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

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