A story has great power to convey truth and insight and to open us up to richer questions about our lives. Sometimes telling a story takes us out of a situation for a few moments so that we can hear and speak truth in a less-charged manner.
If I’m sitting in council circle and one of my peers regales us with Goldilocks and the Three Bears, I might be inspired to reflect on questions such as:
- In what “woods” do I feel lost?
- Where is my temporary shelter?
- What resources are there for the taking?
- Where in my life is there “too much”?
- Where in my life is there “not enough”?
- What in my life is “just right”?
Telling a once-upon-a-time story based on tarot card images (or photographs or a collage or…) often helps me get out of my own way, say things I wouldn’t normally say aloud, then bring me to realisations and/or questions for further exploration. For example, I pulled the 10 of Earth and the Child of Fire (see above) from the Gaian Tarot. My story might be along the lines of:
Once upon a time, an old man dwelt in the woods near a village. His life was pretty smooth, but he was a bit lonely and had a lot of time to think about his loneliness. One night, as he lit the kindling in his fireplace, a magical cat slid in over the windowsill. When the old man lay down to sleep, the magical cat curled up on the bed beside him and both basked in the warmth of the fire. The next morning, the old man’s loneliness had disappeared. He knelt down to the magical kitty, stroked his fur, and thanked him profusely.
This story might inspire me to ask:
- In what ways have I felt lonely lately?
- What aspects of my life are running smoothly?
- What’s missing?
- What fire do I need to kindle in my life?
- Who or what has slid into my life to help me?
- Who is my “magical cat”?
- How does loneliness get dispelled from my life?
- How can I best express my gratitude to my “magical cat”?
You get the idea. Please try it and let us know what happens.
This is great, James! I often do card “story-time” with my students to jump-start them, but adding the reflective questions adds a whole wonderful dimension of exploration. Going to do this with my class on Sunday. Thanks for posting and being the continual inspiration you are!
Please let us know the class’s response, Chea. We can all learn from one another here.
Oh, just realized that drawing a card in answer to each question would bring even further insight… Going to do this exercise for myself today. Will let you know how it goes… Thanks again!
Exactly, Chea! One can work through the layers in that manner. Can’t wait to hear about it!
Meow.
Puurrrrrrrrrrrrrr…….
meow……great way of telling a story and looking deeper into it. And bringing the cards into the story too.
“Meow” indeed. The process of taking a story one step further through open-ended questions is one of the most powerful things I know.
ooh ooh ooh… let’s do this at a thursday meeting!
Taught my class your “Truth in Story” method today and boy, was it ever! They loved it and everyone agreed that it got to the real issues of what was going on with them and made them face some hard truths. One woman said it was a bit scary… Which I think is a pretty good thing!
In working with this in a class situation, it was important to keep the stories relatively short and to allow complete uncensored creativity, no matter how weird they thought their story was. They had no problem doing that. We used only one card to keep things simple. I found that the hardest part for the students was forming really useful questions from the story. When we went over them together, I suggested that “why” questions be changed to “what” or “how”, tho’ in some cases “why” is a good question to ask. The other difficulty they had was translating the 3rd person “once upon a time…” into questions that addressed themselves, so I had them write the first story, then write it again in the 1st person. This helped some people, but confused a couple of others.
Once they had their questions, they laid out the cards for each one in whatever configuration thought best. Was interesting to see the layout shapes some came up with that really expressed the spirit of the story. The readings they got were pretty incredible, especially for the beginners. The response was very enthusiastic and positive for your method!
Here is the story and questions with the cards I drew for each question during class. I will skip the “once upon and time…” and start with the first person version. Yes, its a short and very simple story that’s mostly just describing the card, but it works!
5 of Cups – RWS deck
I am very sad, standing by a river weeping over 3 spilled cups. I don’t notice the 2 other cups, unspilled behind me. The river runs before me to a bridge that leads to a city I feel I will never get to.
1) What has made me sad?
2) What was in the spilled cups?
3) What do the unspilled cups hold?
4) Why don’t I see them?
5) What is in the city?
6) Why do I want to go there?
7) What can I do to cross the bridge to the city – or should I?
Now looking at these questions its pretty clear that I haven’t changed them so that they no longer use metaphors, but I think that’s ok. Actually, the class preferred keeping the questions more metaphorical because they felt it opened them up to getting more out of the reading without censoring. The cards I drew in response to my questions gave a very revealing reading that I didn’t share with my students… ;D
I did this method on my own using the Motherpeace deck. Here’s the story and questions for that –
7 of Wands
Once upon a time there was a counsel meeting being held with 7 women. A decision had to be made. The leader was adamant about what she thought should be done, but four of the group argued vehemently with her. One of the other women held back, too timid to say her peace. Another casually relaxed on the ground, watching, amused, while the shouting got louder. It didn’t look like a decision was going to be made very soon.
1) What decision do I need to make?
2) Which woman in this story am I being like?
3) Who/what are the other women?
4) What is the thing I’ve been adamant about?
5) What is the argument against that?
6) What am I holding back out of fear?
7) What is there that I can relax about?
8) How to resolve this issue?
Have to say this reading came up shouting at me loud and clear!
Thanks again!