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You are
sitting around a fire after a hard day of work. The air cools and
the sun sets, the frogs and crickets begin singing as the sky
darkens. Suddenly the person you have been eagerly awaiting leaps to
the center of the circle. Your Shaman begins her story. You have
heard the story a hundred times, but the antics of the animals and
the wisdom in the story never fail to give you pleasure. As she
weaves her tale, the knowledge that every thing is alive, carrying
its own power and wisdom, soothes your soul.
Let us join together, in this virtual circle, and share these Animal
Tales. Let us once again feel how the stories connect us to the
natural world and remind us that we are all part of a vast Circle of
Life. Listen now as the Shaman's animal stories whisper tales of
that power and wisdom in your ear. Tonight it is a story from
mysterious Ireland. Butterfly medicine asks us to honor our own
ability to transform our lives.
"We may...come to see them as embodying all the beauty and
complexity of nature itself. It is said that a butterfly can, with a
flap of its wings, change the world…that the ripple it sends out can
spawn a hurricane."
National
Geographic, Dec. 1993
Read about the butterfly effect in The Web of Life by Fritjov
Capra.
The Shepherd’s Dream
Irish Folk Tale
From the book Tales of Wisdom & Wonder
Retold by Hugh Lupton
Once upon a time
there were two old shepherds. All day they’d been out with their
sheep, and by the end of the day they were tired.
They set themselves down on some long soft grass beside a river. One
of them stretched out, closed his eyes and soon he was fast asleep.
The other sat, smoking his pipe, thinking about this and that,
watching his sleeping friend.
It was a beautiful evening, the sun sending long shadows over the
grass, the stream murmuring to itself…
Then, suddenly, a strange thing happened.
The sleeping man’s mouth opened, and out of his mouth, between his
lips, a white butterfly appeared. A butterfly, as white as snow, was
crawling out of his open mouth. The butterfly crawled down the
sleeping man’s body, along one of his legs and then fluttered down
onto the grass. There was a little path through the long grass to
the stream, and the white butterfly made its way down to the water’s
edge.
The man who was awake got to his feet and followed this strange
white butterfly - he’d never seen one like it before. The path led
to some stepping stones, and now the butterfly was fluttering from
one stone to another until it reached the far side of the stream.
Stepping from stone to stone, the shepherd followed.
There were tall bulrushes growing on the far side, and now the
butterfly was fluttering and flying in and out of them, weaving
between them. The shepherd stood and watched, his pipe in his mouth,
amazed. Then he saw, beyond the bulrushes, lying on the grass, there
was a horse’s skull. A great white horse’s skull, weather-beaten and
bleached by the sun.
The butterfly flew across to the skull. Then it fluttered over the
clean white bone and flew in through one of the eye-sockets.
And the shepherd stood and watched as the butterfly searched and
explored every corner of the skull. After a while the butterfly came
out again and flew back through the bulrushes, over the stepping
stones and along the path. The shepherd turned quietly and followed
it as it flew back to his companion and he watched in wonder as the
butterfly crawled up the sleeping man’s leg, over his body and into
his open mouth. Straight away the sleeping man closed his mouth.
Then he stretched and rubbed his eyes and awoke. He sat up in the
grass and said, “I must have been asleep for a long time.”
“Not so very long,” said his friend, “but while you were sleeping I
saw a great wonder.”
“You saw a great wonder! It is I who have seen wonders. Listen,
while I was asleep I dreamed that I made a tremendous journey.”
“First I traveled along a fine, wide road with great green hedges
growing high on either side of me. At last I came to the edge of the
sea. I set off over it, journeying from island to island until I
reached a distant country. First I passed through a forest - such
trees there were, I’ve never seen the like before, stretching high
into the sky above my head. I was filled with wonder and delight and
I wandered there for a while until I saw a palace. Oh, such a
beautiful palace it was, built of shining white marble! I went in
through the door and walked from one room to another. There was
nobody to be seen — it was quite empty. I was just thinking that
perhaps I would settle down and stay there forever, when a strange
feeling came over me and I knew I must go back the way I had come.
So I left the palace and journeyed through the forest, over the sea,
along the wide road, and at last I got home. I had just closed the
door behind me and was thinking it was time to cook some supper
when… I woke up!”
His friend stood quietly for a while, puffing at his pipe, then he
said, “Come with me and I’ll show you the journey you made.”
And the man who had been sleeping got to his feet, and his friend
told him about the strange white butterfly that had crawled out of
his mouth. “That little path,” he said, “is the great wide road, and
the grass growing on either side is the high green hedge. This
stream is the sea and these stepping stones are the islands. Those
bulrushes are the trees of the great forest and that horse’s skull
is the fine shining palace you went into - quite empty inside.”
Both of them had seen wonders right enough!
But which of them had seen the greatest wonder?
۞ ۞ ۞
Animal Tales Column brought to you by Kamala.
Animal Tales logo by Anne Gauldin, Gauldin Farrington
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