26 masterclasses and interviews on, storytelling, memoir writing, nature connection and opening your creative channel.
Now, you can have access to all 26 replays of conversations with Indigenous elders, film writers, health-care professionals and climate activists and master teachers on the craft of Sacred Storytelling for $47 with the Summit VIP Pass.
What Is a Sacred Story?
There are as many definitions of a sacred story as there are storytellers. For the purposes of what brings us together: a Sacred Story supports the cycle of life as it nourishes life thriving on our planet.
Our sacred stories bring healing, share wisdom, and support our evolutionary consciousness.
A Sacred Story may be best understood for what it is not: they are not divisive, they do not spread fear, or seed visions of death and destruction.
September 11
3pm PST / 6pm EST
Storytelling for Social Change
Moderator: Kathy Eldon: Founder of Creative Visions
Founder of Creative Visions Productions, dedicated to producing entertaining social impact media. Her first feature, Lost in Africa, produced in 1990, brought alive the horrors of ivory poaching in Africa.
Micah Fitzerman-Blue: Screenwriter, director and producer. Known for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Painkiller
Lily Diamond: Writer, educator, and advocate whose work seeks to redefine narratives of interdependence and care within our earth and human communities
Justin Winters: Co-founder and Executive Director of One Earth, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering everyone, everywhere with the knowledge, inspiration, and opportunity to heal the Earth and reclaim our future
September 12
10am PST / 1pm EST
The Transformative Power of Storytelling in Health and Wellness
Moderator: Pip Hardy
Passionate about making healthcare more humane, compassionate and person-centered through the thoughtful creation and use of reflective digital stories of patients, carers and staff to promote greater understanding, empathy and, ultimately, transformation. Also committed to the provision of non-religious pastoral care and promoting existential and humanist therapeutic approaches.
Burcu Simsek: A Digital Storytelling Workshop facilitator since 2009. She is the founder and the coordinator of Digital Storytelling Workshop Unit at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey.
Dr. Mike Lang: Health researcher, filmmaker, and Level 3 Common Language Digital Storytelling Facilitator. He has directed and produced five feature-length documentaries and three web series about the human health experience in addition to publishing academic research articles and facilitating the creation of over 850 short films (“digital stories”) with patients, family caregivers, and healthcare professionals.
Jo Tait: Jo’s PhD from the Open University (2003) shows how a university can learn from stories told by people at the edge. She helped direct a project at Surrey University that explored ‘learning for a complex world’ and later worked with medical consultants in the UK National Health Service, suggesting that doctors learn better when they feel safer – radical stuff! Since retirement, she has spent some 12 years helping people make heartfelt digital stories around their experiences of healthcare and wellbeing. In the past year, Jo has trained as a warm data host with Nora Bateson: your story changes my story.
Featured Panelists
September 11
3pm PST / 6pm EST
Storytelling for Social Change
Moderator: Kathy Eldon: Founder of Creative Visions
Founder of Creative Visions Productions, dedicated to producing entertaining social impact media. Her first feature, Lost in Africa, produced in 1990, brought alive the horrors of ivory poaching in Africa.
Micah Fitzerman-Blue: Screenwriter, director and producer. Known for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Painkiller
Lily Diamond: Writer, educator, and advocate whose work seeks to redefine narratives of interdependence and care within our earth and human communities
Jesse Bliss: Founder and Artistic Director of The Roots and Wings Project, a politically charged, socially transformative project-based theatre company that brings attention to truth and provides stage and space for voices of the unnamed, unknown and misunderstood. She is in pre-production with The Roots and Wings Project’s upcoming World Premiere, THE JOY RIDE, a show that delivers out of a vintage convertible with support from LA County Creative Recovery and Community Partners.
Leah Lamb: Founder of The School for Sacred Storytelling, and collaborates with the spirits of stories as tools for healing and transformation. She studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse in NYC, and with many masters of story in theater, film, and the ancient art of storytelling.
September 12
10am PST / 1pm EST
The Transformational Power of Storytelling in Health and Wellness
Moderator: Pip Hardy
Passionate about making healthcare more humane, compassionate and person-centered through the thoughtful creation and use of reflective digital stories of patients, carers and staff to promote greater understanding, empathy and, ultimately, transformation. Also committed to the provision of non-religious pastoral care and promoting existential and humanist therapeutic approaches.
Burcu Simsek: A Digital Storytelling Workshop facilitator since 2009. She is the founder and the coordinator of Digital Storytelling Workshop Unit at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey.
Dr. Mike Lang: Health researcher, filmmaker, and Level 3 Common Language Digital Storytelling Facilitator. He has directed and produced five feature-length documentaries and three web series about the human health experience in addition to publishing academic research articles and facilitating the creation of over 850 short films (“digital stories”) with patients, family caregivers, and healthcare professionals.
Kate Thompson: Existential therapist, journal therapist and writer. Originally from Yorkshire she now lives in the mountains above Boulder Colorado with her cat Circe. She sees digital storytelling as a layer to add to oral and written storytelling in therapeutic practice.
September 13
Healing The Climate Narrative Through Storytelling
3pm PST / 6pm EST
Moderator: Allison Begalman, The Hollywood Climate Summit
CEO of YEA! Impact, the co-founder/EP of the Hollywood Climate Summit, and the creator of USC School of Cinematic Arts’ first-ever social impact screenwriting lecture “Call to Action: Writing Stories of Relevance and Social Impact.”
She is a recipient of the Roddenberry Impact Award and the Walking Softer Young Leaders Award and a Social Justice Partners Los Angeles 2022-2023 Systems Change Incubator participant. She is also a founder of USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Feminist Media Festival. Outside of social impact, Allison writes for television and film. She has worked at companies like CAA, Annapurna Pictures, as well as on shows such as Sony TV’s PREACHER and Hulu’s MONSTERLAND.
Allison has spoken at Paramount Global, New York University, University of Southern California, Edinburgh TV Festival, Harvard University, and more.
Joanelle Romero: Born of Mescalero Apache-Spanish Sephardic. A relative of Pawnee, Navajo, Paiute, Pojoaque, Southern Ute, Haudenosaunee, kinship to Lakota, Jicarilla Apache. Joanelle Romero Founder President CEO Red Nation Celebration Institute. The Creative Enterprise by Natives Delivering to All People the Stories that Shape Our World is the longest-standing Native Women-Led Indigenous Media Arts and Cultural non-profit enterprise in the history of the entertainment industry.
Leah Lamb: Founder of The School for Sacred Storytelling, and collaborates with the spirits of stories as tools for healing and transformation. She produced the Green Channel at Al Gore’s Television Network, Current TV, and has covered the UN Climate Talks in Paris & Copenhagen. Her writing about the environment has been featured in National Geographic News Watch, Fast Company, Spirituality & Health.
Casey Rogers: Founder and CEO of Telea Insights, Casey Rogers brings forth over 20 years of experience in the non-profit, philanthropic, and business sectors. She works from a long-view perspective of positive change with a focus on tangible impact and bold results. Casey launched The Ellen Fund in 2018 and led the organization through a multi-million dollar initiative focused on global conservation and drawing on two decades of experience working in Southern & East Africa.
September 14
Reviving The Imaginal Axis: Mythopoetics For Modern Crises
3pm PST / 6pm EST
Moderator Ian McKenzie
A new paradigm filmmaker + writer, exploring the intersection of eros, emergence, and village. Co-Founder of the School for Mythopoetics.
Sophie Strand: Writer on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology.
Kai Cheng Thom: Writer, performer, cultural worker, and speaker.
Alex Beiner: Writer, podcaster and facilitator with a love for making sense of culture, hosting transformative experiences, and exploring how we can evolve and thrive in the chaotic times we live in
September 15
What Does it Mean to be a Myth Maker?
11am PST / 2pm EST
Speaker: Ariel Spillsbury
How does one embody the energy of the weaver dreamer archetype? Explore what it means to weave the worlds of myth through story with Ariel Spillsbury.
Ariel Spillsbury: Co-author of the Mayan Oracle and the author of the 13 Moon Oracle, is an internationally celebrated teacher, counselor and visionary. She has devoted her life to the spiritual awakening of all beings, with a special focus on reawakening the Divine Feminine in our collective consciousness.
September 16
11am PST / 2pm EST
How Prophecy and Original Story Inform the Present Moment
A Conversation With:
Jyoti Ma: Grandmother Vision Keeper of the Center for Sacred Studies , she co-founded Kayumari with spiritual communities both in America and Europe. Other projects she has helped to convene are the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and the Unity Concert
Yeye Teish: Teacher, dancer, storyteller, and high priestess. Author of Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Ritual.
Summit Schedule
Click on the date to see the daily schedule
11am PST / 2pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Joel Ben Izzy
Going to The Well To Discover Our Stories:
Whether we realize it or not, each of us is rich in stories. These are tales we have spent our entire lives gathering, of people and places we have known, of dreams pursued and dreams left behind, of treasures lost and wisdom found. All this and much more swirls inside us, the makings of stories we can share, guiding us as we journey through life.
1pm PST / 4pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/Leah Lamb
How to Tell Stories that Open Hearts and Change the World:
This fast paced introductory course will introduce the concept of a sacred story, and provide you a few more tools to support you in being a conscious creator.
3pm PST / 6pm EST – PANEL: Storytelling for Social Change
5pm PST / 8pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Kim Weitkamp
Living an Esthetic Life: Finding the Muse in the Everyday:
If you are a writer, storyteller, artist, or someone who wants to learn to see the beauty in everyday life, Living and Esthetic Life will teach you how to pull inspiration from the things you see and experience. Each second of every day holds a variety of things that can tweak the muse and add vibrant color to your creative endeavors.
10am PST / 1pm EST – PANEL: Transformational Power of Storytelling in Health & Wellness
11am PST / 2pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Eryn Lummerding
Energetic Well-being for the Storyteller:
Explore practical methods for purging negative energy from both the body and mind, illuminating its pivotal role in promoting well-being and enhancing the narrative art. Learn the process of disconnecting negative cords or attachments linking you to others, understanding their origins and effects on the body and mind. Recognizing how severing these negative connections can help foster a clear mind, increased vitality and better health.
1pm PST / 4pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Heather Christie
Expressive Embodiment Tools for Sacred Storytelling:
In this multifaceted workshop, we will explore the expressive vessel of your body and voice, tuning the instrument of ourselves through guided vocalizations, movement practices, and journaling. This is for everyone, no experience with vocalizing or singing necessary.
3pm PST / 6pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Alicia Dattner
Sacred Silly: The Alchemy of Standup Comedy:
Sacred Silly is transformative one-day workshop that delves into the healing power of humor. Rooted in the belief that laughter is a potent catalyzer, this workshop explores the art of standup comedy, not just as a form of entertainment, but as a medium to connect, heal, and uplift. Participants will embark on a journey where the sacred meets the silly, learn how to write a joke, and discover the magic that lies in the intersection of humor and healing.
9:30am PST / 12:30pm EST – STORY CEREMONY w/ Leah Lamb
Hour of the Wolf (Divination Story Ceremony):
Please be on time. This session will close at top of the hour and will not have a recording.
1pm PST / 4pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Rachel Capurso
The Great Myth of the Sun: Intro to the Zodiac:
“Did you know that the zodiac is actually a story? The 12 signs represent different chapters of the epic myth of the Sun’s journey.”
The journey of astrology begins with the Sun, which is the center of your being. In your natal chart, the Sun symbolizes the formation of one’s core identity and illuminates one’s conscious sense of purpose. To know your zodiac sign is to understand what part of the Sun’s myth you were born to embody! Your Sun sign describes the quality of light that shines through you.
In this workshop, you’ll take a journey through the whole zodiac, through the Sun’s myth of rise and fall; death and rebirth.
3pm PST / 6pm EST – PANEL: Healing The Climate Narrative Through Storytelling
5pm PST / 8pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Marisa Handler
The Magic of Memoir ~ Mining the Treasure Chest of Memory:
No one can tell your story but you, and the telling itself offers rich gifts of insight and healing. And memory is a plentiful wellspring of material, and writing an unrivaled means of exploring it. Using guided exercises and prompts, we’ll go deep to mine some of the treasures from our lives, and render them on the page.
6pm PST / 7pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Hāweatea Holly Bryson
Open Listening Doorways ~ Indigenous legacies of receiving, story stewarding and healing:
Listening is a layered art, and those layers are an inherent part of traditional storytelling and the approach to wānanga (Māori ‘schools of learning’). Lore, truth and revelation are continually held, awaiting the listener’s arrival, revealed for you and by you as reciprocity. Uncover a deeper capacity for listening and confirmation, and for being guided by the inspiration coming through. Ever feel like no one is truly listening? We are constantly trying, moving and making. The urgency or yearning we feel within ourselves is a call to first, listen. This masterclass looks toward the importance of listening skills in Indigenous legacies of receiving a story, storytelling/ story-guardianship, and, story-release and healing.
11am PST / 2pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Sirena Andrea
Sacred Enchantment – The Story of Cerdiwin, The White Witch of Wales:
In order to enchant a listener and capture their imagination there are key storytelling ingredients that when included in a story, create unwavering attention. Come listen to the retelling of the classic Tale of Ceridwen. A Welsh sorceress, who can brew life-altering potions, to change her form, and to inspire knowledge and beauty in others. Legends say she is one of the original goddesses of creation and inspiration.
1pm PST / 4pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Niema Lightseed
Playing with the Power of Words:
Explore the ways language affects consciousness. Words enable us to understand ourselves, communicate with others, and participate in shaping reality. They are symbols imbued with as much meaning and power as we give them. Understanding how our word choices affect our minds and bodies enables us to be more precise, empowered, and intentional storytellers. This blend of theory and practice invites students to engage in the creative power of wordcraft.
3pm PST / 6pm EST PANEL: Reviving The Imaginal Axis: Mythopoetics For Modern Crises
5pm PST / 8pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Jacqui Bushell
Wilder Language of Belonging: Earth Stories and Ecomythology
Through a mythic lens, discover emerging stories of place to open new doorways into mystery, wonder and possibility. Initiate a deeper embrace between your creative heart and the world soul. Blossom your senses, shapeshift your perception and be enfolded in a wilder language, contoured by the choruses of crickets, a caress of moonlight on water, or the brush of wing. Tune into subtle levels of listening and create reciprocal relationships within nature.
6:30pm PST / 9:30pm EST – STORY SALON: Open Mic
Bring your story! This event is open to the anyone who wants to tell a story around the theme of Beginnings that is 5 minutes or less!
11am PST / 2pm EST – SPEAKER: What Does it Mean to be a Myth Maker? w/ Ariel Spillsbury
1pm PST / 4pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Leah Lamb
How a Wondertale Came to Be:
A Sean Kane story study group
3pm PST / 6pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Michael Meade
Stories at the Edge of Time:
Nature and culture used to be known as the two great garments of the world and at this time both are in danger of unraveling. Nature and myth used to be seen as sacred texts, with each being a living language trying to speak to us.
As threats of division and collapse increase in the outer world, a balancing vision and liberating energy for renewal tries to awaken in our souls. Mythic narratives weave the divine and natural realms together in ways that become antidotes for our anxieties and fears. Since myths speak to each soul differently, they can deliver to each listener the psychic facts and healing factors they most need.
We are living in a Kairos moment, at the edge of time where things become both impossible and more possible at the same time. The next world is hidden in this one and the narrative wisdom found in stories provides the psychic foundation for a genuine awakening. When something awakens in us, something also awakens in the world.
Michael Meade is a Renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology. He combines hypnotic storytelling, street-savvy perceptiveness, and spellbinding interpretations of ancient myths with a deep knowledge of cross-cultural rituals. He has an unusual ability to distill and synthesize these disciplines, tapping into ancestral sources of wisdom and connecting them to the stories we are living today.
He is the author of Awakening the Soul, The Genius Myth, Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of The Soul, Why the World Doesn’t End, The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul; editor, with James Hillman and Robert Bly, of Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart; and the creator of the Living Myth Podcast.
Michael Meade is the founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a nonprofit network of artists, activists, and community builders that encourages greater understanding between diverse peoples.
5pm PST / 8pm EST – MASTERCLASS w/ Dina Fraboni
Energy, Thinking and The Creative Mind:
Feel blocked? Not know where to start? Too much to say, but nothing gets on the page? What’s going on? This masterclass is an introduction to learning about energy, thinking, and our creative minds. In this interactive presentation, you will learn simple principles of energy, different ways it flows through our creative minds, and how our thinking can help or hinder the creative process.
This master class is an introduction to Dina and her upcoming classes on Spirit Helpers, Dreams and Dreaming, Energy Management for Storytellers, and Developing Intuition.
11am PST / 2pm EST – PANEL: How Prophecy and Original Story Inform the Present Moment
1pm PST / 3pm EST – OPEN HOUSE
The School for Sacred Storytelling:
Come learn about our 2023-2024 program.
3pm PST / 6pm EST – MASTER CLASS w/ Celia Alario
YOUR Irresistible Eloquence ~ Practices and Play for Honing Your Authentic Voice and Building a Better Future!:
In this playful interactive session we’ll take a peak into the transformational leader’s toy box of tools and tips for tapping into your most authentic voice and delivering any content in ways your audiences will find irresistible. Banish what holds you back and cultivate your strengths so you can speak truth to power and change the world.
Meet Our Summit Teachers
Joel Ben Izzy
Going to The Well To Discover Our Stories
Sept 11, 2023, 11am PST
Leah Lamb
How to Tell Stories that Open Hearts & Change the World
Sept 11, 2023, 1pm PST
Kim Weitkamp
Living an Aesthetic Life: Finding the Muse in the Everyday. For writers, storytellers, songwriters and anyone wanting to be inspired by life.
Sept 11, 2023, 5pm PST
Eryn Lummerding
Energetic Well-being for the Storyteller
Sept 12, 2023, 11am PST
Heather Christie
Expressive Embodiment Tools for Sacred Storytelling
Sept 12, 2023, 1pm PST
Alicia Dattner
Sacred Silly: The Alchemy of Standup Comedy
Sept 12, 2023, 3pm PST
Rachel Capurso
The Great Myth of the Sun: Intro to the Zodiac
Sept 13, 2023, 1pm PST
Marisa Handler
The Magic of Memoir: Mining the Treasure Chest of Memory
Sept 13, 2023, 5pm PST
Hāweatea Holly Bryson (Hāwea)
Open Listening Doorways: Indigenous legacies of receiving, story stewarding and healing
Sept 13, 2023, 6pm PST
Sirena Andrea
Sacred Enchantment: The Story of Cerdiwin, The White Witch of Wales
Sept 14, 2023, 11am PST
Niema Lightseed
Playing with the Power of Words
Sept 14, 2023, 1pm PST
Jacqui Bushell
A Wilder Language of Belonging: Earth Stories and Ecomythology
Sept 14, 2023, 5pm PST
Michael Meade
Stories at the Edge of Time
Sept 15, 2023, 3pm PST
Dina Fraboni
Energy, Thinking and The Creative Mind
Sept 15, 2023, 5pm PST
Celia Alario
YOUR Irresistible Eloquence: Practices and Play for Honing Your Authentic Voice and Building a Better Future!
Sept 16, 2023, 3pm PST
Learn the Sacred Art
of Storytelling
Everyone is a storyteller whether they know it or not.
It is the natural way we communicate our thoughts and feelings, a way we express our joys and losses, how we transmit our ideas and craft our greatest mistakes into wisdom stories.
In a world made of people glued to phones, consuming stories through every medium imaginable at a faster pace than ever before, we don’t know who the storytellers are, what they are in service to, and what they want by telling their stories.
Our capacity to communicate is altogether changing, and we find we have less and less real experiences to have conversations and dialogue.
Traditional storytellers were weavers – connecting the divine with the mundane, the spiritual with the earthly, giving access to all who listened an insight into a world they may not otherwise have had access to, thus helping them bridge the lessons of the story to their own challenges.
We all have that ability – to give others our knowledge in a way that would benefit them and help them to achieve the results they seek in their own lives.
It also gives us a way to practice one of the most key aspects of life – the circle of giving and receiving.
When we step into an energetic field of storytelling and story catching, this is what we are doing. We are giving our gifts, sharing our wisdom; we no longer have to carry our grief alone.
We can release, transform, and alchemize, for the benefit of all.
Learn the Sacred Art
of Storytelling
There is an ancient language calling through the ethers of time. Ready to be reclaimed and remembered. It speaks through the roots of trees, through the mist of clouds, the cry of an unseen bird. It arrives through the vehicle of a living sacred story, and these stories are living in, and through you.
The old stories are asking to be healed, and the new stories are ready to emerge, and the sacred stories are holding the wisdom of the ancients.
But can you hear them?
Is your vessel clear? Is your listening honed?
Can you catch and carry them so that they might be heard? Is your mind prepared to break through your paradigms? Are you packed for a journey into the mythic realms and ready to face the mysteries?
These stories are your stories.
The School of Sacred Storytelling
Step into a sanctuary… where we gather in the name of engaging one of the most ancient tools on our planet to engage our humanity, tap into ancient knowledge and wisdom, connect, heal, and share pleasure and delight.
The School for Sacred Storytelling is on a mission to bring healing to the stories of our times, and those courageous beings who tell them.
We see story as an extraordinary vehicle that connects us to the root and intelligence living with earth, while being connected to the unseen world of spirit. As storytellers, we commit our voice to healing, social change, and with the intention to serve life, the alchemy of these two energies meet within the vehicle of our bodies, and the resonance of our voice can change the world around us.
Within this Sanctuary of storytelling you will find a monthly Storytelling Series, courses that focus on connecting to the natural world, to the unseen world, and of course, a wide arrange of courses about storytelling.
Meet the founder, Leah Lamb
Leah has collaborated with story as a writer, actress, filmmaker, producer, and focuses on working with story as a healing modality. She founded The Performance Initiative, a non profit committed to utilizing the arts for social change, where she produced, ENGAGE: a multimedia event designed to encourage voter participation, which led her to working at Al Gore’s network, Current TV, where she hosted and produced the green channel.
Her writing on the environment and culture can be found on National Geographic News Watch, Planet Green, GOOD Inc,, and Spirituality & Health Magazine, and through the award winning PSA about climate, “I did Noth’n”, and served as the arts advisor for the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation.
Learn the Sacred Art
of Storytelling
“Everybody acts out a myth,
but very few people know what their myth is.
And you should know what your myth is
because it might be a tragedy
and maybe you don't want it to be.”
Carl Jung