Monthly Archives: September 2016

I love stories. They seem so magical and in an incredible way, can take me to another time and place, or, if I’m the one writing, help me to process the events and observations from my daily life. I have also loved storytelling for as long as I can remember, and through the prompt inspiring this post, I’ve had the opportunity to not only write and tell a story, but to also reflect on my own relationship with storytelling.

A few years ago, a friend of mine hosted a birthday party where we spent the afternoon drinking tea, catching-up, and making buttons with pieces of fabric, bits of paper, and meaningful words. I wanted to make one for myself that incorporated my love of stories, and I wrote-out the letters of “storyteller” for this button. However, when I started to lay-out the pieces, I paused. Within the society I knew, wouldn’t calling myself a storyteller suggest that I was stretching the truth? Or, perhaps, a liar, if that was what the storytelling implied?

I still have that button I made that says story lover instead of storyteller. Writing this post prompted me to reflect on this memory and to question: what are the relationships between storytelling and “lying?” What powers are contained within stories? What kind of stories do we tell ourselves and how do these stories affect who we are?

I’m lucky that I get to tell stories regularly to the children I work with. However, I found it different experience consciously telling a story to adults. My story changed each time I told it, and depending on how busy, or interested, or curious my audience was, I elaborated, or shorted, or summarized various parts of the tale. I was also acutely aware of how the stories I’ve heard and know affected my own storytelling—both the story itself and the way I told it.

The following story, inspired by Thomas King’s retelling of Leslie Silko’s story of how evil came into the world (9-10), is a version of the one that prompted these reflections, and the one that I shared with my family. In short, I have a great story to tell you; it goes like this:

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Once there was magic throughout the world.

It flowed from the earth, it whispered in the winds, it lit-up the skies, it shimmered in the water. The magic was powerful, and it was abundant. It pulsed through the world, and created things of beauty—and destruction.

In fact, things were getting out of hand. The fire dragons were having far too good a time burning forests, which was causing the other forest creatures and spirits to become rather annoyed. The selkies were breaking hearts left, right, and center. Some creatures were using the magic to change the minds and behaviours of others. And the magic itself was bursting at the seams, increasing with each new life, it was literally shaking the earth, and breaking apart the land and the beings living there. (The humans, in case anyone was wondering, were not doing so well with their limited understanding of magic and imagination and their minimal amounts of claws, teeth, and other protection.)

Not only was the usual level of chaos at work, but things were beginning to escalate. Magic can become a rather unruly thing, especially when it is so prominent in the atmosphere, and a number of the earth’s inhabitants started to discuss how it would be good to meet and collaborate on working things out and soothing the magic’s unease.

So the witches decided to get together and have a conference. Actually, it wasn’t only the witches; everyone else was invited too, witches are just good at having conferences. Now, to put this in perspective, this was not an unusual occurrence; in fact, it was a rather regular thing. The witches just enjoyed getting together, playing games, and sharing magic. And that was pretty much what happened at this conference. Witches came from all around the world, along with any other beings that wanted to join. Witches of all genders, of all backgrounds, of all stories, of all places came to conference (witches generally enjoy conferencing); while a variety of other magical beings came to join the conference too.

Trying to calm this shock of magic, to make the it a bit more ruly, a bit more manageable so things could more easily live on the planet, was one of the conference’s themes—in addition to the usual shenanigans. And so the conference started.

Some witches began brewing, others began dancing. Some made faces, some made potions, some made mistakes. Some did magical tricks. Many worked together and tried to sooth the magic in the world; many didn’t. The magic continued to pulse dangerously.

By the end of their conference, almost every creature in attendance had done a trick, played a game, or at least tried to sooth the world’s magic.

Except one: the quietest witch, who had been observing the conference and the tricks and discussions of the others.

The others approached them asking: “Can you work the magic? Can you channel it and do something exciting, or scary, or both?” The quiet witch quickly opened their mouth, as if to reply to these questions, and… started to tell a story.

This story enfolded the dragons, dove with the selkies, and spoke of myth and legend. It included beginnings and endings and terrible, nearly unspeakable things, and things so beautiful, they nearly leapt beyond words. It told the listeners what to believe and what to disbelieve. It ensnared the imaginations and beliefs of those present and when the quiet witch-storyteller stopped, those present agreed that it had been a good story, an enjoyable story at least.

Yet, the witch should take it back. That story took its listeners to another place and suggested that the magic and magical things they knew did not exist; should not be believed in. The other witches and attending creatures wanted their magic back, along with their whole-hearted belief.

But the witch couldn’t. Not only had their words been a story, but it had captured their listeners’ imaginations; it had captured their belief.

It was magic.

It was a spell.

And once a spell is cast, there’s no taking it back; once a story is told, it is loose in the world (King 10).

The magic that had seemed so abundant and accessible before, started to fade away from the form it had shook the world in before. After the conference, as the effects of the story spread, the magical creatures and blunt forms of magic started to fade from the belief and sight of the common world.

Sometime later, one of the witches who had been at that fateful conference came across a number of people gathered around someone. Watching the group, they realized that someone was telling a story—someone familiar, telling a familiar story. They approached this storyteller and were struck by the way the imagination and belief of those listening was being captured… and smiled as they realized where the magic, and its power, had gone.

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As suggested by another kind of witch in a story I know, “Careful the tale you tell / That is the spell” (“Children Will Listen Lyrics”). Thank you for listening to my stories.

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For this week’s post, I have chosen to respond to the following prompt:

Figuring out this place called home is a problem (87).  Why? Why is it so problematic to figure out this place we call home: Canada? … Chamberlin says, “the sad fact is, the history of settlement around the world is the history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78).  Chamberlin goes on to “put this differently” (Para. 3). Explain that “different way” of looking at this, and discuss what you think of the differences and possible consequences of these “two ways” of understanding the history of settlement in Canada (Paterson, question 4).

I don’t remember learning to speak, but according to my family’s stories, my first word was “home.” I’ve always felt a strong connection the the ideas of place, family, and home. However, as my understanding of history, ancestry, and colonialism has grown, the complexity, confusion, and pain that I associate with this connection has also increased.

Stories can “give meaning and value to the places we call home” (Chamberlin 1), and the opening lines of Canada’s national anthem, a kind of story (Chamberlin 175), suggest that being at home here, in Canada, is simple if you’re considered to be a Canadian citizen. It’s “our home and native land” (O Canada). But what does this phrase actually mean? Whose “home” and “land” is being referred to as “ours?”

As suggested by author J. Edward Chamberlin, the history of settlement itself has been tied to displacing others, while also “discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78). This history features prominently in Canada’s story as Indigenous peoples, who have lived here for thousands of years, have been displaced and removed from their homelands, historically and currently. Not only that, but the cultures, livelihoods, and languages of peoples originally living here have been discounted and actively destroyed through initiatives such as reserves and residential schools, the last of which closed as recently as 1996 (CBC News).

This displacement and destruction is a central reason why calling Canada “home” is so complicated. For immigrants (including “settlers” whose families have been here for hundreds of years), it means trying to find home on land that, in most cases, has been illegally stolen and occupied, and is tied to a genocide of peoples and cultures. For people with Indigenous ancestry, as mentioned above, “home” has been largely affected too, as communities have been geographically divided, landscapes have been irreparably changed, and many of the stories and connections to place, language, and community have been denied.

However, Chamberlin also offers another perspective on this “history of settlement,” suggesting that, “[p]ut differently,” many of the world’s conflicts have been a story of  “dismissing a different belief or different behaviour as unbelief or misbehaviour, and of discrediting those who believe or behave differently” (78). While this is closely related to his point mentioned above, it suggests that conflicts, such as those regarding “home,” have been tied to dismissing and creating the other, or “them and us” (Chamberlin 8). This dismissal and discreditation could be used to justify labelling one set of beliefs or behaviours as “right,” while indicating others are “wrong.”

For Canada, this included dismissing the beliefs and practices of people originally living here and actively trying to change this. In addition, stories and ideas such as terra nullius were created through this dismissal of different ways of using and perceiving land and place, and suggested that the usage of land by Indigenous peoples was leaving the land “vacant,” or not properly used, and helped to “justify” the occupation of lands by settlers.

So what does it mean to be at “home” on land that has such a conflicted story? This is a main reason why finding home in Canada can be so challenging–and problematic. Perhaps there really is “no place like home” (qtd. in Chamberlin 74) and this connection is found in the stories and concepts of home that we build for ourselves, which can “hold some people together and keep others apart” (Chamberlin 227). If stories do have this power, then perhaps they can also help us to recognize the past, and create a new story, and “home,” for all of us.

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Hello and welcome!

Picture credit: Maureen Bracewell, October 2013

My name is Kaylie. I am a lifelong learner, an avid knitter, a nature lover — and a first time blogger.

Recently, I transferred from Capilano University, where I was working on my Associate of Arts degree in Global Stewardship, to the Global Resource Systems (GRS) program at UBC. Through this program, I intend to focus my learning on sense of connection (to place, environment, culture, community), and how this sense affects our interactions with each other and our environment.

Throughout this blog, I hope to explore some of these themes of connection within the context of literature and stories; I welcome you to join me!

However, this blog is not simply an open exploration, but it’s also part of an online course through UBC: Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres (ENGL 470A). This course will be focusing on Canadian literature, with an emphasis on the power of stories and the intersections, and departures, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous narratives, especially those narratives originating in the place now commonly known as North America (ENGL 407A).

By taking this course, I’m expecting to have the opportunity to critically reflect on the stories that create our perception of Canada, while improving my computer literacy skills and experiencing how the internet can be used as a tool for learning, discussing, and sharing different perspectives.

Beyond this, I’m hoping this course will also offer the opportunity to discuss and consider topics and questions such as how stories shape culture, nations, and a sense of connection, or “home;” what forms stories can come in (e.g. songs, art, writing) and how our society’s perspective on the validity of these stories may change depending on the form used to share it; and what it means to be a person living in a place where many of the stories, and even place names, that I learned throughout my childhood were largely disconnected from this place and its people.

I have always loved stories and I am looking forward to exploring both the stories, and their underlying connections, throughout this course. Please leave a comment if you feel inspired to do so; I look forward to connecting with you!

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