ShallITellYouaStory

Welcome beautiful parents, yogis, and happy childhood advocates to the first full week of April! This month our focus is Listening as we celebrate Mother Earth in preparation for Mother’s Day next month. Our Earth is the Great Mother who shows us that a mother’s Love is a never-ending cycle of Life, Death, and Life. How obvious this is as spring draws us into replanting in our gardens and paying homage to the sun with every conceivable excuse we can make to be outside. As I write this, I am in my courtyard basking in the Sun as my neighbor picks his banjo across the street. Life is good in PDX!

This week’s story comes from the Seneca Tribe of the Iraquois nations who once dwelled throughout the Northeastern section of our country. I learned the story from a compilation of Native American folktales called The Girl Who Helped Thunder retold by Joseph Bruhac, Ph.D. This tale centers on the importance of listening to Nature as well as all people, even those we might first consider lowly. Listening is not only how we show respect to others and ourselves, but also how we empower ourselves to take personal responsibility for appropriate action.

The story begins in a time when once there were no stories. During the long northern winter nights, there is nothing to do in the Longhouse except sigh and be bored. There is an orphan boy who belongs to the longhouse, but has no one watching after him. His name is Gaqka, which means “crow.” (Beautiful how the name sounds like the animal!) The clan cruelly calls him “Crow,” because he is black like a crow, since he has no mother to wash his face or raggedly clothes. Sometimes the clan makes fun of him, but mostly he is ignored and neglected.

One day he is returning from hunting small birds, and he stops to rest in the shade of a tall rock cliff. He sighs out loud to himself, “If only there was something to listen to.”

“Shall I tell you a story?” rumbles a low voice.

Gaqka springs up and looks all around him, but cannot see who has spoken.

“Who just spoke?’

“I did.”

Then Gaqka sees that it is a huge stone face in the rock cliff who has spoken. Gaqka does not know what a story is, but he knows he wants to hear one. The Great Stone tells Gaqka that first an offering must be made to the storyteller for the story. Gaqka gladly pays, and then the Great Stone teaches Gaqka the sacred etiquette of story listening.

After making the offering to the storyteller, the storyteller proceeds to ask if the audience is ready to listen. If ready, the audience must say, “Nio.” Then the audience is obliged to stay awake until the storyteller is done, at which point he will speak, “Da neho,” which means, “I have spoken; that is all for now.” During the story, the storyteller may utter, “Hoh,” and the listeners must speak, “Henh,” which means they are awake and still actively following every word.
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Gaqka eagerly agrees to follow all the rules and listens to this first story until the sky begins to darken, and the Great Stone finally says, “Da neho.” At that point, Gaqka’s life is changed forever. He no longer sees himself as a disempowered, uncared for orphan. He goes home and confidently offers to tell the clan a story. They don’t know what one is, but they are eager to listen to anything, so they willingly pay him for the story with a small pouch of something. Then he teaches them the etiquette of story listening followed by the story the Great Stone taught him about how the Earth was created.

The people love the story and immediately want another. Gaqka says, “Da neho,” and they must wait until the next night. Each day, Gaqka returns to the Great Stone for more stories to tell the people, always bringing gifts to offer.

Likewise, Gaqka is paid each night for his stories. Soon he is no longer scrawny and soot-covered, and he grows up to be a tall, handsome, well-dressed man who is no longer called Gaqka, but Hage-ota, which means “Storyteller.” At times people try to follow him to discover where he gets all his stories, but all they find is that he likes to sit beside a rock cliff where he appears to be listening to something no one else can hear, occasionally uttering a “Henh,” but nothing else.

A day comes, when the man who was once called “Gaqka” comes to visit the Great Stone, and the Great Stone has no more stories to offer. The Great Stone says that all the stories belong to the humans now, not the stones any longer. Anyone who wants a story only has to listen, and so it is to this day.

Da neho.

As I wrote the retelling of this story, I heard behind me the mini-thopter sound of an iridescent green hummingbird sipping from the kale blossoms in my garden. I turned to watch him. He knew I was there, and he accepted my presence. At certain angles, the black feathers on his tiny head flashed hot pink- amazing tropical colors occurring naturally in the Northwest! After a wonder-filled one to two minutes, some noisy fellow humans passed by on the sidewalk by my garden, and he disappeared so quickly I couldn’t see which direction he headed. I feel this story’s humble retelling has been blessed by his visitation, as surely as I was blessed to hear the sound of his powerfully tiny wings.

Poses I will feature in this story:

Preparation for Crow Pose: Bakasana- In honor of Gaqka’s name, we will have the choice to practice a regular squat (Malasana) or a squat balanced on our toe tips with our palms and fingers pressed to the ground and our shins pressed against our upper arms. Fully expressed Crow Pose is a balance on the forearms, but I will direct the children to keep their toes on the ground.

Mountain Pose: Tadasana- Mountain pose is a pose that embodies calm strength, stillness, and clarity. This stance not only represents the Great Stone in the story, but also when Gaqka offers his first story; he stands in a confident position of self-empowerment.

Warrior II/Radiant Warrior: Variation of Virabhadrasana- This pose actually was suggested to me when I told this story for the first time with my last Friday Yoga Shala class. When I spoke of how Gaqka transformed himself from a soot-covered ragamuffin into a tall handsome storyteller, my students surprised me by spontaneously jumping up into Radiant Warrior! I wasn’t even planning on using Radiant Warrior in this story. I can’t tell you how impressed I was. Now my students are starting to choreograph these stories with poses they intuit as appropriate! I am a very proud teacher.