My Lola (Tagalog word for grandmother) brought me to my first storytelling circle when I was just ten years old- I was the only child present. The facilitator prompted the adults to introduce themselves and share a bit of their story. I remember an old, dark skin man with glasses, and when it came his turn, he looked down sadly and told us he didn’t have a story. “That is your story!” I chirped right in. I just knew it was true, what my mom always said, “Everything is a story.” That man sat smiling to himself for a long time.

My name is Jessica de Jesus, people also call me Story. I am of Kapampangan/ Boholano and mixed-European lineage. I am of a rich spiritual legacy and ancestral line, most recently teachers and spiritual counselors, including my maternal great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother, and like my mother, I am the eldest female of my generation. I am also a spiritual child of the Northern Lights, where I was born, of Mount Tahoma, and the coyotes who sang me to sleep. Of the kelp, coast, moon, and magical green ladies who taught me how to paint, fly, and move between worlds, water, and land.

In this spirit, my work has always felt more like a gift or spiritual inheritance in which I am to unfold and grow over my life. Thus, my work has taken many forms over the past two decades as I have culminated my own creative heart and life experiences along the way, from writing and teaching creative visualization, producing and selling shamanic art and music worldwide to writing a book, and building my mentoring practice over the past nine years- soulful remembering is the art form I continue to reimagine and share.

Long ago, the role of the ancient storyteller was to keep track of time and record, to circle their people around the fire, and to tell them the stories that reminded them of who they were. This cultivated a spiritual sense of belonging and was also meant for the purpose of reinvigorating and recovering any soul loss. The role of the storyteller was to use their knowledge to keep their tribe together and to keep them healthy.

The truth is, we are all storytellers. We are all responsible for how we see our dream of the world and our place in it. We are responsible for keeping the magic of our lives alive and our souls alive, and for the ulitmate story we leave behind. I think it can be fun, especially when we remember we are the main character in the play of our life, and when we remain curious about what we’ll do next! I believe that to be the storyteller is to continuously remember that we are never alone but in co-creation with all of life, and of course, above all else, it is simply to remember that

everything is a story!