What is a storylistener?
Dendrochronologists, scientists who date and interpret past events through tree rings, are a nice metaphor for storylisteners.
What appears simple, counting rings, is actually complex. “Numerous studies illustrate how ring-counting leads to incorrect conclusions drawn from inaccurate dating,” the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona tells us.
In fact, one of the most accurate approaches is “matching ring-growth characteristics across many samples from a homogeneous area (area of similar environmental conditions).” To oversimplify, it takes a forest to understand a tree.
We are storytelling animals and, just like trees, those stories do not form without the context we bring to each other’s lives. Yet we are inundated with a siloed idea of storytelling. One storyteller, many audience members. One interviewer, one interviewee. To be the storyteller is to “take the stage” while the rest of us imbibe. What if there is a better way, one where the act of engaging around story is broad, flexible, and shared?
In a forest of stories, listeners are a vital part of the environment, and the act is not passive. That is the basic premise of Storylisteners*. It is to develop a set of skills intended to understand the lives and identities of others through active engagement, so that a co-construction of story emerges. The end goal is recognition, on both sides, of “unique and unrepeatable”** people, with all the intrinsic value that implies.
HOW ARE STORYLISTENERS DIFFERENT FROM AUDIENCES?
The telling and listening happen in relationship. An audience might actively engage (through laughter, tears, empathy, etc.) with a story, which is powerful in its own right. Storylisteners do not just engage with the story, but with the the tellers themselves. And the storytellers do not need to be masters of the art for storylisteners to do their work. Like the dendrochronologists, storylisteners are there to make sense of what they find by exploring the environmental conditions of that life — people, places, times, events, and themes. What appears simple is actually quite complex.
Through active listening as well as employing the tools of storytelling, the storylistener uses questions, connections, and structures for everyone to understand the most meaningful possible narrative. Ultimately, the storylisteners reflect the story back to the tellers, often a powerfully emotional experience of acknowledgment. And unlike dendrochronologists, we get to ask the tree about their rings, and their roots for that matter.
*Storylistening is a term still emerging and will likely take on multiple meanings. A recent book called Storylistening has a much different, and exciting, premise.
**This is a quote from the book Relating Narratives by Italian philosopher Adriana Cavarero, which has influenced this work significantly.
