The Direction of Intention

Untiltled Narrative by David Robinson

I feel it in my marrow, this impulse to story. It is the imperative that calls my name, the spirit that has accompanied me since my youth. It whispers, niggling my attention during the day; its’ murmur filling my dreams at night. Every chance encounter, every party conversation a beckoning to the primal place, an invitation to the fire of the ancients. “There is more here, a deeper story.” “Listen,” comes the call, “listen to the story beyond the words. Catch the story beneath the story, witness the face behind the mask.”

***

All stories are ancient. And, at the same time, all stories are new. If you listen very carefully to yourself, you’ll find that you’re telling yourself a story – and it is your story of being here, not just the story of reading these words, but here. It is a new story because it is yours. It is also an ancient story because it is your version of the very same challenges, questions, passages, celebrations and disappointments that all people have faced who have ever walked on this planet. It is your turn now.

People before us conveyed their deepest truths through their stories and their myths. Their stories helped them to know what to do, how to be, what to expect, where they belonged, what was valuable and right – and what was not. Their stories reassured them that they did not walk this path alone.

We don’t bother ourselves with things like stories anymore. We no longer open ourselves to our greater stories so they can no longer open for us.

***

When I was younger I experienced the world as an orchestra out of tune, each musician thumping their instrument, making sound and calling for attention. Parched lips blowing and calloused fingers plucking noisily along in a universe that had no notion of music. The conductor asleep at the base of the podium. Or perhaps, like me, the conductor only pretended to sleep; like an impetuous 5-year old I plugged my ears and sang, “La La La” over the din. I didn’t want to hear, I didn’t want to feel it, run all that sound (story) through my body. It was too much electricity through a small wire.  I closed my eyes as if that, too, would protect me from the clatter.

***

Where is the story that unites us? Story is the gravity that holds us together, pulls us into a common orbit. It is the irresistible cadence of invitation: come. Sit. It is singular and essential; it holds us in affirmation like a burgeoning pod: this is who you are. This is where you belong. This “story that unites us” is the nucleus, the artist’s obligation and most important role. I took my fingers from my ears when I finally recognized the call, not as an obligation, not as something I had to “do;” it was something that I already was. I recognized that I am an artist, not as a role or in the sense that I need to produce anything, nor in the sense that I need to comment on the politics of my world. I am an artist because I am aware, I am aware that I create my world in how I engage and interpret every moment. I create in every moment. And, because I am aware, I am capable of listening to the story behind the words. I understood the call when I began to ask, “What is the story that I am telling through my life (with my fingers jammed in my ears)?”  What is the story that I am telling my self about myself? I am an artist not through anything I do, but in how I choose to be, in what I choose to hear and see.

Story is the gravity that holds us together, this we’ve forgotten, I know. And like the musicians in the out-of-tune orchestra, when we no longer recognize our common story then the gravity reverses itself, we spin off into the void, alone in a cacophony of inner monologue. Hell is a community of individuals lost in the fog of their own story. Hell is the universe that has forgotten the existence of music. Hell is where you compare yourself to others (and the others always win), where you have to be perfect, where you are never good enough; Hell is where you invest in false notions of who you should be, have to be, could have been. In Hell there is no present moment because you are too invested in the fears of the future and regrets from the past. It’s a dense fog, an inner wasteland. Staying in hell takes a real commitment to the story that you tell!

Not only is story capable of holding us in a coordinated orbit and conversely, blinding us to each other, story also holds the power of guiding us through the wasteland and back to the garden. The old stories are like maps: this is how it will look and feel; these are the challenges you will face, this is what you can expect. Knowing the stories won’t save you from your trials but they will bring greater meaning to them. Stories connect (music, again). Every human that has ever walked the face of the earth has been born, grown to adulthood, wondered what was theirs to do, loved and lost, fulfilled themselves or not, grown old, and died; their advice comes to us in the form of a story. If we listen metaphorically, the wisdom it holds will spill its guts. Stories don’t need to be tortured to reveal their secrets, they are eager to share. However, treat them as fact and they will clench their jaws and clutch their fists and hold their breath until they pass out. Their treasure lives beyond the realm of facts, beyond the superficial. You have to listen deeply, engage it, feel it in your body. It requires a relationship with you. Reading a story factually is to cage what is wild, to shackle what is free. Reading a story as fact generates fog.

This principle holds true of people – because we are, each of us, storytellers. Believe that your thoughts are fact, that you are right, and you will impound your spirit.

Jay Griffiths writes in her delicious book, WILD, “To me, the human spirit is not a stain on wilderness as some seem to think. Rather the human spirit is one of the most striking realizations of wildness. It is as eccentrically beautiful as an ice crystal, as liquidly life-generous as water, as inspired as air.”

Yes.

What is the story you tell yourself about yourself?

Filed under: Story |