It’s been an interesting experience to begin to create a worldwide personal storytelling community from the UK at this time. Immediately after I conceived of the idea, Brexit happened and the UK voted to leave the European Union. Much of the dialogue and debate around the vote was based on fears around the level of immigration and whether there would soon be anything left on this small island that could be considered “British”.
Every community, whether it’s a neighbourhood, an organisation or a nation has to hold a delicate balance between preserving its identity and welcoming diversity. We all need to feel as though we belong to something or some group but does that mean we have to exclude those who don’t seem to “fit” in order to feel that we do? These questions and many others are coming to the fore in the aftermath of the vote and it’s an interesting time to be both British AND a storyteller, with so many different stories in circulation.
My hope for this Centre is that out beyond ideas of nationality, colour, religion and anything else that can sometimes seem to divide us, we can find common ground in our stories and that we share these stories from our lives as widely as possible. Whatever happens, stories need no visas and will continue to travel around the world doing their work long after we have moved on to another country.
Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
dosn’t make any sense.
Rumi