Modern storytellers are the descendants of an immense and ancient community of holy people, troubadours, bards, griots, cantadoras, cantors, traveling poets, bums, hags, and crazy people.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the rich legacy and diverse backgrounds of modern storytellers, connecting them to a long tradition of oral and artistic expression.
In this quote, Clarissa Pinkola Estes highlights the idea that modern storytellers are not merely individuals sharing tales; they are part of a vast lineage that encompasses a variety of voices and experiences throughout history. By referencing ancient figures such as troubadours and griots, she suggests that storytelling is sacred and deeply rooted in community and cultural traditions, creating a bridge between the past and present.
In practice
In a workshop on creative writing, this quote can be used to inspire participants to draw from their cultural backgrounds.
Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation- in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation. The key question causes germination of consciousness. The properly shaped question always emanates from an essential curiosity about what stands behind. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.
Tears are a river that takes you somewhere…Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it downriver to someplace better.
Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode amounts to a crash and burn, there is always another episode awaiting us and then another. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them. Don't waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success.
Stories are medicine. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything - we need only listen.
There's a reason poets often say, 'Poetry saved my life,' for often the blank page is the only one listening to the soul's suffering, the only one registering the story completely, the only one receiving all softly and without condemnation.
To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship.
Working in Hollywood does give one a certain expertise in the field of prostitution.
I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridised.
My goal as a creative person is to express truth and beauty in whatever I do
You never know what you do that could be totally out of left field, which actually might work and give something fresh to the whole scene, to the character, whatever. If you have that with a director who then knows how to shape it, either in the direction, in the moment, or in the editing, then that's good.
It has been the office of art to educate the perception of beauty. We are immersed in beauty but our eyes have no clear vision.
I've always believed that a dance evening energizes an audience, that an audience goes out feeling chemically stronger and more optimistic. This is what I understand about dance. And this is an important thing. We need this. Our culture needs it.
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