Great art takes great suffering or great joy & both take the depth of silky attention to achieve the outcome. As a Cause Focused Storyteller who seeks to build bridges between people and connect people who feel they may have differences and serve people to see that the stories they tell and attune to become themselves, I resonated with the notion of silky attention. Oh that depth of attention which is elusive and yet which comes when we are as said, "in flow." I've experienced this throughout the last decade plus when diving into a project: for example: I was in Belize traveling village to village donating storytelling workshops for teachers/librarians and programs for students. it was hard work, yet it was so fulfilling connecting on a heart and human level through first printed works then oral folktales. There was one officer in Ministry of Education who sought to stop my work as he could see the impact (at that time the government in Belize was quite corrupt and had an agenda of not addressing the rampant illiteracy, that's another story for another time) This officer tried to sabotage my project by ruining my reputation through scheduling school visits but then never giving me the schedule: 20 visits were scheduled but I was never told where/when. Every week I would call/email asking for the schedule to be told it was still being finalized when in actuality the visit dates had already passed by. Thus 20 school admins believed I had simply not shown up. Karma, I learned of this 6 months after when I surprised one of the schools with a visit and the Vice Principal greeted me with hugs and confusion stating, 'we thought something awful happened to you, you never showed up!' I told her from what I knew the 20 visits had never been scheduled and she relayed to me how they had that past March. I connected the dots and realized I had been duped, but it only strengthened my resolve. that afternoon she invited me for lunch at her home and who walked in the door but the man who had made the schedule and never gave it to me. He happened to be her husband! Poetic justice served as I informed him I had just set up visits with 10 more schools. I continued scheduling schools on my own and offering training, within 6 years I had donated programs for 33,000 students and trained 800 teachers because I felt so passionate about the project of using indigenous stories to teach creative writing and the students immersing themselves in the story through 1st person narrative.
It was a great example of persevering and how something of that challenge and difficulty is often worth pushing through. Hugs from my heart to yours. I realize this is not a "great art" example, however it is a labor of love as the book has just been published about the journey creating the project and the detailed lesson plan is also included along with stories written by students and teachers who attended the workshops.
On Jan 7, 2017 Kristin Pedemonti wrote :
Great art takes great suffering or great joy & both take the depth of silky attention to achieve the outcome. As a Cause Focused Storyteller who seeks to build bridges between people and connect people who feel they may have differences and serve people to see that the stories they tell and attune to become themselves, I resonated with the notion of silky attention. Oh that depth of attention which is elusive and yet which comes when we are as said, "in flow." I've experienced this throughout the last decade plus when diving into a project: for example: I was in Belize traveling village to village donating storytelling workshops for teachers/librarians and programs for students. it was hard work, yet it was so fulfilling connecting on a heart and human level through first printed works then oral folktales. There was one officer in Ministry of Education who sought to stop my work as he could see the impact (at that time the government in Belize was quite corrupt and had an agenda of not addressing the rampant illiteracy, that's another story for another time) This officer tried to sabotage my project by ruining my reputation through scheduling school visits but then never giving me the schedule: 20 visits were scheduled but I was never told where/when. Every week I would call/email asking for the schedule to be told it was still being finalized when in actuality the visit dates had already passed by. Thus 20 school admins believed I had simply not shown up. Karma, I learned of this 6 months after when I surprised one of the schools with a visit and the Vice Principal greeted me with hugs and confusion stating, 'we thought something awful happened to you, you never showed up!' I told her from what I knew the 20 visits had never been scheduled and she relayed to me how they had that past March. I connected the dots and realized I had been duped, but it only strengthened my resolve. that afternoon she invited me for lunch at her home and who walked in the door but the man who had made the schedule and never gave it to me. He happened to be her husband! Poetic justice served as I informed him I had just set up visits with 10 more schools. I continued scheduling schools on my own and offering training, within 6 years I had donated programs for 33,000 students and trained 800 teachers because I felt so passionate about the project of using indigenous stories to teach creative writing and the students immersing themselves in the story through 1st person narrative.
It was a great example of persevering and how something of that challenge and difficulty is often worth pushing through. Hugs from my heart to yours. I realize this is not a "great art" example, however it is a labor of love as the book has just been published about the journey creating the project and the detailed lesson plan is also included along with stories written by students and teachers who attended the workshops.