TRIBAL AMERICAN ORAL TRADITION

"Telling a story is like pulling a haze away from a mountain. For tribal American people, the storyteller is a consecrated person who must remain both humble enough to carry ancient tales accurately and honestly and wise enough to put life into the way the story is told.  It is in stories that perceptions are made clear, where the haze in burned away.

When a person has a chance to hear a story, they have the opportunity to learn by performing the act of listening carefully.  That is the first thing necessary; the ability to hear and accept well, and someday in the course of hearing many stories, to understand and use the stories, to become a richer and more full human being from taking in all the gifts the story has to give."
- Larry Littlebird

SLOW STORY | FOUR ARCING STORY TOPICS

1. Origin.  It all begins with water! Stories about being born and coming into this world. Creation myths, legends of traveling from the second world to this world, the birth of First Man, Mother Wisdom and Yellow Woman.  Stories about how the rivers came to be, our kinship to water and our relationship to land;  how corn arrived on this earth.
2. People, Culture and Place:  Stories that tell us why Coyote has a bushy tail, why animals cannot talk with people anymore, why the climate is changing and what it means to be indigenous to a place; the Bee People and Plant People and the sacred elements; migration stories; the races, clans, holy men and women and children born for peace. 
3. Way of Blessing: To live in blessing is perhaps more important today than ever.  Blessing is a way of reconnecting to all that is.  It can bring you peace and grace in times of chaos and distress; stories about choosing the path of blessing; blessing others and receiving blessing for ourselves in everyday life.  
4. Starting Over: Stories that prepare people for rituals and give us the strength for starting over; questions that cannot be answered are shared; stories of death and how to prepare for dying. Ancient prophecies of the world dying, ready to be reborn, to move on into the fourth world.  These stories can be very clear and explicit telling exactly what to do to prepare.  Or they can point to what cannot be said directly and leave the important things to silence.​

SLOW STORY ONLINE SERIES WITH LARRY LITTLEBIRD
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