"New Stories." Let the words roll around on your tongue. New Stories. It's hard to say New Stories without having your eyebrows raise – a sense of possibility.

Something new is being born. It is as tender, and as strong as a new seedling. Many of us are feeling called to discover how to live with less stress and more resilience. Where we live lightly on the planet rather than voraciously consuming its resources. Where the gaps between the rich and the poor are narrowing, rather than widening. Lives that are more spiritual and grounded in the awe and mystery of all that surrounds us.

We are at a turning point, a time for the creation of a new culture which is where words like partnerships, sustainability, spirituality, balance, enoughness, and abundance are a normal part of the stories of our lives.

Robert Theobald said this was a time for Reworking Success. Joanna Macy refers to this time as The Great Turning. Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson speak of this as the time Cultural Creatives will work together to create a new, integral culture.

Thomas Berry tells us "it's all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story. Our traditional story of the universe sustained us for a long period of time. It shaped our emotional attitudes, provided us with life purposes, and energized action. It consecrated suffering and integrated knowledge. We awoke in the morning and knew where we were. We could answer questions of our children. We could identify crime, punish transgressors. Everything was taken care of because the story was there..."

And now, in this time, we are creating new stories -- separately and collectively.

New Stories is a nonprofit corporation established in Spokane in 2000 to work in a wide variety of ways with people to help them create the new stories in their lives. Please also visit our sister site, The Berkana Institute