The Gift of Story Read online

  The Gift of

  Story

  A WISE TALE ABOUT WHAT IS ENOUGH

  Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.

  Illustrations by Michael McCurdy

  BALLANTINE BOOKS NEW YORK

  To the old ones, a nagyszuloknek, para los ancianos, the last of their kind.

  Copyright 1993 by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.

  Illustrations © Copyright 1993 by Michael McCurdy

  The front cover illustration originally appeared in The Man Who Planted Trees, Chelsea Green Publishing Company

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this hook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Performance rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-90686 ISBN: 0-345-38835-6 First Edition: November 1993 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ALSO BY CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES, PH.D.

  BOOKS*

  Women Who Run With the Wolves AUDIO WORK+

  The Gift of Story:

  On What Constitutes Enough

  In the House of the Riddle Mother: On Women's Archetypal Dreams

  The Red Shoes:

  On Torment and the Recovery of Soul Life

  The Radiant Coat:

  On the Crossing Between Life and Death

  How to Love a Woman:

  On Intimacy and the Erotic Life of Women

  The Boy Who Married an Eagle: On Male Individuation

  The Wild Woman Archetype:

  On the Instinctual Nature of Women

  Warming the Stone Child:

  On Abandonment and the Unmothered

  The Creative Fire:

  On the Cycles of Creative Life

  *Published by Ballantine Books +Published by Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado

  THE GIFT OF STORY

  WITHIN THIS SMALL BOOK, THERE ARE

  several stories that, like Matriochka dolls, fit one inside the other. Among my people, questions are often answered with stories. The first story almost always evokes another, which summons another, until the answer to the question has become several stories long. A sequence of tales is thought to offer broader and deeper insight than a single story alone. So, in this old tradition, let us begin with a question: What constitutes "enough'? Let me begin to answer by telling you a story.

  This old tale was handed down to me in many different versions over many an evening fire. The tellers are various good and rustic people from Eastern Europe, most of whom still live by the oral tradition. The story is about the great wise man, the Bal Shem Tov.

  The beloved Bal Shem Tov was dying and sent for his disciples. "I have acted as intermediary for you, and now when I am gone you must do this for yourselves. You know the place in the forest where I call to God? Stand there in that place and do the same. You know how to light the fire, and how to say the prayer. Do all of these and God will come."

  After the Bal Shem Tov died, the First generation did exactly as he had instructed, and God always came. But by the second generation, the people had forgotten how to light the fire in the way the Bal Shem Tov had taught them. Nevertheless, they stood in the special place in the forest and they said the prayer, and God came.

  By the third generation, the people had forgotten how to light the fire, and they had forgotten the place in the forest. But they spoke the prayer nevertheless, and God still came.

  In the fourth generation, everyone had forgotten how to build the fire, and no one any longer knew just where in the forest one should stand, and finally, too, the prayer itself could not he recalled. But one person still remembered the story about it all, and told it aloud. And God still came.

  As in this ancient story, as throughout all of human history, and in my deepest family traditions, the ultimate gift of story is twofold; that at least one soul remains who can tell the story, and t hat by the recounting of the tale, the greater forces of love, mercy, generosity and strength are continuously called into being in the world.

  In both the traditions I come from, Mexican-Spanish by birth and immigrant Hungarian by adoption, the telling of story is considered an essential spiritual practice. Tales, legends, myths and folklore are learned, developed, numbered and preserved the way a pharmacopoeia is kept. A collection of cultural stories, and especially family stories, is considered as necessary for long and strong life as decent food, decent relationship and decent work. The life of a keeper of stories is a com-

  bination of researcher, healer, linguist in symbolic language, teller of stories, inspiratrice, God talker and time traveler.

  In the apothecary of the hundreds of stories I was taught by both my families, most are not used as simple entertainment. In the folkloric application, rather, they are conceived of and handled as a large group of healing medicines, each requiring spiritual preparation and certain insights by the healer as well as by the subject. These medicinal stories are traditionally used in many different ways; to teach, correct errors, lighten, assist transformation, heal wounds, re-create memory. Their main purpose is to educate and enrich soul and worldly life.

  It must be noted also that many of the most powerful medicines, that is stories, come about as a result of one person's or group's terrible and compelling suffering. For the truth is that much of story comes from travail; theirs, ours, mine, yours, someone's we know, someone's we do not know far away in time and place. And yet, para- doxically, these very stories that rise from deep suffering can provide the most potent remedies for past, present and even future ills.

  When I was a child, the few Hungarian family members who survived the devastating war in Europe found their way to America with help from those already here. Suddenly, I was the fortunate inheritor of additional extended family that included several remarkable old women. One in particular I called "Auntie Irena," which in Hungarian is an affectionate name for a storyteller, like the name "Mother Goose" in Britain and the United States. It was she who gave me a story about what "enough" really means.

  She was then an old woman who became one of the treasures of my life for she was filled with an immense love for humans, and most especially for little children. Sometimes she awakened me in the mornings by shaking sprinkles of cold water on my face, and this she called her special blessing on me.

  She rouged my cheeks with black cherry juice in the summertime. And once in the wintertime, and outside the bounds of propriety among adults in those times, she sledded with me down a hill and into a pasture, cackling all the way. Best of all, she knew innumerable stories. When I climbed into her lap, I felt I was sitting in a great warm throne, and all seemed right with us and with the world.

  This was all the more extraordinary since she and this entire branch of the family had lived through years of unspeakable fear and inhumanity during the war. They were simple farm folk who lived in the tiny hamlets and remote villages. And like millions upon millions of kinsmen and kinswomen in countries throughout Europe, all were thrust into a war they did not make, yet were forced to endure or die. Auntie, like all who survived, repeated over and over again, "I cannot hear to speak of these things. No one can understand how terrible it was. No one can understand what it was like unless they saw it, smelled it, heard it, clung to life through it themselves." When I asked what

  little present she would like for her birthday or for a holiday, her reply was always the same, "No gift please, edes kis, my sweet little one. The gifts I longed for are here now—to be able to hold a child again, to be able to feel love, t
o be able to laugh sometimes, and to finally be able, once more, to cry. All I have yearned for is here."

  Here is the story she gave to me about "enough". She told the story in the third person, the way that people do when they "cannot bear to speak of these things". You may find the heart of the story familiar, for it is very old.

  Long ago, during

  the war, a small

  farm in Hungary

  was overrun three

  times by three differ-

  ent armies. Toward

  the end of the war,

  in the winter just

  three days before Christmas, yet another army came, and took nearly everyone who was left away to forced labor camps. The others they marched to the border and left them there stripped of shoes and coats. By a miracle one of the old women was able to hide in the forest. Frightened and dejected, she wandered through the wood for endless hours, trying to make herself as black as a tree trunk one moment, as white as the snow the next. All about her was the starry night and from time to time, the sound of snow falling from the trees.

  In time, she came to a small shed of the kind that hunters use. Finding it empty, she entered and sank to the floor in relief. It was only moments before she realized that there with her in the hut, half in shadow, was another soul. It was a very old man whose eyes were filled with fear. But she knew right away that he was not her enemy. In a moment he realized that she was not his either. To tell you the truth, they were both more odd looking than frightening. She wore men's pants that were too short, a coat with one sleeve missing, and an apron wrapped around her head for a hat.

  As for him, his ears stuck out like this, and his hair was just two white tufts. His pants were like balloons with his two little twig legs inside them. His belt was so big it wound around his waist twice.

  There they sat, two strangers with nothing to their names, stripped of everything except their own heartbeats. There they were, two refugees listening hard for footsteps in the snow, two souls ready to flee at a moment's notice. And together they carried all this heartbreak on a most beautiful night during which, in normal times, people everywhere would he

  celebrating in their own ways the high holiday season and the return of the blessed light to the world.

  It was clear from the old man's way of speaking that he was far more learned than she. Even so, she was grateful when at last he said, "Let me tell a story to pass the night." Ah, a story, something familiar. In the times they lived, nothing, nothing, nothing made sense. But a simple story—that she could understand. This is the story he told... one that gave meaning to the question, "What is enough?" and made that night unlike any other before or since.

  "Tonight we have nothing," began the old man. "But somewhere in the world, no doubt, there are people who may have much more than they need. What is enough? Let us consider this question."

  Once upon a time a long time ago, during the times our blessed grandparents were still living, there was a poor but beautiful young woman who was married to an equally poor but handsome young man. It was nearing the holiday time of year when gifts were customarily exchanged. The young people were very hard pressed, for a war that had raged over the land for many years had only recently receded.

  All the sheep had been slaughtered by the soldiers for food. So, there was no wool to make thread. And without thread, there was no spinning, and without spinning, there was no cloth, and therefore no warm clothes to replace threadbare ones. As they were able, people cut up two pairs of shoes to make one pitiful pair. Everyone wore all the ragged sweaters and vests they owned, so that they looked deceptively robust in the belly, yet gaunt above and below.

  Then, as often happens when the worst of war is over, people began to creep hack to what was left of their homes. Like the dog that knows its own field, they came back to stay regardless of the poor conditions. Some of the farm women began to mend the plows, replacing the blades with shell casings they heated and shaped by hand. Others cut open and shook the dead plants searching for seed. The tailor begged a few scraps of cloth, and began to sew again and sell his patchwork vests and coats on the streets. The baker ground by hand whatever grain he could grow in broken pots in the window, then deftly shaped tiny breads which he sold from his front door. And gradually merchant-minded people began to gather a small living for themselves by selling little thises and thats—while thanking goodness that whatever evil war could do, it had not been able to blot out the sun. And so it went in the village. Though not bountiful, everywhere there reappeared the most simple signs of new life. And people took great care to protect all things that were either frail or young.

  So it was that the beautiful young woman and the handsome young man lived. Though they had lost much in the war, they still had two fine possessions. He had managed to hold on to his grandfather's pocket watch, and was proud to tell the time to anyone who asked. And she, though ill-fed for months, still had beautiful long hair which, when she let it down, touched the ground all around her, covering her like a robe of finest sable. And so, rich in these simple ways, the young couple proceeded with their lives, eking pennies by selling a small turnip or winter apple here and there.

  Oil and rag candles were lit in the windows

  throughout the town for the holidays. The dark came earlier, stayed longer, and the snow flew fast. The young woman wanted so much to give her dear husband a gift for the holiday, a big bright beautiful gift. However, when she searched her pockets, she found only a few pennies. And as she considered her plight without even the smallest amount of self-pity, she still could not help hut silently weep.

  She realized that tears would not help if 4 gift for her loved one was still to be found, so she dried her cheeks, and plotted a plan. She pulled on her worn coat, and two pairs of gloves, each with different fingers missing. Out the door and down the muddy street she ran, past all the little shops with not so much in their windows. Now nothing else mattered for she had in mind a gift, a special gift for her husband who worked so hard and toiled so long to bring home what little he could.

  Past piles of rubble, past stairs with no houses behind them, and down a narrow alley she ran, and then into a drab building. Up three flights of stairs she ran, by then breathless, and with barely strength enough to knock at the door.

  Madame Sophie answered, wearing a miserable moth-eaten little mink around her throat. Her hair was orange and stuck out all over her head. Her eyebrows were like sooty scrub brushes. Surely she was the oddest old woman who ever walked the face of the earth. She, who before the war had made fine wigs for wealthy men and women, was now reduced to living in a one room flat with no heat.

  Madame Sophie's eyes glittered. "Ah, have you come to sell your hair?" she cooed.

  She and the young woman bickered back and forth until at last a deal was struck. The young woman sat in the wooden chair. Madame Sophie lifted one of the young woman's heavy tresses to the light. It shined like silken floss. With shears the size, it seemed, of great black iron jaws, Madame Sophie cut the young woman's glorious locks right off in three great snips. The lovely shanks of hair fell to the floor, and the young woman's sparkling tears fell

  with them. Madame Sophie gathered the shorn hair together as if she were a greedy rodent.

  "Here's your money," the old woman barked. She dropped some coins into the young woman's hand, pushed her out into the hall and slammed the door shut.

  And that was that.

  Despite suffering such an ordeal, the young woman was guided by her inner vision, and her, eyes

  lit with enthusiasm once again. She rushed down the

  street to a man who was selling watch chains made of lead covered in silvery tin—but assuredly looking

  finer than a simple string any day. She gave to him

  the several pennies she had before and those she had earned from selling her beautiful hair. And with

  grimy hands he handed her a watch chain. Oh, how suddenly filled with joy she was to have a gift to
give to her beloved. Why she fairly ran home, her feet barely touching the ground like the angel that she, in another time and place, might certainly have been.

  All the while, her husband was busy at his own work of finding a gift for his dear one. Oh what could it be? What would be just right? A vendor thrust a shriveled potato toward him. No, no, that would not do. Another vendor held out a scarf, that though bedraggled, was a pretty color. But no, it would cover her lovely hair, and he so liked to see her hair with its glints of ruby and gold.

  On the next windy corner, yet another vendor held out in his palms two plain and simple combs;

  one was perfect, the other had only one broken tooth. The young man knew he had found the perfect gift.

  "Twelve pennies for these fine combs?" wheedled the man.

  "But I do not have twelve pennies," said the young man.

  "Well, what do you have?" whined the man. And the barter began.

  Meanwhile, hack in their tiny rented room, the young woman moistened her hair with a little water

  and coaxed it to curl around her face and then sat awaiting her husband. "Let him think I am still lovely in my own way," she whispered in silent

  prayer. Soon she heard his steps on the stair. In he rushed, poor soul, rail thin, red nosed, icy fingered, but with all the earnestness and hope of the newly horn. And there on the door sill, he stopped in his tracks, staring at his wife quite dumbfounded.

  "Oh, do you not like my hair, dear husband? Do you not like it? Well, please say something. To tell you the truth, I cut it so that a good could come from it for your sake. Please say something my love."

  The young man was torn between pain and laughter, but mirth overtook him at last. "My dearest," he said and held her close. "Here I have your gift for this holiday season." Out from his pocket he drew the combs. For a moment her face grew brighter, and then all her features plummeted downward as she burst into tears and fairly howled with woe.

  "My love," he comforted, "your hair shall grow back some day, and these combs will be glorious then. Let us not be sad."