“Stories Can Change Your Life-Stories Can Change the World”
An introduction to the Development of the Creative Imagination Dec.28-30/12
A Workshop with Master of Storytelling Inger Lise Oelrich (Sweden)

This workshop came highly recommended by a dear friend who is extremely trustworthy
in such things, so I signed up in advance. But when the bluster of Christmas whirled all
around me, with all the trimmings of family, I must admit that the spirit was willing but
the flesh was exhausted! The thought of a workshop intensive was not at the top of the
list though it had been checked twice. What a gift to pour my tired self into the sacred
space of Inger Lise’s workshop and find renewal.

When the space is created, the story can be told. That’s what the workshop was about
for me; creating the space, listening, and telling stories. Inger Lise invited us as a
community to gather together and create a space of respect and reverence, invite the
storyteller to step forward, and ask for a story. This separate space, where respect and
reverence can give way to awe, becomes sacred. The stories come from “behind us,”
we stir them in the space we have created, and we are all changed with this experience.
Connections are made, hearts are opened, minds are engaged, and transformation can
happen. New connections, new ways of thinking, and new ways of being are possible.

We were a diverse community of familiar strangers; storytellers, teachers, magicians,
and musicians from around the world. Several people from the group brought grief
into the room with them, mourning the loss of a young man’s life to violence in the
Regent Park community. Inger Lise held a healing circle using the tools of Celtic
blessing traditions, and each of us offered a wish connected with images from nature
for the young man and those who love him. Tears watered the fertile place of hope.
We listened to stories and worked with picture images from them, drawing them and
describing them to each other. We clapped and stomped and spoke our words into a
great mythic silver bowl and let them resonate. There were stories from our own lives,
from fairy tales, and spontaneous ones that unfolded. It was an opportunity to reflect
on our intentions in this work, inwardly and with the group. Inger Lise spoke to us of
storytelling as a social activity, a place where the questions unite us, where we can
meet the challenges of our times in a new way that’s as old as the hills.

This workshop was organized by Diasporic Genuis (www.diasporicgenius.com). David
Buchbinder’s project has been working in the Thorncliffe Park community using Inger
Lise’s vision and method for the past year, connecting people from all over the globe
who live right here. Inger Lise Oelrich is a theatre director, storyteller and adult educator
who travels widely working with storytelling as a healing and transformational art.