Storytelling in the Garden

By Carol Woolum Roberts

Paul and I are preparing for some storytelling to happen in our gardens this Saturday.

For years, we have had friends tell us after they visit our gardens that we should open them up and share them with people.  The way we are doing this is having Storytelling in the Garden. (Click here if you want to find out more.)

There are a variety of literary-themed gardens throughout our backyard.  We didn’t really plan to do that, but as we continued to come up with ideas for gardens, most of them were based on books.

In our backyard you will find:

The Wizard of Oz Garden

The Narnia Garden

The Shakespeare Garden

The Fairy Garden

The Alice in Wonderland Garden

The Prayer Garden

The Harry Potter Garden

The Moon Garden

The Gnome Garden

The Theater Garden

The Vegetable Garden

The Tire Garden

The Salad Garden

The Herb Garden

The Big Pile of Dirt Garden

The Winnie the Pooh Garden

On Saturday, we are opening up our gardens for community members to come, sit and listen to excerpts from different stories based on these gardens.

Today I started planning what part of the stories from “The Wizard of Oz”, “Winnie the Pooh” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” would I choose to have myself and our other wonderful storytellers share with our guests on Saturday.

When I went down into our basement to search for books, I forgot this wonderful series of books we had from my childhood called “Best in Children’s Books”.  It is filled with parts of all kinds of stories.  When I saw these on the shelf downstairs, I remembered that one of these books had “The Wizard of Oz” story as part of the collection.  It was the pink book, and “With Dorothy in Oz” was the first title. 

On this same bookshelf downstairs, I found “Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”. 

As I started reading through each of these stories, it reminded me of a quote from Madeleine L’Engle’s book “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”. 

“We tell stories, listen to stories, go to plays, to be amused, to be edified, but mostly so that we can understand what it means to be a human being.”

How does the story of “The Wizard of Oz” help me understand what it means to be a human being?  For me, I have always loved this story, and loved watching the movie.  Growing up, it would come on at least once a year.

I love how Dorothy gets help along her journey from the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion.  I love how they are all searching for something they already have.  They just needed help seeing it for themselves.  The Scarecrow always had a brain.  The Tin Man always had a heart.  And the Lion always had courage.  And Dorothy always had the ability to go back home.  But they all thought they need to go find “the great and powerful Oz” to get help acquiring each of these things.  I would say much of the time when we are on a personal journey, we have already been given exactly what we need, with support to help us along the way.

How does “Winnie-the-Pooh” help me understand what it means to be a human being?  For me, the mention of Winnie-the-Pooh evokes feelings of love.  Pooh was the nickname my dad gave to me when I was little.  I had my own Pooh stuffed bear, and it was special to me.  There were friends of my dad that would call me by this special nickname.  In fact, there is a certain man in our community that still calls me “Pooh”, even though I am almost 59 years old.  But I love it!  Pooh shows me the simple, lovely way of love.

How does “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” help me understand what it means to be a human being?

I think one of the wonderful parts of the Harry Potter story is how, even when we feel we don’t belong, there are people somewhere who understand us and except us for who we are.  I grew up in the same town where my dad was born.  Our roots go way back in the Silver Valley.  But there was and is still a part of me that still feels like I don’t belong here.  I can’t pinpoint why I feel this way, but I do.  But I have family members and a few close friends who accept me for who I am and make me feel a part of something.  They make me feel like I belong.   We all need to feel accepted for who we are and unconditionally loved by someone.

Other stories we will be sharing include “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Shakespeare”.  Paul is working on telling those stories, so I haven’t delved into those.  But I am sure each of them has a special message for me to help me understand what it means to be a human being.

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What is one of your favorite books from childhood, and how does it help you understand what it means to be a human being?

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