THE TRUE GIFTS OF THE MAGI

This year I received one of the most intriguing Christmas gifts ever. In a wooden box labeled “Gifts of The Wise Men”, are three smaller metallic ones. One contains a tiny amount of ‘edible gold dust’, another has several small frankincense incense cones, and a myrrh-scented balm occupies the third!

My mind goes to those Sunday School Christmas plays of many years ago. With my short hair, and being one of the taller children, I was invariably cast as one of the Three Kings. In a robe created from an old silk sari, a gold-foil crown, clutching a velvet pouch, or ceramic jars that had to pass off as gifts of gold, frankincense or myrrh – I was strangely filled with the importance and significance of the moment. I recall the Three Kings making an entrance in measured in measured steps as the choir belted out: “We three kings of Orient are/ Bearing gifts, we traverse so far ….”

A brief narration, mentioned only in one of the four Biblical gospels, that of Matthew, to me this story of the visit of the Wise Men is the most evocative of the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus. We are told that the Wise Men came from the East, read the night sky, and carried gifts to a child whose star they had observed and followed.

Many add-on legends have grown up around them, introducing features like they were three in number, that they were kings, that they arrived on camels.

The tradition of Los Tres Reyes Magos The Three Wise Kings, in Puerto Rico is taken very seriously. The Catholic Church declared the Magi as Saints, giving each his own Day of Feast.

El Rey Gaspar was Emperor of the Orient and ruled over all oriental lands. He is also represented as white but does not wear a beard. His clothes were gilded in gold. Gaspar's gift was frankincense, an aromatic oil that symbolized prayer. Frankencense was priceless and a gift for Kings. Gaspar is said to have also brought many other fine gifts for the Christ Child. It is said that Gaspar traveled the furthest to visit the Christ Child. Saint Gaspar's feast day is January 6th.

El Rey Melchor was a Nubian King and ruler of Ethiopia. Melchor was dressed in exquisite robes. His gift was myrrh, an aromatic resin that comes from the bark of thorny African trees and symbolized suffering. Myrrh was a precious comodity in the Middle East. He is also rumored to have brought many other expensive gifts and treasures along. Saint Melchor's feast day is January 7th.

El Rey Baltazar was the Sultan of Arabia. He was the oldest of the Magi and was a small and gentle man. Baltazar had a long white beard and wore elegant crimson robes. His gift was gold but he is rumored to have brought many other priceless gifts as well. Legend tells us that Baltazar died soon after in the presence of the other Wise Men. His figure traditionally goes before the others on a manger scene. Saint Baltazar's feast day is January 8th.

But ... they are not referred to as kings in the Bible. Though the Revised Standard Version translates the Greek as ‘wise men’, the word is ‘magi’ – it is in the plural, yes, but we don't know exactly how many.

The term ‘magi’ has several distinct connotations. It can designate a Persian priestly caste called the Magians, through most scholars favor the meaning ‘astrologers’, as it was their observation of the stars that prompted their journey.

Matthew tells us that the visitors celebrated the Christ child with the most valuable items in the ancient world: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Much has been speculated about the meaning and relevance of these gifts. In Jesus’ time, they were all expensive and precious, though widely used, as frankincense and myrrh were known to be powerful medicines. Frankincense comes from trees and myrrh from bushes that grow along southern Arabia and Somalia. When an incision is made in their trunks or stems, sap oozes out, congealing with exposure to air. This is gathered and sold ounce by precious ounce.

But it is the symbolic nature of these three gifts, as they foretell events of the Baby Jesus’ life that are of real meaning.
The wider consensus is that gold is symbolic of royalty, of kingship; the baby will be king, but a king in God’s terms, not ours.
Frankincense burns with a white, fragrant smoke and was thought to carry prayers to heaven. Used commonly in ritual worship, it was perhaps symbolic of Jesus’ priestly, teaching role, or a sign that Jesus himself would be worshipped by so many.
Myrrh was used for anointing a body before burial, so already Matthew sets before us a portent of things to come: the fact that death and grief are part of Jesus’ story, just as they are so very much part of our own.

The three gifts contain within them a Story of the holy and exemplary life of a great teacher, Jesus, that will unfold to challenge hypocritical observances, to engage in radical compassion, to teach through example the power of true loving and forgiving.

Each year, we hope the Story of the Gifts will remind us to follow on this path.
Marguerite Theophil

Stories are, quite simply, our native language.

~ Bill Mooney

NAMED FOR GREATER THINGS

Many writers and tellers, and others who may not actually have written or told stories, have often wondered about how a story might be conveyed through the eyes of another, often ‘minor’, character in the narrative. Indeed, several books have been written this way. [See ALTERNATIVE TELLINGS]

The alternative perspective has always fascinated me and when Monisha Mukundan, editor of ‘Namaste’ magazine invited contributions for this year’s Short Story Edition, a character who has been longing to have her part in a very famous story recounted invaded my consciousness. And … we all know what happens when you don’t tell the story …! [See WHY WE MUST TELL THE STORY]

So, here it is:


NAMED FOR GREATER THINGS

We were named for greater things. This we both knew.

My father lived out close to those first three years in shame, but the years that followed more than made up for it. When, as the wazir of this land, he gave my sister Sheherazad in marriage to Sultan Shahriar, our wider family first shunned him for what they saw as a noble yet simple-minded sacrifice. Surely his significant position in the court would have kept his daughters safe.

Of course you may have heard our story – who hasn’t?

Shahriar, so shocked by his beloved wife's infidelity, had her put to death. Believing all women to be equally unfaithful, he took a new virgin bride every night, and had her executed at dawn; this way, she wasn’t around long enough to cheat on him. This continued for some years and there were fewer and fewer young women left. What was to come next, everyone wondered; might the depraved and cruel ruler move on to the women who were already wives? Sheherazad, my beautiful, brilliant and daring elder sister, sickened by this, and sure she could change things, volunteered to become Shahriar's next wife.

My father, tired of being Shahriar’s trusted wazir, and therefore his reluctant and shame-filled procurer and executioner of the young women in this revolting drama, naturally refused at first, but my determined sister somehow convinced him that this was the best way; in fact, the only way.

My mother began at once to prepare her daughter’s shroud, darting glances of hatred at my father, but silently as always. Maybe that’s why she never gets a mention in any of the versions you read.

But when he went on to announce that I would accompany his beloved first-born to the palace to serve her, adding awkwardly that it was at the girl’s request, and even more awkwardly that I’d be away for a day or two at the most – that is, if the sultan did not have me executed along with Sheherazad, then even the hate left her eyes. It was replaced by a blank, empty stare that for those who knew, held in their secret depths every emotion a woman experienced in her entire lifetime, more than half of which remained unknown to mere men.

And you perhaps have read those accounts about Sheherazad which declared:”Her father had provided her with the best teachers in philosophy, medicine, history and the fine arts, and besides all this, her beauty excelled that of any girl in the kingdom.” About me, almost as an afterthought, they said: “Duniyazad had no particular gifts to distinguish her from other girls…”

Sheherazad seemed to know it was time to fulfill her name-destiny, after all, her name called for her to be the Saver of The City, Sheher-Azad. As for me, I wondered about when my time would come, and shivered in silent anticipation; Saver of The World, Duniya-Azad.

There was no time to dream of what might be, as my sister took me aside and said: “Little sister; I will need your help in a very important matter if we are both to stay alive for a long, long time, and not be killed after only one night like all the others. Father is going to take me to the palace to celebrate my marriage with the Sultan, and you are to go with me, and stay with me for as long as it takes for my plan to work. I shall beg the sultan as a last favour, to let you sleep nearby, so that I may have your company during the last night I am alive. If, as I hope, he grants me my wish, be sure that you wake us an hour before the dawn, and say loudly enough to me these words: "My beloved sister, if you are not asleep, I beg you, before the sun rises, to tell me one of your charming stories." Then I shall begin, and I hope in this way to eventually deliver our women from the terror that hangs over them."

I was never able to say no to her. Actually, I don’t think there ever was anyone who could, and I felt reasonably sure that the Sultan would be just like the rest of us in this matter.

Not knowing if her plan meant our stay would last for days or weeks or even years, I only asked that I might carry my loom with me and continue with my weaving, as that was my one and only talent.

When Sultan Shahriyar first met Sheherzad and ordered her to raise her veil, he was struck by her radiant beauty, and even his hardened heart could not miss the tears in her big, sad eyes. He asked her what the matter was. "My lord," replied Sheherazad, "I have a sister who loves me as tenderly as I love her. Grant me the favour of allowing her to sleep this night close by me on that couch, as it is the last time we shall be together." The sultan agreed, and I was ushered in.

Do you think I slept at all? They did, and soundly too, after a night of feasting and love-making. An hour before daybreak, still wide awake, I called her name, and as soon as I heard the sultan sit up and grumblingly ask her what was going on, I dutifully begged as I had been tutored, "Beloved sister, if you are not asleep, tell me I pray you, before the sun rises, one of your charming stories. It is the last time that I shall have the pleasure of hearing you."

Scheherazade did not answer me; she always knew what to do and how to do it. Instead, she turned to the Sultan and asked in the sweetest of tones, "Will your highness permit me to do as my sister asks?"

"Willingly," he answered. So Scheherazade began. And just as the sun rose, she brought the story to a point of incomplete conclusion. The sultan, as she had known, was irrevocably drawn in, and knowing he would hear the rest of the intriguing tale the next night, ordered the executioner away that morning. And so we lived another day.

Another night, another story to be continued, another day alive. And so it went on.

Scheherazade, of course, had her plan. In the few snatched moments we had alone together, my sister often reminded me, “Duniyazad, two years and 271 days is all it will take, I know. This I promise you.”

I counted off the days each new dawn, by tying another knot in a cord I wound around my waist. I passed the long days in anticipation of the night by weaving into my carpet my tears, my confusion, my relief each morning, my fears each night. Mixed in too was admiration of my sister, pain at the loss of my family, the clutching emptiness within me. Somewhere too the loom made space for my anger at the sultan, my sister, even at myself and at this strange unfathomable world.

Each night, night after night, it became our ritual, all three of us, for me to stay on in the anteroom of their enormous bedchamber and request a story. The sultan became so entranced by Sheherazad’s stories that he would long to hear the conclusion of each one; and night after night Sheherazad would work in a twist, a lead, a sub-plot, or a link, leaving him in suspense, thus earning for herself – and me - a further stay of execution.

Was this how I was to save the world while my sister saved the city? Night after lonely night spent on the narrow couch in the antechamber of the royal bedroom, getting some hours of fitful sleep only after the sun rose each morning? Day after day I wove the colours and shapes of my feelings into my carpet, while I grew thinner and sadder with each meaningless moment.
My sister, well, she seemed to grow even more beautiful with each passing day as she became more confident in the Sultan’s growing attention, if not his assured love and affection. And never was she lovelier than when she with child – three times in all of this time; three sons she now had to bargain with, in case her beguiling words turned out not to be sufficient to save our lives. We were never sure if his needs for her words would lead to his need for her.

Was it because I knew her best that when 990 days drew to a close I noticed there was an unfamiliar pallor to her skin, a vaguely haunted look about her eyes? Did the sultan notice as I did, that she spoke more slowly, more softly, sometimes more hesitantly? That her stories lacked the energy of earlier ones? That the transitions she ended each dawn with, were not nearly as exciting as before?

On the nine hundred and ninety first day she drew me aside, clutched me with a trembling hand, and hoarsely whispered, “I have no more.” She did not need to tell me what she meant. “What do you want me to do?” I stammered in panic. She only said, “Give me, find me, tell me more stories.”

What do you think I felt when I heard this? Me and stories? An impossible new job for Duniyazad, the unremarkable sister, whose role was only to ask for yet another story from her enchantress sister night after night, and to stay awake, to just sit and listen. The great sultan could not be seen to have such ordinary needs, so I filled out a seemingly trivial and insignificant yet invisibly huge and burdensome role, even as I just uttered one simple request each night. And listened. Night after night after night.

I, who had never left the palace, who had been trained to ask my question, then sit still and listen and hardly ever speak, made complicated plans to slip out of the harem each morning at great risk. I befriended, bribed or bullied the series of guards as I needed to, so I could move in and out of the palace, using a different route each time.

All night I stayed awake and asked and listened to make sure we lived, and now all day I wandered the streets and listened yet again to make sure we lived – but this time with passionate intent, this time not passively, this time with an eager hunger for the words and images I must take back.

Naked, I sought out the old women in hamams. Disguised, I made entry and sat in the chai-khanehs full of loud men. At street corners I pounced with the ragged children on the itinerant storytellers that traveled form city to city and savoured their delights as I would food and nourishment.

Then as I walked back to the palace I made the stories mine. No longer at my wooden loom, I still dexterously wove into the stories my new experiences, the rich strangeness of the sights and sounds, my own hopes and doubts and dreams as well as those of the many I engaged with. I began to feel that my encounters with real people and real places and all the joys and sorrows that went with this gave my stories more flesh and blood and smells and tastes than those my sister had learnt from her books. When I had finished, the stories remained essentially the same yet abidingly altered, as all great stories must be.
Each evening my sore feet, my aching head, my dry and heavy tongue passed on these stories to my pale and nervous sister. Each night she repeated them as if in a fever. Each night the sultan said, “This is the best story yet.” And I sighed in the shadows, trying desperately to stay awake.

The knots in the cord around my waist told me that 1001 nights were at an end, and when my sister finally asked for our lives to be spared, it wasn’t so much the stories as it was the presence of his children that made Shahriar relent. The written books tell you that he grew to love her, that her intelligence and beauty won him over. We knew it was the sons.

Maybe her children were the world I saved. Maybe we ourselves were the world I saved. Maybe the stories were the real world I saved. Duniya Azad at last.

"Stories never really end, Meggie, even if the books like to pretend they do.

Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page,

any more than they begin on the first page."

~ Silvertongue in Cornelia Funke’s INKSPELL

THE ALMOST-LOST ART OF STORYTELLING

Traditionally, the wisdom of the world's cultures has been conveyed through story, helping explain our world and our place in it – enabling us to develop as persons, create community, solve problems, ignite creativity and imagination, discover meaning and teach, nurture and influence younger generations.

Storytelling not only directed individuals and communities to what was precious and what they needed to hang on to – it also taught us the ‘other side’ of life: to live with change and how to learn from it.

Night-shadows signaling the day's end, or in some communities, the longer winter evenings, were assigned as the times for story-listening. As one Teller friend laughingly put it: “The art of storytelling evolved naturally, because some people preferred telling tales and other preferred listening to them.”

Traditional cultures the world over revered good stories and storytellers. While storytelling was a part of every household, there was a special place for accomplished storytellers, who, after years of specialized training set out to invite, enchant, inspire and teach their people.

The stories told were tales of meaning; of how the world was created, how evil forces entered the world and had to be confronted, of heroes and heroines who embarked on transformative journeys, of how seemingly weaker people would succeed, even when they were less rich or less powerful.

Often the main characters had to learn to listen, to accept magic, to go on quests, undertake difficult challenges, make moral choices or listen to helpful creatures and guides who appeared along the path. Time and again a seeker returned safely, giants and dragons were subdued, the community was saved, the people renewed.

In “The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth”, Robert Graves tells us that in ancient Ireland, the ollave, or master-poet, sat next to the king and was privileged, as none but the queen was, to wear six different colors in his clothes. The ollave also held the respected position of judge and seer, and tutored the king in morality.

In Turkey and Azerbaijan, the singing storytellers or troubadors were called ashiks, a word from Arabic meaning 'lover', which describes someone who is a musician, poet and storyteller.

In the Mali and Guinea and the Gambia, the jalis or griots were and are the community’s historians, with skills to draw a village or people closer - one known way is by “giving them courage” through the tellings.

We in India fortunately have many story-telling Traditions still around – the Pandvani, Harikatha, the Baul, the Villu-Pattu, the Rathva, Burra Katha, Powada and many more. Alive in smaller towns and villages, and brought to city-dwellers as part of ‘cultural’ or ‘art’ events, it is still very difficult for most children of these Tellers to continue the tradition and choose it as a viable career. Sadly, these custodians of what is precious to our societies are finding it increasingly hard to keep these Traditions alive or revived without our active interest and support.

That may be the bad news, but the good news is that the world over people are recognizing the power of story-telling and story-sharing in different arenas of life, and actively working to revive it.

In Peshawar, Qissa Khwani translates as the Storyteller's Bazaar. This used to be the site of camping ground for caravans and military adventures, where professional story-tellers recited ballads and tales of war and love to throngs of traders and soldiers in the evening, in the many tea-shops. Today the place is know by the same name, but is full of traffic, shops and noise, with no live tellers in sight. However, in this busy market, storytelling cassette tapes now sell briskly, helping listeners to remember the past and tellers to find new audiences.

In the square of Jemaa al-Fna in theMoroccan city of Marrakesh,.you can still find a story-teller or a halaka who tells ancient stories that have been handed down from generation to generation. No doubt tourism has helped keep this going, often as a curiosity - but we learn to be grateful even for these small things.

With modern technology offering new forms of diversion and entertainment, "Young Moroccans would rather watch TV soap operas than listen to a story-teller much less become one themselves," and the tradition is dying out. A friend tells me that only six years ago there used to be around twenty halakis in the square, and now he finds only barely half a dozen - and they are all very old men.

A concerned group has in recent years managed to block projects like a tall glass tower and an underground garage in the square, where cars have now been banned.

However UNESCOhas intervened to try to save the stories as part of the world's oral heritage, even recording some of them on the internet, so modern technology may yet come to the rescue of these wondrous tales.

May we find ways to support and encourage the storytellers we come across, and play a role in nurturing this wonderful tradition.

Marguerite Theophil

(See also ‘THE STORY-MAN’)

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 

THE TEACHINGS OF THE THUNDER-CLOUD

This story from the Upanishads illustrates for me a wonderful model of teaching and learning:

In times long ago, there were three kinds of offspring of the great cosmic father Prajapati - the divine beings or gods, the humans and the demons. They all lived with their father in order to learn the lessons they needed to fulfill their roles and destinies.

After finishing their term of studies, it was time for each group to leave and to get on with whatever gods, humans and demons get on with. But, before that, it was time for the final lesson.

The first group was that of the divine beings. Respectfully they asked: “Please teach us.”

Prajapati simply uttered the syllable “Da.” Then he asked them: “Have you understood?”
“Yes, lord, we have. You have told us daamyath – control yourselves.”

Prajapati was pleased, “Yes, you have understood.”

Next it was the turn of the humans. They too made the traditional request: “Please teach us.”

Again Prajapati said just “Da,” adding: “Have you understood?”

“Indeed, lord, we have. What you have told us is datha – be charitable.”

A satisfied Prajapati responded: “You have understood.”

At last, it was time for the demons to have their last lesson. They too asked: “Please teach us.”

They too heard Prajapati utter the sound: “Da.” He once again asked the group the same question he had asked the previous two groups: “Have you understood?”

“We have, for sure, lord. You have instructed us – dayadhvam – be merciful.”

Prajapati nodded, “Yes, you have understood.”

The three groups took his leave.

The thundercloud from time to time repeats his message to all: “Da, Da, Da.” Damam, Daanam, Dayaam – self-control, charity, mercy, it teaches.

… And you take what you need most to learn.

Our schools today, over-crowded as they are, have little space or time for the kind of personalized teaching that allows you to take what you need most to learn. In fact this is actively discouraged.

Torey L. Hayden’s book, “Somebody Else’s Kids”, tells of four “problem children” placed in Torey’s class because no one else knew what to do with them. What is heart-wrenching in this well-told story is how so many people – parents, school-teachers, educational officials and even other children – seem perversely determined to keep them feeling inadequate.

We are blessed to have among us other Toreys who are the ones who make the difference in these children’s lives, giving them a sense of self-esteem and respect for what they can do and achieve.

I am reminded of a beautiful piece by Michael K. Meyerhoff, where he tells of Jennifer, so different from her older sister Jessica, who consistently makes good grades, while Jennifer, though managing to bring home a more than average report card, is repeatedly marked by those daunting words on them: "could do better," "should apply herself more," and "has a tendency to get distracted.” I know these words bother me, as my own report cards in school usually had these phrases on them.
Meyerhoff shows the unusual, and to me, truly brilliant way Jennifer’s mind works when he tells us of how she rattled her teachers by responding to a question: “The plural of leaf is ‘tree’.”
He tells us that this genius, this creativity, goes unnoticed or even punished in our quest for ‘the one right answer’, perhaps because we don’t discern that that there can be a significant difference between doing well in school and learning.


May we learn to celebrate and appreciate the Jennifers as well as the Toreys among us.
They know what “Da” stands for. Do we?
Marguerite Theophil

Old myths, old gods, old heroes have never died.
They are only sleeping at the bottom of our mind, waiting for our call.
We have need for them. They represent the wisdom of our race.
~Stanley Kunitz

The Right to Read

From time to time I post here news about projects connected with reading and story (see also ‘The Camel Bookmobile’), so here is some information on ‘The Right to Read Campaign’ going on in Gaza, Palestine. I hope some of you will get actively involved.

In connection,
Marguerite Theophil



The Right to Read Campaign


Written by Free Gaza Movement

Reading as Resistance


“Education is a right. Yet throughout history, societies have used access to education as a weapon of oppression. We refuse to let Israel blockade our students’ thirst for knowledge.We welcome working with Free Gaza and others to break this siege against our people’s greatest resource.”
Dr. Haidar Eid, professor at Al-Aqsa University

About the Campaign

In partnership with Al-Aqsa University, the Free Gaza Movement (FG) is launching its “Right to Read” campaign which will use the FG boats to deliver textbooks and other educational supplies to universities throughout the occupied Gaza Strip.

This is not a charitable endeavor. Rather it is an act of solidarity and resistance to Israel’s chokehold on Gaza and attempt to deny Palestinians education. According to UNWRA, Israel’s blockade prevents ink, paper and other learning materials from entering into Gaza.

Our first shipment will be sent on FG’s Summer of Hope July voyage to Gaza.

How You Can Help

Our campaign invites individuals to join us at a person-to-person level by contributing one or more books to our shipment as an expression of resistance to the blockade. This effort also allows institutions around the world to support Palestinians’ right to education by donating new and used copies of textbooks to be delivered by the Free Gaza Movement to universities in the Gaza Strip.

You can donate funds to purchase books (and/or help offset shipping costs to Cyprus) or you can send new and used books directly for inclusion on an upcoming voyage.

Also, if you are an academic institution or are connected to one and are willing to give Gaza universities access to your e-library, please let us know.

Sending Funds
Donations for the Right to Read Campaign will be used to purchase books directly and to cover shipping costs for books that are received at Free Gaza sites other than Cyprus. Please designate “Right to Read” in the comment field to ensure that the funds are appropriated to this campaign.

Sending Books
The Right to Read Campaign accepts all new or used books for shipment. To order books, please refer to either the U.S. compiled wish list or the UK compiled wish list from the universities in Gaza.

You may send the books directly to Cyprus or to the Free Gaza collection site nearest to you:

Cyprus
Free Gaza Movement
Digenthios and Avgousta Court
Nigrid Street 6018 Apt. 203
Larnaca, CYPRUS

United States
Free Gaza US Collection Site
PO Box 5772
Rockville, MD 20855

For more information regarding the Right to Read Campaign, please contact one of the following coordinators:
Dina Kennedy: dkennedy [at] freegaza.org
Darlene Wallach: darlene [at] freegaza.org

Learn more at: http://www.freegaza.org/right-to-read

Stories of Desert Wisdom

Understanding true humanity

In Christian metaphor, the desert stands for a time of being tested – passing through ‘an aridity of spirit’, from which one can emerge renewed more strongly in one’s faith.

The desert also was literally and historically a place from which some of the most powerful spiritual teachings flowed. Moving away from religious practice that had become more and more formalized and restrictive, even as it got more popular, hundreds of Christians in the fourth century sought closeness to God in complete solitude or in small groups, deep in the deserts of Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor.

Though they lived in seclusion, they were open to visits from seekers who asked: “Speak to me a word, father, mother, that I may live…”

The life-giving words of these men and women, known with fondness and respect as “Abbas” and “Ammas”, were collected by their disciples. Mixed with these sayings are short stories about their lives; what they did was as revealing and enlightening as what they said.

The true beauty of the stories is that while they teach about intense intention, focus and discipline, they also highlight the discernment and wisdom that knows exactly when to discard these very rules and directions, and live out of a possibly contradictory perspective – but one of true ‘humanness’, which is really divine.

Once, an old monk who lived in a cave with his disciple became annoyed with the young man and drove him out. When the old man finally went to the entrance and saw the young man still patiently waiting there, he bowed before him, saying: “Come inside. Your humility and patience have overcome my narrow-mindedness. From now on, you are the father, I am the disciple; your good works have surpassed my old age.”

Silence was valued highly. Once, Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, journeyed to Scetis and the brethren coming together said to Abba Pambo, "Say a word or two to the bishop, that his soul may be edified in this place." The old man replied, "If he is not edified by my silence, there is no hope that he will be edified by my words."

They placed hospitality and care of people so high that they were willing to open themselves to criticism and misunderstanding about this. Once, a group from Palestine travelled to Egypt and went to see one of the fathers. He offered them hospitality, and seeing him eat they asked, "Why do you not keep the fast when visitors come to see you? In Palestine the monks always keep it." He replied, "Fasting is always with me but I cannot always have you here.… What God commands is perfect love. I receive Christ in you and so must do everything possible to serve you with love. When I have sent you on your way, I can continue my rule of fasting.”

Humility, and refusing to judge others was taught through being lived: Once, a story goes, a brother in Scetis committed a fault. A council was called, to which the old and respected Abba Moses refused to go. A priest sent someone to him, saying, "Come, everyone is waiting for you". So he got up to join them, but carried on his shoulder a leaking jug filled with water. The others came out to meet him and seeing the dripping jug said, "What is this, father?" The old man said to them, "My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the errors of another." Hearing this, they said no more to the brother, and forgave him.

And even though discipline was strictly adhered to, humanness always had to prevail, as one of my favorite stories teaches: Once, some monks came to see Abba Poemen and said to him, "When we see brothers dozing in the church, must we rouse them, so that they can be watchful?" He softly answered, "For my part, when I see a brother dozing, I put his head on my knees and let him rest."

May Story guide us to our true humanity.
Marguerite Theophil

Each story is a ritual, a healing event
weaving together wisdom and action, the finite and infinite,
the world of beyond and worlds in between.
The story, like a dream, is a vessel that codifies

and transmits precious information,
the innermost secrets of the heart.
~ Susan Yael Mesinai

The world as a mirror

Traditional cultures the world over taught Life Lessons through Story. A Persian story about the ‘wise-fool’, Mullah Nasruddin - and a similar version, set in Greece, with Socrates as the Teacher - goes this way:

Nasruddin used to sit beside the gates leading in and out of the city, observing the flow of people. Once, a stranger came up to him and said, “I am thinking of moving to this city; could you tell me what kind of people live here?”
The Mullah asked him, “What kind of people live in the city that you come from?”
“Oh, they are terrible!” he answered. “They lie, cheat and steal. That is why I want to get out of there.”
Nasruddin exclaimed, “Why, that’s exactly how the people are here! You’d better not move here; go on, keep searching.”
Some days later, another person came to him to ask, “Sir, I would like to see and learn more about other parts of the country, and maybe move, but first could you tell me what kind of people live here?”
Nasruddin asked this man too about the people back home. “Oh, they are good people, kind and courteous, and usually help each other.”
The Teacher responded: “It is the same here. Go into to the city and explore it, you will find it is just as you imagine it should be.”

All spiritual Traditions want to awaken us to what the laws of Karma or Retribution, or the Golden Rule teach us in different ways: we create our own reality. We do this first through our perceptions, thoughts and intentions, then our decisions and actions – and the consequences of these.

As Parker Palmer, a thought-provoking writer and educationist points out, all Traditional cultures ask two related questions that help keep us awake to our own roles in this ‘creation’:
~ What are we sending from within ourselves out into the world, and what impact is it having ‘out there’?
~ What is the world sending back at us, and what impact is it having ‘in here’?

Traditional cultures used story, rather than sermons to illustrate this important learning through memorable and beautiful Teaching Stories, such as this one from India:

Lord Krishna summoned King Duryodana, renowned for his power and might. While his subjects lived in plenty, they lived in great fear of his displeasure and punishment too.
Lord Krishna told him: "I want you to travel the world over and find and bring back to me one truly good man." Answering "Yes, Lord," he immediately set out on his search.
He traveled far, meeting and talking to many people, finding out about their lives, values and actions, and after a long time, returned to Krishna saying, "Lord, I have diligently searched the world over for one truly good man. At heart they are mostly selfish and wicked. Sadly, nowhere could I find this truly good man you seek!"
Lord Krishna then sent for another king, Dhammaraja, well known for his wisdom and benevolence, and much loved by all his people.
Krishna said to him, “Dhammaraja, I want you to travel the world over to find and bring to me one truly evil man." Dhammaraja also set out at once, and on his travels far and wide, he too met with and spoke to many thousands of people.
After much time had passed, he returned to Krishna. "Lord, I have failed you. I found people who are misguided, who perceive things incompletely, who act blindly, but nowhere could I find one truly evil man. They are all good at heart despite their failings!"

May you find what you are looking for!
Marguerite Theophil

The language of logical arguments, of proofs,
is the language of the limited self we know and can manipulate.
But the language of parable and poetry, of storytelling,
moves from the imprisoned language of the provable
into the freed language of what I must, for lack of another word,
continue to call faith.
~ Madeleine L'Engle

Myths that shape us

The Myth Dimension of our cultures guides and perhaps shapes our lives in more ways than we can imagine, speaking to us very powerfully through images, symbols and story-telling, even as it colors not only individual patterns of life, but social, national, even trans-national patterns, attitudes and approaches.

As I work with a group of young women, we talk of different ancient myths that ‘holds’ attitudes in place, and I recount a myth from the Tamil people of South India, from where my family comes. The power of the Feminine is acknowledged, but indirectly, because the story is actually offered as one where ‘removal’ of this power brings ‘true womanhood’.

The popular version of the story tells of King Malayadhvaja Pandya and his wife, unsuccessful in spite of offering numerous horse-sacrifices in their aching desire to produce a son and heir. After the ninety-ninth sacrifice, Indra as a powerful deity, realizing that one hundred performances of this ritual entitled the king to stake a claim on Indra’s own throne, cleverly intervened - suggesting that the unfortunate king should perform a different, more effective sacrifice, “that brings forth a son.”

The horror of the childless couple at the outcome can only be imagined when this sacrifice produces not a baby boy, but a three-year old girl. Not only that - she is born with three breasts.

The king, however, advised by a celestial voice to treat the daughter as if she were a son, trains her in all the manly arts as if she were the legitimate male heir to the throne.

The princess grows up to be Minakshi, and if we follow the story as told in the Tamil text Tiruvilaiyatarpuranam, she evolves into the Pandyan Dynasty monarch, just and beneficent, fearless and victorious in battle. But, she is unmarried, and this is not considered ‘proper’. Her mother laments this, but Minakshi puts her off assuring her that there are more important things she has to see to.

Those things she has to ‘see to’ are mostly to do with battle and conquest and victory, and the warrior princess goes on successfully with this till one day, in a particularly fierce battle between her forces and those commanded by Nandi, (the deity Shiva’s bull ‘vehicle’ and ally), Shiva himself appears in response to the defeated Nandi’s call for help.

Now is the significant moment where a prophecy made at Minakshi’s birth is fulfilled: “When this woman, whose form is golden, meets her lord, one of her breasts will disappear.”

According to Venkatachami Nattar, the commentator of the text, the disappearance of the third breast means a change from a male to a female for Minakshi. Some interpreters equate the third breast with the penis; not two-breasted, therefore not woman.

The warrior princess, doing ‘men’s work’ is now instantaneously transformed to the ideal of Indian womanhood. From the fierce warrior, disemboweling her victims, smearing her spear with their blood and fat, who is undefeated by powerful armies, she is now turned to the suitably demure young girl: ”She looked downward, toward her feet, with collyriumed eyes that were like kentai fish. And there she stood, shining like lightning, scratching the earth with her toes …”

The image of the third breast can also be seen as a symbol of power, its disappearance causes the woman to become submissive – power-less in the face of (supreme) maleness.

It is not the diminishing of her ‘maleness’ that is objectionable, but the depiction of what her ‘femaleness’ now requires; not a transformation of her powers, but a giving up of them – her husband now holds all of that.

In the Tamil tradition, a woman, from the moment she reaches puberty, is considered to be filled with a force/power, sometimes referred to as ananku. This power is often thought to be concentrated in her breasts, and is especially potent during menstruation, or when she has just given birth, and when she is made a widow.

If controlled, this force can produce ‘auspicious’ results; if not it is extremely dangerous. Control is often effected through marriage, and this makes the unmarried woman, as also the widow, unpredictably powerful. (I can’t help imagining how this image could have been used to empower women instead!!) Little wonder then, that these two states – because of the fear they generate – were made to embody the negative position they do even today.

After years of working mainly with archetypal patterns of myths, I find that it becomes increasingly necessary to study the myths of our lives in their historical and socio-cultural context and implications. There are certainly universal, archetypal motifs at work, but it is the details of the culture-specific that contain insights, for women in particular, to work on the layered meanings that myth enfolds, and so to peel off years of biased attitudes and sanctions for inequality that they seem to confer.

After all, it is as Helen Luke once wrote - and as I keep reminding myself about my life and my work - “Only the images by which we live can bring transformation.”


May you work to re-context the images of myths in your life.
Marguerite Theophil

We inherit narrative from our relatives, from our culture,
from the circumstances of our lives and our dreams,
and, as memory arises, we invent narrative
in order to make sense of ourselves and to communicate with others.
~Tony Gee

Once, the Mullah ...

One of our ‘permanent house guests’ is Mullah Nasruddin. My husband Taba comes from the Azerbaijani part of Iran, where most people seem to possess an inexhaustible repertoire of Mullah stories. Taba is known to have a story that begins with “Once, the Mullah …” for almost any occasion, and they all seem so apt; there seems to be a Nasruddin story for every event or mood!

Hundreds of stories about Mullah Nasruddin are enjoyed throughout the world; some are from ancient days, some are still being created. Many cultures claim him as their own, though the names he is known by sound different, and spellings in the written versions vary. Iranians and Azerbaijanis, as well as Indians know this wise-fool as Mullah Nasruddin or Naseeruddin, while Turks and Greeks call him Hoja Nasreddin, and Kazakhs have Koja Nasreddin. In Arab countries he is Juha or Goha

Nasruddin is a wonderful example of the wise fool, his words often carrying a peculiar ‘afterthought’ kind of logic. Our laughter at these stories reflects our deeper recognition of his truth, which may be upside down and backwards, but in the end actually makes sense.

Once the Mullah was asked by a local farmer whether his olive trees would bear olives that year. "Oh yes, they will," said Mullah Nasruddin.
"How do you know?"
"I just know, that is all."
Later the same man saw Nasruddin leading his donkey along the seashore, looking for driftwood. "There is no wood here, Mullah, I have looked," he called out. But hours later the same man saw Nasruddin making his way home, tired out, still without fuel.
"You are a man of perception, who can tell whether an olive tree will bear or not. Why can't you tell whether there is wood at the seashore?"
"I know what must be," said Nasrudin, "but I do not know what may be."

Though characterized by humor, Nasruddin stories deal with issues fundamental to human nature. Themes include those like rank, hierarchy and privilege, social injustice, ignorance, arrogance, narrow-mindedness and self-centeredness. Though most of the stories are set in 13th century chai-khanehs or teahouses, in public baths, caravanserai and market places, Mullah's observations about human nature are so insightful and told so cleverly that they have the power to entertain and teach those of us from very different times, different places and cultures.

Once, the Mullah felt it was time to visit a Turkish bath.
The high-ceilinged chambers and washrooms were swarming with people glad to escape the heat outside.As his clothes were old and shabby, Nasruddin was handed a worn, soiled towel, a tiny scrap of soap - and then ignored.
Still, on his way out, he left a generous tip - a gold coin.
The following week when he went to the bath again, he was treated like a pasha; big soft clean towels, special soap at the soaking pools, an enervating massage with scented oil.
On his way out, he threw a small copper coin to the attendants.
They rushed after him: "Why master, didn't you like the service? The last time you were here you gave us a gold coin."
"Ah, but the gold was for this time, my good men,” The Mullah genially explained. “The copper is for my last visit."

Storytellers conjured up a Nasruddin to fit their needs and purposes. You will find a bumbling Mullah we can simply laugh at, or one that gets the better of the rich and powerful, or a wise Mullah who nudges our awareness, though in peculiar ways, and awakens and teaches us.

Once, the Mullah was invited by the people of the city to deliver a sermon.
He began by asking "Do you know what I am going to say?" The audience replied "No, sir, we don’t."
Gathering up his robes around him in annoyance, he declared: "I have no desire to speak to people who don't even know what I will be talking about." And he left.
The people felt embarrassed and called him back again the next day. This time when he asked the same question, the people quickly chorused, "Yes, yes, we do!" at which Nasruddin snapped, "Well, since you already know what I am going to say, I won't waste any more of your time and mine." And again he walked off.
Now the people were really perplexed, in fact, some were thoroughly annoyed; so they worked on a new strategy. They decided to invite the Mullah to speak again the following week. This time too, he asked the very same question - "Do you know what I am going to say?"
The people had planned their response, and so half of them answered "Yes!" while the other half replied, just as strongly, "No!"
This time, they were sure, they had him.
Mullah Nasruddin looked slowly around the room: "Those of you who know what I am going to say, can tell it to the other half who don’t…" and swept out once again.

Sometimes you meet a bold subversive Mulla who makes fun of unjust power and fanaticism, a wily Mulla who gets the better of others even when he messes up, one who cannot resist making fun of pomposity and rank.

Once the Mullah had invited a self-important visiting scholar to his house for a meal. Arriving at Nasruddin's house, he knocked and knocked. No answer. He peered in through the windows. There was no-one there. The scholar waited and waited, becoming angrier and angrier. “Doesn't he realize who I am?" the scholar thundered as he stomped around Nasruddin's courtyard.
After a good amount of waiting, he became so angry he grabbed a piece of charcoal he found in the yard, and scrawled the words “Stupid Fool” on Mulla’s door before he left.
Nasruddin returned way past lunch time, and suddenly remembered the meeting.
He rushed back to the marketplace shouting for the scholar, and found him in a tea shop.
"Oh, I am so sorry, please forgive me, I had forgotten about our appointment, but remembered when I saw your name written on my door."

Among my favorite Mulla stories are those that highlight an ‘obvious’ truth which is usually overlooked, and show an unexpected angle which challenges our assumptions and makes us examine them afresh. In fact, the older Mulla stories communicate an almost mystic awareness. The twists and flips in Mulla stories, by disrupting our usual linear cause-and-effect analytic thought patterns, toss us into the intuitive ‘field of the possible’, in which learning happens.

Mullah Nasruddin, as guest of Tamerlane’s court spent his days dressed in pure silk robes, sitting and eating at the royal table. Royal advisers actually sought his advice while the powerful laughed heartily at the bite of his jokes, and in appreciation, they also showered him with gold coins.A party of young noble princes at the court, rich and brave, though not particularly experienced, turned to the old Mullah one day to demand: "Now tell us Seeker of the Truth, from all that you must know; how many grains of sand make a heap?"
"I do not know, blue-blooded princes.""Why, then will you care to tell us, Respected Dervish, this simple thing: Why can you see in a mirror your right and left eye and ear reversed in the reflection, but not your face up side down?"
"If only I knew, noble offspring of lordly fathers.""Then tell us at the least, Honorable Sheikh, what is the meaning of life?"
"This I only know, that I do not know, splendid princes."At this, the noblemen exclaimed: "You don't know this, and don't know that! Why then are you, old ignoramus, fed and dressed and honored at the royal tables?”
"Actually, noble masters", replied Mullah, "I am dressed in silk and fed with good food and paid in gold only for the little that I do know. If I were to be rewarded for what I don't know, all the treasuries of the world put together would not be sufficient."

The Mullah Nasruddin stories will last as long as there is learning -- and laughter.

May the Mullah stories journey us to insight and wisdom through laughter.
Marguerite Theophil

Told by generation after generation, the traditional stories
projected the deepest wishes of the folk,
generalized diverse characters into a few types,
selected the incidents that would most strikingly illustrate
what heroes and heroines, witches, enchanters, giants and dwarfs,
the haughty, the envious and the unfaithful were capable of.
As in work long thought about and lived with, the stories
have something which the most brilliant improvisations are without –
depth, fullness, a mysterious relation of parts.
We can think upon them, reflect over them…
~ Padraic Colum

Scheherazade and the Everafter

"One Thousand Nights and a Night," more familiar as “The Arabian Nights”, brought the unforgettable Scheherazade into our lives.

The frame story has Shahriar, a king so shocked by his wife's infidelity, he has her killed. Believing all women to be equally unfaithful, he takes a new wife every night, who is executed at dawn. This continues for some time, until the wazir's daughter Scheherazade, sickened by this, comes up with an ingenious plan, volunteering to become Shahriar's next wife.

Each night, Scheherazade spends many hours “beguiling the night" with a tale that always breaks off before dawn at a key point of the tale, ensuring that the king keeps her around a little bit longer to hear a little bit more.

The stories-within-stories have that special quality that can only come to tellings that have passed through many voices in many lands - India, Persia and several Arab lands. There are love stories, tragedies, comedies, burlesques, poems, mixed in with historical accounts and religious legends. Their essential quality is the interweaving of unusual, extraordinary and supernatural threads into the fabric of everyday life, in a world in which people often suffer but come out all right in the end.

By the time 1001 nights are up, Scheherazade has given birth to three sons, and the king, convinced of her faithfulness and impacted by her brilliance, makes her queen, revoking his decree. Meanwhile he has learnt a lot about life – the good and bad, the ups and downs.

Scheherazade was not only a fictional character but also the key as the "frame" story around the numerous tales; what we in India would call a “sutradhar”, implying a connector. Scheherazade is indeed about connection. In many ways.

This connection is enduring, not just between story and story in her tellings, but in the many stories written years later, including many today.

Anthony O’Neill’s “Scheherazade” focuses on the world of Baghdad under the rule of Haroun al-Rashid, highlighting a motley crew of seven chosen to rescue Scheherazade from a fate worse than death.

In Penelope Lively’s short narrative, “The Five Thousand and One Nights” we meet Scheherazade today, driving the king mad with her renditions of stories reminiscent of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters; he is bored silly and longs for the ‘old style’ stories she once enchanted him with!

In one of the stories in his “Chimera, “reworkings of traditional myths and stories, John Barth presents the story of the Arabian Nights from the perspective of Dunyazade, Scheherazade's younger sister.

Crafting imaginative sequels, Edgar Allan Poe in “The Thousand-And-Second Tale Of Scheherazade” and Joseph Roth in his “Scheherazade in Vienna, The Tale of the 1002nd Night'' (that has less to do with Scheherazade, and more with intricacies of storytelling), emulate the book’s early translators -- it may come as a surprise that several of the more familiar stories, like Aladdin and Ali Baba were, in fact, inserted only in the 18th century by Antoine Galland.

Again, this connection is enduring, not just between story and story, but in the way we see – and understand - Scheherazade today.

To re-look at Scheherazade anew is to see a woman's life before male-centered customs and interpretations consigned girls and women to second-class citizenship. In a translation by Husain Haddawy from a 14th-century Syrian manuscript,we are told she is a woman who “… had read the books of literature, philosophy and medicine. She knew poetry by heart, and studied historical reports, and was acquainted with the sayings of men and the maxims of sages and kings. She was intelligent, knowledgeable, wise and refined."

Fatima Mernissi’s, whose earlier work pointed out how differently those in the East and the West regarded Scheherazade, later wrote “Scheherazade Goes West”, a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the Western female trapped in an invisible socio-cultural harem.

In “When Dreams Travel”, Gita Hariharan allows us a glimpse of the two sisters grown old in the ‘ever after’ that most stories end with, leaving us to wonder, imagine about the everafter place where anything that anyone can imagine is at least as true as all that went before.

Marilyn Jurich's “Scheherazade's Sisters” reminds us of fables, myths, stories of clever and self-sufficient women who demonstrate initiative and courage, turning obstacles into triumphs. She sees them as tricksters in female form, calling them trickstars. The trickstar exposes hypocrisies and stupidities in the social establishment and introduces new ways of seeing and being. Through the trickstar's efforts, the "system" is circumvented or foiled, often enlightened, and usually improved.

Azar Nafisi, while a university professor in Tehran, collected six of her brightest female students in Tehran and began study of a multivolume version of Scheherazade's stories. She saw in the fictional heroine, "who made her world as she talked about it," a woman who used her courage, erudition and wit to face down her own likely death and who, in the process, transformed a kingdom and a king.

The stories Scheherazade wove together hold modern-day writers, and us, in her spell. Not only do her stories enthrall and transport us, but she is a timeless example of a seemingly ‘weaker’ story character who outwitted authority and conventional power – in the most unexpected of ways.

For Scheherazade the choice was between imagination and cruel injustice, between death and story. Through her stories she saved her own life, the life of her people, and the life of the sultan too; without her he would go on being a monster.

Story has the power to transform the monster in us all.

May we learn to use story to heal and empower.
Marguerite Theophil

The traditional story is the product of a whole chain of tellers.
It gives us the distilled wisdom of the culture from which it springs,
filtered over many years of telling and retelling.
Examine a traditional story and you can see
the values of the culture that told it.
The story is shaped by the culture, and in turn,
the culture is shaped by the story.
~ Loren Niemi and Elizabeth Ellis

Meeting Simorgh

'Journey' stories that tell of a spiritual quest have always fascinated me.

As a little girl I used to beg my story-telling great grandmother to read me The Pilgrim’s Progress again and again. I would listen in wide-eyed wonder at the young man Christian’s efforts and tests, shuddering as I anticipated the moment where the character called Ignorance, who like Christian, had managed to overcome many obstacles and get right to the gate of the Celestial City, but could not produce the essential document for entry, was carried by the Shining Ones to a door in the side of the hill from where he was whooshed down back to the bottom.

When my Iranian husband gave me a translation of a favorite spiritual journey story, the Persian mystic Farid-ud din Attar’s Manteq at-tair or The Conference of The Birds, I came across another set of sometimes enchanting and sometimes maddeningly obscure stories-within-stories that would freight me on another journey of deep understanding of the difficulties and joys of the chosen path, of deep identification with the Divine Presence, of affirming that presence within myself and all around me.

In its basic outline, the book starts of as the birds of the world gather together to seek a king. The Hoopoe bird acts as the sheikh, the leader and guide, tells them they do have a king, the “Simorgh”, who lives far away across seven valleys, though “He is always near to us, though we live far away from his Transcendent majesty.”

The Hoopoe also serves as Attar’s ‘voice’ – aided in the Persian language by the absence of quotation marks, which at first is confusing for the reader; is it Attar or the Hoopoe speaking? Later you realize it doesn’t really matter.

The Hoopoe/Attar says at the outset: “Do not imagine that the way is short; vast seas and deserts lie before his court. Consider carefully before you start; the journey asks from you a lion’s heart. The road is long, the sea is deep – one flies buffeted by joy and then by sighs.”

At first, the birds, “…Effusively responded to his words. All praised the splendor of their distant king. All rose impatient to be on the wing.” But reflecting on the journey’s length, they already show their hesitation: “… Their ambitious strength dissolved; each bird according to his kind, felt flattered, but reluctantly declined”

The birds, “each according to his kind”…

It’s easy to be amused at the penetrating pictures Attar paints of each bird just through its excuse, showing us the seduction that holds back each one from taking the first step. Only when we turn the mirror in, towards ourselves – a picture of our own reluctance and ‘reasons’ to embark on a journey we profess to desire strongly is shown up, and the amusement gives way to discomfort.

The Nightingale claims he cannot leave his beloved rose. “It is for me she grows. What greater bliss could life provide me anywhere than this?” He is shown to be seduced by being needed.

The seduction of the Peacock is his knowledge of the familiar. He is fixated on the past, lost now, but still definitely more real to him than: “The king you praise; too unknown a goal. My inward gaze is fixed forever on that lovely land – there is the goal which I can understand.”

The Duck is seduced by her present comfort zone – the water, but cloaks this as her proud obedience to the rules of prayer and purity that the water helps ensure. She makes no distinction between the purity of her environment and her own – the one implies the other.

For the Partridge his form of seduction lies in his possessions, his jewels he cannot be parted from, as he claims they are eternal. He rationalizes it this way: “To yearn for something other than a jewel is to desire what dies – to be a fool.”

The Finch’s odd seduction is her excuse of smallness and unworthiness; “I do not deserve to see His face” (… and so I cannot go!). One by one, many more birds make their excuses – and decline.

All this, before the journey even begins.

During the journey itself, those who finally set out – the hundred thousand – voice their fears, their doubts, their hesitation. Many give up at various points of the journey, some early on, some much later. For each one, the Hoopoe has a string of stories. Reading or listening to these stories unfold, the realization is strengthened – the birds are really us, who claim to be Seekers, but find our various reasons and excuses to drop out along the way.

Surprisingly, it is more than half-way through the book that a bird asks how long the journey actually is, and the Hoopoe describes the seven {italic}Wadis {/italic}, meaning settlements, abodes, often translated as ‘valleys’, beginning with the Wadi of the Quest, going on to the Wadis of Love, of Insight into Mystery, of Fulfillment, then Desirelessness, followed surprisingly by that of Bewilderment, till at last you reach Annihilation or Absorption.

Though I have read commentaries describe this as the ultimate stopping place, Attar adds two further lines, which gives me the same sense of listening to the part of the other story, where Christian and Ignorance wait to be allowed in – or not. Attar says of the seventh station, “And there you are suspended, motionless, till you are drawn in, the impulse is not yours …”

The entire beautiful work is about individual effort as well as what we can call ‘Grace’, both being necessary for spiritual progress.

Coming back to our birds, though “a world of birds set out”, after years of difficult traveling, there remain just thirty at the end, “thirty exhausted, wretched, broken things.”

They linger, at times hopeful, at times hopeless, as time passes, till finally a herald arrives. Discouraging at first, he urges them to fly back, but their passion and persistence are so strong, he unlocks the guarded door to the innermost Light of Light and gives them a page, which, when read would make known the concealed meaning of their journey.

The “fateful page” reveals to them the powerful, disturbing truth that it was them – it is us- that has made every decision and action undertaken throughout history; they are –we are – therefore, responsible for each of them.

And then, for the thirty who remain:
“There in the Simorgh’s radiant face they saw themselves.
They were the Simorgh and the journey’s end.
They see the Simorgh – at themselves they stare …”

This significant moment is so potent in the Persian language, as si is the word for ‘thirty’, and morgh is bird(s). The si morgh see the Simorgh.

It does seem like the narrative is hurtling to a sense of identification of Creator and creation. After all, Attar did admire the mystic al-Hallaj, who shockingly declared, “An al haq.,” which translates “I am the Truth,” even “I am God.” But Attar draws back from this radical stance. His birds puzzle: “How is it true that ‘we’ is not distinguished here from ‘you’? They hear: “I am a mirror set before your eyes. And all who come to my splendor see themselves, their own, unique reality.” And, “It is yourselves you see and what you are. Who sees the Lord? It is himself each sees.”

The last two lines in the translation of Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis have Attar send us out on our own journeying with: “I have described the way. Now you must act. There is no more to say.”

May your journeying be full of adventure and meaning.
Marguerite Theophil

This invitation to wonder is contained within the stories of all cultures.
These are not just quaint tales of old
but maps of the journey of the soul into connection with the creative source of life.
These stories are intended to spark the imagination
and kindle the fire that needs no wood.
~ Tony Cuckson

Preparing to receive the Gift of Story

‘Teaching Stories’ is a term used for stories and anecdotes, particularly those that come to us from the Sufi tradition, that were created as vehicles for the transmission of Wisdom.

Now, knowledge is something we can quite easily get from these stories or texts, but wisdom – ah that is something else; and something that requires a kind of “slow-simmer yet known in a flash” state of openness of mind. Ordinary knowledge can come quickly; wisdom can be maddeningly slow. Little wonder then, that we often settle for the former.

Idries Shah, whose translations and commentaries on Sufi thought and Sufi stories made them accessible to English-language readers, wrote that Sufi teaching stories are works of art which are used to transmit to us a Higher knowledge. We cannot perceive this Higher Knowledge because we are not prepared for it; mostly settling for a lower level, ordinary knowledge. We don’t even really know what this ‘Higher’ might be, and in fact, many of us don’t even suspect its presence.

Through stories, the preparation we need can be developed, by not only reading or listening to the stories once, but by getting to know the stories - studying them and familiarizing ourselves with them. Yet paradoxically, this ‘effort’ is never enough to get to the layers of deep meaning in them.

We get close to the wisdom of these stories by “soaking in story” as the students of the old teachers were required to do, so that their inner meanings are slowly made known to us, as we need them.

In fact, here is a story that illustrates this period of ‘preparation’:

There was once a woman who had heard of the Fruit of Heaven, which when eaten would give the person immense and immediate knowledge. She desperately wanted to find this. So she sought out a wise dervish named Alef and asked him: “How can I find this fruit, so that I may attain to immediate knowledge?”
“I would advise you to study with me”, said the dervish, “But if you wish otherwise, you will have to travel resolutely and at times restlessly throughout the world.”
She left him and sought another sage, Wajid the Wise, and then found Salim the Sage, then later she went to Karim the Crazy, then she sought out Ali the Secretive, even Rahman the Elusive, and many more.
This way, she wandered thirty years in her search. Finally she came upon a beautiful garden, and there in the center stood the magnificent Tree of Heaven, and from its branches hung the luscious Fruit of Heaven.
Standing beside the Tree was Alef, the first dervish she had met and questioned.
“Why did you not tell me that you were the Custodian of the Fruit of Heaven when I first came to you?” she asked him.
“Because then you would not have believed me. Besides, the Tree produces fruit only once in thirty years and thirty days.”

Some stories give up their meanings to us more readily; others don’t. For the second kind, a process of preparation is required, that is not the same kind of preparation our education system teaches us these days. Here, to learn something, you may have often to be exposed to it many times, perhaps from different perspectives, and you also have to give it the kind of respectful attention which will enable you to learn. Here, you are expected to ‘be’ with the story. Hear it, read it, say it aloud many times. Truly enjoy it; be-friend it.

These stories were not listened to or read to be understood through the mind only, but to be absorbed into the very texture of our conscious and inner self. Teachers of these Traditions understood that sometimes, we learn by adopting and absorbing the experience directly, even without the participation of our logical, analytical minds. After multiple hearings or readings, these teaching stories not only seem to reside in one’s memory, their impact can manifest itself a long time after hearing them, and in a manner quite different from what we expect.

In general, in our hurry to ‘get it’, Shah points out that if a person feels he or she has ‘understood’ a story, then he has understood it only at the level where he stands at present moment, or understands the story at the level of his conditioning. If one decides “This is the meaning”, there is a very real chance of blocking any further, deeper impact of the story on one’s inner being.

Sufism acknowledges that people have different capacities to understand esoteric and mystical learning, and its writings and stories and poems usually have several layers so that different readers will learn at the level appropriate to them.

I experienced something like this when my husband and I have worked on some translations from the Persian to the English of the poems of the mystic Hafez. There are times when a translation seems to be ‘going well’, you have the rhythm, the nuances, but you stumble at a turn of phrase that can say two rather different things! Which way to go? You try to approach it logically, rationally, to make ‘sense’. Then in frustration you set it aside. But not really, because it bothers you, however vaguely. Then after a pause, you find the courage to go back to it – and suddenly, you break through to another layer, and what you wrote before is no longer what you ‘hear’ the poet now saying! This is always a magical, mystical moment.

And for these reasons, I do believe that in spite of bringing the Sufi mystics more easily within the grasp of thousands of people, and in spite of having some very beautiful and inspiring poems for those of us who do not know Persian or Arabic, the creators of the very popular ‘versions’ (note – these are most times not even translations from the original language; they are often versions culled from other English translations!) do a great injustice to themselves and their readers. Even if the books do sell in millions.

The original creators of these poems and stories did not want to give us a ‘pre-digested’ form of the learnings, nor really something our minds could easily relate to. They were intelligent enough to do so if they had wished to. They also respected the intelligence of their students. They wanted us to be with the story, be with the poetry, be with the teachings that would slowly and surely leach their wisdom into our lives. We claim we don’t have time to let this happen these days – and are that much the poorer for this.

Jalaludin Rumi’s beautiful poems have been likened to the honey that attracts the bee; but he embedded within them deeper ideas, declaring, “You get out of it what is in it for you.”

For those who wish to learn most fully from Story, it is important not to consider any ‘knowing’ or ‘understanding’ - no matter how significant it may seem, no matter how useful an insight it gives - as the final meaning. We need to remain always aware of the possibility of another angle of deeper insight, another understanding, which may appear as a result of holding ourselves gently and respectfully open to the manifold gifts these stories have to offer.

May you soak in Story to prepare you for deeper understanding of the stories and of yourself. Marguerite Theophil

When Stories nestle in the body,
soul comes forth.
~Deena Metzger