"Gratitude is the vessel that we lift to the gods, that they may fill it with their wonder gifts"
R. Steiner
Healing Story Alliance
I am heading off to Vancouver Island for an annual therapeutic study retreat with fabulous and very wise women hailing from Hawaii to Colorado, and of course B.C. We will be studying the Curative Course by Steiner, bringing our different questions and depths to it. Many heads are way better than one! I wanted to make sure you all know of the site listed below. This is one of my favorite sites and story groups. The Healing Story alliance is a sub-group of the National Storytelling Network (also a great resource). This site is exciting because you see how many people are engaged in story as a healing path. There are an abundance of free stories to download, given in helpful themes. Though this is not a puppet site precisely, the puppet arts include story, and healing puppetry needs the healing stories. Enjoy this wonderful resource!...
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on December 9th, 2009
Christmas Cat Story
I have been juggling my December story newsletter, with it's traditional Christmas story with a 'twist'...a cozy cat is warming the manger, and an Easter story article deadline with my first Easter egg rod puppet effort! Please do let me know if you would like to receive my free monthly email story newsletter, sign up by clicking on the sign up button on the left. The December issue will go out very soon! On top of those juggling balls, I am preparing a new version of the mitten with a mitten-full of more unusual animals, just for the fun of it. I will post their pictures when it is ready. In the meantime, here is the cat from the Christmas story....Her name is Masha.......
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on December 3rd, 2009
Outdoor Puppetry for Children
All children thrive with plenty of outdoor play and big movement, even better if it is meaningful movement. My kids did a lot of gardening, climbing trees to pick apples and plums, carrying wood, later chopping wood....climbing trees, ropes, all those great free moving things children need. I have been interested in nature and children for many years and have created opportunities for story and puppet events outside...some spontaneous, some planned. The photos are from a workshop I gave in England at Emerson College where teachers created outdoor theaters in the natural landscape. It was amazing to see the infinite possibilities to make magic!
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on November 23rd, 2009
Writing Stories Sparked from Your Life
I finished writing my story for Living Crafts Magazine's spring issue 2010 today. Creating imaginations of spring while it is November is always a challenge. I came up with a story about a forgotten easter egg hidden in the hollow of a sturdy root of a great oak tree. So many of my stories come from a spark in real life. How many of you have found an old faded easter egg months after easter! Check out the magazine http://www.livingcraftsmagazine.com/I have a fairly regular story crafting column in it.My December newsletter story will be about a barn cat in the manger...it was inspired by my much loved cat Kittyo, who warmed my feet many winters curled up ...
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on November 22nd, 2009
High Tech Puppetry – Mr. Fox
The movie 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' is a supreme example of technologically inspired puppetry....here is a good look at how they do it!! The photo is a workbench full of characters from the movie...Here is an article about the making of these puppetshttp://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=60690How far away from our simple wool roving and silk puppets for children....perhaps we provide the balance.
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on November 16th, 2009
Language’s Magic Powers
I just finished a retreat on early childhood held in the Rocky Mountains above Boulder, CO. We looked at how we can bring consciousness to our language....and help support speech development in children...Joseph Chilton Pearce calls this 'lifted language'....different from our everyday speech. He says 'language builds the brain, but lifted language, as in storytelling, builds that part of the brain where our moral capacity and creative thinking comes from'. Makes me think of Einstein who said, to support a child's intelligence read them fairy tales, when asked what else to do to support intelligence, he said, read them more fairy tales.....We went around the circle and listened to all the different languages (aside from English) people had grown ...
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on November 15th, 2009
Thoughts on Puppetry for the Very Young
I believe in a renewal of puppetry where it opens the heart and soul, and brings, through the visible story, a picture of the possibilities of humanness. The movements and gestures of the puppets, the colors, quality of voice and music, choreography, staging, and story content lifts the veil of the everyday consciousness and connects us all with the spirit worlds. For this to be developed as a healing gift, we have the blessings of Rudolf Steiner's wisdom to guide us. For the last seven years I have been researching puppetry for the very young. This has centered around two to four year olds in a pre-school setting, as well as birth to two years with their mothers. I am often sitting on the floor with a close circle of little children, creating our story space with silk over our laps and legs.
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on November 10th, 2009
Thoughts on The Healing Arts of Nursery Rhymes
Preparing for the upcoming Boulder CO course on speech development in young children on Nov 12-14, I remembered this article from my website. I also encourage you to work with the finger puppets with new thinking and beautiful imaginations wrapped around them. My finger puppet book is so useful to delight children, and now I am seeing even more meaningful with the understanding of how the fingers connect to the speech/language center of the grain. Did you know that deaf children who use sign language (hands/finger talk) follow the same developmental patterns in acquiring their language as children who speak. While you are on my site with this article, check out the book page and read about the art of the finger puppet....
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on November 3rd, 2009
The Puppet Pot Project – Thanksgiving Stories
Inspired by Laura Simm's 'Story Bowl Project' a gathering of storytellers to raise money to feed the world....I thought the 'Puppet Pot Project' would be a good spin-off for us puppeteers. I thought right away of Stone Soup, and how a community was led to make a good soup for all to share, and of the magic cooking pot....Grimm's 'Sweet Porridge', and the many international versions of a cooking pot that keeps on cooking....I have enjoyed doing many of these in puppetry over the years. One favorite celebration was presenting a puppet show of Stone Soup at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving Day.
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on October 29th, 2009
The Power of Language
My course in Milwaukee was wonderful, such a fabulous group of teachers! They had in-depth thoughts and questions, and observations which made the time all the richer. It simply amazes me how important the Mother is in the child development equation. 3/4 of the human brain is developed in the first year. When we add imagination and warmth to our storytelling voices, we literally help build stronger pathways to the speech centers of the brain....home to 'understanding' and certainly future powers of creative thought. Support the pregnant mothers you know... get them excited about nursery rhymes, lullabyes, and sweet melodic verse and song. The beings behind language are waiting for us to celebrate!
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on October 29th, 2009
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