Our lively group of storytellers and artists met on a cold but sunny day in November. The feature art project was a tree made with both water colors and acrylic paint. It was interesting to see that everyone was interested in making one. All were artists on this day.
It was also fun to see how everyone’s turned out so different. Unique to the artist’s interpretation of the one that Sonya made as a point of reference.
Our Storytellers group met on a beautiful sunny day to finish our bird feeders, or write a poem or story. Since we met on 9/11 ( on the 18th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the U.S.A.), some of us wanted to share our experiences on that awful day.
Stephen wrote a story about one of his friends who was living in New York City, and attending Middle School, on 9/11/01. It was an especially traumatic day for him because his father drove a truck for UPS, and didn’t return home until many hours past his usual time. His father was unable to contact the family to let them know what was happening, and the family spent the time huddled together in the living room, trying to stay hopeful that he was safe. He finally came home at 2:00 in the morning, and explained that with the traffic flow into the city being shut down, he was unable to move his truck for many hours.
Kyle was feeling frustrated that day, and eloquently expressed his feelings in his writing. The group gave him encouragement that they had felt the same way at times, and to remain hopeful that the future would bring contentment.
Please enjoy the pictures that we took during our get together. As you can see, the bird feeders were beautifully painted.
Our Storytellers suggested craft for August was this bird feeder made from craft sticks. Everyone chose to make one. Since we have to wait for the glue to dry, we’ll be painting them and adding the hanger in September. Here’s some pictures that we took of the happy group.
Our featured craft for July was to make these colorful parrots out of cupcake papers and fuzz balls. As always, those particpants who preferred to express their creativity through writing a story, poem, or a different art project, were encouraged to do so.
Nick sketched a picture of an aircraft.
Steven wrote a wonderful story that made us all laugh. However, he chose not to share it on the blog at this time.
May Storytellers participants were Michael, Mike, Kim and Steven. We painted landscapes with a combination of water and acrylic paints or wrote stories to share our thoughts. At the end, everyone shared what they created. Thanks to everyone for sharing your talents and for just being the wonderful people that you are.
The wonderful person who founded our Storytellers group, Jessica Honig, came to visit, bringing with her a mindfulness exercise for the group to do together. It was an opportunity to share our feelings and innermost thoughts. We all learned a little more about each other.
Jessica has moved on, to be able to focus all of her energy on her counseling practice. We appreciated that Jessica took the time out of her busy schedule to spend with us. Thank you, Jessica, and please come again !
Our art project was to make Leprechauns from paper rolls. Everyone made theirs a little differently. Three of our group participants collaborated to write a poem. Thank you, Derek, Mike and Kyle for your creative effort !
My wake-up call was a little lazy today, cause I had to wipe the sleep out of my eyes,
Bubba, the dog, woke me up by barking loudly.
I “shhh’d” him, but it didn’t work.
I had a cup of coffee and two donuts, and that was it.
I would say that I had a bar and a banana,
orange juice.
Cereal always tastes better soggy.
We all collaborate together,
The End !
Craig Rybinsky so graciously donated his time and the materials to show everyone how to make holiday centerpieces out of fresh greens. Everyone enjoyed the activity as you can tell by the smiling faces.
I was searching for a turkey, and I came across a feather,
I chopped it into pieces,
and I put it down and kept walking.
Lucky that it didn’t start talking !
I took out my box call, I hope the turkey didn’t fall,
when he was running at me.
I hope he didn’t have no fleas, but I had to sneeze.
The wind, plus the acorns, plus the leaves, plus the breeze,
Covered my scent, smelled like the trees.
Thanksgiving at ease……
by Kyle Keech and Derrick Walden
When do you feel the most joy? What are your favorite qualities about yourself ? How can you share yourself more with others?
How can I share myself more with others? That’s something I wish I could figure out. The sharing is easy. It’s getting anyone to care that’s tough.
From Twitter to Tumbler, to Instagram to Pinterest, there’s never been an easier way to share your innermost thoughts with the entire world. Art, photography, writing, everything has a readily accessible platform. But, with universal accessibility comes an overwhelming amount of content. No matter what you create or produce, it’s still just a digital letter in a bottle, lost in a sea of cat pictures and competing voices.
So, I cry out into the abyss. I’ve been doing it for over a year. And what do I have to show for it? Six creepy followers, who seem to only follow me, under the mistaken belief that I’m a single woman.
In this era of new technology, our outlets evolve infinitely faster than human nature. The online landscape is dominated by maybe a thousand select voices, parroted and followed by the majority of those online. The sad truth is that original expression is an exceedingly rare commodity…and one that’s not really in high demand. It’s a lot safer to just share and/or reblog the most popular sentiment of the day, than actually put yourself out there. It’s also more gratifying. Watch how many people drop a “like” for something that also appears on their news feed, just because it’s proof that you’re just like them. Posting, sharing yourself ? People don’t know how to respond to that. Nobody has yet told them what to think about that.
It’s like humanity is a herd animal, following only a few shepherds to lead them around the perils of the unknown parts of the internet. And sadly, that’s where most of us reside. Myself included.
As I said, sharing is easy, collecting any notice is hard.
Now look, I know there’s a world beyond my phone. But so what? Even that is accessed by meetup.com anymore. At this point, our digital identities have a more “rea” presence in the eyes of others than well, us. So how do we address this problem? Is it a problem?
I’m not going to pretend that I’d know half of the events in my area, if it weren’t for the internet. But anymore, I keep discovering that these factions of people I meet online only know how to function in that world. When we finally meet face to face, what happens ? They want to share other people’s Youtube videos with each other. It’s about as candid as elementary school show and tell…..
So, how do you share yourself more with others ? Tweet more. Alternatively, I dunno. Go to your public park wearing a sandwich board, I guess. God knows, I’ve tried. But apparently, he local municipalities frown upon such practices.
Maybe things will get better. As society evolves alongside the new communication, it seems like we’d naturally refine the unification of it with our daily lives.
Maybe, I’ll just print a ton of business cards, embossed with NFC chips, linking people to all my yet unread accounts. Or maybe, I’ll just start taking advantage of how many dudes think that I’m a single woman.
Lonely or not, there’s a lot of money I could be making there.
 | jhonig2014 on Fly Away! |
 | Nick Lang on Fly Away! |
| Sonya Taylor on Works in Progress |
| jhonig2014 on November Storytellers |
 | mustardseed1283 on November Storytellers |
