Free The Gift of Story by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The Gift of
    Story
    A WISE TALE ABOUT WHAT IS ENOUGH
    Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
    Illustrations by Michael McCurdy
    BALLANTINE BOOKS NEW YORK
    To the old ones, a nagyszuloknek, para los ancianos, the last of their kind.
    Copyright 1993 by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
    Illustrations © Copyright 1993 by Michael McCurdy
    The front cover illustration originally appeared in The Man Who Planted Trees, Chelsea Green Publishing Company
    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this hook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Performance rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
    Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-90686
ISBN: 0-345-38835-6
First Edition: November 1993
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
    ALSO BY CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES, PH.D.
    BOOKS*
    Women Who Run With the Wolves AUDIO WORK+
    The Gift of Story:
    On What Constitutes Enough
    In the House of the Riddle Mother:
On Women's Archetypal Dreams
    The Red Shoes:
    On Torment and the Recovery of Soul Life
    The Radiant Coat:
    On the Crossing Between Life and Death
    How to Love a Woman:
    On Intimacy and the Erotic Life of Women
    The Boy Who Married an Eagle:
On Male Individuation
    The Wild Woman Archetype:
    On the Instinctual Nature of Women
    Warming the Stone Child:
    On Abandonment and the Unmothered
    The Creative Fire:
    On the Cycles of Creative Life
    *Published by Ballantine Books
+Published by Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado
     
    THE GIFT OF STORY
    WITHIN THIS SMALL BOOK, THERE ARE
    several stories that, like Matriochka dolls, fit one inside the other. Among my people, questions are often answered with stories. The first story almost always evokes another, which summons another, until the answer to the question has become several stories long. A sequence of tales is thought to offer broader and deeper insight than a single story alone. So, in this old tradition, let us begin with a question: What constitutes "enough'? Let me begin to answer by telling you a story.
    This old tale was handed down to me in many different versions over many an evening fire. The tellers are various good and rustic people from Eastern Europe, most of whom still live by the oral tradition. The story is about the great wise man, the Bal Shem Tov.
    The beloved Bal Shem Tov was dying and sent for his disciples. "I have acted as intermediary for you, and now when I am gone you must do this for yourselves. You know the place in the forest where I call to God? Stand there in that place and do the same. You know how to light the fire, and how to say the prayer. Do all of these and God will come."
    After the Bal Shem Tov died, the First generation did exactly as he had instructed, and God always came. But by the second generation, the people had forgotten how to light the fire in the way the Bal Shem Tov had taught them. Nevertheless, they stood in the special place in the forest and they said the prayer, and God came.
    By the third generation, the people had forgotten how to light the fire, and they had forgotten the place in the forest. But they spoke the prayer nevertheless, and God still came.
    In the fourth generation, everyone had forgotten how to build the fire, and no one any longer knew just where in the forest one should
stand, and finally, too, the prayer itself could not he recalled. But one person still remembered the story about it all, and told it aloud. And God still came.
    As in this ancient story, as throughout all of human history, and in my deepest family traditions, the ultimate gift of story is twofold; that at least one soul remains who can tell the story, and t hat by the recounting of the tale, the greater forces of love, mercy, generosity and strength are continuously called