The ecology of language - an open notebook entry

This is an open notebook - a sharing of recent thoughts. It is something of an experimental essay or a collection of thoughts at the edge of becoming eloquent. 

Language shapes our reality.

This is not a new idea. The Buddha taught about the importance of right speech, the root of Abracadabra lies in the ancient Hebrew phrase "אברא כדברא" or "I create as I speak" and the Gospel of John begins with those immortal words "In the beginning there was the word and the word was God." To have language is to have the power to express, name, label, categorise and define things, people, experiences and feelings. 

And these words have power. 

We can be caught forever in the thrall of a psychiatric diagnosis or teacher's remark, moving from being 'lively' to being a 'naughty' child in a single breath. Every word comes with its own baggage and its own history. Some words cannot be spoken because they hold so much weight, whilst others are moving into common speech as the passage of time wears away old meanings and clothes them in new. 

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

Buddha

To use an old English phrase, we each have our own word-hoard - a store of words collected from our parents, carers, siblings, teachers, peers, the books we read, the programmes we watch. We can then draw from this stock to communicate and express. 

In times of extreme or unusual emotional states - the pain of loss or the ecstasy of birth - we often find our word hoards insufficient. When our lover leaves us, when we are struck with that strange yearning to be something or somewhere we are not, when we meet the inevitable end of life, we turn to the poets to offer us the magic combination of words that provide the image or the rhythm that expresses where we are - that resonates at our level of feeling. 

Language is more than functional; it is an essential tool in the gardening shed of the soul. 

But maybe it isn't a word-hoard at all. Word hoard conjures to mind some sort of pantry or chest - quite possibly very old and wooden and filled with bio dynamic, organic apples, but cut off and not-living none-the-less. And language is living; it is a constantly evolving ecosystem - a word-wood. 

Language is a living thing. We can feel it changing. Parts of it become old: they drop off and are forgotten. New pieces bud out, spread into leaves, and become big branches, proliferating.

Gilbert Highet

As we grow, our word-wood grows. If we are lucky, the earth beneath our word-wood is made fertile by those around us. If we are unlucky, the earth is grey and cold; in that scrubland, bramble words grow, filling our mouths with dry, spiky, withered attempts to express the fire within. We swear, scream and hit because we have nothing else. These are the children who lash out in frustration because they don't have the words to help us understand how they are feeling - the force of the absent word rises like a tsunami of the soul.

Word-wood soil can be enlivened with the right treatment - the right authors, speakers, words and phrases being introduced in the right way - but just as easily a fertile landscape can be destroyed by carelessness and commercial consumption. Monoculture language creeps in promising better communication through over simplification, manipulation through vile advertising, or utter confusion through 'specialised' jargon. Invasive species spring up - the word 'like' is the ground elder of speech - and GM word crops slowly change the natural landscape of our language and in doing so, redefine our internal and external experience of the world. 

Especially prized was the capacity to name, abundantly and gracefully, dozens or even hundreds of secret names for beings you had spent your whole life strutting past, and muttering; “willow” “holly” “bat” “dog-rose”. They are not their names. Not really. 

Dr Martin Shaw - School of Myth

Robert Macfarlane recently reminded us of how many words we are losing in the UK on a daily basis and the danger that poses to the future of our countryside: "[We are in] an age when a junior dictionary finds room for ‘broadband’ but has no place for ‘bluebell’". What will happen when children can no longer name Oak or Beech, Sparrow or Robin? Will they wish to protect an area of nameless land inhabited by nameless creatures? 

To take away a person's name is to 'de-humanise', making it easier to avoid any sort of messy emotional attachment and opening the 'thing' up to exploitation, abuse or extermination. If we are losing the lexicon of the natural world, is it any wonder that rainforests full of trees, insects and animals are being destroyed by CEOs of foreign companies who have reduced the entire, living ecosystem of the Amazon to a "commodity"? 

Mythologist Martin Shaw encourages his students to develop a practice of giving twelve secret names to the plants, animals or 'things' they encounter in nature and to speak those names out loud. He comments that "inventive speech appears to be a kind of catnip to the living world" - an enlivening force. And surely it must be seen that those that love and know the land they live upon have a hundred names for snow or twenty different names mud or, at the very least, three different names for the garden robin. In giving something a name, we deepen our relationship with it and in finding many names we find ourselves watching, listening, thinking more deeply about that bird, plant, flower or bug - by engaging through language, we come to know it better. 

Green Curve

Udder of the Silver Waters

The Hundred Glittering Teeth 

Small Sister, Dawning Foam

On the Old Lime Bank.

5 names for the River - Dr Martin Shaw - School of Myth 

So get out there and find the folkloric name of the hill behind your house, or watch the little plant 

determinedly pushing its head between the pavement cracks and realise that the word 'daisy' just isn't enough to encapsulate that being. In opening ourselves to language as a dynamic force, rather than just a communication tool, we can begin to experience the world in a new and deeper way.  

"Now, a language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. A language is a flash of the human spirit. It's a vehicle through which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world. Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed, a thought, an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities."

Wade Davis - Anthropologist and Explorer

Sivuqaq - the wrung out island

Dark, still water.

Then Raven flew up and pierced the back skein of the sky with his black beak.

 

 

 

All was silent.

 

 

 

 

Raven burst from the heavens, holding in his beak the golden ball of the sun, stolen from the upper god. Moments later, the upper god appeared, bright and radiant and the world was born.

Raven reached into the waters and drew up a handful of rich dark earth - the Americas.

Raven reached into the waters and drew up cold, glittering rocks - Russia

He created the blessed tribes - Inhuit, Yupik, Chuckhi, Sami. The Upper god saw their beauty and strength and gifted his reindeers to these tribes, that they may be well fed and warmly clothed. With that the Upper God returned to the heavens and was gone.

Raven smiled over what he had made, stretched and spread himself for a float on the surface of the sea for a little nap. It had been a long day.

“And it’s not over yet,” the rays of the sun he had stolen and set in the blue tickled him awake again. 'There were a few hours of daylight left to make something', he supposed.

So Raven reached down into the waters of the ocean, but there wasn't much left. He reached and with his finger tips drew up a scrap of damp, squeezed the water out and what was left he sprinkled onto the sea and an island was made, if an island it could be called. It was small and barren and rocky and cold. Raven took some pebbles and spread them over the island and they were men, if men they could be called - they were weak of will and weak of body.

“Oh. Oh dear. I cannot ask the reindeer to give themselves to you,” spoke Raven “No. The Upper God would not have it; you are not good enough for Reindeer. No - you'll just have to eat what you can find.”

And so Sivuqaq - the wrung out, strung out, twisted out island - was born. The people stood on the barren shore and watched Raven fly up and disappear into the endless black sky.

The people were hungry. They caught a thong seal. They caught a ringed seal. They caught a walrus. But it was not enough.

One-by-one-the-people-began-to-die.

Then there was just one boy left. He was covered in scabs and scars. He was skin stretched over bone. He lay on the floor of what had once been a sleeping room and watched his breath cloud in the frozen air.

He waited to die, lying underneath a blanket of bird skins, but all the feather had fallen off and floated away just like the Gods that had left him there. Eyes pinned open by the bony fingers of hunger, he shivered and shook.

In a dry whisper he began to pray. He prayed for sleep. He prayed for food. He prayed for death.

Ah-Say-yah-Say-Yah-Say-Yah

Far across the world, Raven heard the boy’s cries. Out of the frozen sea he sent a barking, roaring walrus, long ivory tusks.

“Problem solved. There’s food for the boy” Raven smiled happily to himself.

Two tons of walrus stormed into the sleeping room, crashing and cracking the floors and walls. The boy lay helplessly on the floor, unable to move, let alone kill this great creature. And then it was gone and in its wake, all along the ground, were jellyfish - food! In a great burst of anticipation, the boy grabbed one jellyfish and ate it whole and another and ate it whole and another and at it whole! “The Gods are good!” he cried “The Gods are good!”

Just at that moment, Raven happened to be flying over and thought he’d pop into see how his walrus gift had helped the boy.

The boy was lying dead on the ground, surrounded by half-digested jellyfish.

So Raven brought the boy back to life. The boy shook himself and began to grab at more jellyfish, eating one, two, three, four, five.

Raven smiled, satisfied to himself.

The boy died again.

And Raven brought him back again. The boy shook himself and grabbed at more jellyfish. One, two , three, four, five.

The boy died again.

And Raven brought him back again and THIS TIME the boy’s stomach was stronger. He ate more jellyfish and felt stronger.

Raven smiled and off he flew once more.

The boy prayed for sleep and the Upper God heard him and sent him sleep. He slept a heavy, deep sleep for three days and two nights and then he dreamed.

Six women - five young and one old - came into the room. They glowed like sun on snow, their eyes were black as Raven’s wing and bright tattoos ran in intricate lines and circles across their faces. They cleaned the room, repaired the walls, sowed thick blankets of seal skin, lit the lamp. He wished to move nearer the golden light of the  lamp but just as he moved he woke up.

The room was cold, dark and empty.

For three days and two nights he prayed for the dream to return, shivering and alone until his sobbing brought sleep and sleep brought the women! He lay, eyes peeping open, terrified to move in case the dream disappeared again.

“Shhhh,” one old woman said “We musn’t wake him. The Upper God was clear. All must be ready. Go prepare the food!”

The boy’s nostrils flared and he breathed a rich breath of seal blubber, hot fish, walrus meat.

“Get up,” the Old Woman nudged him, “The meal is ready.”

As he ate, the old woman urinated into a pot and rubbed the hot liquid into his sore, blistered skin. It burned and stung and healed. Then she breathed softly on him and he felt his limbs grow stronger and stronger until he felt stronger than a bull walrus! Filled with life and joy, he took each of the younger women into his arms and onto the floor of the sleeping room and from that day on he would be called “The One who Loved 5 Divine Women”.

After that he was different, after that he would not wait for jellyfish or divine women. After that, the man set off himself in search of food for his island. He journeyed into the endless expanse of cold blue sky to find the Gods who abandoned his people.

Sitting in the rays of the sun, was Raven. “Give us reindeer,” said the Sivuqaq man.

Raven looked awkward, “I cannot. The Upper God rules the Reindeer and he would be angry… and he’s already pretty angry. But here” his face lightened “how about this.”

Raven gave the young man a handful of pebbles. “Throw these into the sea. They will be your food.”

Back on the cold shores of Sivuqaq, the young man threw the pebbles into the sea. Each pebble grew and grew, with shining blue and grey skin. The whales were born.

The Sivuqaq man walked over the island and as he did the island became brighter, stronger. He lived on the surface of the sea and the sea became full of fish and food. He lived among the walrus and their numbers swelled. The Yupik people settled on the island. But the Yupik people did not see the Sivuqaq man clearly and did not know their food came from his bright presence. On one hunting trip, a short-sighted tribesmen loosed an arrow and the Sivuqaq man was killed. With his last breaths he spoke: “Such are you, and such shall be your fate. When you go out to sea, you shall be drowned. When you stay ashore, you shall die of starvation. When you have food enough, you shall be visited by to´ṛnaṛaks, the spirits, of disease” and finally he died, but this time there was no Raven to bring him back.

And it was as he said. Life on Sivuqaq was hard. Life on Sivuqaq is still hard. And yet, held between sea and rock, the people survive and live. Between cold rock and cold sea, the people live and love. The Yupik tribe still live there today.

 

 

And that is all there is to say about that.

This origin story from Sivuqaq has been retold by Abbie Palache from a http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/inu/eos/eos15.htm which was, in turn, told to the writer by Ale'qat.

This version Copyright Abigail Palache 30/04/2015

Our world is dying.

The world was dying.

 

 

Birds,
beasts,
trees,
flowers.

 

The air grew still without the beat of insect wings.

The world grew silent without bird's song, cricket hum, wolf howl.

 

 

At last there were only two creatures left on earth:

an old man and an old woman.

 

When they had nothing left to eat and no words left to speak, they climbed up the mountain, to a high ledge, ready to throw themselves over.

They wanted to die.

 

As the old woman’s feet touched the edge of the earth, a deep, forgotten grief quaked inside her and a cry shook itself free.

 

“Why did this happen? What is this punishment for? What did we do? Why did all our children die?”

 

 

Silence.

They were ready to jump.

 

At that moment they froze - a baby’s cry! They followed the sound and there in a cradle of dirt was a baby boy. Their grief forgot, they took him to their small hut and cared for him as best they could.

 

But the child wouldn’t stop crying. No matter what they did, the child would not stop crying. Cradled or free, the child grizzled and groaned and sobbed and screamed. And dark thoughts came into the minds of the old people.

 

Suddenly, the door was thrown open by an invisible presence and the old man found himself pressed against the wall.

 

The Mountain Spirit spoke:

“Do you not remember? How do you not remember? You must feed the fire. You must worship the fire of this child. Strengthen its soul or it will die.”

 

With that, the spirit was gone and in the quiet that followed, the old woman felt loss; she didn’t remember rituals, ways or customs anymore.

 

Compelled by the Mountain spirit, the old people sat with the child by the burning fire and fed it. And then they spoke over it and found that the fire whispered the words that needed saying and they fed the children’s fire.

 

The boy grew into a strong young man.

One day, he found his feet leading him up the mountain. A cool, fresh wind caught his heart and loosed a song from his lips. He sang to the mountain, the wind, the rocks, the dust, the river and the Daughter of the Mountain Spirit heard him. When he turned and their eyes met, something passed between them - ancient and new.

 

“I wish to marry her - the daughter of the Mountain Spirit!”

 

The boy's parents were shocked and appalled. They refused  to allow their son to marry that strange, wild creature. Love between man and mountain? Not possible. Desperate eyes looked back at them.

 

“If I don’t marry her, I will die.”

 

And he did. Moment by moment, day by day, he began to die.
When he had grown too weak to speak or sing, his parents full of fear and confusion turned to the Mountain for guidance.

This time, no door was blown open, no invisible spirit passed through the land. The Master Spirit of the mountain spoke for the very last time and the whole world listened.

 

“You forgot. You forgot me. You stopped believing. You stopped knowing.

 You burned my heart, the forests; you dirtied my eyes, the great lakes.

 You thought yourself stronger than nature - does a leg or an arm think itself

 stronger than the body? Does an limb think itself more than the whole?

 You are part of me as I am part of you. But you are distant now. You are 

 other. Your ears can no longer hear the whisper of the grass, the language of

 the birds,  the stories sung by tree and rock. You became foreign and you

 began to die and the sickness spread and the world began to die with you.”

 

The old man and the old woman found their faces wet with tears. Above them stretched a dark expanse of sky - the vast emptiness of all they had lost and all they had forgotten. They fell to their knees and sobbed.

 

* * *

 

The young man and the daughter of the mountain spirit did marry and they had children born of man and nature. The Spirit of the Mountain never spoke again, but his Daughter sang songs to her children - songs in a language from long ago and a tune from far away.

 

With each note, with each song, with each story, a flower grew.

 

 

***

 

Our world is dying

 

 

Today we must remember again the mountain spirits and a new tribe will be born.

 

 

 

 

Copyright - Abigail Palache 02/02/2015

 

Thanks to Kira Van Deusen for recording this traditional Siberian tale.

Thank you to the Tuvan tellers who still speak these tales in their native land.  
For more info on this brilliant culture: http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/VANSIN.html 

 

Eating the Earth - a first draft

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a town. It was a peaceful, happy and prosperous place, protected from the world by a great mountain - its side strong with grey rock; its top glistening with snow.

One day, an old man came down from the mountain with a cart full of sweet buns.
"One bun for ten coins, two for twenty coins, three for free!"
A middle aged man in a smart hat stopped him.
"Old man, are you mad? You mean you will charge me nothing for three buns but twenty coins for two?"
"Yes," smiled the old man. The creases around his eyes and the lines around his mouth were as deep as a valley.
"So if I ask for one, I must pay ten coins."
"Yes," smiled the old man.
"And if I want two, I must pay twenty."
"Yes," smiled the old man.
"But for three, I pay nothing."
"Yes, exactly."
"Well," the middle-aged man said in the smug tones of one who has beaten the system, "I will have three buns for free."
The old man gave him three buns and then gave three buns each to a group of women and the elderly couple walking their dog took three buns each and the mother walking her baby down the street took three buns and his cart was as empty as his purse.

The next day the old man came down the mountain with his cart full of sweet buns.
"One for ten, two for twenty, three for free."
And once again the crowds flocked.

And the next day the same, and the next, and the next.

This went on for days,
                               weeks,
                                   months.



One chilly, spring morning when the sun shone brightly over the town, a young man stopped by the old man's cart.
"I'll have one please," he asked and handed the old man ten coins.
"What's wrong with you? You can get three for free you know," said a passing woman, in a fine silk dress.
"I don't want three," said the young man, "I want one."
"What's wrong with you? You can get three for free you know," said a passing man, wearing an expensive suit.
"I don't want it for free," said the young man, "I want to pay him."

A few people heard, but nobody listened. An old woman took three free buns as she passed by and shoved them into a bulging bag.

The young man stood next to the old man, watching the people of the town.

"They don't see and they don't listen," said the old man, putting a gnarled hand on his companion's shoulder. "They don't see."

The old man turned his head and the young man followed his gaze up to the great mountain that protected the town. What had once been a solid, strong triangle of rock and snow, was now split down the middle by an empty wound, a great gaping gash.

"They have been eating the mountain. They have been eating earth and rock and snow and soil," said the spirit of the mountain softly, his hand lifting from the young man's shoulder "and they didn't even notice."

When the young man turned back, there was no cart and no old man, just people with shopping bags walking from shop to shop, from stall to stall.

He stood for a moment as the world moved to and fro around him. No-one lifted their head to see what they had done.

The young man breathed deeply, turned and walked alone up the mountain path.

* * *

Why the Sky is Far Away - A Re-imagined Folktale

A Nigerian folktale. 
This a re-imagined, retold version. 

It was once that people did not farm the land or till the soil
It was once that people did not steal gold from bees or eggs from hens
It was once that people did not catch creatures from the sea in nets, did not take the fruits of the salty depths, did not cut the throats of pigs and sheep and cattle.

It was once that people were fed by the sky.

In a time before, the sky was much closer to the earth than it is now. It was so close, in fact, that people could reach up and break off pieces with their hands. Flaming orange sunsets, wild winter stormclouds, pale blues of morning and deep blues of evening, all were in reach and all could be held and all could be eaten.

Sky tasted wonderful!

It came in all flavours from sun-ripened apple to bone-roasted venison, from spiced cinnamon and ginger cake to creamy, buttery mashed potato.

No need for packaging, baking, chopping, preparing or calorie counting.
No need to till the soil or butcher the animals.
No need to starve or stress.

Imagine that world, just for a moment. A world where you never needed to cook, or shop, or grow, or water, whine or worry about the meal prepared. It was just there, a reach and a crack and you held in your hands a cool refreshing glass of sky or a warm handful of steaming cloud.

So people were free to watch and think, muse and wonder. What worlds must they have seen in the curling of the vine, the green of the grass, the ripening of the golden corn, the gambolling gait of the little lambs.

And from the reverie of crafty hands came beautiful buildings.
And from the rapture of warm hearts came dances of friendship and family.
And from the dreaming of poets and tellers came song and story.

Life was easy. Food was plentiful. Work was minimal.

But an easy life can make us careless.
We began to forget the songs and stories.
We began to forget the quiet dreaming.
We began to want more.

Gleaming cities arose. Great machines were built. Waterways, highways, byways, track ways, airways carved a new path of progress. The world was there for the taking and piece by piece it was conquered.

But as the wheel of the seasons moved on and through and on and through, people began to feel the space of time and distance between where they stood and where they had first come from. They wanted to dream again, but they had forgotten how.

And so, to fill that empty place, we began to fill ourselves in the only way we knew.

People began to gorge themselves. People began to gorge themselves on sky until they were bursting with a sense of fullness and when they found it was not enough they took more and more. But the empty hunger was larger than the capacity to consume - people found they took more sky than they could eat. They threw the left over hunks and chunks of sky into great piles, but still the emptiness gnawed so still they took sky and still they threw away.

The waste became so widespread that the leaders of the world met to discuss what was to be done.

Bins were brought in - great metal bins full of surplus, severed slices of sky, black and decaying. The bins were shipped away, far away to other lands where the rot was piled high and children with bare feet and ragged clothes would climb upon the stacks of sky and imagine that they were standing on an emerald cliff overlooking a sapphire sea as the foulness filled their fields.

One day it became too much. Father Sky looked down upon the world and saw what man had done with the gift of sky. He burned and boiled. In the form of a man, Sky Spirit entered the houses of law of all the great nations of the world.

"If your people continue to waste my sky, I will take it far away from your fat fingers," he spat. "If one more scrap of sky, one more crumb of cloud or bit of blue is wasted or thrown away, I will leave you."

He may have stood before them in a man's form, but his eyes flashed like lightening over midnight's desert and the whole world became dark and silent as he spoke.

And we remembered.
And we didn't feel empty any more.

For once in the history of man and earth, we all listened and acted as one. We heard our Father's cries as one and from that moment not a scrap, crumb or bit of the life-sustaining sky was thrown away. The piles of decay began to rot and turn to earth and, for a time, the bare-footed children felt the warm, brown soil between their toes.

* * *

It was the Great Celebration of the Season and Unah pounded a path through the streets. Her friends would describe her as larger-than-life, but Unah was more than that - she was enormous. Around her neck hung great slabs of cobalt and coral and her ear lobes dripped with waterfalls of gold and globules of silver and bronze. Hummocks and hills stared with envy at the curves and undulations of her great backside which moved with a rhythm all of its own, and the heavy swell of the ocean could do nothing to rival the heaving swell of her bosom. She had three husbands and countless lovers, none of whom could keep up with her insatiable sexual zest. Unah had her fifteen children playing and laughing and pulling at the the vibrant swirl of her volumnious dress. She laughed a laugh that echoed around the land and as she joined the great gathering of people dancing, drinking, singing, eating, their bodies vibrated with the feel of her mirth and movement.

Everyone ate and drank and danced until they could eat and drink and dance no more.
Unah was the last to leave the party, the last to dance through the door, the last to go to bed.

In the satisfied silence of the quiet moment between late night and early morning, Unah sat at her table and thought, 'Just one more bite, a little snack before bed' and she reached up and broke off a bit of sky.

It was juicy and fresh and tasted lovely.

BUT

Unah broke off too much. She was so full from the party that even her great gullet could gobble down no more. She tried to cram some more into her mouth, but it was no use - she woke up her husbands and children to help her finish off the final pieces and they tried their best but soon they were full and groaning. She went to her lovers, but all were full and all went back to bed.

It wasn't their problem - it was Unah's.

In a matter of moments, the great joyful woman found herself alone in the dark holding a piece of sky she couldn't eat.

'It's only a tiny bit,' thought Unah. She casually dropped the spare sky into a bin and went to bed.

When the sun rose the next morning, a great silence fell over the world. People stood like scattered stones on the streets, in the roads, the highways, byways, waterways and holloways, all staring up

up,
up,
up,
up,
at the sky.

It was very, very far away- no hungry hands could reach it now - hanging way above the world of man like a great dome of dreams.

From that day man and woman knew hunger and work.
From that day Father sky was far away.

But, from that day on woman and man came to have a deeper relationship with their Earth mother.

As the people of the world sweated and toiled and farmed, for their sweat and sacrifice the land offered up its gifts of food and water.

And a new kind of dreaming began.

People sang to the crops and cattle. They danced and decorated the trees and shrubs, the hedgerows and herbs. They praised the earth they lived upon. They listened to the old stories and sang the old songs to make sure they remembered to not take too much from the seas or the soil; they knew why the sky was so far away; they remembered Father Sky and in his memory they worshipped Mother Earth.

The bare-footed children learned to farm and to coax green shoots from brown earth and for a while the Earth and her children breathed in and out together.

But much is forgotten.

COPYRIGHT Abigail Palache - December 2013

A Folktale Frontier* - New Year's Eve 2013

I first heard this story in it's original form told by my friend and colleague Roi Gal-Or**. I heard it deeply, but I didn't tell it myself. 

Knowing this story actively changed my behaviour. There are many stories that weave together to form the tapestry of an individual, but this one was more direct - challenging my actions in the clear light of day, not in the dreaming world of the fairytale or the fire lit trance of a Norse myth - this tale slapped me firmly and sharply in the face. 

But I still didn't tell it. Even though every time I didn't finish a meal  a little voice whispered into my ear "That's why the sky is far away" I didn't tell this tale myself. Even though I saw great piles of rubbish in the streets, I didn't tell this tale UNTIL I heard a student on the 3 month storytelling course tell it. In his telling he conjured up the great metal bins. Suddenly, the story catapulted itself into my life in a real way - it was not in a land I had never been to, a long, long time ago - it was now.   

So why change the setting, the detail? Why 're-imagine' it and move it away from Nigeria and into a different state?  The answer is hard to explain. 

We can tell stories from other countries to preserve the culture itself (especially if it is a dying native culture) and that is a good thing - a sort of anthropological myth-keeper. But we can also tell stories from other countries and cultures to preserve the story itself beyond a specific cultural incarnation of that tale. It is my belief (and one day I will do enough academic research to write in more depth about this!) that stories grow from the land itself, but that there is something deeper that conceived the story in the first place - there is some universal, fertile web of whisperings that mean remarkably similar stories grow in starkly separate landscapes. This deeper layer is sustained (in part) by oral culture, by the passing of stories along great chains of settlements and as the story is passed from the heat of the desert to the chill wind of the mountains, the images change and new layers of the story being are exposed, whilst others (in the new incarnation) are lost and the story being splits itself. 

Problem is that contemporary culture in the UK, particularly in my area of the South East, has wiped out its own myths, legends and folktales but maintains a peculiar superiority-come-sadness-come-guilt over tribes such as the Edo (who lost much in the 1700s because of the British amongst others) which makes part of us kindly 'preserve' stories in the vinegar of the time and place it was written down and recorded in. As I said, there's nothing wrong with myth-keeping for any culture whether it is your 'own' or one that your soul feels connected to BUT...

The risk of preserving a story in this way is that, like a butterfly pinned down on a biologist's board, we will know that the story once existed, where it existed and how many spots it had but it will be dead. The listeners will listen in interest to a story from Nigeria, where most of them will not have been to, but what will the jungle warmth of the Oba's land mean to them? Will they absorb the message of the story as one being relevant to them or will the far-away, other-culture part of them hear it as a museum piece - an interesting artefact to help them understand the 'other' better? 

To keep the story alive, the story needs to keep adapting to it's environment. When the storyteller spoke of the great metal bins, the story-butterfly leapt to life in my being and began fluttering at my lips and tickling my fingers, desperate to be told in this new form. 

I don't want to tell this story because of any particularly active interest in Nigerian folktales - I do not feel a personal connection to them (although I enjoy listening to them) - I want to tell this story because this isn't a 'Nigerian story' - it is a Nigerian, Ethiopian, Japanese, American, Scottish, English story. It grew in Nigeria and through the changing migratory pattern of mythology we are seeing in this information explosion, the story found its way to me and through me it found its way into this new form. Once upon a time, these stories would have found their way from Africa to Japan, to England, to Americas on the lips of travellers or along great chains of migration. Or maybe the story would have been heard by the 'furred ear'* or the feathered or in the howling of the wind back when people's ears where tuned to these deeper frequencies. In his blog, Martin Shaw comments that current migration patterns are changing in the animal world in response to the global climate changes and simultaneously, it seems, stories are also changing their migration. Maybe there is no longer time for the slow adaptation of story - the crisis the stories speak to (in this case waste) means the story being is compelled to leap out at us from the surviving source in a form that may seem far away. 

Folktale frontiers, places of exchange where stories journey across cultures and landscapes are no longer the inns or campfires of the long roads. The folktale frontier is online; it's brought by high-speed rail and long-haul flights. The folktale frontier is at the tip of the teller's tongue as it's revived from great dusty books full of geographical and cultural references.*

Through this understanding I'm starting to realise how much of the teller's work is to learn to listen to the land. So 2014 is going to be all about listening! 

** For those of you who haven't taken a look, please check out my workplace www.schoolofstorytelling.com  *This blog entry was inspired (particularly at places marked with a *) by Martin Shaw's blog entry stories/animals/frontiers. Please check his work out below. 

"What are the new stories that these migrations and desperations will engender to the animals? Who has the receptivity, the furred ear, to absorb and include those emerging myths in the wider frame of stories that humans carry like precious cargo? Without that coming together, then things will fragment with every greater speed.

What these chaotic times are inducing is rapid move back to frontier consciousness; the indigo bunting will pay no regard to passport control. But land it must. And negotiate new policies, bartering, and opportunity; familiarise itself to new stories. All these migratory animals are having a vast education in emerging mythologies; their own constants, their Olympians, are but drizzle over the vastness of the grey oceans they fly over. Tundra is becoming forest, all is new. Jungle is becoming prairie. 

It could be that stories are being forced to move from their old geographical habitations because they have something important to say about this wider crisis. As the crane settles in a new and unfamiliar German forest as snow falls, so a Seneca shaman story is told in the tentative surroundings of a Plymouth pub. I believe the two emerging migrations are connected. They are speaking over the frontier divides – crow to myth to waterfall to folktale. Both need tuned ears.

What they have to say will not arrive as statistical data, but images that tug on the heart of the listener, that are sufficiently weighty and straight-up-startling to share new light on many coming storms. And a light that is suffused with the eternal, that ‘time before time’, rather than just the strained, stressed-out strip light of the now."

http://theschoolofmyth.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/storiesanimalsfrontiers-goodbye-to-2013.html

Book Reflection - Branch from the Lightening Tree by Martin Shaw

I don't have a great attention span, especially for reading. I have finished many a first chapter of many, many books but rarely reached far into the second before being distracted by one thing or another. I do, however, have an ever growing reading list identified as I continue on the rewilding journey... So I'm going to post a few book-reflections (not book reviews) to help me keep focussed!

Branch from the Lightening Tree by Martin Shaw

This poetic analysis of myth was a fascinating read. Through well-known and lesser-known traditional stories, from the wastes of Siberia to the mysterious world of the Red King, Martin presents them through the eyes of a wilderness-rites-of-passage guide, demonstrating how the initiation phases are reflected in the journey of the hero or heroine of the story through image, metaphor and characater. Using personal and professional anecdotes, we see a real-life rendering of these stages and a suggestion as to the dangers of starving our lives of true myth and the addiction to our 'toxic imitiations' of ancient laws.

Here are a few of the gifts I received from reading this book:

"The boundless choas of living speech"
Samuel Johnstone

Martin Shaw writes beautifully about how oral-tradition story is a sort of collective consciousness of the tongues that have told it, the listeners who have heard it and the place in which it is told or is born. In the live storytelling setting, it is not just my story told in my way - that would be a presentation or a performance where the audience passively receive my images - rather the oral story exists within and between the myriad of minds in the audience and the teller's imagination, intonation and diction all held in the imagination of the place that the story is shared.

As a storyteller (or storycarrier) who works in the oral tradition, Martin Shaw demonstrates in his authorship, there is also a joy in hearing or reading a carefully written and crafted story- a version of the tale unique to that teller or writer that can then be boiled down till only the bones remain and be reformed and refigured by a new teller in a new time and place with new listeners. The written word has kept many of these stories in a kind of stasis between a loss and a revival of oral telling. Martin's clear passion for the written and spoken word is a lovely permission to love with wild abandon the "boundless chaos of living speech" and value and find joy in the written word.

Myth is "the power of a place speaking" 
Sean Kane as quoted by Martin Shaw

Here is a book that moves lovingly through the individual psychological map that myth can present, through archetypal analyses and towards a greater reading that begins to encompass society and our relationship to the wild. In his exploration of story, Martin finds a communication between man and the world he inhabits in the strange symbols, actions and encounters in these tales. After reading this  book, I'm finding myself pondering on the messages murmured by the starlings across the Sussex skyline or the running of a deer pack across a road rather than just admiring their beauty and otherness. Martin seems to write with an underlying assumption that the wild-world wants to communicate with those willing to listen. Mary Oliver's Wild Geese kept coming to mind as the wild geese overhead 'over and over announc[e] your place in the family of things'. Maybe myth and story are a way we can learn once more to listen to the earth.

Quantum physics teaches us that we cannot observe without affecting the outcome. To take this out of the laboratory and into our day-to-day living, when we see something in nature - a kingfisher's dive, a swallow's swift flight through a highly hedged hollow, a fox's footprints - then it is not as a detached observer but as the implicated observer -  we have interacted. To take this one stage farther, why not understand the movement of an electron through a specific slot or the movement of a crow as a message, as speaking a language specifically to us, at that moment? And as each electron's path through one observed slot rather than another has a power  to change the outcome of an experiment, maybe we should allow that which we observe to affect our individual path through life - look beyond the literal and find meaning.

"The place they are returning to is far more deadly than four nights on the hill, and stories become a place to both reveal and protect something of their experience out there in the bush. Bush soul is what we need, and then enough real human beings around us to craft that into some kind of significance."
Martin Shaw

If you love myth, nature, wildness, stories or are interested in the development of human beings and their relationship to the world, I can highly recommend this book. If you aren't, I would still give Martin Shaw's soundcloud a listen or check out www.theschoolofmyth.blogspot.co.uk for a taster of his ideas and work.

Next on the reading list - Spell of the Sensuos by David Abram

Fenrir the Wolf

In the far north, a wolf howled and the Gods awoke from their slumber, hearts racing. They knew this was the end - the wild thing had broken free and Ragnarok was upon them.

***

 

Loki the trickster,

Loki the shape-shifting blood-brother of Odin,

Loki born of a lightening strike on a leafy island,

Loki the mischief maker, the trouble-maker, the bringer of strife.

 

Loki was not content to stay at home with his sweet wife Sigyn - he hungered for a deeper darkness that lay far beyond the walls of Asgard. Just like Loki, the witch Angroboda was fair to the eye, but just like Loki, there was a shadow in her heart and it was that shadow which drove her. Under a starless sky, the got three monstrous children together.

 

The first was Jormungandr, the world serpent. When Odin saw this huge snake with dripping, venomous teeth, he picked it up by the tail and flung it into the sea and there the beast remained - biting his own tail, for he was so long that he encircled the whole world.

 

The second of Loki's children was a daughter named Hel. She was quite a sight to behold. From the top of her head to her waist, she was flesh and blood like you or I, but from there down she was dead, rotting, green and black decay. When Odin saw her, he banished her to the realm of the dead, that Hel might rule over Hel and there she remained amongst the swirly, grey mists.

 

The last of Loki's children was a wolf-cub, Fenrir. He was small and furry and seemed sweet and so the Gods decided he could remain in Asgard as their pet. Fenrir ran and gambolled and played in the grass and the Gods laughed as they watched the puppy play.

 

But as time passed, they saw Fenrir grow and grow until soon he was eating a whole sheep for breakfast. Soon enough, only Tyr - the God of War - was brave enough to feed him and Odin, unsure of the consequences of keeping this child of Loki's, went to consult the Norns.

 

"You kept the wolf cub and now you are afraid," said Urd.

"Fenrir-Wolf is great and strong," said Verdani.

"He will swallow the sun, Odin Allfather," whispered Skuld, "he will swallow the sun and then he will destroy you."

 

A council was called and the Gods discussed what they could do with the wolf. No blood could be spilt on Asgard soil, so simply killing the wolf (with arrows, from a great distance of course!) was mentioned. There was no easy solution - the wolf wouldn't go of his own accord and he mustn't know how powerful he would become.

 

Eventually the Gods came up with a plan of trickery and cunning. They found a great chain called Laeding, with rings as thick as Thor's hammering-arm and they gathered around the wolf.

"Fenrir, wolf cub, child of Loki come and test your strength for us," cooed Odin, offering the wolf the chain.

 

Fenrir sniffed the metal and snarled, but he nodded and allowed himself to be bound from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.

 

Asgard held its breath as Fenrir yawned and stretched and crack, crack, crack, the rings of the chain burst apart.

"You'll have to do better than that to beat me," snarled the wolf and sauntered away into the trees.

 

A council was called and the Gods, a little worried, now decided to create an even bigger chain. Forged of the strongest metal, Dromi was sure to bind the wolf.

 

Once more, the Gods of Asgard gathered around where Fenrir lay bathing in the early-autumn sunshine.

 

"Fenrir, little wolf cub come and test your strength once more," said Odin softly, offering the wolf the chain.

 

Fenrir sniffed the metal and growled, but he nodded and allowed himself to be bound from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.

 

Asgard held its breath as Fenrir yawned and stretched and stretched and yawned and crack, crack, crack, the rings of the chain burst apart.

"You'll have to do better than that to beat me little Gods," snarled the wolf and sauntered away into the trees.

 

Panic began to rise in the heart of each and every God of Asgard and worried voices began to spread like wildfire through the gathered deities. Odin raised his hand.

 

"We must ask the dwarves. Skirnir, go to Svartelvelheim and offer them as much gold as they want."

 

Skirnir flew like an arrow over the rainbow bridge and down into the cavernous depths of the land of the dwarves, slipping through dark rock, into gloomy cavern until he found himself in the forge of the master-smiths. They listened with interest to his tale and a lot of gold was exchanged.

 

Days later, Skirnir returned to Odin carrying a chain, but this was no ordinary chain. Gleipnir was a smooth and thin as a strip of silk and it gleamed in the sunlight.

 

"What is that?" cried voices from the council. "How will that tether the wild wolf?"

 

But Odin saw the magic in it.

 

"The dwarves made it," said Skirnir, "and they made it from the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the breath of a fish, the roots of a mountain and the spit of a bird. They tell me this will bind the wolf, because this chain is made of impossible things - it should not exist."

 

The Gods walked with Fenrir to an island in the centre of a lake in the heart of Asgard and there they showed him Gleipnir.

 

"Come wolf-pup, one final test of strength."

 

Fenrir sniffed the chain and snorted, "There is no glory for me in this. Why should I test my strength against a piece of gossamer? Unless there is more here than meets the nose... you have forged it with cunning and deceit. I will not test myself against a God's trickery."

 

The Gods shifted uneasily and avoided meeting the gaze of the great wolf. Only Tyr stepped forward.  

 

"It will be so easy, why not try? If the you beat it then you have lost nothing and if you are beaten by it, we will untie you," Tyr said calmly.  

 

Fenrir sniffed the chain again and thought deeply.

 

"If one of you will put your hand inside my jaws, I will allow myself to be bound. As long as there is no falsehood in your words and you untie me, you will keep your hand."

 

Every God, even Odin, looked down, up, into the distance, anywhere but at the wolf. Only Tyr stepped forward.

 

"Ok then little wolf. You have nothing to fear."

 

And so Fenrir allowed himself to be bound with the rope called Gleipnir, from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.

 

Fenrir yawned, stretched, yawned, stretched and shhhkk, the chain tightened around his legs, shhhhk the chain tightened around his chest, the wolf struggled and scrabbled and the Gods laughed and the wolf roared and the chain tightened and Tyr lost his hand.

 

One of the Gods, maybe it was Odin, took a sword and has the wolf howled in pain and fear and anger, he thrust the point of the blade into the roof of the creature's mouth, the hilt in his jaw and so the beast's mouth was held open. Another God took the end of the rope and with a great stone he plunged it into the soft, brown flesh of the island and Fenrir was bound and tethered, tethered and tied to Asgard soil, unable to snap or bite or howl at the moon.

 

And there he remained. The great, wild wolf was bound, fettered, shackled and the Gods walked back to the mead halls of Gladsheim to celebrate their great victory.

 

Deep below, at the roots of Yggrdrasil, the world tree, the Norns were weaving the threads of fate.

 

"The wolf was tricked," said Urd.

"The wolf is bound," said Verdani.

"He will swallow the sun," whispered Skuld, "he will swallow the sun and then he will destroy you, Odin Allfather."

 

******

 

Reflection on the tale

 

This is one of my very favourite stories, although I didn't like it at first. It seemed so simple- the evil wolf is beaten by the great Gods - so I ignored it. But like all good stories, this tale did not let me relax or sleep and kept whispering in my ear as I slept. So one day I decided to learn it and then I told it again and again and again.

 

The first time I told it to a friend of mine, she cheered when I told her that Fenrir does break free. She said that she had felt sorry for the wolf and that she couldn't stand the Gods.

 

So what is going on in this story? It is worth noting, before I continue, that the Norns are not exactly the same as the fates of Greek mythology - the futures they see are not set in stone but are likely outcomes from circumstances as they are. The actions of the Gods failed to change the future - they went down the road of trickery and violence rather than trying a different approach. I always hold the question within me - what if the Gods acted with compassion instead of violent control? It's the same with Loki - they are told he is going to lead the forces of darkness against Asgard at Ragnorok, but still they sow up his lips, threaten him with violence and throw his children into the sea. Maybe this saga is there to show us that we should not try to be like Odin but try and find another way - domination, violence and a lack of empathy and compassion destroyed Asgard and all of the Gods. If they had treated Fenrir with compassion or love, would this story have had a different ending?

 

 

I see Fenrir as an embodiment of that wildness, not unlike the lion cubs we want to cuddle and keep as housecats, until we see them ripping a zebra apart. Despite being born from darkness, his attractiveness as a small pup overrides Odin's impulse to throw all of Loki's children out of Asgard and he decides that they can handle or control this wolf. As they begin to fear his size and strength, they are told that he is a threat and so they try to control him- literally tying up the wolf. The threat itself, to swallow the sun and to kill Odin, could be read as a destruction of the status quo - swallowing the old sun and the old king so a new dawn can rise. How many times have we done the same - found an instinctive element or thought within ourselves that threatens to throw off the status quo of our quiet existence and so we respond with fear and try to chain it up. The instinct to break out of a boring, monotonous job and search for something greater, the instinct to leave a fading relationship, the instinct to throw ourselves naked into the sun-kissed waters of the lake, all tethered and tied up by the reigning Allfather of our conscious - maybe he comes in the form of a dominant narrative (that's not how ladies should behave) or maybe he comes in the form of a negative thought or fear (no-one else will every love you). What would happen if we let the wolf out, destroyed our old ways of being and welcomed in a new dawn?

 

If we read this as an ecological tale, we see a story where man identifies the wildness of nature as being a threat and tries despearately to control it, but even when man thinks they've won, wildness is tethered, not destroyed. Nature is patient and will-out. Fenrir has to wait, tied up, laughed at and in pain, but he escapes in the end. It reminds me that grass and flowers grow even in concrete jungles and even though we invest thousands of pounds in weed control, weeds still grow. The Gods didn't beat Fenrir and we haven't beaten the wild, even though we have set ourselves up against it, pretending we are not part of it and have not got part of the darkness and determination of Fenrir in our hearts.

 

Which brings me to my last idea...

 

The final act of the Gods is to thrust a sword in Fenrir's mouth. This image makes my whole body tighten - it is an unnecessary domineering act of violence, a celebration of 'victory' over animal wildness. In my mind, I picture the God's faces having similar expressions to the joyous faces of those awful safari hunting parties that send snapshots to friends and family of when they killed a lion, a bear, a tiger. But is there another way to read it instead of a simple cruel, vile gesture of power?

 

The Gods show no violence towards the wolf until the wolf is tethered. When they realise that Gleipnir will hold Fenrir and the wild is shackled, it mutates and transforms and a toxic imitation (a phrase borrowed from Dr Martin Shaw) of the brutality of the wild is created in the act of torturing Fenrir's mouth open with a sharp sword. 

(C) Abigail Palache 6th October 2013



Everything is Connected

Ribbit.

Ribbit.

Ribbit.

A long time ago, in tiny village in the vast continent of Africa, there were some frogs. Well, to be truthful there were lots and lots of frogs. This was the jungle and in the jungle, frogs live in pools, ponds and even on the trees and as the sun set over the treetops and the green began to fade to a cool darkness, the frogs began to croak and ribbit and ribbit and croak.

"This sound is unbearable!!" cried the Chief of the Village. In the middle of the night, he leapt from his bed, enraged and sleepless, fixed his crown of feathers to his brow and threw a ceremonial robe around his shoulders and banged the war drums.

The villagers, suddenly startled from their slumber, ran out with sticks and stones ready to take on the invading army of sharp-toothed lions, tigers or snakes. They gathered in confused, excited fear around the Chief's hut.

"THE FROGS ARE TOO NOISY. THEY MUST DIE. KILL THEM ALL!!!"

Immediately, the villagers set to following their leader's commands (he was the chief after all) and skewered, stabbed and speared every bullfrog, treefrog, tadpole and spawn they could find.

All went to battle with the amphibian foe, except one old woman - one very old woman. She lived alone right on the edge of the village and she stood still and steady, staring the Chief defiantly in the eyes.

"No. I will not." she said.
"But I am your chief - you must."
"Everything is connected. You cannot change just one thing. There will be consequences to this act." And with that, the old woman turned and walked, slowly and gracefully, back to her hut.

The village ate roasted, toasted and stir-fried frog every night and every night the jungle was as quiet as the grave.

zszszszs
zszszszs
zszszszs

"OUCH!" The Chief woke up with a fright and a start. "OUCH!" he cried again.
It was as if he was being pricked all over with thorns. "OUCH!" Then again that high pitched ssszzzzszszszszszsz in his ear, around his head.

This time the chief didn't need to bang the drum. The village was awake; the village whole village was up and hopping and jumping and slapping and crying "OUCH!" and emitting high pitched squeals to match the high pitched buzz in the air.

Mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes in their hundreds and thousands.

The men, women and children of the village were hopping and jumping and squealing except one old women - a very old woman - who stood calmly and gracefully and stared the Chief squarely in the eyes.

"The frogs fed on the mosquitoes," she said, with a slight, sad smile, "Everything is connected."

Traditional African Folktale - Retold by Abbie Palache

Thoughts on "Everything is Connected"
Folktales can be read as lessons. This one is clear in its message or moral, but is no less satisfying for its barefaced clarity. It is so simple and short, but if we sit with it for a moment we find there are many layers of knowledge concealed within it.

Ecologically, this story has a clear and unashamedly blatant message, supported by example. Everything is connected and therefore everything is in balance. The scientific reality presented in age-old folklore gives me a sense of satisfaction. To stay with the story's message for more than a moment, however, brings a feeling of unease - this is one village and just a few dozen frogs that manifest into hundreds of mozzies. What is the impact of the imbalances we have wreaked upon the Earth? What are the consequences of our Chief's actions? What are our clouds of mosquitos in the global village we now inhabit?  

This story also reinforces the idea that we are not individuals, but part of a greater whole, and that it is when we act on the impulse of the individual that we can cause problems for the wider community - what annoys the Chief, does not prevent the other villagers from sleeping and yet he ranks his problem above, seeing fault in the frogs rather than in his own irritation. There is also a lesson to be learned by the villagers - they follow one man's instructions without question or hesitation. This could also be seen as a cautionary tale against a blindly-accepted hierarchy - the counsel, collective or government did not decide to kill the frogs, the 'Chief' did - a single leader of the village.

To explore this story from a psychological perspective is a bit challenging... but here's what I've got: we find ourselves reading a tale where to follow our conscious impulse, the will or want of our dominant (conscious?) self, without passing it through the deeper, stiller, steadier wisdom we have inside causes imbalance in the whole. Maybe the ribbit of frogs is the chatter of worries and anxiety as we try to sleep, the killing of those frogs is the alcohol we use too violently, excessively and suddenly numb the worry (the frogs aren't scared away, they are butchered) and the mosquitos the avalanche of problems that come as a consequence of using drink as a painkiller. There is a problem in this approach, in that the frogs are necessary and worrying isn't... or maybe it is a natural part of life - the background chatter of voices as we work to live in a community.

In this (slightly dodgy) psychological reading, the story leaves us with a challenge - how can we get the leader, and the villagers, to listen to the wisdom of the deeper self? It becomes a tale where to think before we act, to take time and pay attention to the stubborn stillness of that old woman, might just keep the balance.

If we read it ecologically as villagers, what can we do to ensure we do not blindly follow the chief's commands? As a Chief, what can we do to listen to the voice of reason, of knowledge and experience? As the Old Woman, how can we stand strong without breaking when standing in the sometimes frightening and often lonely position of being the only one to stand for what they believe in?


(C) Abigail Palache, 2013

Making Tracks

We follow tracks.

We search for signs that they are still with us
But all we are left with are pretty scratches in the dust.

Imitations and images
Evidence that something was there that now is not

Echoes and shadows
Shadows and echoes of something that left tracks in the dirt

And all we really know,
All we know for certain
Is that it isn't there
Anymore.