Cass | The Rivers Were Home — The Inner Workshop

Teller: Cass Spong

Cass helps people in organisations become more engaged through a Systems based organisational development consultancy she founded. She is a daughter, a partner, a friend, and the stranger who will never pass up a conversation, should you ever find yourself sitting across her.

Theme: Map of Becoming

At her cue, I did not use my guided prompts to steer our conversation. But the conversation filled - readily- with the stories of her life that fall into a certain narrative arc, around themes that felt they’d been ripe for a long time. The hour went over slightly, and Cass’s sharing of herself completed neatly, with no stray ends.

Cass had invested into the idea of the Map of Becoming, and wanted me to explore that. I did not realise this then, but now it is clear that her story had somehow been written- and it lived larger than her. It was not raw, it all seemed to fit nicely together, a conclusion from layers upon layers of self-discovery.

So in addressing Cass’s Map of Becoming, I was drawn not to What and Where she had been, but to the How and the Why - the small threads she had been following, to the place where it emerged of the boundless whole, as Parker Palmer wrote in his poem.

But as clearly as I could see Cass’s portrait, making it became a journey in itself for me, as I became lost in my inner fog of insecurity. My wilful mind - wanted to say what it saw, but I knew that the whole truth was always going to be beyond me. My creative ego felt like a trespasser, hoping to get away with mere pretty lines, to masquerade a living breathing thing into a fairytale. I struggled to materialise, as an amateur tracker/storyteller of her and her world, and in a bid not to fail, I studied and took guidance from storytelling mages as much as I could.

From Clarissa Pinkola Estes, I learnt of ‘bones’ - the core of, and oldest parts of ourselves, and was inspired to begin an excavation for the ‘bones’ of Cass’s story.

“The more the story bones, the more likely the integral structure can be found. The more whole the stories, the more subtle twists and turns of the psyche are presented to us and the better opportunity we have to apprehend and evoke our soulwork.”

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Place and origin, initiation and journey, and people and relational ties, were all themes she had almost, if not already named for me. These became the story bones.

🗝️🗝️🗝️

One day in between drafts, I stumbled on something and grew hopeful and excited. It felt like the key to Cass’s story.

“Because, when you know the universal language, its easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether its the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant.”

-Paulo Coelho

There were twin souls somewhere, the ones Coelho had identified, and they would meet each other, two sides of the same self. In a similar fashion, Martin Shaw writes of the wild twin. In the story Tatterhood, he speaks of how at birth, we are first accompanied into the world by, and then separated from, our wild twins, who carry our instinctual drives, and unlike us, live unfettered by society .

Once I had gathered story bones- which gave me conviction of what the story was really about, and had found the necessary mystery to unravel the story from - fleshing out the boney search for the twin soul- the fog parted and words started to flow.

In the beginning, there was a question around place. Why here, she asked. So she took off, in search of other places. She met those who would teach her to meet herself, to know the stuff she was made of, and point her in directions she never imagined- Home. Now she is ripening like a deciduous tree, shedding and letting go, keenly aware of what is beneath her - roots that are alive, enabling her seasons. Being, is a lesson she learning this season- it was always her gift, and she is honing it. Faithfully, she peels at reality, present to the energies that withstood all, most of all when she was simply, just being.

Art Print for ‘The Rivers Were Home’ © 2023 The Inner Workshop.

Each story is birthing process. I am now sure that I had been led, guided and directed, and I learn that the surest way to flow is to lean into feeling. Be it Cass’s story, or my voice, the surest way of approach was to observe and track the unfurling of momentum beneath the surface, which takes faith that arrives only when the anxious mind relaxes and steps back.

References
“Everything Falls Away”, Parker J. Palmer
Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
”Tatterhood”, as told by Martin Shaw

Cass | The Rivers Were Home

“The more the story bones, the more likely the integral structure can be found. The more whole the stories, the more subtle twists and turns of the psyche are presented to us and the better opportunity we have to apprehend and evoke our soulwork.”

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“Because, when you know the universal language, its easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether its the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant.”

-Paulo Coelho

The Inner Workshop is a space to workshop the stories we tell ourselves. My purpose is to listen to your stories, witness its truths, uncover its medicine and retell it for you.

Let's have a conversation and make this personal.

Cass | The Rivers Were Home

“The more the story bones, the more likely the integral structure can be found. The more whole the stories, the more subtle twists and turns of the psyche are presented to us and the better opportunity we have to apprehend and evoke our soulwork.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“Because, when you know the universal language, its easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether its the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant.”

-Paulo Coelho

SY | Becoming Sovereign

The Inner Workshop is a space to workshop the stories we tell ourselves. My purpose is to listen to your stories, witness its truths, uncover its medicine and retell it for you.

Let's have a conversation and make this personal.

“The more the story bones, the more likely the integral structure can be found. The more whole the stories, the more subtle twists and turns of the psyche are presented to us and the better opportunity we have to apprehend and evoke our soulwork.”

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes