Everything is a Story
An excerpt from Kaitlin Curtice's new book & the power of stories
When Kaitlin Curtice reached out to see if I would be interested in sharing an excerpt from her latest book, I was thrilled. Kaitlin is someone I have admired for several years now. She is one of our most gracious, winsome, poetic, and visionary guides to enfleshing ways of life-together that spark abundance for the whole community of creation. Every time I encounter her work, I learn something new and am offered practicable guidance for entering a spiritual life that pulsates through real relations with all our neighbors: soils, traditions, plants, animals, landscapes, family and all others who are different than ourselves. Rooted in the practices, stories, and life-ways of her Potawatomi heritage, she has been weaving together one of the most constructive imaginations I’m familiar with — and she does so through books, poetry, essays, speeches and workshops that are approachable for anyone. Her substack below is a must follow.
If you’re looking for a generative, prophetic, life-affirming, deeply grounded guide to decolonization as an embodied, place-rooted, and communal spiritual practice, look no further than Kaitlin Curtice.
Her newest book is called Everything is a Story: Reclaiming the Power of Stories to Heal and Shape Our Lives. Here’s the description.
In Everything Is a Story, award-winning Indigenous author Kaitlin B. Curtice reveals how narratives function like living seeds, taking root in our consciousness and growing from acorns into mature oak trees that define who we are. This book will help you
· learn to identify toxic narratives that perpetuate division and replace them with stories of compassion and wholeness;
· discover how Indigenous storytelling wisdom can transform modern approaches to healing and community building;
· develop skills for examining family stories, religious beliefs, and cultural myths with discernment; and
· explore how to pass meaningful stories to future generations.
So without further ado — please enjoy this selection from Everything is a Story.
We may be storytellers, but we are always inheriting stories— from Segmekwe (Mother Earth), from the trees and the waters, the ants and the coneflowers, and, yes, of course, the oak trees.
Consider the story of your own birth. Who was there? What happened? What were the conditions of your coming into the world? We honor one another with birthday parties and gifts every year, but do we thoughtfully reflect on that moment when the world shifted a little, simply because we were in it?
The world also shifts with a story’s birth, with a story’s beginning. Here’s another question to consider: Is any story completely new and unique?
Our birth stories as humans are unique to a point, but we are still human. Acorns fall to the ground and go on their own journey, but they are still acorns. So, what makes a story magical? I’d say it’s the journey that a story takes—who the story encounters, how they are shaped, and where they end up.
We are told so many stories throughout our lives, stories in childhood and as adults, stories as we age into the last stages of these human-body lives. We are told stories about creation, about life and death, about family, about friends and enemies, about what we should believe. Sometimes these stories give us room to breathe and grow, and sometimes they suffocate us.1
Holding Kaitlin’s words at this intersection of breath and suffocation…
…may I suggest we each take three deep, slow breathes in this moment?
As I’ve read and re-read this gift of words, I keep returning to her questions.
Who was there?
What happened?
What were the conditions of your coming into the world?
Do we thoughtfully reflect on that moment when the world shifted a little, simply because we were in it?
Is any story completely new and unique?
What makes a story magical?
Stories matter. Stories form our identities, condition how we relate to others, and shape the scope or limitations of our imagination for what the world can be and how we should live in it. Every day people are literally killed and locked up and receive care and get set free and live into their inestimable worth because of stories. Every day, the stories we tell about ourselves, over and over in our own minds, move us toward bondage or liberation.
So may you live these questions, in order to discover better stories that let you breathe and grow.
And may you live in and out of such stories of love so that you and all creation may be set free.
Buy Kaitlin’s new book:
Check out the exciting new institute she launched last month with her husband:
And definitely subscribe to her Substack:
peace, joy, and justice y’all ~
Content taken from Everything is a Story by Kaitlin Curtice, 2025. Used by permission of Brazos Press.