Storytelling as Sacred Ritual

This is not a writing guide. It is an invitation to remember. A call to return to storytelling as ritual—a practice that lives in the body, honors the land, and reconnects us with our lineages, both known and lost. Here, story is not content. It is ceremony.

This post is not structured like a traditional blog—it follows the sacred arc of the storytelling circles I hold. Just as in ceremony, we open space, arrive with the body, weave stories, witness gently, offer reflection, and close in reverence. Each part of the arc honors the sacred nature of story—not as performance, but as presence. Every phase is designed with before, during, and after care in mind to support your nervous system and spirit. As you read, you're invited to move through it as you would a ritual—slowly, intuitively, with breath and presence. Let this reading be a practice of sacred storytelling.

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Opening the Circle (Invocation)

I created this particular blog and website while living on the land of the many peoples who have called the region of Milan, Italy home throughout history, including the Celtic Insubres, the Romans, the Lombards, and later the Milanese. But my tenants and philosophies of storytelling were also shaped by my years living and working on the lands of the Taino and all other Indigenous peoples of what is now known as Port-au-Prince, Haiti; the Banyarwanda and all traditional ethnic groups of Kigali, Rwanda; the Bemba, Tonga, and other native peoples of Lusaka, Zambia; the Zulu, Sotho, and all ancestral communities of Johannesburg, South Africa; the Newar, Tamang, and other Indigenous nations of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal; and the Piscataway, Nacotchtank (Anacostan), and all First Peoples of Washington, D.C.

I acknowledge these lands, their original stewards, and the living stories they carry. I honor the histories of displacement and resilience held in the land and the people who continue to shape their futures. And I honor the land on which you live and are currently reading this post. 

I honor my own complex lineage: German, Icelandic, Irish, and Cherokee. I hold the truth that I am both colonizer and colonized. I am a white, able-bodied woman who has moved through the world with privilege. While I carry Cherokee heritage in my bloodline, I cannot claim it as cultural identity, but rather as a bridge within me—a place of inquiry, reverence, and responsibility.

With gratitude, I acknowledge the wisdom and influence of teachers like Asha Frost, Ruby Gibson, Leslie Tagorda, Ixchel Lunar, and Lindsay Mack, and the many unnamed guides who have helped guide me as teachers blending the spiritual with their purpose driven vocation.

Before we begin, I invite you to pause. To settle into your chair. To feel anything that physical supports you. There you are. Take three slow breaths if that feels good to you. And if it feels good, light a candle or take a drink of water to prepare yourself as we begin. 

Consider these words from Toni Morrison:

"Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created." 

Let this idea guide your reading: our stories are not fixed truths or facts to be known. They're living, evolving expressions. Often, we only come to understand them through the process of unearthing and excavating them for ourselves. Through telling, they become. Through reflection, they reveal.

This blog itself mirrors that unfolding. It is not simply a container of ideas—but a co-creative space. As you move through its arc, consider how your own narrative is being shaped in real time.

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Arriving (Embodiment & Invitation)

What does it feel like to arrive at your story—not as something to craft or improve, but something to meet?

Years ago, I sat in a story circle led by a mother and daughter from a First Nations community in Canada. There was ritual opening but no prompts, no rules, no instructions. One person spoke, and another followed—not to reply, but to echo, to ripple, to continue the thread. Each voice added a layer. A memory. A vibration. It was improvisational, yes—but almost spiritually ordained. As messages arrived for every single person in the group through the stories that presented themselves.

That experience shifted my understanding. My message was about the freedom within the circle itself. Before that moment, I'd been holding "circles" but they might as well have been squares. They were overly rigid in their structure, centered around one theme. More individualist, less communal. Less about being present with the here and now. 

In story circles as ritual, we arrive with what is. Sometimes the story comes through in words. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes through movement. Sometimes in a tear or a laugh we don’t yet have language for.

There is no pressure to be polished. Instead, you're invited to arrive as you are, with the fullness of your lived experience. This is a space for the sensitive ones, the spiritual seekers, the justice-rooted writers and creative leaders whose voices have too often been silenced. In sacred storytelling, you do not need to perform. You are already whole. And your story, in whatever form it takes, is welcome. 

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Weaving the Stories (Exploration)

In the sacred circles I hold, we transition gently from arrival into expression. But expression does not mean explanation. Story doesn’t owe us a point. It only shows our pulse. What is alive within us?

This is not a place for rigid structure. It is a space where story emerges when it’s ready, through breath, sound, movement, word—or stillness.

In a more structured circle like Storyshaping Lab, this exploration often begins with 15 to 20 minutes of solo writing, meditation, or intuitive movement—whatever supports flow for your body. Then we deepen: 60 to 70 minutes of open story work. That might look like structured writing sprints. Or spontaneous voice-memo journaling. Or sitting with me in a breakout room for 10-minute support when something feels stuck or vulnerable.

Some circles, especially those in our freeform spaces, are led entirely by what arrives in the moment. We may create stories purely for joy. Speak what is raw. Or spiral through a story for no reason other than that it wants to be spoken.

The practice of flow and containment lives at the heart of this. We hold just enough shape for stories to feel safe, while letting the mystery of story take its own form.

There is no fixing. No need to inspire. No pressure to share. Only presence.

Story is not content here. It is companion, co-creator, and guide.

This is how we return to ourselves and each other through story.

We also practice embodied storytelling. Somatic movement is often used in these spaces to help move the energy our stories stir within us—grief, joy, rage, tenderness. These movements aren’t performance, they’re permission. When stories bring sensation to the surface, we meet them in motion, allowing the body to process in its own sacred language.

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Witnessing (Sacred Reflection)

Sacred listening is a practice. A form of presence that demands nothing, fixes nothing, but changes everything. In our storytelling rituals, the role of the listener is as vital as that of the teller.

To listen with the body, not just the ears. To hold space without urgency. To stay grounded in the belief that story is medicine, and the act of witnessing is part of its unfolding.

After stories rise, we do not rush to explain or respond. We allow whatever emotion arises to be there. There is no emotional bypass here—no rush to soothe, to hand a tissue, or to tidy what is uncomfortable. We honor emotion as sacred expression and contain it with care, not correction. In this sacred ritual, witnessing is not passive—it is devotional. To witness someone’s story without interruption, advice, or evaluation is to honor them as they are. It says, “I see you, and I will not make you smaller.”

In our circles, sacred witnessing looks like this:

• You're not required to receive reflection on your story but you may request it.
• If you do, it is solely reflection—not interpretation or fixing.
• We offer back what resonated, not what should be different.

Listening in this way becomes a mirror—one we often cannot hold up for ourselves. We are so close to our own stories that their shape can blur. Sacred listening by others, even strangers, reflects our truth back to us in ways we could not see alone. It gives us access to our own voice, our own medicine, in deeper clarity. We say something aloud we’ve said a hundred times, and only then—through sacred witnesses—do we truly hear it.

There is no urgency to make meaning. We sit in the echo of each story, allowing its medicine to settle wherever it is needed. Often new insights arrive to the teller even days or weeks after the story circle. 

Sometimes a participant will say, “I didn’t know what I was going to say until the words came.” And someone across the circle will reply, “I didn’t know I needed to hear that until you spoke it out loud.”

This is the reciprocity of ritual story space. This is how communal healing reverberates through the simple act of listening with love.

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Closing the Circle (Integration & Care)

In ritual space, we do not end—we release.

As we close the storytelling circle, we tend to what has emerged. This is the space of integration. The sacred pause. The moment we blow out the candle but before we return to the everyday.

Before, during, and after care are foundational to how I hold story space. You’ll find more on this in my writing on radical care and its invisible architecture, but here’s what I’ll offer you as we close:

• Before: You prepare your body and spirit to enter. You acknowledge what you carry.
• During: You meet yourself honestly. You are held in a space that honors sovereignty and sensation.
• After: You tend the emotional residue. You do not rush back into doing. You digest. You listen.

As we close this post, I invite you to pause again.

What was created in you in this story circle?
What softened?
What longing stirred?

Maybe something wants to be written. Maybe silence is your next sacred act.

Take a breath. Drink water. Rest, if it helps mark this return.

Storytelling as sacred ritual is not a one-time event. It is a rhythm you can return to, again and again. When you are ready, the circle awaits.

If this resonance calls to you, you’re invited to join us in a future Storyshaping Lab—an intuitive sacred container where story meets spirit, and your voice is held with reverence.

Join the waitlist here or explore other offerings designed to support your unfolding.

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