A Story is like water

Sometimes a story washes over you, cleanses you, and leaves you open to new possibilities.

The National Storytelling Festival started 46 years ago in the small town of Jonesborough, Tennessee. Today, on this annual festival in October, the small town explodes as thousands and thousands come to listen to some of the best performers in this oral art form. White circus-type tents pop up all over town. In these large tents, hundreds will sit captivated by one person telling a story with the nuance of voice, gestures, and facial expressions. These tellers craft their stories to a perfection where the words paint pictures on our imaginations, evoke emotions, and often touch our very core. As the story works its magic, we are all transported into a new world. We are connected by the story, and yet every minds’ eye paints a different picture. In the end, we are deposited safely back into our lives with a new experience, a new story, a new piece of wisdom.

This weekend, the stories of the Festival Tellers have washed over me, cleansed me, and blessed me. Find out more online at www.storytellingcenter.net.

Even a story-poem about story itself can wash, cleanse, and open me to ponder the mystery of life. Poetry is a trick of language to express what is beyond the words themselves. A gift from the poet, Rumi, of the 13th century describes the experience of a good story and still has relevance today.

A Story is Like Water

A story is like water
That you heat for your bath.
It takes messages between the fire and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself,
like a salamander, or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.

A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.

The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that’s blazing
inside your presence.

Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what’s hidden.

Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.

– by Jelaluddin Rumi, taken from The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

Books of Rumi’s Poetry