The Healing Voice in Story: trusting yourself to speak
with Ruth Marshall
Ruth tells stories. In this introduction, Ruth aims to help us explore the storyteller’s voice. The Bard once held a position of power, as their voice could be used to bless, or to curse. It is the same in our everyday lives: do we pepper our speech with F-words, or imbue it with heart-warmth? This is a choice. And the choice, or intention, is even more important when we tell a story.
With short and enjoyable creative exercises, Ruth will help us tip our tongues into how to tell a story that touches another in a healing way: whether to awaken, to soothe, to begin the process of mending, so we use our voice intentionally as “healing medicine” for the soul.
Relax and allow images to arise. Learn the importance of the three I’s.
Set your imagination free, let yourself remember how to play, and trust yourself to speak the truth beautifully. Please be prepared to have some fun, some insights, and experiment.
You can even tell lies..... But do this beautifully!
About Ruth:
Ruth Marshall is a storyteller, poet, creative writing facilitator and crafter, based in East Clare.
Ruth has worked with groups of all ages and abilities in schools, libraries, museums, colleges around Ireland over the past 30 years. She loves to nurture and encourage creativity in people of all ages. She crafts with wool, and with natural materials such as leaves, seeds, stones. An elder in the realm of holistic living, she was the was editor/publisher of Ireland’s holistic magazine for 17 years. Her background includes training in transpersonal facilitation, life coaching, plant medicine, and the use of the Voice in poetry and story as medicine for ourselves and for the earth, and in Sound Healing.
She currently offers one-to-one Sound Healing sessions, and monthly sound baths at Ciunas Wellness Centre, Co Clare. As a storyteller, she visits schools through Heritage in Schools, Artists in Schools, and Poetry Ireland’s Writers in Schools schemes, and is a regular storyteller at The Clare Museum, sharing stories and folklore of the traditional seasonal festivals, and has told tales in castles and cabins, islands, and woodland clearings. She also teaches Creative Writing through Limerick-Clare ETB.
Her teachers, trainings, and influences have included: The Findhorn Foundation; InnerLinks (The Transformation Game); Findhorn Sacred Dance; Soul-making; Starhawk; Patrick MacManaway & Sig Lonigren (Geomancy); Nancy Mellon (Storytelling as a Healing Art) ; Kim Rosen (Poetry Depths Mystery School); Carole Guyett (Plant Medicine Apprenticeship); J W von Goethe; Rudolf Steiner; Reiki; Rebirthing; Metamorphic Technique; Sue Hollingsworth (Biographical storytelling), and many voice teachers throughout the years, including Thea Neale, Adriana von Runic, Lucia Guerin, Ashley Ramsden (School of Storytelling)
Published Work:
Celebrating Irish Festivals, Hawthorn Press, 2003;
Clare Folk Tales,The History Press, 2013;
Limerick Folk Tales,The History Press, 2016;
Hector & the Star Ladders, 2021 (children’s storybook)
Poetry in Journals and anthologies in Ireland and UK, including: Into the Further Reaches - an anthology of contemporary spiritual poetry; The Stony Thursday Book, 2015; The Art of Place, 2021, Not the Time to be Silent, 2022, The Hive Poetry Journal,2024; The Silence of Stones, 2024; Holy Cows, 2024
https://ruthmarshallarts.weebly.com/about.html