlighting the timeless touch of the spoken word.

See you there.

Odds

PS: check out my new YouTube video, just up, about the empathy project. A quick 8 minutes.



Odds Bodkin

Storyteller, Author, Musician

Rivertree Productions, Inc.

PO Box 410

Bradford, NH 03221

(603) 938-5120

rivertree2@tds.net

Sharing the Fire - What's our "Corporate Identity"?

Every corporation has a story to tell. Businesses and non-profits invest money in marketing to develop public prominence and recognizability. Just like individuals, they want people to know who they are and what they stand for. Building a corporate identity means that the organization involved has to answer the questions “who are we?” and “where are we going?”

2011 marks the100^th anniversary for IBM – a major milestone in any organization. They put together a video that succinctly (13 minutes seems succinct for 100 years worth of stuff) and effectively tells their story using sound storytelling principles…vivid images, emotional connections to historical events, precise language and a clear narrative line. And…they pose questions for the future.

Sharing the Fire and LANES both have significant anniversaries coming up this year. "Who are we? Where have we been? Where are we going?" These anniversaries provide a wonderful opportunity for us to answer those questions and establish our own “corporate identity” so people can learn what storytelling is really all about. Sharing the Fire in Warwick, RI gives us a great place to begin collecting the necessary material. As Carolyn Stearns has pointed out…we could make our own video… and tell the world who we are!

Posted by Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi

Six Words Can’t Sum Me Up

“The ability to tell a story…is right dead,
smack in the center of what it is to be human.” 

Margaret Atwood

I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets – Six-Word Memoirs by Teens Famous & Obscure inspired Youth Services Director Joan Frenzel at the Millbrook Library to put up a wall for kids to write poems about themselves – “some funny, some heartbreaking, all very telling.” The editors of the book put it this way, “When we were teens, our secrets filled journals stuffed under mattresses; you share your stories with one another and the world. On your blogs, your MySpace and Facebook pages, and at places like PostSecret and SMITHteens, you’re the leaders of a revolution, using personal storytelling to connect everyone.”

Massmouth founders Norah Dooley, Andrea Lovett and Doria Hughes are taking storytelling into Massachusetts high schools in a program called StoriesLive® to give the opportunity to use personal storytelling - face to face - unfiltered by cyberspace. StoriesLive® is an adaptable program, supported by a robust online presence that introduces and teaches storytelling as a performance art to 11th/12th grade high school students through the study and sharing of oral personal narrative.  Students will learn an indispensable life skill - the ability to tell a good story.

And, as every memoirist knows, it is the process of reflection and crafting a personal story that allows you to discover the truth of who you are.

Become a fan of the Millbrook Library 

and a follower of StoriesLive®…   http://stories-live.blogspot.com/

Posted by Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi

Use Your Words

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Happy New Year!

I opened my email this morning and read: - “Bonne et Heureuse année!  Happy New Year!” – Greetings from my SCCC storytelling friends in Canada. My parents came to the U.S. from Canada in the fifties and all my relatives live in Canada. It is a place that is dear to my heart!

I belong to LOTS of different storytelling organizations. Once a month, I gather with local teller Muriel Horowitz to help facilitate the Dutchess County Interfaith Story Circle where local folks get together to share stories, memories, insights and story snippets from various spiritual traditions. I am a member of the Capital District Story Circle in Albany. I live more than an hour away and never get to the meetings but I have been invited to tell at several venues sponsored by them and am friends with many of the members. I work with Joe Doolittle, Kate Dudding & Marni Gillard to coordinate The Gathering - an informal event - where storytellers from  all over NY state get to know one another and find out what is going on in their own back yard. I am a member of Northlands Storytelling Network even though I have never been to Wisconsin.  I met Karen Wollscheid, the Executive Director, when I was in Canada at SCCC this summer and I want to support that organization because they do such good things. I am an active member of LANES and a dues paying member of NSN.

All of these organizations serve a need…they help me connect with other storytellers. I need the face-to-face camaraderie of storytelling pals who know who I am and will listen to my dreams and worries. I need regional organizations with a healthy infrastructure that can provide conferences and workshops to encourage me to grow as an artist. And, I need a national organization that can advocate for the art of storytelling in a way that my lone voice in the woods of Salt Point could never accomplish.  

Cindy Campbell

As Cindy Campbell, President of the Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada, said in her New Year’s message to members …

 Stories are always present wherever we are and wherever we are not, whether we are alone or surrounded by people. … Whatever your story may be, with Storytellers of Canada- Conteurs du Canada, you have a place to tell it, a place that supports it, a place that helps promote it, a place that values it.

posted by Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi

Stories Knit Us Together

A few weeks ago, I received an overstuffed envelope in the mail from my friend Kate Dudding. Inside was a gift – a pair of socks that Kate had knit herself. They weren’t ordinary socks…the stripes were added specifically according to Kate’s design and the best part – they matched but they weren’t exactly the same. Later that day, I spoke with my friend Karen Pillsworth who had also received a pair of socks from Kate. “We have to wear them at Tellabration!,” I said and we did.  I met Kate because of our involvement in the storytelling world but we became friends because of stories…

Stories seep out of us in many different ways. For my friend Karen and me, it always starts with a glass of Pinot Noir and a glass of Chardonnay, usually at the Beekman Arms in Rhinebeck where we meet regularly to make plans for our story adventures. Our plans are interlaced with stories about our children, our husbands, our other jobs. The last time we got together,  Karen told me about her after-school program for “homeless” children in Kingston. One day, she brought in crayons and let the children draw. When Karen asked a little boy about his drawing, he explained that it was an El Camino (car) which Karen recognized, immediately. “My dad and I went for a ride…” That was the story – the one thing he shared with his father. Stories come to us in all kinds of ways – we have to be aware and ready to receive them.

Nov. 26, 2010 is the National Day of Listening sponsored by StoryCorps. StoryCorps encourages people to interview family members, record and share stories. “By listening closely to one another, we can help illuminate the true character of this nation reminding us all just how precious each day can be and how great it is to be alive,” says Dave Isay, Founder & President of StoryCorps. This Thanksgiving season, let us be thankful for the gift of story in our lives. Let us listen to one another… 
posted by Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi