The Weeping Forest and the Thrumming Hive
The Stories
- "The Rabbit and the Bees" — A traditional Irish shape-shifting tale of Bealtaine, love, and protective magic, told by Maria (Máire, Seanchaí Corcaí).
- "The Baal Shem Tov and the Weeping Forest" — A Hasidic story of ecological rupture, unpermitted taking, and the grief of the natural world, told by Jim.
The Hook
What happens when we forget to ask permission of the land we inhabit? In this episode, Maria and Jim return from their travels on the Story Road to cross the threshold into Bealtaine—the Irish season of summer and the "mouth of fire"—while Upstate New York slowly shakes off the final snows of spring. Through rich stories of shape-shifting hares, protective bee hives, and the weeping woods of Eastern Europe, they invite us to listen to the whispers of the natural world and restore our sacred, reciprocal connection with the earth.
The Chapters
- [00:22] Returning from the Story Road Maria and Jim share the disorienting magic of "landing" back in their respective homes in Cork and Upstate New York after their immersive storytelling adventures in Marrakech and Casablanca.
- [03:56] The Mouth of Fire & Seasonal Rhythms An exploration of Bealtaine (the "mouth of fire"), the Irish seasonal shift to summer, contrasted with the unpredictability of New York's late spring, highlighting ancient agricultural practices of smoking cattle to clear the winter's burdens.
- [06:53] Yellow Flowers and the Thinning Veil A deep dive into the folklore of Bealtaine, where the boundary between worlds grows paper-thin, featuring yellow gorse flowers laid on door sills to keep the sídhe (the good folk) at bay and prevent the taking of one's luck (tógaint an t-ádh).
- [08:58] Story: The Rabbit and the Bees Maria spins a legendary Cork-based tale of a lonely farmer named Pádraig, a blue-eyed hare fleeing a vengeful Cailleach, a magical mist (Ceo Draíochta), and the ancient custom of "telling the bees" who ultimately rise up to defend the home.
- [22:00] Story: The Baal Shem Tov and the Weeping Forest Jim shares a poignant Hasidic story of the Baal Shem Tov arriving at a new cabin built from young trees harvested without permission, revealing how the forest's deep, weeping grief over its lost children frightened away the angel of conception.
- [29:35] Forest Whispers & The Maypole Post Jim details his personal ritual of greeting the trees on his local forest trail, the day the forest told him "not today," and the beautiful, shape-shifting evolution of a trail post decorated with children's shoes, controversial flags, and finally, peaceful ribbons.
- [34:11] Prayer Ties and Rags: Tangible Intentions A cross-cultural reflection on how we leave our prayers in nature, comparing the ancient Irish practice of rag trees at holy wells to the Indigenous tradition of wrapping loose tobacco in small, colorful cloths to carry intentions to heaven.
- [36:51] Voices from the Souks & Closing Blessings A sneak peek at an upcoming bonus episode recorded live amidst the bustling sounds of Marrakech, and a heartfelt reminder to keep life brimming and flowing until the next meeting on the Story Road.
Key Takeaways
- Reciprocity is the Law of the Land: Whether cutting down young timber for a home or taking a walk through the woods, we must ask permission of the non-human world. Taking without asking creates an ecological and spiritual silence that drives away blessing and conception.
- Telling the Bees: The ancient practice of sharing our grief, dreams, and life updates with the beehive is more than superstition. It acknowledges that our lives are deeply entwined with our local ecosystems, and that nature listens, thrums, and responds to human emotion.
- The Whispering Boundaries: Traditional festivals like Bealtaine and Samhain serve as vital reminders of times when the veil thins, encouraging us to decorate our doorposts with gorse or yellow flowers to intentionally honor the threshold between the human world and the wild, mysterious "other."
- Beauty Out of Division: Much like the trail marker that transitioned from a child's sneaker to political flags and finally to a beautiful maypole of ribbons, communities have a natural capacity to move through periods of polarization and find their way back to shared, sacred beauty.
Closing
If these stories stirred something in your bones, consider subscribing to the Healing Monsters Substack for deeper essays on the mythology, ecology, and monsters that help us heal.
Remember: walk softly, listen to the trees, and stay safe on the Story Road.
Transcript
Hello from Cork.
Speaker:Hello from New York.
Speaker:Is mise Máire, Seanchaí Corcaí.
Speaker:It's Maria, the Cork-based storyteller.
Speaker:It's me, Jim, here in Fayetteville, New York.
Speaker:We can't wait to tell you a few stories.
Speaker:Great to be here, Jim.
Speaker:How are you today?
Speaker:It's good to be back.
Speaker:It seems strange to be, um, over the internet instead of side by side.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I miss being able to give you a hug, and our story brother,
Speaker:Omar Belaarej too, of course.
Speaker:What a trip that was.
Speaker:It was amazing,
Speaker:I'm just thinking of it now, but we probably should have
Speaker:an episode where that's all we talk about, is what we learned-
Speaker:Absolutely
Speaker:on that trip.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:I mean, we have Lalla Fatima.
Speaker:We have- Yeah ... Ta- Tahir Shah, you know- that we could talk about.
Speaker:We've trips to Casablanca and up the mountains and into Marrakech itself.
Speaker:So I think you're right.
Speaker:I think we need to dedicate a session to that, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You know.
Speaker:But in the meantime, we're both back in our respective countries, you in
Speaker:New York and myself in Cork, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, um, you know, and I'm wondering how that has been, you know, landing back,
Speaker:landing back at home after all these story adventures on the Story Road.
Speaker:Well, you know, it's an interesting question because I landed very, very
Speaker:early on a Tuesday morning, like 1:00 AM.
Speaker:And on Friday morning, I left for a vision lodge in Vermont with the community
Speaker:that Hears Crow is the grandmother of.
Speaker:And so, I didn't really land.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I bounced off and took off again.
Speaker:It's been an adjustment to say- Yeah ... boy, each of those worlds is a
Speaker:world that operates on a very different pace and a very different timescale.
Speaker:Yeah, and very different food even, you know.
Speaker:So-
Speaker:Food, language, you name it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, it was amazing.
Speaker:And similarly, when I came back and we were coming into the dying days
Speaker:of my fabulous course with Shane Lihan, so I flew on the Monday at,
Speaker:at stupid o'clock in the morning, and then was in college on Tuesday
Speaker:saying, "What happened? How did this happen? Am I back?" You know, so yeah.
Speaker:Uh, and exams then the following week.
Speaker:So it's ... Like you, it has felt like 1,000 miles an hour.
Speaker:But also wonderful because the Story Road and meeting all of the
Speaker:storytellers from across the globe is wonderful, and we're so privileged
Speaker:to be able to do that, you know?
Speaker:You know, one of the stories I, I told for the kids is a story
Speaker:I had never told before and- Mm
Speaker:we'll tell it another time, the Mouse and the Lion.
Speaker:I have just found tremendous depth in these children's stories, which
Speaker:is not something I usually do.
Speaker:So it's been, it's been an awakening for me as well.
Speaker:Yeah, you know, and I found in doing the children's stories in Africa, in
Speaker:Marrakech, that a little bit of singing goes a long way for the language barrier.
Speaker:So you know, singing to one another was just lovely, and it's not something
Speaker:I do an awful lot of over here.
Speaker:But when I came back, I started to reincorporate it into my storytelling.
Speaker:And we had, um, we'd a lovely time on the 1st of May, which is
Speaker:Bealtaine here in Ireland, so- it's the turning of the, of the wheel.
Speaker:And we look forward to summer.
Speaker:So Imbolc, as we've discussed before, um, which was the season that we were in
Speaker:when I left for Africa, has now switched to Bealtaine, the season of summer.
Speaker:And if you look at the word Bealtaine, it's made up of two Irish words,
Speaker:Beal Tine, the mouth of fire.
Speaker:And long ago, people would, uh, bring the animals in for the winter, and
Speaker:winter in Cork, it, it depends on where you are on the island of Ireland, but
Speaker:in Cork we have nine months of the animals being able to be out in the
Speaker:field because we've a temperate climate, and three months where you bring them
Speaker:in, no more for their safety than for them to heat your house, you know?
Speaker:And I've been to a few long houses in Ireland.
Speaker:I've been privileged in my storytelling, on my storytelling road, to see some of
Speaker:the old houses where they're kind of built on a slope and it's one big long building.
Speaker:And on the top of the house, you'd have the animals that
Speaker:would come in in the winter.
Speaker:And when they drive them out into the fields in the summer, they put
Speaker:them between two fires, and there's loads of stories about driving
Speaker:the cows between the two fires.
Speaker:But lately, science says that's a brilliant idea, because in the
Speaker:three months when you're all living under the one roof, the animals
Speaker:can pick up ticks, you know?
Speaker:And so when you put them through the smoke, it kind of clears them
Speaker:for going back out into their summer dressed fields, you know?
Speaker:So isn't that lovely?
Speaker:Lovely.
Speaker:I have to tell you, though, up here in upstate New York, um, you, you
Speaker:talk about the turning to summer.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:We, we just had Mother's Day a few days ago.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And we have been known to have snow on Mother's Day, so-
Speaker:Oh, my goodness
Speaker:... we're a long way from the fires of summer.
Speaker:From turning out the cattle through the two fires.
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:Oh, my goodness, you know?
Speaker:And I saw the Mother's Day greetings because, you know, it's
Speaker:a, it's a different time for us.
Speaker:There is an awful lot about the mothering going on, which is amazing
Speaker:because summer is the time of the quickening and the birthing and, you
Speaker:know, we're seeing all the little lambs in the fields at the moment.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Which is absolutely beautiful, and the little calves and
Speaker:all of that kind of thing.
Speaker:And of course, the ancient stories start floating up to the top as well.
Speaker:Before we get to the stories, maybe we should talk about some
Speaker:of the traditions of Bealtine.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:So one of the traditions is y- we've talked before about
Speaker:Oíche Shamhna, you know, and Halloween, and how the veil thins.
Speaker:Well, this is the other time of the year when the veil really thins, you know.
Speaker:And so, in old Irish stories, there was a worry about the sídhe,
Speaker:the good folk, you know, and how they could step through the veil.
Speaker:And there was certain things that would keep them at bay.
Speaker:One of those was yellow flowers, particularly the gorse bush, you know.
Speaker:So people would lay the yellow flowers at the lintel of their doors and on
Speaker:the window sills, which looks very beautiful, and some people, uh, were
Speaker:doing that again, um, this year.
Speaker:And, more would make garlands, and they'd put them around the neck of
Speaker:their animals and maybe around their tails as well to keep the sídhe on the
Speaker:side that they should be, you know.
Speaker:So there's, there's, like, hundreds of stories of those kinds of things.
Speaker:But it was also the time when the Women of the Knowing, so they, there was a
Speaker:fear of the old wise women, because they said they knew how to say the words
Speaker:that would rob your luck, you know?
Speaker:Tógaint an t-ádh, taking the luck, you know.
Speaker:So it's been an absolute joy to be telling them stories again.
Speaker:I was down in the Butter Museum, which I hope to show off to
Speaker:you, Jim, when you come on your visit to Ireland in September.
Speaker:We made butter as I told stories, and the wonderful Ger Wolf sang songs.
Speaker:So I'm kind of in that very Irish and very Cork, because Cork was really known
Speaker:for the butter, I'm in that really, um, beautiful atmosphere at the moment.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:So I'm in summer,
Speaker:Well, we're in spring now.
Speaker:We're, we're in spring.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:You're a little bit behind us, yeah.
Speaker:So that would be our Imbolc season.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Imbolc, and stretching into life, but we're in full bloom life now.
Speaker:It's great, you know.
Speaker:Well, do you have a story in mind?
Speaker:Do I have a story in mind?
Speaker:All of my Bealtaine story children are fighting in my brain.
Speaker:But I'm going to tell you the story about the Rabbit and the Bees, because
Speaker:that is a Bealtaine story for this time of year, a shape-shifting story.
Speaker:Because the Caoi dreachta is still very strong.
Speaker:That is the magical mist that rises from our earth, especially at this time
Speaker:of the year and again in Halloween.
Speaker:So I think when the mist rises, we say the veil is thin.
Speaker:And here's the story.
Speaker:Once there was a farmer, and his name was Padraig.
Speaker:He lived on the outskirts of Cork near Fermoy on the banks of the
Speaker:beautiful river Blackwater, where the salmon still jump to this day.
Speaker:And it was coming into the season of Bealtaine.
Speaker:It was coming into the summer season, so he was making the preparations.
Speaker:He had beautiful beehives down near the Blackwater River in a little
Speaker:hollow, and he went and he told the bees all of the important things
Speaker:in his life as they happened.
Speaker:And the bees would hum in a different way, depending on whether you needed
Speaker:comfort from your grief, or whether you needed them to come in with the
Speaker:excitement and a bit of good news, or if you told them a dream and you needed
Speaker:them to create that atmospheric thrum to see would that dream come true.
Speaker:So that day he went and he told the bees all about his plans, and his
Speaker:loneliness, and his dreaming that maybe one day he would have a wife.
Speaker:"And had he left it too late?" he asked the bees, and the bees gave a comforting
Speaker:hum, a delicate thrum that gave him hope.
Speaker:And he climbed the hill back up to his small holding and his old stone
Speaker:cottage, and he sat outside the front door and he built a little fire.
Speaker:And he almost forgot before the sun went down to put his yellow flowers
Speaker:on the lintel of the door, and again on the sills, around the neck of his
Speaker:animals, and again on their tails.
Speaker:But he remembered in time, because he had made the preparations the day before.
Speaker:And as he put the gorse along his door sill and the sills of his window, he had
Speaker:that beautiful honey smell that comes from them at this time of the year.
Speaker:And he remembered the old stories, that when the gorse is in bloom,
Speaker:you have full permission to kiss anyone who comes into your vicinity.
Speaker:And he hoped that someone worth the kissing would come
Speaker:through his path fairly soon.
Speaker:He sat down then to tend his fire, and as day turned into night, and as night
Speaker:turned towards the witching hour, and the moon rose high in the sky, and the
Speaker:stars began to twinkle, he couldn't leave that fire for some reason.
Speaker:So he stayed there until he heard the hooves coming, hundreds and hundreds.
Speaker:A huge herd of horses coming in his direction.
Speaker:He heard them coming up from the river, near his bees, and he was thinking,
Speaker:"What's... What is this?" And then he saw the hare in the moonlight, going this way
Speaker:and that, zigzag all across the landscape.
Speaker:And it hypnotized him, and only his eyes moved in the
Speaker:following of that beautiful hare.
Speaker:And she came to sit in front of him and look into his eyes, and
Speaker:he saw that her eyes were blue.
Speaker:Blue eyes in a hare?
Speaker:How unusual!
Speaker:She jumped over the lintel of his door then, and he heard her run to the back
Speaker:of the house and on top of his bed.
Speaker:And just at that moment, the herd of horses came galloping into his
Speaker:small bit of land with no care for the vegetables that he had prepared,
Speaker:for the land that he had tilled.
Speaker:And he stood up and said, "Who are you? And h- how come you are coming
Speaker:on my land? You may leave now!"
Speaker:And they said, "Give us the hare. Give up the hare," almost like one voice,
Speaker:although there was hundreds there.
Speaker:And he stood up and felt every hair on his body stand.
Speaker:And as he looked, the fear he felt for those he looked upon was like
Speaker:nothing he would ever feel again.
Speaker:He walked backwards to keep them in his sights.
Speaker:He stepped over the yellow flowers and one step back, and the leader jumped off the
Speaker:horse, and then he saw it was a woman, an old woman An old woman ugly with hatred,
Speaker:and she stood at the threshold of his door and said, "Give me what is mine."
Speaker:And he said, "Begone now.
Speaker:You are not welcome here.
Speaker:You are not welcome.
Speaker:Do not come in." Because the old story said, if you gave the
Speaker:Cailleach míle fáilte, the 100,000 welcomes, that anyone could then, or
Speaker:anything could then enter your home.
Speaker:And she was raging, and the spittle flew from her mouth, and her eyes
Speaker:looked as if they had red coals in them.
Speaker:And he shut his door.
Speaker:And she said, "Enjoy this night, for I will be here in 12 months' time,
Speaker:and the story will be different then."
Speaker:He heard them in the early hours of the morning as the first finger
Speaker:of sunlight came over the horizon, backing out of his little yard.
Speaker:It was destroyed by their hoof prints, everything growing now dead in its place.
Speaker:And they took off down the path that they had come, and then they were gone.
Speaker:He looked around now, and he saw the little hare, and he saw it was wounded
Speaker:with blood running from its back leg.
Speaker:And he said, "Would you like to come into my arms, little pet? Would you like to sit
Speaker:in my lap? Will I make you some milk, or would you need some lettuce, some greens?"
Speaker:And as he was saying the words, and as the sun stretched over the
Speaker:land, something strange happened.
Speaker:It was like the Ceo draíochta, the magical mist, had come into the little cottage
Speaker:and was now gathering around their feet.
Speaker:He looked down and noticed he couldn't see his feet on the floor.
Speaker:Were they even in this world now?
Speaker:And when he looked up, instead of a wounded hare, there was a wounded woman
Speaker:with long blonde hair and deep blue eyes and a look of fear upon her face.
Speaker:And when he looked down again, the Ceo draíochta was gone, the magical mist,
Speaker:and he saw that her leg was wounded.
Speaker:He jumped up then and boiled some water, put in some of the herbs
Speaker:that would heal, the lavender, the nettle, and he steeped her foot in
Speaker:that, and still she said nothing.
Speaker:Over the next days and weeks, the words came slowly first,
Speaker:and then her story unfolded.
Speaker:That old woman at the head of that thrumming crowd had wanted her to
Speaker:marry her son, but she would not.
Speaker:So a spell was put upon her that she would live her life as a hare
Speaker:during the day, and a woman at night, so she would at all times be
Speaker:lonely, nobody to call kith or kin.
Speaker:He was so sorry to hear this, and yet he found himself spending more and
Speaker:more time at home, and the neighbors noticed, and the priest noticed.
Speaker:And he made his way to the door, and he asked to come in, and he was given the
Speaker:céad míle fáilte, the 100,000 Welcomes.
Speaker:And when he stepped in and he saw the woman, and she told him the story,
Speaker:he said, "You should tell it to the bees. Tell this story to the bees."
Speaker:So that's what Pádraig did.
Speaker:He went and he told stories to the bees, and they listened, and they
Speaker:thrummed, and they made a noise that he had not heard before.
Speaker:And on the day that this woman was to return with her thrumming horses,
Speaker:the following Bealtaine, Pádraig had fallen deeply in love with
Speaker:the woman, and the woman with him.
Speaker:And now they had only one fadhb, only one problem, and that fadhb
Speaker:was to be cleared by the bees.
Speaker:So they met a wise woman, a Bean Feasa, on the road that day, just
Speaker:outside the gate of his house.
Speaker:And she said, "Get far away from the cottages, and have you told the bees?" And
Speaker:Pádraig said, "Yes, we've told the bees."
Speaker:And she said, "At least three parishes over. Do not be here when they
Speaker:come." So he put the woman on the horse behind him, and he rode off.
Speaker:And as he rode, she turned from woman to hare.
Speaker:And instead of sitting behind, she sat in front on his lap so
Speaker:that she could be kept safe.
Speaker:And to keep her safer still, he put a little burlap sack over her head.
Speaker:And they came to parishes three over from the fields of his house.
Speaker:And that night they heard terrible noises, awful noises, like a huge
Speaker:battle was going on a few miles hence.
Speaker:And he wondered was it on his land.
Speaker:And the next day, when they went home, they saw the bloated
Speaker:bodies around the garden.
Speaker:The old woman was there and some of her cohorts, and they called the
Speaker:priest, and they called the policeman.
Speaker:And when they came out, they said, "The bees went mad.
Speaker:They stung these people.
Speaker:We, we, we know not why.
Speaker:We'll have to bury them." And Padraig suggested that they send the bodies back
Speaker:to their people, because he didn't want those bodies buried in sacred ground.
Speaker:And that is what happened.
Speaker:And from that day to this, she no longer turned into a hare, but was
Speaker:allowed to become a woman, a mother, a life partner for Padraig, and he
Speaker:still tells his stories to the bees.
Speaker:Sin é mo scéal.
Speaker:That is my story.
Speaker:Máire, I love these stories.
Speaker:Oh, me too.
Speaker:And, and just when you think maybe you've reached the finish, there's
Speaker:another turn, and it's delightful.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:The old stories are windy like that.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Well, what do you know?
Speaker:It makes me think of a story.
Speaker:A red thread reached out.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And it's a story that isn't really associated with a particular season, but
Speaker:I, I think you'll see the correspondence.
Speaker:This is another story of the Baal Shem Tov.
Speaker:And just to remind our listeners, one of the things about the Baal Shem Tov
Speaker:is that he had this carriage, and this carriage would take him and whoever
Speaker:else was in it to wherever they were most needed, as long as when they got in
Speaker:the carriage, they would toss the reins to the horses and let the horses lead.
Speaker:And then they would fly, and they would go wherever they were needed, and they
Speaker:would arrive without knowing what the challenge was or what the reason was,
Speaker:but that was their puzzle to solve.
Speaker:And that's what happened this one particular afternoon, the Baal Shem
Speaker:Tov got a call in his heart that said he was needed, so he took the nearby
Speaker:disciples and they piled into the carriage and they threw the reins
Speaker:to the horses, and off they flew.
Speaker:And they flew, and they flew.
Speaker:Now, the carriage and the horses, they could fly at the speed of thought, and
Speaker:yet this seemed to go on for hours.
Speaker:They were going such a distance over every kind of terrain.
Speaker:Until finally they came to a little village, and beyond the village
Speaker:there was a forest, and at the edge of the forest there was a clearing.
Speaker:And at the edge of that clearing, where the clearing met the forest,
Speaker:there was a brand-new log cabin, and that's where the carriage came down.
Speaker:And it was a beautiful new cabin.
Speaker:It was large.
Speaker:And sitting on the porch was this young couple.
Speaker:And when they saw the Baal Shem Tov arrive, they were so excited, 'cause
Speaker:he was known, and they ran out to greet him, and they, they offered him a meal.
Speaker:But as they grew closer to the house, the Baal Shem Tov felt a shiver.
Speaker:He put it aside and, and they went in and they had their meal, and
Speaker:they were talking, and he was just trying to understand what was going
Speaker:on, but nothing was coming to him.
Speaker:And finally, the evening started to descend.
Speaker:And the house was large enough that he and his disciples could spend
Speaker:the night there, and so they did.
Speaker:And in the middle of the night, oh, the Baal Shem Tov had some
Speaker:of the worst sleep he'd ever had.
Speaker:All he could do was wake up over and over with whimpers and moans.
Speaker:Something was terribly wrong.
Speaker:And so when they got up in the morning, he went to the couple and he said,
Speaker:"Something is wrong. Can you tell me what, what is, what is going on?"
Speaker:And the wife said to him, "Well, you know, we've been married for five
Speaker:years now, and we've not been able to have a family, and we don't know why.
Speaker:We follow all the commandments.
Speaker:We lead good lives, but nothing.
Speaker:Nothing."
Speaker:And the Baal Shem Tov thought about the house and he said, "This is a beautiful
Speaker:house you have. Tell me about the house."
Speaker:And they said, "Oh, the community was so happy for us when we were to be
Speaker:wed that they got together and they built us this beautiful house. And,
Speaker:and they... You'll notice the, the logs are not as robust as you might find.
Speaker:They're thinner because they needed to build it quickly, and so they took
Speaker:down younger trees to make the house."
Speaker:And the Baal Shem Tov said, "Aha, yes, they are, they are young. And when they
Speaker:took down the trees, what did they do?"
Speaker:"Well, they cut them, they trimmed them. They..."
Speaker:"But, did they plant any replacements?"
Speaker:And the couple looked at each other and said, "You know, we don't think
Speaker:so. We don't remember that happening."
Speaker:And the Baal Shem Tov said, "I know what the problem is.
Speaker:You see, this house and the trees all around it,
Speaker:the trees all around it were the parents of this lumber.
Speaker:And when you cut down their children without asking permission,
Speaker:without replacing them, you pained them to their heart.
Speaker:And the whole forest is weeping over the crime that was done to build this house.
Speaker:And the weeping of the forest is so great that whenever the
Speaker:angel Layla comes, the angel of conception, she's frightened away.
Speaker:She can't get close.
Speaker:Even I found it hard to enter this house."
Speaker:And the couple looked at each other and they said, "Well, what can we possibly
Speaker:do? Do we have to tear down the house?"
Speaker:And the Baal Shem Tov said, "Think about it.
Speaker:It's the parents of this wood, they've already made one sacrifice.
Speaker:Would you tell them it was not worth anything again?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:You have to go and you have to beg forgiveness, and you have to plant new
Speaker:trees, and, and you have to take care of them as you would your own children.
Speaker:And maybe, maybe in time you will have children.
Speaker:But if you don't do this, you certainly won't."
Speaker:And with that, the couple embraced, and they vowed that
Speaker:that's exactly what they would do.
Speaker:And there was a little sigh that one could hear in the forest that day.
Speaker:Now, the Baal Shem Tov never went back to see what had happened, but he knew
Speaker:that they had done the right thing.
Speaker:And he trusted that good would come to them in one form or another.
Speaker:And that's my story.
Speaker:So beautiful, and so many red threads, Jim, you know?
Speaker:Because of course, that comes up a lot in our stories, and
Speaker:we've discussed this before.
Speaker:And you're so lucky, because you live near that forest in
Speaker:New York state there, you know?
Speaker:So, um, I think I was expecting New York City.
Speaker:But actually, where you live and, uh, the area around Woodstock is very wooded and
Speaker:quite rural and very beautiful, you know.
Speaker:And you feel the sacredness of the trees when you're there amongst them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know.
Speaker:And, I have many stories that resonate with that.
Speaker:But coming back to your beautiful story there, at the moment,
Speaker:it, it makes sense, you know.
Speaker:Not to the logical mind, but your heart and your soul and your spirit, when you
Speaker:hear that the trees have as much rights to this earth and to living here as we do.
Speaker:As we've mentioned, the, there is a great forest just a two-minute
Speaker:walk from my front door.
Speaker:There's a trail that I always take into it.
Speaker:There's many ways in, but there's one I prefer.
Speaker:And, uh, there stands on either side of that trail one very old
Speaker:tree on one side, and the other is a, a younger tree with another tree
Speaker:kind of growing out of its roots.
Speaker:And a third one has just arrived.
Speaker:Ah.
Speaker:And as I... Every time I go in, I greet them.
Speaker:And I ask, you know, I say, "Here, remind them of who I am
Speaker:and what's going on for me," and, and ask if I can come in that day.
Speaker:Mm. And, uh, yesterday was only the second time where I had arrived,
Speaker:and I knew that it was not the right day to come into the forest.
Speaker:Um- Wow ... they said, uh, "No, no, why don't you come back another time?"
Speaker:And my heart had been heavy, and I had thought, "Maybe I'll go, you know,
Speaker:heal a little in the, in the forest."
Speaker:But I realized I needed to do some of my own work before I brought that in.
Speaker:So today, I- Wow.
Speaker:Yeah ... today I'll visit.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How wonderful is that?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And isn't it great that you have the knowing of that?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, so yeah.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:That's, it's kind of bringing me to the silent place, to the
Speaker:place of reverie- Mm-hmm you know?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:The dream and middle space, what you've just said.
Speaker:You know, there's a spot along this trail that one of the, the main
Speaker:trails has some mile markers, you know, posts to say which trail are
Speaker:you on, and how do they intersect.
Speaker:And there was one post, and they're just simple wooden posts with a number on them.
Speaker:But there was- Yeah ... one post that years ago, somebody
Speaker:had found a child's sneaker.
Speaker:And- ... and, and they put it on top of the post, you know?
Speaker:Just so that whoever might have lost it would find it.
Speaker:Well, it sat there for a while, and then one day, um, a feather appeared in it,
Speaker:intentionally placed, a big feather.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then somebody decorated the sneaker with some colors and some glitter.
Speaker:And- ... over time, it grew to be this place of adornment.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, and, and that continued really, it's, it was one of the highlights
Speaker:of my walk always was to see.
Speaker:And then I, I walked in one, one time and I saw that the sneaker
Speaker:was missing, the feather, all the adornments were missing, and somebody
Speaker:had drilled a hole into either side of the post and attached flags.
Speaker:And it, and- Oh ... and it was like, no.
Speaker:This is a, a, a forest of beauty, not a place in which we should be
Speaker:taking sides on anything, you know?
Speaker:Uh- Yeah ... whatever, whatever- Yeah ... one's belief might be,
Speaker:this was not the place for division.
Speaker:And then emerged a little battle.
Speaker:And- And the flags would go down, and the flags would come back up,
Speaker:and they'd be c- screwed in more, and then they'd be filled with putty.
Speaker:And, and then for another few months, the place went unadorned.
Speaker:And I thought- Oh ... "Oh, that's sad.
Speaker:I mean, I'm glad the division isn't there, but there used to be some beauty there."
Speaker:And last- Yeah ... and the last time I went in, somebody had, had returned and
Speaker:they had taken, it almost looked like a maypole, they had taken these beautiful
Speaker:ribbons and they had wrapped them around in a spiral all the way from top to
Speaker:toe, and, um, there was a little shiny something on the top, and it just was- Oh,
Speaker:okay, we're back to where we should be.
Speaker:So that- ... that gave me a little hope that, you know, it's, that we
Speaker:can, we can start with beauty, we can walk into some darkness at times,
Speaker:but we can find our way back out.
Speaker:And, uh, it was nice.
Speaker:Oh, it's the story of the forest.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Shape-shifting as well, so it, it was a shape-shifting story.
Speaker:Yes, yes.
Speaker:You know, which belongs on the story road, of course- Yeah ... you know?
Speaker:Um, and it reminded me of our, uh, we, they call them the prayer trees.
Speaker:Mm. So, you know, for, for the longest time people were not allowed to
Speaker:be educated in reading and writing here, so we were oral and aural.
Speaker:We were an oral and aural people.
Speaker:So if you had an intention, the urge to leave it as a marker in, in your
Speaker:environment, you would bring a little rag and you would tie it on the tree
Speaker:to say, "This is the place that I have stopped and put my intention."
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:And your story, there was a lots of different intentions in that story.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, but it, it was amazing.
Speaker:So in a time when churches weren't allowed, in a time pre-Christian,
Speaker:this is what the people had done.
Speaker:They would leave their little intentions in a small piece of cloth tied to a tree.
Speaker:Look how far back our connection with the trees and the forests go, and look at what
Speaker:the conversations about forest brings up.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:You know, and that's a practice here amongst many of the indigenous
Speaker:people, um, who understand that the tobacco plant is something that
Speaker:can carry one's prayers to heaven.
Speaker:And so, at many ceremonies you'll take a little cloth, not a bag, but a little tiny
Speaker:piece of cloth, and it is often red, but it might be one of the other four colors.
Speaker:And with intention, you place tobacco in the center of that, and you tie it up,
Speaker:and becomes what's called a prayer tie.
Speaker:And you bring that, and it might be a gift to whoever's leading
Speaker:the lodge or tending the fire.
Speaker:It might be a gift to the lodge itself.
Speaker:I walk around with a bag of tobacco so that I can leave intentions just as
Speaker:loose tobacco- Oh in various places.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So it's, yeah, there's many beautiful traditions about gathering our intentions
Speaker:close- Yeah ... and then placing them in a way that reminds us, "Ooh, this is- Yeah
Speaker:... this is, uh, this is what I desire."
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, put them in the environment.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Your little dreams- That's right- and wishes.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And we become part of the environment then.
Speaker:We do.
Speaker:We do.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, so.
Speaker:What- Oh, I think, I think that's a lovely place to leave things today.
Speaker:I, I think so too.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I just wanna say to the, to our audience, one of the things that we did while we
Speaker:were in Morocco, and unfortunately you weren't present for this, Maria, is that
Speaker:Omar and I and some of his storytelling club got together, and, some stories
Speaker:were told, and I made a recording of that, and I have permission to share it.
Speaker:I will be sharing it as kind of a bonus episode.
Speaker:Um- Yay ... it is not the greatest quality of recording.
Speaker:It was recorded in a, in a noisy room on the street in Marrakech, so it...
Speaker:You'll get the sense of the, of the, the surroundings a little bit.
Speaker:Of the life- Yeah ... of Marrakech.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, I, I love that about, uh, telling stories in Marrakech, particularly, uh,
Speaker:in the, on the famous El Fna square- Yeah ... and in our World Storytelling
Speaker:Cafe, that life is all around you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And all of the noises of life- Yeah are around you, you know?
Speaker:So I invite you all to keep that life brimming, flowing from you and
Speaker:to you in the, in the next period of time between now and the next
Speaker:time we meet on The Story Road here.
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Bye-bye.
Speaker:Will we say goodbye from Cork?
Speaker:And goodbye from New York, but only for a while, because we'll be
Speaker:back again with another episode.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:We can't wait to see you on The Story Road one more time.
Speaker:And from this time till that, be safe on The Story Road.
