Last night our family went to see Estella Leopold as part of the the Urban Naturalist Series with the Seward Park Audubon and Royal Room. Estella was sharing stories from her newest book, Stories from the Leopold Shack: Sand County Revisted. I wanted the whole family to hear them. Stories are so powerful! They allow us to build community, connect to times and worlds that do not always remain, and they feel good! Her stories were wonderful! They meant even more to our family as we have visited the Aldo Leopold Shack and Leopold Center. Also, despite the fact that we live in the city our family has collected our own stories about chickadees, crows, and time spent in nature.
As summer wound down I have been thinking a lot about storytelling. We attended a family camp at the North Cascades Institute where stories was the theme. We spent a weekend making stories. Then when we came home I happened to be reading the book, Let them be Eaten By Bears : A Fearless Guide to Taking Our Kids into the Great Outdoors by Peter Brown Hoffmeister and within it was a section about the importance of storytelling. In the book Hoffmeister refers on page 78 to a study “ According to a team of scientists at Princeton University, functional MRI scans prove that stories link the brains of the storyteller and listeners. During a Story, the brain activity of all the people involved becomes synchronized, identical activity wise.” I can’t help but feel grateful to have been connected with those in attendance at the Royal Room last night and especially with a Leopold. I am full of gratitude and awe.
It is now time to collect our own family stories, especially those memories which connect us to nature.
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