Story Medicine: A Taster of the Power of Traditional Storytelling - Cultural Repair & Earth Stewardship [Event Video & Notes]
Scroll down for Full video of talk
This participative Zoom gathering on Story medicine
took place on Sunday 25th October 2020
It was organised by Wisdom In Nature
Islamic Ecology - Permaculture - Inclusive Leadership
Five Strand Activism Model
with guest storyteller: Jumana Moon
In this interactive online gathering, Jumana Moon narrates a traditional story related to earth & communities and other themes. Listening to a story becomes an active process where the meaning is not static and may change as you recall the story or hear it again. Although in the last few hundred years many folktales have been recorded in books, the oral tradition has existed since human civilisation began, the words and stories living in the minds and hearts of storytellers & communities. What do the stories show us about self, others and the world around us?
Participants will experience the gift of traditional storytelling and have the opportunity to reflect on story- both the specific story, and the wider implications of storytelling in relation to contemporary challenges.
About the Speaker:
Jumana Moon is a traditional storyteller with a great love of stories of all kinds, with a special passion for stories about the land and the natural world. She has a particular love for stories from Islamic tradition: stories from sacred text - Quran & Hadeeth - as well as the wealth of folktales, wisdom tales, stories from devotional poetry and the comedic stories of Nasrudeen. Jumana seeks to draw out the feminine voice and experience in her stories, whether they are folktales, tales of the land or stories from sacred text, and narrates stories in schools, madrasas, museums, at festivals and a wide range of community events.
She believes in the power of stories & creativity to bring people together and to understand ourselves as well as each other. Jumana co-founded and co-runs a monthly storytelling club in Walthamstow called Stowtellers. Jumana lives in east London and is privileged to call Epping Forest and the marshes and wetlands of the Lea Valley home. She is also a child psychotherapist working in the primary school setting. Find out more about Jumana’s work at www.jumanamoon.com or on Facebook at Jumana Moon Storyteller
We hope you enjoy:
A) The Full Video of the talk/story sharing, and
B) Notes of participants sharing
(All below!)
This online gathering was limited to approximately 10 people. It was open to Muslims and anyone who leans towards Islam.
A) Jumana Moon’s Talk and Story Sharing to ignite a Conversation…
Enjoy watching the video…
Jumana Moon’s Short Talk and Folktale Sharing
Topics and Time-stamps
00.00: Introduction to the topic and to Jumana Moon: By Shumaisa Khan (WiN)
1.30: Jumana Moon’s entry
2.15: What are traditional stories? How do they differ from other kinds of stories? Touching on Resonance, Collective aspect, Cross-cultural: Underlying Pattern vs its Manifestation; The Cinderella Motif/Story; Cross generational/lineage
6.25: The forms that traditional stores can take: Legends, Mythology, Folktales, Wisdom Tales, Comedic Stories, Satirical Stories, Mocking/Sharp Traditional Stories.
7.00: Traditional Stories as Repositories of Information: About the Land, Aspects of Nature, Plants; as well as Maps for Life, of the Soul; Story as Medicine
9.30: Cross Pollination of Stories across Religious Identities
10.25: Characters in Stories as aspects of Self: The King, Queen, Beggar, Villain - archetypes of the self
11.25: Stories in the Islamic tradition: Hadith, Seera, Folktales, Wisdom Tales, Comedic Stories (E.g. Nasruddin).
12.15: Jumana shares the story: A Folktale (Sudanese version)
Once you’ve watched the video and heard the short story shared, here are some questions:
Did it affect you in any way?
Was anything evoked?
Once you’ve had a chance to reflect on your own internal process, that would be a good time to check out below for participants contributions.
Feel free to also add your reflections to this blog post in the comments underneath!
B) Participants Contributions
Following the talk, two breakout groups shared for 10/15-minutes. The following was discussed/came through:
Group 1: Some aspects that were touched on or raised:
The roles we all play in families as parents, siblings and children and the way the story helps us reflect on these interconnections
The role that we have had in the past, present and what might be in the future for us in terms of our family interactions and decisions
The visceral memories that the story brought up of our own experiences of grief and loss
How can we unite people? How can we appeal to their motivation?
The wisdom of the “neighbour” character, who passes the seed to the brothers
The role that “seeds” play across the story - both literal and metaphorical
The anxieties that parents have and the difficulty that comes with handing over responsibility to others, building trust
The role that elders have to play in our societies. How can we be good elders?
Group 2: Some points that were raised:
Elders, youth, intergenerational relationships
The care of the father in setting up a reflective path for his sons to come to understand what real value is, and bond in the process. This was the opposite of many stories, where there is often friction and disunity among the children or other characters. And the father's care as expressed in his relationship with the friend/uncle, who passed on the seeds to the sons.
Memories of own elders and their role in shaping youth.
How children view treasure differently, and seek what is conventionally treasure in children's stories, even while being passionate about plants and seeds etc.
Seeds/tiny things with big impacts
The significance of the seeds, and the role of the uncle/father's friend, in passing this on to the sons, which is what ultimately led to their epiphany of real wealth. How we all can be seeds, unknowingly, planting an idea, inspiration, or supportive comment that can change a life or lives.
Time & Real Wealth
The sense of time and patience of the sons - even though they were keen to find the treasure, they took the time to wait until after harvest to keep seeking. This may have been a quality cultivated through living in a rural/land-based household or community.
The fragmentation of contemporary lives, such that we don't know what goes into food, housing, anything, or even where money comes from. We are set up for unholistic/unintegrated living and to therefore not know what is real wealth and value.
How the pandemic disrupted things and led to some realizations about where real wealth is, led to an interest in food growing and other such activities that promoted both material wealth (food), and mutual aid and connection