Mightier Than the Sword, the Spoken Word

Why stories?  Stories and Storytelling connects people.  It connects hearts.  It connects our heads and our hearts. It helps answer questions like: Who am I? Who are my people? With what values did or do they live: How should I live, what are the legacies that I want to transmit to my children and to the next generations?  Story is a universal mirror that shows us the truth about ourselves – who and why we are.

Jane Yolen, noted author says in Touch Magic “Myth conceived of as symbolic form is a way of organizing the human response to reality and is a fundamental aspect of the way we process experience.  The fairy tale is a verification of the interior life of the child (a person).  The great archetypal stories provide a framework or model for an individual’s belief system. The more stories, myths, legends, and lore we know the greater knowledge we have to drawn upon to develop those belief systems we desire to live by.

The inner world is alive and functioning when one is telling a story.  The mythic quality from the inside is set in vibration, so that there is a tremendous feeling of connection.  When you listen to a story you become more aware of who you are and how you connect and interact with your world. It inspires interdependence.  It’s like being wide awake in a dream, where instead of dominating the world; we are actually a part of the world.  We create the world moment by moment inside the story, whether we are telling it or hearing it. We become the creators of our world.  Once we can do it with a story we can translate the same experience into our own lives.