The 𝟭𝟮𝘁𝗵 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲, hosted by the StoryCenter and the Museum of the Person, starts tomorrow.

This conference marks a pivotal moment in the global storytelling community and offers two distinct yet interconnected experiences: a virtual gathering from 𝗢𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟯𝟭 𝘁𝗼 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟭, and an in-person event—held for the first time in the Global South—from 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟲 𝘁𝗼 𝟴.

For more than three decades, the 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 and the 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘂𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻 have developed broad networks in support of participatory media communities. This year, they bring their shared tradition to São Paulo, Brazil, for the 𝟭𝘀𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆, as part of the program of the 12th International Digital Storytelling Conference.

The 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹, 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗛𝘂𝗯 is one of the central themes of the Conference—an unprecedented meeting that brings together voices from different parts of the world and Brazil: from guardians of indigenous memory to cultural agents, from cultural centres to organisations that work with heritage and living memory.

The event marks the culmination of a cycle of work that has mobilised cultural organisations across the country and consolidated a broad network dedicated to the preservation, appreciation, and dissemination of Brazilian cultural heritage and memories.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘀?

This central question of the 𝟭𝘀𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆 invites all who recognise the power of stories and ancestral wisdom to reflect on their potential for transformation in the face of global challenges.

I am truly honoured to offer a 90-minute workshop on the opening day of the virtual component of this symbolic event taking place in my homeland (this Friday, October 31st, from 2:45 - 4:15pm EST), and you’re invited to join me.

The workshop, titled 𝘞𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘙𝘦𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘚𝘰𝘪𝘭, is based on a regenerative storylistening, storyweaving, and storytelling framework I started developing a year ago and will be presenting for the first time.

Through an interactive exploration of The Story Tree, we will delve into the origins of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and our world—the invisible and the visible fields from which narratives emerge—and how they shape our lives by creating meaning, culture, and myths that define our ways of seeing, being and belonging.

We will rediscover the potential that stories carry as seeds for human, cultural, and planetary regeneration by embodying a self-aware and sacred connection with our inner and outer stories—and with our true nature.

We will explore the relationship between the story arc and the re-storying arc in service of a culture that cultivates the conditions for regenerative stories to emerge and support the thriving of all life.

This workshop invites participants to nourish the soil of their individual and collective narratives and to re-story themselves. It is designed for those who wish to deepen their self-recognition as spiritual beings interconnected within the web of life—rooted in a soulful, creative, and rewilded expression of storylistening, storyweaving, and storytelling as tools for transformation.

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The conference organisers have kindly allowed me to share my personal access link with my community so you can join the session for free. If this is something you’d be interested in, let me know—I’ll be offering free passes to the first five people who reach out.

If you’d like to attend the conference more broadly, I can also share a discount or full scholarship code with you. You can learn more about the conference here and register here.

With love and gratitude,

Barbara

I asked for every moment of my life.

Every fallen tear, heart tear, power shutdown, and shutdown light.

I asked for steep depth, experience, expansion. A range of emotions. For colour, touch, taste, music. A whole carnival of a country to be born and raised in. I asked for Brasil. A sacred land breathtaking both for its beauty and chaos, waterfalls bewildering the Cerrado, saying “here’s a testament to your magic and resilience, waters that flow for endless dry seasons, flowers of exotic shape and hue, leather-like leaves.”

I asked for 1983, when the internet was the ARPANET, space missions were abound, and disc players were coming to be. When I was given to the light. I asked to be given to the light. To grow up in a magical crystal town, find quartz on the street, be curious and ask a lot of questions. To be one of three daughters, come after the loss of a male child. I asked to be the middle child.

I asked for my most vivid memory of learning the meaning of a word to be from when I was seven—and for it to be when I had my first vision.

Of course I asked for a vision.

I asked for my first vision to be a globe of tongues. To imagine a globe crowded with real tongues sticking out of it, each corresponding to a different country as my dad explained the meaning of the word country to me.

“The world is made of countries,” he said, “places where people speak other tongues. Each country has its own tongue.”

In Portuguese, the word tongue means both the organ and the language. I asked to picture our planet and calculate how many tongues fit around its axis. To feel my tiny world of Cristalina expand as a vivid sensation of becoming bigger overtook me and my mind chased the limits of my vision. My first vision.

I wondered where those places called countries were—and how someone could have a diagonal or, even worse, a vertical tongue. How could they speak? And, if they could, what would they sound like?

I asked for my fascination for languages to grow when Mom later told me aunt Raquel had visited several countries and spoke many languages. “That’s what I want!” I said as I felt a dream of becoming a polyglot birthing wanderlust in my heart.

I asked for a childhood climbing trees, seeking the wild in the urban, rubbing cotton layers off leaves, racing paper boats in the fallen rain running fast against the curb on the street. I asked for slobbering juicy mangoes on my face, playing soccer and video-games, rescuing dogs, cats, birds, writing poems and hating getting silver medals for them. I asked for dreams of reforestation. For a falcon friend I would, at age 37, upon his return, realise was an imaginary friend. My spirit animal, my guardian angel.

I asked for Dad to foster in me the love of reading and hard-cover books. To give me tours of his library, lecture me on prominent authors and classical music, water my wanderlust, tell me stories, an abundance of stories, play the piano, teach me a bit of French, Italian, Latin and Greek. I asked to revere Nature with him and to live in the embodiment of my reverence for Her. To learn about self-worth as I performed for his love.

I asked for my mom to be love in the form of fire, power and beauty. To be empathetic but strict, strong but graceful, a bundle of emotions with the heart of a child. Like a lioness. To teach me, from an early age, how to carry myself through the world.

“Belly in, chest out and chin up! That’s how a woman should walk!” I heard her say as I walked, at age nine, from one end of our living room to the other with a heavy book on my head.

It was almost as if both she and I knew she wouldn’t be with us for much longer.

I asked to learn about romantic love as I watched my parents scream at each other, love each other, hate each other, separate, get back together, and separate again. I asked why it was so difficult for them to communicate with one another; to support my mom and sisters as best as I could when Dad moved out—and for him to know how much I loved him. I implored, please, make sure he knows how much I love him!

I agreed to start learning about depression when I was 12 and Mom kicked my sisters and me out of the house. To freeze in response so I didn’t feel the crack she opened in my heart. I hoped the grief hidden in the bottles of alcohol, the white nights, the chained cigarettes, the bad boys’ kisses, the panic attacks and the parasuicidal behaviours went away as I healed from losing her a few months later.

I asked for sacred intuition.

If I close my eyes, I can feel it again—the silent knowing I couldn’t wrap my head around but felt in my heart. It came with an equanimous sadness, a sense of numinous severity. It had a meditative quality. It was patient. It was wise.

I knew Mom had killed herself before Dad found her body.

Dad never knew he only had six months to live when, fourteen years later, he was diagnosed with cancer. I kept it a secret so as to keep his faith intact and, maybe this way, keep his life intact. Two years gone by, I turned into a fortress so I could carry the weight of his goodbye.

A decade later, I thanked Grandmother Aya for lifting the veil and liberating me from the antidepressants and the cigarettes. For taking me inside Mom’s heart and telling me to offer her a thousand roses. For showing me the Source, a fabric of oneness with all that exists inside and outside of me, overwhelmingly unconditional love overflowing out of every single pore of my body and a voice lovingly whispering Mother is always here.

I understood that writing a memoir was at the core of my purpose. That, early in my life, it would become an intrinsic aspect of my self-knowledge. I asked to feel like the book was one with me, and that I couldn’t be one without it. I was graced with a sense of destination about this book serving both as a flashlight and a torch—the flashlight so I could see in undisturbing anticipation the steps along my journey while the torch stood still at the end as a guide, its flame dancing with the dance of life, patiently watching the whole act unfold in perfect alignment with Divine will.

I prayed to learn to belong to myself as I made it through the discomfort of not belonging anywhere, not understanding why I felt so cast away and sat in the corners of the spaces I shared with people. To be consistently woken up in the middle of the night by words desiring to stretch their legs out of the prison of my mind and find home on paper. For my mind, in the process, to please give voice to my heart. Please allow me to embrace my vulnerability as I heal from the pressure to perform I felt growing up as a gifted child—and the perfectionism-driven fear of the blank page I have since faced.

I asked to birth my vision of the globe of tongues. To fall head-over-heels with learning and teaching languages in preparation for a deeply awakening journey around the world. To have the courage to respond with flow once the calling of the vision came and understand that the severance I was being initiated into was the path back to my truest self.

I pleaded to be given the opportunity to find the family I never had in the form of community along the way. To meet a plethora of sisters peppered around the globe as I later grieved the loss of my sisters, one to suicide, like Mom, the other to a shared wound that may not heal in this lifetime.

I asked for my time in China to drastically change my life. For someone to orchestrate our encounter so it could shelter my deepest spiritual awakening—so I could be catapulted out of the third dimension and a world made of countries, back into my multidimensions, into our bioregions, and remember why I came.

From the infinite space where I stood before I pierced the veil to meet myself once again on this side, I was given a curriculum I asked to learn from. I was invited into a dance of matter and Spirit, water and fire, shadow and light. A story of which I am a character. In return, I was asked to play this character in the liminal space of duality as a playground for evolution and expansion. To receive all my experiences as regenerative gifts, even when I do not recognise them as such.

A story I promised to write. With closed or open eyes, write. Even when my hand trembles, write. If I fear, write. To become one with the visions I channel, and for these visions, the healing they hold, the hopes they shelter, to be woven with the story—and offered as medicine.

Perhaps the resonance between us lies in our shared transformation. Perhaps the synchronicity of our cycles is a song we sing together in anticipation of another orchestrated rebirth, a homecoming, a deeper return to self.

Next to the ice, three trees stand firm. Despite their bareness, their apparent weakness, a sense of certainty and strength envelops them. How are these magical creatures capable of endless renewal is far from my logical understanding—yet so close to my heart.

Like the trees, I start this publication from a place of inner and outer, wintry regeneration—as if this space had been waiting for me from the other side of something that, six seasons ago, felt incredibly bigger and stronger than me. As if it knew, before I did, that I would eventually switch positions with it, place it in the palm of my left hand, and write about it with the other.

I keep a collection of these things all over the place.

Some are in little boxes from my childhood I’ve neatly stacked in a corner of my mind. Some are in large, colourful baskets I’ve hand-woven and carefully placed in the sunlight. Most of them are well-known friends. They look at me, I look at them, and it’s as if we were one.

If you decide this space is for you, too, you’ll find me rediscovering my courage to write about some of them.

I’ll also be writing about writing, about spirituality, consciousness, about things I’m creating, messages I’m channeling, and about what I now don’t know I’ll be writing about.

It will potentially be a journey of exploration of what I call human regeneration—the process of excavation and healing of the layers that suffocate our true self—through the lens of my own self-regeneration.

It will be my experiment with regenerative storytelling, inviting in a culture of self-knowledge and vulnerability, a multispecies perspective, an animistic language, and regenerative mythmaking.

A place for deep conversations.

I look forward to sharing it with you.

With love and gratitude,

Barbara