Fear tells you to “run!” when something really scary comes along. Your legs jolt into action before you know what’s happened.
Our reactions to fearful stimuli can feel so out of control. But with intention and focus, we can choose to look fear in the eye and say “I am bigger than you!”
That’s the message of my latest story for children. It’s all about a little boy who wants to meet the “scariest creatures in the world”, like a bear, or a tiger, and asks his mum where they are to be found.
“Hmm” said his mum, “let me see now!” And she packed him a rucksack with a drink, a couple of oranges and a pair of scissors (“because scissors always come in handy”) and told him to go to the bottom of the garden and wait. Just wait. And if he’s quiet enough, “maybe then you’ll get to see a bear!”
Being on the run from fear means that it’s more likely that when scary things actually happen, we’ll run from those too. Being curious about fear opens the door to a larger potential. What if we are strong enough to cope with everything that comes our way, even those things that induce enormous fear in us?
“RAAAHHHH!!” said the bear. “I’m going to EAT YOU!!”
“Oh!” said the boy, “well, if you are going to eat me, you’re going to need a salad!”
“A what??” said the bear, baffled.
“A salad!” said the boy. “Mum says that if you are going to eat a big meal, you should always have a salad on the side, because that makes it healthier!” And off he went into the forest, clipping all the youngest, tenderest leaves with his scissors, to make a “salad” for the bear.
The world responds to how we react to it. Reacted to with fear, most people get more scary – more on-edge perhaps, or more aggressive (dogs definitely do this!). What the boy’s adventures demonstrate is that nothing transforms the encounters we have with others more powerfully than love.
“But I don’t want to eat you!” wailed the bear, when the boy had laid out his spread – a drink, two oranges and a bowl of salad. So instead they decided to share the meal and chatted like old friends until the sun went down. The bear told the boy all kinds of stories about what it’s like to be a bear. And the boy told the bear all kinds of stories about what it’s like to be a boy.
It might sound fanciful, but I’ve had personal experience that bears out the truth here. When met with love, even the scariest individuals can soften. They can even turn from adversary to ally because, as the story says at the end, “everybody likes a bit of kindness.”
Play here or: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: | More
There’s a lot of talk about how powerful it can be to tell our own stories. The value of sharing personal stories is now well established in therapeutic settings. Whether in circles of people recovering from abuse or drug addiction, sharing one’s personal story with people who can empathise with our struggles is clearly a very healing thing to do.
But there’s also value in recounting the most significant POSITIVE experiences of our lives. Most of us do this spontaneously. Something wonderful, or even miraculous, happens to us and we want to share it with our family and our friends.
But some experiences are so important that even telling them a few times like this doesn’t do them justice. I’ve written a whole series of articles about the most magical, weird and wonderful happenings in my life. It’s one way to remember them, and to savour them. My wife Sundara keeps folders that she fills up with fliers for performances that moved her, pictures of people that made a big impression on her, and of places whose beauty wove itself into her heart.
It was watching her at work on her latest folder that inspired The Beauty Book. The grandfather in the story keeps such a book himself and the storytelling happens between him and his granddaughter. She happens upon him, reading through this repository of meaningful moments, and wants to know what he’s doing.
What then unfolds is the magical heart of this story, as the grandfather goes through each page, telling his granddaughter the story of each photograph, sketch and poem. It’s the sharing of these memories that becomes so touching for them both. The young girl starts to live into the old man’s life; the old man gets to relive those memories in a totally new way. It’s a moment of pure transcendence.
But then her grandfather does something which surprises the girl – he takes out a sketch pad, makes a sketch of her, and puts it into the Beauty Book! For him it’s simply the latest memento of a beautiful moment. But for the girl it’s a puzzle. “Why would he make a picture of me, just reading his Beauty Book? What’s so beautiful about that?”
We all long for empathy; to be seen in our essence. It’s striking to me that so many scenes in romantic movies depict the first moment of attraction this way. Two people sit together and one of them shares something deeply significant. Often it’s a creative talent they have, but it could also be a story from their lives. As this precious piece is shared they are vulnerable, searching the eyes of their listener for signs of empathy. When the empathy comes, the magic begins! The other person sees them, in a way that they long to be seen.
Telling precious stories from our lives is thus a way to recover the lost pieces of our soul. This world, which can be so harsh, has nonetheless at times touched us to the core. In those moments, the fullness of who we really are can live and breathe here. That can be a rare experience for some of us, and definitely one worth savouring. As we piece together such moments, we’re like a character from an old folktale, stitching together a patchwork coat of meaning and remembrance.
The girl in the story only answers her question when, many years later, she shares her own Beauty Book with her daughter, and realises what a transcendent experience such storytelling can be.
Sundara and I made a studio recording of The Beauty Book, and you can find it here. I’m playing appalachian dulcimer, guitar and sansula, and Sundara plays the handpan.
Blessings,
Leo.
Play here or: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: | More
Here’s a story for children all about generosity.
We live in a world of extreme wealth disparity, with some people having huge material abundance, and others unable to meet their basic needs. It’s unfortunate that this is the world that our children are growing up into, but it’s important that they find open-hearted strategies for dealing with it.
This is where stories can be helpful. By introducing unfamiliar challenges and then demonstrating how to navigate them positively, a good story gives children tools for a happier life.
I’ve dedicated my life to this hope – that present and future generations of children can find ways of thriving as they grapple with the immense challenges that humanity is creating for itself. Thriving means sailing with the winds of change rather than being capsized by them. How do children learn such strategies?
When children are small, their parents can make choices about the sort of stories they absorb. I’ve no idea how much this helps, but I do believe that everything helps! Every kind word, every affectionate hug, every story that leaves them with positive strategies for navigating life.
So here’s The Farmer’s Gifts. It’s all about a farmer on her way to market with her cart overflowing with produce to sell. By the side of the road she encounters a young girl, close to starvation. What to do? How best to help?
It turns out that the more she helps, the more magic starts to unfold in her own life. The story becomes more and more miraculous until her whole community is transformed.
And all this from some simple, kind acts? Well, why not? Deep in my heart, I know that love is the most powerful thing in the universe. If there’s anything that can see us through life’s earthquakes, it is love. So let’s have stories all about how powerful love and generosity are!
My wife Sundara composed some beautiful music to accompany this story, which brings all that magic to life.
You can listen to the free audio recording below.
Play here or: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: | More
Stories are pure magic! The right story at the right time can change the course of a person’s life.
Here’s a story for children all about this magical power. It all starts when a girl discovers an old woman living in the forest in a cottage filled with magical gems.
“What’s so magical about them?” the little girl asks.
“Each one is filled with stories,” replies the old woman.
“Stories?” said the girl. “What’s so magical about stories?”
But she soon finds out, when the old woman gives her a gem for her mother.
The girl’s mother, you see, was scared of spiders. But the stories that the gem tells are all about how lovely and sweet spiders can be. Soon her mother is looking forward to the latest “spider story”. And then one day, when a spider comes walking across the kitchen floor towards her, instead of shrieking she crouches down and says “Aww, look at you! Where are you off to, then?”
Magic! Soon the little girl is returning to the old woman’s cottage for more gems. And so it goes for the rest of her life. Whenever she or someone in her life needs healing or inspiration or comfort, she goes and asks for another gem, until she herself is an old woman, living in a cottage full of magical story gems!
My wife Sundara joined me in creating a musical accompaniment to this story, playing handpan, whistles and other instruments. We performed it last autumn in The Dragon Sanctuary, our arts hub in Devon. You can find a studio recording of the story below.
Play here or: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: | More
I used to buy books on astronomy and do my best to fathom the vastness of space. It’s not easy. The best books try and take you by the hand and scale things up step by step. But even then it’s impossible to keep pace. The vast reaches of the universe are just too huge to imagine. At some point my mind gives up trying to encompass it all.
But it’s at exactly that point that something wonderful happens: awe awakens. If this universe that we live in is just SO vast that not even our prodigious imaginations can fathom it, then awe is all we are left with. And awe is an open door to wonder, mystery and magic. When we are in awe, we are in a place of not knowing and that is the key to discovering the vastness that exists inside us.
Our minds like to know, to set everything in rows and order the world we see. But beneath this effort lies a vast sea of consciousness. This is the essence of who we are, the fathomless ocean of being out of which we are born, and of which we are the full inheritors.
Each of our attempts to know our world reduces this vastness to something more manageable. Now we can feel like we are in charge, but we’re not really. Each step along this path of “I know, I can control” takes us further and further away from awe, from the open door inside that leads to our own vastness.
I wanted to create a story for children that would speak to some of this, and you can find an audio recording of the story my intuition brought me below. It speaks of a little mouse who, living in the little cage in her owner’s bedroom, thinks that this bedroom is the whole world. Stage by stage, she is shown how large the universe is, before being brought back home to her little cage again.
And the way she travels is awe. “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!” she says, as first an eagle, and then an angel show her the vastness of her universe. Her curiosity draws her ever onward, until her heart calls her to return to Earth. “Ah…. home at last!”
There’s something paradoxical about the way this story ends that still tickles me. Yes, we are the inheritors of a vast and brilliant universe, and a vast and brilliant consciousness. But in the end we are best suited to working with what is just here, with what we can see and touch, with what exists at our own scale.
But I feel deeply that we manage this daily life best when our hearts are open to the wonder and beauty of it all – to the vastness that this smallness both conceals and reveals. And we find our way to that kind of living when “Oh wow!” is our mantra and awe is our compass.
The story can be heard here.
Play here or: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: | More
