AZ Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Storytelling and Listening

“Stories are a form of medicine that can operate

at the deepest levels of self and soul.”

Michael Meade

Telling one’s own story is an ancient art. Nowadays, we have forgotten how to listen and how to tell. Yet the very survival of our species depends on our ability to communicate with each other in such ways as to be mutually enriched by the telling and the listening. If we cannot tell with expression, our life is mute. If we cannot listen like a mirror, we cannot reflect back the wholeness of the four shields — the body, soul, mind and spirit of the teller. The best stories are about human nature — that is, the human of us which is, after all, nature in her basic manifestations as physical, psychical, rational, and spiritual. One of the best ways to create a four shields story, if not the best, is to put people in contact with nature in the raw.

What comes forth in the story is the stuff of self-transformation. Even as we “myth” ourselves through experience, so we express ourselves into existence. Our stories about our natural selves, and our means of expressing them, lead us to courage, and commitment, and the will to survive, and to transcend the difficulty, to go beyond ourselves. Those of us who work with people must know how to listen and respond to the stories these people bring forth, so that we can help them create a life that is meaningful and of greater benefit to community and to the earth.

 This program is designed to evoke and create a style of listening and storytelling that is uniquely your own, to practice reflecting what you hear with the fullness of your being (body, psyche, mind and spirit). It is also a ceremony and, like all ceremonies at the School of Lost Borders, requires a willingness to lose your borders and to go beyond what is familiar and known.

This Program is an invitation to all humans who are willing to share stories and experience the gift of mirroring stories of empowerment and wholeness.  This program is also specifically appropriate for direct care professionals such as: wilderness guides, counselors, coaches, and teachers to name a few.

Program Overview:  We will meet in an outdoor setting. Our time together will be a weaving of teaching circles, solo time in nature and story council. You will learn ways to mirror back others experience from each direction on the wheel, to meet their stories in ways to skillfully draw out the gifts contained within.