Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Renewed tellings

I am privileged to share here the work of one of my Story workshop participants,
Parvez Daruwala, who works as a trainer and facilitator with corporates and other groups. Parvez had done insightful work on a childhood favorite story, that he discovered, to his surprise, had unconsciously shaped so much of his response to people and events in his life, even today -- as indeed many of us exploring favorite childhood tales often find out! Parvez generously agreed to share his work with us here.

The Elephant and the Tailor
(Regular Version I heard and loved as a child)

An elephant and his mahout in a village would go from place to place seeking alms etc. People would give money or eatables. Once, a tailor, instead of giving something, pricked the elephant’s trunk with a needle. He did this the next day too. The third day the elephant arrives and again the tailor hurts him, so the elephant fills his trunk with dirty water and pours this on the garments which the tailor was stitching for the King’s daughter. The King punishes the tailor for his carelessness, and also for his cruelty to the elephant.
Moral that I picked up: Tit for Tat


The Elephant and the Tailor –
(Revised Version after the “Storywork and Healing” Session)
by Parvez J Daruwala

Once, in a small town, a Mahout used to take his elephant from door to door to seek alms. People loved the elephant and respected the Mahout who was kind and respectful to all. They would thus give eatables to the elephant like fruits which the elephant would sometimes eat and sometimes share with his keeper. When people would give money, he’d give it to his Mahout

Life was peaceful and they did not worry about the next day or next meal. They lived from day to day, trusting that their daily needs would be provided for by the village people.

One day, when the elephant, whom we will call Ramu, approached the town’s tailor, the tailor being in a foul mood, pricked a needle in Ramu’s trunk. The Gentle yet Mighty Creature was stunned with the pain and more so shocked at the violent act of the tailor. Ramu and the Mahout left silently. The second day too, the tailor pricked the needle to his trunk and Ramu and the Mahout withdrew, sadly.

Now Ramu was puzzled by this behavior of the tailor. He thought and pondered, he shed some tears and he sighed some more and he put himself in the tailor’s place and imagined why the tailor was angry. An idea came to him, He smiled, and it’s wonderful to see a smile on an elephant. He glowed with an Inner Light and on the third day when they were reaching the tailor’s shop, his Mahout urged him to walk away and not stop there. But Ramu went up to the tailor’s shop and as the tailor approached with a frown and the needle, Ramu presented him with a bunch of beautiful flowers. The surprised tailor forgot to prick him with the needle as he stretched his hand to take the flowers!

And then the next day, Ramu gave the tailor a ripe mango he had plucked from a wayside tree and the day after that, it was a shining stone and so on. The tailor was touched with Ramu’s forgiveness, acceptance and love. And generosity.

He praised the elephant to all and sundry and all in turn also praised his keeper, the Mahout, for inculcating such noble values in mighty Ramu

Then one day, when Ramu and the Mahout visited the tailor, the tailor presented Ramu with a beautiful red and gold embroidered cloth to cover his head and back. The elephant received it with grace and gratitude and passed it onto his Keeper who draped it over Ramu. The elephant took-on a new regal look. It stopped feeling like a beggar

Every time someone gave him something, Ramu would now raise his trunk in blessing, touch the person and they would be healed and feel whole again. The more love and joy, riches and respect came to Ramu and His Mahout, the Keeper. And the more blessings they gave to those who offered them their offerings. And also to those who did not. And the village was transformed into a lovely world where all helped each other, respected and loved others and lived forever in joy.

Parvez J Daruwala also added this explanation:

Hello Marguerite
… Let me try and explain my working with this story.

In the first, regular version, the elephant throws dirty water on the tailor on being pricked by the needle and it’s like tit for tat. While putting myself in the story - in the skin of the elephant, I realized that when hurt I have a tendency to react with anger and annoyance … and retaliation.
This may manifest in a shouting match with the other person or a silent sulk which lasts for a couple of days. This behavior normally is more with one’s own family - while at work or in social situation, one is more docile, or diplomatic.

I saw parallels with the elephant story -- and this insight kind of jolted me.

So then it struck me that why not have a different ending to the story. Then when you asked us to re write the story, I just did it this way.

I am more aware of my thoughts and emotions and reactions. I try not to react but to respond instead more calmly and peacefully. I think that has been the shift within, It’s not like I am completely changed at one stroke, but I know its just one step towards the 1000 mile journey.

…. Seeing myself as every character in my story (elephant, tailor, mahout and even needle) and how it affected me, gave me insights as I looked at it from the perspective of being the different characters… including being the new clothes being stitched and the dirty water thrown. I see at the end of two days, applications for my personal growth, in my quest for inner peace, fulfillment, joy and abundance.
Parvez



Only by recognizing our unconscious patterns of behavior
and consciously exploring the personal, familial,
and cultural myths underlying them
can we be begin to evolve more effective and creative relationships
with ourselves, others, and the world.

Forgetting To Remember

First, a traditional teaching story:
A great warrior did not return from the hunt. One week passed by, then one month, then a whole year.
His family gave him up for dead, all except his youngest child who every single day would ask, "Where is my father? How soon will he return?"
The child's three older brothers, who were magicians, grew tired of hearing this day after day. They loved their little brother, but felt that if they had news or evidence of their father’s death, he would stop asking. So, finally, they left home and set out to find news of him.
After some days, in a far away, desolate spot, they came upon their father’s broken spear and a pile of bones, and wrapped them all in a blanket to take back home. But once they reached the outskirts of their village, they remembered that they had great powers of magic, and set out to attempt something they had never ever done before.
The first son carefully assembled the bones into a full skeleton; the second son put flesh upon the bones; the third son breathed life into the flesh. The warrior arose and walked into the village where there was great celebration. There he made an announcement: "I will give a fine and precious gift to the one who has brought me back to life."
Each one of his three older sons cried out, "Give it to me, for I have done the most in bringing you back.”
"I will give the gift to my youngest child," said the warrior, “because it is this child who saved my life. One is never truly dead until he is forgotten!"

The two poles of Forgetting and Remembrance are a key feature of Story from different places, even of different times. Walter Benjamin, in his essay, 'The Storyteller', has called that form of memory which creates the chain of tradition, which passes a happening on from generation to generation, "Perpetuating Remembrance," distinguished from "short-lived reminiscence.”

In my workshops, I use two wonderful teaching stories from Traditional tellings – one from the Persian Sufis, known as “Moshkel Gosha”, and another a folktale from Maharashtra, India “A Story for Sundays”. Both tell of a character who is helped in times of trouble, one by The Remover of Obstacles, the other by the Sun God, and all he is asked to do is to “tell of the story”. Failing to do so – and in one case refusing to listen – causes all kinds of mishaps and obstacles that are then magically removed and cleared when the person remembers to tell the story again.

In these two stories, there is the implication of ongoing gratitude, and of sharing – manifested through remembering and re-telling - which are deemed necessary for one to live a blessed and wholesome life.

Remembering is also an important means for a younger generation to learn about the history, culture and values of a group or community, and to keep these alive in the re-telling.
The significance of this Remembering – often through Sharing the Story – also forms the theme of many modern stories today.

Among the more recent ones that uphold this theme is a writer whose work I enjoy, Barbara Kingsolver, whose book “Homeland” is a story set in the 1950s. Gloria’s great grandmother, Great Mam, is a displaced Cherokee, one of the Beloved Women who “keep track of things”. She had moved from her tribal home with the white man whose children she bore. Now Gloria's father decides that the family should take Great Mam back ‘home’ for a last visit before she dies. But Gloria realizes, that Great Mam's heritage has no real signs that it has physically survived in the place she came from, but rather lives in what she has passed on to her great granddaughter, mainly through her stories.

The nickname that Great Mam had for Gloria was "Waterbug", after the creature, according to Native American myth, that retrieved the earth from the bottom of the sea. In recalling this story and all the others that Great Mam told her, Gloria recognizes the importance of remembering Great Mam's stories and so becomes the next one whose task is to retrieve the past, to "keep track of things."

In another book, a small coastal village within the Newfoundland landscape is the setting of Kenneth J. Harvey's rather chilling thriller, “The Town that Forgot How to Breathe”.

The inhabitants of Bareneed, where the book is set, are struck down by an illness in which they forget how to breathe. Strangely, for those afflicted, every breath has to be taken consciously, deliberately, for them to keep breathing at all.

In the book this ‘forgetting’ places the people who live there in a situation where they are compelled to remember, consciously, how to do that which all of us do unconsciously.
Harvey has described it: “They must focus to remember, sort of like the art of storytelling. If you forget the stories you forget who you are, you dissolve away.”

In the story, young Robin and her father Joseph are visiting the town of Bareneed from where their family originated, and are trying to reconnect and heal their own family after a recent divorce. Soon, they become wrapped up in the mystery surrounding the town with its the breathing sickness, the appearance of sea monsters off the coast, the vengeful ghosts on the mainland and perfectly preserved corpses of villagers long ago lost at sea that are being washed upon the shore.

Really, we find, this breathing is tied to their forgetting their old stories. With their forgetting how to breathe, mythical creatures that formally existed only in mariner’s dreams, are being pulled from the sea.

The book ends with the townsfolk traveling from forgetting to remembering, with a return to place in which remembering and telling their stories plays a central part; the seas fill again with fish, and the only lights to be seen are those of fires and candles around which those who are telling tales and listening to stories are gathered.

It may seem rather simplistic – but the point made is that a community that does not pay attention to what is ‘natural’ and crucial and life-giving will have to find ways to recover this, sometimes painfully.

May you find ways to perpetuate remembrance.
Marguerite Theophil

The bridge to other times

The storytellers themselves have been described as the bridge to other times,
and ancient teachings and the tellings of the stories helps to keep these teachings alive.
The children of future generations learn from the storytellers
and apply the lessons of the stories to their own lives.

~ Michael Berman & David Brown

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Intersecting stories

Sometimes, a fictional story and a real-life story – or many stories - can intersect in very interesting and beautiful ways.

This story of "The Camel Bookmobile" initially caught my interest for two reasons. The first was that over a period of three years, my husband Taba and I worked to help set up a library in Srinagar, Kashmir for which many of our friends and family as well as client companies donated thousands of books and well as money for buying books and for their transportation. The ‘library’ first operated as a travelling one, out of two beat-up old trucks, visiting schools on a weekly basis. It was actually set up since the violence in Kashmir had resulted in most libraries being bombed out or shut down, and the students who initiated the project were hungry for reading and learning.

The second reason the book grabbed my attention is because it is located in the remote and troubled areas of north-eastern Kenya, on the border with Somalia – Garissa and Wajir – that I travelled to as facilitator of the India-Kenya Women’s Journey in 2000. I recalled the courageous and amazing work done by Somalian women there, addressing education for girls, income generation as well as fighting gender inequalities and violence against women. Among the women I grew to love – Abdiya, who was part of the traveling team for around six weeks in India and Kenya, and our other local hosts, Sophie, Hubbie and Mama Fatooma who inspired and delighted us, and taught me so much of what it means to commit to making a difference.

The idea for Masha Hamilton's novel, “The Camel Bookmobile”, came when she was driving her three children to the library, and her daughter told her about a camel bookmobile she had heard of in Africa that once had a strict rule imposed -- if anyone in a settlement failed to return a book, the mobile library would not go back there. There was something about the camel library idea and that rule that struck a chord with Hamilton, who within minutes outlined the basic premise of the novel. When the book was in its final editing stages, Hamilton and her daughter journeyed to Kenya to visit the camel library that provided the initial inspiration.

The Camel Bookmobile is told through multiple viewpoints, and each of the main characters is changed in some way by the roving library.

The key character is Fiona Sweeney, a work-frustrated 36-year old American librarian, who tells her family she wants to do something that matters, and to their surprise takes off for Africa where she ends up starting a traveling library. Her work takes her to the arid bush area of northeastern Kenya, among tiny, far-flung communities, lacking proper roads or schools, where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease.

Her mission, as she sees it, is to bring Dr. Seuss, Homer, Tom Sawyer and Hemingway to a world of new readers who will be inspired to change their own lives for the better after reading the masters.

But, though her motives are good, like most of us who have ever traveled to, or worked in, different cultures, Fiona is so burdened by the values of her own (Western) culture, that it is impossible for her to understand the people she is trying to help or even the problems that her efforts are causing for those people.

She finds herself in the midst of several struggles within the community of Mididima, where the bookmobile's presence sparks a feud between those who favor modernization and those who fear the loss of the traditional way of life in the African bush.

The story unfolds from the point of view of each person involved with the camel bookmobile, so you really get to understand the issues and concerns from all different angles.

What it also unfolds is the seemingly unbridgeable cultural differences, the strengths and struggles of nomadic life and of the changes facing the members of that culture today; also the potentially ‘disruptive’ effects that books and what they contain, can have on tribal customs and the very way of life that has sustained the tribes for thousands of years.

Now the part the story hinges on concerns with the fact that, because the donated books are limited in number and the settlements are many, the project’s African director has a firm rule that if a village fails to return all of the books loaned to it, the bookmobile will stop coming to that village.

The trouble begins when one young man referred to as 'Scar Boy', as his face has been ruined by a hyena attack, refuses to return two books. The entire village of Mididima is thrown into a social turmoil that forever changes the lives of its people and Fiona Sweeney.

The Camel Bookmobile is a powerful telling that challenges our fears of the unknown. Even as it captures the riddles and calamities that often occur when two cultures collide, many other questions are raised: Has Fiona Sweeney really done the village any favors by exposing them to a world of new and often alien ideas and cultures? Has she improved their future prospects or has she inadvertently destroyed the fabric that has held the village together and ensured its survival for generations?

Or – more importantly - is the truth somewhere between the two extremes?

ABOUT THE WRITER

I wanted to know more about the writer and learnt that Masha Hamilton started out as a journalist for The Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press and other news organizations, reporting from Russia, Africa and the Middle East. When she began her career as a novelist it’s hardly surprising that she set her books in volatile, real-life situations. Her first novel, Staircase of a Thousand Steps, was a coming-of-age story set in a Middle Eastern village. Her second, The Distance Between Us, was about a war correspondent who found herself in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But with The Camel Bookmobile she didn’t just write a fascinating book; with author M.J. Rose she launched a massive drive to collect books for the camel library, and they also went about raising funds for shipping costs.

Interestingly, Hamilton convinced more than 150 other authors to each donate a minimum of five of their favorite books. And at bookstore signings, she encourages buyers to purchase a copy of any favorite book and donate it to the camel library - and to inscribe it with a personal message -- because while in Kenya, she reports, the head librarian made a point of telling her that readers especially love it when there is a note written in the book from the giver.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The actual Camel Mobile Library Service, overseen by the Kenya National Library Service, that was the inspiration for the novel, operates from Garissa in Kenya’s isolated Northeastern Province near the unstable border with Somalia. It is a predominantly Muslim province, where many were farmers, but are now forced into a nomadic existence by drought or famine. For most of the families, they must follow where their camels and goats go in search of pasture and water, forcing their children to abandon school.

Initially launched with three camels in 1996, the library increased to 12 camels, with plans for more, traveling to four settlements per day, four days per week. The camel library also operates in Wajir, which is even further to the north.

The camels deliver books to these semi-nomadic groups of people who live with drought, famine and chronic poverty. The books are spread out on grass mats beneath an acacia tree, and the library patrons, sometimes joined by goats or donkeys, gather with great excitement to choose the books they get to keep until the next visit. The books are written in English or Swahili, the two official primary languages of Kenya.

The addresses and connections I located for those of you who might like to help the project –or initiate similar ones – are:
Garissa Provincial Library, (For Camel Library), Mr. Rashid M. Farah - Librarian in Charge,
P.O. Box 245, Garissa, Kenya
Or check http://camelbookdrive.wordpress.com/ ; or http://www.bookaid.org/

What I particularly liked finding out is that the project has also begun raising money for the collecting, recording and local publication of traditional stories in the Somali language, which will allow this region to move into the future while respecting and preserving their long held oral traditions and cultural richness.

May all our intersecting stories add to the 'basic goodness' of the world.
Marguerite Theophil

We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts:
we need books, time, and silence.
'Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten, but
'Once upon a time' lasts forever.
~ Philip Pullman


Tuesday, October 7, 2008

And God created the Storyteller

In early cultures the world over, the Storyteller had a place of true value. Before written language was used, historic, religious, and cultural knowledge was passed from generation to generation orally, and as the Keeper of all this collective knowledge, the storyteller was one of the most important people in the community.

This story from Kazakhstan, shows the value placed on storytelling and storytellers:

It was the seventh day. God had finished making the world. Tired, but happy, he suddenly realized he had forgotten to give human beings their brains. God was understandably upset! Calling some angels, he handed them jugs filled with this important ‘ingredient’ and said, "Go quickly, and make sure you give all humans their brains." The angels flew down to Earth and found that there were so many people, there was not enough brain-stuff in their jugs to go round! So they made sure they at least gave each one a little.

God looked down on creation and was really sad to see wars, poverty, hunger selfishness and tears. "I think I know why.” he declared, “These human beings have only got a bit of brain each." So God created a few extra people, this time making sure he filled their brains right up to the top. He filled those brains with sparkling words - stories, songs, poetry and music.
These were storytellers God sent down to Earth, to tell and sing wisdom into foolish human hearts.

While some stories can be deliberately told to perpetuate a narrow world view, most traditional stories can provides the ‘larger context’ within which we are invited to move beyond conflict. Conflict, we have been told, comes from a limited view that looks like you and I are separate. Story has the capacity to hold differing perspectives in the same story, and offer the wide-angle view that invites us to transcend our differences. Most significantly, even if it doesn't solve our differences; it creates something that's bigger than our differences.

In the power to tell a story lies the power to shape our reality, to alter our perceptions, to create new worlds of experience.

The best Tellers are those who also listen, because can come from many sources. In Stories From The Mountains and Beyond, the writer, Granny Sue reminds us:” … We must first hear stories from some source, whether it be another person, a book, our own inner voice, or the physical world around us. We need to be listening and aware to hear the stories being gifted to us daily … stories told with a glance, in a song, in children playing a game. Stories in the wind in the trees, birds calling, water trickling over rocks, the soft swish of snow falling, doors closing, windows opening, swing sets creaking, footsteps, the hum of air conditioners or crackle of fire, car horns, train whistles, elevators …” All these have stories for the teller willing to listen.

David Spangler in an article that discusses the relevance and importance of Telling today writes: “We are a storytelling, story-loving species. Let someone be spinning a good tale at a gathering and watch a crowd collect to listen … If, as St. John says, in the Beginning was the Word, then the Story followed directly after, unfolding the universe from the imagination of God. In emulation of the divine, we have sought to duplicate that moment of creation by being storytellers, too.”

Reading a story is wonderful, but being in the presence of a Teller who gifts you a story from her or his heart is a truly wondrous experience. A kind of ‘field’ is created between Teller and Listeners that creates a space to learn, change and grow.

Today, take time to honor the Tellers you know and have known, and the Teller within you too.
Marguerite Theophil



Wherever a story comes from, whether it is a familiar myth or a private memory,
the retelling exemplifies the making of a connection from one pattern to another:
a potential translation in which narrative becomes parable
and the once upon a time comes to stand for some renascent truth.

This approach applies to all the incidents of everyday life:
the phrase in the newspaper, the endearing or infuriating game of a toddler,
the misunderstanding at the office.

Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.
~ Mary Catherine Bateson




The many guises of Story

The best we leant from a course on World Mythology that Bombay University offered a few years ago was how various cultures have uncannily similar stories – take for example stories of the Flood. A large percentage of the world's cultures have stories of a "great flood" that devastated a previous civilization.

Claims are sometimes made about one culture being older than another, and the actual source, but while some ‘traveling’ of story and borrowing or appropriating has been established, in other cases researchers have not established any clear possibility of migration. Really fascinating are the similarities in stories from distinct cultures which may or may not owe any influence to each other. Some who study this feel that these similarities often attest to our common human imagination, and ways of explaining events, concepts or moral values.

Most people in the West, and those of us from Christian families in the East, are quite familiar with the Noah story. I loved it, and loved my children’s illustrated version of all the animals lining up to enter, never doubting they all would fit and that the ark would float.

My course introduced me to the ancient Sumerian myth of Ziusudra (around 17th century BC) which told of how the god Enki warned Ziusudra of the gods' decision to destroy mankind in a flood. Enki instructed him to build a large boat, which he did, and after a flood of seven days, Ziusudra made appropriate sacrifices and prostrations to the sky god An, and Enlil, the chief of the gods, and was given eternal life.

India has ‘Legend of The Fish’ as its key Flood story. The first record is in Satapatha Brahmana, an important prose treatise on sacred ritual, which is believed to have been written not long before the rise of Buddhism, and therefore around the sixth century BC. But even here, the versions that followed in the Mahabharata, the Agni Purana and the Bhagvata Purana differ from each other - in one, Manu, the main character, is an ordinary man, in another he is a sage, another stresses his royal birth.

I have recently explored the delightful variations of this tale and used it in many tellings. A popular version goes this way: Manu, while one day while washing his hands in the waters of the Chirini river found a tiny fish swim into his cupped palms. It begged him to save it from being attacked and eaten by the bigger fish, saying, “I beg you … I am a small fish; you must save me. The stronger fish devour the weaker; I know that from earliest times this has been ordained as our means of subsistence. Still, save me from this, and I will pay you back well for your good deed”.

Manu, smiled at this unlikely proposal, yet compassionately took the fish and placed him in a jar. The fish grew, and in time it became too large to be contained in the jar. Manu shifted him to a pond, and as he continued to grow and get too large for his environment, at the fish’s request, he moved him in turn to a river and then to the wide sea.

The fish now spoke to Manu: “For your kindness to me, I will tell you that the time for the purification of the worlds has now arrived. Soon the world will be submerged by a great flood, and everything will perish. You must build yourself a strong ship, and take a long rope on board. You must also take with you the Seven Sages, who have existed since the Beginning of Time, and also make sure you have the Seeds of All Things. When I am ready, I will come to you, and I will have a horn on my head. Do not forget my words, for without me you cannot escape from the flood.”

Manu, realizing this was no ordinary fish, did as he was told, and as the floods began, he saw the horned fish come towards him, and cast one end of the rope over its horns. The fish began to tow them through the rising waves.

For many years the fish towed the ship through the water, and at last it came to the highest mountain peak. At its command, they tied the ship to the mountain peak and then the fish said: “O men of wisdom, now know this - I am the Creator of everything. I took on the shape of a fish, and I have saved you from this flood. With my blessings Manu will once again fill the world with life.”

With these words the fish disappeared, and as the floods abated, Manu and all in the ship slowly made their way down the slopes of the mountain and Manu became the father of a new race of living things.

In all of these stories people sought to explain the destruction of an old way of living, preparation for the new and ‘purified’ way of being. Many would ‘go under’ with all the changes, but some could ride it through. Whether people borrowed the Tellings from somewhere else hardly matters; they sought to make meaning and explain Life to the best of their ability.

Aarne-Thompson lists 179 tales from different countries with a similar theme to Beauty and the Beast. There various versions usually three daughters, the youngest being the most kind and pure, her older sisters displaying self-centeredness or selfishness.

Beast, who appears in the different versions in many forms - as a beast-like human, as a serpent, wolf, or pig, is always unappealing, sometimes scary in appearance, but seems to be rich and powerful. At one point the Beauty is separated from her Beast and at that time some tragedy visits him. It is Beauty’s remorse, sometimes shown in the simple act of shedding a tear and sometimes as tedious a task like going to the ends of the earth, that releases the Beast from an evil spell and transforms him to handsome, loving man.

Lon Po Po, a Chinese version of the Red Riding Hood story features three daughters left at home when their mother goes to visit their grandmother. Lon Po Po, the Granny Wolf, pretends to be the girls' grandmother, until the eldest daughter suspects the greedy wolf's real identity. Tempting him with ginkgo nuts, the girls pull him in a basket to the top of the tree in which they are hiding, then let go of the rope, killing the big, bad wolf.

In his introduction to his collection, World Tales, Idries Shah that wonderful collector and teacher of Story, marveled at the extraordinary connections between different cultures held together by similar stories. How did these stories get around as widely as they did? People did travel along routes like the Silk Route and others, and no doubt there were story-tellers among them. Or perhaps there is some innate connection between all human beings that allows them to make up similar tales. Whatever the way, we are all the richer for it.

May we feel the incredible human connection and linkage that similar stories the world over point us to.
Marguerite Theophil

Traditional stories, told orally, contained within them
the history, social laws, spiritual truths, and cultural values
of families and their communities.
We continue to pass stories along year after year,
generation after generation, because their timeless elements
possess an intrigue, a power, and an ability to transform our lives.
~ Robert Atkinson

Alternative Tellings

We watched an old classic again a few days back. Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashomon, that was made in 1950. To me, this is the best illustration of Truth, because at the end of it, we are made strikingly aware of the subjectivity of any of our versions of the truth.

The main story tells of the rape of a woman and the death of a man, presumably by a wandering bandit, and is presented entirely in a series of flashbacks from the perspectives of each of four different narrators.

The ‘holding’ of the story is done through a group of people seeking shelter from a heavy rain storm at Kyoto's crumbling Rashomon gate, as they discuss the recent crime. One of them, a woodcutter, says he was a witness to the crimes.

In each of the four versions of the story, those of the woman, the man, the bandit and the woodcutter, even though the characters and many of the details; there is much that is very different.

In the bandit’s story, he accepts responsibility for the murder but not for the rape, saying that it was an act of mutual consent. The woman's story is that the bandit attacked her, but suggests that she may have been the killer. The dead man's tale, presented through a medium, involves rape and suicide. The witness who says he saw it all, presents a story that weaves in elements from each of the other three, but that does not corroborate any one of the other three stories, leaving the viewer doubting his claim to have seen it all.

As a viewer, trying to make sense of ‘what really happened’ is impossible. You realize that Kurosawa has not made a whodunit; he focuses on something far more disturbingly profound - the inability of any one person to know the truth, no matter how clearly we think we see things. Perspective makes all truth subjective.

Some writers have been drawn to the idea of ‘perspective’ and the shaping of the story. One of my favorites is Donna Jo Napoli, who re-tells fairy tales from other angles. “Beast” has the actual Beast from the well-known Beauty and The Beast as narrator, and the background to his change of form. So too with “ Spinners” the Rumplestiltskin story that moves backwards and forwards in time. Curious about the witch in Hansel and Gretel? “The Magic Circle” paints a different possibility.

C.S. Lewis’ “Till We Have Faces” was the first book I found that dealt with alternative versions, and it was fascinating to read of how Psyche’s sisters saw her story being played out, and how it affected their own lives. My search for more in this genre led me to Howard Jacobsen’s “The Very model of A Man”– in outer form the story of the Biblical character Cain (yes, he who murdered his brother Abel), but a scintillating work on the power of words and language.

There is more. Yukio Mishima sought to enter the mind of the wife of the Maquis de Sade in “Madame Sade” and Kahlil Gibran did this with people who loved and followed Jesus, as well as those who feared and mistrusted him in “Jesus, The Son of Man”.

In Gregory Maguire's “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” and “Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister” his task is that of questioning stereotypical roles through reinventing and recontextualizing the well-known Wizard of Oz and Cinderella stories.

Women’s voices are often given space through alternative tellings.

“Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys is a moving and beautiful account of the life of Antoinette Cosway, the fictional character who becomes the madwoman in the attic in Charlotte Brontë's older book, Jane Eyre.

In the "Penelopiad", Margaret Atwood retells the familiar story of the Odyssey through the eyes of his long suffering wife Penelope. Under the patient wife waiting and waiting for her husband to return, Atwood, in a clever take on an ancient classical Greek-tragedy form using poetry and song and a chorus of Penelope's slave girls, reveals a biting cynicism about Penelope’s thoughts and attitude that gives a timeless feel to this re-telling.

Alessandro Portelli of the University of Rome La Sapienza, a pioneer in engaged oral history points out that, “Many of the most important stories are true but not accurate.” In memory, he reminds us, facts are reshaped to serve the present.

In many counties there are heated debates about the way history is being taught. The fights are generally about ‘whose version of history’. Maybe we need to become more open to an understanding that no version – however attached we are to it - is ever The Version, and alternative perspectives give us a broader understanding of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

May we learn to make space for tellings that differ from our own.
Marguerite Theophil


As things seem
….. Actually, after all,
things are not quite as real or permanent,
terrible, important or logical as they seem.
~ Joseph Campbell

Becoming real

Dusting my bookshelves is the job that takes me an incredibly long time and has less to do with the number of books, and more to do with the fact that many books just beg to be dipped into right then.

Today the book that has me fascinated all over again is an old copy with yellowing pages that I am afraid are going to turn crumbly very soon - Carlo Collodi’s “The Adventures of Pincchio”.

I think, as I read the slightly ponderous language of the original, of how I watched the film Pinocchio, with the madly energized Roberto Benigni some weeks ago with a young friend. “It’s so different from the one we have on DVD,” she grumbled, referring to the made-nice Disney version, as we walked out of the darkness of the theatre.

I feel a bit guilty for wanting her see the version that is somewhat closer to the original, and that has darker patches, much like life.

As far back as in 1881, Carlo Lorenzini, a then well-known children’s writer, began to serialize in a magazine for children La Storia di un burattine, The Story of a Puppet, under the name C. Collodi. Later it came out as a book in 1883 and has been translated into eighty-seven languages. I read that there have been around four hundred television versions, and even many doctoral dissertations on the wooden puppet.

In Florence, walking through a magical, almost other-worldly street lined with shops selling puppets, the shopkeepers will tell you that among the most popular with buyers is the Pinocchio puppet. Wide-eyed, long-nosed, with a fixed bemused smile that seems to suggest he is not too sure of his much publicized desire to become a ‘real boy’, he also seems to ask: “Take me with you,” and many do. Over a hundred years after he was ‘created’, Pinocchio’s dream of being needed, of belonging, of being ‘real’, comes true - again and again.

I have often wondered how this old story has caught and held our attention over all this time. Maybe it has to do with the fact that wooden body or not, this is in large part the story of all of us.

Let’s go to the start of the story: if it is the Disney version which most of us are familiar with, the story begins with a lonely carpenter Geppetto, desperately wanting a child and carving out a wooden puppet-child for himself. The book itself starts out somewhat differently with the carpenter discovering a block of wood in his workshop that talked, laughed and cried like a child, shifting it as one commentator said “ … from a Disney fantasy of the human creation of life, to the everyday miracle that is represented by human development.”

Margaret Blount, an authority on children’s literature, writing of this story indicates that Pinocchio “… falls from grace with the monotonous regularity of most humans…” and how the implicit allegory is that it takes a long, long time to really ‘grow up’.

To become truly human, his lessons include learning to hear the voice of conscience – in the story this voice is that of the character ‘Cricket’ - and to learn to appreciate the joys of giving more than the thrill of constantly receiving.

It does not take too much intellectual analysis to identify that these are our lessons too.

Staring out as a self-centered brat, along his journey Pinocchio creates the situations that eventually cause him to lean Life’s lessons. Most of all he learns – through a nose that grows and grows when he tells a lie – about both, the power of lying, as well as its pain and consequences. The environment filled with all kinds of interesting characters – some drawn as good bad, some as bad, some as hard-to-tell-which-kind - acts on him as much as he acts on the environment, and the exchange slowly provides him with the cues to becoming truly human.

Inspite of sounding painfully preachy, specially to readers today, the Fairy with the Blue Hair plays a very special role. Mostly she teaches Pinocchio about love in its many forms, but it is the way she turns up in his life – actually her changing aspects and what they mean – that is a key creative device of this story.

The wooden one first meets Fairy when Assassins are pursuing him. He sees a house in the distance, runs to it and knocks wildly in fear. A window opens and he sees Fairy first as a Beautiful Child, somewhat unreal, with blue hair and a face as white as a waxen image. At this stage, she shuts the window and the assassins capture him. Her role is not that of rescuer here; she lets him go into this part of his learning, lets him handle it himself.

There are parts of the book a movie can never go to, as the scene that pokes fun at the medical profession, where the Fairy arranges for “the three most famous doctors in the neighborhood” – a Crow, an Owl and a Talking Cricket. If you find a copy of the book, the chapter entitled (and no, I do not make this up!) “The Lovely Blue-Haired Child Saves the Marionette; she Puts him in Bed and Calls Three Doctors to See whether he is Alive or Dead,” is a must-read.

All through the story the image of Fairy changes with each reappearance – even turning up once as a “fine goat with blue hair”. She later takes on a more maternal role, and acts particularly tough when it comes to his lying. Though she seems to forgive all, she still has to get him to learn that being loved is only one part of loving.

About the idea of “change” in the story – Pinocchio wonders why Fairy changes so much, from encounter to encounter as it were, but he never changes. Fairy tells him that it is only people who grow; marionettes, or puppets never grow, they are born as puppets, live as puppets, die as puppets.

But in one particularly poignant moment later in the story, the puppet recognizes Fairy in spite of her very unfamiliar appearance. When she wants to know how, he says, “It was my great affection for you that told me.” Pinocchio too is changing, as we begin to see.

It is, in the story, Pinocchio’s acquisition of ‘good heart’ that brings about his transformation. Pinocchio continues to do good and bad, because he becomes human, not a saint, but his newly developed capacities for love and empathy, and above all, hope, is what makes him finally real.
May we all find ways to become 'truly human'.
Marguerite Theophil



Uniqueness and commonality
Stories simultaneously celebrate what is unique about us
and provide bridges to what is common among us.
~ Lucinda Flodin & Dennis Frederick

Monday, September 22, 2008

What Mary and Martha could learn from each other

Mary and Martha lived with their brother Lazarus at Bethany, a village near Jerusalem. Once, when Jesus and his disciples were their guests, Mary sat at Jesus' feet, listening to him talk while Martha, busy preparing food and waiting on the guests alone, grew quite fed up and complained to Jesus who, to her surprise declared that Mary had chosen ‘the better part’.

I asked women in one of my workshops who they identified with:
“The eldest of six, I was pushed into Martha-ness, my siblings still expect me to sort out their problems.”
“Who has time for any Mary stuff?”
“I used to be such a Martha, but after a terrible illness, now I’m definitely Mary.”
“Jesus considered Mary’s role ‘better’, but who cooked the meal for them all? Who cleared up? I too would enjoy acting like Mary, but work would never get done…”
“Mary. I sat around doing nothing. But I feel huge guilt around this. My older sister, more a Martha, worked herself into the grave.”

They are still making one sister right and one sister wrong. Marthas accuse Marys of living in their heads, neglecting their share of work, having it easy. Marys see Marthas as too role-obsessed, often humourless, getting worked up over nothing. There is some truth in both angles!
Mary and Martha could be seen as two rather different kinds of individuals, but in truth, Mary as well as Martha both exist to some degree in each of us.

While it’s true that events, roles and choices push us into being more like one sister, a balanced and harmonious life requires that we nurture both aspects. If you stop and reflect, you will see which sister you are like most of the time, and how the ‘other’ one whispers - or shouts - for your attention.

Martha, the efficient, productive sister, works at her job, whether at home or out, with careful attention to planning and details. She is all about getting things done, serving others, and yes, keeping up appearances. She is also a faithful friend, someone to be counted upon, often left with too little time for herself. And she not only feels unappreciated, she is exhausted, sometimes bitter.

Mary, usually calm and cheerful, knows things will get done; after all, there are Marthas around to see to that! Her ability to listen is one of her greatest strengths. Often slow to help or act, she infuriates us, but in her more thoughtful manifestation, she reflects, decides and acts based on inner promptings, not worrying too much what others think or say about her. She attends specially to her inner, nurturing needs.

Consider our own lives in these time of shifting paradigms and relentless demands: We wake up each morning, perhaps not having slept too well, faced with a clamouring list of "To-Dos." We travel, attend meetings, make presentations, shop, cook, clean, take care of the needs of others – and this is just on regular days with no unexpected events.

We long for ‘personal quiet time’, maybe to listen to music, be out in nature, eat an unhurried meal, meet with special friends, find ways to be of significant service.

Deepening connection with your inner Martha needs you to honor your strong work values, while conserving your energy through discerning choices and action, trusting others to do their bit and not spreading yourself too thin. It also involves appreciating yourself before others can appreciate you.

Deepening your connection with your inner Mary includes consciously finding time for aloneness, reflection and spiritual connection and actually bringing the energy from this into thoughtful, supportive and collaborative action.

May you embrace your contradictions!
Marguerite Theophil




Stories … do not require that we do, be, act anything -
we need only listen.
The remedies for repair or reclamation of any lost psychic drive
are contained in stories.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The Joy of Telling

Several people reading my columns have written in to ask for advice on how to tell stories. I have put together this piece by answering several specific questions – some simple, some rather more complex!

While I do believe that you have to be deeply connected with the story you would like to tell as a first step, there are several suggestions that will help you hold the interest of your listeners.

Creating your ‘Storehouse’
The best way to begin is to dedicate a book or file or even a computer folder that holds all those stories that you like.

Whenever you hear a story or read a story that impacts you, it’s best to write it again in your own words. While traditionally stories were learned by listening, the best source today is the wealth of books published and available, and some online sites. As you browse, look for stories that "touch" you; a whole fat book of stories may often give me only one (and that too if I’m lucky) that makes me feel “Oh yes.”

I have to confess to a real impatience with people who write in and ask me – please send us your collection of stories. I can’t help feeing that these people who will not take the trouble to seek out stories from many sources and want someone else’s readymade collection do not seriously have what it takes to be a good teller! I have talked to many Tellers and writers I admire, and all of them tell me of a precious personal storehouse, collected over many years.

Start with simple stories, then as your experience grows, be sure to explore and branch out. Over time, you will probably find many kinds of tales that will interest you personally. You have a lot to choose from – legends and folktales from many countries and cultures; traditional fairytales, epics; myths, legends and hero sagas; scary stories; animal fables.

Depending on the audience, with time and experience you will perhaps want branch out into telling your own personal stories or those of elders of your family.

A rule for all Tellers is to give credit to sources, or at least acknowledge where you heard or read the story first.

Remember that Telling is about interaction.

The rapport you are able to create with your audience is of primary importance. The advice that older storytellers always give us is : be natural -- which is the hardest thing for an anxious teller to do! But there are several things that contribute to ‘Being natural’.

Do your homework. It is important to know your story intimately. Does that mean memorizing it? I personally feel this is unhelpful; but beginners might find it a help. I teach people instead to visualize the story many times over – like a movie in your head, noticing all details and nuances, so when you tell it, you ‘play the movie’ so others can ‘see’ as well as hear it.

Record your telling, and tell before a mirror. Do this at least once for a telling to check your pitch, speed and clarity, and body expressiveness (too much or too little?). Storytelling is relating a tale to one or more listeners through voice and gesture – that flows out of your relationship to the story. It is not the same as reading a story aloud or reciting a piece from memory or acting out a drama - though it does shares common characteristics with these arts.

This brings us to using sensory details. Help your audience almost see, hear, touch and taste what you tell. The senses when engaged in any learning make it that much more powerful.

Give a thought to the end result. Sometimes it helps to ask yourself what you want your listeners to go away with – and rather than spelling this out, you can ‘design’ and ‘direct’ your telling to effect this.

Get your ’live’ feedback from your audience. I have learnt that as the storyteller begins to see and re-create, through voice and gesture, a series of mental images; the audience, too, from that first moment of listening, nods, smiles, grimaces, squints, stares, leans forward or falls asleep, letting the teller know whether to slow down, speed up, elaborate, or just finish.

Listen for all the signs but don’t let them throw you. I also tell beginning tellers not to look at just one or two listeners -- different people will love or hate the same telling, or be somewhere between the two. Image if you only relied on one or the other extreme!

Decide on your ‘style’ for a telling. I get asked often if an informal style is better or if I recommend a theatric, dramatic telling. Well, I do both, but it depends on two things – what you feel more comfortable with, and the nature of your target audience. One thing I’d ask people to avoid is that silly, high-pitched condescending voice that many tellers use when working with children; it’s alright if you are doing voices, and if you want to assign it to one of the characters, but to sit through a whole telling of that …. ugh!!

Remind yourself that you love what you are doing. I have seen tellers who have occasionally lost track of their stories, or fumble or make other ‘mistakes’ and yet enthrall their listeners – and all because they love what they are engaged in. We are all born storytellers, and can therefore teach ourselves to be good ones.

May you love and enjoy the ‘tellings’ you do!

Marguerite Theophil





We all have stories

Because there is a natural storytelling urge and ability in all human beings,
even just a little nurturing of this impulse
can bring about astonishing and delightful results.

~ Nancy Mellon, The Art of Storytelling

The story man

Mumbai has a few remaining sidewalk-booksellers in the Flora Fountain area downtown. Years ago there were many more, among them some that were ‘specialized’ – books only on travel or law, or medical volumes, while others had a mixed collection of anything from novels to children’s books to old first editions. You took your time, bending over, half-squatting, trying hard not to topple the unsteady pile as a book at the very bottom caught your attention. You ignored the looks of annoyed office goers to whom your irritating dawdling on the crowded pavement ate into their lunch-hour by a whole minute.

Recently, the sellers have created more accessible stands and shelves, and there last week I found a worn copy of a children’s illustrated book, Allen Say’s “Kamishibai Man”. It must have been a favorite of the young owner whose name is scrawled proudly on the first page: “This book belongs to: J. J. Davis.”

On the one hour train ride back to Malad, I open the book and begin to read, first guessing at what the initials “J.J.” might stand for. Was J.J. a girl or a boy? Was J.J. all grown up now? Was J.J. a visitor to Mumbai, or did J.J. live someplace in this same city?

As I turn the pages, delighting in the lovely illustrations, I flip back in time to an evening some years ago in Tokyo. I was walking down the street by a park, still not sure if I was truly, distractedly lost or whether I could calm down and find my way to the corner where Masami had left me some hours before.

I had followed the sound of some wooden clappers and the happy laughter of a bunch of children. Curious to find out what was happening, I walked up towards them and realized that there was a man in the lead with the wooden sticks, and the children skipped behind – shades of the Pied Piper, I thought, and followed them too. We soon got to a corner where he had left a bicycle on which stood a wooden chest with drawers over which was propped open a kind of frame.

By then there was a small crowd of adults and children, and one of the parents smiled widely at me and nodded towards the man saying, “Story Man.”

Story Man? Oh,yes. I was going to wait and see this!

What I did see was this man first open up the drawers and sell some brightly colored candy to his audience. For the next fifteen minutes or so, he drew out some large boards with pictures on one side and some kind of text on the back, and told a story complete with bird whistles, different voices and sound effects. There was a flute strapped to his bicycle, and I guessed that he sometimes used it in his tellings. Of course I did not understand a word – and the vocabulary in English of the helpful parent I turned to for help stopped at “Yes, yes, Story-Man” - but I enjoyed the performance all the same. There was such a lively exchange created by Story Man and all the different voices he was using in the short telling; the adults present seemed to be enjoying it even more than the children.

Masami was skeptical when I told her what had delayed me. “You traveled back in time too, perhaps? So I really must forgive you,” she told me, adding at my puzzled look that while the Kamishibai-shi was a fairly common feature of her childhood, she had not come across one in at least twenty years, nor did she think that today’s Japanese children who seemed to be growing cell-phones and electronic games gizmos from their finger tips would pay attention to these story-tellers any more.

I was eager to find out more and Masami’s aunts were happy to fill me in when we visited them that weekend. They told me that they remembered that several times a week, a storyteller would arrive on a bicycle carrying not only his boards but also a wooden box packed with candy and rice crackers.

To get the kids' attention and draw a crowd, the storyteller would stand on the street corner and bang a pair of wooden clappers together. Once he had gathered a large enough audience, the storyteller would start by selling candy and crackers for the kids to eat during his performance. Then, when they had settled down before him, the performance would begin. As he told his story, the storyteller showed the picture boards to the children in order. There were some favorites they wanted told again and again, but whenever he declared he had a new one, the sales of his snacks would go up and they squirmed and wiggled in anticipation, waiting for him to begin.

Kami-shibai, the words literally means "paper-theater", is named for the large picture cards the storyteller uses to present a story to an audience. Parts of the story were printed on the backs of the cards to help the teller remember the story and to make sure the story matched the pictures. Cleverly, the text for picture-card number one, was printed on the back of card two, which then got slotted in front of card one, yet carried it’s text on the back of card three. The storyteller would usually appear in the evening when the children finished school. Typically, the stories were told in serial fashion, and were of the classic cliff-hanger "to be continued" type - that ensured audiences came back again and again, to buy candy and to hear the next episode of the story.

Later I learnt that Kamishibai in this form was one of the few forms of entertainment that was available, specially for children of lower-income families. It was enormously popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s, especially the times during and directly after the war when so much else had been destroyed, and many adults were out of work. Estimates suggest that around the 1940s, there must have been about at least 3,000 storytellers around Tokyo; yet by the 50s their popularity was already declining mainly because of television. Yet, it is quite telling that television was initially referred to as denki kamishibai, or “electric kamishibai.” But as Japan became increasingly affluent, the story-man became less popular, and many gave up this work.

Researchers suggest that the kamishibai picture form shows up in early versions of manga, the printed Japanese comics that soon became very popular, and was also in some ways a predecessor of anime, or animated Japanese cartoons.

In Allen Say’s book that I was luck to find, the story tells of an elderly Kamishibai man who decides to return to the city after many years, and to spend the day on his former rounds. His wife makes candies for him to sell just as she used to in the past, and he sets off on his bicycle. But things have changed. There is a lot of noisy and disturbing traffic moving up and down, with loudly honking horns, and when he sees that the beautiful trees have been cut down to make place for the shops and restaurants, he wonders: Who needs to buy so many things and eat so many different foods? He finally finds a place, sets up his theater and begins to tell his personal story of being a kamishibai man in a flashback sequence. Soon he is surrounded by adults who remember him and his stories from their youth. Ironically, that night he is featured on the news on television, the very technology that replaced him.

When I wrote about my book find to Masami, she told me that actually, kamishibai has not entirely died out. These days, Kamishibai stories for schools, covering a variety of subjects, are still being published and used throughout Japan. A revival is also seen at various theatre offerings, and outdoor events and festivals, and an engaging form of this revival is the Tezukuri kamishibai (hand-made kamishibai) festivals, where people of all ages tell kamishibai stories using boards they have illustrated themselves.

She believes, like I do, that wherever there are still people who want to come together and share their stories, kamishibai will always have a special place.

May you find ways to help keep the wonderful Tradition of Story alive.

Marguerite Theophil


We are profoundly indebted to the bards, artists and storytellers,
who cherished these insights through dark times
and delivered them safely to us.
We need them badly.
~ Robert Johnson

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Girija's story-world

‘Girija’s World’ is a short story of mine that appeared in ITC's “Namaste” Short Story issue, edited by Monisha Mukundan. I post it here as it’s about Story – my story and my stories, Girija’s story and her stories. Our lives are less about events than about the stories of our events. We all have a story; and within that, our stories…

GIRIJA’S STORY-WORLD

Girija whisked the broom indifferently under the bookshelf. “Stop following me around, troublesome child,” she snapped. I climbed up into the big chair, out of her broom’s path and said, “I saw the man you told me about the other day.”

She paused, thwacking the broom against the edge of the cupboard, then looked up at me with disgust. “And how did you know it was him?”

“He had a sad face.”

She straightened up. “The world is full of sad-faced men. “

Some minutes later, she added, “Maybe the one you saw was another - Ramu, not Suri…”

I waited. I knew that her need to tell me her endless stock of stories of the strangely interesting lives that peopled her slum was at least as strong as my need to hear them.

The Suri story was strange enough. Girija had told me that Suri, who lived in the same slum on the sides of the hill that went down to the sea, ran a small business. He had a cart from which he sold snacks outside a school, and bribed the local policemen enough that the complaints of the nuns who ran the school were ignored.

Suri was also a healer of sorts. “Not an ordinary ‘educated’ doctor; a real one, who has magic,” Girija had emphasized, as she strung out the washing on the clothesline in the backyard, while I tried to keep up, handing her the clothes pegs before she asked for them.

Girija had an inexhaustible supply of contempt for the ‘educated’, and this included us, one of the families she worked for. She never cheeked my mother or said much in her presence. But when she spoke of my educated parents to me while we were alone, her eyes said it all. Mostly she arrived each day after my parents had left for work, and under the indifferent supervision of my old great aunt who lived with us, Girija attended to or ignored her chores depending on her mood, leaving before my mother and father returned. On Thursdays, my weekly day off from school, I found in Girija a ready and potent reason to abandon my homework to follow her and her moods around the house all day.

Some months back - she had informed me, her eyes widening, her words hoarsely whispered, even though there was no one else around, her telling tinged with drama - an ‘educated’ man from a nearby building had come looking for this same Suri, and told him that he needed his help. This man’s arms and legs were covered with ugly, disfiguring boils; recently one had even appeared on his face, and when all treatments had failed, the man’s maidservant had told his wife about Suri. “I will pay whatever you ask if you can rid me of this pain and shame,” the man had told Suri. Suri whispered his fee in the man’s ear, and after a short hesitation, the man nodded, “Fine.”

Suri asked the man to lie down, then moved in clockwise circles around him, puffing and blowing slowly at his entire body, bit by bit. When the man stood up over an hour later, he was free of the disfiguring boils, and readily paid Suri the large amount of money he had agreed on. However, the next morning when Suri woke up, Girija said, the shock still visible on her face, he found his own arms and legs were covered with the same boils. “That is why he wears long sleeved kurtas and pajamas now,” Girija whispered. I had shivered.

The man I saw was dressed just like that, I was about to tell her, forgetting that so were half the men in the city, but she squatted back on her heels, pulled out her paan that was tied into a corner of her sari, stuffed it into a corner of her mouth and snapped: “Do you want to hear about Ramu, or not?”

Ramu, she began slowly, was sad because he had a real reason to be sad; not like those educated ones who get sad for no reason at all.

I once earned her displeasure when I asked her why she insisted on sending her only son Damo to school, because he would become an educated person too. Her punishment had been no stories for three painful Thursdays.

Girija had been widowed at sixteen. Pregnant with her son, she was thrown out of her in-laws’ home for being an inauspicious burden on them. Her parents were dead and to ask her brother and his family to take them in was unthinkable. She got on to a train and traveled to Bombay, first making her home with her baby Damo on the pavements of the city at night, some years later making a down payment on a hut in the slum colony by borrowing small sums of money from the five or six homes she did ‘top’ work in – jobs like the sweeping, mopping floors, and washing dishes and clothes, that our cooks and kitchen staff considered themselves too upper-caste to do.

“Ramu was sad because of his wife,” she said. “His wife could not give him sons. They had five daughters in five years; she was not a good wife.”

I felt a bubbling up need in me to explain to her about the ‘x’ and ‘y’ chromo-somethings that my mother had told me about. It was actually his fault, I wanted to shout. Wisely I weighed this impulse. Would she be pleased that my words showed that I bought into her strong belief that it was men who had to be pitied now and then and scorned the rest of the time, because they were the really useless ones after all? Or would the interruption anger her and cut off my supply of stories? I silently nodded for her to go on.

“Ramu’s wife…” Girija took up her story, and I held my breath, sensing that this woman’s misdeeds must have been truly great; our Girija could not even say her name. “Ramu’s wife decided to steal a baby boy from the hospital” My chest hurt, my head felt light – she stole a baby! “But what about the poor real mother?” I burst out.

“Am I telling you the story of the mother of this stolen baby or of Ramu?” Girija’s flashing eyes silenced me. Story-junkie that I was, I assumed what I thought was a suitably conciliatory expression. It seemed to work. “When she came home, Ramu was happy for the first time in five years ...”

I had not learnt my lessons too well. ”Didn’t he care that it was stolen from another mother?” I wailed, and had to endure a muttered “Stupid educated children asking stupid unnecessary questions.”

“… But sadly his happiness did not last long. The police were soon at their house, they took the baby away, and she is now in jail.”

“Poor thing!”

“Yes, true.” Girija said, “Now he has to look after those five girls on his own. Poor thing.” I couldn’t be sure if she had deliberately misunderstood my words, or thought that it was sad-faced Ramu that I really did feel sorry for.

The following week Girija announced that her brother’s wife had given birth to a third son, and so she would be away for the greater part of the week, starting tomorrow.

While she was away, two important things happened in my life.

I received my report card for the final examinations, and had stood first, winning most of the prizes in my class. This I would not tell Girija.

I was taken by my parents to be part of a real Grown Up Dinner Party for the first time. They all told stories too, but they were of Rani’s wonderful examination results, Tinky’s tonsils, Prashant-kaka’s promotion, Malu-massi’s arthritis, and how much Ritu-aunty got for selling the coconuts from the trees on her property.

This I would tell Girija – the educated did live less interesting lives.


May you find ways to tell your stories, may you have your stories listened to.
Marguerite Theophil


To be a person is to have a story to tell.
~ Isak Dinesen




Thursday, July 31, 2008

New ways of seeing, new ways of being

Many Sufi stories and poems try to show that the only real wealth a person can have is their knowledge and wisdom. The Sufi student seeks to have her or his eyes opened to truth in whatever form it arises. Sometimes for this, a self-evident truth needs to be questioned.

The way of the Sufi is not to get trapped into believing that one religion or philosophy is the truth but to develop an openness which frees you to be able to reconcile opposing and seemingly contradictory ideas. Often, rather than lectures driving home ‘a point’ stories such as this one were told to make us ‘open up’ to such a learning.

There once was king who had two sons.

As they grew up, the first prince helped the people by working for them in a manner they understood; he built good roads and bridges, he opened more schools. The second prince was considered the lazy prince; he was a dreamer, and did not seem to ‘do’ very much. The first son gained great popularity in the kingdom, while the second, who was known to have obtained a wooden horse from a humble carpenter that he sat astride it most of the time, was ignored and even ridiculed.

Actually, this horse was a magical one; it could carry the rider, if he was sincere, to his heart's desire. In search his heart's desire, the young prince suddenly disappeared one day on his horse. He was away for a long, long time. One day, he just as suddenly returned with a beautiful princess from the Country of Light, and his father was overjoyed at his safe return and listened carefully as he recounted is many adventures and the amazing story of the magic horse.

The horse was then made available to anyone in that country who wanted it. But the people preferred the more concrete benefits which the first prince provided for them; though they half-believed the king, the horse to them always looked like a plaything.

When the old king died, by his surprising decree, the prince ‘who played with toys' became the king. But people in the kingdom continued to resent him; they much preferred the discoveries and activities of the practical prince.

Many of these stories and poems teach us to be cautious of a world defined and separated by ‘this’ and ‘that’, specially by labels of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. A translation of a poem by Jalaluddin Rumi goes:
Out,
beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there
.

Sufis have traditionally spoken of the development in a person of an organ of perception, which, once developed, allows a person to apply himself or herself more completely and effectively to life. And this development is often achieved through a "soaking" in story and poetry, that bypass our rational, give-me-the-one-right-answer mind, allowing our intuitive capacities to recognize the once-hidden but now revealed meanings within them. This might happen consciously or unconsciously, depending on the level of one's awakening.

In the form they are given, most such stories are perfectly suitable as children's stories, though young as well as older people like them. Most people stop there. Some go further, and appreciate their wry humor and entertainment value, perhaps seeing their neighbors or co-workers' behavior exemplified by some characters. Most of those stop there. Some are able to see their own behaviors and attitudes reflected in the stories. But these stories have far more to offer; they lead us to our True Self.

Sufi teaching recognizes that we have an essential nature that is spiritual, and that we are on an earthly journey in order to uncover this essential self. Stories act as powerful teachers on this journey.

Insight or recognition that is gifted to us by story can work to dislodge the comfortable structure that supports our habitual patterns of behavior, responses and comprehension, which often obscure insight into our True Nature. It is believed that the potential for transformation of the self is placed within us; however it is not usually accessible to us because of our limited perception and identification with our everyday and surface self.

Sufism tries to show us that what we think is important may be just a partial understanding of reality. A change in perception that some stories can open us to is often needed to shake us and awaken us to new ways of seeing, new ways of being. Through this, we are closer to becoming the 'completed' person who has seen the heart of truth, and from this vantage point is able to discern the vanities and blinkered vision of others, and more importantly, of oneself.

This is best revealed in the words of the mystic Bayazid Bastami:
I was a revolutionary when I was young, and all my prayer to God was: “Lord, give me the energy to change the world”. As I approached middle age and realized that half my life was gone without my changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to “Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come in contact with me. Just my family and friends, and I shall be content.” Now that I am an old man and my days are numbered, my one prayer is, “Lord, give me the grace to change myself". If I had prayed for this right from the start I would not have wasted my life.

May Story open you to your True Nature.
Marguerite Theophil



Doorway to the Interior
A story reveals its gifts only to those who enter it …
The key to learning from a story is to find
a doorway to its interior.
~ Michael Meade

Behind the fearsome mask

Baba Yaga is a character who appears in hundreds of Russian and Eastern European stories and fairy tales. Her image is an over-the-top scary one; an old woman, she is described as having a nose that hooks downward, a chin that curves upward, long greasy hair, iron teeth sharp brown fingernails, ridged and long. Known as 'old bony legs', Baba Yaga has a short temper, and a large appetite - specially for devouring children.

To further heighten the scary picture, we are told she lives in a clearing in a birch forest, in a place that is difficult to find, unless a magic thread, feather or doll shows the way. Her hut spins around on bright yellow chicken legs. Its bolts and shutters are made of human bones. There is a fence around it made of human skulls. She travels from place to place in a huge mortar and pestle, using a broom to erase the marks of where she has been. Wherever she appears, a wild wind begins to blow, the trees groan and leaves whirl through the air.

Given all this, it may seem strange that anyone would look for Baba Yaga or enter her hut. However, they do so knowing that she is wise - all knowing, all seeing - and tells the whole truth to those who are brave enough to ask. So the stories contain not only the fearsome descriptions – they include ways to approach this power and to get something valuable out of the encounter.

In many ancient societies, older women were seen as the keepers of wisdom and tradition for the family or tribe. No longer having to care for children, they became mother figures to the rest of the community. The older women were the keepers of the wisdom and tradition in the family, clan, tribe, and community. They were also the keepers of relationships, whether among people or with all of nature. They were healers and looked after the dying, and so were considered to have a deep understanding of the two great mysteries, birth and death. In fact, sometimes they were thought to have the power of life and death itself. To approach them was to find answers that are not ordinarily available to most people.

When we follow the various stories associated with Baba Yaga, we find she is more than just an ugly old witch, for she has power, making her worthy of not just fear, but of respect. The stories show how she offers wisdom and guidance to those who are brave enough to seek her and clever enough not to offend her.

The importance of Baba Yaga is reflected in her dominion over time. This is shown symbolically in the three horsemen, who are often talked of as her “faithful servants” -the White Horseman, the Red Horseman and the Black Horseman, who control daybreak, sunrise, and nightfall.

Baba Yaga guards the "Waters of Life and Death." Sometimes the "Water of Death" is indeed used for killing "by stopping the breath or freezing the lifeblood of whoever drinks it," but more often it is part of a healing process. In many Slavic folktales, "the first, the 'water of death,' heals the wounds of a corpse or knots together a body that has been chopped up. The second, the 'Water of Life,' restores life" In either case, it is often the wise old Baba Yaga or her serpent who looks after these all important waters.

Baba Yaga is depicted as a nature spirit and the guardian of the forest, as well as the protector of the fountain of the Waters of Life and Death. She doles out advice to those who are worthy and offers magic and gifts to the pure of heart, and punishes others who are mean-minded or arrogant. In another light, Baba Yaga represents the death of ego. She is the bringer of wisdom and death, as she personifies time and aging, as well as the wisdom that accompanies them.

The Czechs know her as Jazi Baba, and in Poland she is referred to as Ienzababa or Jezda. In addition to her official name, she is also referred to as the Guardian of the Underworld, the Mistress of the Forest, the Goddess of Death and Regeneration, the Wolf-Goddess, the Bone Mother, the Mistress of the Animals, and the Guardian of the Water of Life and Death. These powerful descriptions demonstrate the depth of this ancient figure, who is far more than the simplistic and wicked character she was assigned at the time when Christianity entered the region.

As terrifying as it may be to face Baba Yaga, to survive is to be forever transformed. She would much rather kill our ignorance than ourselves by forcing us to examine ourselves, and thereby finding our own hidden resources.

Inspite of Baba Yaga’s ruthlessness, stories about her also show how she keeps her word once it is given. In some stories, she has a helpful side and in at least one, it is shown that she can be lonely and in need of love and company. She expects respect, and gives grudging respect to people who respect her and are willing to stand up to her and carry out her tasks.

She is also a keeper of fire, which is the goal of many a quest to Baba Yaga’s forbidding presence. Characters who make the frightening journey are often portrayed as ones who have lost their own spark of individual creative fire. Heroines, who need to light the darkness for themselves and others, who need to feel the fire of creative passion, go to the deep forest dwelling of Baba Yaga, the keeper of the creative fire, to beg for fire for their hearths.She does not part with this fire so easily; she demands to know why she should give some fire from her fire stick to those who have been so careless with the precious flame. She will not give you the flame until you have worked for her and perhaps completed seven seemingly impossible labours.

Restoration, renewal, nourishment, and enlightenment can all be found by surviving a journey to Baba Yaga's underworld. To safely enter Baba Yaga's domain, according to Marion Woodman, "There are laws of civility in dealing with these sacred energies.” The seeker must have the courage to venture to place that scare her or him, to hold on to intuition and heart-connection, to ask for what one desires, to go through the tasks set before one. An important thing to remember to ensure survival is to approach Baba Yaga with great humility, knowing that while we do not have the answers, she does.

I have often been asked if the frightening images found in many stories is ‘harmful’ for children, and if they might encourage children to violent behavior. I can understand the fears that parents often might have in this connection, but it’s important to explore other aspects of the impact of such stories on young people. These stories also provide us with those aspects that we ‘adults’ often overlook, but which children often wisely relate to!

In The Uses Of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim throws some light on this: "The fairy tale hero has a body which can perform miraculous deeds. By identifying with him, any child can compensate in fantasy and through identification for all the inadequacies, real or imagined, of his own body. He can fantasize that he too, like the hero, can climb into the sky, defeat giants, change his appearance, become the most powerful or the most beautiful person- in short have his body be and do all the child could possibly wish for. After his most grandiose fantasies have been satisfied he can be more at peace with his body as it is in reality. "

This is one of the reasons why the scary characters in folk stories have been made so vivid. If, by identifying with a hero or heroine in a folktale, you can vicariously experience facing and triumphing over an overwhelmingly scary foe, then facing your own real life challenges seems a lot easier and do-able.

May you learn to delve deeper into the stories you read or hear.
Marguerite Theophil




Cutting doors in blank walls
Stories set the inner life into motion,
and this is particularly important where
the inner life is frightened, wedged, or cornered.
Story greases the hoists and pulleys,
it causes adrenaline to surge,
shows us the way out, down, or up, and for our trouble,
cuts for us fine wide doors in previously blank walls…
~Clarissa Pinkola Estes


The joys and benefits of personal narrative

Working with Story has endless possibilities. Personal Narrative - stories from our own everyday lives - is one aspect of Storywork.

Often we imagine that to be a storyteller, we need to find stories only in books or other traditional sources. But stories from our own lives, telling of joys, sorrows, challenges, achievements, successes and recoveries can do so much for us as well. It has been said that personal histories provide a “golden thread of awareness” in us, helping us know, remember, reflect, question, and understand ourselves and the world around us.

Personal storytelling builds groups and communities.
We often get judgmental when we do not know people well; when we know someone's story, we can't help but understand them more, if not actively like them. It doesn't matter if we are different culturally, financially or generationally - our stories enrich each others’ lives.

Personal storytelling creates networks of support and encouragement.
People who have gone through the same illnesses or problems, find relief and release through the sharing of their stories. They realize they are not alone; perhaps even that others have bigger problems, and also that there could be hope through all this suffering. It can also teach us to count our blessings, to empathize and to reach out.

Personal Storytelling provides us with options and solutions.
Sometimes, listening to steps others have taken can show us alternative ways of behaving, or gives us options to choose from, and often gives us courage too.

Personal stories help us replace negative interpretations with positive ones.
Some stories about ourselves that we continue to carry have been feeding us with damaging or unhelpful information. These stories need to be first told, then left behind, to be replaced with future positive stories. Messages in these stories that say "you can't" can be replaced with those that affirm "I can". This makes it much easier to live out of the new telling.

Personal storytelling can help younger people to go through life’s passages.
My friend Carolyn created a special book for young Lina , then 12, that wasn’t only filled with information; she had a group of us women all write our own first menstruation stories that included the fears, the anticipation. Lina, now 30, still treasures this very personal gift and says she will share it with her two young daughters.

Personal storytelling can bond us intergenerationally.
Alright, we have all known – or have been - adults who have told stories about our childhood and had the listeners roll back their eyes way into their sockets in disbelief (the more polite ones, anyway!). But how about a story ‘exchange’? Children and adults can come together and tell and listen to each others’ stories. And it needn’t always be about how good or studious or kind or generous we used to be…

Personal storytelling helps us know each other better.
I am not just talking of those who have just met – old friends and long-time couples too often can discover stories and events they have not talked of before – funny, sad, embarrassing, learningful – profound or just plain silly. Recently, a women’s group I am part of, and who have known each other for many years, shared ‘new’ pieces of our lives that have made us realize that we are all so multifaceted, and there is no end to getting to know each other more deeply – it just takes time and loving awareness.

Personal storytelling can help create a precious, enduring gift.
A woman I know collected family recipes from her mother, grandmothers, aunts and grandaunts, adding a personal anecdote/story and a photograph from each of their lives, and had a book printed for each of the twenty-six young women in her extended family.

Personal storytelling is healing and releasing.
There are times when having told and released our story, we are free to let go and move on. Isak Dinesen wrote, “All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.” This does not necessarily involve speaking it out to another person. Individuals have often written their own stories as a myth or fairy tale, or created paintings and sculptures that allow them to now step forward with their lives.
May you find ways to share your personal stories.
Marguerite Theophil



Practicing and protecting stories
The telling of our stories is as basic, important and necessary
as our personal freedoms, yet, sadly, also as threatened.
When not practiced and protected, stories are lost to obscurity
and knowledge itself is placed in jeopardy.
~ Waddie Mitchell