People
Alys Harwood – Storyteller and elder
I came late to storytelling. But still, I’m a seasoned old woman and that is a good place to be on this earth.
Stories give us options. We get to try out what it is to be something wildly different and at the same time freakishly familiar. We are taken into the dark to squint sideways at things far beyond our everyday habitat. Stories give proper heft to our trials and griefs and adventures. We have to work to harvest meanings, each visit yields a different return, and we are the better for the effort. Stories open faults in our consciousness and then nature crowds in and takes a foothold and suddenly it’s all different.
It’s a rainy time of year. Let’s lift up our faces, the water pooling in our eye sockets, dripping into our ears, trickling down our necks, and drink deep. All this beauty given to us, unearned.
Alex Tighe – Guide
Thanks to myth, dormant, misunderstood, forgotten and disregarded parts of my life have a voice, a character, a home and a story to guide them. I feel beyond fortunate to merge two tracks I have been following over the past decade.
Outdoor leadership, education and facilitation. As an outdoor facilitator I have worked alongside young people, adults and families in Cornwall, Cumbria and Wales. At the heart of everything I do, is a belief that we have all the answers inside us. All the wisdom we require to move our lives in it’s own direction, with a sense of intention, curiosity and joy, lie under a rock, behind an open door, at the top of a beanstalk, in a flute at the bottom of a well.
More recently exploring the scape of mythopoetic perspective of self and place. For me, it was discovering Robert Bly, Robert Moore, Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, which led in-part to a chance meeting with Sam, the work of Martin Shaw and the Westcountry School of Myth; and it leads away over the horizon.
Myth, folklore, poetry and the places from which they seep allow us to feel our way around in our unlit selves, finding candles along the way. To me, there is no better path to be on.
Sam Crosby – Storyteller
The stories tell us we are made by descending into deep water. Down there. The underworld.
In 2019 my family was broadsided. Our newborn boy, Patch, was diagnosed with a profound brain disorder. It wrecked my prideful ego and sent me down to kneel on the ocean floor. I’m still processing the reality of life with a disabled son, but I can tell you I am more fulfilled than ever before.
This world is darkness and light. We are not in control. Never will be. And there is beauty in the chaos.
I believe we'll never truly ‘understand’ life. Rationale and science can be leaky ships for these high seas. But, if our deliverance is in the deepest, darkest waters, we don't have to keep bailing them out. We can go down. Once in a while... we must.
Feelings, trust, love – the stuff of story – will guide us on.