Relationships grow out of shared experience. These relationships form a kind of economy, one that supports us and nourishes us and that is worth valuing as much as we value the cash economy of free-market capitalism.

Years ago when I lived in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, I was inspired to get involved in my community. Near my home, a river-front property known as the Quan Chow Lands was slated for development on what was essentially flood-plain. I and others joined up to see if there was another alternative to building seniors’ housing on this fertile patch of land, at one time the site of a successful vegetable farm. Though there was a lot of energy to save the land, the developers won the day and the project, Canterbury Place, went ahead. Ironically, the land flooded even as the foundations of the new houses were being laid.

It matters what stories we tell.  It matters what stories we subscribe to. Stories have an energetic force and that energy has an impact in the world. This was the idea behind The Story Field Conference: Invoking a New World through Story, a gathering held at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado in August of 2007.  Dreamed into being by Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Institute in Oregon, and Peggy Holman, co-author of The Change Handbook, the conference included a wonderful assortment of young and old, change makers whose work is all about inviting a new narrative into existence while uncovering the stories and myths we live by, many of which no longer serve us or the planet.

My experience at that conference has richly informed my work. After being there I decided to create this blog as a space to explore the nature of the Story Field, which I think of as a dynamic and ever-changing field of energy where stories interweave and form the fabric of daily life.

What stories am I bringing into the world? What stories do I want to invite from others?