All God’s Creatures: Stories Old and New

By MIchael Berman PhD

A collection of short stories, both traditional and contemporary, many of which can best be described as "tales of power". Jürgen Kremer, transpersonal psychologist and spiritual practitioner, defines such texts as conscious verbal constructions based on numinous experiences in non-ordinary reality, "which guide individuals and help them to integrate the spiritual, mythical, or archetypal aspects of their internal and external experience in unique, meaningful, and fulfilling ways" (Kremer, 1988, p.192). Such stories can broaden our horizons, connect us to a vision and provide an overarching narrative for our journeys through life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pendraig Publishing
• Release date: Apr 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781936922192

MIchael Berman PhD

Michael Berman BA, MPhil, PhD, works as a teacher and a writer. Publications include A Multiple Intelligences Road to an ELT Classroom and The Power of Metaphor for Crown House, and The Nature of Shamanism and the Shamanic Story for Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Shamanic Journeys through Daghestan and Shamanic Journeys through the Caucasus are both due to be published in paperback by O-Books in 2009, and resource book for teachers on storytelling in 2010. Michael has been involved in teaching and teacher training for over thirty years, has given presentations at Conferences in more than twenty countries, and hopes to have the opportunity to visit many more yet. Although Michael originally trained as a Core Shamanic Counsellor with the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Studies under Jonathan Horwitz, these days his focus is more on the academic side of shamanism, with a particular interest in the folktales with shamanic themes told by and collected from the peoples of the Caucasus. His MPhil is in Religious Studies from Lampeter University, and his PhD, submitted to the Indian Board of Alternative Medicines, explores the concept of soul loss and the way it is dealt with in the shamanic story - a story based on or inspired by a shamanic journey, or one that contains a number of the elements typical of such a journey. For more information please visit www.Thestoryteller.org.uk The shaman was traditionally a "wounded healer", someone who had been through a near death experience and who was thus considered to be well suited to helping others through traumatic times in their lives. Having survived addiction to tranquillisers, a nervous breakdown, a major heart attack, triple by-pass surgery, a serious motorbike accident, and two divorces, I suppose I could be said to provide a good illustration of the term. However, as to whether what I have learnt along the way can be of help to others, that is for you the reader to decide!

Book preview

Stories Old and New

By Michael Berman

First Edition Copyright 2010

SmashWords Edition 2012

By Pendraig Publishing

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except brief quotation in a review.

Cover Design & Interior Images, Typeset & Layout by: Jo-Ann Byers-Mierzwicki

Pendraig Publishing

Los Angeles, CA 91040

www.PendraigPublishing.com

ISBN: 978-1-936922-19-2

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Table of Contents

All God’s Creatures

The Blossom of Lady Setenaya

The Meeting with Lady Setenaya

The Pat on the Bottom

The Golem Within

The Golem of Vilna

The Child of God

A Piece Of Cake

The Room Full Of Books

The Dreamkiller

The White Horse

The Meaning of Trust

The Shopkeeper’s Nightmare

Creatures of Habit

The Golem and the Full Day Excursion

Does the Colour of Your Collar Match with your Cuffs?

My Facts of Life

The Calling

Moi & Toi or the Ultimate Intelligence

The Resignation

The Bottle of Red Ink

The Candidates and the Electorate

Sergeant Hilary

The Fighter

I Know But …

The Three Bees

Father Christmas

The Chanukah Presents

The Man Who Always Said Should

The Baal Shem Tov

The Mad Dancers

The People Who Talk About It

The Dreams of a King

The Golem and the Royal Mail

Tvalchit’a

In The Greenhouse

Roots and the Banyan Tree

Rajapala the Hunter

The Age of Reason

The Buffalo Boy and the Banyan Tree

The Man Who Became Rich Through A Dream

The Treasure at Home

The Magic Bowls

The Wise Doves

Anana

As Black As Berries

The Chief and the Wanderer

The Clock

The Flower of The Fern

The Cuckoo

Parts of the Body

The Healing Power of Water

The Gypsy Boatman

The Crystal Clear Waters of Mount Elbruz

The Prometheus Saga

Script for the Guide

The Rainbow Bridge

Taking the Medicinal Waters At Kilburn Wells

The Tree That Absorbed Tears

Bibliography

About the Author

More Magickal Works from Pendraig Publishing

Fiction Novels from Pendraig Publishing

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All God’s Creatures

How would you feel if someone physically picked you up and deposited you somewhere you didn’t want to be? That’s why it always amazes me that people have the effrontery to do that to animals while pretending they love and respect all creatures. To make matters even worse, they probably make a point of only buying products not tested on animals, oblivious to the fact that although the product wasn’t tested on animals all the individual ingredients were!

And it’s not just animals who have this indignity heaped upon them. What about the stone people, and what happens to them every summer holiday? Think of all the pebbles and sea shells happily minding their own business and recording the history taking place all around them, who are yanked out of their chosen habitats to be stuffed in suitcases, flown halfway across the world, then used to form a decoration on a chipboard mock pine coffee table in someone’s living room. Moreover, those are the lucky ones. The majority are probably discarded somewhere totally inappropriate on the return of the holidaymakers, to be neglected and forgotten about. And these very same people would have you believe that they are spiritual beings with a social conscience who give regularly to deserving charitable causes by buying their Christmas cards once a year from Oxfam or Survival International! It makes you want to vomit, or at least to put drawing pins on their comfy seats and to wake them up to what they are doing.

So how about doing something different this year for a change? And I am sure your jaded palettes would relish the prospect. It’s very simple and this is how it works. You make a point of using your two-week package holiday in the sun to make a pilgrimage. The purpose being to return these objects to their chosen places while, at the same time, offering them an apology for the wrongs they have been subjected to. What is more, you could even consider leaving an offering behind, some sacred tobacco or a crystal to make amends for the disruption you have caused. And that would surely be a really worthwhile way of spending your summer break!

‘Are you my Teacher?’ The Seeker asked the Stone.

‘No. But I can tell stories. Would you like to hear one?’

Yes please!’

‘OK. Here goes then’, said the Stone. ‘Just let me gather my memories and off I’ll go.’

‘Once when the Earth was new and my memory bank was still quite empty, a seed began to sprout, right next to me, by my side in fact. It being rather unsteady on its weak stem, I offered it support – to lean against my side. And so it carried on growing, without even a word of thanks for all my efforts. It’s not easy having to give someone constant support, I’ll have you know.

And so it carried on growing, growing and growing, growing so high in fact that it shaded me from all the light and it got rather chilly where I lay. But placid soul that I am, I never complained and just accepted it as part of my lot in life.

In fact, despite my difficult circumstances, I have a lot to be thankful for. The Tree the shoot grew into is destined to spend the rest of its days rooted to the very same spot. But me, being a Stone Person, I know I have the possibility of being moved - having a shift of consciousness so to speak.

All I have to do was to wait for my Teacher, to pick me up on one of his journeys and to transport me to another place – for a new perspective on life. Yes – I have all sorts of possibilities to be thankful for. Indeed you could say I’ve been blessed.’

I have learned silence from the talkative,

tolerance from the intolerant,

and kindness from the unkind;

yet strange, I am not grateful to those teachers

- Kahlil Gibran

The Blossom of Lady Setenaya

You can’t stop water flowing through your fingers,

You can’t change others, only yourself.

So close your eyes to what you can’t change

And open your eyes to what you can.

Judging from the tale that follows, it would seem that flowers and plants also suffer as a result of being moved around by us, and in the case of The Blossom of Lady Setenaya the imbalance caused by her actions can only be resolved by the intervention of a spirit helper in the form of a Nart.

The Nart sagas are archaic heroic tales that occur across the North Caucasus, among Chechens and Ingush, among Ossetians, among Circassians and their kin, and even among the Kartvelian-speaking Svans and Georgian highlanders of northernmost Georgia. The Circassian corpus was collected largely by a team working under the Circassian scholar A.M. Hadaghatal’a (1968-71), in his Geroicheskij épos Narty i igo genesis. (Colarusso, 2002, p.xii-xiv).

The Circassian word for the rose is Setenaya-blossom, so the plant in this tale is a rose.

Once, long ago, the Lady Setenaya, was walking along the banks of the Kuban River and gazing at the dense foliage that grew near the water’s edge. She came upon a sheltered clearing that opened onto the bank. In this clearing grew some flowering plants with the most beautiful blossoms she had ever seen.

I shall plant one of these flowers before the front door of our house. It will grow so that whoever passes by shall see it and be awed by its loveliness. So saying, she dug up one, took it back, and planted it.

The following day when she looked at it, its leaves were curled and brown. It had dried out. She was greatly saddened.

Sometime later she returned to the glade on the riverbank and brought back another one, as lovely as the first.

Although the first one did not thrive, she said, perhaps this one will grow." Thus, she planted a second flower. The next day it too was dry and wilted.

Seeing how sad she was at the loss of these flowers, a Nart took pity on her and, going himself to the clearing, brought back a third plant as a gift for her.

This one will not be like the first ones. This one will not wilt, she said as she planted it before her door as she had the others. But, as with the others, its leaves soon drooped.

Then with sorrow and remorse she thought to herself,

Why did I not leave them alone in the glade where I found them? There they were full of life and loveliness.

Then, without warning, the clouds began to gather. The sky grew dark and soon a great rain fell. The following day when she looked at her flower, she was amazed. Once again, it stood tall, fresh and lovely.

Setenaya rejoiced. The rainwater had restored the last flower to life and made it bloom once again.

In this way the first people came to know that there was power and goodness in water. The Narts used to say, Water is like the soul.

This Nart saga is from Haldaghat’la 1968, vol. 1, no. 1, p.81, in Hatiquoya West Circassian, and it was found in Colarusso, J. (2002) Nart Sagas from the Caucasus, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. It has been suggested that myths fall into three basic types: creation stories, legitimating legends, and cautionary tales. If this is the case, then The Blossom of Lady Setenaya would come in the second category in that it serves to illustrate the healing properties of water.

What follows is a guided visualisation based on the story presented above. If you are working on your own, it is suggested that you record the script, perhaps with some appropriate background music. You can then lie somewhere comfortable, where you will not be disturbed, and play the recording back to yourself as you go through the process described.

The Meeting with Lady Setenaya

Script for the Guide:

(To be read in a gentle trance-inducing voice).

Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths to help you relax. Feel the tension disappear stage by stage from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Let your surroundings fade away as you gradually sink backwards through time and actuality and pass through the gateway of this reality into the dreamtime. (When the participants are fully relaxed, begin the next stage).

You find yourself walking along the banks of the Kuban River and gazing at the dense foliage that grows near the water’s edge. Look around you. What do you see, what do you hear, what do you taste on your lips, what do you smell, and what you feel? Take a minute of clock time, equal to all the time you need, to explore this special place, this place of power for you …

Eventually you came upon a sheltered clearing that opens onto the bank. In this clearing grow some flowering plants with the most beautiful blossoms you have ever seen, and this is where you find Lady Setenaya waiting for you.

I’ve been waiting for you because I knew you’d come, Lady Setenaya says to you. I knew you’d come because I knew you needed to hear what I’m about to tell you. You need to hear this because you have become distracted and you need to hear this so you can get back on to the right track again. Don’t make the mistake I made. Let things be. Don’t try to change others from without. Change can only take place from within. What needs to happen will, but all in its own time. Patience is what you need above all, and then all will be revealed to you.

Take a minute of clock time, equal to all the time you need, to reflect on this message and how it relates to the present situation in your everyday life, in the world you left behind when you set off on this journey, but the world you belong to and are destined to return to once more …

And now perhaps you have a question you’d like to ask, either a personal; question, or a question of global concern. Take a minute of clock time, equal to all the time you need, to ask, and listen to the advice Lady Setenaya has to give, remembering that she has been where you are now and is thus in the best possible position to help you through this phase in your life. So listen and be advised by her.....

Before you leave, make sure you thank Lady Setenaya for the insights you have gained, promise to honour the advice you’ve been given, and also that you’ll return if ever you should forget what you have learnt.

And now that the purpose of your journey has been accomplished, now that you have been given the answers that you required, the time has come to make your way back home, back, back, back out of the clearing into the dense foliage once more, back, back, back along the banks of the Kuban River, back, back, and back to the place you started from.

Take a deep breath, let it all out slowly, open your eyes, and smile at the first person you see. Stretch your arms, stretch your legs, stamp your feet on the ground, and make sure you’re really back, back in …, back where you started from. Welcome home!

Now take a few minutes in silence to make some notes on the experiences you had on your journeys, which you can then share with the rest of the group.

Or

Now take a few minutes in silence to make some notes on the experiences you had on your journeys, which you can then make a note of in your dream journal.

Or

And now you might like to turn to the person sitting next to you and share some of the experiences you had on your journeys

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The Pat on the Bottom

He was a cold fish, who showed little sign of affection. Hard on himself and hard on everyone else he had dealings with. He’d married late in life. She would often joke that he showed the cat more love than her and, in fact, she was probably right. After all, the cat would never answer him back and he knew that, unlike people, he could trust it. Every night, as regularly as clockwork, once the old boy had settled down into his sleeping position, the cat would jump up on to the bed for its daily ration of