STORY IN THERAPY

Since the earliest days, there has never been a time when human beings have not been drawn to stories.  If we think of the earliest cave dwellers and what remains of them, it is their drawing on rocky walls – story was being recorded there.   Human beings turn to stories, whether through art, theatre, movies, books and even in the glories of gossip and scandal.  We all love a good story.

 Stories are also a community activity where people join up.  They are perhaps told around a fireplace or a campfire, when the evening is late and it is time to leave the day and enter into ‘thinner space’ – into the realms of the unconscious and what is more than we know.  “Tell us a story” is the cry of the child – and often of the adult.  Show me a story that can reach me and make my story relevant.  When a story is offered people can shift into changed awareness – they go through the door to Narnia or slip through a portal into a magical place of the imagination. 

 Imagination and Story

Within the human psyche, there is a story-making being and a call for imagination.  The term imagination comes from the Latin verb imagineri meaning ‘to picture myself’.  The place of imagination is second-rate in today’s world and sorely missed.  To move in on troubled times, to listen to the depths in us, we need the different seeing of image, dreams and visions through ritual.  A story is a ritual that gives shape to invite and welcome imaginative intelligence - our right brain if we put it that way.  We are going to be right-brain thinking as we work with story. 

 

Story takes us from the realm of academic abstract thinking (left brain knowing) where the aim is to empty out and deconstruct.   Right brain imagination holds no such rule – it is permissive to whatever comes, drawing out meaning beyond what we know and bypassing regulation and rule.   It increases our presence to each other and to relationship with the unexpected and new and so is soulful.   As Michael Meade says, “Soul longs for meaning, presence and love”.  

 

The stories are a map for these qualities, showing us what people of ancient times pass on to us through the oral tradition.  Each of us will have a different take on what he hears through a story.  No meaning is prescribed.   What a person gets from a story is unique to them and cannot be denied or corrected.

 

Joseph Campbell who spent a life time working with the therapeutic place of myths and fairy tales, writes:

 

"The best things can't be told because they transcend thought.  

The second best are misunderstood because they are thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can't be thought about.  

The third best are what we talk about."

 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth

 

So here are some soul stories.  

 

 

NAKED TRUTH

Why we need story.

Source unknown - abridged for enactment Mary Smail 2006

 

Truth and the Lie met one day.   "It's a marvellous day today", said Lie

Truth agreed, for the day was beautiful.   

Truth and Lie spent time together.  Eventually, they came across a well.  It was sturdily built and deep. 

Lie said, “This water is beautiful. Let's bathe together!"   

Truth, for some reason, was immediately suspicious and tested the water.  It was actually good!     

 So, they both made their way into the water. 

 

 Suddenly, Lie rushed to the shore and grabbed Truth’s clothes and ran away with them. 

Truth was furious.  “Give me back my clothes”, he cried.  

To no avail. The world, seeing Truth naked,  contemptuously looked away. So, Truth, feeling shamed and disregarded, returned to the well and disappeared forever. 

 

 Since then, Lie travels around the world, dressed as Truth, satisfying the needs of society.  

The thing is the World, harbours no wish at all to meet Truth, naked. 

 

CREATION BY THOUGHT

The Sacred gift of the soul. 

An account by a Winnebago Indian of Wisconsin, Adapted MS 2017

 

What it was that Earth-Maker, Great Spirit created at the beginning of consciousness, we will never know.

What we do know is that Earth-Maker moved. 

A right arm and then a left arm and in this moving, thought what might be done.

 

Great tears began to flow and fall.

Slowly,  they formed into waters, or seas you might say, gleaming and bright.

 

And Earth-Maker realised! 

Anything that was thought, could become

What was wished for, came into existence.

 

So Earth-Maker wished for light

and the waters (or seas), were joined.

And Earth-Maker rejoiced  for it was so - 

 what was wished came into existence.

 

So Earth-Maker wished for the Earth - 

 and there it was!

It was not quiet or held back, but full of life

And Earth-Maker liked this.

 “As things are just as I wish them, I shall make One like myself for company”. 

 

Picking up some earth, Earth-Maker formed a Being.

It was good -  but this being had no mind so could not think.

 

So Earth-Maker made a mind and talked to the Being

– but there was no answer.

So Earth-Maker made the being a tongue and talked again

– but there was no answer.

Then Earth-Maker realised that the being

had no soul!

 

So he made it a soul. 

And talked to it again

and it very nearly said Something,  but it was not intelligible.

 

So Earth-Maker breathed into it. 

And then, 

together they spoke.

Then they spoke together.  

An account by a Winnebago Indian of Wisconsin, Adapted MS 2017

 

ALI BABA

The locked away soul gold ...

 Taken from The Arabian Nights - abridged for enactment Mary Smail 2020 

Once there was a poor man who had lived well enough, but who had no access to a richness that once had belonged to him.  The one resource that was always his was a certain tree in the forest which grew thick and green, not far away from the house where he lived.  He would go often to that place to repair himself and to rest alone where nothing would disturb him. 

 One day while he was in his tree-place, Ali Baba, for that was his name, heard the sound of riders.  He saw a group of men dismounting from their horses and approaching a hidden rock face which he had never noticed before.  One of them said Open Sesame and something opened to reveal a rocky entrance.    Ali Baba watched each of the men pass through the door the last one secured it with the words Close Sesame and all was quiet again.

Ali Baba stayed hidden in his tree.  After quite some time, he heard the muffled words Open Sesame on the far side of the door.   The robbers came out laden with the richest gold, and things which sparkled and glowed.  They mounted their horses and the captain shut the door saying Close Sesame, and they rode away.  When it was safe Ali Baba came down and made his way to the rock face to try it for himself. Open, Sesame! 

It worked and Ali Baba entered a large cave, lit by light coming from a hole far above.  He was surprised at this because he thought there would be only darkness inside and expected to lose his way.  He made his way right to the back, and there it was.   Treasure which I cannot describe but you would recognize it because you know it well. Rich silks and deep carpets, silver goblets, great bags of money and of course, gold. He gathered up as he could and made his way back to the door.  Open Sesame he said and the door opened. Ali Baba stepped out of the cave and made his way home, after closing the place.

The treasure he found was hard to keep. He did not know whether to hide it or show it?  He was frightened about others if they knew how much he had.  It took a long time for Ali Baba to work out just the right way to put the treasure to best use.  

 

CHIRON THE WOUNDED HEALER

Transformation and healing through what hurts us

 A story from Greece - retold for therapeutic enactment Mary Smail 2009. 

 

CHIRON knew about wounds because, in his life, he had been wounded twice.   

He was born because his father CRONOS, who was an immortal God seduced PHILYRA a mortal woman.  So that his wife would not recognise him, he took on the shape of a horse.  Chiron was born then as centaur - half man and half horse, half-mortal and half God.  His mother rejected him on sight and abandoned him. 

 

Eventually, APOLLO took pity on Chiron and looked after him, teaching him all he knew - how to create poetry, the rules of sports, how to sing and play the lyre, how to think, and how to make good, and how to fight.  In time, Chiron became a teacher of these things, and people like ASON, HERCULES, ASCLAEPIUS, and ORPHEUS, who became great heroes of the land all came to him to be taught when they were young.

 

One day, there was a wedding and THE CENTAURS with whom Chiron lived became drunken.  A fight broke out and meaning to qualm the brawl, HERCULES fired a poisoned arrow into their midst.  To his horror, it hit Chiron, piercing deeply into his leg.  From that day on, whatever Chiron did, the wound of the poisoned arrow would not heal.  Because of his immortality, he was unable to die from the pain he suffered, so he spent his days, searching among the fields and forests for herbs that would heal him. The poor and the sick, those in pain came to visit him and received comfort from his wisdom.  He became known as the Wounded Healer who could give healing but was unable to heal himself.  This went on for years.

 

Hercules was consumed with guilt and sorrow about what had happened to Chiron.  He decided that he would make his way to Zeus to appeal for help, but there was nothing that Zeus could do. He offered Chiron one choice: for Chiron to sacrifice his immortality, descend to the underworld and take the place of PROMETHEUS.   P was there being punished for once mocking the Gods.  He was tied to a stone and by day a vulture tore out his liver and by night it would grow again. Thus he was in perpetual torment.  If Chiron would enter the underworld, Prometheus could go free.  And even though this seemed like a greater wounding Chiron agreed. 

Making his way to the mouth of the underworld, he went down, across the river Styx ferried by CHAERON down to the darkest part of that place TARTARUS.  For nine days he waited there, empty, without what he had known, without hope for what had been – in a place of SHADES AND WHISPERS, he waited with nothing, in the stillness of that place and in its darkness, without pain.

 

When Zeus saw that Chiron had completely surrendered all hope, that he had become utterly empty, that he had mysteriously communed with the moving shades, he intervened on his behalf. He raised him to heaven and placed him in the sky as a constellation of stars called Centaurus. 

 

We now know him as Sagittarius,  and he is most strong around the time when the year turns. 

Around November.  

 

Conon and the Jewel Chest Carriers

For times of Corona when we have moved too fast and need to come back slowly

Taken from The Irish Language and Beauty  - TED Talk  Dónall Ó Héalai Retold for enactment Mary Smail  Feb 21

 

Conon was sent on a mission by the King of Ireland.   He had to go to the country of Down to collect a chest full of jewels and bring it back to the King. Conon was willing to do this, so he went to Down and found the jewel chest, but it was so heavy that he could not carry it, and needed help.   He searched for healthy people, who were content in themselves, for the journey was long.  He found the people he required, and they agreed to carry the chest.  

 

They set off together, the people singing the songs of their homeland and their ancestors were in the melodies' music and all was well.  For two and a half-moon they carried the chest, and they came upon a new land that was very different from where they had been before – the creatures were unfamiliar, the land was not the same, the scenery was strange to them.

 

One morning, when the sun came up, the people were quiet and unmoveable and could not find their joy.   Conan encouraged them to carry the chest onwards, but they did not move, even when he raised his sword to them.  Conan approached one of their Elders, a man named Ogma, to ask what was so wrong.   Ogma could not speak at first, he was so far away, but slowly he came back to his body and found his voice.   He spoke to Conon saying, "We have moved so fast in the last two and a half-moon; we have come to such a different place, and now we need to wait for our soul to catch up".  

 

And so, it was, they slowed down.  And waited.