"God made man because He loves stories."This leads me to wonder: If God so loved stories, could be there one angel who happens to be the Archangel of Stories?
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Is there an Archangel of Stories?
In an earlier post, Story is NOT the by-product of magic!, I cited the following quote from Elie Wiesel:
Sunday, March 17, 2013
The Time Before Stories
Where do stories come from? This question led me to write the following short, short story.
Fabula returned home with his acolytes, who called themselves the Fab Five,
to plant the Tree of Tales. Just one year later, the tree’s silvery
white buds burst open to unleash creativity upon the world and, much
like its blossoms, characters and storylines started unfolding in the
imaginations of Octavia, Accipiter, Damh, Otarian and Omorose. There,
beneath the canopy of that glorious tree, the Fab Five labored, creating
the craft of stories. Word of the miracle spread and in just a few
years’ time, storytellers and authors could be found in every corner of
the world. Scores of individuals flocked to the Tree of Tales, drawn by
the sweet scent of imagination, and around the tree a village grew – the
one we now know as Storyhaven.
The Time Before Stories
A long, long time ago there were no stories to tell and no books to read. It was an age we now call, The Time Before Stories.
In
those dreary times, children tossed and turned, struggling to fall
asleep, their restlessness fueled by some nameless desire, unspoken yet
uncomplicated, whose name was simply the title of a bedtime story
waiting to be imagined. The question, ‘Child, what did you dream about
last night?’ was never asked for there were no dreams worth remembering.
How could there be in a world without fairy tales?
Untold
were the legends of courageous men and women going off to fight the
good fight. Unread were the fables by which life’s lessons are learned.
Young people did not stay up late to read of dragon versus dragon slayer
and nary a myth was whispered about the ancient gods.
In The Time Before Stories,
there were no Alices tumbling down the rabbit hole to explore
Wonderland; no Peter Pans refusing to grow up in a place called
Neverland; no Winnie the Poohs hunting the Heffalump; no Hobbits, be it
Bilbo or Frodo or otherwise, undertaking perilous journeys to places
such as Mt. Doom; and no young wizards, with or without lightning bolt
scars, standing strong against the purveyors of dark magic.
The world sorely lacked for imagination.
However, all that changed with the arrival of a man known as Fabula, whose name means story in Latin and from which comes the English word, fable. He was neither wizard nor sorcerer; magician nor conjurer; enchanter nor warlock: he was a thaumaturge or ‘one who works miracles.”
It
was Fabula who planted the seeds of the Tree of Tales, thereby giving
us the miracle of stories. From where these seeds came, or how the
thaumaturge found them, is not known – he told no one. Throughout the
ages, rumors and theories have abounded – even today, it remains one of
the great ironies that the story behind the Tree of Tales has yet to be
told.
Though
we do not know the origins of the seeds, we do know their discovery
required a journey lasting ten years. During that time, Fabula met with
and spoke to countless individuals, many who were interesting and a few
who were extraordinary, but only five were blessed with an eloquence,
empathy and wisdom beyond any of their kin. They were: Octavia, the
Silver Fairy of the Northlands; Accipiter, the Red-Chested Hawk of West
Africa; Damh, the White Stag of Rhydenfyre; Otarian, The Elfish Lord of
Cryptomeria; and Omorose, The Beautiful Child of the Nile.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
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