Online stories: StoryNights on Zoom
StoryCraft 101
StoryCraft 101
StoryCraft 101
A
Boldness
That
Dares
Follow
Them
Fitcher’s Bird has been haunting me for over twenty years.
I’ve never fully understood why. I had lots of questions - like: What’s going on with that chamber behind the locked door? You’re forbidden to open it on pain of death? Really? Why does a story like this show up all over the world? And probably most important of all, how can I retell it so it has meaning?
Fairy tales don’t give up their meanings all at once.
They can be like a stew that has to cook for a while
before all the flavors meld.
The chamber was like that for me.
In fairy tales, one thing can hold many meanings.
The longer I lived with this story,
the more the chamber revealed itself.
What strikes me now is that the chamber exists inside a house,
a person, a relationship,
or the structures of a society.
It is where what has been harmed,
discarded, denied, or concealed
is hidden.
As I stayed with this story,
questions I thought belonged only to
the fairy tale
began showing up in my own life
and in the world around me.
That changed the way I understand Hope’s journey.
Hope cannot free herself by pretending the chamber
isn’t there.
She has to open the door.
She has to see what has been destroyed.
She has to listen to the dead,
confront the systems that destroyed them.
Eventually,
she has to recognize the chamber within herself -
the parts of her own life that have been
diminished, abandoned, or emptied out.
But don’t be fooled.
That isn’t where the story ends.
Seeing what is there is only the beginning.
Then comes the harder work.
What will we do with what we have seen?
Will we stay trapped inside the stories imposed on us?
Will we stay trapped inside the stories we impose on ourselves? Will empathy become self-sacrifice?
Will love survive without requiring us to disappear inside it? Will what has been hidden be seen, named, mourned,
and brought back into relationship with the living?
The chamber is horrific.
It is also a place of truth.
But truth
-even terrible truth-
doesn’t have to be the final word.
As long as there is blood flowing in our veins,
we can face what is in the chamber.
We can grow.
We can change.
We can become more fully ourselves.
We can decide what we will carry forward
and what will no longer define us.
We can offer something to the world that is
larger and more whole
than our pain and suffering.
Because we are still alive.
Maybe that’s why Fitcher’s Bird is still hanging around.