a stream of consciousness: Story

I’m a firm believer in that if you know something well, then you will be able to turn it into a story. If that wisdom has taken root in you then you can simplify it to its bones, while also acknowledging the immense complexity of that wisdom.

From a young age, we are told that the place for story is during bedtimes. It’s frivolous and unnecessary because it doesn’t provide objective, linear and factual value. At best, it’s an amusing way to teach children morals and then later on, as a way to mine for literary devices for a compelling essay on 18th century Romanticism.

As I’ve grown older, I think of how everything that’s moved me to the place that I am in today, is because of story. Not a linear tale with a climax and resolution, but one that connects inextricably to others and one that exists in cyclical time.

Cyclical time is exactly what it sounds like - past that feeds the future that feeds the present and so on it goes, everything behind is everything forward. The more you think about it, the more our calendars and clocks seem minuscule in the face of something so endless - timeless.

Most of my stories are unfinished, and are nested within other stories. A wonderful story that comes to mind (one that is slowly progressing) is when I was 6 years old.

I was at school and we were doing ‘Aboriginal’ art, painting Grass Trees. However, the teacher referred to them as Blackboys - which, for obvious reasons is an outdated term. It always used to surprise me why I remembered it with such accuracy, a seemingly random memory. But it all makes sense. I learnt in early high school that art for Indigenous people is sacred and esoteric. Later I learnt (through self study), the mindblowing complexity of art, performance and song for Indigenous people. Alongside this, the ruin of colonialism was a constant theme at school, yet the regenerative ability of the Indigenous culture was never taught, nor the intellectual feat that is their knowledge system. At the same time I was decolonising my own cultural and ancestral story. The memory of painting Grass Trees would always show itself.

Story can't exist without storytellers, those who can alchemise experiences and knowledge into an antidote for our current way of being. Storytellers are weavers, witches, artists, creatives, thinkers, feelers and lovers. They are the guides that bridge abstraction into imagination, and then into direct experience.

It’s refreshing to seek out our own meaning of stories, and what they mean in regards to us and our circumstances. It gives back power to our imagination, our inner knowing and allows wisdom to be felt rather than taught. It makes space for all interpretations, while also having an unchanging centre.

Stories move us into heart-ful, soulful and purposeful action. They make space for nuance - they bring breath to numbers, words and the inanimate.