• 2007 & 2008 & 2009 Women's Daybook, Sumach Press, I have photographs and essays in each edition.



• “They Should have Listened to their Hearts” & “Qualutaliqssuaq” Storytelling Magazine, Vol 17, Issue 1, January/February 2005, National Storytelling Network, Jonesborough Tennessee, USA, 2005



• "The Golden Phoenix" in The Healing Heart: Storytelling for Strong and Healthy Communities, eds Allison Cox & David Albert, New Society Publishers, 2003



• "Mourning Cloak" and "White Spider", two drawings in Spider Woman: A Tapestry of Creativity and Healing eds. Carol Rose & Joan Turner, Shillingford Press, Wpg, 1999



• "Journey Without Maps" in The Power of the Story ed Afra Kavanaugh,
University College of Cape Breton Press, 1998








Here are 3 articles written over the last few years.I give them here for your enjoyment. If you wish to print out any of the work, please ask for my permission. In most cases, I will only be too happy to give it.

"A Christmas Story"

Good King Wenceslaus looked out on the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even

Wenceslaus. It is very strange and mysterious how one word can call up a thousand images...a whole story. My friend Elizabeth came over for supper one night last October and she told me about her stay in Prague; the beautiful old medieval city, full of music. Then she saw the castle of King Wenceslaus, built on a high cliff overlooking the river Vltava.

I have not told Elizabeth this, but as soon as she mentioned Wenceslaus I was eight years old again, trudging through the snow that lay “deep and crisp and even”, my head bent down against the bitter north wind that drove itself down Claremont Avenue. There was no snow blanketing the Winnipeg world as Elizabeth and I sat and talked over supper, yet in the space of a second, a winter scene was unfolding itself from the recesses of my memory.

December 1953. I was eight years old. Dad had died in November of that year and my mother, my brother and I were on our way to the movies for the second time that week. We were Catholic and my favourite part of Christmas every year was always Advent...the getting ready....pulling out the Christmas records, playing the carols and the hymns, practising them for the school Christmas concert where Father Empson always sat large and encouraging in the front row. But the winter of 1953 was different. After Dad died we went out a lot, and we always walked. Looking back now, I wonder if we didn’t have a car until my mother found work. In Norwood at that time, there were two movie theatres across the park at the end of our street, and two drugstores with lunch counters where you could buy milkshakes and sodas.

My brother and I didn’t question why we had to go out to the movies two or three times a week that winter. What normal eight or ten year old would? It was a dream come true! I remember the cold north wind blowing on our faces as we walked into it along Claremont Street to Coronation Park. Then across the park to Tache and Marion where the shows were. I remember walking beside my mother and crying because the wind cut into my face. She didn’t chide me. She simply said, “Walk in my footsteps. I’ll break the wind for you.” Mom wore a thick, velvety black beaver coat and those black boots with fur at the top which came just above the ankle and tied in front. She strode along the snowy sidewalk like a large black bear. I walked along behind and the wind no longer bit into my face and cheeks.

In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very steps which the saint had printed

Well who are the saints anyway? I had been taught at school that they started out as ordinary people who did something brave or kind. Wasn’t my mother both of these things? Brave to keep on living as normally as possible, keeping us cheerful and hopeful. Kind to take us to the show so often each week, feeding us along the way with milkshakes and sandwiches.

This was my song. It didn’t matter that there was no poor peasant to whom we were bringing food. I was that page, trudging through snow that was “deep and crisp and even”. The sandwiches my mother carried and the milkshake we stopped for was to feed us...poor starving trio without our dad. It didn’t matter that we were walking so purposefully not towards home, but away to the cold comfort of a movie house.

Who was King Wenceslaus? This is less clear. Perhaps Mom and Dad were both Wenceslaus. Dad was the Wenceslaus at the beginning, when he looks out of his castle window and sees someone walking through the bitter snow. After all, I had been assured that my father was in fact in Heaven and could have chosen this very moment to look down on us as we worked our way north on Claremont Avenue.

Then the scene shifts with the ease only possible in the mind’s eye. My face is stinging with cold and now Wenceslaus is walking ahead of me, shielding me from the bitter weather with her own body.

The carol began its part in shaping the story of who I am even while I walked along on those far off winter nights and it continues to bring into sharp and instant focus that feeling of being at once without, and yet protected

First published in the Winnipeg Free Press, December, 1999.








"When Stories Strengthen the Spirit"

Hearing a story is like listening to music, the words falling off the teller’s tongue, onto our ears, and into our heart, setting thoughts and memories in motion. Stories are heard in the deep heart’s core and answer the burning questions that we all have. Who are we? Where did we come from? Who do we love? What have we forgotten that is important to remember? Why is there goodness and evil in the world? Why is there something rather than nothing? The answers which are the most meaningful, come, in the end, from deep within our own selves.

There is a snippet of a story in the Grimm’s collection about a boy who finds a golden key, and a mysterious casket which belongs with the key, but we are never told what is inside the casket. The tale ends with these enigmatic words, ...and now we must wait until he unlocks the casket completely and lifts the cover. That’s when we’ll learn what wonderful things he found.

What a marvelous tale, initially frustrating yet so full of sleeping images! In my mind’s eye I could see that boy and feel the rush of excitement and curiosity which propelled him to look further for the casket, and work to open it and reveal it’s contents. What would others find inside the casket? In my work as a storyteller, I am always searching for stories that give my listeners their own golden key and invite them to look deep into the richness of their inner lives, into their imagination. These riches are not material things and at first may be as fleeting as a passing thought, or as elusive as a daydream. Children especially need the experience of listening to stories and discovering connections with their own lives. This can strengthen their spirits for when they meet hard times, such as illness or death, or any kind of sadness or disappointment.

It has been my experience that children can deal with hard times far better than we may think. Telling them a story may be the best decision you make. Let me tell you about a time when I told a group of young children a story about death.

The story of the Seal Wife is a favourite in my repertoire for all ages of listener. When I first came across it, I was intrigued by a story about meeting and marrying someone from another world. I was struck by the situation created when two different worlds or existences meet and collide. How are the differences accommodated, and what has to be given up? Who has to compromise? In my own life I had already experienced divorce and remarriage, and children who had to adjust to altered life circumstances. The Seal Wife is such a stark tale, full of squandered possibilities and enduring love that struck a chord for me.

As I continued telling the story, I could hear the seal wife singing on the rocks at the shore, out at sea, and at her children’s bedside each night. But I didn’t know any seal songs, so for a while I hummed “Farewell to Tarwathie” as it seemed suitably poignant, and beautiful, and was a traditional song of the sea.

Once I spent a week with a grade one class in a small town north of Winnipeg. I met with them for an hour each day. They came into the art room and settled themselves on the floor around me while I told them a story. Then we would talk for a little while. With minimal prompting, the children would tell me about the time they felt just the same way as someone in the story. On the first day, I told a story about a dream that Spider Anansi had, and for some reason the subject of death came up, although no death occurs in the story itself. Two children in the class had lost fathers, while others remembered when an uncle or a grandfather died. One boy told me his mother was at that moment very sick in the hospital. His teacher told me later that she was not expected to live. This child couldn’t keep still.... touching everything, opening drawers, hiding, turning on taps...at the end of the session, I went up behind him and put my arms around him and teased him about touching everything, saying I would tickle him.

He calmed down and smiled at me and made no move to disengage. I know I was taking a chance doing this, but when I caught their teacher’s eye, he was smiling at me. When we moved to the art tables, I asked the children to cover their paper with large shapes of all their favourite colours, making sure that each colour lay close to the next, until all the white of the page was gone. We had shared such deep feelings that I wanted them to be able to express them in colour as well as words. As the children painted, they lost track of time, and even though their teacher and I reminded them that the session was nearly over, they found it very difficult to stop.

Each day proceeded in much the same way until we came to our last session together. On this day I had decided to tell them the story of the Seal Woman. It deals with loss on several levels and seemed an appropriate tale to leave with them. As always, I hummed “Farewell to Tarwathie” several times during my telling. It comes for the first time when the fisherman hears the distant singing of the seals. I sing it next when the children find the hidden sealskin, and then again at night when the seal mother tells her children stories about the sea.

After she has gone, both father and children hear it whenever they are near the sea. I never teach the “seal song", as it is not a sing - along type of melody. I was stunned when these grade one children just opened their mouths as if they couldn’t help themselves, and hummed along whenever I sang. Their notes were in perfect harmony with my song and their voices gradually faded away each time mine did. One child whistled softly. I felt that I was hearing echoes from angels. I glanced at the children whom I knew were experiencing death and illness in their families, and saw that they were singing too. When the story ended we all sat there in silence, hardly breathing. Then we all let out one great sigh in unison. I still treasure the memory of that moment and the immense sense of well being that was present in that room.

**********

The Seal Wife is found in story collections from Iceland and Scotland, and is told in many variations all over the Northern hemisphere wherever seals and humans share the same sea and shore. The Seal Wife is the story of a being from another realm who is constrained to marry, keep house for, and bear children to a mortal man because he retains her animal covering. Without it she cannot return to her world. When she regains her prized belongings, she flees her husband and children. The story ends with the loss of the wife once she finds her special garment or skin and escapes.

*************

This article was published in the June 2007 edition of “ Spiritual Care”, a newsletter for spiritual care providers across Manitoba








They Should Have Listened to Their Hearts It’s only with the heart that we can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye’.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery writing in The Little Prince

Hearing a story is like listening to music, the words falling off the teller’s tongue, onto our ears, and into our heart. We seem to have no defense against them, being unable to exert any control over the memories or thoughts that they set in motion. Stories are heard in the deep heart’s core and answer the burning questions which we all have and the answers which are the most meaningful come, in the end, from deep within our own selves.

The three of us who make up BraveHeart Storytellers here in Winnipeg have seen change happen when young children are told stories and then given a chance to talk about these stories and ponder them deep within themselves. We visited young children in an inner city school when they were 7-8 years old and then again the next year when the same class was 9-10 years old. Their school was located in an area of the city where organized gang activity was well established, and school staff wanted to help prevent vulnerable younger children from being drawn into gangs as they grew older. Our goal was to help them to discover what is already inside each one of them....a strong heart that can expand and be empathetic towards others. We felt sure that the knowledge of this inner strength would help young children as they grow and face choices in an uncertain future.

Children are hungry for stories. From the very first visit, sitting on three small chairs in front of the children and their teacher gathered on the carpet, we had no trouble getting most of the students to talk to us about the stories we were telling, and to tell us about happenings in their lives.

We encouraged students to describe the feelings that they thought the story characters were experiencing. We asked them to tell us what they thought those same characters might be thinking or saying to themselves to make them feel better or give them courage to face the problem situations in the story. We named these “feeling words” and “positive self talk” and when we heard these kinds of words, we wrote them down on large chart paper. If none of the words were said, then one of us would ask, “What do you think the king was thinking?’, or “How would the girl be feeling when she met the monster?” Soon a long list of feeling words and self-talk expressions grew. The chart paper stayed in the classroom for everyone to see in between sessions.

Asking for examples of story character’s positive self talk encouraged the children to explore and practice different points of view. It called on them to step away from themselves for a little while and imagine how someone else might feel. Because these children had already experienced failure, and faced danger (drive-by shootings in the neighbourhood, family breakdowns, playground fights) they were able to respond very quickly to stories about someone who courageously persevered. As Richard Lewis has written in Sacred Stories, "once children recognize the imagination as something powerful within themselves, they are able, ultimately, to live life more fully."

After the story of the Little Apple Tree, that very first time, we asked,“ What are some things each one of us has that are special?” At first, the children gave examples of outwardly visible strengths, such as being able to run fast, being good at hockey, and being able to print well. With our continued visits and encouragement to imagine the star inside them, they became able to identify inner qualities as well, intangibles such as: “I make my little brother laugh, I'm kind to people, I’m a good friend.”

Being open to possibilities is a key to change. All the folktales have this wisdom. The main characters succeed because they are open to movement or change: they do something different from what ¬is expected. So it is with the children we worked with. We knew that many of the young children were open to new ways of thinking, indeed eager for it, by the things they said and did. Two children stand out for us. Seven year- old Anthony (not his real name) had been described by his teacher as a child who was showing signs of being a bully at age 7. He tended to blurt out comments about others without regard for how they were feeling and he seemed to enjoy the discomfiture of others.

Right from the beginning, Anthony loved our stories, and as the two years went by, he had several favourite stories and would ask to hear them again. He became a different child during the hour that we were there, even though he continued to be a problem for the rest of the school day, showing small improvements only towards the end of our second year. At first he did not participate with the class in naming the feeling words, or suggesting positive self-talk. As he developed a relationship with us he became more trusting and he began to share expressions of his feelings and to tell us stories from his life. He told us that he came home from school one day the previous year, and his dog was gone. As we encouraged him to tell us more, the whole story came out;

I used to have a dog. It barked every day when I came home from school. It met me at the front door. One day, the dog wasn’t there. I asked my dad, “Where’s the dog?” My dad said, “It’s gone.” I went into my room and cried.”

When we asked the other children how they thought Anthony might have felt, many of them said, “Sad.” “Is that how you felt when you lost your dog?” we asked Anthony. He looked at us and nodded his head.

Our role here was to model the kind of listening that validates a child’s story, but doesn’t gloss over or try to make things better. His teacher was impressed that ¬he would share a story about crying and being sad, because she told us that he didn’t as a rule act as though he cared about anyone else’s feelings. We were certain that under normal circumstances, it is unlikely that Anthony would have spoken about his feelings the way he did when describing the loss of his dog.

Later on, Anthony came and stood between us, looked out at the group of classmates and said, ‘I’m hoping to go to Pelican River on the holidays to see my dad.” Just a short story, as most of the children’s stories were, but we were thrilled to hear him express that powerful feeling word...hope!

After we told Topingee (from The Magic Orange Tree), we gave out coloured paper and asked each child to draw a circle. Inside the circle, they were to draw or write the people in their lives whom they could go to for help, just like Topingee went to her friends. Anthony drew a circle, but it remained empty. One of us sat by him and he told her that he didn’t have anyone, that he was “no good”. She answered, “I think you’re okay, Anthony.” With encouragement, he finally wrote his teacher’s name inside the circle. She just happened to pass by his table, and saw her name inside his circle. She paused and said, “Anthony, it’s an honour for me to be inside your circle.” He added our three names, but no more. But on the final day when all the children gave us a class thank-you card, Anthony handed us his own card, and beside his name he had printed OKAY.

Diane was another child who gained more insight and had a chance to ponder life’s uncertainties out loud. She was a new student to the class in the second year of our program. She was tall for her age and very overweight. When she sat cross-legged on the floor along with the rest of her class, in Grade 3, she looked uncomfortable, and had trouble finding a large enough space to fit her body in. She didn’t say anything until our third visit. One of the stories that time was the Irish version of “The King has Horse’s Ears”. Diane began to ask questions about the decisions that the king makes in order to keep his secret safe. When we asked what positive self-talk the king could have said to himself, Diane offered the following, “It doesn’t matter how I look on the outside. It’s how I am on the inside.” We don’t know whether that is how she felt about herself, or whether that’s how she wished she felt. We only know that through storytelling we had created a forum where she could say it out loud to herself and her classmates.

One of our final stories ( Annie and the Red Dress) was about a woman who allows everyone else to tell her how she should look, instead of trusting her own good judgment. We paired this with a story of an eagle who was told that he was a prairie chicken and never learned to soar. These two stories prompted the most subtle expressions of self-talk from Diane, who struggled to say that the characters in both stories were influenced too much by others. She announced gravely, “They should have listened to their hearts.”

This article was first published in Storytelling Magazine, Vol 17, Issue 1, January/February 2005, National Storytelling Network, Jonesborough Tennessee, USA, 2005



BraveHeart Storytellers are Mary Louise Chown, Val Clancy, and Laura Fowler Val Clancy helped in the preparation for this article. Names of children were changed to protect privacy.