Story Foraging
It has been snowing in Istanbul.
There is nothing on the ground in my neighbourhood. Still, snow is snow. And my eyes are smiling. On Friday, I even nibbled some snow.
There are a few things that can lure me out of my house in this city and snow is one. When a white blanket covers Istanbul, paralyses its human-crowded business as usual and puts it into a sleep, that I love, and it makes me come out. Although this time, I went out just a few times because the snowy blanket did not reach my footsteps…
These days, I am slowly diving back into the wilds of my story.
I must decide on what stories to tell next, whom to follow, whom to be followed by, whom to run away and hide from. There are many possibilities and some are more alive than others. Some will make my life easier as a storyteller, some more complicated. And a few are quite dangerous.
I am slowing down, becoming silent, and deepening my listening before I wander and wonder, following curiosity into imagination. I cannot even begin to tell how important curiosity is. Curiosity does not kill1 cats and our cat selves, curiosity keeps them and us fully living, turned on, in love and in awe; curiosity keeps the world alive, living through us.
I have laid all my notebooks, notes, drawings, and scraps of paper on the desk. Years worth of world and character building under my fingertips. There is plenty to go through and I have poor organisational skills. Necessity is the mother of all inventions they say. I and my impatience came up with this trick of story foraging some years ago while I was staring at my 300+ pages unreadable draft. Back then I was also studying some herbalism and planetary ways of being.
Just forage, I said to myself. Just get the sentences, words, events, characters, curiosities that you can eat or use or story tell with and leave the rest.
to forage, verb: to go from place to place searching for things that you can eat or use; to wander in search of food or provisions.
In 2020, in the depth of pandemic and thickening brain fog, I wrote a three-hundred-page first draft of Single Seed Tale that was very unreadable and as time went by, it started to rot and became very trash-able. And this is how I have collected, saved and protected some pieces of my writing instead of trashing the entire thing. I story foraged by highlighting some paragraphs, sentences, and words and I even used a paragraph or two, I’ve story foraged from my old first draft, in my book, La Graine.
Foraging is in the air again.
Inside my imagination as well as within my written and typed notes.
I am at my desk, surrounded by pieces and bits of the story. I kind of know what I am looking for, and what not, because I have already told a piece of the story, but I am also open for surprises. Papers and pens ready, so is the storyteller.
After spending seventeen odd years with my self and storytelling, I got to know my storytelling tendencies and my wild stories a tad bit better, even though there is much to know, to unknown all the time. I’ve learned a few things, stepped on a few swamps and fell into a few holes along the way.
One important thing I will caution myself and others about. When we forage, we should not take the entire plant. We want the plant to keep on living and regrowing themselves and feed the ones who rely on them. In a similar manner, when I story forage, I don’t take the entire story. That will defeat the purpose. A few berries and mushrooms are enough. I cannot eat the entire planet, I cannot eat the entire story.
Search for your story berries, story nuts, story mushrooms and put them in your story basket, Gizem… instead of trying to eat and write the entire story planet. I say to myself.
These are the playful times between a story and a storyteller. I need them and I’ll sip these story foraging moments with foaming gratitude. Here are some of my overall instructions and musing for myself and for fellow storytellers, if they like:
Go out, go in and go beyond. Imagine wildly. Explore what you have already written and created, also what you have not. Respect each and every being as you story forage. Go slow. Listen. Ask for permission. Don’t get greedy. Put your story berries and mushrooms in a basket. Don’t eat them all at once. Be intelligent. Story poisoning happens. Don’t die. Don’t kill the story. There is so much and so little you can tell. Learn your lessons. Hone your gifts. Forage with curiosity, awe, kindness and respect. Leave some for the imagination, muses and other foragers. Try to make story decisions that benefit and feed the ecosystem of your story and our planet. Wild luck.
I am off to story foraging… Wish me luck.
Gizem Gizegen, 2025 Istanbul, ☉ Pisces ☽ Capricorn, ♂ in Cancer stations direct
P.S. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, Mars is about to station direct.
There has been a bright red celestial light shining and dripping its planetary blood on the snow. You may have seen Mars in the night sky also, it has been with the stars, Castor and Pollux, forming a temporary triangle.
Mars has been retrograding since December. In my astrological imagination, the warrior has been walking back from the battlefield, dragging her sword on the ground, bleeding and offering her blood to her planet, sometimes licking her wounds in caves and receiving some healing, respect and kindness in temples. Now the retrograde journey is coming to an end; it is time for Mars to stand still and gather some more attention before it goes direct. Here in Istanbul, Mars is about to rise from the eastern horizon as I am pushing the publish button, making me suspect that we wrote this article together. With Creative Courage, Gizem.
“Curiosity killed the cat”, a proverb, a dangerous one that can harm curiosity.
Oooh I like this very much
Good luck 🍀