Blue Fox Shaman

Another episode of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

[… Fox and Bärchen are walking a trail in the woods …]

Fox: Watch out! Right where you’re about to step is a…

[… Bärchen stumbles for a moment …]

Fox: …loose rock. Are you okay?

Bärchen: I’m fine. I’m fine. Just a little slippage, but no harm, no foul.

Fox: Good. So, what were you asking?

Bärchen: About stories. Specifically, why do people tell them?

Fox: Probably better to ask why not. There’s scores of reasons, Bärchen. Just like why we’re taking this trail as opposed to, say, a walk around the neighborhood.

Bärchen: Why are we taking this trail, by the way?

Fox: You’ll see. But the trail itself is lovely, don’t you think?

Bärchen: Oh, absolutely. Look at all the flowers this time of year. And that section where we stopped by a little spring amid the trees. Gorgeous! And it’s especially nice to see a gorgeous ass leading me on.

Fox: Hey, silly! No wonder you slipped on that rock. You gotta pay more attention!

Bärchen: To the trail or to…

Fox: Bärchen! Anyway, to get back to stories, I mean, people follow the trail of a story for lots of reasons. If it’s a good story, it gives you lots of reasons to follow it. It could be the company along the way.

Bärchen: You mean, the other people you’re reading with, so you can say things like “do you see those light pink Larkspurs?”

Fox: Oh, wow! Larkspurs have been your favorite since you first saw them in the High Sierras. Lovely. We also walk with the characters in the story. So they have to be good company as well, or at least amusing or interesting.

Bärchen: Good point.

Fox: And, as you said, maybe we get to see beautiful or interesting things along the way as the story-teller describes them, even if we never point those things out to anybody else.

Bärchen: Like that little bird we heard but never saw, stirring up the leaves so vigorously we, or at least I, thought maybe there was a large beast lurking in the underbrush.

Fox: She was just looking for worms, but the look on your face was priceless.

[…both smile…]

Fox: Sometimes the point is just to get from point A to point B. Then it becomes a good story when we see the traveler struggle to find the path, or know which fork to take.

Bärchen: I have to admit I like those kinds of stories… at least some of them. You get to match your powers of observation and reasoning with a great detective.

Fox: Precisely, Watson! But anyone could tell by your uncalloused hands and slightly hunched shoulders that you are a nerd, and so you like that sort of thing.

Bärchen: Ha! You’ve got me, Holmes! But, I have to say, the stories that most people admire are those of “undaunted courage”, not of choice or reason. The old “something must be done now or the world will end in 30 minutes” trope.

[… Fox pauses and then squats down …]

Bärchen: Oh, great find, sweetie!

Fox: I’ll remember this place. Should be some luscious strawberries here in about two weeks. So, what made you want to talk about stories? Was it that Buddhist legend about the Monk, the Tiger and the Strawberry? Though, really, that’s just a metaphor for how life actually is.

Bärchen: I did think of that one, afterwards. No, it was an essay I was reading about how every film, TV show, novel and play seems to have the same damn plot. Then the essayist started to complain how all stories seem to end up in the same place–an apotheosis of what’s called the “American Dream” as the reward of the hero or heroine for their undaunted courage.

Fox: Uh huh. Or a complete rejection of it, but dressed so vaguely that it’s like Rodin’s “Balzac”.

Bärchen: “No human shape could exist beneath all that drapery.” Or something like that. [laughs]

Fox: Didn’t the essay mention something about Aristotle’s “Poetics”? I thought I heard you mutter something about the Greeks.

Bärchen: Uh huh. They rounded up all the usual suspects. Plus something I’d never heard of called Freytag’s Pyramid. It looks like this:

[… Bärchen squats and draws in the dirt with a stick …]

Bärchen: There’s an “exposition”, followed by an “inciting incident”. Then the story takes off in a “rising action” culminating in a “climax”. After which comes the “falling action”, of course, and the “resolution”.

Fox: Hmmmm… how is that not just a diagram of the reaction of any living system to a change in its environment? Or its internal state? See, you’ve got the sensory-based signal that requires a response from the system and, if everything goes well, the system enters a new state of equilibrium. Or not. I guess if not its a “tragedy”.

Bärchen: Ah! You’re right, I see it now. I guess that’s why all stories have the same damn plot.

Fox: We’re all just a bunch of living systems wanting to learn how the other living systems did it. Or failed to do it, so we can avoid that.

Bärchen: Yeah, and that would explain the perceived Patriarchal bent in so many stories mass-produced by Hollywood and its ilk these days. Movieland might be many things, but I don’t think anyone would accuse it of being counter-cultural.

Fox: Of course, there’s one other thing stories are good for…

[… suddenly Fox turns around and transforms herself into an Oni (Ogress) …]

Bärchen: Yikes!!! Okay, you…

Fox: Do you still love me this way?

Bärchen: Hmmmph! Yes, but I prefer that nice ass I was following. But you still get to scare me whenever necessary.

Fox: That’s in our marriage contract, and you look so sweet when you’re frightened. But okay. Anyway, occasionally a frightening story is good too.

Bärchen: Like eating Spicy Chicken Wings–of questionable nutrition value, likely to give you heartburn, but oh, the adrenaline rush!

Fox: Um hmmm. Hey, guess what…we’re here!

Bärchen: Where?… Oh!

[… The trail ends in a vista of snow-clad peaks with misty, green valleys below. The sun is setting behind a saddle between the peaks, and it’s last rays catch some clouds on fire with golden light …]

Bärchen: Wow.

Fox: Uh huh. Wow.

[… Bärchen holds Fox in his arms as they look out at the view …]

Fox: Shall we say the Grail Seeker’s Prayer?

Bärchen: I’ll start. Together…

Fox: …today…

Bärchen: …we will seek the Grail…

Fox: …in Body and Mind…

Bärchen: …in Soul and in Spirit…

Fox: …in what we do and what we desire…

Bärchen: …in what we seek and what we choose…

Fox: …We walk in Beauty…

Bärchen: …We walk in Love.

[… Fox leans her head on Bärchen’s shoulder and sighs…]

Fox: We need to tell each other more stories, my love.