The turtle's broken shell

A video of Kathi Smith Littlejohn performing one of her tales. I thought it was lovely.

To Kathi Littlejohh

I’ve had the pleasure not only of reading your stories but also of hearing some of them as well. I believe you are truly gifted. I must say that for a moment, while reading or listening, I felt the wonderful fascination that we usually relate to childhood, when words have the ability to entrance us, like a powerful spell, and take us somewhere different. I guess I am, too, like the girl from the Butterfly story, always wishing for adventure, always a little bit bored with my life. Stories are hard to resist. Do you believe stories can be like those dangerous butterflies, beautiful and filled with colors, calling us with music beyond our imagination? Can stories be dangerous too, even the ones that seem most innocent? If they are, perhaps we need the elders and the storytellers, to guide us safely through them?

We live in times when people, especially children, do not seem to have the patience to sit down and listen to a story. I worked with a group of children not too long ago, and tried to tell them stories several times. I looked for funny and adventurous tales, tried to tell them in the most dynamical way, but in the matter of minutes the children were all fidgeting on their seats, looking out the window. I was thinking about all this while reading that story about the origin of legends, wondering if we have forgotten to show our children the importance of stories in our lives. And I would like to ask you: have you ever had the problem of an impatient or uncooperative audience? If so, what did you do? As a storyteller, what is the most important thing one should have to make a story come to life?

The tales you’ve written and recorded are about love, about respect, about the origins of things, about who the Cherokee people were and are. They are all about life and what means to be people. But I would like to ask you one last UNFAIR question: If you had to save one and just one story of the Cherokee people, which one would it be?

Compassion

I have heard, read and seen many stories, essays, documentaries and articles providing reasons to take care of the Earth and the living beings in it. Some are very good, others seem rather exaggerated. Nowadays we hear the apocalyptical discourse time and time again. It is everywhere: if we do not stop the devastation of our planet we are all going to die, the Earth will become a terrible place and humans, too, after much suffering, will become extinct. Fair enough, I am not going to debate that.
However, I had never heard or read anything more convincing in this topic than the "Story of the Eagle" in the Lakota ways book. It shed light in an issue I thought I knew everything about. It's not scientific reasons or convincing arguments what should move us to respect live in every form: it should be sheer compassion.
The compassion the eagle showed to the girl in the story not only saved her life, but also prevented the human race from disappearing from the Earth. And I'm thinking: would it be terribly difficult for us to repay the favor? To start feeling compassion for the eagles that are disappearing from this country by the minute, thanks to human deeds? I know, this is just a story. But I would rather believe that this really happened and start showing compassion to other living creatures than believing the apocalyptic theory and then acting out of fear. Somehow it feels more... adequate.

In Spanish (as in many romance languages) the word for compassion is com-pasión, which literally means: with passion. And passion is not only what we feel when we are in love, or when something is close to our heart. Passion, in fact, is to suffer (hence, the Passion of Christ is the suffering he endured until his death). So compassion would actually mean "to suffer with". Showing compassion for someone is to feel the pain that someone is feeling, and then acting from that pain. It is about sharing and understanding the other in such a level that you are able to feel, as if it was yours, their pain.
I have yet to meet someone in pain who would not do anything to stop it. Compassion, then, is not just about feeling sorry for someone. There is a great deal of sacrifice going on for anyone who's being compassionate. And that's the second lesson from the story of the eagle: sacrifice.
The eagle was a powerful being. He had everything he needed to survive. He could go wherever he chose to. Yet he chose to stay, to bring food and wood, and to keep company to the young woman. He sacrificed his time, his energy and ultimately who he was because he could feel the pain the girl felt of being alone and helpless. He could have easily felt sorry for her and killed her during her sleep so that she would suffer no more, but that wouldn't have being compassionate at all.
So now I wonder: would we be willing to sacrifice not only what we do but we are for others? Can we really show compassion to the world? I'm not sure. But I hope we can.

Everything

Rather than talking or writing about my learning so far, I decided to try and show you how everything is connected in my mind.