Category: story

Africa, creative, litertaure, story

Beginning: We are Storytelling Creatures

Christa Avampato

“Human beings have two ears and only one tongue. Why is this? Probably so that we have to listen twice as much as we speak.” ~ Henning Mankell

I read Henning Mankell’s article in the Sunday Times on the edge of my seat. He is a brilliant Swedish author who has spent almost 25 years off and on living, working, and creating in Mozambique. In the article, Mankell explains how African storytelling and narratives are about to burst onto the world literary stage.I couldn’t be happier about this development!

I went to Africa for the first time in 2007 after decades of dreaming about it. Immediately, I felt at home in a place that should have felt incredibly foreign. It was as if I had been there before, many time before. It felt like comfortable. It must have been our mutual love affair with great stories that made it feel so familiar.

We have the opportunity now to listen and share stories across continents, over oceans, and through the decades. The stories we tell today will be preserved in some way for people to read hundreds of years from now long after we’ve crossed over to whatever is next. Whenever we feel most alone, most frightened, we can take comfort in the stories of others who have had similar experiences. Go to Google. You’ll find them there, just waiting for you – your people, all holding a seat of your to sit around the proverbial campfire and share.

Storytelling in an act and art as old as time. It began with the very first person and will end with the very last. Storytelling and listening are more innate, more human than anything else we do. And its craft is within all of us.

health, risk, story, time

Beginning: Bookcases, Dust Bunnies, and Trauma Recovery

Christa Avampato

I was surprised how sad I felt selling my bookcases. I dusted them off one last time before selling them to some nice people on Craig’s List who will make good use of them. They’re lovely, but just to look at them you’d really have to wonder why I was sad to part with them.

I bought these bookcases without a second thought because they were exact replicas of the ones I had in my previous apartment prior to an apartment building fire that ruined most of my belongings and brought my greatest fears out into broad daylight for the world to see. The recovery from that event was a long, hard road. As I set about putting my life back together physically and emotionally, it was easier to just replace some of the things I had rather than find things that really fit the space. That was my rationale anyway. I was lying to myself.

More to the story
What was really happening was much deeper and disturbing. I was desperately trying to recreate my space and be the person I was before the fire. Both were fruitless efforts. There was my life before the fire and then life after, and the two could not be the same. I was changed in ways large and small, some known to me and some that would remain entirely unknown for several years. Those Crate & Barrel bookcases held a lot of emotion and history for me. In selling them, that emotion was released, freed. And then there is a hole that remains.

It’s not a hole meant to be filled in or repaired or rescued. It’s a hole that reminds me in a striking way that this life and our time is so precious and short. It’s a hole that reminds me that while we search for and seek out meaningful and life-changing events, we forget that we cannot go back once we go through them. They change our view of the world and our place in it. We are left to make meaning of them, largely on our own.

We can’t run forever
For a while, we will try to dress up these events. We will valiantly and unflappably try to put the pieces back together, to recreate our reality. This is the safe way. The braver, and ultimately healthier, way to travel through change is to recognize that we will have to imagine our way into a whole new reality. We will have to let go of what we’ve known in favor of a new and richer understanding of life and of ourselves.

In dusting off my bookshelves, I also quite literally dusted off my life. I wiped away some of the leftover pieces of the fear and hurt and sadness that have remained in the embers of that fire. Like dust bunnies, I didn’t even know they were there until they stared me right in the eye. I flinched, and then swept them away. I had to.

The healing way
Recovery from trauma is a slow and winding process. We can’t see beyond the bend and we have only what is right in front of us. That was then and this is now. Trauma warps our sense of time, our sense of reality, and we will trip and cry and laugh and feel lost and then found again. We will be strong one moment and crumbling the next. This cycle doesn’t go on forever, but it does go on and we can’t always predict its timing or triggers.

That’s how it goes – there’s nothing linear about healing. The path doubles back on itself again and again. All we can do is be patient and persistent in our pursuit of wholeness. And I do believe, ardently and passionately, that we can all be whole. And that with enough time, we will be.

story

Beginning: Your Story Can Be Sung

Christa Avampato

“Not only is your story worth telling, but it can be told in words so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a song.” ~ Gloria Naylor

In recent weeks, I’ve been telling the story of Compass Yoga to new audiences who are just beginning to hear about it – partner organizations, potential business partners, and yoga students and teachers. Eventually each conversation leads to asking what sparked the idea. I tell them my own personal story and my family’s story of grappling with mental and physical illness and the powerful role that yoga and meditation have played in helping me to feel well and whole. I talk about paying the gift forward and the joy of being able to do so. It really has become a song of sorts that stays with people.

I think that’s what happens when your story is filled with a lot of heart – it develops its own independent rhythm. Somehow it crafts its own life in its own right. People can identify with it, connect to it, and fit themselves into it in some way. Seeing stories just as they begin to weave together is a beautiful act to witness. It makes me teary-eyed with anticipation at the amazing story that’s about to be wrought by joining forces. Our story, to fully come alive, needs the story of others, just like food needs seasoning and melody needs harmony. We are stronger together.

animals, books, dogs, story, writing, yoga

Beginning: Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him

Christa Avampato

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut as quoted by Fmr. Captain Luis Carlos Montalván

I have read a handful of books in my life that have reached down into my soul and taken root. Fmr. Captain Luis Carlos Montalván’s book, Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him, is one of those books. Exquisitely written, Montalván and his beloved service dog, Tuesday, made me laugh, cry, and slam my fists on the table. I read much of it with Phineas, my own canine pal, in my lap, and the book made me hug Phineas even tighter than I usually do.

I  picked up the book after seeing Montalván and Tuesday on Letterman. I usually miss the show because it’s on past my bedtime, but for some reason I was awake that night with the TV on. Montalván’s story is tremendously important to me on a number of levels, and so immediately went out the next day and got the book.

Helping returning vets
With Compass Yoga, I am very focused on helping returning veterans, their families, and caregivers. Montalván taught me so much about war and the toll it takes on a person. His story is at points devastating and my heart felt crushed for all he endured, in Iraq and then once he returned from his tours of duty. The challenges of vets and those who are care for them are complex and messy, and Montalván writes about them in such searing detail that I sometimes felt myself right beside him. It’s a situation I very much need to understand if I am going to be of service to vets when they return home. The book reaffirmed my commitment to them.

Championing the healing power of animals
Tuesday is clearly an exquisite animal, inside and out. Though I’ve never met him, I certainly fell in love with him and his story over the course of the 252-page book. I have been a dog lover all my life. Our family dogs were an enormous part of my childhood – the very best part of it. I adopted my rescue pup, Phineas, a year ago and rehabilitating him has been one of the proudest and happiest achievement of my life. Even on my saddest days, he is a little ray of light in my life and to everyone who meets him. He is not without his challenges, though he has now become so engrained in my life that I can’t imagine being without him. That is the magic of animals, and dogs in particular – just by showing up they teach us about commitment, devotion, love, loyalty, and empathy – all of the things that make us human. They bring out the very best in all of us. I decided to enroll us in therapy dog training this Fall so I can bring him to schools and hospitals to visit. Goodness like Phin’s needs to be shared with the world – Tuesday taught me that.We need more Tuesdays, especially for veterans.

Writing honestly to achieve understanding
Montalván is a master storyteller, and what I so respect and admire most about him is his ability to write so candidly about painful and joyful parts of his life. It took great courage to put pen to page to write this story. He is not a perfect man, and in his honest writing he teaches us that we can’t expect ourselves to be perfect either. He writes about forgiveness and authenticity. He speaks with confidence, grace, wisdom, and strength. He inspired me to continue my own personal writing, particularly about my father, which is a painful and tragic part of my past. Montalván taught me that there is so much redemption available to us through honest and thoughtful writing. He taught me just how mighty the pen can be, and just how capable we are of forgiving ourselves and others.

Until Tuesday is a truly beautiful book, a great gift that I am so grateful to receive. And so I pass the recommendation on to you – let Tuesday into your heart and he will change the way you see the world.

movie, story, writing

Beginning: The Only Advice About Writing (and Life!) You’ll Ever Need, Courtesy of Pixar

Christa Avampato

“Find out how a character feels, and why he feels that way. That’s how we write stories.” ~ a member of Disney’s 9 Old Men

Last week I watched the documentary The Pixar Story. Their story is one of resilience and confidence, vision and courage. They are the stuff dreams are made of, and that includes plenty of doubt and failure, grueling schedules and conflict. That company fought for every success they’ve had, and against all odds. It’s better than anything they’ve ever put on screen, and what they’ve put on screen is phenomenal.

They are master storytellers. It’s the most important work they do. The effects and the artistry is groundbreaking and beautiful. It transports us to another world, and it’s all done in service of the story. They take the advice in the quote above very seriously, and it’s been a good reminder to me as I work on new writing projects and genres. All I ever have to do to create a compelling story is to find out how my characters feel, and why they feel that way.

This sentiment is so simple and powerful, not only for writing, but also for living. You seek enlightenment? Get to the bottom of your emotions and you’ll find all the wisdom you’ll ever need.

art, books, story, writer, writing

Beginning: Author As Art Director

Christa Avampato
Scene from The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

In the past few months, I’ve been working on some fiction writing for a young adult audience. It’s a fun and interesting project, and it stretches my skills as a writer. I can write lifestyle-type pieces, as I do for this blog, with a certain ease after 4+ years of daily writing. Over 1400 days of practice, and counting.

Fiction is something different. When I write for this blog, I know where I’m going. With fiction, the future is an open road and while you may have a map, the characters take on a life of their own. You have to find out what they’re feeling, and why they feel that way. Sometimes they make you laugh out loud and sometimes they break your heart. The author may create these characters, but like children they grow up to be independent with their own ideas about the world they live in. The author just has to get it all down as honestly as possible.

The story I’m trying to tell is fantastical and though I’m not a terribly visual person, I’ve found myself imaging scenes and colors, as if I’m on the outside of a large picture window, peering in with my hands framing my eyes. I’ve struggled a bit with how to describe in words what I see in my mind’s eye, with how to communicate to a reader everything that I imagine. How do I get the reader to see all of the detail I see, exactly as I see it.

And then I came across “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”, a creation of Moonbot Studios. The story is not quite a cartoon, not quite an ebook. It’s a delightful mash-up of the two, and it is the new poster child of just what’s possible with electronic books, particularly for a young audience.

After watching “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”, I realized that writers and storytellers have just picked up another hat. I can now imagine a time not too far off when people will laugh about the term “transmedia storytelling” because all stories will have to jump across different mediums with ease in order to delight an audience with increasingly savvy expectations. It won’t just be a nice bonus, but required development. Writers, grab your virtual paintbrushes – you’re going to need them!

career, nonprofit, story, yoga

Beginning: Compass Yoga’s Story Resonates with Lawyers to Secure Pro Bono Legal Counsel

Christa Avampato

“Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.” ~ Ben Okri

This week I learned an enormous amount about the power of authentic storytelling. I founded Compass Yoga to provide yoga and wellness programming to populations dealing with specific health concerns. Given the incredible need, we are focusing our efforts on helping returning veterans, their families, and their caregivers, particularly those who are challenged with PTSD and other stress- and anxiety-induced illnesses. For some people, this is a difficult mission to imagine. They can’t see how veterans will ever take to yoga and other therapeutic treatments outside of traditional Western medicine. I understand their concern, and so storytelling has become a major focus for us.

On Tuesday, I presented to Lawyers Alliance, an amazing nonprofit who mission is to assist existing and would-be nonprofit organizations with legal matters. I requested their help in filing for nonprofit incorporation and 501(c)(3) status. To begin the process, I applied, had a phone interview, and then presented my case to them in-person. I was acutely aware of the my presentation’s dual-purpose – first, I needed to demonstrate the practical need for the organization and the logistics I would put in place to deliver on the mission. Then, they needed to see if I was passionate about the idea; they needed to hear my personal story. In short, they to know why this organization matters – to the world and to me.

I am so happy and grateful to report that on Friday I learned that Lawyers Alliance has agreed to take Compass Yoga on as a client. For a small retainer fee and necessary government filing fees, they will help us through the process of incorporation, set-up, tax-exemption filing, and other associated needs. Now the match-making process begins and they will contract with a pro bono attorney from a firm to work with me and the Compass Yoga Board on these actions.

When I received the notification, I literally started jumping around my apartment. I couldn’t believe this incredible good fortune. Wins like this make me want to work even harder to realize all of the potential for healing we have brewing with Compass Yoga.

A million thanks to so many of you who have sent your good wishes, resources, ideas, suggestions, links, and general goodness in this effort. None of this would be possible without all of you. It takes a village to grow and spread a good story, and I’m honored and humbled to be among you on this road. Today, my heart is full of gladness and sincere appreciation. Through my teaching, I’ll pay it all forward many times over.

creativity, imagination, movie, story

Beginning: My Favorite Thing About Harry Potter

Christa Avampato

On Sunday afternoon I saw the final Harry Potter, just like millions of other people who helped the movie take in $168.5M on its opening weekend, the largest opening weekend in history. The special effects, the story of a hero’s journey, and the sheer beauty of the franchise, in book and movie form, have created one of the greatest franchises in storytelling history. But these aren’t the reasons why I love Harry Potter and all that he stands for.

I love the story behind the story. I love that from the mind of one single 30-something woman, a whole new world was born that captured our own imaginations. There’s a horrible misconception in our society that all of the good ideas have already been thought of. JK Rowling has proved this theory wrong beyond measure, and for that I am so grateful to her.

Watching the final movie made me wonder what magical world is waiting to be discovered and shared by you and by me. I hope, like JK Rowling, we will have the confidence, courage, and heart to tell those stories. The whole world is wanting and waiting to hear them.

Wondering what JK Rolwing is up to now? Visit http://www.pottermore.com.

meditation, presentation, speaking, story, yoga

Beginning: How to Tell Your Story

Christa Avampato

“Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.” ~ Matthew Arnold via Quotes4Writers

On Tuesday, I’m speaking and giving a short presentation at Jericho Project, a nonprofit whose mission is to “catalyze change that enables homeless individuals to discover their strengths and lead remarkable lives.” They are having a health fair for male vets and asked if I could explain how yoga and meditation could be a benefit to them.

I was procrastinating on preparing this presentation – this is a new population for me and I want so much to help them understand how valuable this practice can be for them. I had several false starts and then found this quote from Quotes4Writers as I was toddling through Twitter. I was letting my desired outcome for the presentation get in the way of the process of preparing it. As I written about before, we are entitled to our actions and efforts, not the results. What I needed to do was just take Matthew Arnold’s advice: decided what I wanted to say and then say it as clearly, and succinctly, as possible. It made the whole journey of preparing this presentation easier.

The finished product: Jericho Project Presentation

I’ll let you know how Tuesday goes!

discovery, dreams, story, teaching, writing, yoga

Beginning: Thinking Your Dreams Into Being

Christa Avampato

“You are what you think.” ~ Dr. Lu

I saw this image yesterday when I went searching for information on the image I posted yesterday about how to live your life by your own design. This poem by Frank Outlaw reminded me of this quote from Dr. Lu, a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Who we become begins with our thoughts on our purpose. You can think the life you want into being. Frank Outlaw just handed us a map of 31 words.

As a writer, the second step of the journey – turning thoughts into words – is where I spend a considerable amount of time. Our words are the first pathways to our personal transformation. As a yoga teacher and yoga therapist, I help students find their own words by working through their own barriers in the body. Our past challenges, mental and physical, store physically in different parts of the body. Through yoga, we can remove the blocks in our bodies that then allow us to articulate our stories.

Once we can articulate our stories, we begin to heal and we become the rulers of our thoughts rather than our thoughts ruling us. It’s this combination of writing and yoga that is so powerful for me as a student and as a teacher. This is where it all comes together. I’m not here to impart any wisdom; I’m here to guide others to their own wisdom that they already have within them.