The Furthest Shore

Exploring the First, Second, and Third Acts of our life

Storytellers used to be the coaches, therapists, and psychiatrists of their time. The stories they told carried a wealth of wisdom – meanings and insights, metaphors and symbols – that enabled their listeners to reach a richer and more profound understanding of themselves, others, and the world they inhabited.

In recent years there has been a huge upsurge of interest in the wisdom and power of traditional stories to help and to heal. To help us find deeper meaning in our lives and to heal aspects of the fragmentation that can so easily occur in the cut-and-thrust of modern life: disconnection from ourselves, our work, our communities and with the planet that sustains us.

What are the stories that will help us make the kinds of changes that our lives call for, and the transformations that our time calls for? The challenges we face will not be overcome by the same kind of thinking and behaving that got us into trouble in the first place.

In this open programme, Nick Owen and Geoff Mead work with an Old Norse wonder tale, the Furthest Shore, that among other things poses the challenging question: what happens after happily ever after?  It seems a suitable provocation from which to begin exploring the Third Act as well as the challenging and uncertain times we are currently living through. The story also offers a road map to explore and examine the journeys we have each taken to get where we are today.

… the princess willingly accepted the young man’s proposal and they went back to the castle to get married … time passed and life returned to the realm. Those who had been in hiding came back out into the light, crops were planted, flocks tended, and the land prospered … the young king and his queen lived happily ever after … at least that is, until the trouble really began …  *

The deep psychological and spiritual insights of stories such as this help us inquire into our own lives and how we might live them, now and into the future, with greater compassion, awareness, and wisdom.

The event is highly participative, deeply inquiring, and fun.  No prior experience of storytelling is required but you do need to bring a passion for story, your courage and curiosity, and an open mind.

For more information click here and complete the form.

* You can find the complete text of the Furthest Shore in Geoff Mead’s excellent book Coming Home to Story.