Friday, July 17, 2009

Repetition---You are here.


Last week in Comments, Rosalie asked some great questions. In answer…

• Nature is full of stories. Take the built-in story arch of the seasons, Winter to Spring, Summer to Fall, birth death, a story unfolds with a beginning, middle and end. In tracking story arch you must know the story along with where it ends, the rest is easy.
• Repetition. The same as we find the repetition of story and patterns throughout nature, we’ll also find repetition of theme. Shakespeare said there were only seven plots. That would mean a lot of repetition and plenty of opportunities to wake up. Stories repeat. Pay attention, if life looks familiar, last time you were here…. how was the ending?
• A Story has a shared eco-system. The Bushmen understood the potency of the psychological eco-system intrinsically woven throughout story hence its great value. If story lives in a vacuum of one, it is either a seed waiting to germinate or there is a disconnect. In most cases story will be shared and spread throughout a family, group of friends, or community.
• Nature is constantly adjusting for influx or lack. Similar to the eco-system the story will always seek balance and seek completion. If a story is lacking an element it is constantly in search of the element. So the missing element is as much a part of the story as those which are present. Often more so. That’s why I said that for MJ, the completion of the story would be unjust persecution, to counterbalance the soiling of his soul from the worship and adoration. Stories seek balance.
• You can’t plant onions and expect to grow pumpkins. An example; I work extra hard for a withholding parent or boss so that they will recognize and honor me. Only one thing; the part where I cast the person who is never going to see me, honor or meet me. That would be like hoping to harvest a pumpkin from an onion patch. What grows in your story’s climate and eco-system? Can you get there from here? If not, how can you alter the story?
• Nature is a miracle unfolding, stories also unfold. Waking up within the story comes in phases. I think that Red Riding Hood woke up when the wolf ate her. The woodman cut her out of the Wolf’s belly, so the next time…and there will be a next time, Red might take one look at grandmother’s BIG EYES/TEETH and RUN. Later, she might become aware of being followed in the woods and double back. Eventually she might think twice before going into a woods dressed in red, (really now red?) all loaded up with fresh wafting baked goods.

Then she might decide to visit the woodman’s son. If he pays no attention to her, she might come back with a basket of goodies dressed in her Red Cloak. The difference being, the story would have become conscious.
Then perhaps she will try on a new story…

2 comments:

Rosalie said...

This helps Ro. But how do you know a story's end? By paying attention to what it looked like last time you were here - yet many of my stories while similar have very different outcomes and endings. Relationship stories for example, while there are similarities, each has had a uniquely hued outcome and its own lessons that brought me to the next phase of the larger story. So really, these stories can be looked at as chapters and while they have similarities whith family stories, they are in many ways all-together different. I'd really love to be able to track my stories but still feel a mix of being fearfully lost and reverantly lost within them - kind of a sense of who am I to say. Some of the best things have happened to me while I was trying very hard to write a different story - my unconscious mind dictating?

If this topic is done for the blog, I'll talk to you about it later :)

Soul Gardener said...

If the ending is new and a surprise it's because you are awake and successfully writing new script. You show up different and the weave is altered. That's a good thing.
It's a relationship you are building with life and as with all relationships...there will be compromise. You determine your end game and life adds it's 2cents, altering your end point and adding to the mystery and adventure. :-)