I rarely ask you to read a long piece all the way through. I hope you will take a few minutes, and take a deep breath and read or pray (or if you’d like to cut to the chase, go to the last two stories at the bottom of the page) through these four stories within stories here with me in honor of MOTHER EARTH DAY.
I thought to break these four good stories to you, up into four posts, but want you to have the benefit of what I work hard at in my signature style, that is, to tell ‘the story around the story around the story around the story.’ And that is why they are all in one here. It is just me speaking to you personally, personally telling you four stories.
These ‘stories within stories’ are little lessoncitos to your heart and Soul, for Courage– instead of couRage– putting the emphasis on the “C’ as in ‘seeing, of courage’ rather than merely on the r of ‘rage.’ Rage too often burns down what it meant to help or love. Courage will mend and build, strongly and with right vision.
Thus, let us see…
There are in my travels, ‘ancient beyond ancient’ stories that some anachronistic souls carry, stories told that should never be lost, for they are stories about assault and damage… and recovery and how beautiful new life can spring up, if turned toward, if tended to, straight from the damages.
‘THE FIRST STORY AROUND THE STORY,’…. BREAKING STORIES TO PIECES/ DAMAGES THE STORY’S ESSENCE, THEREBY DAMAGING THE STORIES OF MOTHER EARTH’S CRITICAL INSTRUCTIONS TO US:
Sadly, as some in an earlier time as near as yesterday, have walked off with such ancient stories they heard but have not addressed in deep contemplation, when they now tell them without their own personal dense dialog with the spirit of the story first and sometimes for years on end… but rather only as an intellectual or sensation of …oh! that’s a great story!… in their rootless understandings, one who tells the shallow end of the story, literally contributes to shaving away certain parts of the ancient critical teachings often found in certain of the old-old stories as told by ‘first witness.’
Some amputated parts of the ancient story they didn’t like, or don’t understand for they do not live in the cultural group that made the story for their own purposes, often purposes of serious survival.
Or else the unconscious or consciously amputator doesn’t contemplate the story daily for long periods of time seeking the story to speak to them more than just their own made-up thrall. They do not realize story is a living spirit. This spirit does not sound like us, says startling things, exacts a toll. Instead sometimes takers of stories, see stories somewhat like boxes of candies, and gobbles up one after the other up, thinking story is to be devoured …and then on to the next and the next.
In the ethnic traditions I come from and you come from, this is not the way to be with stories of your own life which are the most powerful of all, nor stories that are ancient. That is not care of stories, nor of one’s true self. It is not the way of treating human beings either, as though they are food and then on to the next food source… as many of you who have deep mystical relationship to ancient stories know.
Not is such gobbling up of resources the ethical way of treating Mother Earth—as though she is just one more giant box of resources to be snaffled up for one’s own advantage, killing off the Spirits that inhabit her waters, trees, landmasses. And then proceeding to thieve, damage, maraud Her at the next point of resources, and ever more.
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP THE ROOTS AND CANOPY OF STORY FOR MOTHER EARTH:
Like many of the ancient stories that fell into careless or greedy hands, both the old stories and Mother Earth’s teachings lose not only their girth and weight by being shortened or made rootless, they also lose their lysis, meaning the teaching of resolutions to problems found at the end of most stories (as well as dreams). Mother Earth’s stories imbedded in her very flesh, tell about natural cycles of life/death/life of Her life, played out millions of times day and night… the lysis, that is, the triumphant end of the stories of life/death/life ESPECIALLY in and on Mother Earth, are to be offered to us, for us to take up, to live with, meditate on, learn from deeply not only intellectually, and then to follow those guidance’s as best we can in our own lives.
Thus are many stories congruent with Mother Earth, Pachamama, Nuestra Madre, and I will put one here for you called by many names. Here I call it, “Wall of Nails.” And at the end there will be a little meditation for you too, a fourth and last lessoncito. (In this, The Contemplari manuscript of my ‘little stories’ and meditations, I call my written meditations “the perfume of the stories” for the reader/ listerner to wear and remember whilst away from the story on the page.)
SO… THUS: THE SECOND STORY AROUND THE STORY:
THE LOST ROOTS GRAFTED BACK ONTO THE STORY “ WALL OF NAILS”.
Some of the historical story entitled here in my handwritten notes, I’ve notated as “The Sacred Mind/Body of Ourselves and Mother Earth as the “Wall of Nails.”
In Buddhism, in the Jataka tales, some of the most famous are about King Sivi.
And this one stands out to me to offer to you: King Sivi offers the living land of his own flesh, that is, his whole body, as ransom to save the life of a dove.
I’d gently suggest considering this ancient passage about King Sivi that I know you know from your bones upward without even being reminded, that your people, your ancestors knew this story too: The story of the lit soul, the radiant person, the unchangeable ideal that suffered to be assailed– so that a dove might be sheltered and live, safe and free, away from the predations of hawk. You know this story if your have consciously examined your own motives and actions in life and told the truth of them in ways that those of more consciousness would agree… I know you do, in your bones you thus know this story.
In the story, one of the assaults the kings of Sivi agrees to suffer is to have a thousand nails driven into his body….
Were one to contemplate these living cores of story for ten days in one’s own life as one lives it, accompanied by all one’s tiny and significant anger outbursts, sadness drones, untethered compass, one might surely begin with a “weeping understanding” about your own offering to suffer in order to spare a little dove.
Several somewheres in life, we have all taken up for the dove… and at great price. If not yet, then the day will surely come, and perhaps many times.
And/ But also, we have taken up for the hawk, we have taken up the mallet to nail the living flesh of the innocent king’s body.
It is through our contemplations of these matters along with the psychological and spiritually embodied Daimon’s guidance toward the true self (Daimon: angel, guide, consort, comadre, copadre who is human and divine, both, who was born with you, as we say in curanderismo, and as mentioned in the etymology of the word angel often), that thus, I think you will eventually find yourself in pure Spirit, thereby ending the ten days contemplation in understanding that– your offering to suffer pain so a dove might live, that your understanding of the hawk and of the damage to the king’s tender flesh… is now replaced with a new “understanding that shines like the Sun.” It is not just sorrow. It is SIGHTEDNESS. It is CONSCIOUSNESS. It is new life: To each his own. To each her own. As you find your way, as you are led dear Soul.
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AND NEXT HERE, IS THE “THIRD STORY AT THE CENTER OF ALL THE STORIES”: ITSELF “THE WALL OF NAILS”
This story did not fall from the sky as you might see it in certain books that have hacked the roots of the story away, but this story has its roots in the ancient suffering of the Sivi kings who agree to suffer, that is, also, to develop utmost restraint and patience, for what does the word patiencia mean, but ‘to suffer’…
I’m know you can see how restraint and patience are in service of the dove…
in your own life circumstances and that this is so painful, and yet, the daily practice Buddha tells us about in patience and restraint especially with regard to impulses and actions derived from anger and assault… harnessing and transforming these through understanding… remember I say to you as it was said to me by my elders long ago… “If all could be understood, all could be forgiven”…
It is this aware awakeness that makes us more and more able to walk the talk Buddha proposed for mediation of suffering in the world in real ways, and helping all to become supra sentient. Again, as you see fit, as you are called in your own ways.
“WALL OF NAILS”
Some say it was an old man speaking to a destructive child who tore at other children, animals, plants and flowers and then lied about it to family. Some say it was an old wise soul speaking to an violent woman who bore false witness against others, and then tried to hide that she did so.
Some say it was one of the gentle kings related to Sivi who appeared to a man who was so angry and so hurt, that he continuously lashed out at others who did not behave the way he, a mere mortal, had decided all others should act because he said so — thereby violating the rules of kamma, that is not reward and punishment to human beings as the concept has been dragged about severed from its true root meanings, but rather kamma, as in ‘lessons without causation’ given out of love to further all sentient beings.
Thus: the destructive man who has forgotten his own true self was given a loose bag contained nails of iron, and told that each time he felt enraged, to nail one iron nail into the gray wooden wall at the side of the road.
And this the angry man did without fail until the wall was littered with nail after nail, some pounded in crooked, some right atop of one another, without care for anything except the fire of rage the pounder of nails felt burning down his own heart.
In time, the angry man became exhausted as much from pounding nails into the wall, as from raging in anger and loathing others at full steam for days on end. And thus, tired, there were less and less nails pounded each day, until there were hardly any new iron nails pounded into the wooden wall each day.
In mercy the wise one appeared to the man, noting that the angry man was doing better, and that now, each time the angry man calmed himself and did not lash out at others, did not reckon he was master of all others’ kamma for he was not, and could not be such as a mere man… that the man should now pull out one nail from the wooden wall…
So, each time the man was able to remember to have anything approaching sincere compassion and understanding and forgiveness instead of rage and assault and violence toward others in thought and in action, the man pried one iron nail out of the gray wooden wall.
Except, as the man struggled and managed to hold his temper, he became prideful of his ability to hold himself in and not be destructive to others. So when the wise one appeared again, the man bragged: See, I have taken all the nails out of the wooden wall. I have mastered my anger.
And the wise one gently pointed out that the wooden wall was now pockmarked with gouges and holes, and that the wooden wall would not ever be the same as it once was.
That so too, are anger and violence toward others, the same. That pride about not being angry any longer, is only half the dharma, only half the teaching on anger, and this is the rest:
Behold the wall.
And learn.
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“THE FOURTH AND FINAL STORY AROUND THE STORY:”
TINY MEDITATION ON WALL OF NAILS
In contemplating Mother Earth, our own lives, we are all the innocent wooden wall. We are too, sometimes, the angry nailer of nails, the prideful boaster of how well we did knocking out the demon with a series of punches. Yet having learned but only part of the teaching of sentience and true self.
And, most of all, we are also the Sivi king, the old wise and gentle soul, who comes to take mercy on, and to teach the lesser aspect of self, to ransom the dove from the hawk.
This can mean many things, but one in particular I’d mention to your heart. Do not flog the ‘angry man’ within oneself for being angry, nor for being inflated next, nor for being imperfect, nor shame him for seeing now the wall with gouges and holes, the innocent wooden wall has been assaulted. Just let him learn to ‘c”, to SEE.
Rather than whale on or punish, instead, become conscious. Conscious of one’s own shadow nature, of one’s own broken set of controls, if need be. Conscious of one’s own sorrow. Conscious of new resolution to humbly do better (humility I would tell you/ teach you, is putting Creator/ Higher Power/ One Greater / The Great No Thing as I sometimes call this, at the center before you say anything more to yourself or others when you are overwrought. A hard thing to do, but worthy of the practice.)
Remember that long ago in the part of the ancient world where this story grew up, there were made by human beings holding sacred ideals… embossed walls, ceilings depicting the stories of Buddha were made without nails… so that the rich embossing on the sandstones and wooden panels could be done without making holes in the artful.
Instead, wooden wedges were made like intarsia into wood to hold panels together. Sandstone pegs into sandstone panels to hold the art in place. All this to preserve the beautiful story…
And this… pay attention: the people who made the sacred art toward the idea of true self and the bodhisattvas, agreed to let the weather be the one who might make cracks and fissures in the art. Not humans marauding on one another, but rather that the art be touched by Mother Earth’s wind and rain, so that the people can say… ‘This is natural weathering, and it does not come from destructive intent by human beings.’ In other words, there is natural change that is different than upheaval unleashed by one not in true self.
In closing my letter of meditation to you, I’d like to just gently mention to you what the grand mal gardening grannies of my family said to me decades ago when I first told them this little story of rage and pounding nails into the innocent wooden wall… and may this be balm for your heart truly, no matter what error you have made, or whatever error has been thrown upon you…
My grandmothers and aunts upon hearing WALL OF NAILS storycito, said that Sweet Pea vines and brilliant blue Morning Glory vines would love a wooden wall of gouges and holes, that they would climb so well toward the sun, providing both food for humans and for creatures…
and they asked, Were the nail openings large enough to hold water, no doubt stray flower seeds might anchor from the dirt carried into the openings by rain?
And thus, the wall wounded by anger and unconsciousness, in the lights of the old women’s eyes and perhaps more so, true hearts for the Mother, would be wearing a beautiful flowered and green leaved wild raiment, would have an honored place, would be cared for by those who see wounding as not only laceration, but also as huge opportunity for new life of the flowering kind.
In this way,’ the wounded wall’, and ‘the dove assailed by hawk’ would find shelter and rest, and be beheld and protected in all beauty, a worthy struggle, a worthy endeavor… a holy one for there is ever a King Sivi who will suffer his body to be pierced so that the one last precious thing can be ever saved to grow.
And thus may it be so for thee
and thus may it be so for me
and thus may it be for Mother Earth
through us, with us, for us,
and thus so may She be returned to us,
bit by bit, place by place,
returned to all of us
in even her wounded condition.
Let us not spend more time in mourning nor gnashing
than we spend in daily planting new seed in the old wounds.
May it be so for all of us
Aymen
aymen
aymen
[and a little woman]
[and a GREAT BIG MOTHER EARTH]
This comes with love, and with peace— and sweet pea and fancy blue morning glory packets of seeds for my own wooden wall within me. Let us wave to each other in peace while tending to our faithful wooden walls…. and to the dove.
dr.e
From “The Contemplari manuscript,” “Meditatio a la Tierra” ©2009, by C.P. Estés. All Rights Reserved.
CODA
There is ever so much more to say about the ancient texts, including this text of King Sivi and the story of nails. I cannot merit being called the most able scholar of the ancient Buddhist nor Hindu texts (and “the Nail story” is also found in the Vedas and in the Chinese Han texts and many others throughout the world as are the stories found in Christianity and martyr narratives about the body being nailed for the sake of Redemption of others.) But/and, as poet, I find there is a brightly lit arterial system in the ancient works, and this I can ‘c’, see, and bring out as witness of—and to you– sometimes. And with love.