The Importance of Stories
Stories.
We’re told them from childhood, raised with ones that were told to our parents, or other elders. They can teach many things: integrity, honesty, value. Sometimes they’re just for fun.
We settle into these stories, taking what we need from them when we need it. Humor, comfort, courage, a sense of adventure, of belonging.
The thing that keeps popping up for me is: who started these stories?
Some of the children’s tales we tell today are simple enough, we only have to look on the cover or title page of the book we’re reading. But what about the old stories?
What about the stories that have been around for one thousand, two thousand years?
One of the stories that I keep coming back to is the one of my ancestors. The ones who knew the interconnectedness of people and their environment, who gave daily thanks and lived with the land, not on or over her, but in true communion of giving and receiving.
These people knew what respect and Nature looked like. Of course, at times they were as brutal and apathetic as the howling winds of a hurricane or the rising of the sea. That is human nature.
Today’s culture, our “peaceful” society wants to pretend we are so far removed from the calculated violence and savagery of our ancestors.
But are we really?
In efforts to control the natural world, we have cut off our own noses.
We have paved roads and built houses on top of breathing soil, from materials mined from beneath the surface, distorting more land.
We no longer work in tandem with Nature and seasons but grow our food in mono-crop systems, spraying them with chemicals that make our bodies sick.
Before, when thirst would strike, a well or spring, or even creek would suffice. Now we worry these chemicals are present there too.
In the wars of the last 100 years, estimates of 80 to 120 million people died. So much for peaceful.
Why? How did this happen?
Because one story rose above all others: Dominion Over.
My ancestor’s ancestor’s knew that to every beginning there was an end. For each birth, death would happen. To live within the ecosystem of Earth was a balancing act, and they played the part.
God was present. But it wasn’t simply one God. It was a God of rain, of thunder, of seasons, of bounty, of light. They were all given their due. These people danced and laughed and cried and grieved and lived in deep connection with the earth and their communities. To live without either of these unthinkable.
When you can source your own food, water, and medicine, you are sovereign. When you are sovereign, you are difficult to control. These gods of the earth needed to be banished and replaced by a monotheistic dialogue that would bring people under control.
They turned neighbor against neighbor. Wise women, witches, who knew true healing, were cast out, burned. Only one God can perform miracles. Not Nature or any other spirit or being.
So it went for thousands of years. Eradicating the voices of Nature, chopping, mining, paving, carving our way through the world. Waging wars in the name of a God and Savior that was supposedly representative of peace.
Then the rise of the religion of Science came. And proof needed to be present for anyone to belief anything. Proof. Consensus. Data.
Remove wisdom.
Remove discernment.
Remove stories.
The trouble is, we’re wired for stories. Without them, we struggle to find meaning in life. We struggle to find meaning within ourselves.
It’s been a mission of mine in the last couple of years to not only write my own story, but to learn the stories of my ancestors. The ones that were cast out, drug out, and written out of the annals of history.
And to learn the myths of the people of the land I now call home. The ones who were so completely overrun, they have become extinct.
And to help others to see what stories are driving them– what are they consciously or unconsciously buying into, and how does it serve them?
It’s time to tell stories again. New stories. Stories that weave together the wisdom of our ancestors, the wisdom of the people who kept the land with the narrative that has been crusaded over the last two thousand years and the white-coated plague that has infected our world today.
It’s time for connection, for true community.
It’s time to remember who we are, to share and learn new stories— the most important of which are the ones we tell ourselves.