Tag Archives: inspiration

Storytelling for a Greener World

I have been involved in this new book and rather than ramble on myself, I’ll use the Press Release to tell you about it!

And you can buy your own copy at: Hawthorn Press

 

Since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring brought environmental wellbeing to widespread attention, pollution, global warming and animal loss have risen. Despite rising environmental awareness, nature needs more care than ever.

Storytelling for a Greener World explores how storytelling and story-work enable meaningful change. Stories can help us re-connect with each other, with our environment, and ‘to see a world in a grain of sand’. Whether it is a friend describing a skein of geese in evening flight, the tale of the man protected by a tree, or children getting inspired by kittiwakes, such moving stories invite meaning and action.

The crystal clear Introduction explains the core principles and methods of story based learning, with helpful examples. Chapters by some of Britain’s finest storytellers provide a treasury of over 40 engaging stories to retell as well as:

-Clear descriptions of creative story work, activities, approaches and tips.

-Explanations of how storytelling engages people and aids learning about the environment; Analysis of successful story-based sessions.

-Advice on how to choose sustaining stories and develop innovative story work.

The 21 authors include well-known storytellers, academics, environmentalists and facilitators who have pioneered story-based learning in nature reserves, museums, botanic gardens, schools, companies, NGO’s, universities and communities. This authoritative book is an essential resource for anyone using storytelling in their work.

Editors: Alida Gersie, PhD, widely published author on story making for change, initiated and directed postgraduate arts therapies programmes worldwide, advises managers and thought-leaders on how to improve outcomes in health, environmental learning, sustainable development and the arts. Anthony Nanson, ecological storyteller and award-winning author with MA’s in science and creative writing, which he teaches at Bath Spa University. Edward Schieffelin, PhD, Emeritus Reader in Anthropology at UCL, has done research among indigenous people of Papua New Guinea for many years and worked intensely with WWF South Pacific on issues of rainforest destruction. Jon Cree, ecologist and environmental educator, chairs the Forest Schools National Network. Charlene Collinson consults on sustainability and futures thinking with government and business.

Authors: Malcolm Green, Nick Hennessy, Eric Maddern, Gordon MacLellan, Ashley Ramsden, Hugh Lupton, Chris Salisbury, Helen East, David Metcalfe, Chris Holland, Sara Hurley, Mary Medlicott, Martin Shaw, Kelvin Hall, Kevan Manwaring, Fiona Collins and the editors above.

I just loved these personal stories from the front line, teasing out what constitutes good practice both in the design and in the delivery of storytelling … In essence, it is an inspiring toolkit that will enrich the work of people who already use storytelling, and will encourage others to get stuck in. Jonathon Porritt, Foreword 

 

 

Storytelling for a Greener World: Environment, Community and Story-Based Learning will be released on 1 May 2014, with a launch at Kings Cross, London. A pre-publication celebration will be held in Stroud, Glouc. on 11 April: talks by Alida Gersie and Jonathon Porritt, who wrote the Foreword

 

 

 

 


Festival of Outdoor Learning

FESTIVAL OF

OUTDOOR LEARNING

Hollowford Centre, Castleton,

Hope Valley, Derbyshire

 22nd and 23rd February 2014

 

stories from found, scavenged and rather unexpected objects

I’ve been doing workshops at these gatherings for a few years now and they are always lively, cheerful events. Excellent opportuntieis for meeting people, catching up on old friends, making new ones, exploring ideas and having good-natured arguments with people

 

I am only there on the Saturday  doing workshops:

  • the Value of Tiny Things
  • Finding Stories

(details below)

 

tiny crows too small for easy photographs!

Other excitements from a very busy programme include:

  • working with special needs students
  • circular map making
  • Biomimicry: learning from nature’s genius
  • trainer in a rucksack
  • …and lots more!

 

The conference often sells out (and at only £75 for the weekend, it’s a bargain – the fee includes 4 workshops,a cocommodation and food) and workshop spaces need booking.

 

Follow the Lindley Trust link to find out more – and come and join us!

 

Tiny pirates meet a Tiny mermaid

 

Finding stories

A lively session spinning new stories, wild tales and improbable characters out of found materials. Working indoors and out, we’ll look at techniques to use with groups to build stories to tell, practical hints and useful themes for ourselves as leaders and additional activities to give ourselves the confidence to weave new stories on the spot.

 

The Value Of Tiny Things

Two main themes coincide in this workshop: the sheer excitement a lot of children (and older people!) find in working on a small scale and the practical limits on what equipment we can carry with us. So, with a guide to “make nothing bigger than your own hand”, we’ll set off to explore some Tiny Worlds with pirates and goblins, castles, treasure maps, tiny books terrible, tiny monsters. There may be even a fleet of very small ships on a very small pond

 

a tiny lantern-reef grows along a tree-root

Once And Future Giants: book review

Once and Future Giants: What Ice Age Extinctions Tell Us About the Fate of Earth’s Largest Animals

Sharon Levy

Oxford University Press, USA; 2011

ISBN; 978-0-19-993116-3

Sources:

www.nhbs.com/once_and_future_giants_tefno_176841.html

 

I have a deep and abiding affection for mammoths and an awful creeping suspicion about our ancestors’ role in their extinction. So I started reading  Sharon Levy’s book with a mixture of wariness and excitement.

 

Both were justified.

This is a fascinating read, exploring the changing landscapes of an Ice Age and post-Ice Age planet, mostly from the perspective of the megaherbivores. My mammoths were there – and so were herds of large grazers, mastodons, ground sloths, giant kangaroos in Australia, moa in new Zealand, Aepyornis in Madagascar – and giant tortoises just about anywhere else that didn’t have any of the others. Mixing sound observation with deduction and careful parallels with modern ecosystems, Levy dives into the ecology of those prehistoric landscapes. It makes fascinating reading: from the sheer physical impact of herds of mammoth (and all the other) to their role in maintaining biodiversity, their vulnerability to predation (yes, we were there, too, alongside sabretooths and giant eagles) and the decline of, especially northern, ecosystems in their absence. It’s not that long ago: 10,000 years – and less, hundreds in some cases – is not long in ecological terms and that absence is still felt

 

Levy weaves research from different disciplines to make a coherent and compelling argument for the vital role of giant herbivores in maintaining viable and diverse ecosystems and while work on extinct animals has to be speculative, she draws carefully on current research on extant equivalents to fuel her arguments and to lend weight to discussions. You only have to look at how wildlife “management” missed the long term impacts of elephants on East African landscapes to appreciate that those large animals have been deeply misunderstood, their impact seen in the short term and to realise how little we really know about even the largest of our terrestrial neighbours. Looking beyond its immediate subject matter, Once And Future Giants is a celebration of the intricacy and subtlety of natural systems, in constantly reminding us that modern science hasn’t been looking at these processes for long enough to grasp the depth of the processes and that, where the knowledge survives, traditional cultures can fill in a lot of the spaces – and equally that traditional knowledge is not infallible and in the end reflects upon practices that helped humans survive – sometimes at the expense of other species.

Elephants feature again in the final aspects of the book: the reintroduction of large herbivores. That could mean returning lost species to familiar landscapes – beavers or moose in Britain, perhaps. “Rewilding” inevitably gallops onto the pages.This is fascinating, exciting and provocative work: essentially, allowing animals to get on with it with minimal interference (and even less “management”). In western Europe there are notable examples in the Netherlands and an interim stage can be seen with the feral, or half-wild herds of ponies and aurochs-like cattle in used in some nature reserves. This then feeds into discussions about the presence or absence of predators and opens up old discussions for Britain about our native ponies, feral sheep and goats and soaring numbers of deer. But always we come back to what counts as a megaherbivore: big, hefty and doing a job that seems to have been lost. And we step straight into Australian controversy  with camels and water buffalo possibly replacing lost marsupial giant kangaroos and wombats (in tandem with Native Australian fire-setting regimes). We meet reintroductions advocated for reindeer, musk-ox, horse and bison in other northern climes and some ambitious plans for Siberia (at least they still have wolves and occasional tigers). One of the most charming campaigns is the spread of the Bolson tortoise in the deserts of the American south-west. Large, but not a giant, it still trundles in as the biggest herbivore in its small world and has enthusiastic champions among ranchers and environmentalists. And elephants – dreamers talking of replacing those lost Columbian mastodons with African elephants in continental America, letting them roam over the rangelands and start rebuilding older, richer ecosystems.

 

And my mammoths? Acknowledging they have gone (regardless of excited claims from gene-spliced scientists), the passing of those heavy-footed, hairy herds is marked with a sigh – at least by me

 

A book to be recommended. Fascinating, rich and readable it gives the reader a lot to think about, discussions to have and arguments to pursue – if only with oneself!

Models in photos, made by:

Mother and baby mammoths: Papo

Ground sloth: Schleich

Mammoth herd: Papo and Schleich


a long slow walk into extinction...

Building networks: Burrenbeo, 2013

The official details of this year’s Burrenbeo conference are pasted in below. I was at last year’s event and it was rich and delightful. Good company, a wonderful setting and lots of thought-provoking sessions. so if you fancy a trip out to the west of ireland and the spectacular limestone landscapes of the Burren in July…sign up!

Place-based Learning – building a network?

Kinvara July 18th-20th 2013.

Building on the success of the inaugural Learning Landscape Symposium Apathy to Empathyreconnecting people with place in 2012, the Burrenbeo Trust are hosting an intimate networking event this year for place-based educators, teachers, parents and anyone with an interest in place-based learning and/or learning in the Burren.

 

This event aims to:

 

  • provide a unique opportunity to network with other place-based educators from Ireland and beyond, exchange ideas and experiences
  • hear from some leading practitioners both nationally and internationally
  • continue the momentum from our biannual symposium in 2012 and build towards our planned 2014 event
  • explore Ireland ’s ultimate learning landscape, the Burren.

 

 

 

This event will feature interactive workshops in community venues in Kinvara village as well as field trips to the Burren, cultural events and much more.   It will start on the evening on the 18th, the workshops will be throughout the 19th, and there is an optional fieldtrip on the 20th.  

 

 

 

Workshop leaders include:

Anita Goodwin tbc (http://www.outdoornation.org.uk/)

 

Gordon MacLellan (http://creepingtoad.blogspot.ie/)

 

Sam Moore (http://www.totemdevelopment.co.uk/)

 

Chris Chapman (http://www.changeexploratory.com/)

 

Michael Ryan (http://www.lit.ie/)

 

Gordon D’Arcy

 

Katy Egan

 

Sophie Nicol

 

Zena Hoctor

 

Shane Casey

 

….more workshop leaders to be confirmed shortly.

 

 

 

Cost: €70 (€60 for OAP/Students, €55 for Burrenbeo Trust members).

 

Bookings are now open by contacting trust@burrenbeo.com and 091 638096 or downloading the attach form and sending it back.  Places are strictly limited and bookings will be on a first come first served basis.

 

The full programme will be released shortly; keep an eye on www.burrenbeo.com for more information.

 

The Burren, Ireland ’s Learning Landscape – An Bhoireann, Tírdhreach Saíochta na hÉireann

 

 

Supported by the Heritage Council

 

 

 

 

Storytelling tour: Wild Tales And Animals

Wild tales and animals

Stories in school with Creeping Toad September 2013

celebrating the Year of Natural Scotland here are old stories, new adventures and impossible fictions about the wildlife of Scotland

 

From heroic mice to wrens, eagles and mysterious trees we’ll meet stories that encourage us to look with new eyes on the world around us and remember that there are stories inside the humblest of creatures and the most ordinary of plants, and that we can all have adventures too

 

I am Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad – allegedly one of Britain’s foremost environmental art and education workers…and I tell stories as well! Take a look at the Toadblog:

http://creepingtoad.blogspot.co.uk

 

Between 2nd and 13th September, 2013 (and probably again in November), I will be working in the Highland area (at least) and is available for bookings….

 

A day’s visit to your school might include

 

storytelling performances: lasting up to 60 minutes for up to 90 children at a time

 

just give them a chance and stories and children absorb each other

stories outside! using the school ground, we’ll take storymaking out of the classroom and use the immediate environment, the day’s weather and whatever we can find to inspire words, create poems and shape a set of stories never told before (allow 60 minutes for a class session)

 

story and book workshops: taking a bit longer (allow 90 minutes for a class) as well as discovering those stories no-one has ever heard before, now we will build those into the books that no-one has ever read before and leave the classroom with a library no-one has ever visited before!

 

pop-up storyscapes: allow an hour for a class: gathering ideas, images and words we’ll make quick 3-d landscapes holding the essence of a story in a setting, key characters and the words that set the adventure running

tales of old Scotland: a collection of stories of Highland folklore and Scottish histories, of heroes and sorrows, bravery and the magics of sea, mountain and moor

 

your own themes and ideas: or are you exploring a particular theme that you would like to involve some stories in? pirates….tropical islands….ancient cave people…..where in our school would bears live?…castle adventures,  have all featured in recent Creeping Toad projects

 

I rather hope this isn't one of the heroes of old Scotland

Charges: £250 a day: includes storyteller’s fee, travel and materials. Can be paid on the day or I can invoice you

 

For further information:

visit the Creeping Toad website at http://creepingtoad.blogspot.co.uk/

 

To book: contact Gordon directly at

creepingtoad@btinternet.com

or by telephone:

landline: 01298 77964

mobile: 07791 096857

sometimes new stories need ancient characters

Skulls! a book review

Skulls, an exploration of Alan Dudley’s curious collection

Simon Winchester

Black Dog & Leventhal, 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1-57912-912-5

A beautiful book. It celebrates bone, with photographs that revel in the curve and the line, the sharp edges and deep shadows that make skulls so captivating.

 

Skulls is as rich and as stark as the bones it holds. There is minimal text. For each skull, we get the basic zoological information and that’s it. But that’s all that’s needed. I find myself drawn in, turning pages, skeletal browsing and brooding a bit. The collection itself presented is intriguing. These are all from the collection of a single man. Alan Dudley has a collection of 2,000 skulls and a passion for collecting that eventually brought him into court with a handful of skulls that had slipped into his possession in breach of international and national law

 

A reminder not to lose one’s own perspective perhaps. But then, open the book and revere the animals brought to you here, through the temples of their bones and be inspired.

Natural History Book Shop – you could get a copy here

 

Black Dog and Leventhal – the publishers

 

my own bones tend to end up a bit more festive...

Stories for a lonely Beast

Over the last 3 weeks, I’ve been working with children from Whitefield Infant School at Wycoller Country Park.

 

Wycoller Hall is ruined now

 

Each of three Year 2 classes has had a day at the Park working with musician Steve Brown and myself, using the wonderful Wycoller environment to inspire stories, poems songs and music about the Lonely Beast. In the book by Chris Judge, the Lonely Beast goes all over the world looking for other beasts to befriend…we picked up on his arrival in Wycoller….here are a couple of the children’s poems

 

the beautiful arches of the Packhorse Bridge

Arriving at Wycoller

The Lonely Beast went to Wycoller and saw

 

1 ruin where there might be dangerous ghosts, and saw

2 dogs barking loudly behind the gates, and heard

3 birds singing in the trees, and saw

4 slippery, mossy rocks beside the river, and saw

5 parked cars with nobody in them, and saw

6 houses full of frightened people, and took

7 big steps to get up the steep hill, and heard

8 chattering children splashing through the river, and heard

9 quacking ducks racing across the pond and saw

10 leaves drifting beside the high trees

climb up the long stair....


 

 

 

 

 

 

How to find a Wycoller beast

Look under the bridge over the fast, stony river

For trolls in the shadows and slime,

Creep beside the river, with the tall trees dropping leaves,

Run up the long stairs where the goblins hide,

Then back down the path, sliding in the mud,

By the pond where the ducks play

And in the ruins, inside the fireplace,

Maybe Beasts hide there

 

 

A Wanton return!

Revised copies of The Wanton Green have just come in, so grab your cheque books, or contact me for paypal ideas and give yourself a treat (well, we think it is!)

 

From original blog posting:

Over the last year, I have been one of a team editing a book that has now been released. The Wanton Green is an exciting collection of essays from (mostly) British pagans exploring their relations to places


 

From the lost magics and holy waters of London to bleak Staffordshire Moorlands; from childhood adventures in Rochdale to faeries in Devon and Cumbria, a new book, The Wanton Green, offers readers a different perspective on landscape

 

As our relationship with the world unravels and needs to take new form, or maybe to reconnect with an older pattern, The Wanton Green presents a collection of inspiring, provoking and engaging essays by modern pagans talking about their own deep and passionate relationships with the Earth. With contributions from 20 authors that range from Druids to Heathens, from Chaos Magicians to Witches, Shamans and Voudou Mambo, Wanton Green brings voices from the diverse and growing Pagan community of Britain to the environmental debate and promises food for thought and inspiration for the spirit

 

Contributors include Emma Restall Orr, Runic John, Robert Wallsi, Jenny Blain, Melissa Harrington, Graham Harvey, Maria van Daalen, Susan Greenwood and Susan Cross. (Visit the Wanton Green blog for tastes of the treats within…)


All the contributors have forgone their royalties, allowing any arising to go to Honouring the Ancient Dead 

 

Ordering copies

a) direct from me £ 11.99 a copy, + £2.00 P&P for first copy and £1 per copy after that (cheques to Creeping Toad, or I can invoice you – 51-d West, Rd, Buxton, Derbyshire, SK17 6HQ, UK

b) from Mandrake, the publishers

c) through a local bookshop or on-line store

 

Details

The Wanton Green: contemporary pagan writings on place

editors: G MacLellan and S Cross

 Mandrake Books, Oxford, 2011

ISBN: 978 1  906958 29 9

 

the walk to Lud's Church, can be marked by mud, sand...or icicles


Ancient Landscapes

Ancient Landscapes is a partner project to Exploring with Stories and we thought you might enjoy the delights of a project bringing limestone to life


we’ve had a busy few days as the second phase of this project begins, or maybe as the tide runs again toward the full. (PIctures from the first phase can be found on my own Creeping Toad blog – I am Gordon MacLellan, is one of the workshop artists and disorganiser of a lot of the Stone and Water projects)


first session at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

 

With Ancient Landscapes, we are looking at the limestone of the Peak District where we live and the fossils that rock contains. Then mixing observation, deduction and wild imagination, we work to create the original environments that spawned our limestone as installations in crochet, knitting, clay, beads, felt and anything else that takes our artists fancy!

 

 

building coral takes concentration.....


Coral takes tea and time as well as concentration



Meanwhile, a new group has taken up the challenge of extending the ancient landscape and a session at Buxton Museum last week, led on to a workshop at Fairfield Community Centre today. Five more sessions will follow and then we’ll see just how our coral garden grows before it unfolds its glories again in the Buxton Art Trail in the summer


 

not just coral, and while this lovely creature isn't quite period, she was too magnificent to ignore!


Inspiration

 

Our use of crochet in Ancient Landscapes was inspired by the global Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project (http://crochetcoralreef.org/) whose influence we acknowledge even though we couldn’t afford to sign into their network as a community group.


The connection between those techniques, other artforms and our Peak District landscapes comes from Stone and Water, a Buxton-based community group dedicated to celebrating the creativity of the people and landscapes of the Peaks.

 

new book: The Wanton Green

Over the last year, I have been one of a team editing a book that has now been released. The Wanton Green is an exciting collection of essays from (mostly) British pagans exploring their relations to places

 

cover image by Damian Hughes

From the main Press Release:

From the lost magics and holy waters of London to bleak Staffordshire Moorlands; from childhood adventures in Rochdale to faeries in Devon and Cumbria, a new book, The Wanton Green, offers readers a different perspective on landscape

 

As our relationship with the world unravels and needs to take new form, or maybe to reconnect with an older pattern, The Wanton Green presents a collection of inspiring, provoking and engaging essays by modern pagans talking about their own deep and passionate relationships with the Earth. With contributions from 20 authors that range from Druids to Heathens, from Chaos Magicians to Witches, Shamans and Voudou Mambo, Wanton Green brings voices from the diverse and growing Pagan community of Britain to the environmental debate and promises food for thought and inspiration for the spirit

 

Contributors include Emma Restall Orr, Runic John, Robert Wallsi, Jenny Blain, Melissa Harrington, Graham Harvey, Maria van Daalen, Susan Greenwood and Susan Cross

 

Ordering copies

a) direct from me £ 11.99 a copy, + £2.00 P&P for first copy and £1 per copy after that (cheques to Creeping Toad, or I can invoice you – address: 51-d West Rd, Buxton, SK17 6HQ

b) from Mandrake, the publishers

c) through a local bookshop or on-line store

 

Details

The Wanton Green:

contemporary pagan writings on place

editors: G MacLellan and S Cross

 

Mandrake Books, Oxford, 2011

ISBN: 978 1  906958 29 9

 

 

Chapters and sections include

Personal journeys, intimate connections

Fumbling in the landscape,             Runic John

Finding the space, finding the words, Rufus Harrington

Stone in my bones,                         Sarah Males

A Heathen in place: working with Mugwort, Robert Wallis

 

By river, well and sea

Wild, wild water,                                     Lou Hart

Facing the waves,                                     Gordon MacLellan

The dragon waters of place: a journey to the source, Susan Greenwood

 

Exploring – mud on your boots, mud on your hands

Catching the Rainbow Lizard,             Maria van Daalen

The rite to roam,                                     Julian Vayne

Places of Power                                     Jan Fries

Art is natural magic,                         Greg Humphries

 

Step back and consider

Pagan Ecology: on our perception of nature, ancestry and home, Emma Restall Orr

We have no imagination,             Susan Cross

Crossroads of perception,             Shani Oates

 

Where are the wild places

Devon, Faeries and Me,                         Woody Fox

Lud’s Church,                                     Gordon MacLellan

Places of spirit and spirits of place: of Fairy and other folk, and my Cumbrian bones.                                    Melissa Harrington

A life in the woods: protest site paganism, Adrian Harris

We first met in the north,             Barry Patterson

The king who sites upon the water, Barry Patterson

The Ballad of the Tyne Plover,             Barry Patterson

 

Urban wildness

Museum or Mausoleum – A Pagan at play in King Solomon’s House ,                                                             Mogg Morgan

Hills of the ancestors, townscapes of artisans, Jenny Blain

Smoke and mirrors,                         Stephen Grasso

America,                                                Maria van Daalen

Standing at the crossroads: A beginning at the end?

various authors