Why stories matter – part 2

Last time I told you some of the reasons that stories are so important especially now, during these difficult times. 

There’s another reason and this is one that feels crucial and why I wanted to address it separately. I feel passionate about this which you may be able to see on my video…i’m literally bursting with the ideas I’m about to share with you. 

Are you ready?

You may have noticed that most stories from Fairy Tales, to novels and films, to the ancient wisdom stories all have one thing in common. They have a good guy and a bad guy…a white hat and a black hat in the old westerns. There’s Snow White and the Wicked Witch, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, Batman and The Joker. Right? Or there’s a hero preventing a shipwreck or a brave doctor during an epidemic or the Rainmaker and the severe drought.

Always – one force against another.

What’s with the TWO? What is this telling us?

The word I hear over and over lately is “weird” …what a weird world…these are weird times…it just feels weird. The very word means having one foot in one world and the other foot in another. Two places/conditions/attitudes/personalities existing at the same time.

Could this also mean two parts of one person…struggling with each other or coming together? 

Stories help us to bridge the gap between the seeming opposites…outer and inner, masculine and feminine, rich and poor, etc. After all, the sun and the moon exist in the same sky! 

Stories show us that even at the darkest moment, something unexpected can happen. There is a way, often surprising, for opponents to reconcile. They show us how to live in two worlds simultaneously…the upper world and the lower world, body and spirit, good traits and bad. 

Our resistance to this awareness is what causes us pain. If we can accept the dark and light aspects of ourselves, we can accept them in others and in our world.

There is a particle and a wave in every moment…both exist at the same time. This duality exists in us…it’s what we are made of. 

Stories can help us come out of our trance and see the world as it is.

Can we understand that we have a body and a mind and they both exist together? We need to realize that our way of seeing simply in black or white, needs a bit of ‘reddening’. What do I mean by that? Well, alchemists would say we need the sunrises and sunsets to show us that there is something in between black and white. So much of our poetry and music focusses on those times of day…sunrise and sunset…those metaphorical times of transformation. 

By bringing our attention to our duality and to the beautiful space between, perhaps then we may awaken to both worlds and hold our place in both…with no anxiety.

We are being and doing at the same time. And when we can hold the tension of these opposites, we become like a guitar string. If the string is too tight, it snaps; if it’s too loose, we get no sound at all. So stories remind us that we need to live with the tension of the opposites in balance, so we can become fully expressed in our voice, power and creative abilities. That creative dissonance reminds us to express our unique sound, music and dance – and this is especially important during these uncertain times.

Once again, I want to invite you to take part in a free virtual story-telling around the fire on Thursday April 2 at 1.00pm PST. Please email if you’d like to attend and I’ll send you the link to this special event. 

We need to be able to stand on our feet through this pandemic. To that end, I am offering these wisdom stories each week [ each Thursday at 1 pm PST ] and starting next week [ the week of April 6 th ] I am offering an Instagram Live 10 – 15 minute Guided Meditation at 7:31 am PST Monday – Friday to help each of us to remember who we are and how to make good decisions for ourselves and serve our families, communities and country.