Humainologie creative dialogue Dream the Impossible Wednesday December16

“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up.” – Terence McKenna

Here are two of the strategies for generating story ideas that our dialogue artists contributed at team practice last Wednesday: 1) Drive around with a friend and “spot” something, ask the friend what she sees in the thing you spotted, then use the ideas arising from that to create a short story. 2) Open a book to a page at random, select three words from various places on the page(s) to which you’ve opened, and then connect those three words in a sentence or two and use that sentence to get your story started. My own contributions included searching online with the term “story that moved the audience to tears” and choosing one for your story-starter. The one I selected was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li7vpzLA9uw

The Story That Moved This Entire Middle School to Tears My special tribute to Mom - don't forget to call yours today! #HappyMothersDay Thank you for this, my mom passed yesterday peaceful in her sleep on mother's day... I get it now.. Thank you for this gift Jake Wilkey Brooke Sparks Liv Rose Carmen Buccini Ashleigh Cockburn Courtney Welsh Tiarnie Sparham Chelsea Muscat Tayla Ranford Ayla Klinge ... www.youtube.com

Our first annual short story writing festival will take place on Wednesday, December 23, and it looks as if we will have at least four or five contributions this year. If your story is above 1,000 words (or more than ten minutes to read aloud at the Zoom session itself), send it to me by email and I will circulate it to the network.

For our team practice this coming Wednesday December 16, your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to come up with at least one fresh idea for expanding and enriching our creative dialogue initiative next year. Here’s an example: There are creative and experienced people all over the world who are passionate about something important. Greta Thunberg is passionate about counteracting climate change, Mayor Nenshi is passionate about making Calgary a great city, and Rick Hansen is passionate about support for people with disabilities. We could invite such visionaries to lead some of our dialogues, in each case with the goal of deciding on how our dialogue network here in Calgary can carry their vision one substantive step forward (climate action if Greta is facilitating the dialogue, making Calgary a great city if Mayor Nenshi is facilitating, supporting people with disabilities if Rick Hansen is facilitating).

You will be able to come up with even better ideas for expanding and enriching our dialogue initiative in 2021. I look forward to hearing your breakthrough brilliance.

Toot sweet,

Arthur