Ep 62: Rescuing Stories, Healing Hearts: Henry Cameron Allen's Folklore Theatre

What could be more perfect than the combination of live theater and folklore? In episode 62, Henry Cameron Allen, founder of Folklore Theatre Company, shares his journey from local theater director to global storyteller. He discusses the company's evolution from local to international productions, including the audio series 'The Lore.' We explore Henry's background as an author, speaker, grief counselor, theater director, as well as the noble goal of his Folklore Theatre Company's goal of rescuing, protecting, preserving global stories. Henry explains his educational initiatives like the Young Mystics Club (life skills program for children) and his book 'The Lost Traveler's Field Guide,' which reframes grief through quantum physics, even for those without a science background. We discuss folklore's role in personal growth and cultural preservation in this enlightening episode. Don't miss it!

Links: https://www.henrycameronallen.org/

🎭 Introduction to Folklore Theatre Company (00:08 - 10:38) 

Guest: Henry Cameron Allen, founder of Folklore Theatre Company, Henry's background: author, speaker, grief counselor, theater director,  Folklore Theatre Company's goal: rescuing, protecting, preserving global stories, First production at Great American History Theater in Minneapolis, 

🌍 Development of Folklore Theatre Company (10:40 - 22:35)

Henry's son Cameron passed away in 2008, leading to an existential crisis, Started Folklore Theatre Company to preserve local stories, Produced over 40 original productions based on local folklore, Invited by UN to develop workshop in Fiji using folkloric theater,  audio theater series called 'The Lore', Curating library of folk and fairy tales from around the world, Working with diverse artists and musicians globally

🎧 The Lore Audio Series (22:36 - 33:06)

 Four tales currently available, more in production, Emphasis on representation and imagination in audio theater, Stories chosen for universal qualities and relatability

🧠 Educational Initiatives (33:06 - 42:51)

Young Mystics Club: life skills program for children, Activities include botany walks, Reiki training, African drumming, archery, Focus on well-rounded education and experiential learning, Addressing ignorance and fear through education, 

🌟 Folklore and Personal Growth (42:51 - 52:06)

Folklore as a tool for personal development and understanding, Triskelion symbol: oldest known common human symbol, Representation of interconnectedness and individual journeys, Folklore as a way to connect with ancestral DNA and find comfort

🔄 Grief and Quantum Perspective (52:06 - 01:00:30)

Henry's book: 'The Lost Traveler's Field Guide', Reframing grief journey through quantum physics lens, 13 dimensions of grief experience, Difference between mourning (passive, temporary) and grief (active, permanent)

📚 The Lost Traveler's Field Guide (01:00:30 - 01:09:46)

Book explores grief journey through quantum mechanics, Emphasis on present moment and infinite possibilities, Concept of expanding comfort zone rather than leaving it, 

🎭 Supporting Folklore Theatre Company (01:09:46 - 01:18:16)

New podcast in development: 'The Theater Weebles', Importance of patrons in keeping theater arts alive

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Transcript

Welcome, welcome folksy folks, to fabric of folklore. I am Vanessa Y. Rogers and this is the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of folklore. The weather vane is an example of a material folklore, and it is thought to be as old as the first century BC. Invented by the Greeks, the first weather vane was a bronze sculpture of the greek God Triton, the ruler of the sea. However, in the 9th century AD, the pope decreed that the rooster be used as a weather vane on all church domes and steeples. And it's thought perhaps it was because it's a symbol of Christianity, referring to Jesus prophecy, that Peter will deny him three times before the rooster crows. And of course, weather veins are still in use today. They're mostly for decoration. 

V

Vanessa

00:52

We don't really need them to help direct the sails of the ships coming in or predict the weather. But isn't it amazing how old this tradition is and that we're actually still using weather veins? And that's really what this podcast is about. It's about exploring the history of the culture of humans all across the world and understanding why and how that history still impacts us. So that if that sounds like podcast you want to continue to listen to or watch, make sure you hit that subscribe button, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcasting platform like Apple or Spotify. That way when you subscribe you'll get notifications every week when our podcast drops. We have a fantastic show for you today. Our guest is Henry Cameron Allen, the founder of the Folklore Theatre Company. 

V

Vanessa

01:44

He's an author, speaker, internationally certified grief and survival counselor. He's also a theater director, life skills mentor, and the podcaster of the Lost Traveler podcast. We're going to be talking to Henry today about the folklore theatre company and its goal in rescuing, protecting and preserving stories that are dying globally. We'll also be diving into the importance of folklore and fairy tales and the positive effects on mental health for all ages in our time and the future. So welcome, Henry, thank you so much for joining us on fabric of folklore. 

H

Henry

02:20

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I've been wanting to. I've been following this podcast for better part of a year, and I've just been so impressed at how deep you go into these stories and, you know, searching, peeling back the layers and finding their cultural significance. It's quite impressive. So I'm very pleased to be here. 

V

Vanessa

02:43

Well, thank you. And I've been following you probably about the same amount of time, and I love all the work that you're doing and theater is, you know, is part of me. I grew up, I met my husband in theater, and I just have such a passion and a love where I don't do it today just because life, but it is something that has always and will always hold a special place in my heart. So the fact that you have a folklore theatre company is just like so wonderful to me. 

H

Henry

03:16

Thank you. Me, too. 

V

Vanessa

03:20

So can you tell a little bit about your journey and how the folklore theatre company came to be? 

H

Henry

03:27

Absolutely. Well, I graduated in 1993 from the National Theatre Conservatory, which was part of the Denver center for the Performing Arts. It was put in place by FDR, and it was the premier acting and directing school of the country. Sadly, it's no longer, but it's been sort of rolled into the Denver Center Theater company. They still do trainings, wonderful regional theater. And so I came out of that a couple years later. My son Cameron was born, and were in Minneapolis, moved from Denver to Minneapolis, and I got involved in theater right away. And my first production in Minneapolis in the Twin Cities, it's in St. Paul, Minnesota, was at the great American History Theater. And they were taking folklore to a whole other level, all original works based on contemporary folklore. But, you know, 20th century mostly. 

H

Henry

04:31

And that's sort of, you know, I grew up all over the world. My father was a cultural diplomat for the USIA, which no longer exists. It was the us information agency that was developed to be the propaganda wing of the us government back in the fifties, sixties and seventies. And so he produced these huge expos of american culture, which, as we know, is pretty much all appropriated. But they wrapped it up in a red, white and blue ribbon and sold it back to the world as american. We made it better. And so you get, buy it from us now. So in growing up in Europe, we lived in Vienna, Austria, cold war Russia. We were in Moscow. We were in Peru, Brazil, Cuba, all places that are very rich in folklore. 

H

Henry

05:22

And that is what I clung to as a child, also being a child of the sixties. I don't know if you remember Danny Kay. He's most famous probably for the film Hans Christian Andersen, the musical film that he did about the authorization. And it's beautiful. And if, I mean, there are some things that may not be politically correct today, but it's a beautiful, and he did a series in the sixties and maybe the fifties of folk and fairy tales from around the world on record. And I didn't grow up in a particularly happy environment and playing these records where he did all the voices, because he was that talented, but they were layered with music and sound effects and atmosphere, and they were so immersive. 

H

Henry

06:17

And it was a way for me as a child going through some trauma to sort of click out of that reality into my own imagination. I got to cast myself in all the roles that he was portraying because you couldn't see, you just heard his voice. So it was fully interactive theater. But you imagine what the king looks like or what the princess or the Dragon or the monster looks like, right? You're forming as a child all of those pictures. And so I've gone to that my whole life. You can actually go on YouTube. Somebody recorded this album. It's Danny Kay reading Grimm's fairy tales, some of them. 

V

Vanessa

06:59

Okay, well, we'll have to provide a link for that for people. 

H

Henry

07:04

Fast forward. In 2008, Cameron passed from brain cancer. He was my only child. I was a singer. 

V

Vanessa

07:12

I'm sorry to hear that. 

H

Henry

07:13

Thank you. And talk about an existential crisis. You know, I couldn't figure out who I was or where to go, what to do. The first thing that we experience as what we call peregrines, it's like a word like widow orphan to describe a grieving parent, which I hope everybody will start using it. The first thing to go is your sense of purpose. Right? Especially, but not exclusively, but especially if you have just one child who passes. Many, many peregrines who experience the passing of one child somehow detach or feel a bit lost in their connections to their other children. They're trying to get through their own intense grief. How do you hold your child's siblings? Surviving siblings. Right? So it was a big mishmash of emotions, and it was like the big bang. It was like everything exploded the universe. 

H

Henry

08:11

And I knew after a year that I couldn't stay in Minneapolis, where we. Where he lived his whole life. And so my instinct and impulse took me to Gloucester, Massachusetts, and I took a year and a half to really explore the area and look for the holes. What's missing here? What are people not doing? Gloucester is an island town, a fishing town, seaport in America, in Cape Ann, Massachusetts. It's the other Cape, not Cape Cod, that's at the north. And there were seven theaters, seven theater companies on this island. 

V

Vanessa

08:54

Wow. 

H

Henry

08:54

Which is amazing, the saturation of theater and appreciation of the arts. And every company was doing something different, but nobody was holding the local stories. And schools weren't teaching much local history. How does a child, how do any of us know who we are if we don't know where we come from. And we're a storytelling cheese right since the beginning. And so I decided to start the folklore theater company to preserve and protect these stories that are being lost with the people that carry them. Right. People transition, carrying their stories with them. And we are very disconnected. We are all lost travelers in that sense. And so we start talking to families who have genealogy in Gloucester all the way back to the 16 hundreds. And the more we produced. 

H

Henry

09:51

And in about eight years, we produced over 40 original, full scale productions, most of them musical, all based on local folklore. And it was magnificent. We did not have a single show that didn't sell out standing ovations. I mean, these were their families were telling about. We were sharing their stories, preserving it, and we did other things, too, but it was all rooted in local lore. And after seven years, I started to feel that itch. Okay, how do I, as an artist, how do I grow? How do I transition and expand what I'm doing? And I was thinking about that. I got a phone call from the United Nations. I thought I was being punked. Is this you, Richard? And it was serious. Somebody had come across my name and the work that I was doing, which was unique in the region. 

H

Henry

10:47

Nobody else was doing folklore theater in New England. And people were coming up from New York to see our shows. I mean, were pretty well known. 

V

Vanessa

10:59

Yeah. 

H

Henry

11:01

And they invited me, the UN, to develop a workshop, a two week workshop, Fiji for indigenous youth using folkloric theater as a medium for. Toward positive change in their country. And I didn't know what to do with that, you know? But I'm gonna say no. The UN wants to send me to Fiji as some kind of theater emissary. Folklore. And what that experience, it turned out to be a groundbreaking workshop. It was. We had 30 young people, ages 18 to 30, and I split them into two groups, and each one chose a fijian myth or legend that they could use to adapt it for their message for a new day. They were moving from a series of military coups into the first democratic elections in over a generation. And so they were at sea. They didn't know what to do. 

H

Henry

12:02

So to tell their ancestral stories as inspiration and with the message of empowerment, especially for indigenous people. And I didn't want to be the big white american theater guy coming down saying, all right, little brown people, here's how you do it. The american way. 

V

Vanessa

12:17

Yeah. 

H

Henry

12:18

It had to come out of them. And that's. I guided it and framed it. I called the workshop Tala Noamanda, which in the indigenous bow dialect means stories to tell. In the South Pacific, you see it in New Zealand, you see it in Fiji and other island nations, and in Hawaii, even with the hula, that their folklore is mostly danced interpretively, because in the 17 hundreds, when the Methodists showed up and convinced the chiefs of the largest tribes that you're already christian, you just got to cut away the evil, you know? And what that meant was put on some clothes, stop eating each other. Fiji was known as the cannibal islands for good reason. And stop telling your stories because they're evil. Speak the names of your old gods because they no longer exist. 

H

Henry

13:14

And that did a number on the psychology and emotional life of the indigenous population of the islands everywhere. And today, it's taboo to speak the names of the old gods. And every village had its own deities, had its own mythology and its own folklore. But over the years, over the centuries, it's been condensed into six stories, all in a primer called fijian myth and legend. And all of these youth that I worked with had that little booklet in school, fijian myth and legend, they. They knew very few stories beyond those six. Can you imagine? 

V

Vanessa

13:55

Yeah, that's crazy. 

H

Henry

13:57

So one of the plays that they did and adapted was from that primer. And the other one, a brilliant young writer, she was 23 at the time. This was in 2014. She told us about lying on the mat of the hut with her grandmother, and her grandmother would whisper the old stories to her as they were bed asleep. They couldn't speak them out loud, but in whispers. And she remembered one that fit theme. And we used that story that none of the other participants knew. And so, in many ways, it was groundbreaking. 

H

Henry

14:35

And I came back to the States just sort of vibrating and feeling that this impulse that I had to bring folklore to the fore in ways that are measurable and important for our time, that define who we are, is more than in just one location in Glasgow, focused on just local stories. Now my wings were spreading globally, and I followed that impulse, and it brought me to Europe. And we had planned on developing an international touring company that was using folklore as its foundation. And in that sense, it was an experimental theater company exploring the dance across the threshold between the human physical experience and the human mystery experience, the non physical, if you will. The energies interact with that, call them fairies, call them gnomes, call them spirits that we've interacted with throughout human history. 

H

Henry

15:44

And then Covid hit, and that put the kibosh on the idea of an international touring company because nobody was traveling. And that's when I remembered Danny Kay, and I was like, hey, I can be the Danny Kay of the 21st century, and I can go back and provide, because these kids were imprisoned at home, isolated from their friends, not able to go to school. And what outlet did they have other than YouTube videos and SpongeBob squarepants at Disney to click out of their anxiety and depression? So, yeah, so it occurred to me, here's an opportunity, right? Every challenge brings with it an opportunity. Don't we learn that in fairy tales? 

V

Vanessa

16:31

Right? 

H

Henry

16:31

And so I proposed to my colleagues that we should do an audio theater series for children, and it's called the Lore. So between 2011 and 2020, I had been doing exclusively live theater, and now I have this opportunity to explore audio theater as a way for especially children, but even adults. We're nostalgic, right? And we all have that inner child. Some of us didn't get a tales and fairy tales growing up, certainly from other parts of the world. We got stuck in Disneyland, you know, and literally, which took a lot of liberties with the original tale. Right. I know you've done podcasts about that. And so the goal with the lore is to curate a library of folk and fairy tales from around the world that may not be familiar to people at large. 

H

Henry

17:41

They're not generally taught, either because they're dark or because they're from a part of the world that doesn't have the platform to share their stories, or in many cases, as I know you've talked about with indigenous stories, the stories are sacred. They are not to be shared at large. Right. So we have to be mindful about that. The core theater company is, we call it the folk heart, and we meet every Saturday. There's an open invitation to anybody who's watching. You can go to folklore world, and you can come to our space, the folklore, the folk heart forest, and it's a beautiful, mossy woodland scene with a fire pit. And it's just a really great place to have conversations about this. And, yeah, so we're very mindful and careful about how we approach the stories that we curate. 

H

Henry

18:42

It's very important to us that because we're dealing with cultures around the world, that the contemporary writers that we work with are of the culture that they're writing about, either genealogically or born and raised in that culture. They have some tie to the culture out of which the folklore and fairy tales are born, which gives it a richness and a depth that is so beautiful. And we layer it with original music. We work with musicians and composers, and so they write music that's customized to the story. We layer it with atmosphere and sound effects, premier vocal artists, voice artists from around the world. We have actors from Italy and Germany, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, UK, us, all over, really all over the world. And I'm very proud of that. All I did was open a door, and people have stepped in. 

H

Henry

19:47

So, yeah, so that's where we are. We have four in the can currently that are available digital downloads, which I think, you know, the holidays are approaching. What a great way to download them. Put them on a zip drive and put them in your kids stocking. I mean. 

V

Vanessa

20:02

Yeah. So where would someone find these? Are they podcasts? Are they on YouTube? Where would they find these? 

H

Henry

20:09

They're available for purchase, $10 a download. I tried to give it a moderate price. And if you go to folklore world and you click on the button, the folk and fairy Tales series, that'll take you to that page where I've separated them out, the four tales, and you can click on that, it'll take you to our Patreon, and you can hear a five minute sample of each story. And you can pick and choose. You can, you know, mix them up, or you can just purchase one. Yeah, yeah. I try to make it as seamless and easy as possible for people even who are not technologically savvy. 

V

Vanessa

20:57

Well, that sounds really like a beautiful project. That's. That's really neat. And what was that one called? That was called the lore. 

H

Henry

21:06

The series is called the Lore, and we have plans to do other works. We are. I know you did a podcast about Baba Yaga, and I've written an original new folk tale about the three Baba Yagas, the three sisters, and it's the Baba Yaga. It's called Cackle and Bone, the Baba Yagas and the lost Maidens. And it brings in other characters from slavic folklore into the story, and they interact, and it's the Firebird and kosheh the deathless and all these wonderful, rich characters, and, you know, puts. It's an adventure. And so I've been working on that. We've been workshopping it, and so that's coming. That's down the pike. But we, you know, we've all been familiar with the Screen Actors Guild strikes, right, where actors are saying the. 

H

Henry

22:00

The moneyed people are putting a value on our work as artists, and we're getting under served, and we need to value our work and say, these are the parameters we want supporters to work within. So I've made a promise to the company that we're not going to produce a play until we've raised the funds to do so on the front end. So everybody gets paid, and that's really important. 

V

Vanessa

22:24

So this, what you're writing right now for the Baba Yaga is for live theater or for the audio production? 

H

Henry

22:32

It's everything we're doing right now is audio. And the craftsmanship that goes into the production of one of these 30 minutes plays, audio plays. 

V

Vanessa

22:46

I can imagine it would be weeks and weeks. 

H

Henry

22:50

You know, we did Cupid and Psyche, the roman myth of Cupid and Psyche and Aphrodite, and, you know, brilliant. It was written for us by one of our founding members who is a renowned playwright in England, Peter Oswald. He was the playwright in residence at the Globe Theater. His work has been produced on Broadway, in the West End, the national. I mean, he's the real deal. And he wrote this beautiful adaptation of Cupid and Psyche. My Cupid lived in Seattle and my psyche lived in Hong Kong. And so fortunately, Cupid was a morning person, and psyche Washington, you know, kept artist hours, as we say. And, and so it was after midnight her time, and it was 09:00 a.m. His time, and it worked. It was great. 

V

Vanessa

23:40

That is awesome. 

H

Henry

23:42

Yeah, yeah. So little things like that make me giggle, but yeah. 

V

Vanessa

23:46

Yeah. Well, I love whenever you start doing live shows again, I would love if you could do one in Texas. That would be amazing to see because I don't think I've seen many live theater about folk tales, and I do think that is a missing element in a lot of theater. 

H

Henry

24:08

You know, a lot of schools and a lot of YMCA programs are doing the boiled down Disney junior shows. And that's the only folklore that children are getting outside of. You know, storybooks like Cinderella, snow, you know, all the classics, which are great. Most of them are european. We need to break that mold. 

V

Vanessa

24:36

Right. 

H

Henry

24:36

They're not. They're great stories. And if you go back to the original, one of the recordings that we did was the little mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. And that's the only one that's an hour in length, and we sell it in two parts of, so that it's broken down. I don't want kids sitting with their earbuds in for an hour. Right. So take it in bite sized chunks and then go play at the characters you were just casting yourself as. Right. What I love about audio theater as opposed to visual, and I still love visual theater. Don't get me wrong. I love live theater, miss audiences. But audio theater is a unique, interactive art form. We talk a lot in our storytelling world about representation, there's a real disconnect still in the 21st century, where people are either misrepresented, underrepresented, or not represented. 

H

Henry

25:35

And so the beauty of audio theater is that you can't see the actors that are portraying characters. They're embodying the soul of the character. And the listener, whether child or adult, gets to imagine what the king looks like, what the monster looks like, what the hero or the princess look like. And very often they look like them. Right? From the age of three, children are able to imagine whole worlds. Why are we taking that away? When you're reading a book to a child, it can be a wall between the adult and the child. 

H

Henry

26:14

And even if you're holding up the pictures, right, and reading the story like this and showing them the pictures, you're showing them images that were imagined, created and executed by an adult mind, an adult imagination, an adult artist with folkloric theater, with the lore, children get to form those images themselves. There may be descriptions, but they have to imagine we provide the scaffolding, as it were, for their imagination to hang on those bits. And then they can go make their own book. They can go draw pictures of the characters that they learned about and then go outside, run around and play being mermaids or being dragons or whatever. So it's fully interactive in that way and works that imagination muscle in a way that no other art form does. The pacing has breath in it. 

H

Henry

27:15

It's not this manic, Spongebob, powerpuff girls, high pitch, you know, constant drone. It's got layers to it and it's got breath in it. And we actually. Are you familiar with Solfeggio frequencies? 

V

Vanessa

27:33

No. 

H

Henry

27:35

So, look, it's. It's their healing frequencies. You know, everything, everyone is. A frequency operates at a certain vibration, and if you match those vibrations, they can calm anxiety. 

V

Vanessa

27:51

Like, is this. Is this like you can go into a lab and have your actual frequencies be measured? Is that the type of Orlando? Wow. 

H

Henry

28:00

You don't have to do that. I mean, there are some people who experience debilitating anxiety, for instance, social anxiety, things like that. And as they're having their brain scan, they're looking at what the frequencies are that are causing them stress. So, you know when you feel it, when you hear a high pitch frequency and you just get tense, right. And then there are other frequencies that are. That are at different levels, different hertz, that can actually be calming. They can be healing in some cases. And because social anxiety and depression are so prevalent in children, right. Now, child side has gone up over 50% in the last ten years. That's real statistic. 

H

Henry

28:46

And I think that audio theater with this kind of attention to mental health can calm that savage beast a bit and bring them back to a place of stasis and balance internally. That's what it did for me back in the sixties and early seventies, listening to Danny Kay. It brought me down to my core, where I could self regulate. And that's our goal with the lore. We're taking great pains to do that. 

V

Vanessa

29:18

Do you think it's because the characters in the stories are going through, you know, tribulations and suffering, and the children are able to relate to that? Or where do you think that mental health healing is happening? 

H

Henry

29:35

Well, I think there's a universal quality to stories. It doesn't matter where the stories come from, we can relate to them universally. They may be set in a different culture in a different time, with imagery and language that we're not readily familiar with. Think of listening to Shakespeare for the first time. It takes your ear a while to acclimate to it, but then you fall into the rhythm of it, and then you understand and you are able to gauge what is the situation, who are these characters? And so it's very similar in this sense. And so, yeah, I think that. That when you are able to come back down to a level in yourself that recognizes that you have ancestral DNA, that remembers these stories, there's a great comfort in that, and we recognize them. 

H

Henry

30:37

It's like there's this great cosmic radio, and it's your radio, it's unique to you. You're the only one who can plug it into the juice, right? And then the only one who can turn it on. And what happens? Maybe I'm dating myself, but I don't know if people use radios anymore. But when you plug it in and turn it on, you have to turn the dial to find the matching frequency. It could be a particular song. You're like, oh, yeah, I love that. You feel it in your bones, you feel it in every fiber when you're jamming with it, right? Or it could be a chat show that you have interest in, or it could be a channel that's all share all day, shout out, share. And that's where you stay in that frequency. 

H

Henry

31:23

And then, you know, when you're no longer in that frequency, and then you turn the dial again. And sometimes it's a very subtle movement to find that next frequency that you vibe with. So it feels like that. And that's what we're hoping to open up in people to give permission to turn your dial and to think about your own frequency. We are at once, like the radio. We are a receiver and an amplifier. We receive information, we process it, and we amplify it. Right? And because of the intensity of media manipulation and algorithms and all of that, where especially kids are vulnerable to this, they're looking for likes, they're looking for how many people are watching. They're looking for that hit of validation and recognition that doesn't exist in folklore theater company. Right. This is a completely different place. 

H

Henry

32:25

It's a different way of listening to stories. And the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. 

V

Vanessa

32:33

And so what have you heard from people who are listening to it? I would love to hear some thoughts. 

H

Henry

32:40

Well, I think people were asking, well, what age groups are these for? Right. Yeah, I think they're for everyone. I cannot dictate, nor would I to a parent, what is appropriate for their childhood. So what I encourage parents to do, if you're purchasing the story for your children and you have very young children, it's only $10. That's like two lattes from Starbucks. Right? So it's not break anybody's bank. Listen to the story, or at least listen to the sound clip and gauge how you feel when you're listening as a parent, as an adult, if you're buying it for a niece or nephew or a grandchild, gauge how you feel and then amplify that feeling, because children are walking sense organs, right? And so when you feel a certain way, and these are dramatized stories, and some of them are quite dark. 

H

Henry

33:36

Little mermaid, were very faithful to the original, and it's quite dark, but those emotions live in all of us, and they're relatable, and they're not over dramatized like the Disney films with the, you know, the hunter raising his knife, and he's gonna cut out Snow White's heart, and she's running through the forest screaming, and the trees are turning into monsters. You know, I mean, it's not that dramatic. It's very cinematic, and it takes you along on that journey. There's a lot of adventure, but it's going to be up to the parents to decide if their child is ready. Nobody knows their children better than parents. And maybe it's save it for later. Right? And some stories are more appropriate for very young children, and some are more, you know, getting into the tweens and above. 

H

Henry

34:31

So you really have, and really have to engage. And that's another thing we hope to encourage, is parent participation and grandparent and auntie teacher. I think these would be brilliant in schools as well, because children are forced to sit in a hard chair for most of the day. They get very little outside time. And if they have a break or they can just have a moment to drop their shoulders and listen to a story, then the teacher gets a break, the parent gets a break, everybody gets a break. The child's engaged, their imagination is engaged, and it's not for a long period of time. Right? You can break it up. So, yeah, so I think it's for everybody. And the feedback that we've gotten is that children, especially, who are dealing with anxiety or depression, this clicks them out of that mode. 

H

Henry

35:25

For neurodivergent children, it's also been a godsend because it helps them regulate their emotions. It gives them focus. And the audio is multidimensional as well. So when somebody's walking across the room and you're wearing your earphones or earbuds, you hear them from this side, and the sound effect is like they're walking across the room. So it's, you know, it really is a rich, immersive world that we're creating here. And that's calming. It's very calming. I mean, I remember having that experience listening to records when I was a kid. And now to be able to do that with the technology available to us in our time, and none of this is AI, this is all human generated. So there's a lot of craft that goes into it that's amazing. A lot of love. 

V

Vanessa

36:18

Well, I know our school, and this, the elementary school that my children are attending, they do a folklore and folk tale series. And my kindergartener daughter came home yesterday telling me that Pinocchio ends up as a donkey. And that's the end of the story. And I've never read the original Pinocchio. I didn't realize that. And she was like, that's what really happens. That's the end of the story. He's a donkey. And it was funny because were watching Pinocchio at the same time, the Disney version. 

H

Henry

36:53

Emotional, too, right? 

V

Vanessa

36:54

Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it is very emotional. And it's just an interesting story. I don't know if people, it's, you know, it's much older, so a lot of people don't watch the older ones. But I'm always thinking, like, I feel so bad for Pinocchio, you know, Geppetto sends Pinocchio off to school. It's his first day of life, and he doesn't, like, walk him to school. Of course he's gonna be manipulated by someone. 

H

Henry

37:22

Go figure. It's actors, right? Sorry. It gives us a bad name. We're not like that, really? 

V

Vanessa

37:29

Yes. Right. Stromboni, the puppeteer who only wants money. 

H

Henry

37:35

Scary and very, when that puppeteer got angry and red in the face, I remember being frightened as a kid. And those images you look at, even what are seemingly on the surface, innocuous films, beautifully animated, like fantasia. 

V

Vanessa

37:50

Mm . And, yeah, fantasia has serious imagery. 

H

Henry

37:56

And that's all from adult imagination and artistry. And that comes back to, again, the european folk tales that we know and love that scared us as children and sometimes were meant to, you know, to keep us behaving, or Krampus is going to come and kidnap you. Those were not written for children. 

V

Vanessa

38:23

Right. 

H

Henry

38:24

They were written for adults as a primer in child raising. Right. Put the fear of God in these kids. Fear in terms of respect. I mean, make them shiver and have nightmares at night. Right. Mess with their heads. But we forget that. And I think that it's not anyone's fault that these stories became children's stories. But you look at tales written by people like L. Frank Baum, for instance, the year after he published the wizard of Oz, the wonderful wizard of Oz, in 1900. Can you believe it's been that long? In 1901, he published anthology of american fairy tales. And someone gifted me that book because they knew I was a huge fan of the Oz books. There are 14 of them. Everybody should read them. But he wrote, you know, and he wrote some. 

H

Henry

39:25

Some fearsome stuff, you know, the witches, obviously, and. And the threat and the, you know, animals that have the heads of tigers and the bodies of bears, and then the hammerhead people would, you know, stretch their necks out and pop you know, and the child is the protagonist in all of his stories, whether it's Dorothy orlando, whoever. And I love the empowerment of girls, but also the empowerment of children to overcome adversity, to learn to trust their instincts that I got from the Oz books. And so I was, as were curating our first stories, one of the stories that popped out to me was one that he wrote in this anthology. It's called American Fairy Tales, and it's probably available as an ebook for free. It's called the capture of father time. 

H

Henry

40:26

When was the last time you ever even heard about father time? In. 

V

Vanessa

40:30

No. 

H

Henry

40:31

Right. 

V

Vanessa

40:32

Yeah. 

H

Henry

40:32

So this is an ages old folkloric character. And elfring Bohm brought him back for this story about this young cowboy who's out on the range, and he's practicing his lasso, and he accidentally Lasso's father. Time and time stops, and so he makes all this mischief in the town and, you know, changes the old biddy's hats and put it on the policeman and paints the barber's face blue and, you know, fun, silly. Yes. 

V

Vanessa

41:05

Yeah. 

H

Henry

41:06

So, you know, moral at the end, you know, about responsibility and about what you do with the time that you've got. And precious time is. And so I put that into the hands of an american playwright, contemporary playwright, Dana Schwartz from LA. And she did a treatment on it that it's now called catching time, and that's one of our lore stories. 

V

Vanessa

41:32

Oh, cool. 

H

Henry

41:33

I was reflecting on. I'm kind of a history buff. Nobody talks about black cowboys in the west. You look at any Hollywood movie about cowboys. Do you see very many, especially in the era of the westerns? No. They were prolific, and so I cast it accordingly to make it not deliberately about that. It's that they are black or african american, how they identify. But it's really. It's a human story, but in the casting, it generates some interest in a part of american history that we've not been exposed to adequately. It's a marginalized population that has not had a platform to share history. So here we have an opportunity to cast it and to present it in a way that, without saying it, sheds light on that wonderful, interesting, layered, nuanced part of american history. So it's that kind of thought that goes into it. 

V

Vanessa

42:36

Yeah, absolutely. I can't wait to listen to some of these. They sound so interesting. Okay, so one of the things that I. Sorry, we've gotten off on a lot of. A lot of tangents, and I'm like, what questions have I not answered? Let's talk a little bit about your. The folk heart logo, because one of the things you have this really beautiful logo that is three spirals combined into basically a heart. But there is a history behind that logo. 

H

Henry

43:14

Right there is. It's actually the most ancient known common human symbol. It's found in every neolithic cave painting culture. It's been carved into stone in the Grange in Ireland by the Celtics and the nomads, the druids. It's found india. You know, in the world's most ancient cultures, we see this triple spiral. And in fact, you might notice it is a part of my own folklore now. 

V

Vanessa

43:49

Wow. So for people who are listening, he's showing his arm, and on his arm, he has a rather large. It's almost the entire length of his forearm, and it's the focal symbol. 

H

Henry

44:02

Yeah, it's that symbol. And it's called a triskelion. And the triskelion, again, is the oldest known common human image that nobody knows where it came from. Maybe aliens, who knows but see different things in it? There's a power in the number three. Historically, in folklore, you have the three weird sisters, the three witches, and you have the three wishes. Right. There's something about the three that is primordial in our humanity. And for me, I mean, some people see land, sea and sky. It's an elemental symbol. Body, mind, spirit is another three that people see in Ithoodae. Some people see the goddess symbol, the three trimesters of pregnancy. Right. Some people see the father, son, holy ghost motif in it. So we have imposed upon this mysterious symbol. Some people see an ocean wave, right. It's kinetic. These spirals have movement. 

H

Henry

45:08

It almost looks like a musical symbol as well. And what it means to me is that we are all individually, culturally, spiritually. There's another three on our own unique path, our unique journey. But at the center of it all, we are connected, and we are one. We are one symbol together, even though we're each on our individual path, our individual journey. And that's what I love about the Spiral, is that's how time moves. Our tagline is standing at the crossroads, which is the center of the past, present, and future. Another trio. Right? So that's what it represents. That's why I adopted it as the logo for the folklore theater company, because everybody can look at it and be inspired in their own unique way. What does it mean to you? It's a meditation. 

H

Henry

46:07

It's a meditation and a reflection on how we are all connected. Even though, you know, we may appear to be different. We're all related. We're all. We all have the same ancestral mother. 

V

Vanessa

46:22

Yeah. That is a beautiful symbol, and I love that there's such a rich history behind it. That's really wonderful. One of the things that stuck out to me when I was reading on your website about the folklore theater was emerging voices. What does that look like to you? What are the emerging voices that you were trying to highlight? 

H

Henry

46:48

I think any voice that is speaking new folklore. Where do we hear modern folklore? And when I talk about that, it's not. I mean, folklore means the stories of people. That's all it means. But we imbue it with a kind of magic that exists in the imagination and in the past, distant past. Not Harry Potter magic or Houdini magic, but human magic, nature magic. And where they meet that liminal space, the space between spaces, where they overlap a little bit. The Irish call them the thin places. Right? The place where the veil between worlds is thinnest. And again, it's part of that frequency. You feel a shift of some kind in the usual places of magnificent beauty. And many people who are emerging as artists now in our time have a very powerful life experience and voice to be heard. 

H

Henry

47:52

This is why I think that you're familiar with stem, right? Science, technology. 

V

Vanessa

47:58

Yes. Well, now, they added an r, an a for arts. 

H

Henry

48:04

For arts. Some. 

V

Vanessa

48:05

Yeah, they call it steam at our school. 

H

Henry

48:07

Some have, some haven't. And I'm so gratified to hear that your school. Bravo, mama. I think parents need to get out there and advocate for it, because to bring arts back into the school, arts are the least funded part of an education. They can't get enough at home, there aren't enough at school programs, and many are very expensive. 

V

Vanessa

48:28

Yeah. 

H

Henry

48:29

And so I started one with the folklore theater company that I'm trying to figure out how to bring online. It's called the Young Mystics Club, and it works. It's a way to bring in people who have, you know, who are mentors. There's a great lack of mentorship in the world, and so to bring in different modalities of life skills. So, for instance, we had a botanist come in and take the children on walking trips around the city, and they would look for nature in their urban environment, and they would learn about what that plant was. Why is it thriving here? Oh, wait, what's that dead patch over there? Or maybe a dog peed on that and it killed all the grass. 

H

Henry

49:19

Well, we made flower bombs, took natural clay and mixed in wildflower seeds and so little pouches that we filled with these flower bombs. And so every time the children were out on a walk or out with their parents, you know, going to the market or whatever, and they saw a patch where there was no life, they could throw down a flower bomb, and the clay feeds the seeds, and the rain comes and come back in a few weeks, you're going to have beautiful wildflowers. So that's the effect we have on our environment. You know, we had a Reiki teacher come in, and our students were ages five to 15, and every single one of them, at the end of the course was a level one Reiki master. 

V

Vanessa

50:07

Oh, wow. 

H

Henry

50:08

They got a certificate. And that's as simple as, you know, your dog has an owie, right? An ear infection or whatever. And you can work with your frequency and that person, maybe your mom has a headache or maybe your brother, you know, stubbed his toe or whatever. And so it's really about bringing your energy, focus, your frequency into the frequency of another, and use that for healing. We had theater. We had african drumming. We had archery, which was really cool. 

V

Vanessa

50:44

Yeah. 

H

Henry

50:46

Nutrition. What children are learning about nutrition, very few, right? So it was using all of these different modalities. I did a workshop for parents that I also want to bring back, and it's entitled, does being well rounded make my kid look fat? Because I don't see many well rounded kids these days. And what's that about? I think that's about parent education, frankly. And I haven't put my finger on why it's epidemic, but it is. 

V

Vanessa

51:21

And when you say well rounded, what are you referring to? Like, they don't have a lot of skills or they're not getting a lot of mentorship from different types of perspectives. What are you thinking? 

H

Henry

51:35

I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but ignorance is rampant. We keep our children ignorant, and we keep ourselves ignorant. And we are kept ignorant by our governments, our religious leaders, our community leaders, politicians, all of that. We're kept ignorant. And ignorance breeds fear. And a fearful people are a controllable people. Right. When you have a herd and they're frightened, they're gonna. They're gonna move in the direction away from the fear. Right. But. But if you are fearless, which I think, again, ties back to folklore and fairy tales, fearlessness is a quality that we can achieve. 

V

Vanessa

52:24

Right? 

H

Henry

52:25

Even children. I was not a fearful child. I wasn't afraid of the dark. I wasn't afraid of a monster under my bed or in my closet. I wasn't afraid of being abducted. I wasn't afraid of bugs or snakes or dogs or anything. And my second grade teacher misses Fend, and I always remember her name because it was like, fend for yourself, kid. You know, I love that. But she gave us an assignment to write a short paragraph on our greatest fear. What is your greatest fear? And at eight years old, I was thinking to myself, why would a grown up ask a kid to focus on their fear? Why would I want to dwell there? But that was the assignment. I had to do it. And I'll tell you, the only thing I could think of at eight was outliving my children. 

H

Henry

53:13

That was my overriding fear. And when I moved through that experience, the greatest gift in his transition is that I get to walk the rest of my life fearlessly and be an example. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I can be an example. Through my life and my way of maneuvering and navigating the world, anyone who's a witness effortlessly has permission to do the same on their terms. Right. So I think that when it comes to these marginalized voices, as you were asking about, may have been suppressed. Their voices, many indigenous voices, are still unheard. Look at people who identify in a myriad of ways. There are as many ways of being human as there are humans, frankly. And so how do we uplift one another? 

H

Henry

54:15

I believe that our eyes are set in the front of our faces because for millions of years, there were no mirrors, that we have to be the mirror to one another. We see ourselves reflected in the other, in one another. And I believe that it's possible to identify, regardless of your faith, regardless of your politics, your life situation, socioeconomic status, there are common threads through our humanity that we need to start reweaving whole cloth out of. But it has to be a conscious act of identifying those common threads rather than pointing a finger at somebody else. Right. Judging them, blaming them. My grandmother used to say, honey, when you point a finger at somebody, you got three pointed back at yourself, and that's it. It's about really examining your own triggers. 

H

Henry

55:13

And rather than saying, you need to change who you are to suit who I expect you to be, and that's your partner, your kids, your community, your leaders. Right? It's about within yourself. Why am I triggered by that? They're just being who they are. I wouldn't want them to ask me to be different than I am. Right. Why am I expecting them to change? To match the fantasy that I've imagined in my head? That has nothing to do with them. It's everything to do with me. So it's about taking that responsibility. And I think that for marginalized voices, that is empowering. It's empowering for all voices that reflect taking ownership of yourself with a capital. 

V

Vanessa

55:59

S. And so is that what that particular course would look like for the whole. What do you call it? The well rounded child? 

H

Henry

56:09

Yeah. Yeah. It's about, you know, showing them, traveling with your children to other parts of the world. How many people don't know that Africa is not a country? 

V

Vanessa

56:24

Right. 

H

Henry

56:26

There are at least 56, maybe 58 countries in Africa. And you can fit the entire United States, all of Russia and China, I think, and Europe into the continent of Africa. It is massive. 

V

Vanessa

56:42

Oh, wow. 

H

Henry

56:43

Massive maps don't do it justice. 

V

Vanessa

56:45

Right. 

H

Henry

56:46

Right. We have to start learning the entire United kingdom. Entire United Kingdom would fit into the state of Oregon. Where's our sense of scale? And that's not just on our planet. That is in the cosmos as well. Did you know that you can fit 14 planet earths in the north pole of Saturn? Yeah. It's that big. 

V

Vanessa

57:14

Wow. 

H

Henry

57:15

Every picture of Saturn we've seen has been on a computer, television screen, mobile phone book. Right. Look at the scale. Think of the scale of that image next to you. Right? So it's part of breaking the illusion of the things, the programming that we've inherited from our parents, our grandparents. This is an inheritance. I liken it to a cassette tape that everyone inherits that has been passed on from generation, generation. It's got particular messaging on it, whether it's faith based or politics or culture. And you're expected to inherit it. Pop it in your brain and play it on a loop, but nobody tells you that. Way back in the closet, under a bunch of blankets and old coats, there's a cardboard box that's full of blank tapes, and you have access to it. 

H

Henry

58:13

You can go and you can pick out a blank tape, pop it in, and record your own music. That's what well rounded is. It's about accumulating life experiences and really letting yourself be the sum of all of your parts. I had a very unique childhood. It was a blessing to be able to travel the world. We lived in Vienna. The first theatrical performance I remember was seeing the Nutcracker ballet at the Vienna Opera house. I remember going to the Moscow puppet Theater in the ballet there. And I remember, you know, in Brazil, the folklore and carnival and. And, you know, all of this stuff. I knew what a drag queen was when I was in the fourth grade, and there was no big about it. It was no big thing, right? Because it was just there. 

H

Henry

58:58

It was part of the culture, and it was, again, it was a parade of humanity across my threshold. Every child deserves that experience. That's what being well rounded is. I'm not saying you have to go to every country in the world, but travel in your own country. Go on an adventure every year, every quarter of a year, every holiday that the kids have from school, take a break. And whether it's local, find a field guide, right, your bookstore or your gas station, and go find those off the beaten track places and experience those thin places, those majestic places of breathtaking beauty with your children. Let them see you experience the world with awe and childlike wonder at the mystery of it all. We don't even know what consciousness is there's no master. There's no guru. There's no expert in anything. 

H

Henry

59:52

If we can't even figure out what consciousness is, all bets are off. What now? And that's what we as artists, is to open. Open people up to that, and especially parents and people of the parenting generation as well, because even if you don't have kids, little eyes are upon you to be in the world. 

V

Vanessa

01:00:16

Right? So tell us to change gears just slightly. You recently came out with a new book that has a similar title to your podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

H

Henry

01:00:29

Yeah. So the lost Traveler has kind of become my brand. I went to Brussels a few years ago, actually, I was heading to the belgian coast, but they gave me the wrong ticket in Brussels. I ended up in Germany, and I got up and said, where's the ocean? They said, oh, it's on the other side of the country. What are you doing here? I said, well, they gave me the wrong ticket, so I had to go back to Brussels. And there was a woman sitting behind the counter, the ticketing agent, and she was smoking, as everyone still does in Europe. And she looked at my ticket. She looked at me. She took a big drag off her cigarette. She said, you are a lost traveler. 

H

Henry

01:01:10

And my heart exploded because that was the first time I had ever heard a precise description of what it feels like to be a peregrine, to be a parent who's outlived a child. You feel like a lost traveler. And then I was sitting with that on the whole trip and thinking, a lot of people feel like lost travelers in this world. It's crazy time. And what do we do with that? Right? We have to guide each other. And I had this dream, really, where it played out like a video series. And I'm actually working on the video series. I have animation intern in Cincinnati. I'm in Spain. They're in Cincinnati, and they're working on animating the series for me. But in the meantime, I thought, you know, gosh, this needs to be a book. 

H

Henry

01:01:58

And it's all about reframing, reimagining the grief journey through a quantum lens. Quantum physics. Quantum mechanics. The difference between quantum physics and classical physics is that the rules are all different. We know from quantum physics that everything is interconnected. When they say that everyone is energy, everything is energy, that we're made of star stuff, all of that. It's been proven. It's true. It's fact for now, as far as we know. 

V

Vanessa

01:02:32

Right. 

H

Henry

01:02:33

Theory. People think of a theory as a hypothesis in science, a theory is actually something that has been measured and proven. So quantum theory is another way of saying it. And so these things are measurable, and we know that there, if you have two particles like subatomic particles, on opposite sides of the universe, they can interact with one another. 

V

Vanessa

01:02:57

Wow. 

H

Henry

01:02:59

But they have to be witnessed in order to interact. It's like, does a tree make a sound if it falls in the woods? Right? Somebody be there to experience it. It's the exact same concept. That's quantum physics. Does a bear poop in the woods? Right. Kind of a thing if there's no dare to see it. Right? So to frame the grief journey, and when I talk about grief, it's not just about outliving a loved one. Any major change of life situation carries with it a degree of grief. Grief is a universal life skill. Every single one of us, all eight plus billion on the planet, are going to meet grief in one measure or another at some point in our lives. And when people say to me, oh, I'm sorry for your loss, I'm like, loss? I didn't lose anything. I've gained fearlessness. 

H

Henry

01:03:54

We wouldn't be having the folklore theater company wouldn't exist had Cameron not left the planet when he was meant to the way that he was meant to. Cameron, you say, papa, nobody has an expiration date on the bottom of their foot. We don't know. None of us knows when or how we're going to go, the way or the day, right? So it's really about the moment. And so what I wanted to do with this book, the Lost Travelers field guide, navigating the grief journey through a quantum lens, is it lays out 13 dimensions, which is more dimensions that quantum scientists even think exist or know that exist. So it goes down the rabbit hole in that sense, but it's in a very. Even for people who are not scientifically minded, it's a gentle hand holding through a progression. Grief in any form is nonlinear. 

H

Henry

01:04:47

But if you consider that dimension zero is the big bang is what we know of the Big Bang, that first there was nothing, and then, boom, the universe exploded into existence. And it's still moving, right? So the very moment after impact, after someone passes or you've had a major life change, it's like dimension zero. It's like this mysterious big bang, and your ears are ringing. You're in shock. You're physically, like, vibrating. And that sort of segues into mourning. And mourning is a temporary and passive state. There's nothing you can do but sit in it and experience it while you start to make sense of your feelings and your experience that you've just been through. And then there's a very membrane that you cross through between mourning and grief. They're different. The quality of them is different. Mourning is passive and temporary. 

H

Henry

01:05:47

Grief is active and permanent. When you're in grief, you're going to grieve that thing for the rest of your life. And how you navigate that, those following, you know, 15 or 16 dimensions beyond that. And there's a workbook that comes along with it so you can personalize it like a journal. There are reflections, there are creative exercises that you can do because creativity, steam, is all about channeling your emotions, making sense of your emotions. Emotional literacy is another life skill. Universally, we all have to learn, navigate and regulate our emotions. So this is a gentle way. And then there are affirmations as well that you can sort of use in your own meditative or prayer practice that you can reflect on. Where am I? You can look to these 13 dimensions and identify, where am I right now? 

H

Henry

01:06:44

Am I still in dimension zero, in shock? Or have I moved on to dimension four or five or twelve and then back to two, right, because then hits you like a tsunami unexpectedly, and you're back in the vortex of morning that so hard to break out of, right? So it's exciting, it's an adventure. And like a field guide for a road trip, like I was talking about, it'll take you to these unexpected, off the beaten track places that you may not have considered before. And I'm sorry for your loss. Or when I hear people say, I lost my husband or I lost my child, I lost my mother, like, well, where did you put them? Or did you lose them, right? They're not a set of keys or a favorite scarf. 

H

Henry

01:07:29

You know precisely where they are every time you think of them, every time you feel them, every time you see a sign or what you construe as a sign, they're very much alive, living in you and through you. So this opens that up to the possibility that maybe we don't understand it all. Maybe there's a lot of mystery around death. Even Peter Pan says, to die will be the greatest adventure, right? And it's true. So if you look at your life as an adventure and not as a continuum, right, because you can't go back in time except in your imagination, and you could have shared a moment in the past with somebody and they have a different memory of that very same moment, right? 

H

Henry

01:08:15

Your perspective, your own and unique, likewise, there's no time machine to take you into the future nobody has promised tomorrow. Not me, not my son Cameron, not my dad, my, you know, nobody. Time space can be condensed to a pinpoint. This moment is everything. And you and I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time. But if you think about it, your entire biography, my entire biography, the biographies of our parents, grandparents, great grandparents, all the way back to mitochondrial Eve, our common ancestor has, you know, all that pain, all that struggle and strife, that fear, all of that passion and creativity and imagination and romance and love, it's all prepared us. All of it has prepared us for this conversation in this moment. 

H

Henry

01:09:13

If were meant to be in a different moment, having a different conversation with somebody else, we would be. But here we are. And now what? Right? So that pinpoint is surrounded by an infinite. What I see as a peacock tail of possibilities. It's infinite. Your job and mine, everyone, your only job is to choose. Choose a trajectory, go to a point b, check in with yourself. At that point b, do I feel comfortable? Do I feel safe? Do I feel happy? Do I feel fulfilled? Right. If the answer is no on any level, that point b, magically, because this is magic, turns into a brand new point a surrounded by an infinite peacock tail of possibilities, and you just choose a different trajectory. 

H

Henry

01:10:01

And when you start that practice, it becomes instinctive, because you're going to feel within yourself that frequency that you're matching with. Yes. In this place, at this point b, I feel safe, comfortable, protected, happy. And you might hang there in a while. You might, you know, check out the architecture, paint something on the ceiling in that moment, you know, do something. You know, that you feel comfortable. So many life coaches out there say, got to get out of your comfort zone to grow. I disagree. That's like saying, get out of your wellness zone. You got to get really sick before you get well, right? That no sense at all. Get out of your comfort zone. No. Expand your comfort zone. Identify what makes you feel safe, happy, and comfortable. That's what our stories do. Right? 

H

Henry

01:10:54

And you asked earlier about what is it about folklore that children resonate with? Because they are closer to the womb than we are, and they may remember viscerally that feeling of being in a safe, protected, fluid environment. They're not wearing any binding clothes or shoes. They are free to float. They are nourished by their mother. They don't have to worry about nutrition. Right? The mom has to. They hear music, the mother singing or humming lullaby, reverberating through her muscles and bones. They hear her blood and organs moving through her body. They may hear muffled sounds of music or people around the mother nurturing and comforting her, hopefully. I know that's not always the case, but. But it's protected environment, even if it is, you know, not particularly happy on the outside. The child that's growing within and the womb is stretchy. 

H

Henry

01:11:56

It's not a rigid structure. It grows with the baby. It stretches and expands. You've had a baby in your. In your. I mean, it's stretchy. Everything is. 

V

Vanessa

01:12:09

Well, they make it stretchy for sure. 

H

Henry

01:12:12

Well, but that's a great metaphor for this. And I think ever since the first human, we've been striving to replicate the womb with every article of clothing that we buy, the fabrics that we put against our skin, the. The bedding and bed that we buy, our furniture, even the people we surround ourselves with, our homes, our beautiful homes, the way we decorate, the experiences that we cultivate in our lives. That's all about recreating that sense of comfort. It's not a rigid structure to hide in like an eggshell. It's stretchy. So identify those places that make you feel comfortable, whether it's listening to the lore, whether it's. That's really what it's for, is to identify, is to teach them that life skill of identifying their own comfort level and owning and recognizing it. Because when you're striving for that point, b, instinctively you're seeking comfort. 

H

Henry

01:13:10

It's our oldest ancestors who were still sleeping in bushes and thorny trees. Somebody saw a cave in the mountain and said, ooh, that looks more comfortable than the thorns. But, oh, the floor is a little cold and rocky and uneven. Well, I'm going to lay down some plant material and some animal pelts and some feathers, and I'm going to make myself comfortable. We're all looking for comfortable. It's not about survival. We've been taught and programmed to be in survival mode all the time. That's very anxiety producing, very stressful. It's why we're seeing so much anxiety, social anxiety, adhd in kids, because that's the programming. But if we teach children by our example as parents and adults that the womb is stretchy, that your comfort zone is stretchy, then you're teaching them by showing them that you can expand your comfort zone. 

H

Henry

01:14:05

And that really is what the folklore theatre company as a tool for life skills education is about. 

V

Vanessa

01:14:16

That's just beautiful. And I. And I can't wait to someday see a live performance, hopefully in the near future and also in your imagination when. 

H

Henry

01:14:27

You listen to the story, it's all your. You're casting it, right? Yeah, we get to be the director. 

V

Vanessa

01:14:36

Have we missed anything? I know we've quite a bit. Is there anything that you haven't touched on that you wanted to talk a little bit about? 

H

Henry

01:14:45

Well, you know, you had asked me earlier about why should people donate to the folklore theatre company, and I think that's a really important question, as we are kind of a grassroots movement now. We need supporters of the arts. We need people who understand the vision here and what we're aiming to do. And again, we're not able to produce anything without being able to pay our artists and engineers on the front end for their labor. You think about the work and artistry that goes into each one of these stories. It's a lot more than $10 worth of tell you. So if you go to our website and you click the Patreon page, we have different tiers of giving, and you can become a monthly donor. It could be as little as $10 a month or as much as you want. Right. 

H

Henry

01:15:36

And every level, every tier has some perks that come along with it. We're developing some merch now, too, you know, because, of course, the logo is beautiful, and giving is creative. When you're supporting the arts, that's your giving, your act, your impulse to be a philanthropist. Theater. We have a new podcast we're developing called theater weebles. Remember weebles? Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. 

V

Vanessa

01:16:01

Well, that sounds cool. 

H

Henry

01:16:04

Look it up. They're great. I wish they still made them, but they're little egg shaped characters, like fisher price type characters, and they were egg shaped and weighted at the bottom so they would wobble, but they wouldn't fall down. And that was angle. Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. So theater is like weebles. We wobble a lot. But you look at the history of theater, you look at the ancient history of theater throughout the ages. It's had a lot of wobbles, and we're going through one now. Yeah, but we haven't fallen down. And we have always relied on patrons of the arts to keep our art alive and afloat and expansive, expanding that comfort zone. And that's the lifeblood of the arts, of any arts. 

H

Henry

01:16:54

But for the folklore theater company, I urge people to go to folklore world and click on all the pages. We have all our policies and bylaws on there, and we're very transparent as a company. They can come to one of our Saturday folk heart meetings as well. There's a link there on the website. So that's it. That's what I have to say. And there's somebody ringing my doorbell and the dog's going nuts. So I think this is a good time to jump out of the boat. 

V

Vanessa

01:17:23

Well, thank you so much for joining us. Henry and I will provide all the links on our website, fabricafolklore.com. And thanks again. 

H

Henry

01:17:34

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure and hope to do this again sometime. 

V

Vanessa

01:17:39

Absolutely, absolutely. We appreciate all the listeners and the watchers following fabric of folklore. And if you are enjoying this show, like I said before, make sure you're hitting that subscribe button on your YouTube. Or if you're listening, you can also follow us on social media. We're primarily on Instagram and on Facebook, but you can also find us on X and on LinkedIn as well. Thanks so much for joining fabric of folklore. While we unravel the mysteries of folklore once again, I'm Vanessa Y. Rogers, and until next time, keep the folk alive.