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Twice monthly stories for humans seeking depth and meaning.

I'm Janelle Hardy and at some point you signed up for this twice-monthly (ish) newsletter on memoir-writing, somatic (body) healing and stories. If you'd like to unsubscribe, just click the unsubscribe link at the bottom.

For ten days last summer I camped, with a bunch of artists, at the open-air museum of Fort Selkirk. This historic village stretches out, a string necklace of cabins, for over a kilometre alongside the western bank of the Yukon River, just downstream from the confluence of the Yukon and Pelly Rivers.

Evenings in the circumpolar north are long, languorous, light-all-night events, and every evening, as a soft dusk fell, a noise would arise over the water, filling the air with squeaking, purring, lilting songs.

The cliff swallows, who butted their mud nests up under the curling lip of the clay cliff’s edge, were in flight. Birdsong on the wing became its own choreographed murmuration.

Their rhythmic, lyrical group flights were backlit by the dusky blue skies overhead and reflected off the steadily moving ropes of the river current below.

We campers were clifftop. With the river about four feet higher than usual, it was a 15-foot easy but abrupt scramble up the wood stairs and clay from the gravelly river’s edge. We arrived by boat.

Clifftop, our campsite was on flat ground cleared of black spruce and willow trees; the space between Fort Selkirk and the river's steadily encroaching embankment. On the other side was thick boreal forest and the promise of bears.

The ground was a stretch of dusty clay with delicate, close-to-the-earth flowering plants, the tiniest jewel-like, flavour-saturated wild strawberries, and wiry local sagebrush, which, if you pulled a few leaves off a stalk and rolled them around in your hands, released their earthy aroma.

In the evenings when the swallows collectively left their tucked away mud nests and swooped out over the river, I would lie back on the ground and watch their overhead dance.

Swallows, looping in flight, catching their meals (so many mosquitos), then, on some mysterious cue, returning to their nests under the cliff’s edge.

This experience has been humming in my bodypsyche ever since.

So I've created a baby storytelling offering.

It's an offering that's been percolating since I grew up attending, then volunteering for, then working for, the now defunct Yukon International Storytelling Festival.

It's an offering that, in nascent form, I shared over four years ago when I had a Patreon membership page. Every month for over a year my one supporter (hi!) and I explored fairy tales by reading and writing, together.

And, since last summer, entranced by those cliff swallows, I've felt the desire to bring forth another offering related to storytelling and story receiving.

Introducing From the Swallow's Nest: a two-session embodied storytelling and writing series.

I'll be the teller and the guide. I hope you join me!

Keep reading for the details.

The flow of our time together

From the Swallow’s Nest:
fairy tale, myth & memoir
A two-session embodied storytelling & writing series

Dates and times

• Monday July 17th: fairy tale: Jorinde & Joringel (Grimm's Brothers Collection)
• Monday July 31st: fairy tale: to be announced
• Starts: 10am Pacific Time
• 2 - 2.5 hours

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First, I’ll be the storyteller, you’ll be the story recipients

Let your story hungry souls receive. Be satiated.

We let the story breathe and touch us by refraining from analysis and critique. We receive, and notice ourselves with the story, and how we respond in our body, our heart, our spirit.

Next, we’ll tend to the story by sharing what we’re sparked by

Your sparks, your responses might be imagery, they might be intellectual, they might be somatic and embodied, they might be many things.

We continue to refrain from analysis and critique. We tend to the noticings that arise individually and collectively.

Then, we’ll write, letting the story work with our bodypsyches

We’ll write with the story to draw out memories and ideas. Unblock flow. Offer insight. Start new stories.

And then we’ll discuss

We’ll amplify and expand the story and approach it from different perspectives.

Here’s where analysis, critique, discussion is invited in. And here’s where it becomes richer, because we didn’t do it sooner.

You’ll feel what I mean when you participate in the process :-)

What you’ll get out of this experience

• Stories for your bodypsyche and soul.
• Stories to continue to make (write, paint, draw, sing, sew, etc) with.
• Nourishment for your deep mythic self to work with (in dreams, in synchronities, in your art).
• Guidance from the collective container of ancient tales, archetypes, and the gathering of kindred spirits.

$95 USD

​Click here to sign up.​

Questions? Reply to this e-mail.

xoxo,

Janelle

PS - do you know someone who would love this offering? Forward this e-mail, or share the signup page here. And thank you! Word of mouth is always golden.