The Alchemy of Murmuration and the Song of the Rose

Maria: 00:00:22

Hello from Cork.

Jim: 00:00:24

Hello from New York.

Maria: 00:00:25

Is mise Máire, Seanchaí Corcaí.

Maria: 00:00:28

It's Maria the Cork-based storyteller.

Jim: 00:00:31

It's me, Jim here in Fayetteville, New York.

Maria: 00:00:33

We can't wait to tell you a few stories.

Maria: 00:00:39

Oh, you know, now I've been thinking about wisdoms, Jim and the wisdoms

Maria: 00:00:45

that we have in stories that that can't come through books or through

Maria: 00:00:50

any other way than by stories.

Maria: 00:00:54

It's like stories hold wisdom.

Maria: 00:00:56

What do you think about that?

Jim: 00:00:57

You know, I absolutely agree because wisdom is not just a

Jim: 00:01:03

simple lesson, it's a collection of values that we hold going forward.

Jim: 00:01:11

Stories hold collections like that.

Jim: 00:01:14

They don't just carry a, a single meaning.

Maria: 00:01:17

So my grandmother also, we'd sit down and we'd have these really

Maria: 00:01:20

deep conversations when I was a very young child and she said, you know,

Maria: 00:01:26

Sometimes your brain can get in the way.

Maria: 00:01:29

And what's intelligent today mightn't be intelligent in ten years' time.

Maria: 00:01:35

And she gave me the example of everybody believing that the world was flat at

Maria: 00:01:40

one stage and then through science, we know now that it's round, but it was

Maria: 00:01:44

the accepted intelligence of the time, which is different from wisdom, you know?

Maria: 00:01:51

So wisdom is more like what you feel in your gut rather

Maria: 00:01:56

than a fact that's told you.

Jim: 00:02:01

We used to talk about the difference between data, and knowledge,

Jim: 00:02:06

and understanding and Yeah, wisdom.

Jim: 00:02:09

Wisdom is the understanding.

Maria: 00:02:11

Exactly.

Maria: 00:02:12

Sometimes you can be told a story and it can mean this to you in

Maria: 00:02:17

this moment, and then ten years later it can mean that to you.

Maria: 00:02:22

And then ten years later, again, it can mean something

Maria: 00:02:24

completely different, you know?

Jim: 00:02:27

And in the moment we've, I know we've both had this experience, you're telling

Jim: 00:02:33

a story to a group of people and they all hear something different coming out of it.

Maria: 00:02:38

Yeah.

Maria: 00:02:39

You know, and I love those stories that you tell where the audience takes a

Maria: 00:02:44

bit of ownership of it and you might say, oh, the woman wearing the yellow

Maria: 00:02:49

dress in the green field, and they go, No, she was wearing a blue dress.

Maria: 00:02:53

Remember?

Jim: 00:02:56

I saw her myself.

Maria: 00:02:58

Yeah.

Maria: 00:02:59

But it shows a really deep emotional connection to the story when that happens.

Maria: 00:03:03

So I, I always see it as a, as a great thing and I have a giggle to

Maria: 00:03:07

myself when that happens, you know?

Maria: 00:03:10

Um, but I also love the shape-shifting nature of stories.

Maria: 00:03:16

And we have found this, we've explored it in, in our previous

Maria: 00:03:19

programs, where the same story can appear in different countries.

Maria: 00:03:25

And you think that it's your story.

Jim: 00:03:29

I might even know that it's my story, but it isn't.

Maria: 00:03:33

Yeah.

Maria: 00:03:33

In your bones, you know it, you know, and that makes it your story.

Jim: 00:03:39

Yeah, yeah.

Maria: 00:03:39

You know, but it, but it, it can also, I suppose, belong to somebody else.

Maria: 00:03:44

So wise stories can wear different dresses.

Jim: 00:03:48

Yeah.

Maria: 00:03:48

They don't really belong to anybody, but they

Maria: 00:03:50

belong to everybody, you know.

Maria: 00:03:53

And if you explore them in the right way, they can really connect us and they

Maria: 00:03:58

can dissolve the differences between us.

Jim: 00:04:01

Mm-hmm.

Jim: 00:04:02

And they can dissolve the barriers between us.

Maria: 00:04:06

Absolutely.

Maria: 00:04:07

Right.

Maria: 00:04:08

You know,

Jim: 00:04:09

I don't wanna lose the differences.

Maria: 00:04:11

Yes.

Maria: 00:04:12

You know, because that's the spice, isn't it?

Maria: 00:04:14

It's that's the salt and pepper of life, you know.

Maria: 00:04:17

So, and I suppose I've been thinking about this because she, Sheila,

Maria: 00:04:22

is in my mind at the moment.

Maria: 00:04:24

And sometimes in tough situations, a story can make the unsayable sayable, so that

Maria: 00:04:32

you can look at it together, you know?

Jim: 00:04:35

Yes.

Maria: 00:04:37

Yeah.

Jim: 00:04:37

Well, might you have a story for us today?

Maria: 00:04:42

I have indeed.

Maria: 00:04:43

It's been haunting me at the edges of my consciousness, and now I think

Maria: 00:04:48

I'll share it with you and maybe we come back to some of the wise, uh,

Maria: 00:04:54

you know, indicators at the end of it.

Maria: 00:04:58

Once upon a time, there was a forest, it was called the unknown forest.

Maria: 00:05:06

It wanted it that way.

Maria: 00:05:08

It needed it that way, because in that time, the children of the forest

Maria: 00:05:15

were in danger in the presence of men.

Maria: 00:05:19

But of course, there are exceptions.

Maria: 00:05:24

And the exceptions were the mná feasa, the wise women.

Maria: 00:05:30

One of these wise women who lived at the edge of the forest and was called

Maria: 00:05:35

Sean Nós Sheila, Sheila of the old ways, Sheila of the ancient traditions,

Maria: 00:05:45

when she was a Ban Feasa, a wise woman.

Maria: 00:05:49

And as you would walk through the forest, you might come across her little

Maria: 00:05:55

house and you'd look in the window.

Maria: 00:05:59

You'd think to yourself, This is so small.

Maria: 00:06:03

This is so tiny.

Maria: 00:06:04

How can somebody live here?

Maria: 00:06:07

But if you opened the door,

Maria: 00:06:12

if you welcomed yourself into her little space where she had the warm fire with

Maria: 00:06:18

the dancing flames, where she put always a kettle on top of the flames so that

Maria: 00:06:24

the water was always singing or boiling.

Maria: 00:06:28

You know that singing time just before the water boils.

Maria: 00:06:32

And when you come in, she poured the singing water into a cup and you

Maria: 00:06:38

might tell her why you were there.

Maria: 00:06:40

You might say to her, oh, Sheila, I have pains in my bones.

Maria: 00:06:46

My fingers are not working right, and I can't play the music for the dance.

Maria: 00:06:52

And she might give you a tea with lavender in it.

Maria: 00:06:56

Or nettle.

Maria: 00:06:57

Or licorice.

Maria: 00:06:58

She might massage her own heat into your bones to give you comfort and

Maria: 00:07:06

to allow you to play your music.

Maria: 00:07:09

Or you might come in and you might say, Sheila, I have busy brain today.

Maria: 00:07:15

I can't stop making lists.

Maria: 00:07:17

I can't remember.

Maria: 00:07:18

Did I lock the door?

Maria: 00:07:19

Did I leave the iron on?

Maria: 00:07:21

What are my children up to?

Maria: 00:07:23

Oh, what do I have to do for next week?

Maria: 00:07:27

And she'd say, sit down there.

Maria: 00:07:29

And she'd give you a blanket that she made herself, and it

Maria: 00:07:34

might be made of wool or silk.

Maria: 00:07:37

And as you sucked something warm and sweet from her cup,

Maria: 00:07:43

she might sing you an old song:

Maria: 00:07:58

[ singing in Irish

Maria: 00:07:59

] and by the time she was at the end of the first sentence, you'd be sleeping away.

Maria: 00:08:09

Your eyes might hop open and you might say, Sheila, did you leave me sleep?

Maria: 00:08:14

And she'd say, Sure.

Maria: 00:08:15

Isn't that why you came to see me?

Maria: 00:08:18

And she'd give you a package of tea and she'd send you on your way.

Maria: 00:08:23

Now Sheila knew how to listen to dreams and one night, in the middle of the

Maria: 00:08:29

night, she woke up and she was sitting stark upright inside, in the bed.

Maria: 00:08:35

She'd had a dream that the grandmother tree was calling her.

Maria: 00:08:40

The grandmother tree is the first tree in the forest.

Maria: 00:08:45

And as she grows, she throws her seeds out around her and her babies

Maria: 00:08:50

begin to grow, and then new species come in, and they begin to lean

Maria: 00:08:56

their heads towards one another, and a more mature forest comes about.

Maria: 00:09:04

Over time, it becomes an ancient forest.

Maria: 00:09:09

And this forest was an ancient forest, and grandmother had lived a very long,

Maria: 00:09:16

long time and had a lot of wisdom.

Maria: 00:09:20

And now she calls Seano Sheela to her in the middle of the night,

Maria: 00:09:26

in the middle of her dreams.

Maria: 00:09:28

Seano Sheela ran down the stairs putting her little cloak around

Maria: 00:09:34

her shoulders in her bare feet.

Maria: 00:09:37

And even though the stars were not shining that night, and even though the

Maria: 00:09:42

moon was on her holidays, she didn't need to use her eyes, for the soles of

Maria: 00:09:49

her feet knew every inch of that forest.

Maria: 00:09:54

Finally, she came to the grandmother tree just as the dawn was beginning to break.

Maria: 00:10:03

She leaned her head back against grandmother and

Maria: 00:10:07

she began to fall to sleep.

Maria: 00:10:11

Deep in that place that needs no language, grandmother let her know

Maria: 00:10:17

that she was afraid for her children.

Maria: 00:10:20

For the farmers who are fighting: the farmers are fighting!

Maria: 00:10:25

Sheila, what will I do about that?

Maria: 00:10:28

Sheila began to rise up through the layers of sleep until her eyes fluttered

Maria: 00:10:35

open and then she thought to herself, Well, what am I going to do about that?

Maria: 00:10:41

I don't know what to do about the fighting farmers.

Maria: 00:10:44

And then she did what she did whenever she had a question that

Maria: 00:10:49

she didn't know the answer to.

Maria: 00:10:52

She allowed her eyes to become soft, to let the focus blur a little bit.

Maria: 00:10:59

She allowed her eyes to wander along the landscape to see something

Maria: 00:11:06

that didn't fit there, not quite.

Maria: 00:11:10

And on top of a mucky hill, she saw a pristine white feather.

Maria: 00:11:17

She picked that feather up and she pulled her fingers through it,

Maria: 00:11:23

and as the fronds separated, every color you can imagine could be seen

Maria: 00:11:30

between those fronds and some colors that have not yet been invented.

Maria: 00:11:37

And she felt the change.

Maria: 00:11:39

She felt her neck becoming longer.

Maria: 00:11:42

She felt her shoulders going behind.

Maria: 00:11:46

She felt her strong arms become strong wings as she transformed into a swan.

Maria: 00:11:55

She took to the air high above the trees and she, as she looked at them,

Maria: 00:12:03

she saw how the trees leaned into one another, but never took too much space.

Maria: 00:12:10

It seemed as if they were whispering to one another as if they were

Maria: 00:12:14

keeping one another company there is so much we can learn from trees.

Maria: 00:12:22

And she flew to the edge of the forest where she saw them.

Maria: 00:12:27

They're fighting farmers.

Maria: 00:12:30

Their faces red with rage and they pointing at one another and at

Maria: 00:12:36

the edge of the forest as much to say That is the next place that

Maria: 00:12:41

we will clear the heaviness of it.

Maria: 00:12:47

The heaviness of it pushed her down, down, down through the trees

Maria: 00:12:53

until she was finally at the roots of grandmother tree once more.

Maria: 00:12:59

What am I supposed to do about that?

Maria: 00:13:01

She said, and she called and the voice of the wind and the wind

Maria: 00:13:09

began to rise and began to play through the branches of the trees.

Maria: 00:13:15

In it song she heard call the people, love the tease.

Maria: 00:13:25

Call the people of the tea.

Maria: 00:13:32

Of course.

Maria: 00:13:34

All those people that she had nourished with a bounty from this forest.

Maria: 00:13:40

So she sat in front of the tree and she allowed herself to make an intention.

Maria: 00:13:47

When was the last time you made an intention?

Maria: 00:13:52

And she began to call the people of the T in her mind.

Maria: 00:13:57

You understand in her mind she said, if you are there and if you

Maria: 00:14:02

are free, and if you can come to me, people of the t come to me.

Maria: 00:14:12

And it didn't take long before the first arrived through

Maria: 00:14:17

the, through the magical mist.

Maria: 00:14:21

And that person said, Sheila, I had this strange dream and you told me to listen

Maria: 00:14:28

to my dreams, so I'm here looking for you.

Maria: 00:14:32

And then another one came, and another one and another one, until

Maria: 00:14:37

they had a lovely group and she said to them, find a feather.

Maria: 00:14:44

So they began to look.

Maria: 00:14:46

All around.

Maria: 00:14:47

Some people, they plucked the feather from the branch of the tree more.

Maria: 00:14:52

They dug it from the muck and cleaned it down more from the back

Maria: 00:14:57

of an animal or the beak of a bird.

Maria: 00:15:00

And some people put out their hand and the feather floated into their hand

Maria: 00:15:09

because that is the luck of some people.

Maria: 00:15:13

And she said to them, pull your fingers through the feather.

Maria: 00:15:19

And so they did.

Maria: 00:15:21

And they felt the change,

Maria: 00:15:25

the connection to the one in front, the connection to the one behind, to the

Maria: 00:15:33

right, to the left, for they had become.

Maria: 00:15:39

A mation of starlings they had, but one thought between them now as they

Maria: 00:15:46

took to the sky up over the forest as they flew to where the fighting

Maria: 00:15:53

farmers were, as they flew between the sun and the fighting farmers, and

Maria: 00:16:00

the farmers looked up, wouldn't you?

Maria: 00:16:04

Wouldn't you look up if you saw a shadow in the sky?

Maria: 00:16:10

And as they looked up the birds, they took on the shape of a heart and as if they

Maria: 00:16:17

had planned it at the very same second, they all beat their wings and that heart

Maria: 00:16:29

into life right there in front of their eyes, right there in the sky.

Maria: 00:16:36

And the farmers started smiling.

Maria: 00:16:39

Wouldn't you?

Maria: 00:16:41

Wouldn't you smile if you saw something like that?

Maria: 00:16:44

And when they looked down, when they looked into one another's

Maria: 00:16:48

eyes, they were still smiling.

Maria: 00:16:52

They put down their tools, and they made an agreement to go home, for

Maria: 00:17:00

they knew that they had enough.

Jim: 00:17:05

Wonderful.

Jim: 00:17:06

Wonderful.

Jim: 00:17:08

They knew they had enough.

Jim: 00:17:11

Hmm.

Jim: 00:17:12

I think we've said between us before, yeah, that's one of the,

Jim: 00:17:16

um, marks of abundance is that you have enough to give away.

Jim: 00:17:23

Yeah.

Jim: 00:17:23

Yes.

Jim: 00:17:25

Yeah.

Jim: 00:17:25

Yeah.

Maria: 00:17:27

Yes, very true.

Maria: 00:17:29

In my beautiful folklore and culture course with Shane Lehan, an amazing

Maria: 00:17:35

man, we were talking about dolls.

Jim: 00:17:38

Mm-hmm.

Maria: 00:17:39

And when I was growing up, you'd have one precious doll, you know, and you

Maria: 00:17:44

could put all your love into that doll.

Maria: 00:17:46

And now kids, they have collections of things, but they don't

Maria: 00:17:51

have the connection to things.

Jim: 00:17:54

Connection to.

Maria: 00:17:54

Yeah.

Jim: 00:17:55

Connection instead of collection.

Jim: 00:17:57

Right.

Jim: 00:17:57

Exactly.

Jim: 00:17:57

Right.

Maria: 00:17:57

You know?

Jim: 00:17:58

Right.

Jim: 00:18:02

Well, I have a story.

Jim: 00:18:04

What do you know?

Jim: 00:18:04

Yay.

Jim: 00:18:06

And um, this time it's not a Jewish story.

Jim: 00:18:12

Uh, it's a story from the Roma people of Eastern Europe: the

Jim: 00:18:19

other traveling travelers.

Jim: 00:18:23

You know, as so often is the case in these stories, there was a king and a

Jim: 00:18:29

queen, and they didn't have children, and so many stories start out this way.

Jim: 00:18:38

One of the things I'm drawn to is, how did that make them feel?

Jim: 00:18:45

And they each had a very different reaction.

Jim: 00:18:47

The the king was disappointed.

Jim: 00:18:52

I mean, he wanted an heir, which meant he wanted a son, and the queen was different.

Jim: 00:19:00

The queen was sad because she wanted a child.

Jim: 00:19:03

She didn't care about an heir.

Jim: 00:19:06

She wanted a child.

Jim: 00:19:09

But neither of them was happy.

Jim: 00:19:11

and so of course things were miserable.

Jim: 00:19:16

And the queen said, You know what?

Jim: 00:19:18

I think I will find a way to take care of this.

Jim: 00:19:23

And so what did she do?

Jim: 00:19:26

She went to a wise old woman.

Jim: 00:19:28

'Cause where else would you go?

Jim: 00:19:31

And she found a woman who was living in the forest.

Jim: 00:19:39

And this wise old woman looked at her and said, This is a challenge.

Jim: 00:19:47

I can help, but let me tell you, you will never have a son.

Jim: 00:19:52

I can help you have a daughter, but I can't help you have a son.

Jim: 00:19:57

Well, that was fine for the queen.

Jim: 00:19:58

That's exactly, you know, she just wanted a child.

Jim: 00:20:03

And she said, Oh, I'll do it.

Jim: 00:20:05

What?

Jim: 00:20:05

What do I need to do?

Jim: 00:20:07

Well, here was the prescription that she gave her.

Jim: 00:20:13

She had to go out on the evening of Good Friday, in the middle of the

Jim: 00:20:20

night, go into the cemetery and just before midnight, dig up the bone

Jim: 00:20:30

of a hanged man and bring it home.

Jim: 00:20:35

Then, on Easter Monday,

Jim: 00:20:41

grind it into a powder.

Jim: 00:20:44

Now, go and find a young girl who is exactly seven years, seven months,

Jim: 00:20:53

seven weeks, and seven days old.

Jim: 00:20:59

Mix that hair with the powder and boil it with some seeds of fresh apples in

Jim: 00:21:07

a pot that hasn't been used before.

Jim: 00:21:12

When it's all finally a porridge, eat it.

Jim: 00:21:16

And then you can have a daughter.

Jim: 00:21:20

Now, I have to say that is such a strange prescription.

Jim: 00:21:26

And such a difficult one.

Jim: 00:21:28

I mean, to have everything ready, you have to have a girl who has the hair

Jim: 00:21:34

that is seven days old on Easter Monday.

Jim: 00:21:37

I mean, you know, it's, but she made it happen.

Jim: 00:21:41

And sure enough, she was pregnant and sure enough, the months sped

Jim: 00:21:47

by, and sure enough she gave birth, but she gave birth to a rose.

Jim: 00:21:56

Wasn't a baby girl, the beautiful rose, but it was a rose.

Jim: 00:22:01

And as soon as it was delivered, it flew out of the window and it got

Jim: 00:22:06

entangled in a rosebush that was growing up the side of the castle wall.

Jim: 00:22:14

Well, everybody screamed, they called to the king.

Jim: 00:22:19

And the king ran out into the garden and he got his servants and they were trying

Jim: 00:22:24

to pull the rose out, but they couldn't.

Jim: 00:22:31

And the king was furious, 'cause you know, he wanted a son and all

Jim: 00:22:38

she gave him was a rose, and, and they couldn't even get rid of it.

Jim: 00:22:44

He accused her of being a witch.

Jim: 00:22:47

This was the last straw for him.

Jim: 00:22:49

He said, get outta my country.

Jim: 00:22:52

I don't wanna have anything to do with you.

Jim: 00:22:54

I'll find someone else.

Jim: 00:22:57

And so she was expelled.

Jim: 00:22:59

Expelled from her labor bed immediately.

Jim: 00:23:06

Well, she crept off into the garden.

Jim: 00:23:10

She sat beneath the rose and she just cried.

Jim: 00:23:17

She just cried.

Jim: 00:23:18

Because now what did she have left?

Jim: 00:23:23

And as she sat there crying,

Jim: 00:23:28

she started to kiss the rose.

Jim: 00:23:33

It was the last thing she had left.

Jim: 00:23:36

And the rose spoke to her, and the rose said, you don't have to cry.

Jim: 00:23:42

Everything's gonna be all right.

Jim: 00:23:45

Drink a little drop from my calyx, the lower petals of me.

Jim: 00:23:52

And if you drink just a sip of that, you'll always have all the

Jim: 00:23:57

food and drink that you ever need.

Jim: 00:23:59

You'll be taken care of for the rest of your life.

Jim: 00:24:04

So she reached up and she took a sip and oh, it's amazing!

Jim: 00:24:11

It not only let her know that she was gonna be taken care of body-wise,

Jim: 00:24:17

you know, food and drink, but it started to nourish her soul too.

Jim: 00:24:21

And she realized she didn't have to fear that she would be taken care of.

Jim: 00:24:27

And so she, she left and she found her way back into that forest.

Jim: 00:24:34

And you know what?

Jim: 00:24:35

She found a cave.

Jim: 00:24:37

A beautiful, spacious cave filled with crystals and gems, filled with

Jim: 00:24:44

light, and there was a soft mossy place that she could lay down.

Jim: 00:24:51

There was a brook running through it.

Jim: 00:24:54

Wonderful things that were growing that she could eat.

Jim: 00:24:59

Birds came and sang to her.

Jim: 00:25:03

Other animals brought her other things to eat, and it turned into a good life.

Jim: 00:25:10

The animals became her family, and she would sing with them and she would

Jim: 00:25:14

dance with them, and flowers started to grow all around inside the cave.

Jim: 00:25:19

And you know what?

Jim: 00:25:20

She was happy, because she knew this had been a gift of her daughter, the rose.

Jim: 00:25:31

Things continued there for quite a while.

Jim: 00:25:34

I mean, she lost track of time, but of course they hadn't lost

Jim: 00:25:38

track of time back in the kingdom.

Jim: 00:25:41

The king was not happy.

Jim: 00:25:46

And it as if it was a finger in his eye, the rose continued to grow

Jim: 00:25:56

and become more and more beautiful.

Jim: 00:25:59

And every season, even in the winter, it would blossom and bloom.

Jim: 00:26:07

And when he ever, he came over to admire the rose, it would pull away from him.

Jim: 00:26:13

Sometimes it would droop, it wouldn't let him touch it at all.

Jim: 00:26:21

And now it was like.

Jim: 00:26:22

I couldn't get a son, and I kind of had a daughter, but she won't I.

Jim: 00:26:29

And he said, I'm going to get rid of you somehow.

Jim: 00:26:35

And he started to try and have people cut it down, but it wouldn't work.

Jim: 00:26:44

It wouldn't work.

Jim: 00:26:46

And finally, in desperation, he said to the rose, why are

Jim: 00:26:50

you treating me this way?

Jim: 00:26:55

She spoke to him as you would speak to a young child, You sent my mother away.

Jim: 00:27:01

What did you expect?

Jim: 00:27:04

This is how you treat my mother.

Jim: 00:27:05

This is how I treat you.

Jim: 00:27:08

He realized that he really did.

Jim: 00:27:12

He was really to blame here.

Jim: 00:27:13

So

Jim: 00:27:15

he said, I'll bring your mother back.

Jim: 00:27:18

We'll make it all right.

Jim: 00:27:20

So he sent people out to try and find her, and it took a long time, but word had kind

Jim: 00:27:28

of spread about this amazing, beautiful woman living in a cave fed by the animals.

Jim: 00:27:33

They found her and they promised her that the king felt badly for what he has

Jim: 00:27:40

done and implored her to come back home.

Jim: 00:27:44

And she did.

Jim: 00:27:47

Because she wanted to see her daughter.

Jim: 00:27:51

And so she, when she arrived at the home at the castle, that it

Jim: 00:27:55

just, everything got brighter.

Jim: 00:27:58

The rose, if it could have blossomed more, it would have,

Jim: 00:28:02

it was just so happy to see her.

Jim: 00:28:07

And the word spread throughout the kingdoms.

Jim: 00:28:11

People would come and they would bring gifts and they would admire

Jim: 00:28:15

this beautiful, beautiful rose.

Jim: 00:28:20

But what was really in the king's heart was that it

Jim: 00:28:26

should be a person, not a rose.

Jim: 00:28:29

And he was ready for a daughter, but a rose?

Jim: 00:28:32

It's still, ewww.

Jim: 00:28:37

So the king sent out for sorcerers, good sorcerers, bad sorcerers.

Jim: 00:28:44

Anybody who thought that they could transform this rose into a person,

Jim: 00:28:50

but unsurprisingly, none of them.

Jim: 00:28:56

Until one day, a wandering musician came to the courtyard.

Jim: 00:29:04

And he saw the beautiful rose and he started to sing to it.

Jim: 00:29:11

And the more he sang to it, the more it blossomed, and love grew in his

Jim: 00:29:16

heart, and it grew in his music.

Jim: 00:29:19

And he sang more and more beautiful music and songs to it until finally,

Jim: 00:29:25

finally, the, the inner petals opened up.

Jim: 00:29:29

There was a young girl!

Jim: 00:29:34

And they kissed, and she said, If only someone had sung to me before

Jim: 00:29:41

now, I would've come out much sooner.

Jim: 00:29:46

Well, of course, everyone was thrilled to see the daughter there.

Jim: 00:29:53

She stepped out of the rose.

Jim: 00:29:56

She and the musician embraced, the king said, You can marry my daughter.

Jim: 00:30:03

And so he became the prince, and the king got his son, sort of, he got his

Jim: 00:30:10

heir, but more importantly, the beauty and the love of Rose, his daughter

Jim: 00:30:19

and the musician filled the castle and filled the kingdom for years to come.

Maria: 00:30:29

Oh, I love it so much!

Maria: 00:30:31

And it reminds me of all of those stories that says, be careful what you wish for.

Maria: 00:30:36

You know, or, you know, kind of just because you want it,

Maria: 00:30:40

it mightn't be what you need.

Jim: 00:30:42

Mm-hmm.

Maria: 00:30:43

You know?

Maria: 00:30:43

So, yeah.

Maria: 00:30:44

Oh my God, that was so nice.

Maria: 00:30:47

It reminds me of this fantastic, um, initiative I'm involved

Maria: 00:30:52

in called Soul of Cities.

Maria: 00:30:54

And they're looking at, um, how our stories are so important.

Maria: 00:31:02

They're like a nourishment.

Maria: 00:31:03

They are, aren't they, Jim?

Maria: 00:31:05

Yeah.

Jim: 00:31:06

They're our nourishment.

Jim: 00:31:07

they're our history, they're our dreams for the future.

Maria: 00:31:12

Yeah.

Maria: 00:31:12

Yeah.

Maria: 00:31:12

There are fact and our mystery.

Jim: 00:31:15

Yes, absolutely.

Maria: 00:31:18

But this has been so nice.

Jim: 00:31:21

Yeah, it has.

Jim: 00:31:22

So as, as I look at these stories,

Jim: 00:31:29

I'm wondering what kind of wisdoms we might pull from them and now

Jim: 00:31:34

others will find their own, right?

Jim: 00:31:36

Yeah.

Jim: 00:31:37

I know for me in my story, one of the things that speaks to me

Jim: 00:31:41

is the power of unbidden love.

Jim: 00:31:47

He just loved the rose, the musician did.

Jim: 00:31:50

And he expressed it with feeling, not with spells or demands or anything like that.

Jim: 00:31:58

It was just unconditional love.

Jim: 00:32:00

That's the word I'm looking for.

Jim: 00:32:02

Yeah.

Maria: 00:32:02

And that's his salvation.

Maria: 00:32:04

It was his salvation that he followed his heart, you know?

Maria: 00:32:08

It was almost the king's undoing that he didn't invest his heart, you know?

Maria: 00:32:14

So, yeah.

Maria: 00:32:16

Oh, I love that.

Maria: 00:32:17

You know, uh, I, I also enjoyed listening to your story and

Maria: 00:32:24

seeing your face in vital telling.

Maria: 00:32:27

So it's, it's very important to be at the face of the storyteller,

Maria: 00:32:33

you know, and to receive stories.

Maria: 00:32:38

Yes.

Maria: 00:32:38

It's so different than reading a story in a book.

Jim: 00:32:42

Oh, entirely.

Jim: 00:32:43

Entirely.

Jim: 00:32:46

Yeah.

Jim: 00:32:46

There's so something so special about spoken oral storytelling, and not just

Jim: 00:32:51

read stories, you know, but told stories

Maria: 00:32:55

Or told stories, you know.

Maria: 00:32:57

And for me there's a huge nourishment in the listening and

Maria: 00:33:00

also in the telling, you know.

Maria: 00:33:02

So it's our first human art as, as we're kids, you know, before

Maria: 00:33:09

we can use our hands, we're listening to how people say things.

Maria: 00:33:15

And before we know language, we know tone.

Maria: 00:33:18

We know that means, "Don't do it!" We know, "I love you.

Maria: 00:33:23

I love you." We know those sounds as well.

Maria: 00:33:25

You know, I have, I have a brand new grand niece and she coos to me.

Maria: 00:33:30

You know, she's like, Ooh, when her, when I tell her beautiful things about herself.

Jim: 00:33:39

That reminds me when I was starting my training in this kind of

Jim: 00:33:44

storytelling, which was many years ago.

Jim: 00:33:47

A lot of the classes were held over a phone, over a conference call.

Maria: 00:33:52

Yeah.

Jim: 00:33:52

And the way new students had to introduce themselves by sharing a story.

Jim: 00:33:58

It was my turn, and I tell you, I had poured my heart into this story

Jim: 00:34:04

I was gonna tell, and I really knew I wanted to get it right.

Jim: 00:34:08

So I had written it down, you know, I was gonna ace this one.

Jim: 00:34:13

And so, you know, nobody could see me, they could just hear my voice.

Jim: 00:34:17

And I started to read the story I had written.

Jim: 00:34:22

And I didn't finish the first sentence when my teacher said, You're

Jim: 00:34:30

reading that story, aren't you?

Jim: 00:34:34

And I said, Well, yeah!

Jim: 00:34:37

And he said, Well, you're not here to learn to be a story reader.

Jim: 00:34:44

You're here to be a storyteller.

Maria: 00:34:47

Yeah.

Jim: 00:34:47

So don't ever read a story again.

Jim: 00:34:53

Not that you shouldn't read it, but don't tell a story by reading it.

Jim: 00:34:56

Yeah.

Jim: 00:34:57

And that was a huge challenge, 'cause I had been doing a lot of public speaking

Jim: 00:35:02

and it was always, you know, oh, I was so proud of the words I had chosen.

Jim: 00:35:06

Um, to, to give them all up and speak extemporaneously was a huge challenge.

Jim: 00:35:13

But it opened up so many, so many doors.

Jim: 00:35:16

So.

Maria: 00:35:16

I know.

Maria: 00:35:18

People would be saying, I'm so shy of public speaking, and I was in

Maria: 00:35:24

Toastmasters for a long time, and I'm recently back to them, you know?

Maria: 00:35:28

Um, and I've never had a written speech because I, I was brought up in an oral,

Maria: 00:35:35

aural household, so, so lucky, you know?

Maria: 00:35:40

Yes,

Jim: 00:35:40

yes.

Maria: 00:35:41

Yeah.

Maria: 00:35:42

But um, yeah, but there is a big difference.

Maria: 00:35:45

And isn't it amazing that he could hear you reading even

Maria: 00:35:49

though he could not see you!

Jim: 00:35:51

In the first sentence?

Jim: 00:35:52

In the first sentence?

Maria: 00:35:54

Cause it's so, it's, it's such a different rhythm

Maria: 00:35:57

when you are seeing something.

Maria: 00:35:59

When you're seeing something in your mind's eye and you are telling

Maria: 00:36:03

something of that to someone, you're putting that image in their mind.

Jim: 00:36:08

You are absolutely.

Maria: 00:36:09

It's like magic.

Maria: 00:36:10

It's alchemy.

Maria: 00:36:11

I dunno how it works, but I know it's very different than

Maria: 00:36:15

if you are reading something.

Jim: 00:36:17

And I'll just put this little thing at the end of that,

Jim: 00:36:21

which is, we know how it works.

Jim: 00:36:23

There's this thing called neural coupling.

Jim: 00:36:27

And when two people are speaking to the each other,

Maria: 00:36:31

yeah.

Jim: 00:36:31

their brains start to synchronize.

Maria: 00:36:34

Yeah.

Jim: 00:36:35

And they synchronize about not just the words that are being spoken, but their

Jim: 00:36:41

whole brain patterns start to synchronize.

Jim: 00:36:44

And just like we said before, how stories contain more than

Jim: 00:36:49

just one piece of wisdom, our brains contain all our knowledge.

Jim: 00:36:54

Yeah, so that as we share our brain synchronies, we share more, more than

Jim: 00:37:00

even the story gets getting shared.

Maria: 00:37:02

Very true.

Maria: 00:37:03

But our guts are also syncing up.

Maria: 00:37:05

Absolutely.

Maria: 00:37:06

I mean, if you hold a new baby, which I'm holding at the moment because of my

Maria: 00:37:10

gorgeous grand niece, uh, Emily, you know?

Jim: 00:37:12

Yeah.

Maria: 00:37:13

When you hold their back into your belly, you can help them to digest.

Maria: 00:37:18

It's amazing.

Maria: 00:37:19

Yes.

Maria: 00:37:19

You know?

Jim: 00:37:20

Yes.

Maria: 00:37:20

So, um, so when you are in deep story with somebody, it's your heart,

Maria: 00:37:26

it's your mind, it's your emotions.

Maria: 00:37:30

Yes.

Maria: 00:37:30

It's your, it's everything.

Maria: 00:37:32

It syncs up.

Maria: 00:37:32

It's so amazing.

Jim: 00:37:34

It's your scent.

Jim: 00:37:35

It's everything.

Jim: 00:37:36

Yes, yes, yes.

Maria: 00:37:38

All of that, you know?

Maria: 00:37:40

Oh, and I suppose with, with the story that I, that I told today, it, it came

Maria: 00:37:45

from a system of story making that was handed onto me by my grandmother

Maria: 00:37:50

and my great granny and my mom.

Maria: 00:37:53

And it's, um, you know, kind of, you are walking and you walk at a

Maria: 00:37:57

different pace when a story is coming.

Maria: 00:38:00

And you might get an image here or an image there, then you might

Maria: 00:38:03

start dreaming of the story.

Maria: 00:38:06

And then the story can birth itself in its entirety, and that's what

Maria: 00:38:11

happened with Channel Sheila.

Maria: 00:38:13

You know, I was out with the Forestry School of Ireland and we were all in a

Maria: 00:38:18

little bit of grief over the fact that we're losing the forests in Ireland and

Maria: 00:38:23

that we need to do something about it.

Maria: 00:38:25

Then they informed me that they were going to feed me from the forest.

Maria: 00:38:30

And I was thinking, will the forest have enough food for all of us?

Maria: 00:38:34

You know?

Maria: 00:38:35

Um, and then at the end of the day, they made a beautiful soup and

Maria: 00:38:40

they made a salad from the forest.

Maria: 00:38:42

Mm. You know?

Jim: 00:38:43

Mm-hmm.

Maria: 00:38:43

And it was one of the most delicious meals I've ever had.

Maria: 00:38:47

At the edge, and it was the bounty of the forest.

Maria: 00:38:50

And then we started pulling threads.

Maria: 00:38:53

And I said, who do you see?

Maria: 00:38:54

And they say, we see a wise woman.

Maria: 00:38:56

And, and Sheela came into my head, and now she became like an old friend.

Maria: 00:39:01

And I could see every part of her face, the wrinkles around her eyes, the

Maria: 00:39:06

color of her eyes, how tall she was.

Maria: 00:39:09

She really walked into my consciousness.

Maria: 00:39:13

I suppose that's a gift of story, but I believe that those three, those threads

Maria: 00:39:19

wove themselves in to me through them.

Maria: 00:39:24

And that's the gift of co-creation.

Jim: 00:39:26

Yes.

Maria: 00:39:27

You know?

Maria: 00:39:28

We've talked about it earlier in this conversation as being a

Maria: 00:39:31

meeting of mind and heart and, you know, the neural pathways, Yes.

Maria: 00:39:35

And blah, blah, blah.

Jim: 00:39:37

Yeah.

Maria: 00:39:37

But I think it's more magic than that.

Jim: 00:39:40

I think magic is absolutely real.

Jim: 00:39:45

And if it is, then it will manifest its ways in all sorts

Jim: 00:39:51

of other physical things.

Jim: 00:39:52

The fact that our brains sync up doesn't mean it isn't magic.

Jim: 00:39:57

It means that's the way the magic is working.

Jim: 00:39:59

Yeah, yeah,

Maria: 00:40:00

Absolutely, you know.

Maria: 00:40:01

And I remember hearing one time in the many story roads that both of us have

Maria: 00:40:06

been on, Jim, that, uh, Einstein said that magic was anything that worked that

Maria: 00:40:13

we didn't have a scientific answer for.

Jim: 00:40:20

And it's all about discovering more and, and more and more.

Jim: 00:40:23

Yes.

Jim: 00:40:26

Well, Maria, this has just been a, a delight again.

Maria: 00:40:29

Brilliant.

Maria: 00:40:30

Yes.

Maria: 00:40:31

So it's been lovely being on the Story Road with you for another week, Jim.

Jim: 00:40:35

For another week.

Jim: 00:40:36

I'm really looking forward to our next encounter as well.

Jim: 00:40:39

So we'll say goodbye for now.

Maria: 00:40:42

Yeah.

Maria: 00:40:43

And to teach you a small bit of the Irish, Slán go deo; Goodbye, for a small way.

Maria: 00:40:53

Will we say goodbye from Cork?

Jim: 00:40:56

And goodbye from New York, but only for a while because we'll be

Jim: 00:41:00

back again with another episode.

Jim: 00:41:02

Absolutely.

Maria: 00:41:03

We can't wait to see you on the Story Road one more time, and from this

Maria: 00:41:08

time till that be safe on the Story Road.