 I've written before about
stories being subversive.
Now, in the 2003 CBC Ideas/Massey Lectures,
Native author and scholar Thomas King shows they are much more than
that -- they are the very foundation and compass of our culture.
In the first lecture, King tells a story about his (optimistic and
self-sacrificing) mother, and about
his (enigmatic and thoughtless) father, to illustrate how much these
stories have shaped him. Then,
shifting perspective, he contrasts the Judeo-Christian creation myth
(the story in Genesis of the fall from grace after succumbing to the
temptation to eat from the tree of knowledge), with a Native creation
myth (the wonderful story The Woman
Who Fell From the Sky,
which relates whimsically how a woman named Charm worked with the
animals she encountered after accidentally falling from the sky to a
water-filled planet, to create the Earth on the back of a turtle). Then he explains:
A theologian might argue that
these two creation stories are essentially the same. Each tells about
the creation of the world and the appearance of human beings. But a
storyteller would tell you that these two stories are quite
different...The elements in Genesis create a particular universe
governed by a series of hierarchies -- God, man, animals, plants --
that celebrate law, order and good government, while in our Native
story, the universe is governed by a series of co-operations that
celebrate equality and balance.
In Genesis, all creative power is vested in a single deity who is
omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. The universe begins with his
thought, and it is through his actions alone that it comes into being.
In Native creation stories deities are generally figures of limited
power and persuasion, and the acts of creation and decision are shared
with other characters in the drama.
In Genesis we begin with a perfect world but after the Fall we are
forced into a chaotic world of harsh landscapes and dangerous shadows.
In our Native story, we begin with water and mud and move by degrees
and adjustments to a world rich in diversity, complex, wonderful and complete.
In Genesis the post-garden world we inherit is martial and adversarial
in nature, a world at war -- god versus the devil, humans versus the
elements. In our Native story, the world is at peace, and the pivotal
concern is not the ascendancy of good over evil but with the issue of
balance and harmony...
Perhaps
that is why we (in the Judeo-Christian culture) delight in
telling stories about heroes battling the odds and the elements rather
than the magic of seasonal change. Why we relish stories that lionize
individuals who start at the bottom and fight their way to the top,
rather than stories that frame these forms of competition as
insanity...
Is it our nature? Do these stories reflect the world as it truly is, or
did we simply start off with the wrong story? And if we'd started with
a different story, what kind of a world might we have created?
And then King hits us with the hammer: The truth about stories is that that's all we are.
There's much more in the lectures, which I'm still working through. You can buy the book, The Truth About Stories, containing the full set of lectures, from House of Anansi.
This guy is an amazing story-teller. His message to me, already, and
his message perhaps to writers and bloggers all, is to stop preaching,
interpreting, proselytizing, advocating, prescribing. Just tell your
story. "Don't show them your mind. Show them your imagination."
Much to think about. My head hurts.
(Thanks to Chris Corrigan for telling me about this)
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
