Transformative Storytelling as a Way of Life

Hi folks - for years Brian Ammons has been helping me see that the truth about many things we take for granted is often a third option beyond the binaries offered in public. Brian is a deeply wise person of integrity, and sharing the work of The Porch with Brian is an amazing gift. I could quote a hundred or more things that Brian has said to me over the years that have made my life better. The video below is a distillation of one of Brian’s abiding passions: to help us gain clarity about what we’re here for, without turning “vocation” or “calling” into either a trap for those of us who know we are imperfect, or an elite game for only certain kinds of people. If the idea of Transformative Storytelling as a Way of Life calls to you, I urge you to listen to what Brian has to say - and we welcome a conversation in the comments.

I’m also so grateful that Jasmin Pittman is part of The Porch core community, and our circle of creative people that we call the Order of the Rocking Chair. Jasmin’s a wonderful writer, someone who claims the best parts of every thing - perhaps especially when those things have had ungenerous gatekeepers. Part of what Jasmin offers is that not only does everything belong, but in a sense everything belongs to us, so let’s not live like paupers. Jasmin’s poem Walking with Rapture manages to be spacious, gracious, and fierce at once.

See you next time.

PS: As always, please share The Porch with everyone you know :).

New from Friends of  The Porch 

From Brian Ammons: Heeding the Call: Vocation and Transformative Storytelling - the opening night keynote from this year’s Porch Gathering (we’ll be announcing details of next year’s Gathering soon, but you can save the date now: March 13th-16th, 2025; near Asheville, NC).

From Jasmin Pittman, a Poem:

Walking with Rapture

I.

One night, I walked alone,

cocooned in the velvet darkness 

of woods ringing 

with survival songs. 

I felt the soft thrum of hoofbeats 

before I saw them, felt 

the tingle of anticipation before,

before 

I stopped 

dead in my tracks,

my breath caught

in the net of my lungs

as brushes of tawny fur 

swept my bare arms, a herd

of deer parting around me as 

though I was Moses’ staff 

held high.

I watched one of the does 

leap away, a tail flash of white

like the flag of surrender.

She ran free or afraid,  

we can always be both  

and still manage to be home

with the herd.

Read the rest of Walking with Rapture at The Porch.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

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The Porch is a slow conversation about beautiful, and difficult things. We convene a community of courage, creativity, and the common good, where no life is worth less than any other, and the value of what we express imaginatively is not based on how many people are paying attention, but on the integrity of the work. We offer The Porch writing here on a pay-what-you-can-afford basis, so no-one is turned away for lack of funds. If you believe in supporting meaningful creative work, and if you can afford it, please consider a paid subscription. Thank you.

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