  Spiritual
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"Stories are medicine. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything - we need only listen"
~~Clarisa Pinkola Estes |
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“If you don’t know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don’t know the stories you may be lost in life.” —Siberian Elder
The wisdom of a Siberian Elder shows us the importance of storytelling. Being lost in a forest, not knowing the land-markings or the nature of the trees, is disorientating. People have wandered, almost hopelessly, for days-on-end in forests, because they lost the way, and, not knowing the trees, the trees all looked alike, just another tree in maze of trees. So it is with storytelling. If we don’t know the stories, we can wander, stumbling among the scattered fragments of life, confused, trying to find the way.
The tragedy is that story-telling has almost become a lost art. Recently, as one of the coordinators in our city for a network serving homeless families with children, I asked for volunteers to read stories to the young children - only one or two volunteered. I wonder if we know that when we read stories to children, or tell children stories, we are being mentors. After I stressed the importance of reading stories, others became to volunteer. It seems we have forgotten the value of taking time to tell or read the stories. Maybe our cultures have become so preoccupied with other things that the value of the story has been overshadowed.
Ursula K. LeGuin, novelist, poet, and author of children’s books, stated, “There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.” Stories have been the glue that held cultures together in the face of great adversity – such cultures as the Aboriginal People of Australia, the First People of the United States and Canada, the Jewish People, and the African People who were sent into slavery. Without the stories, these cultures, and others, would have all but faded into antiquity. The stories would have been lost but for the storytellers who took time to pass them along to the young ones and the storytellers who took time to write them down.
Robert Moss, author of Dreamgates, wrote, “Australian Aborigines say that the big stories—the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life—are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush.” What a vivid image this gives of the story waiting to be told, searching for the storyteller! Stories need to be told; stories need to be read; they are roaring like a lion and growling like a grizzly, seeking the storyteller who will show others the meaning of life, with humility and love.
“Stories live in your blood and bones, follow the seasons and light candles on the darkest night-every storyteller knows she or he is also a teacher...” – Patti Davis, author of Angels Don’t Die
I think it is good we are reminded of the importance of storytelling. I suppose the reason for this edition of the newsletter is not to teach, but to remind. I read an article yesterday about a young man who committed suicide on a live webcam. The article stated that today’s youth are starved for attention and want to be noticed. I wonder if part of the reason may be that we have forgotten the value of the story and no one heard the story stalking in the bushes, telling us our children needed the stories. Did we substitute television and video games for stories? I don’t know, I just wonder.
Occasionally, I will go to a coffee shop where men gather, just to hear the stories. One of my favorite things to do is to gather around a campfire on a fall evening and listen to the stories told by the men who gather there, for no other reason than to tell stories. When I was a young boy, I spent the summers with my grandparents. My grandfather was semi-retired and I followed him around a small Texas-town. He frequently stopped at a local café or the town’s only barbershop, where the old men gathered just to talk. I remember sitting on the floor of the barbershop, listening to the stories – stories that showed me the way in life. My grandmother read me the stories from the Bible almost every morning. I grew up hearing the stories. Sometimes, I can hear the grizzly growling.
“Story is far older than the art of science and psychology, and will always be the elder in the equation no matter how much time passes.” —Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“I am a storyteller. The type that went from place to place, gathered people in the square and transported them, inspired them, woke them up, shook their insides around so that they could resettle in a new pattern, a new way of being. It is a tradition that believes that the story speaks to the soul, not the ego... to the heart, not the head. In today’s world, we yearn so to ’understand’, to conquer with our mind, but it is not in the mind that a mythic story dwells.” —Donna Jacobs Sife
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.” –Eudora Welty
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Stories and poems to be heard:
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Finding a needle in the haystack, a gift in a sea of lost causes.
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The editing team of the Spiritual Newsletter thanks each one of you for taking the time from your day to read the newsletters.
Hannah ♫♥♫ 
Dear Larry,
A wonderful newsletter, full of interesting historical facts. I will have to include it in my next newsletter, so all of NAI will have a chance to read it. Thanks for taking the time to do all the research, and thanks for sharing it.
~Hannah~
Thank you Hannah for your encouragement and for all you do for NAI and the Writing.com community.
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Spiritual: November 26, 2008 Issue [#2740]
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