Do you ever feel like you're living in a novel, but you can't quite catch the plot? Has it ever happened that you thought your life was following one storyline, and then it suddenly jumped tracks, and you found yourself in the midst of an entirely different one? Are there myths that call to your soul, but somehow you keep getting caught playing a supporting role in other people's tales instead of living as the hero of your own? Or do you sometimes see no story at all, just a tangled and pointless mess?
As a therapist, a writer, a pagan, and a Harvard-educated scholar of religion and folklore, I have spent my whole life listening to and telling stories. And what I have learned is this: The world is full of stories.
Sometimes we tell them for careless entertainment. Sometimes we tell them as heavy-handed morality tales. Sometimes they just seem to tell themselves, without our even knowing why. But among all these stories, the real stories, the ones we need to hear, are like lightning. They're places where something transcendent and electrifying touches our lives. Did you know that lightning is strong enough to break open the molecular bonds of atmospheric nitrogen? And once that life-giving element is freed, it can merge with oxygen to form nitrogen dioxide, which dissolves into the rain, and seeps into the soil, and makes the whole world lush and fertile.
The right stories can do that for us.
I know a lot of stories. And whether you come to me for therapy, for coaching, for ritual or for ministry, what we will talk about is stories. We will look at your sorrows and your wounds and your challenges, your joys and your strengths and your yearnings. And we will listen together for the stories. The right stories, the real stories. Together, we'll find the stories that can break open the life-giving wisdom which nurtures your growth. We'll tell them to each other and let them empower you as the beautiful hero of your own remarkable life.