Wishing Planting Ceremony July 9

Whenever I do a Crossroads residency with At-Risk Youth, our activities culminate with a celebration of their accomplishments. They each share their stories and I tell on also. Then, their wishes are collected in a round basket and we "break bread" which is usually more like pigging out on pizza or ice cream! I make the promise not to throw their dreams away when the basket becomes full, and not to burn them either. Instead, I make the promise that we will plant their wishes in the garden. We end up doing this once every year or two, usually in my garden under the prayer tree. This time we are very fortunate that the runaway shelter has offered to let us use their garden and we are opening it to the public. See below for the deatils on date, time and location.

We begin with an explanation as above and the story. We create a sacred space. Each participant will be invited to read aloud one or two of the youths' wishes and make one of their own if they would like. These slips of paper are placed in the ground and this year we are planting a perrenial on top of the wishes along with a marker of some kind. I hope you can join us and help make these wishes come true.

You are invited to the Crossroads Story Center Wish Planting Ceremony, Saturday July 9, 10am at the Compass House Runaway Shelter 370 Linwood Ave, Buffalo NY. We will honor and plant the wishes of area teens along with a new perennial for their garden. Please come help us celebrate and keep an important promise to these youth, never to let their dreams die and to help them grow.

Bullying and Storytelling

I've been asked to present a storytelling session on anti-bullying to grades 7-12. Currently, I have a program called Walking the Line: Becoming an Ambassador for Change, which incorporates the message of anti-bullying, community involvement, and legacy building. I have presented that workshop to younger children, grades K-5, along with a teacher training workshop. My programs for older students usually have more to do with self-empowerment and I think that goes nicely hand-in-hand with stopping bullying.

Before you can work with someone on bullying, you need to understand what it is.

The Bully:
Many times the bully is not intentionally setting out to harm someone in the way we might plan ahead to go grocery shopping. The bully often has many internal issues that act out as bullying. Are there bullies who plan actions ahead? Yes. But it isn't so much that they wake up and ask "Who can I make miserable today?" It is more that they wake up and ask "How can I be successful today?" You see, most bullies are very weak. They lack self-esteem, perhaps even lack self-confidence, they are not really leaders (they lack leadership training), they do not like to be alone or act alone, they thrive on having followers, and they lack empowerment skills. The secret is what is lacking for them more than "evil" intent. Therefore asking someone to not be a bully is like asking them not to breathe. They need to learn to channel that energy and how to interact with others successfully. They need to build up self-esteem so that instead of seeing everyone as against them or better than them and being jealous, they will be happy for the successes of others. In other words, we need to get them to a point of feeling so good about themselves, what others do won't matter.

The Victim:
In some cases the victim may be like the bully. The victim may be weak and lacking in self-esteem making them easy prey for a bully who is looking for someone to push down. But unlike the bully, victims often start out feeling good about themselves in some way. The bully will look for that strength and over time take little pieces of it until the victims no longer have that strength to hold them up. On the other hand, some victims are the opposite of the bully, very strong, happy and giving which can make them vulnerable. Think of the legend of the dragon. It always has some soft spot under its scaly armor. That is the spot the bully looks for and in a strong victim it is usually easy to find because of their openness and willingness to share.

Bully and victim have a symbiotic relationship. Neither can exist without the other, and therein lies the key to stopping bullying. We have to work from both ends, helping the bully become a better person and the victim to ignore the bully. It is not enough to say "It isn't nice to bully people." Everyone will nod "yes" even the bully.

Instead we need to identify the bullies early and begin channeling all that negative energy into positive actions. Make them leaders, give them responsibilities, teach them to manipulate for the good of others rather than to puff themselves up.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that quite a few bullies could potentially have been victims instead, perhaps even victims of domineering adults. What made the difference? What turned a potential or actual victim into a bully? Success. As soon as they found someone weaker than themselves and were able to make that person react to them, they were successful. And that is what the bully craves most, success.

As far as the victims go, I still firmly believe that we should teach all children from a very young age that they can fail without being less than who they are, that they can laugh at their own failings and flaws, and that they can shrug off the stuff that is unimportant in life. That means we have to teach them what is important in life. And it doesn't hurt to throw in a few incantations such as "I am rubber, you are glue. What you say bounces off me and sticks to you."

So where does storytelling play into this. Why are more and more people asking storytellers to tell stories about bullying? Simply because if we tell people not to bully and it isn't nice they will all nod "yes" but they don't really get the message until they themselves have been placed in the situation. And what responsible adult is going to place a child in a situation where they can be bullied just to feel how it is? A storyteller will. Yes, I did say that and here's why.

In a story the characters go through the actions of bully and/or victim on behalf of the children. While the children are listening, if there is any spark of innocence or guilt or conscience in those children, the story will show them that they really want the good guy to triumph. Why? Because they want to triumph. And the bullies? Well they may want the story-bully to win but guess what? They won't. Message received, no lectures made, story comes back to the surface whenever the children need it. And the listener has been there and felt everything the characters felt all under the guidance of a storyteller who watches their reactions.

The more stories we give children, the more they have in their arsenal to assist and guide them the rest of their lives.

So all of that said, I am going to tell stories already in my empowerment repertoire but with framing statements and questions that will guide the listeners to the anti-bullying messages in the story. And I may leave the teachers with a few things for follow-up with their students. I always like cause and effect activities, where students get to play "what if" with a story.

Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell, what if he had chided her, teased her instead of being honorable toward her? How would that have effected his knighthood and her life?

Scar Face Girl, why was she the only one who could see the mighty warrior Strong Wind?

Vasalisa, who were the bullies in the story? Was the witch a bully? How do we determine who is a bully and who is really just motivating us?

The Wooden Sword, why was the poor cobbler able to overcome the tests of the king without falling to pieces?

I think these are good questions and good stories for this program.

The program is Wednesday and was booked pretty late for me to create anything new. If I have time I may work up one of the children's stories I tell with younger children and update it, modernize and make it appropriate for older children. That is the story of the Ugly Duckling.

The Empty Cage

Copyright©Czarnota 2010
No portion of this story may be recorded in any form without permission of the author. Permission is given to share as long as the author is given credit.

The Empty Cage
An Original Story

In all the discussions of at-risk youth and story for healing, we should not lose sight of our compassion for the mother who has lost her child to the wilderness, and she should show kindness to herself also. The following story was written for my friend whose daughter ran away, leaving two more teens still living at home. All three children were adopted and their new parents always had, and still have, great hopes for them.
_________________________

One day a young woman walked through the woods to fetch berries. She had a small basket over her arm that swung merrily to and fro. As the woman neared a woodland pond, she heard the unmistakable chirping of young birds nearby. Sure enough, three tiny, downy soft baby birds came toddling out of the bushes and gathered around her feet.

“Where is your mother?” asked the woman softy. She looked here and there in the underbrush. She found an abandoned nest and the young birds continued to chirp loudly.

“You’re hungry little ones,” she said as she took plump berries from the basket to feed them. They eagerly devoured them.

Gently, the young woman tucked each birdling into the pockets of her apron and carried them home.

“They have no one,” she told her husband. “Can’t we care for them?”

The couple had no children and the husband was enamored of the young birds too. “Yes,” he replied smiling. “We can keep them. Tomorrow I will make a beautiful cage that they will be safe and comfortable.”

The next morning dawned crisp and bright. Before the woman rose from sleep, her husband busied himself in his work shed. All morning she heard pounding, sanding, and scraping until at last he emerged holding a lovely cage. It was delicate, but sturdy and carved with intricate designs of the forest.

“Oh, how wonderful!” his wife exclaimed as she hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek. “What a fine place to live.”

She searched the warm place behind the kitchen stove and found the little chicks cuddled together. “Come my precious ones and see your new home.”

The birds were placed in the cage and the door was closed carefully behind them. They looked splendid, happy, and safe.

Every day the young couple admired their charges. They spoke to them, fed them, and kept them clean and warm. Every day the young chicks grew. Finally, they were no longer babies. They had grown into beautiful adolescents. Their soft down was replaced with larger feathers in many colors. The young birds loved their home and the couple, but as the days went by they longed for the life they saw beyond the cage walls. They could see the sunshine and the forest through the window. They could smell the fresh breezes of a new spring. The oldest of the three longed so much that her heart was breaking. One night, she made good her escape.

Oh, the next morning was frantic. “Husband! Husband,” cried the woman. “One of our children is missing!”

Running into the room, the man saw it was so. His wife broke into tears and he wiped a few away himself.

“What are we to do, Husband?”

“Take joy in the two who are left to us, Wife. Perhaps the other will return.”

The man made certain the cage door would not open again. He wrapped it with wire, tighter than before, but it was not to keep the second or third young one from leaving. They were determined to find a way, and one morning the cage lay completely empty.

The couple was sad. The woman’s heart longed for their soft chirping and the touch of their soft wings, but mostly her heart yearned to have someone for whom to care. With a great heaviness in her heart, the young mother walked through the wood, hoping to catch a glimpse of them. They were nowhere to be seen. Yet, she never gave up hope. Years passed and daily she walked through the forest, cage in hand. Until one day, she heard them. In the trees above her head, she heard them singing near the pond.

“Oh Our Mother, how we love you. Oh Our Father, how we love you. Thank you for our lives and love. Thank you for all you have done. You were always near. We are always here.”

The woman sat hard upon the ground. She was surprised and amazed by their words. She stood and held up the cage. She swung it once, twice, three times over her head and threw it into the pond.

Now every day an old woman walks through the woods and listens. Sometimes the wood is silent, but sometimes she hears birds singing.

“We are always here.”

And she knows her children are safe and happy. What more does a mother ask.

Living the Fairy Tale Life

I find myself currently contemplating the meaning of "Living a Fairy Tale life." No happy ending until the main character goes through the struggle and overcomes the wicked character(s). We often only see the end of the story in others and say to ourselves, "Wish I had that life." We seldom consider what they had to do or go through to ...get there. Very significant and is becoming a major part of my work.

A friend replied to the comments above as follows: "I often wonder at the back story of the wicked character. How did they get that way? Is there really no hope for redemption for them? Could not the conflict have been arbitrated better than by a woodcutter's axe, a hot oven or a bucket of water?
And, if I'm in a Fairy Tale Life, how do I know I'm not the wicked character?"

True. I am thinking about that also. I think the "good" character is just an average person doing what average people do and trying to do his or her best, but no matter what that character does in the story, the other characters aren't happy.

Cinderella, for example. She does everything she is asked to do and yet her step-family is not satisfied. It would seem that the step-family will not be satisfied until they destroy all that Cinderella embodies. I think many people can relate to her dilemma and I don't think anyone, except for wicked people would consider her wicked. But yes, there is that question of what made the step-family wicked in this story. That we must leave up to our imaginations and how each of us would create that story.

Relating it to real life, we can see that there are many reasons people become that way; childhood abuse, trauma, mental illness. Bullying, substance abuse, and other "wicked" behaviors are symptoms not causes. And many times, the wicked cannot control their behaviors which related back to Gollum of yesterday's post, is why they deserve our pity but this does not mean we must endure their torture.

Stories of Choice and Empowerment, final celebration and presentations.

This is the final session of a storytelling program designed for at-risk girls. It is a night of celebration, somewhat like a graduation.

The evening begins with an explanation of what will happen and why we are celebrating. The girls have completed seven sessions of storytelling and self exploration, with the celebration being the eighth session. Each week has built on the last with a focus on metaphor and the power of story.

The girls are told a story. I like to use Laura Simms Black and White Cows for this evening. I call the story Star Woman’s Basket.
A farmer captures a woman who comes from the heavens and milks his cows dry. He wants to marry her and she says yes as long as he never looks in or asks about her basket. All goes well until many years later when she is called away for an extended time as a midwife. His curiosity gets the better of him and he opens the basket, only to find it empty. He barely has time to replace the lid before his wife enters the house. Seeing that he has betrayed his trust, she takes her basket and leaves.

Not only is this a wonderful story about relationship, it is a reminder about the importance of keeping trust.

I then ask the girls to place a dream, wish or something they want to keep sacred into my round basket with the promise to keep them safe. In the spring, I invite friends over for a wish planting ceremony. The girls’ wishes are planted in my garden under a prayer tree.
Following the story, the girls then presented their mandala projects. (See Mandalas for Healing for the method used to create these lovely works of art and soul.) Then each was awarded a key on a string, representing the tool they now have to unlock the door to their future. The key is the power of story.

After all the presentations are given, we eat. Breaking bread together is an important element of community.

Mandalas for Healing in the Crossroads Story Program: Empowering At-Risk Youth

Lesson One: What are Mandalas

The word mandala is Sanskrit meaning circle. They are large sand paintings made by Tibetan monks. They can take up to seven days to create. Prayers or meditations are chanted throughout the process. The monks use their fingers and tiny funnels to handle the colored sand.

At the end of the seven days, the artwork is destroyed. Anyone fortunate to be present at this time is given a bit of the sand, like being able to take a piece of the prayer. The remaining sand is thrown into a body of water with ceremony. The water then carries the prayer. Each mandala is usually made up of concentric circles. These circles include gates that represent north, south, east and west. I have seen them worked from the inner self out or the outer self inward to the center of self. When I do these with the youth, we usually work inward to find self and the gates represent different stages of life.

http://tinyurl.com/yaktun4
http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/mandala/mandala.htm

Mandalas Lesson Two: the Outer Circle

This is lesson two in creating a mandala with the girls in my group home program. We drew three concentric circles on our boards. Each circle will have four gates lined up with each other for easy passage. The outer circle’s gates will be your birth gate, your dream gate, your metaphor gate and the gate that brought you to the place where you are now. We began by spending the first two weeks listening to stories with strong metaphors, discussing metaphor and identifying a personal metaphor or archetype.

1. Think of an object, animal or story character (not by name but by type such as little girl, witch, etc.) The girls chose piece of paper, caged bird, Turtapillar (turtle and caterpillar combined), snakadilla (armadillo or snake combined), and I chose a warrior.

2. Why did you choose that metaphor? Paper can be written on, I like to sing and I am caged, a turtle can hide in its shell for protection and a caterpillar is ugly but will become a butterfly, an armadillo can roll into a ball to protect itself and a snake sheds its skin and is new, I am a warrior because I need to fight.

3. How can these metaphors be helpful to you? How can they hold you back? A piece of paper can be written on or crumpled, a turtle has a place to hide and carries its home with it but if he never comes out he cannot eat or anything, a caterpillar may be eaten by something else, an armadillo is slow moving, a snake may bite others, a warrior can become overly hardened by war.

4. We did a visualization. The girls closed their eyes and I asked them to see a door before them and notice they have a key in their hands. They were asked to open the door and find a special tool on the other side of the door. This tool is just for them and their metaphor to use on the journey toward self.

In creating this outer circle, you can make the gates elaborate and also decorated the circle outline. The more decorative, the more interesting. If using sand, be sure drawing is large enough.

The Metaphor Gate: This gate will be where you draw your special tool(s). This represents the entrance that you other self can use to journey inward.

The Birth Gate: When we are born, we are a clean slate. All the possibilities of life lay before us. Some of us may have beautiful paths with everything we need along the way. Others may be missing a parent or both parents and feel lonely on their journey. Some may be born to abuse and poverty. This birth gate is open to us and we must enter but we do not have to stay on that path forever.

The Gate that Brought US to Where we are Now: This gate represents the path that brought us to our current situation in life. It may be an event that pushed us here, or a person or people who helped us get here.

The Dream Gate: This gate represents that path you would choose to travel someday. It is not looking back and wishing things had been different. Instead it holds the promise of our future.

Mandalas Lesson Three: The Middle Circle.

The Middle Circle (not the center one) is one that we used as a next step toward achieving a better understanding of self and in our group’s case, a step toward achieving our goals at each outer gate.

The Objective is to get the youth thinking about the many possibilities their lives could have taken at any given moment to empower them to take a proactive role in changing their path to be successful in obtaining what they really want in life. This was done by making them think about what was available to them at birth, what brought them where they are, who they are now, and what they would like to be in the future.

This middle circle brings them closer to self by asking them to consider what they went through in each of those initial gates (Metaphor, Birth, What Brought Them Here, and Dream).

Do they have a straight path to center from birth?
Did they have to break through a wall?
Were they incarcerated, addicted to drugs?
Do they feel in control or out of control of their lives at this time?
Where do they want to be and what is needed to get there, education, money, a job, a support system?

The girls were really forced to think beyond the past and the here and now. They had to look at layers of self-discovery.

Mandalas Lesson Four: The Center of Self

Self is something we cannot achieve until the end of our days, unless we are completely devoted to this discovery. I don’t really recommend this devotion to my groups as they are still in egotistic stages and I feel they need to mature to the stage of thinking of others more than themselves before they should begin looking inward again.

Discovery of self is not the same as ego, in fact it requires setting ego free and being unattached to self.

For the very center circle in our mandalas, I asked the girls to draw something that represented openness. They chose flowers, onions, eyes, and geometric.

The girls will be asked to tell about their creations on our last night. Using art is the way I have found they open best to telling the story of who they are and where they have been. They can do this safely through their artworks, it helps keep them at a distance and separate from the emotions attached to their stories.