See a photo of Cathryn, her bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, and Part 3.
Q&A with Cathryn Wellner, Question 4:
Q: What’s your favorite story about a transformation that came about through a story or storytelling act?
A: Although I know many instances of transformation through a story or storytelling act, I keep coming back to two I had the honour of witnessing. Both were published in The Healing Heart~Communities and are on my Catching Courage blog.
The first is about a woman named Paula Ziegelstein. I had no idea she was facing some inner and outer giants when I told the story of The Little Hen and the Giant. In fact, I didn’t even meet Paula at the gathering where I told the story.
The story was new to me, and it was my farewell story. I was moving from Rochester, NY, to Seattle, WA. I wanted to tell a zinger of a story, something for people to remember by.
From my perspective, the story fell flat. I was really disappointed and did a fair bit of self-flagellation over it. So imagine my surprise four years later when I met Paula at a storytelling conference in Rochester and learned the story had been life-changing for her.
The second story happened in Seattle. I’d been invited to tell stories in the burn unit of Harborview Medical Center. One of the stories I chose was Bill Harley’s “The Freedom Bird”. The bird of the story gets hacked, boiled and buried. Adults squirm when they hear it, but kids love it.
The bird had been shot out of the tree, hacked to pieces, and was bubbling on the stove when it hit me. My entire audience had been roasted in horrible fires. I didn’t know what else to do but finish the story, but I went home mortified, ready to hang up my storytelling shingle.
A week later, I got a call from the burn center. A 15-year-old boy, burned over nearly his entire body, had lost his will to live. Had he been physically able, he would probably have committed suicide. The story of the unstoppable bird, who could not be killed, became his talisman. He became the freedom bird.
I haven’t told either story for a good 20 years, but remembering the impact they had has kept me believing in the power of stories.