Are you ready for a wonderful summer 2009?

Now is the time to plan your summer next year.

There will be lots and lots of storytelling events throughout the year. Courses, festivals, meetings and so on.

For more than a year now, we have been working on making an International symposium for storytelling as a healing art in Denmark. Finally we are as close as we can get right now. And it is now possible to sign up for the symposium.

You can find all practical information at the home page http://www.mariannechristensen.dk/. Just follow the links. Everything concerning the symposium is in English.

We will be staying at Marjatta in a very extraordinary landscape with water, forest and open fields - all in the same spot.

It will be possible to have 90 participants at the symposium, so be sure to join soon.

Deadline for participating is May 15th, but please sign up before that.

The workshops:

1. Alexander MacKenzie, Ireland: Parcival and personal leadership in business

2. Bente Klerke, Denmark: Creating Healing Stories

3. Inger Lise Oelrich, Sweden: Healing words: Revitalizing the earth through story

4. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Canada: The Healing Power of community

5. Nancy Mellon, USA, The Eloquence of the Body

6. Roi Gal-Or, Israel/England: The doors of perception

Karsten Mathiasen, Denmark, will facilitate storytelling sessions about forgiveness during lunch breaks

The Klezmerduo will participate with music throughout the week.

Find Marjatta on the map

Marjatta is the main institution, where we will have workshops and gatherings in the morning and in the evening.
Bredeshave is where we meet during meals, breaks and networking.

Most sleeping rooms will be at Brøderup Ungdomsskole
There is a shortcut through Sjolte.

View map here

Struggling against the wind

Some few years ago, when I had just started rowing kayak, I went out for a short trip one nice, sunny afternoon. But before going out on the water, I put my finger up in the air to meassure the wind, and it seemed ok for me.
I rowed east along the beautiful coast of South Sealand, and I really enjoyed having the wind in my back. The waves seemed wonderful and they carried me along, so it felt quite easy.
When I got to my destination and should turn and row back, it felt as if the wind was blowing a bit stronger. I looked at the waves and yes, they were bigger, and the wind was getting stronger.
Being outside in strong wind doesn't normally bother me, but here the waves were affected by the wind, and they were quite lively.
My kayak started to live it's own life more and less, and I decided to hurry back before the wind got even stronger.
I rowed and rowed with all my (very little) strength, and I seemed to move slower than ever. I was getting tired, but my mind was strong. I realised, that I was actually a little afraid that the kayak would tilt, so I would fall into the water.
So I tried to find a nice rhytm, I sang a song where the rhytm fit perfectly for the tempo I wanted to achieve. It went quite well, but I could feel I was getting angry at the wind, and I decided to fight it.
I bit my teeth tightly together and rowed harder.
I still had the feeling of moving slowly although I was using all my strength, and I kept looking at the boat house in the distance that I was heading for.
I had to take a tiny little rest to breathe normally, and when I did that I noticed the water. I saw the plants at the bottom, and I saw that the water level was only about half a meter.
Then I started laughing. 'Am I really afraid of falling into water that is only half a meter deep?'
'Who am I to think, I can fight the wind!'
I might as well take it easy.
I took a deep breath and with this new, calm sensation in my whole body I rowed the rest of the way, still singing, but a whole lot more relaxed. I let the kayak follow the rhytm of the waves, and I'm sure it did'nt take any longer to get to the boat house that way. But it was much more fun and I felt a little more connected to the Universe.

What did I learn?
A lot but most important for me:
Even though I'm rowing against the wind I can still relax and enjoy the trip.

The beach

As the symposium is going to take place right next to a beautiful bay, Præstø Fjord, I found it obvious to make it possible for the participants to go bathing.

There are lots of plants by the water, and it seemed to be a bit difficult to get through these plants. So I got the brilliant idea, that we should make a bridge so that people could walk over the plants.

I called the volunteers of the saving service, and after many mails and telephone calls we finally arranged a meeting yesterday. I was there in time. I waited...., and waited, but noone showed up. After 10 minutes finally the phone rang. It turned out that 'Strandvejen' is very long and because of the zip code confusion, they had landed in Præstø. Five minutes later they still hadn't arrived. 12 more minutes later I called back.

'Where are you, you should be here by now?

Well, the GPS had sent them to strange places, so I suggested they turned off the GPS and followed my instructions. Which they did, and 10 minutes later we finally met at the scene. They looked at the place, and it seemed like a task they would like to have and it wasn't impossible to make a bridge there.

While we were researching for the bridge, one of the staff members of Marjatta came driving by. He stopped, we told him about our research and asked him who owns the land.
He listened to us, and told us, that the municipality owns the land. But then he said: 'Why don't you use the little beach 100 meters further north? There is a nice acces to the water!'

I must admit I felt a bit stupid.

He was busy, so he left, and the little research group walked the 100 meters north, walked through the little field next to the road, behind the plants. And there it was, the cutest little beach! And though the water is quite low, you just have to walk a while in order to get a nice swim.

With red ears I had to apologise for having had them drive all the way to find out that there was already a beach. But they were quite satisfied to have found the place, which they didn't know existed, so now we were all happy.

And I just wondered how it happened that nobody had told me about the beach, because I've talking about it for a long time. Maybe it's because they did'nt know about it. Maybe it's because it's a secret little beach.

But it's very pretty. And I learned a new lesson.

The meeting

Today was the day of the meeting where we should talk about the details in the planning.

As the meeting developed, we decided we need to have more meetings for talking about specific details. There are many, many aspects to be aware of with such a big project.
Is it too big a job we've taken on?
Is it going to work there? Will I have to lik for another place?

Actually there were more questions than answers when we left the meeting.
But this is not unusual at this place in the proces of planning a symposium of this kind.
I'm not worried, it'll work out well.

I do get some wonderful e-mails from the workshop leaders and the board members. That is truly wonderful in order not to feel all alone in the planning proces.

We've come very far already

There are so many details that have to be taken care of in order to get everything working perfectly.

All the workshops are arranged now, and now we just need some texts form some of the workshop leaders and photos of all of them. it's like gathering a puzzle - lots of fun to find all the pieces.

I recently found out, that it might be possible to apply for money to make it possible to invite some people from different places, where they cannot afford to come otherwise. I hope somebody will look more into that and help out writing the applications.

Tomorrow there is a new planning meeting, and soon we can send out information about the price for the participants. That'll be a great moment!

I've found out that many people already know about the symposium, it's as if it is beginning to live it's own life. How wonderful, and there is exactly one year left before it takes place from 26th og July till August 1st 2009.

Money, money...Storytelling as a healing art

It seems that money is often a barrier for really expressing ourselves - especially when working with cultural and social events.


For about 25 years I've worked as a volunteer to create events about theatre, human understanding and storytelling. ALWAYS we have experinced a lack of money for telling the world about our good ideas and projects.
The same thing is happening now. We need to tell the world that the symposium is taking place, but since we haven't any money yet, we have to apply for some.
We hope that a lot of foundations will find the purpose good enough to support us so that we can spread the good new all over the world.


We will be grateful for every person adding a note to your e-mail about the symposium.
You can find the link here International symposium for storytelling as a healing art 2009All you have to do is copy the addres line and insert a link in your mail signature if you want to help.


I know it's not untill next year, but 'things take time' as Piet Hein said..