Something I've been thinking about is how story-starved we are as a society.
For most of human history we were born, lived and died encircled in an amniotic sac of stories. This shared story structure helped us make sense of our world and know our place in it.
The modern mind often dismisses myths as misguided attempts to understand the material world. This happens because we've stopped exercising our symbolic sense, our mythic imagination.
But these ancient stories contain soul medicine. A metaphorical diagnosis of inner dis-ease and a prescription for how to heal. Myths are maps that show us how we’ve lost our way and help us plot a path that can return us to wholeness.
I’ve been on a journey to re-story myself since traveling to a small storytelling festival in Ireland with my dad in 2016.
Cape Clear Island, Ireland
For me, re-storying looks like participating in storytelling workshops at the School of Storytelling, traveling to storytelling festivals like this upcoming one in Wales (see you there?), attending storytelling performances, and growing my storytelling library by gathering little gems I find in bookstores and on my travels.
A selection of my storytelling books
Last week, while browsing Oxfam’s used books — a great way to feed my book addiction while supporting a worthy cause — I stumbled upon this treasure.
Echoes of the Dreamtime by Ainslie Roberts. Published in 1988.
I confess I’d never heard of Ainslie Roberts or seen any of his artwork before. He's an Australian artist who only found his creative calling later in life. He had a successful career in advertising but eventually, as he approached his 40th birthday, he collapsed with serious burnout.
His wife bought him a one-way ticket to Alice Springs.
Alice Springs (image source: Audley Travel)
As part of his creative recovery, he devoted time to a childhood passion of sketching and painting in nature. He and his anthropologist friend visited many Aboriginal communities, photographing the landscapes and learning about their stories and traditions. Ainslie found his creative calling in painting Aboriginal myths and had his first gallery show at 52. Through his art, he tried "to bridge this gap between the two cultures" in a way that might restore the dignity and respect white Australians have for the Aborigines.
It’s important to note that there are some problematic power dynamics involved in trying to portray (and profit from) the cultural richness a culture other than one’s own. And there is a certain romanticised primitivism in Roberts’ portrayals of Aborigines. But it’s undeniable that he had a deep reverence for the beauty of Aboriginal culture and was able to expand access to and appreciation of Aboriginal wisdom for a much wider audience, including me.
Flipping through the pages of this book feels like entering a cave of wonders.
One of the myths/images that is resonating for me is the “Birthplace of the Moons.”
Birthplace of the Moons by Ainslie Roberts
Are you ready for a story?
“There was a place known as the Valley of the Moons, where the soil was richest on earth, and in it grew the Moons. When each Moon had grown large enough to leave the valley and venture up into the night sky, it would break free of its mother plant and float about in the valley until its turn came to take its place in the sky … When each Moon rose out of the valley each month, the Sun—huge, hot and powerful—would … reach out with its fiery fingers to tear pieces off the Moon until it was all gone. The tiny pieces that broke free when this happened became the stars.”
A superficial interpretation of this story would see it as a simple pre-scientific explanation of how the moon grows smaller and disappears each month.
But, if I employ my mythic imagination and allow the image to work its magic on me, deeper layers of meaning and medicine reveal themselves.
For me, there is a message about creativity embedded in this myth. I see the moons as creative projects. I love this image of the Valley of the Moons, all the creative ideas I have nestled safe inside me, at various stages of development, all receiving nurturing, tapped into my natural life force.
At some point it becomes time for each creation to be released out into the world. I love the image of it detaching from me, the “mother plant”, and floating up into the sky. This is a powerful reminder to release any attachment to my creative work once I "ship it".
Just as no plan survives contact with reality, no creative vision remains intact when it makes contact with others. Each person who interacts with the creation will take a piece of it, reinterpret it and make it their own.
And just like the moon, the creation eventually disappears in the sense that it no longer occupies my attention or energy.
But I love that the pieces of the moon become stars scattered across the sky. It feels like how each person who comes in contact with your creation carries a little spark of it with them.
This reminds me of an enchanting children’s book I highly recommend called “What Do You Do With an Idea”. Spoiler alert.
The final pages…
Making the connection to this children’s book starts to restore my hope that we can once again become well-storied souls. It’s not the same as the tapestry of shared stories our ancestors were born into, but we can, each of us, re-story ourselves by curating a customised canon of the stories that resonate with us and our individual journey through life.