Previous Message Return to Archive 2004 Next Message

Archive Number 3557

Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 08:47:55 EST
From: Cristy West
Subject: Re: Healing Story Question


MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

What a fascinating discusion! I agree with Kimberly and others that these
questions are open-ended ones, and cannot be answered definitively. But
everyone's response here is circling the mystery, and firing off many new insights.
And I am especially enjoying hearing about particular contexts in which
everyone is working, how the ideas relate to specific, real life settings.

I was also thinking if there might be a book that begins to address some of
these issues and the one that came to mind was Daniel Taylor's The Healing
Power of stories: Creating Yourself Through the Stories of Your Life (originally
published as Tell Me A Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories ) The
chapter on "Healing Broken Stories" is especially apt. But finally I look to
the poets for succinct "answers" to questions like these. Here's one from Rumi
that has been posted before on this list...

"Story 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.

Cristy

Cristy West
Washington, DC

In a message dated 1/13/04 2:45:38 PM, david@VSWEBS.COM writes:

<< My inquiry isn't about when or where to tell personal stories of woe.
It's not about finding a trusting group or so. It's about WHY a story
resonates in an individual in a positive or negative way. What is
happening in the physiology of a human being when a story is running
around inside them? Doesn't matter where they do or don't unload it. Why
do people keep stories inside? What happens in there. What is this
"healing" that everyone is talking about. Is it a physical change?
>>

-------------------------------
To Unsubscribe from Healingstory send the message: unsubscribe healingstory
to: listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu
-------------------------------