In her wonderful book Women Who Run With The Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes that story is far older than the art and science of psychology, and will always be the elder no matter how much time passes. One of the oldest ways of telling, she writes, is the passionate trance state, wherein the teller “senses” the audience – be it an audience of one or many – and then enters a state between worlds. A story is “attracted” to the trance-teller and told through her (or him).
The trance-teller calls on El duende, the wind that blows soul into the faces of listeners. A trance-teller learns to be psychically double-joined through the meditative practice of the story, that is, training oneself to undo roadblocks of self and ego in order to let the voice speak, that the voice that is older than the stones, surely older than the phones and tablets and screens. “When this is done,” Estes writes, “the story may take any trail, be turned upside down, be filled with porridge and dumped out for a poor person’s feast, be filled with gold for the taking, or chase the listener into the next world. The teller never knows how it will all come out, and that is at least half of the moist magic of the story.”
Beautiful words, and I saw myself in them. Maria saw it as well. I am a trance-teller, I am never more at home than when I am writing a story on my blog or telling a story at a library or bookstore. I never prepared, never think about what I am going to say, in front of an audience, behind a keyboard, I am in a trance, unseen and unknown spirits rise up and guide my lips and mind. My stories may take any trail, be dumped out for a poor person’s feast, fall on deaf ears or vanish into the ether, be filled with free gold for the taking, or chase the reader or viewer or listener into another place and time.
I am a story-teller, my stories are not about grammar or spelling, they are not short enough to fill up an Iphone screen. My stories are my life, I have trained myself to bypass the roadblocks of fear, ego and self to find my voice and set it free, and in that mystical process, find myself and set my soul free.
When I tell my stories, I am one with my listeners, we dance together in a light but passionate embrace, we sway back and forth together, I call on El Duende, the wind that blows soul into the faces of my listeners, and when I see their souls rising up to meet mine, I have entered a mystical space of meaning and imagination.
Stories are about emotion. El duende is the spirit of evocation. It comes from inside of us and shows itself as a physical or emotional response to art. It is what gives us chills, makes us smile or cry as a bodily reaction to an artistic or creative performance that is particularly expressive.
El duende is an earth spirit who helps the artist see the limitations of his or her intelligence, who brings the artist face-to-face with death, and who helps them create and communicate memorable, sometimes spine-chilling art.
Stories are my life, and my life is my stories. People often tell me they are surprised by my openness, but it is not so simple as that. In so many ways, I am very closed, my life is the boundary of the stories that I tell. Each day I am reminded, in one way or another, of the limitations of my intelligence, the fragility of my creativity, the uncertainty of life. I have been face-to-face with death and sometimes I can create and communicate art that touches the souls and hearts of people.
In a way, true creativity is the trance state, no one really knows where El duende it comes from, how long it will stay, where it goes and how it gets there. It is my dream to be the wind that blow the soul into the faces and spirits of readers and listeners.