Mindful Storytelling:
Be Like Spore,
My Friend
Welcome to Mooshroom Storytelling!
You are welcome to join us in taking a few mooments to be present in some mindfulness exercises as a way in toward writing.
If you like, for the next few mooments...take a look at the space around you. Allow your eyes to see what ever they want to see. You're welcome to let your eyes drift around the room looking at color, shapes, textures, and the light or shadows around you. This is a kind of orienting to the present moment in which you are allowed to see simply for the sake of seeing. What do you notice? Where are you? What stories are here?
Perhaps take a listen, tune in to every sound as it becomes available. What do you hear? What are the sounds nearer to you? What are the sounds far from you?
Can you feel the ground beneath you? What textures or temperatures are there? How strong is the pull of gravity--where do you notice it the most? What does it tell you?
Be like spore. Time travel, be prolific, expand, germinate.
Let's say you land... in a place you love...
In your imagination or memory, what might you see there? What colors, shapes, textures?
What do you hear? What sounds are near to you? What sounds are more distant here?
How does it smell? What notes and tones arise in the layers of scent in this place?
How does it feel? Imagine the feel of it. What sensations arise? Is it warm? Cool? What do you feel?
Is there anything to taste here? What flavors are here?
Is anyone there with you? What do you notice about the animals or the people present?
Linger in these sensory experiences for some time. Then, turn up the volume of each sensory aspect--the look, the feel, the sounds, the scent, the taste--enrich each sensation, become every molecule and vibration.
For the next 10 minutes, write down the details of the place. Be specific, down to the very spores of it.
Take a pause and walk or move around for a bit.
When you're ready, come back to the present moment: feel the ground beneath you, notice your physical surroundings, tune in to your breath. Notice your inhale, and your exhale.
Settle into your ground, and return to the place you love. Bring in all the sensory details.
Linger in these sensory experiences for some time. Again, turn up the volume of each sensory aspect--the look, the feel, the sounds, the scent, the taste--enrich each sensation, absorb.
If you like, focus on someone in the scene... whether they are an animal, human, object, or element--take some time to bring them fully into your awareness: see them, feel them, hear them, smell them.
Ask them what time it is... or another question of your own, and see what germinates.
Follow through.
When you are ready, write for another 10 minutes, describe the character you met in detail and write what happens.
Jody Hassel, MFA, E-RYT, TCTSY-F
Mindfulness, yoga, and writing facilitator at Blossom House.
Released spores grow into gametophytes – very small heart-shaped structures.
"Stories are how we come to understand ourselves and the world around us. For American Indians stories are medicine. In relation to mindfulness, storytelling involves being present with yourself and the audience, and speaking from the heart. We practice both mindful speaking and mindful listening within a story circle, as well as improvisational games. In a mindfulness setting, storytelling helps people connect with their intuition. Speaking truth helps separate our conditioning from our intuitive wisdom. I emphasize the traditional Native American wisdom and traditional ways of knowing, and how that relates to present moment awareness—mindfulness." --Renda Dionne, clinical psychologist and mindfulness curriculum developer
Here are some excerpts to Delgado's chapter on mindfulness and storytelling which can also be found here in its entirety:
Mindfulness can be considered "the opposite of operating on automatic pilot, recreating our mind daydreaming. The core of its meaning lies in paying attention to what happens right at each moment, in the present moment. In the general field of its current application, the most used translation of mindfulness is 'mindfulness,' 'clear observation,' or 'full consciousness.' But there is also another translation that also has infinite routes and great applications in the field of conscious reading that is 'memory.' That is to say that for a phenomenon to be possible to be remembered in samples or in its fullness, or to exist in some way in our mind, it is really necessary to have lived it with full attention or full consciousness."
