February

We’ve been going to Storytelling classes since last September, and really do enjoy the experience – and the challenge. Esyllt Harker runs the class. She’s a professional storyteller and she tells stories to children and adults all around Wales.  

Each Monday, she has us looking at storytelling in all sorts of ways. Most classes, she has us up on our feet quickly, to work on our breathing and posture, as well as moving to sound. She gets us singing and chanting to work our voices. When we eventually sit down, she makes us close our eyes and use visualization to increase what we can see clearly in our mind’s eye. 

In the picture on the right, Esyllt is on the far left in the photo, followed by Daisy, Jill, Jim, Liz and Gareth.

Esyllt is tougher than her photo suggests; although slight of figure and fairly quiet of voice, she packs a storytelling punch.

Last term, we worked on landscape, using all sorts of settings in story to either create new stories or emphasize parts of familiar tales. She got us working together, which was great as we didn’t know each other. In one class, we each brought a small item that meant a lot to us, and then paired us off to tell a classmate what this was about...but it was our partner’s story that we had to work on, to create into a story we could tell. We use this sort of ‘exchange’ a lot, in an effort to ‘release’ stories and allow us to feel we have carte blanche over them.

We worked on aspects of storytelling such as how to face an audience and how to pace our stories, both timing it and breaking it into sections, and working on telling parts faster and slower than others. We also worked on detail. My writing friends will know that I think detail is very important in written stories; Esyllt believes that in storytelling it is the five senses that count for the most; listeners can feel the emotions of the story via experiencing tastes and smells textures, pain and pleasure, the tapestry of sounds as well as describing colours and other visual descriptions.

One thing I really enjoyed as a writer, was Esyllt’s ‘storytelling packs’, which  contained random aspects of building a story. We’ve used these twice so far, once with a partner and once alone. I found it amazing, as someone who spends a fair time trying to create stories, just how simple this exercise was, and how a story fell into place each time.

This term we’re looking at the different sorts of storytelling; we’ve looked at myth, fable and fairy tales so far. Last week we went on a physical journey around the village hall we met in, and on the journey, met a ‘stranger’ who gave us a gift, which altered the story considerably. 

After the class was over, we went back to Jill’s where Jim had his Tarot told; Jill is an authority on Therapeutic Tarot. Then we took her down her local for a meal.  

S'now problem here

The snow arrived, falling as flurries and swirls from a rich blue sky, and in the morning the fields around us were defined as starched and ironed handkerchiefs of purest white linen. The massive red kite that likes to hover over the field opposite was black against the white clouds  and about fifty rooks had settled to have a chat on the overhead cables.

But, someone had come and salted the roads. When our cars are in the layby, that does mean the bodywork gets salted too, but hey. At least we were able to get to our storytelling workshop.
Jim went out and started digging an area for his greenhouse. Was he mad? Wasn't the ground rock hard and freezing cold? Well, once the sun was out, apparently it wasn't bad going. Certainly, one little creature was grateful, the resident robin came and perched close by, waiting for anything that was turned up by his spade, including worms that were clearly above his punching weight!

Luckily, the snow melted quickly enough for our latest visitor (other than the robin, I mean) to arrive safely. Trudy had come to talk about some work she's doing on the landscape of Wales. She showed us the work she'd achieved so far, wowing us with its complexity.

As dusk fell the night she arrived, she asked if we could have a little drive about. We set off, not really knowing where we were headed, and suddenly the full moon came up over the horizon, a massive ball the colour of a rose quartz. We pulled in and got out of the car. The evening was almost entirely dark by that point, and the cold came down and made us shiver, but the moon seemed to warm us from above. We    just gazed up at it from the edge of the road.

At this point we were only a mile or so from Llangrannog, so we took Trudy down the steep winding lane that leads to the village and the beach. The tide was full in, massive breakers were roaring onto the pebbles. The cliff loomed dark, and the moon hung overhead above all this. We took some water from the deep gushing freshwater stream that pours out of the earth to pour down into the sea. We used this two days later, when we held a little ritual in our garden. (See Pages - THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR AT RHOS HILL)