Water, Stories, The Body
by Sofia Skavdahl

“for I have seen God face-to-face, and my soul survives”— Genesis 32:30

Once I read a story, I have hold of it forever, for the story is no longer in between pages on a shelf but in my body, where it can reveal itself as wisdom or guidance, where it can seize my heart should it be provoked. From that place I learn to live with greater meaning and faith, I discover my own capacity for resilience, and find assurance that there is a way out of suffering and into new life. It is through stories that my own soul discovers itself and the light of existence finds its vessel, for stories give that which is unseeable form. The purpose of stories, then, is not to provide superficial entertainment, but to give evidence to the illusive face of God, and to encourage humanity to go on. 

In her remarkable book, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes about how stories are the simplest and most accessible ingredient for healing. [1] Any reader knows the pleasure that a good book delivers when it resonates, how it frees the individual from the weight of their private burdens. Often, I do not even know what precisely I am feeling, struggling with, or hoping for until an old story outside of myself illuminates the inner conflict, giving it texture and substance. Only then does clarity arrive. Perhaps this is because stories continually offer what human beings struggle to give both themselves and others: acceptance of one’s vulnerabilities. From that silent acceptance, shame loosens its grip, and there is nothing more palpably healing than the subsiding of shame. Like a snake who has just shed its old skin, when shame lessens we are able to live more wholly as ourselves, experience our senses more directly, and feel freer in the process. 

How does this alchemy work? For one, good stories are an elixir, they have the ability to trick the mind that the story it is encountering is about someone else, living a life so different from ours. They relax the always on guard ego and “work” at the unconscious level, speaking to the parts of us that are tender. They have a way of reaching the feelings that never see the light of day, the feelings we forbid because they are extremely discomforting to either ourselves or those around us. They let fresh air into the staleness of our own rigid perceptions about who we are and what our life is about. They work because they are rooted simultaneously in the past and present; they allow the reader or listener to be passive and receive an experience of grace. After all: we cannot force healing, we can only allow it to happen. 

It is especially unfortunate then, that there are more bad stories than good ones around us. It takes no small effort to find ones that are worth holding onto. By bad I do not just mean poorly written—although there are plenty of those— but that there are an abundance of stories that do not say anything of merit in regards to the human condition. Bad stories are ones that fail to offer insight to personal or collective crises, typically they are shallow, sentimental, and reinforcing of the values of a dominant culture. Any good story, or work of art, must be measured by its ability to deliver some inherent truth despite the fluctuating whims of the masses and the cyclical passing of time. A good story is rare and priceless. Once discovered, it is a gift that keeps on giving, a reliable medicine, a reminder that we used to know less than we do now, a testament to the fact that we have persevered before and can do so again.

For as long as we have been a species, stories have been a part of life. Stories are a survival tool, a source of guidance for the young and a fount of meaning for the old. But they are not just instruction manuals, their purpose is not strictly to problem solve or convey pragmatic information. Stories are the soul’s language, and they lead to the same place over and over again: straight into the heart of God. If a story does not have God at the center of it, subtly or overtly, it does not hold. 

The creative life and God work in the same fashion: they cleanse, redeem, and provide respite. They nourish something deeper than the animalistic appetite, they put the ego-mind on the backburner, and they lighten the load. They are the bearer of miracles, the only confrontations that bring any lasting satisfaction and healing. 

Both faith and art depend on the effectiveness of their storytelling. Religions are built around the stories that most profoundly move the collective, while art tries to make sense of the stories we tell ourselves. It is no great wonder that these two experiences so frequently overlap, with great faith creating great art, and with artistic masterpieces inspiring a greater sense of faith in God and humanity. The two can act as a sort of call and response, places where ideas and retortions can be exchanged. Without God and without art, life becomes dry. One is either left stumbling through a mere merry-go-round of survival or locked in the compulsive rituals that only serve the all-consuming pursuit of pleasure. Both lifestyles fail to move into the deeper waters of meaning, neither travel on the path to the place where their own soul resides. 

Of course, not all art nor experiences of faith reach their potential depths. For that, one needs to be tethered to the truth, to a good story, one that has the capacity for historical longevity. Art is not simply emotional expressionism, nor talent, and true faith does not dwell in blindness but in the conviction that one sees a reality beyond the circumstances in front of them. The artist and the believer share in their dream that something arose from nothing, that there is more to be understood. They both share in the fate of Jacob, wrestling with the angel, they come away from their numinous encounters lacking in answers but nevertheless, stained with light. They accept the lack of resolution as proof there is more to be contended with, that the story is not over yet. 

The angel in Genesis is the ideal role model for the artist’s most critical task, to provide insight and even a blessing— but not certainty. One who is in dialogue with God is never certain. For a work to be a masterpiece, whether literary or visual, the recipient must be left in awe, meaning, they must not think they fully comprehend what just happened, nor why it happened. They know only that the very core of their being has been moved and that they have undergone a change not of their own willpower but of grace. It is at such a moment that the soul finds its nourishment. 

Like Jacob, when we stumble across an angel within our own psyches or in the presence of another, we have the feeling that we are on none other but sacred ground. There exists a holiness in our fighting, an endeavoring towards consciousness, a knowing that is not beholden to language, a faith that is not born out of obligation to a creed but out of the feeling of being touched by something so otherworldly, it must have wings. In the act of creation, we borrow the power that was once only God’s and come to understand that it is only through deep virtue— those of great love, hope, beauty, and service— that anything of meaning is created. Including our own lives.

For a story to be worthwhile it must land in the body. One remembers a story only if it carries a visceral weight, if it touches what has not been touched, if it brings language to an experience that previously had none. The story must be felt and grappled with as a living, breathing, being. The body is healed not by words but by tenderness and rightful conditions, by the admission of its own truth, and the realization of its own numinosity. Such stories are composed like the wrestling angel, who blesses us by the way of a wound.  

Our bodies have the peculiar task of tethering us both to God and the world. Their time is limited and their form is temporary, whereas the soul exists in a manner that is timeless and not limited to the identity we are born into. We presume that the soul persists after death, that it was present before birth, and that it has more insight into the eternal mysteries than the reductive mind. But in this world, the soul needs a vessel, and so it resides in the murkiness of our bodies, eluding us with its affinities and demands. The body is not merely a machine that needs maintenance, it is a container of great importance. The body is the means by which God is brought into the world. Both creativity and spirituality are incomplete when they deny the role the body plays in creation and faith. 

In the prologue of his masterpiece, The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis writes in detail about the role of the body in its relation to the human spirit: “I loved my body and did not want it to perish; I loved my soul and did not want it to decay. I have fought to reconcile these two primordial forces which are so contrary to each other, to make them realize they are not enemies but rather, fellow workers, so that they might rejoice in their harmony—and so that I might rejoice with them.” [2] Kazantzakis is a master storyteller, who recognized within himself the potential of both Jacob and the angel, whose writing satisfies both the body and the mind, who knew the truth of God could be so simple when he wrote: “Sister Almond Tree, speak to me of God. And the almond tree blossomed.” [3] Perhaps the quality of a work of art can be determined by the degree to which it encourages us to exhale, that is, to bring the body relief. No artist is better at this than Rumi.

Story Water

A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.

It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.

A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.

The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal

the light that’s blazing
inside your presence.

Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what’s hidden.

Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not. [4]

Human beings are forgetful and suffering reinvents itself time and time again. We need stories that remind us of our nature and have the capacity to relay deep insight at moments of profound uncertainty. We need to be reminded until the truth resides in our own bodies, until our own lives become evidence of God’s mysterious workings. It is useful to pay special attention to the stories that have persisted, those that are still alive in the collective, and look with curiosity towards these ancient relics. The wisdom of God is more steadfast than the world’s turbulence and one’s personal psychology. Faith and the act of creation are the only sound responses to a distressed world. 

History has shown humanity repeatedly that the stories which center on power and prestige are self-defeating. They are not derived from any eternal truth but from temptation. While they can be useful if they are relayed in a manner that is cautionary and realistic about the struggles of man, they are not the stories to live by, they are not meant to give us hope. For that we must turn to the wisdom of the ages: to fairytales and parables, psalms and myths, to the great novelists, poets, and revolutionaries, those who were not fooled by the superficial stories of their days. We must turn to the storytellers who did not resign to worldly decorum or nihilism, but who wrestled with an angel long enough to see a face of light in the dark. ✧

Notes

1. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, (Ballantine Books, 1992), 13. 

2. Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ, trans. P.A. Bien (Simon & Schuster, 1960), 1.

3. Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, trans. P.A. Bien (Simon & Schuster, 1965), 468.

4. Jalāl al Dīn Rūmī, The Essential Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks with John Moyne (HarperOne, 1995), 171-172.