Tenderly Holding Each Other’s Stories
For EcoGather to grow into a collaborative transformative learning network, we must co-create conditions that nurture trust & share our knowledges in an environment of supported courage & grounded hope.
“The word mycelium means ‘more than one.’ The mycelium organism is a dynamic root system of mushrooms that utilizes trust as a mechanism to build and sustain a vast, reciprocal, underground network that connects the roots of trees and plants and skillfully shares nutrients and resources to support the health of the entire ecosystem with which it moves. This mycelial network cannot exist without trust. ...The mycelium communication highway recognizes and believes in the collective ability to channel and receive nutrients where needed, protect against parasites, and expand roots into necessary sites of growth. The network process also fosters intergenerational relationships that welcome the myriad of ancient wisdom and connections that reside in older trees to benefit younger trees. These mushrooms affirm a commitment to building relationships of trust that encourage all life to bloom.”
—Adaku Utah,
Cultivating Trust As An Organizing Strategy: Lessons From Mycelium
Experiential Learning, Shared Reflection & Trust
We seek wisdom from experiences, elders, and ancestors.
We make sense of our experiences in the retelling.
We learn from each other by listening openly.
Meaning making, then, is borne of both experience and expression, which can be either solitary or shared.
Choosing to invite others into our experiences and reflections is an act of vulnerability.
Safely releasing our defenses and opening to possibility can only happen when there is trust.
To foster trust, support co-creation, and respectful exchange of knowledges, EcoGather commits to a set of storytelling ethics that center intentionality and ongoing consent.
EcoGather's Story Ethics
Handle Stories with Care
Attend to the essence of a person, being, community, or place at the core of a narrative.
Recognize that rich stories with the power to connect, teach, build empathy and motivate change are more than mere retellings of events. Reveal the who and the deep why behind the events.
Seek opportunities to keep power in the hands of the story-sharers. Be prepared to attend to emotions that may arise in the telling or reviewing of their stories.
Balance the desire to construct a compelling narrative with the preservation of dignity.
Some stories are not meant to be shared outside of their cultures, communities, or contexts of origin. Honor these boundaries.
Collect and Use Stories Consensually
To obtain knowing and voluntary consent, clearly communicate the aims and purposes of your story gathering before asking the story holder to disclose. For EcoGather, communicate the educational purposes of story collection.
Avoid creating undue pressure to share for the benefit of others, regardless of how valuable the story seems. Listen for why the holder/sharer of a story believes their story to be important.
Explain that EcoGather can set expectations for how learners care for stories, but we cannot control how the stories are held by others who encounter them.
Honor an individual's desire to be present in or absented from a particular story.
Explore the possibility of anonymity or blurred identifiers if doing so would preserve dignity or enhance safety, but do not assume that people want to be obscured.
Foster Authentic Expression & Representation
Allow storytellers and contributors to speak in the language of their heart when possible.
Collaborate with an able translator when sharing stories across languages to preserve meaning.
Explore ways to augment expression beyond the written or spoken word, where possible. Engage multiple senses.
Do not shy away from the difficult realities of a situation, but also attend to complexities and nuances. Select forms of expression that have adequate space for the complexity of a story or provide opportunities for further exploration.
Two (or more) things can be true at once. Do not succumb to easy caricatures or force tidy conclusions. Embrace dynamism and tension. Look for emergence. Remember both dark optimism and active hope.
Review compositions for sensationalization or stereotyping. Avoid editing that over-emphasizes the most dramatic or challenging components of a story. Revise if skewed or problematic misrepresentations have crept in.
Build in time and opportunities for feedback from those who shared the story at a point in the process when responsive adjustments can still be made. (Clearly communicate review timelines and final deadlines.) Receive feedback gratefully and with humility.