the lost home that we are seeking is ourselves;
it is the story we carry within our soul
~ Michael Meade
through the cracks of time, entire worlds are always lost, but there are stories that remain, that can take us back and for(ward) to the mystery of the centre
all is chaos.
the time has come to seek the missing centre
~ Robert Bly
written stories can be seen as fossilized, petrified performances of place. transcripts of openings to a greater voice. perhaps not as vivid as an original participatory performance, lacking weather, taste, flame and smell, but nonetheless still conveying light, song, vision and vibrancy of place
one of the most striking commonalities in stories of creation around the globe is that most of these stories involve snake-like creatures. stories mirror the way energy moves, that’s why stories are shaped — just like the bodies of living things — and they also behave as such: they wake up, they feed, they sleep, they shed parts and change. stories of creation will effortlessly defy any concept of time by mimicking eternity and echoing its transcending meaning with and through the bodies they encounter
stories of birth, death, transformation and the power of nature herself, will cause us to relate emotionally, informing us about the way that these emotions transform, like the way songs of joy become laments of despair
storytellers seek the footprints of lost memory, love, and pain that cannot be seen but are never erased
~ Eduardo Galeano
stories conveyed, stories embodied, we live in stories and stories live us, as they’re the emotional space that holds us, while we are the physical space that hold them. they are living and timeless seeds of worlds, travelling through landscapes to take root in minds. and whether our mind is the appropriate fertile soil for them to grow and be cared for, or simply blow past and perish, is up to us, their resonance with our own story and state of our lives
no underworld, no story
~ Martin Shaw
stories will cause the memory of place to rise in us ~ from the blue. not only feeding our dreams and our visions, but also allowing these places to glance back at us, breathe us and speak to us
as we allow these stories to grow, to ingrain us in, and to inhabit them as they inhabit us, they’ll nourish us, supporting us in the tellings of our own stories and the stories of who and what we’ve been, which is the only way to explain who and what we are
because in the end, if we’re paying attention, we realize that stories, life, poetry, love and meaning …they all become
indistinguishable
the shape of the story is drawing inwards
drawing inwards
drawing inwards
do you feel this pulse?
tugging back and forth, coiling
radiating in an out
inviting energy
re-creating memory
for a world with no memory, no story
is a world that goes nowhere
the wisdom of generations
rooted in past times
in touch with what we are
guiding our view of future times
to (c)enter our hearts, in the now
he sat for a moment half dreaming, listening to the noise of the water, the whisper of dark trees, the cracks of stone, and the vast waiting silence that brooded behind all sound
~ JRR Tolkien
he was a trashpicker, they say
pieces of ancient lives, he foraged
from places he could not be
but depth and colour he felt
on the path of idealized existence, he departed
reconciled with what is
to the path of impermanence, he arrived
with nothing to hold dear
and with precarious forms of meaning
a refuge from the hard places, he built
he was a trashpicker, they say
drawn by the pulling of old songs
to the substance of the landscape
the stories, his sustenance
as vital for him as food
fugitive of the busy-ness of culture
with a low gaze, he roamed
greeted by shadows of remnants of worlds
bones, shells and feathers, he gathered
life and breath, in them, he reclaimed
he was a trashpicker, they say
enraptured
by the unfolding reflection of creation
circling, winding
subtle offerings, weaving
land and culture, re-membering
he was a trashpicker, they say
fragments of vivid memories, scavenging
a part of the story, not the story itself
a story of return
a story of becoming
a story of meaning
for after all is done
only the story remains, they say
story is our only boat for sailing on the river of time
~ Ursula K. Le Guin