It’s been wa-a-a-a-ay too long. 4 months-plus since my last blog post. Past time to get back on that horse!
So very much has happened in these past months, so very much of it ripe for reflection – from social, to political, to personal, to professional, to theological, to whimsical, to outrageous, to profound, to…you name it, there’s been much grist for the Story Crossings mill…
Alas.
So. Time to overcome inertia and (to mix metaphors) get back up on the horse! (Hey, I know! – What if it’s a horse-powered mill?! Metaphor problem solved.)
Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids: Mythic Creatures
Last winter I was privileged to give a training to volunteers at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (one of my all-time-favorite places!), to help prepare them to offer storytelling as an intrinsic part of the then-upcoming traveling exhibit of “Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids: Mythic Creatures” from the American Museum of Natural History. (I reflected on part of that experience in the post “6 Ways TEACHING Storytelling Helps One BE a Better Storyteller” [which, incidentally, I think has gotten the most hits of any blog post I’ve put out there…])
When we visited the exhibit during the summer, I was blown away – what a magnificent, creative exhibit! Filled with history, and science, and anthropology, and imagination, and multicultural celebration – and storytelling! [Note: If this exhibit travels to anywhere near you, I highly recommend going to it!] It really was as much about storytelling as anything else, which thrilled me, and which brought deep and wide additional dimensions to the whole experience.
And I got to see a couple of the volunteers I’d trained in action! (Proud teacher!)
In order to get this blogging horse of mine up and running again, what follows is mostly just some of the many photos I took in the exhibit (photos were allowed, just no flashes).
There were 4 areas to the exhibit: Mythic Creatures of the Sea, the Earth, the Air…and Dragons! (which inhabit all 3 elements!) I hope you enjoy:
Like most good museum exhibits, there were plenty of entertaining educational texts all around, including at the start:
Mythic Creatures of the Sea – including the impossible-to-avoid Kraken!
Mermaids of many types from many cultures; here are just 3…
And ah, the Unicorn…
…looking at the Griffon…
Interactive activities included Art: “Make Your Own Mythic Creature” and attach it to the mural…
…and Storytelling! Here is one of “my students” in action! (The guy with the outstretched arms – highly expressive, yippee!)
Pegasus, of course (who also appears at the top of this post):
And here’s a small potpourri of other exhibit shots…offering a little sense of its wide-ranging aspects:
This is a teeny-weeny taste. It was quite wonderful, and very satisfying for me to have contributed to its run in Denver. Hope you get to see it in person sometime. Even if they don’t provide in-person storytellers, the exhibit itself is filled with wondrous printed-and-artifact stories, crossing time and cultures and the globe!
And I’m hoping I can stay on this horse’s back and get back to semi-regular blogging. Until next time…
Thanks for reading,
Pam
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All photos taken by Pam Faro, at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
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