Tales of Healing
In these pages I would like to introduce you or remind you of the notion of story as a vehicle for healing. I look forward to revisiting some of the tales already explored and to introduce new stories with this in mind.
Anne Maria Clarke
x x x
It seems that healing: the sort that can bring about deep & lasting change often takes place beyond the everyday – behind the scenes of what appears solid – in the realm of the imaginal – the mysterious dimension known through the ages to shamans, story-makers, musicians as well as to various types of modern day psychotherapists & healing practitioners who guide their clients into these dreamy, otherworldly realms – where things closer to the source of our pain can be observed from different perspectives – and what is discovered here – in these extra-ordinary realms - can be re-framed, re-configured so to speak so that that our experience of the ordinary, everyday present, past and future can be profoundly changed.
Sometimes as we go through life we suffer trauma of various sorts and in varying degrees. Our bodies and emotions are hurt but our souls too are often wounded and cannot move on and remain stuck or trapped if you like, energetically speaking. The rest of the self goes on, grows up and continues with life yet these parts, these fragments of the soul remain, often at the site of the trauma. Then the shaman or wise persons of the tribe are needed to return to these sites with their clients and to guide them back into consciousness, into the whole so to speak so that life may continue and healing can occur.
The ancient storytellers, themselves shamans and wise ones of their tribe assisted in this process through the gentle art of story making, enabling the listener to view their predicament, transposed into a fairy-tale idiom, and to begin to understand the many different ways in which healing can be brought about.
Anne Maria Clarke
x x x
It seems that healing: the sort that can bring about deep & lasting change often takes place beyond the everyday – behind the scenes of what appears solid – in the realm of the imaginal – the mysterious dimension known through the ages to shamans, story-makers, musicians as well as to various types of modern day psychotherapists & healing practitioners who guide their clients into these dreamy, otherworldly realms – where things closer to the source of our pain can be observed from different perspectives – and what is discovered here – in these extra-ordinary realms - can be re-framed, re-configured so to speak so that that our experience of the ordinary, everyday present, past and future can be profoundly changed.
Sometimes as we go through life we suffer trauma of various sorts and in varying degrees. Our bodies and emotions are hurt but our souls too are often wounded and cannot move on and remain stuck or trapped if you like, energetically speaking. The rest of the self goes on, grows up and continues with life yet these parts, these fragments of the soul remain, often at the site of the trauma. Then the shaman or wise persons of the tribe are needed to return to these sites with their clients and to guide them back into consciousness, into the whole so to speak so that life may continue and healing can occur.
The ancient storytellers, themselves shamans and wise ones of their tribe assisted in this process through the gentle art of story making, enabling the listener to view their predicament, transposed into a fairy-tale idiom, and to begin to understand the many different ways in which healing can be brought about.
Jürgen Kremer, transpersonal psychologist and spiritual practitioner, defines tales of power as conscious verbal constructions based on numinous experiences in non-ordinary reality, “which guide individuals and help them to integrate the spiritual, mythical, or archetypal aspects of their internal and external experience in unique, meaningful, and fulfilling ways” (Kremer, 1988, p.192).
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The storyteller of old, like the shaman, is a walker between the worlds, a mediator between our known world and that of the unknown – a communer with dragons and elves, with faeries and angels, with magical and mythical beasts, with Gods and Goddesses, heroes and demons, able to pass freely from this world into those above and those below and to help us to experience those other realms for ourselves. He or she is an intensely powerful invoker of elemental powers, of the powers of absolute transformation, who can show us how to confront our most deeply-engrained fears, or teach us how to experience ecstasy or bring us face to face with death or terror of the spirit – with the infinite and incomprehensible. He is not only the archetypal magician but also the archetypal guide.
(Kremer, 1988, p.192). |
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The Eagle Woman is an ancient north american folktale of miraculous healing through dance, song and the return of laughter after tragedy and sadness.
Adapted by Anne Maria Clarke Audio Production David Johnson Music - Miffy's Harp - composed and performed by David Johnson |
The Tiger's Eyelash - a story about returning from war.
Adapted by Anne Maria Clarke Audio Production David Johnson We are very good at creating warriors, say Robert L. Moore, & Douglas Gillette in their book, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine - just not so good at bringing them home. |
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