Entry tags:
Bardic Revelations and Storytelling Insight
I spent the past weekend at a wee pagan festival in Ontario known as Midgard. There were about 40 folks in attendance, which meant I could reconnect with some old friends and still make a few new ones. It was a relaxing, low-stress introduction to the 2009 fest season, although the nights were frickin' cold!
On Saturday night, we had an impromptu bardic evening where people walked around the fire pit and shared stories, sang songs, told jokes, etc. It was on this night that I witnessed an incredible, albeit violent, bardic revelation.
British storyteller Leo Sofer often tells stories within tales within stories. When he's about to do this, he uses a particular image to signal the listener that a story within a story is about to begin. In his story There You Are (you can listen to this story for free on iTunes), a little girl is venting to an older lady about how she can't find what she's looking for. But the old lady says she has found what the girl has been searcing for, but she can only share it through a story.
As Sofer recounts:
That image of a story-bubble being created between a teller and the listener struck me, making me realize that there truly was something real being created between the teller and the listener. It was a thought-form that everyone seemed to be plugging into subconsciously, creating a space where the listeners not only heard what was being said, but they experienced and felt it as well. This space was being woven by the teller, but it would also be fed by the listeners.
On YouTube, there is a university lecturer who mentions this co-created reality between teller and listener. It's a 45-minute lecture on storytelling (which includes a few tales as well), but he speaks of this very phenomenon (specifically from 8:32 to 16:49).
Back at the festival, on the Saturday night, a gentleman stood up and began telling his story to the assembled crowd. As I listened to his story, I also noticed how the listeners were really being caught up in the tale he was telling, creating a powerful thought-form between the teller and the listeners.
But suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the teller stopping telling his story, laughed, and pointed excitedly at his friend "Oh! You need to tell them the pirate story!! Get up! Get up! Tell them the pirate story!" The effect on the crowd of listeners was tremendous: it was as if the teller-listener thought-form had exploded, slamming everyone back into reality. The former listeners looked stunned and confused, asking "Is the story over? What just happened?"
The only equivalent to this experience I can think of would be if the teller had led the group in a deep trance, and at the height of everyone's trance state, he pulled out an air-horn and fired it into the crowd without warning.
Witnessing this thought-form explosion has provided me with great insight in the bardic arts. Before this event, I figured that the creation of this story bubble thought-form only existed in my own mind. When I tell a story successfully, I knew I went into an altered state of consciousness that allowed me to not only keep track of the story, but also my pacing, volume, eye-contact, and a myriad of other aspects of the performance.
I suspected that the audience might also go into a form of this altered consciousness, but I didn't think I'd ever know for sure outside of theoreticaly proof. But this event has proven to me that the audience does indeed shift consciousness just like I do as the performer. Now the question is: what is the nature of this altered state of consciousness and how does the storyteller and the listener interact with it?
I'll be pondering the implications of this new insight for some time. Any input would be appreciated.
On Saturday night, we had an impromptu bardic evening where people walked around the fire pit and shared stories, sang songs, told jokes, etc. It was on this night that I witnessed an incredible, albeit violent, bardic revelation.
British storyteller Leo Sofer often tells stories within tales within stories. When he's about to do this, he uses a particular image to signal the listener that a story within a story is about to begin. In his story There You Are (you can listen to this story for free on iTunes), a little girl is venting to an older lady about how she can't find what she's looking for. But the old lady says she has found what the girl has been searcing for, but she can only share it through a story.
As Sofer recounts:
And with that, the old woman stopped picking up bits from the ground, she just stared at the little girl, and she started to speak. I don't know how it happened, but as she spoke, a story started forming, not in the old woman or even in the girl, but in the space that was in-between them. And this is the story that she told.
-- Leo Sofer: There You Are (17:35)
-- Leo Sofer: There You Are (17:35)
That image of a story-bubble being created between a teller and the listener struck me, making me realize that there truly was something real being created between the teller and the listener. It was a thought-form that everyone seemed to be plugging into subconsciously, creating a space where the listeners not only heard what was being said, but they experienced and felt it as well. This space was being woven by the teller, but it would also be fed by the listeners.
On YouTube, there is a university lecturer who mentions this co-created reality between teller and listener. It's a 45-minute lecture on storytelling (which includes a few tales as well), but he speaks of this very phenomenon (specifically from 8:32 to 16:49).
Back at the festival, on the Saturday night, a gentleman stood up and began telling his story to the assembled crowd. As I listened to his story, I also noticed how the listeners were really being caught up in the tale he was telling, creating a powerful thought-form between the teller and the listeners.
But suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the teller stopping telling his story, laughed, and pointed excitedly at his friend "Oh! You need to tell them the pirate story!! Get up! Get up! Tell them the pirate story!" The effect on the crowd of listeners was tremendous: it was as if the teller-listener thought-form had exploded, slamming everyone back into reality. The former listeners looked stunned and confused, asking "Is the story over? What just happened?"
The only equivalent to this experience I can think of would be if the teller had led the group in a deep trance, and at the height of everyone's trance state, he pulled out an air-horn and fired it into the crowd without warning.
Witnessing this thought-form explosion has provided me with great insight in the bardic arts. Before this event, I figured that the creation of this story bubble thought-form only existed in my own mind. When I tell a story successfully, I knew I went into an altered state of consciousness that allowed me to not only keep track of the story, but also my pacing, volume, eye-contact, and a myriad of other aspects of the performance.
I suspected that the audience might also go into a form of this altered consciousness, but I didn't think I'd ever know for sure outside of theoreticaly proof. But this event has proven to me that the audience does indeed shift consciousness just like I do as the performer. Now the question is: what is the nature of this altered state of consciousness and how does the storyteller and the listener interact with it?
I'll be pondering the implications of this new insight for some time. Any input would be appreciated.