Thursday, December 8, 2011

What Happens When I Tell Stories With Just My Voice?


About a year ago, I started to read my three-year-old son some wisdom stories from a little book called Buddha at Bedtime: Tales of Love and Wisdom for You to Read with Your Child to Enchant, Enlighten and Inspire.

I was amazed when he loved them. They have many captivating images and always have great "teaching" moments. This made me think about how important it was to not just read or tell him stories that where entertaining, but ones that actually had good values and had teachable moments too.  

Magic.

Many nights before sleep, we put away the books and I make up a story special for him. With eyes closed, he is deeply transported by just the sound of my words. Looking over at him in this state, I began to understand the magic and power behind oral storytelling.

Imagination.

When I tell my son stories with just my voice, I can see that he is transported to another world. It is a body centering activity so he is in his body focused and listening, yet he also has one foot in the transcendence. It feel so good as a mother to be able to indulge his imagination and nourish his internal self by just telling stories with my voice.

Connection.

So much of the world that my son experiences is through touch or visual stimuli. We are a visual culture with children absorbing images from tv, videos, computer and story books. Today's children have a hard time fully accessing their imaginations. So many products have done all the work for them. As well as our schools cutting the arts and PE programs, so they can focus on academia.

Learning.

It feels so right spending my time as a parent sharpening my oral storytelling skills because I know it feeds my son's imagination, and will only deepen our mother/son relationship. Not to mention all the ways I can incorporate these stories into his learning, development. Just like how we learned recently about the Inuit Native Americans that live in the artic, near Santa, by telling him the story of Raven Brings the Light. It has spawned all sorts of questions.

Storytime Yoga.

Seeing the importance of oral storytelling in my son's life, and how it could be a powerful tool to help so many other children, last September I started my journey in Storytime Yoga's teacher training.

Storytime Yoga combines my love of yoga and movement, with my new-found love of oral storytelling. In a Storytime Yoga class, the adult tells a special story taken from another culture or time period, and tells it the whole way through while children listen intently. While the children listen, they activate their imaginations that transports them to another world. The stories have wonderful real life moments that children can learn from while being safe and asking questions.

When I began my teacher training, I started to notice how natural the Storytime Yoga method is for children. For example, while eating dinner, my mother-in-law told us a cute story while we all listened intensely. Then my son said to her, "now you pretend you are the plumber, and I will pretend I am the parrot in the bathroom. Go!" They then acted out her story.  

Storytime yoga integrates the learning process even further by re-enacting the stories with yoga poses, and then adding on various other activities such as singing, chanting, art and meditative relaxation much more. It is amazing all the learning that can happen without trying by using these wonderful mythic stories.

Even better, this method can be used for adults too. For example, as part of our holiday gathering at my yoga studio where I teach adults, I will be retelling the story of Raven Brings the Light and doing yoga poses. I know the adults will have a fun time with it, and it gives us an opportunity try something fun and new, and to talk about honoring the sun and the ever-lasting light within during these dark days of the Winter Solstice.

No Comparison.

All the other yoga books, DVDs and trainings for children I have seen seem so basic and boring. I was struggling in my own children's yoga classes to make it more captivating, and now learning the Storytime Yoga method, it has really brought a whole new shift of enhanced attention and enthusiasm to my children's classes and at home with my kids.  

On a personal level, the training has helped me to explore more deeply my inner world, as well as help me find my voice as a storyteller and deepen my teachings as yoga teacher. I am still working at it though, and look forward to riding out this exciting Storytime Yoga teacher process!

I highly recommend this training to anyone looking to teach children. It may be a longer training than others out there, but the wisdom that is gained in the nine-month process is invaluable!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Having Problems with New Holiday Rituals

There I said it. I am having serious problems this year with making this "holiday season" meaningful and magical for me and my family.

Partly because I am choking on the daily demands of parenting and being a householder, while looking after other people's kids, teaching yoga, working part-time at night, and overall trying to be a decent person, friend, and relative.

Partly because I have spent too much time seeing all the other brilliant Holiday traditions other families are doing.

Partly because I feel completely overwhelmed with Christmas decor and music everywhere I go and want a sacred space away from it.

Partly because I know my son is old enough to remember what happens this time of year, so we need to amp up our "holiday game." I want to make this time of year special for him and start traditions that will bring joy to our family! *Oh the self-inflicted pressure*

Partly because the very thought of Christmas makes me want to run and hide. Christmas  makes me think very ill thoughts about commercialism, over-consumption, and marketing.

Partly because of the stress from the very thought of the very humble amount of buying I need to do for the perfect thoughtful gift (due to my own pressure on myself) and pressure to spend more than I have. Then I have to figure out how the heck find time and energy to actually buy presents. I hate shopping! Thank goodness for shopping online!

I am so overwhelmed by the pressures of our modern "Christmas culture", and bombarded with my own negative associations with Christmas. I want so badly to create new meaningful traditions with my own family, but I know I have to get past my own hang ups.

I know I  need to focus less on the negative, and more on the positive in order to get me through this season without throwing my head in the sand.

For us, this time should be about honoring the everlasting "light of life," like the evergreen tree symbolizes. The sun may be "dying" in the darkest days of the year, but lets celebrate the rebirth of the sun, and honor the light in our lives, and nurture the ever-lasting light within.

It means a time for less work and more play. 

It means a time for connection and honoring of loved ones and friends and community.

I LOVE how others get so into Christmas and gain so much joy out of their family rituals and traditions, and get even more excited when they have kids to share it with. I want that for our family too.

But we are so darn complicated and unique. It going to be a bit of trial and error to figure out what is going to make this family's holiday magical and meaningful.

It means saying no to pictures with Santa in the mall. *shutter*

It means saying no to Elf on the Shelf.

It means playing down the presents part of Christmas, and ramping up the "special day with family" part.

It means not talking obsessively about Santa and watching every television show ever made about Christmas. I really hate lying to my son about Santa, but I do like him to experience the magic of it. So I prefer to not talk   about it so much. Also, Santa is all about presents, and that leads me down a dark hole of materialistic consumption.

I know a lot about what this holiday season doesn't include. But I need to work more on what it does include. For us so far it includes:

Making a gingerbread house together as a family, and as a family, join together in experiencing mad sugar lust and evil thoughts of eating the cute sugar-people. (BTW - cheated and bought the box kit. But it was perfect for us, and cuter than I could do with less work.)

Putting lights up on our house. Maybe, if it ever stops raining. My son wanted lights on our house, and it felt okay for us.

A little real evergreen tree with simple home-made decorations, and some lights.

Creating special moments at holiday parties with friends at school, and our social and work community.

Reconnecting to nature and all that it offers this time of year. Going out together and cutting down the evergreen tree.

Through story, educating the children in my life about how special this time of year is with the sun's rebirth. Retelling a magical story called Raven Brings the Light for children and adults and doing yoga pose to act out the story.

The rest of the traditions I suppose with come. I think first I need to let go of the pressure on myself to make it have to be amazing and perfect this year. I need to just call it a work in process, and do my best with my VERY LIMITED resources.