The Song of the Mountain: Recent Episodes
Jesse Livingston
Have you ever loved a story so much that you don't want to leave? At the end of a long day, do you (like me) dive into a story to feel refreshed? Ever wonder why?
If so, join me for "The Song of the Mountain", a podcast where we explore the deep and powerful ways that stories impact us and the kind of life those stories might be drawing us into.
The title comes from a book by David Soman called, "The Impossible Mountain." In it, Anna, a young lady gazes out of her small, walled village to see a majestic mountain which seems to "sing" to her; calling her outside of her village to see the world.
Interested to hear more? Check out all the random stuff I do at www.jesselivingston.com
In this next installment of our mini-series, four things your life needs to become a story, we talk about one of my favorite topics: finding your genius.
Yes, you have a "zone" of genius, what it is? This is a key part of nearly every story, the protagonist finding their unique set of natural talents and abilities and those abilities coming to life.
Ready to discover your genius? Then let's dive in.
The first step in living a story is getting out of the hamster wheel of Act 1; that cyclical life that exists before the "inciting event" happens. So how do you do that? Let's find out...
Welcome to season two! To kick things off, I discuss four things I believe your life needs to truly become a Story with a capital S.
Support the podcast here! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jesselivingston
This is a quick plug to support the podcast, to reach out if you've enjoyed it and let me know how it's impacted you. And some big things I hope the podcast has gotten you to think about so far!
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Wait, fantasy role-playing games? Is that... just for kids? Think again.
Fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons are played by over 50 million people worldwide of all ages and they help immerse us in a story in a way no other storytelling medium does. That's because YOU play an active role in shaping the story.
In this episode, I interview Zac Clay, educator, musician, voice actor, and professional dungeon master about his life, and in particular, his experience running D&D for businesses and kids in an after school program.
Checkout Zac's video produced by Wizards of the Coast on "Why you should have an after school D&D club": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaOrOG69Bt0&t=1s
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The good guys vs. the bad guys... it's a paradigm as old as stories themselves. But how does that paradigm affect the way we live our lives?
As we talked about in the interview with Katie Hendricks, when we start to think in binary, good guys vs. bad guys, terms, we are in fear. We are in a protective state. And we can't grow when we are protecting. We think we are keeping ourselves safe, but we actually might be co-creating a world of conflict.
Why do stories always end when the bad guys are gone? Isn't that where the REAL story is supposed to begin? A story about building a better world?
In this episode, I deep dive into these areas and try to help us begin to think about starting a new story. A story that doesn't revolve around the old good guy / bad guy war.
I was incredibly inspired by my interview with Katie Hendricks and wanted to deep dive into the upper limits issue in this solo episode. Here, we explore more ways that this problem emerges in stories, and therefore our lives.
I describe it more as a "curse" because "problem" doesn't seem to adequately describe the power it can have over us. The believe that there is only so much goodness we can experience before something is going to ruin it is a powerful, old, and protective story.
It's time to start thinking of new stories. Stories that don't reinforce the believe that only so much goodness is possible.
Katie Hendricks has been a pioneer in the field of body intelligence and conscious loving for 50 years. In this interview, we talk about :
- The importance of body intelligence and how our bodies are giving us important messages, especially when we experience stories.
- The "upper limits" problem; namely, that we create an 'upper limit' for the amount of goodness we can expect in our lives and we can start to sabotage ourselves once we hit that limit.
- The problem with the strange mix in stories of magic and wonder with war and conflict. Why do stories often boil down to the binary "us vs. them" or "the good guys vs. the bad guys?" We need a new story that doesn't trigger our old adrenaline-filled fear responses.
All these areas deeply impact the way we listen to stories. I hope you enjoy!
David Soman, children's book author and illustrator (who wrote "The Impossible Mountain"), joins me to talk about his life, his books, and the impact of stories on our lives.
In particular, we talk about the ways that stories externalize the magnitude of the world inside of us. Many of us have come to believe that what's inside us is not real and what's outside of us is real. Stories help us to flip that narrative on it's head and realize that our internal worlds can be, in some ways, much more real than what's outside of us.
Stories do this by creating worlds, monsters, powers, and more to represent the fears, hopes, desires, and powers within ourselves.
It's important to me that you know something about who I am! And what better way to do that, then get interviewed by my 6-year old son about my life and career.
I talk through some of the big seasons of my adult life and give some examples of how the person emerging out of me was clearly tied to the stories I was drawn to. As I make these connections, I'm inviting "mythic meaning" into my life.
Stories matter to us. In fact, they may matter more than ever before. In spite of our rationalist western culture that would reduce life to atoms and cells, stories strangely emerge in full force with super heroes, deities, sentient animals, and super powers.
But why? Why do we care so much about stories? Why has storytelling exploded in a way that it never before has in human history?
Perhaps it's mere entertainment... or perhaps there's more to it than that.