Drawn by a Star: Myths and Legends in the making

Friday 22 July 2016

Myths and Legends in the making

Week 3 at the farmhouse. Just one more week now.

American poet Jane Hirshfield says:

'The best stories are almost myth like in their ability to support different conclusions.’

Maria Popova, creator of brainpickings.org says:

‘The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations.

Without this essential stage of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken.’ Thank you Maria Popova. I agree, but had forgotten.

I seem to have been doing a lot of unconscious processing at the farmhouse this week. Not much writing has been done. My spelling has gone nuts, and as a result…I find myself questioning my body and especially my brain… are you really well? What's going on?

But it's been an unusual week in many ways. How long do you allow your feelings of grief to surge before you chose a new conclusion, a new way of looking at the story?

Here is a local story that one day will be either a myth or a legend.

Kiki, a waiter at weekends at a nearby town, was the nephew of my beloved friend Loli.

A month ago a 'suspicious looking' local man came into the National Bar in Lanjaron, Andalucia where Kiki was busily working. It was the weekend of the towns annual lively water festival.

The man threw petrol over himself, then over the people in the bar, then set fire to himself. This resulted in his immediate death, and the death of the bar owner. Many people were seriously burned. Kiki tried to stop the man. He managed to help many customers escape from the fire. Kiki died a month later. The doctors had put him in a coma, from which he never emerged.

The 29 year old has been honoured by his town as a hero. Tributes to him are flowing over social media and the local Newspapers.

How long do you allow your feelings of grief to surge before you chose a new conclusion, a new way of looking at the story?

Painting by the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi

Today Life feels surreal, and the luxury of spending time and effort in writing feels…unreal.

So really, whether in Orlando or Paris, or Nice or Syria or Nigeria, or anywhere else in the world where atrocities are happening daily… we who survive…can chose how we re- tell these stories.

‘Storytelling at its most healing becomes a canvas on to which the reader and the listener, as well as the writer, bring their full range of memory, intellect, and imaginative response.’

In other words, I believe we all chose how, with the passing of time, we will re tell this story.

Will it become a myth or a legend? A heroic tale or a horror story?

My prayer and my mantra over the next weeks will be that the families affected by Kiki’s passing will be blessed in unimaginable ways. May kindness and love flood their lives, and may the cooler days of autumn brings some gentle respite.