It was once again the time for the Cosmic Spiritual Trainers Annual General Meeting and all three of the invited guests were excited. As always, they would meet to share anecdotes of their past year and demonstrate their new methods for helping humans to build up mental and spiritual stamina for species advancement. In the small but cozy celestial command centre they had a great view of the human world below where their covert spiritual exercises would play out. Of course, the training had to happen under the radar of the clients because if they knew it was a training exercise they would be tempted to give up or ask for help. It was crucial that they believe everything to be within the natural order of universal laws and that their success or failure was purely measured by their own abilities. The measurement of a great trainer was their ability to reveal the hidden strengths of their clients while hiding their own revelatory abilities.

After the meet and greet, still glowing from the laughter of sharing common experiences, the three top trainers of the Beriya celestial sphere ,one by one, showed off their newest techniques for training. Demonstrating on a live, unwitting, client below, the first showed how he could swiftly build a wall too high for any human to climb, that would subtly creep on to his client’s pathway and block access to their goals, and then , once they had showed enough determination and courage, a small doorway would appear etched in the stone, through which the participant could move on in their journey . The second, demonstrated how she could very deftly switch the current of a river just when her client had begun to achieve a certain flow in their paddling. Then, once they had pushed with all their strength, she would subtly split the pathway and return them to the flow with a renewed sense of purpose and power. Finally, it was the third trainer’s turn to go and, by the sly grin on her face, everyone could tell she was very excited to show her new discovery. Leaning over the observation screen, she urged the others to follow suit. “Be very quiet”, she said, “for this one you need to really listen”. And then, with the wink of an eye, she began to send thought patterns down through many layers of stratosphere. Listening very closely the trainers could hear the thoughts as the entered the mind of the client far below. The thoughts were in the form of a whispered story that told of all sorts of terrible and scary possibilities that lurked behind every corner on the client’s chosen pathway. It was immediately obvious how effective the technique was as the human participant started to change directions sharply, jumping off the path at the smallest sound, hiding behind trees, and even lying flat on their stomach. Their pace had slowed down to a near crawl and their body was rigid with fear and anxiety. The other trainers were very impressed. “Amazing!” they said in unison, “So powerful. Now, let’s see how you perform the release.”

At that moment, the trainer who had been demonstrated the technique, turned to the others with concern distinctly apparent on her face, “well, that’s the only problem, I cannot release. Once I send out a story, I cannot take it back, it is there forever.”

Storytelling Reflection- Rigidity in Flexibility, Flexibility in Rigidity

With regards to the content , the exercise of writing a story but applying the same ending was interesting in the sense that I felt both the freedom to move in new directions with my interpretation but also restricted by the prescribed ending. In my experience this had the effect of stimulating my personal creative process while , simultaneously, feeling tied to what Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell might call a greater ,collective creativity.  You see, normally I find creative story writing anxiety provoking because I never know where to start. However, in this exercise, having an endpoint in mind actually allowed my creativity to flow in a less inhibited manner.  On the other hand, the borrowed endpoint , in many ways, also made me the teller of a story that was larger than me. I could imagine telling the story of collective humanity while putting it into my own words.

From a technical perspective, the process also highlighted the themes of freedom and responsibility (or structure).When I moved from written word to oral re-telling I observed an enormous  playfullness emerge.  I was no longer in my own world trying to write an interesting story but was now in a direct relationship with my audience. I felt myself taking liberties with the story in an effort to make things clear and  keep the listeners entertained. Some of those evolutions, found themselves incorporated in the written form. So, in a way, there was a feedback loop taking place between the oral and written versions. I also noticed that my tone and emphasis became great determinants of how my story would be heard. In the written form I had an intended tone in my head as I wrote but I am unsure if readers will have that same tone when they read it. I wonder if great writers are able to craft a story in such a way that everyone reading might clearly capture the tone behind the words? On the other hand, is the freedom of interpretation also a great advantage of the written word. Often, we describe written words as fixed, however, in reality they leave enormous space for creative interpretation. Oral storytelling, on the other hand, is, in a way, more clear in the meaning it is trying to communicate. The two , in fact, have incorporate elements of flexibility and rigidity. In fact, that seemed to compliment each other enormously.

Overall, when I looked at the exercise through the lens of greater themes in this class things seems to get more complex.  I see that  the written word , so cherished a part of  European culture, as overpowering the orality of the Indigenous cultures during first (and continued) encounters. Why did this happen when there seems to be such potential for mutual benefit? Is  it because of the difference between oral and literate cultures , in general.  Is the nature of orality such that it will always be subordinate to the written word? Not necessarily because one is innately superior but because , in practice, literate cultures will always find it hard to overcome the rigidity of the written word?

Works Linked

“Joseph Campbell and the Myth of the Hero’s Journey” https://academyofideas.com/2016/06/joseph-campbell-myth-of-the-heros-journey/ (Accessed February 18, 2019)

Ong, Walter J. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen, pp.31, 37-49  http://newlearningonline.com (Accessed  February 18, 2019)

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