It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Many years ago, after doodling all the while on a long phone conversation, I was shocked to see what I'd drawn. A very evocative drawing, clearly a self-portrait, that had me wondering "What on earth?!" It so bewildered me that I put it away in the back of a drawer and forgot about it.

Some weeks later, to my amazement, I came across what seemed to be the story of my drawing. I had never really drawn much until then, but not long after that another drawing came. Similarly, within a few days, another story came to me that exactly spoke to my second drawing.

In my travels around the world, I had often discovered legends and fairytales that were unique retellings of ones I had grown up with in England. And then I discovered Joseph Campbell and the Jungian authors who showed how the stories and symbology of myths and fairytales are actually signposts, depicting our life's passages. It became easy to see that these universal stories bubbled up from the collective. But, to discover my own very personal-seeming drawings depicted in ancient fairytales' tales I had never heard before then – was something I found quite wonderful.

For years, I lived with these stories, and others that came to me in the wake of subsequent drawings. They were gifts that kept on giving. The symbology and imagery helped me so much in understanding certain decisions, actions, ways of being that had, until then, been hard for me to fathom. My handful of stories are ones that I subsequently found multiple versions of from around the world. Now I had direct confirmation that my own personal story was far from personal. On the contrary, my story was universal. I was not alone in my experiences at all.

Once the BreakThrough 2 class came into being, I realized I had the perfect medium in which to share these stories. And as I began telling them to others for the first time and we were exploring them together, something magical happened. The stories took on a life of their own. With each class, the stories I had lived with for so many years began revealing so much more to me. Student after student, seeing their own story within the fairytale, would add their own insights and observations and revelations.

It has been many years since I taught those classes and because they span four days they are not ones I envisage teaching online. But, lately, in the strange times we are in, a few good friends put forward the idea of telling the stories on their own. "After all, in class we had limited time to explore them, whereas on their own we could take our time."

And so it is that plans for our first online Story Time have been laid. 

In this class, Esther will be telling a simple and ancient tale. It is a tale that, in many different versions, has been being told for centuries around the world. Once the tale has been told, we will explore it together to see what helpful signposts it might reveal to us, to help us on our own life's journey. The first Story Time on September 18, 2021 is one that speaks to the rites of passage of the inner woman in all of us, no matter our gender.

Each Story Time has as its focus a different Fairy Tale or legend .

Course Details:
There are no prerequisites to join. The course is open to everyone. It provides 3 CEUs for IBA Members. Cost is $75 per event.