Not only are we a Story Stone, but we are also a star and a supernova in the making.
Imagine this:
We come into the world as a story stone, with a divine narrative of who we are tucked inside. We are made AS something FOR something. I happen to be someone who loves water, so I imagine that as the stone of our being meets the ocean of our life, our story ripples out. Each ripple is a point of expansion of the story we are made as.
There are twelve core stories within us but one will always lead. Within that story is a core medicine that nourishes us and those we care for, and also its twin, our core poison, or resistance… or recurring theme of growth we can’t seem to ever shake.
There are some stories we can’t fast enough to, and those we can’t run fast enough from. These are opposite sides to the same story. In Story Stones I explore these core stories, as I weave them within twelve Indigenous creation stories, twelve of my own personal crossroad stories, and rest them all in twelve land-based stories of Stone Circles from around the world. What if we are a story stone? What if our Indigenous ancestors are right and the stones of the earth are as alive as we are? What does that say about the story of this place and our connection to it?
We begin as stardust, words and impulses, like an enormous cloud of gas and dust many light-years across. The double-edge sword of our story, which is our medicine (gravity) and our poison (force), continues to collect to our core with every contraction and ripple until our outward pressure balances our inward pull. As the core of our story collects, contracts and releases, it begins to reach the outer layers and that’s when this story stone begins to shine.
We are made AS something FOR something. We are made to shine as the star we are.
We are 65% Oxygen, 18% Carbon, 10% Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen, 1.5% Calcium, 1.5% Phosphorus, and trace elements such as potassium, sulfur, sodium, magnesium, boron, Selenium, Copper and Zinc. Elements come from stars. We are literally made up of stardust.
When stars die, the elements that were generated inside of them are swept out into space, and the next generation of stars from those elements burn and are swept out again. Everything we are originates from stardust. This cycle has been going on for thirteen billion years. Our solar system is considered to be less than one third of that time. We are only 4.5 billion years old.
When you pick up a rock, something that has not and will not ever decompose, you are holding a remnant of The Big Bang in your hands.
Story Stones will be handed off to the publisher by the end of January 2022 which means it will be in your hands in the Spring of 2022.
Tina Overbury is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She is devoted to global reconciliation through the exploration of origin stories, sharing our oral history, land-based knowing, and a continued focus on communication as a sacred practice. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Stories from the Core – her weekly writing and conversation series. She is a proud associate of PowHERhouse Impact Media as a core-communications specialist working with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a co-host of GATHER for HER, and a PowHERhouse Artist of Impact Amplify Coach helping leaders become artists and artists become leaders.