We started season 2 with a question, "Can stories change systems?" We weren't sure that we would land on an answer but we thought of it as a thread we could explore throughout the season. In some episodes we had beautiful answers to that question, and even more beautiful questions. We end this season reflecting on the season. And rather than trying to summarise each conversation, which we may do in future in some format, we rather offer some brief reflections.
Our starting point for this episode was self-analysis. We asked the question “where were we at” in terms of creative energy, personal wellbeing, and how grounded do we feel. What emerged was an idea for a shorter episode. We both answer the question “What stories ground you?”.
We now take a break for the South African winter. Hibernating. And then we plan to emerge in the spring with new energy, inspiration and more questions, conversations and - of course - plenty of stories.
The song Tristan references is by Pearl Jam and is called “Present Tense”, whilst Rashid shares a quote from the book Kapilolo’s Kulimatji: A !xun San storyteller’s memoir (2016) by Kapilolo Mario Mahongo.
Right at the end of the episode, Rashid reads a quote from an editorial titled “Speaking truth to power: Indigenous storytelling as an act of living resistance” by Aman Sium and Eric Ritskes, which comes from the book Decolonization, Indigeneity, Education & Society (2015). It says:
“If stories are archives of collective pain, suffering and resistance, then to speak them is to heal; to believe in them is to reimagine the world”.
The music in this episode is composed and arranged by Rashid Epstein Adams / Arkenstone and Pursuit.
