The Call

What is it to be a storyteller and carrier of stories at this time?

Our future is and has always been shaped by the stories we inhabit and tell, on both an individual and collective level. Ever since the first ‘Once upon a time’, humanity has been guided along the wisdom trail by making meaning through the invisible hand of story. All cultures share the languages of image, symbol and metaphor and the stories arrived around the fireside thousands of years ago with the capacity to guide, educate, entertain, challenge, heal and inspire.

However, most of us who are or would be contemporary storytellers are ‘orphaned to tradition’ – that is, we exist outside of a defined oral tradition and do not have a body of mythic story that weaves us into the web of creation. Stories, like people, have been uprooted, and the spaces in which we can connect to deep time through story have been colonised, diminished and pushed to the margins. This programme takes seriously the question of how we nurture a relationship with the deep stories from a place of authentic personal, contemporary experience.

The Navajo (Dine) people call the act of storytelling ‘making it holy’, and this underpins and informs our approach to storytelling as a practice and an artform. Using stories themselves as guides, and a range of nature connection and depth practices, we invite the cultivation of a storytelling practice grounded in dialogue between the personal and the mythic.

‘I recognized myself in the mirror of the stories– and only then did it become clear to me how to negotiate the quandary of my life. And so the stories– more than just food, more than just nourishment, are medicine. Not specifically to heal– because we have a fantasy of healing– which is that the wounds and the scars will be gone, and we’ll be just as we were before the affliction ever landed on us. But to heal, as I mean it, is to make the wound a source– a generous and generative source– of what you have to give and bring into the world.’

Daniel Deardorff

What is the course?

This programme offers an immersive and creative exploration of what it is to be a carrier and teller of stories in these extraordinary times. Our syllabus offers a wild and imaginal trail of breadcrumbs that invites us back to a sacred source – the wellspring of the natural world. A nature-connected storyteller – now there’s a thing! It is an invitation to deepen your apprenticeship to the role of storyteller and what that means for you and your wider community.

The journey is centred on five residential modules of 5-6 days, supplemented where possible, by a masterclass from a visiting practitioner. These five modules will be hosted in Devon and taught by Jo Blake and Chris Salisbury. The syllabus teaches the fundamentals of embodied storytelling through exploring a range of traditional stories, as well as foregrounding the process and practice of ‘threshold crossings’ in wild nature. This not only informs the stories we tell and the way we tell them but allows us to inhabit ourselves and the world we live in in a more engaged and animated way. How do we till the earth of our own being to be a carrier of story? How might story take root in us?

Course Structure

THE FIVE MODULES – An Overview

MODULE 1 — The Clearing: Animal Kin & Orientation

Awaken your senses to the other-than-human world through embodied practices, ways of greeting, and working with stories of animal and plant kin. Become familiar with the shape and rhythm of oral stories, and meet story as a living being. Tune into your human-animal body. Arrive at the fireside.

MODULE 2 — The Forest Path: Shapeshifting Stories & Bodies

Strengthen your storytelling skills through greater expressivity, rhythm, physicality, and imaginative fluency as we explore stories of shapeshifting. Learn to follow the tracks of story, taking them into nature and telling them to and in different sites. Pay attention to the stories that hail you and the way the living world responds.

MODULE 3 — The Mountain: Threshold & Vision Fast

A two-night solo immersion in wild nature marks the midpoint of the journey. This ceremony invites a deep encounter between teller and the living stories of the other-than-human world… the place from which the stories come.

MODULE 4 — The Village: Returning with Embers & Story-Shaping

Return from the threshold with “changed eyes.” Integrate your experience into story and give it voice. Explore compositional practices, and the intersection of autobiography and myth.

MODULE 5 — The Hearth: Service & Cultural Offering

Working artistically with all you’ve learnt and experienced, craft a story offering for an invited audience. Creative engagement in the storytelling event – setting the space, working with audience, critical reflection. Articulate your story-medicine, share your gifts, and learn to offer story in service to culture, community, and the Earth.

There will also be assignments in between the modules to develop the practice

Module Dates

April 22-26 / June 29-July 3 / Sept 11-17 / October 16-20 / Nov 18-22

What skills will I learn?

Storytelling Skills

You will learn to work with:

• Repertoire: a range of traditional stories, including folktale, fairytale and myth
• Voice: tone, rhythm, texture, pace
• Body: physical expressivity, gesture, presence
• Imagination: image, symbol, metaphor
• Composition: structure, pacing, narrative design
• Process: the journey from page to performance
• The storytelling event: creating space and atmosphere

These skills are taught through practical exploration, play, embodied exercises and experiential learning in a range of environments, including round the fire, in nature and in the village hall.

Storycarrying Capacities

You will cultivate:

• Deep listening to land, weather, and more-than-human beings
• Relationship with your own mythos, dreams, and imaginal life
• Ecological attention and sensory presence
• Threshold-crossing skills, including a guided vision fast
• Ethical awareness and responsibility in holding story as ‘medicine’
• The ability to offer stories in service to community and the Earth

This strand is developed through time in nature, ceremony, guided reflection, and the transformative practice of solitude.

Who is it for?

• Storytellers and performers of all disciplines who want to rewild their practice.
• Educators, activists and change-makers who wish to influence the agenda with the power of story.
• Anyone who loves story and sees their own potential as a storyteller.
• Anyone who loves the Earth and wishes to be in creative service to a more promising future.

How much does it cost?

• Regular price @ £2,550
• Low waged @ £2,050
• Supporter rate @ £2,950

Bursaries potentially available – depending on Supporter donations and the overall economy of the programme. 

Location

Venues across South Devon, including Dartmoor. Details to follow. 

Find Out More

In 2025 we had an online Meet the Leaders / Q&A event. If you would like to view a recording OR if you have any questions on the programme please complete an enquiry form here.