“Before I was born in this physical body, a whole society of storytellers was already here. The story was ongoing, and from their story I learned how to create my own. The storytellers whoa re here before us teach us how to be human.
First they tell us what we are – a boy or a girl – then they tell us who we are, and who we should or shouldn’t be. They teach us how to be a proper woman, a decent woman, a strong man, a brave man.
They give us a name, an identity, and they tell us the role that we are playing in their story. They prepare us to live in a human jungle, to compete with one another, to control one another, to impose our will, to fight against our own kind.
Of course I believed what the storytellers told me. Why would I not believe them? They filled me with knowledge, and I used that knowledge to copy their style and create my art in a similar way.”
From The Voice of Knowledge by Don Miguel Ruiz
We are all storytellers. The trick is to discern which story to live out.
Do we live out of our own stories – they lies, the judgments, and the beliefs we have accumulated throughout the years?
Do we live out of the stories of our families, tribes, cultures and clans – with its own set of beliefs that we have bought in to?
Or, do we choose to create a new story for ourselves – story that begins with the premise that we are unique, unrepeatable, wonderfully-made divine beings?
Comedian Joe E. Louis once said we only live one life, but if we work it right, one is enough.
The poet Mary Oliver called it our one, wild, precious life.
How will you choose to create your one, wild, precious, unrepeatable and unique life?
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