This blog will no longer be updated....

A big thank you to all my readers. I have decided to discontinue this blog. What would have been future posts about my thoughts and research on stories and how they shape us and our world will now be included in my other blog Healing scribbles. Healing Scribbles currently deals with my icon writing, painting ceramics and art therapy activities.  I now want to expand it's content to include my other interests, including my learnings on the environment.

I took this decision for a number of reasons, the most important one being the fact that I find it difficult to maintain multiple blogs. I also feel that consolidating all my interests together in one blog, makes for greater clarity and richness. I hope you will join me there...

Story craft

By: Gillian Valladares Castellino

The craft of fashioning stories that resonate with the deep self would be as old as humankind and perhaps pre-dates language. The craft of story telling was birthed when our caveman ancestors, huddled around smouldering fires. When the flames and darkness had worked their magic, they gestured and yodelled out the first tunes which later perhaps evolved into the first pantomimes.

Pre-literate people of every ethnicity distilled their wisdom in ways we take for granted and disregard. Using jokes, songs, dances, camp-fire anecdotes, toasts at weddings and other ceremonies and eulogies, ie in simple familial and tribal settings, they disseminated the values and mores of their culture, the intellectual, spiritual, physical, group and integral aspects of their experience. Specific ways of being were transmitted, absorbed, refashioned and updated through these stories.

In time, story-telling became a craft for the skilled. There were specific times and seasons for stories, tales were carefully chosen, to be told in exact words, particular tones of voice, with precise imagery, settings, facial expressions and gestures.  The plots - every beginning, unfolding and ending was calculated to convey a meaning or experience which could be enjoyed as it was being understood.

  

     

Fig 1: Traditional Story tellers from different African cultures 

                                                  

Fig 2: Wampanoag Story teller, Annawon Weedon 

Fig 3: Traditional Chinese Story teller

How stories are used as medicine
The ancients knew that the craft of story telling could not be studied using just the rational mind.  It had to be assimilated by living with those who knew, breathed and taught the craft, but more importantly it had to be internalised through long apprenticeship and personal experience. This is crucial, as it is in the mundane everyday world that we come to know and use the wisdom that stories can give us.

A master storyteller takes a lifetime to learn his craft, to build it's nuances and gifts into his being. The story he tells must be part of his psyche, integrated into the ethos of his culture and the woof and weft of his soul. It must come from the inside.

Though a master story teller is a consummate performer, mastery, glibness, working the audience and other stage tricks are not enough.  They are stunts that enhance, set the tone and mood, but they are just that - gimmicks. The best story tellers speak not for money or fame or to please, but because the story possesses them in some way and demands to be 'told' at this time, in this place, to these people, in this way.

When he gets into the spirit of the story, he becomes a conjurer, adept at the rites of showmanship and stage craft but he is also able to bend movement, diction, language and plot, to weave a spell, call up an image, to progress a plot, to plant a seed, to evoke wonder and the beginnings of change and wisdom in the hearts of his audience.

A true story teller can "read" his audience, delve into his voluminous repertoire and select stories that are just right for that situation. To be able to make this choice requires a vast cache of tales, each different in range and quality, but each internalised and deeply loved.  This type of repertoire is more diverse and complex than mere story collections and compilations, for it involves knowing not just the story details, the bare bones, but the ancestry of the story, the changes in its trajectory over time, its potential to heal or perhaps even harm and a finely honed capacity to use it judiciously.

Fig 4: Traditional Indian story teller - Geeta Ramanujam, founder of Kathalaya

Pre-literate societies knew that not everyone was equipped to acquire the story teller legacy.  Elders would agree on who the initiate should be and then protect and guide them through the long years of apprenticeship to ensure that the tales did not become trivialised, modified, misused, fall into the wrong hands or be appropriated by the well meaning but ignorant, so that the potency and charge inherent in the tales, was correctly transmitted. Then, after a long period of training, the 'chosen' one, would learn not just the structure and mechanics of the craft, but the ethics, preparations, attitudes, blessings, pecussions, insights and healing knowledge which were to accompany the telling of each tale.  Finally, but most importantly, the initiate would be schooled in the art of listening.



Fig 5 - Hip-hop improvisation fused with cinematic story telling

Among many traditions across the world, story telling was a part of the healers medicine kit. This fact was known to the griots of West Africa, the bards of Avalon, the Curanderas and cantadoras of Latin America, the mesmemondoks of Hungary and story tellers across the world.  So how did the process work?  In every healing tradition that valued the art and craft of storytelling, the essential realisation to master was that stories dredge up the psychic contents of both the personal and collective unconscious. Learning the art of story telling is an expensive process - intellectually, spiritually and in terms of time consumed. The gatekeepers of stories in traditional cultures, would exact from their initiates, adherence to a particular way of life; a specific set of disciplines and attitudes and many years of study, engaging not just the rational mind, but circuitpous, spiral layerings of knowing from the unconscious. Why? Because when two people come together to exchange the gift of story, they also exchange the gift or relationship and are handling a very potent force - archetypal energy. This energy changes us and transmits to us a recognizable integrity, endurance and responsibility.

   

Fig 6 - Bards - ancient and modern

Fig 7 - A Cantadora in action

Stories are studded with instructions which when correctly mined and loved, guide us through the complexities of life. To put it another way, they help us raise the "submerged archetype" and set the inner life into motion.

Today, stories are used as healing agents by psychologists and psychoanalysts.  In the Jungian tradition, the patient uses dream material to discover the plots and themes that underpin their lives. They learn to read their physical and body sensations, looking for clues to their own unacknowledged stories and knowings. In doing so, they establish contact with the unconscious.

If appropriate, they may extend their work to interactive trancing and the use of active imagination, both tools to help map their psychic journey. They learn to investigate their personal storylines, enquiring deeply into the mythic substratum of tales that inform their lives.  On identifying their guiding myths, their personal mythology, they then excavate the instructions they need for their current psychic development.

Among other methods in their support tool kit, they could use 'crafting' or craft making to assist them. Craft making involves the use of the eye, the hand and  the imagination (which is inspired by or informed by the unconscious). The craft object fashioned could be a talisman - a ribbon stick, an altar, a personal sculpture, a   mask, a doll, a dream catcher, a memory box, the possibilities are dictated by the lesson to be mastered and the materials at hand. Craft and art making commemorates the seasons of the soul - special significant milestones in one's journey through life, which if unnoticed, lie as sleepers in the psyche, waiting for the opportune moment to erupt and disrupt. When examined and and acknowledged, they unleash power and strength and help us live authentic lives.

In a world, where objects may be bought and sold in the market at a fraction of the real cost involved in making them, the process of craft making may seem like a selfish indulgence and a waste of time. To adopt this view is to sell oneself short. Craft, art and story making are sequences which acts as a marker of one's own understanding and as a map for those who come after us.  They are ways of feeding the soul in a manner which guarantees restoration, re-envisioning and above all - healing.

References:

URLS: (photo references)
1. 'Keeping the oral traditions alive in Minnesota: Black Master Storytellers Festival', Eliana Gramer and Larisa Peifer
2. Wampanoag Storyteller, Annawon Weedon
3. Storytelling across the Diaspora, Mmofra foundation
4. 'SuperEverything* merges hip-hop improvisation with cinematic storytelling', Kevin Holmes
5. 'In the tradition of live storytelling', Deepika Arwind, The Hindu
6. Traditional story teller images in the 'Gallery' of  TimSheppard.co.uk

The stories in an old photograph

By: Gillian Valladares Castellino

This post is not about extracting the medicine in a story. It is about helping us realise how we often unconsciously use objects - in this case a photograph - as a resource and a starting point for story-telling. It is about understanding the process and appreciating the fact that the stories we choose to 'read' from objects are never objective. They are coloured by our own personalities and histories as much as they are by the object's content. It is also about recognising that the stories that inform our lives are not just about what we hear, or read, or see, but the meaning we choose to give these sensory inputs. What follows below is a record of some of the processes by which interpretation could occur...

How often do we think about the stories a single photograph can suggest to us about the people in it and ourselves? I chanced upon the photograph below which made me stop and think about this.

What can a faded photo in a time-mottled old book have to say? Well, let us start by examining the photo itself.

If I were to examine the photo with the idea of using it as a resource for planning a painting, I would focus on the different compositional elements, the interplay of lights and darks, the position of the different 'shapes' and their relationship to each other. The people in the photograph, the buildings, landscape and historical context would be irrelevant to my focus outside of these parameters and I would safely ignore them.

If I were to view the photograph from the point of view of examining it's historical context, I would look at it in quite another way.

In the foreground are 28 men and five women, in the best Victorian finery, on the grounds of what looks like a colonial bungalow under construction, in a landscape which could be anywhere on Earth, except, for the fact that:
(1) the information provided with the photo specifies that it was taken in 1892 in Lucknow, India. (A date which more-or-less coincides with the "high noon" of the Raj) and
(2) the background contains five figures who are in traditional Indian clothes of the time.

If one of the people in the foreground were a beloved ancestor I would have a very different perspective from if the beloved ancestor was one of the five figures "contained" behind two sets of "fences", in the background. I would have yet another approach if both the background and the foreground contained beloved ancestors.

If I were to attempt a 'content analysis' on the photograph I would have yet another approach.

Each standpoint would suggest different interpretations and consequently different stories.

To illustrate, I will launch into the 'content analysis' approach and allow the story which this focus suggests to unfold.

Let us start with the obvious - the group in the foreground, who are carefully positioned in rows, decked out in their Sunday best and positioned to show them off to the best advantage. All, save four men have luxuriant moustaches  and every one of the women has a large, distinctive hat - fashion statements at the time.  Hats, canes, suits and boots appear to be de rigueur for membership of this group, though all these items of clothing are obviously inappropriate and uncomfortable for the tropics. Yet why do they wear them? Clearly to mark their membership of the ruling group, the fact that they were "up-to-date" for the time, as the imagined audience for the photograph would have been their families and peers back in England and in other parts of the Empire who would read the implied message as intended. Would those who posed for the photo ever have imagined that their images would be analysed by the "eyes of the future" - ie those of us who would view them long after their 'world' was gone? Chances are their imaginations never went that far, or if they did, nothing in the photograph suggests that they would have thought they would be judged from the standpoint of a world view other than their own. 

Why is one of the background figures on the 'outer' though he is appropriately dressed?  The obvious fact of the matter is that he, like the other four background figures, is not white. He is what they would have viewed as a 'marginal man', caught between two widely different cultures and belonging in neither. Why that interpretation? His body language suggests that though he is grouped in the background, with other men of his 'race' (a loaded term which nonetheless formed the basis for society during the Raj) he clearly set himself apart from them and was facing in a different direction.

The positioning of all five background figures seems to suggest that they were sent to there to exclude them from the photo and failing that to ensure that their images would be small enough to be unrecognisable and blend in with the landscape. Unless this photo is magnified to its original size, two of these five figures are almost 'invisible'.

Two of the other four 'background' figures looked directly at the camera. One had positioned himself squarely in the middle, while the other, a child, looked on with interest as if he knew that there was something of importance going on, but did not know how it worked. A third figure, stood patiently in the background, waiting, his attention arrested by something in another direction, while the fifth was pre-occupied with some concern of his own and showed no interest at all in what was happening around him or in the fact that he was positioned to be 'invisible'. Can the body language of each of these background figures be taken as representative of different attitudes among Indians of the day? Is it valid to ask such a question, or is the mere act of asking such a question telling us something about ourselves?

Well to repeat a cliche - a picture speaks a thousand words. Every figure in that photograph is a product of its time. Yet each represents a human being, whose legacy - whether it be attitudes or offspring or anything else, live on. If each of those people were to get a contemporary makeover and we were to meet them in the street, at work, or somewhere else in the course of our own lives, we would probably smile and say 'hello'.

So, having said all this, what is the purpose of this exercise, of spending so much time and effort examining an unremarkable scrap from the past? Well for me personally, it makes the past come 'alive' in ways that social history, novels, artefacts and written documents can never compare. It is a chance to 'see' and in a limited way, engage with the human face and stories of the past. It provides me with a mechanism for uncovering how stories may have crept into my subconscious and quietly nestled there affecting my emotional responses to people and situations. The exercise itself gave me an opportunity to uncover and examine my attitudes towards the past and how they inform my present.

It also affords me an opportunity to demonstrate how depending on our focus, we see different stories in the same situation or artefact. Being aware of the viewpoints and how they operate within us, allows me to develop a deeper understanding of what it meant and what it means to be human.

Bluebeard - the natural predator in us all

By: Gillian Valladares Castellino

The Bluebeard story is a frightening and fascinating tale. Believed to have been inspired by the 15th century Breton serial killer, Gilles de Rais, the story has been retold by Charles Perrault, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm and Henri Pourrat.  Variations of the tale exist in the folklore France, Germany, Estonia, Tuscany and even the United States while comparable tales have been recorded in Indian and Pueblo cultures. Similar stories containing the central motif of a secret room which must not enter exist in Russian and Scandinavian folklore.  In centuries past, the Bluebeard figure represented a thinly disguised racist stereotyping of 'unfamiliar' men, but for the tale to be meaningful today, it needs to been seen to have dimensions which address the challenges and understandings of our times.

  

Modern versions include the movie The Piano and comparable tales by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Anatole France and Eudora Welty among others. A feminist version of the story is Margaret Atwood's 'Bluebead's Egg', set in Canada and featured in Jack Zipes Don't bet on the Prince, it illustrates just how difficult it is for contemporary women to develop the consciousness they need. However, to focus on the fact that the protagonist in the story is female, is to lose an opportunity to benefit from its gifts. The story is about powerful forces at play in the psyche of all human beings.

An annotated version of the story can be read at SurLaLune Fairy Tales website. The purpose of this post is not to repeat the tale or variations of it, but to examine three interpretations of the tale and in doing so, distil out the 'medicine' it can offer to readers today.

So who and what does the "Bluebeard" leitmotif represent?

Bruno Bettelheim, in his book The Uses of Enchantment (1976) Penguin Books, p. 301, suggests that Bluebeard is a tale about sexual temptation, more specifically about the destructive aspects of sexuality. From his point of view, it is a cautionary tale introducing mainly child listeners to two related emotions, jealous love (on the part of Bluebeard) and "dangerous" sexual attraction (culminating in  infidelity) on the part of his wife. The "weeping key" is seen as a metaphor for sexual indiscretion.  In Bettleheim's view, there are two morals to this tale - the first, simply stated is "Women do not give in to sexual curiosity", the second, "Men, do not permit yourself to be carried away by your anger at being sexually betrayed." Reducing the tale to this kind of simplistic interpretation robs it of its real potency and polarises its audience.

Another more intriguing interpretation is suggested by Marie Louise Von Franz, the doyenne of Jungian analysis who in her Anima and Animus in Fairy Tales, dismisses Bluebeard as "a wonderful image of the destructive, murderous animus." She elaborates on the symbolic meaning of the beard, explaining that hair on the head represents involuntary unconscious thoughts and fantasies which have a bewitching or numinous quality. As we can influence our environment much more by our unconscious assumptions than by our conscious thoughts, the symbol "hair" underlines the spiritual power of our unconscious thoughts.  The beard, then represents the flow of unconscious talk that animus possessed women are given to.  This talk contains both thrash and pearls. The way a woman can deal with the animus is not by killing it (as a man might), but escaping it.  To state things more clearly, "If a woman hasn't gone through the experience of being trapped by a demon animus she has only unconscious thoughts.  It is the demon who provides her with the ladder to escape" (to consciousness).

By far the most comprehensive, meaningful and poetic analysis of the Bluebeard story is suggested by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women who Run with the Wolves.  She names Bluebeard as 'the natural predator' of the psyche - an inner entity in both men and women, that requires our awareness and containment.  Though the story centres around a female character, it should be noted that this 'young woman' represents the inexperienced or immature natural aspect of everyone regardless of gender. The inner predatory force represented by Bluebeard, attempts to "turn all crossroads into closed roads" by severing our intuitive nature.  It is a malignant force at odds with the instincts of the natural self.

Our task on the way to maturity is to recognise this predator and protect ourselves from it.  The Bluebeard story tells us how to do this.

The youngest sister in the story represents the creative potential within the psyche which when 'naive' or 'undeveloped' can be captured by the inner predator.  This occurs by surrendering to the whims of the ego rather than heeding the inner knowing that intuition gifts us.  The price of "marrying" the predator is a life of living falsely.

There is a way our of this, but one must have the key.  The key is "both permission and endorsement to know the deepest, darkest secrets of the psyche".  The door in the story is a psychic barrier, a kind of guard placed in front of a secret.  Asking the 'key' question unlocks this barrier by causing a germination of consciousness. Asking it is "the central action of transformation" in fairy tales, analysis and in individuation.

Once the key unlocks the door, the young, untried aspect of the self sees the shocking carnage done to some part of our deep life.  The next step is to stand and face it for what it is, without fear or denial or shame, to just see it for what it is, for in doing so, the innocent instinctual self regains its soul power.  The step after that is to manouver to regain sovereignty over one's life and to do so one might have to stall, back-track and employ whatever coping strategies one needs to keep the predator at bay until one can escape.  Pinkola Estes specifies that analysis, dream interpretation, self-knowledge and exploration of non-conventional ways of knowing can enable us to see a situation from widely different perspectives and these multiple views empower us.

To escape however, we have to call upon our psychic 'brothers', those aspects of our psyches which are more 'muscled' ie more naturally aggressive than our feminine consciousness.  They provide us with focussed determination to act and represent the blessing of strength and action.

Ultimately, this interpretation of the Bluebeard story is about the regaining of consciousness, the heeding of intuition and the asking of key questions as a road-map to a meaning-filled life.

TWO WOLVES

By: Gillian Valladares Castellino

The story of the Two wolves, attributed to Cherokees is a popular story about the universal struggle within each of us, between good and evil. It has been, shared several hundred times on Facebook and on psychology sites on the internet. However, there are several versions of it and each gives an interesting insight into how stories can change and co-opted to serve different purposes and take on a life of their own, quite independent of the “medicine” they initially contained.

Here are two versions off a Cherokee website:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

________________

Here is the same story, but it is called "Grandfather Tells" which is also known as "The Wolves Within"

An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice, "Let me tell you a story.
I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do.
But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times." He continued, "It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.


But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing.
Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit."
The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked, "Which one wins, Grandfather?"
The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, "The one I feed."

________________________

Controversy over the origins of the story

According to one source, Pavor Nocturnus (a tumblr blogger), 

The Two Wolves story is NOT a Cherokee story, but was first begun in 1978, by Billy Graham when quoting an Eskimo story in his book The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life  and has subsequently been appropriated in several films and stories. 

Pavor Nocturnus makes touches on two additional points: the first of Cultural appropriation and the second on the racial stereotypes propagated in some of the visuals accompanying this story. Interestingly, though the appearances of the wolves is not specified, many of the visuals accompanying this story show a black wolf and a white wolf.

Black is taken to represent the ‘evil’ wolf and ‘white’ the good one.

Here are interpretations of what these colours are taken to mean and though this excerpt is taken from answers.yahoo.com, it is fairly representative of the discussions regarding this story on the internet:

“According to dream interpretation. 

To see a white wolf would represent victory and valor, you have the ability to see the light even in the darkest of situations. Because white is opposite black in the color wheel, we can presume that black is the complete opposite, so to see a black wolf would represent mystery, a hidden danger and anger, a clouded omen shrouded in mystery and negativity, it can signify addiction, hostility and represents aspects of your life that might damage your own reputation, or harm yourself or even others."

________________________

The dualistic versus the non-dualistic version:

The following has been quoted in verbatim from a post on Facebook by Storyweaver, a pseudonym for Andrei Armeanu, a transformational coach. The reason why it was not altered was because to do so would be to detract from its effectiveness.

“WHO WILL WIN?

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy."It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance,

 self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." 
He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too.

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: 
"Which wolf will win?"

In the white world, the story ends like this: The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

In the Cherokee world, however, the story ends this way: 

The old Cherokee simply replied, "If you feed them right, they both win." 
and the story goes on:
"You see, if I only choose to feed the white wolf, the black one will be hiding around every corner waiting for me to become distracted or weak and jump to get the attention he craves. He will always be angry and always fighting the white wolf. But if I acknowledge him, he is happy and the white wolf is happy and we all win. For the black wolf has many qualities - tenacity, courage, fearlessness, strong-willed and great strategic thinking - that I have need of at times and that the white wolf lacks. But the white wolf has compassion, caring, strength and the ability to recognize what is in the best interest of all.

You see, son, the white wolf needs the black wolf at his side. To feed only one would starve the other and they will become uncontrollable. To feed and care for both means they will serve you well and do nothing that is not a part of something greater, something good, something of life. Feed them both and there will be no more internal struggle for your attention. And when there is no battle inside, you can listen to the voices of deeper knowing that will guide you in choosing what is right in every circumstance. Peace, my son, is the Cherokee mission in life. A man who has peace inside has everything. A man who is pulled apart by the war inside him has nothing.

How you choose to interact with the opposing forces within you will determine your life. Starve one or the other or guide them both."

___________________

The “creative” version:

As stories get older they evolve, layers and nuances get added and they are adapted to meet the needs of the storyteller and his/her audience. Sometimes the listener can commandeer the story to explore his/her reaction to it and learn more about him/herself. A case in point is the following creative elaboration by Christofers Flow.

A Creative Elaboration of Cherokee Mythology:

The Two Wolves Fighting Within

A Cherokee Elder was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me... it is a terrible fight between two wolves.

One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride and superiority.

The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."

They thought about it for a minute and then The One With No Name asked his Grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old man simply replied, "The one you feed."

The One You Feed

"The One I feed?" Slippery Beaver tilted his head and wiggled his nose. "I want to feed the good one. And I don't want to feed the bad one."

The Grandfather looked at his little brood. "When Singing Bird makes fun of you, and her Brother Black Crow laughs, which Wolf do you feed?"

The One With No Name thought for a quick moment and swung his hand in the air. "I feed my mean mean wolf because I chase Black Crow around the forest until I push him into the stream."

Black Crow perked up. "He likes my sister a lot. That is why I make fun of him!"

The little group laughed and pointed their fingers. Grandfather calmed them down. "Singing Bird is pretty just like her mother, my daughter, Laughing Deer. So why would we feed our angry fearful Wolf, if all we do is want someone to like us?"

Fear Feeds The Angry Wolf

Black Crow almost whispered. "Maybe because he is afraid that she does not smile on him." He poked a stick at a line of ants. The Grandfather grabbed a sprig of Sage, rolled it, crushed it and blew it into the wind. "That Sage, it smells good, yes?"

The children quietly agreed. "It gives itself up for our enjoyment. It gives its life for our happiness." Singing Bird jumped in. "I like everybody. I smile on everybody. I do not feed my angry hateful wolf, ever."

"Except when your mother got sick. Then you were afraid. And you did not smile at anyone for a long time." Little Buffalo posed quietly, looking away from her as if he told a secret.

I thought I was feeding my good and sweet wolf, but all I could do was cry at night." Singing Bird looked down at a caterpillar. Grandfather chuckled. "Sometimes we just don't know which Wolf we are feeding. But we are feeding the wrong wolf many times."

Feeding the Wrong Wolf

"Life is hard to figure out. But not so hard to live. Life is actually good to us most of the time. But we humans, we want the answers. It is wanting the answers all the time that makes the wolves fight with each other. We want everyone to see that we are fearless. And that makes us fearful."

Black Crow laughed. "Like my father. He drinks at night and then he starts talking to the Moon about the fight he had with my Mother, the time he fell off his horse last Spring, and how he got embarrassed by Grandpa. When he wakes up, it is like he has been feeding his angry wolf all night long."

"How do I know which Wolf is which?" Singing Bird truly wanted to know. Her eyes were round with wonder.

It Is The Angry Wolf Which Pretends To Be The Good Wolf

Grandfather leaned forward and spoke softly. "Think about this little ones. The angry wolf acts like the good wolf. But the good wolf does not act like the angry wolf."

They nodded in growing understanding. "The mean wolf is afraid the most. So, he is afraid he will die. So, he pretends he is the happy fearless wolf." The One With No Name looked up at his Grandpa. "Very good, my child." Grandpa patted him on the head.

"If that is true and we feed the bad wolf a lot, then it gets bigger." Black Crow observed.

The One With No Name stood up. "I wanted to tell you that there have been times when I have fed my bad wolf a whole bunch. Bunches and bunches. Like the trees shedding leaves in the Fall."

"The less you feed that beast. The happier you will be." Grandfather rubbed his grand children's heads. They smiled at him with a few giggles. The grandfather started making a little fire. The night was approaching, and he thought they needed to warm up before they went over the hill to their village.

The Wolves Inside Us Always Need To Be Fed

A wolf howled far far away. Black Crow looked up to the darkening sky. "Wolves are always hungry. The wolves that are inside us always need to be fed."

"It is good to think about which one you are feeding." The One With No Name hugged Black Crow and said: "I am sorry for all those times I pushed you in the stream".

Black Crow laughed. "Singing Bird is really pretty isn't she?"

The One With No Name smiled. Singing Bird blushed. They all laughed.

The little fire glowed and illuminated the tiny canyon. Grandpa's story of the two Wolves provided reason to chat and talk about tomorrow.

_______________

How to use the “medicine” in the story:

Many psychologists have offered suggestions on how to “mine” the medicine in the two wolves story to achieve outcomes such as fighting depression or dealing with relationship breakdowns. One of the most helpful and widely applicable ways to use this story has been offered by Brian Scott a Singapore based clinical psychologist in his blog psychologymatters.asis

He explains that knowing which wolf to feed is the first step towards recognising that you have control over yourself. Once you find ways to manage your mind, you can live a life which you judge to be best for you.

There are four important concepts implicit in the story:

1.The mind is not the unitary entity it seems to us but consists of different parts. For example in the story there are the two wolves and the “you” that chooses between them.

2. These parts of the mind/brain can interact and be in conflict with each other i.e. the two wolves fight for dominance over our mind and behavior.

3.The “you” has the ability to decide which wolf it will feed.

4. Having made a choice, “you” can decide specifically how to “feed” or nurture the selected wolf.

These four ideas give rise to a number of questions which when answered could help improve control over one’s mind, feelings and actions 

• Are you aware of two different opposing “wolves” operating within your mind, one of which leads to pain and a diminished sense o of life and the other to a joyous, meaningful, and fulfilling life?
• Do you recognize that within your mind is a separate entity which is the core you? Other names for this core self are “ego” or just simply the “self”.
• Have you ever experienced times when you noticed a conflict or fight between parts of yourself so that you did not know which way to turn?
• Were you ever disappointed by the choice of behavior made by “you” because you knew that there was a more positive option but you just didn’t choose it?
• In general how effective is your ego in choosing the thoughts feelings and actions which are best for you?
• What ways or techniques or exercises do you use to strengthen your ego or self so as to increase its potency to choose and hence control your life?
• In what specific ways do you feed the negative wolf?
• What specific ways do you use to feed the positive wolf?
• Having become aware of how you feed the wolves within, can you think of ways to better nurture your chosen wolf?

Further information can be found on his blog, but he does offer suggestions on how to feed the “good wolf”. These include relaxation strategies such as yoga, exercise or stress management and reading cognitive behavioural self-help books

And finally a few concluding insights..

Stories are told for reasons. They are mirrors we can hold up to reflect on aspects of the culture around us. The “Two wolves” story is a classic one in which the older generation passes on their understandings about life to those who come after. It is a tale with a simple moral –that we all have the choice on whether or not to feed negative or positive emotions. The choice we makes has an impact on our lives.

The “medicine” in stories

By: Gillian Valladares Castellino

To move from where we are, to where we might be, there is only one way --- to change the stories we tell ourselves. Stories fuel transitions. Where they lead we do not know, but what we DO know and have known for a long time is the healing power of a good story. Stories, like art, can feed the soul.

Stories have a way of taking care of us. They come to us as gifts from those who have gone before. They come to us across time and space, expanding our imagination, strengthening us and energizing us, holding a mirror to our beauty and our ugliness and encouraging us to embrace life and death in all its glory and horror.

Learning to collect them, to tease out their inner goodness, to re-shape them for our times and to give them away, are skills we have to re-learn if we are to make our lives meaningful and our futures safe. Stories are as vital to our lives as the oxygen we breathe. That is why our ancestors put stories into our memories. It was their gift, of caring for in teaching us how to tell stories they were teaching us care for ourselves and each other.

There are many stories we learn along the course of our lives, food stories, family stories, friend stories, fairy stories, myths and legends, stories that empower, stories that diminish. Our challenge is to take the time to examine the versions of these stories we have unconsciously adopted, keep what makes us strong and re-work what doesn’t giving them all the language and metaphor of our times.

Each of us has a story and it is in the telling that we define who we are as individuals and as a collective. Stories are ancient powerful medicine or poison depending on how we decide to spin them. It is in the telling or the silence that we make ourselves whole or fragment ourselves. Through storytelling we grow close together or tear ourselves apart, we form communities or demonise people as “the other” confining ourselves to mental ghettos. If we learn to tell our stories with dignity and compassion and to accord that same right to other people, we feel a connectedness which transcends time, space and experience.

So, how can we use stories to empower ourselves and others? We can search for those stories that resonate with our own unique experience of humanness and share them. We can learn to recognize when it is time speak our truth and how. We can learn when it is time to listen and learn from other people’s truths, according them the wonder and respect they deserve. It is a long apprenticeship learning to tell a story with poise, truthfulness and kindness. This is a competency we have to equip ourselves with. A wisdom which our predecessors acknowledged and celebrated regardless of which part of the world they came from.

The best stories are those that have survived the ravages of time. They will keep us connected to a time before money ruled our lives, to a kind of  love that is not defined or limited by any societal designation, to a kind of co-creative partnership with each other and with the earth from which we have taken so much.