Theme: Forging Paths Toward Justice, Peace, and Earth-Care

Topic: Story Can Do: Experience, Morals, & Tricksters in the Age of Distraction

Presenter(s): Susan Strauss

Susan Strauss captured our hearts in the Eco-Forum in Claremont this summer, and we are very fortunate that she has agreed to share some stories and her philosophy of storytelling with Process Explorations. She describes her presentation in these words:

First, I will give a storytelling of two traditional stories: Monster Woman Meets Coyote at Coast (Wasqu, Oregon Native) and Nazrudin & Mulberry Tree (Sufi). Next, I will share a Norse myth of Oden’s Retrieval of the Meade of Poetry which is a new and not long rehearsed story for me. We can share these experiences as an inspiration for exploring and questioning the capacity of story. As story was used in every past world religion and culture to educate or engage the listener’s soul, spirit and morality; can it do the same for modern listeners? Out of the storytelling elements: Hook phrase, narrative/journey/experience, image, voice, rhythm and audience; what are the elements that still work? Are there new ways of engaging with storytelling elements? Of finding audience? Of coping or healing the noise, lies and half truths in this, our Age of Distraction?

About the Presenter(s)

Susan Strauss is a storyteller of natural history themes. She has given performances for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Monterey Bay Aquarium, most National Parks (including a video on the Wolf in Mythology for Yellowstone NP), US Botanical Garden, Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh, Sydney Botanical Gardens, Salmonoid Restoration Conference, International Conference on Heritage Preservation (Scotland, England, Australia & Hawaii) and nature school education in Holland, England and Sweden. Long before TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) became recognized, she was interested in how scientific principles of natural history revealed themselves in indigenous mythologies of many world cultures. She started her work by researching and telling Native America traditional stories and expanded to telling stories form Chinese, Japanese, Nordic, Greek, German, Hassidic, Sufi, Central & South American and African stories. She has given performances on the mythology of wolves, coyotes, bears, frogs, birds, trees, plants in general and is currently developing more on the theme of water and marine life.