Storytelling: The Half-Girl
A unique depiction of a heroin's journey found across many cultures through out the globe
Dear readers and listeners,
For this marvelous occasion, I wanted to share a gift that I have received in a way I could not have ever anticipated. And that’s how I can tell that this is truly the Mystery behind all this.
Recently I had joined a course from the Symbolic World, hosted by one of my favorite storytellers: Dr.Martin Shaw. The master himself, was weaving not only how Christian Wonder tales and the old Pagan world are singing back and forth their magic within their stories, but also giving precious advice to beginner storytellers like me, on how to approach and deliver faithfully the hope, love and longing present in those stories.
A couple of weeks ago, one of the assignment was to share this story of the Half-Girl. And after I did it with my loved ones, some friends, with the birds, the trees and the other spirits that happened to be there with me as I wandered through a forest near here, I bequeath it now to you all. Maybe in turn, you may pass it onto others for its wisdom to grow wilder.
This is all in one piece, and I hope you find opportunities to share it with your loved ones in the coming festive season as a natural alternative to screens.
So if you you let me in, I will make you forget (for a short time at least) your school errands, your online shopping cart, your insurance policies, the political uncertainties and the humid weather outside to plunge into a timeless space.
Hopefully, see you at the other end.
Do feel free to let me know which images and moments you find yourself being drawn to.
And where do you find yourself in this story?
Soundtrack made by @Moisei Production
A long long time ago, there was once a beautiful village. In one of the lanes of that village there was a lovely house that complimented nicely the neighborhood though its choice of summer flowers and bright colours. And in that house lived a young woman.
Now in this particular day, there was a special event occurring in that house because there were also three elderly women surrounding the young woman. She was in labor, and this was her first child. They were there to give advice on this magical moment where a young new soul is leaving the mother’s universe to come into this one.
I am delighted to inform you that a beautiful young girl was born that day! And if you had been there you would have likely cheered with joy like everyone else present on that glorious afternoon. If you had witnessed the lovely baby resting next to her mother, you would have likely complimented her on how beautiful her right eye was. Or what a cute little right shoulder she had. What a strong hip or what a lovely foot she had. She was just wonderful!
But here is the thing; if you had spent a little longer looking at her, maybe while she was asleep, it would have been as if there was only half of her visible. The other half, you just could not see. The little girl did not show signs of being bothered by that, and the adults treated her like any good parent would with any of their children. They flooded her with a torrent of love and attention and were just happy to have her with them shining a light through their day… and yes… also at night .
Time went by and the girl is now at an age where she can stand up and explore further out the house and is able to speak. And when she looked around the other children, the people and everything else around her, she could see that everybody looked to her, pretty complete. Everybody and everything from animals, to trees, plants, and people seemed very much balanced, at ease and harmonious with the world around them. While she felt in a very diffused way that there was something missing within her.
Every time she would ask adults why she was missing half of her, she would get either dismissed, or received a very mysterious answers.
- “Oh there is nothing wrong with you, my dear love! What are you talking about!?”
-“You are just like God made you, and you are perfect the way you are!”
-“It’s all in your head, and if you think you are missing something, then we all are…”
Fast forward a few more years, and by the time she reaches this complicated turn between adolescence and adulthood, the girl that we can call The Half-Girl, is now growing in resentment and feels like, if she would leave the village today, no-one would either care or notice. And so, she decides one night to take just a small backpack and hit the road, firmly decided to never, ever come back again.
While on the road, she is convinced that nobody will go after her. She feels no-one will cry or miss her. Nobody will run after her, and No-one will remember her. And so she is firmly decided to walk for a few days out into the world. So, she started to walk, and walk, and walk, and walk. And when you hear in those type of ancient stories, that a girl is walking for a few days, by our own modern standards, this could be days?… maybe weeks?… perhaps months? … or even years!?
As you can imagine, when you feel like there is half of you missing, it is very difficult to find a job. Finding true friends is awkward. Building long lasting relationships feels impossible and resentment and cynicism grows and grows. And so, the Half-Girl carries on, the best she can and continues through valleys, and hills. Through deserts, and wooden places. Through rain, wind and snow, surviving the best she can. While by her own standards, she was not in hell. If you had asked her how she felt, she would replied she was fine and even had many moments of relief. But overall anyone could see that joy was not often on the menu.
As years go by, once on a particular hot summer day, she found herself encountering a familiar roaring sound. She recognized it as the roaring of a river. In fact, this may well be the sound of what some call “The Sacred River”. As the day seems to soar into higher temperatures, the prospect of resting and
floating in the soft element in a day like this is a welcoming one. So, she reached the river and found herself a sandy spot where she could sit and cool down.
As she relaxed and leaned back to be still and blissful, taking in the soothing sounds of the woods nearby and the water flowing through boulders, she heard a noise. She turned her head and saw another person approaching. She moved back to a sitting position, turned towards them and realized this was a woman that had the other half the she felt she was missing.
Now, if she had met the other half-girl when she was five years old, she would have been delighted. If she had met the other half-girl when she was ten, they would have been BFFs. But now that there were the first signs of grey hair showing up on her head and that she had been so chewed up by life, she was not really interested. In fact, as she saw the other half-woman approaching, she could clearly see that the other was not particularly pleased to see her either!
She stood up to confront the other half-woman. Before you know it they are circling one another and throw nasty things at each other. The intensity of the exchange is rising and lines in the sand are being drawn, spits flying across them and threats are being launched. One of them finally decided that she had enough, decided to strike first. In a blink of an eye, they are now going all out at each other.
You have to imagine how vicious and ugly this fight is turning out: One rams into the other. They clinch and knee and kick each other. One pulls down the hair and hammer fists the other. The other protects her head, and then rams back through the other one’s stomach, then grabs the leg and collapse her on the ground. With the hair messed up, one is mounting on top of the other’s chest and tries to choke the other. The girl at the bottom seems to have been in this situation before because soon after that she traps the other’s arm, and lifts her waist to tilt the other side ways and both roll down the beach. This somehow triggers another series of rolls forward until both of them find themselves in the water.
And now it’s a different game because where they are now, the current of this river is fairly strong and is dragging both bodies along for a wild ride. Both Halves are now turning in the river and trying to stay afloat. As they keep flowing down, we seem to lose them for a while and see occasionally an arm, a leg or a head popping up. It seems to be like ten, fifteen, or even twenty minutes without any signs of either of them emerging. Just as we thought we would not see them again, we suddenly see a woman emerging from the soft element on one particular calmer spot of the Sacred River.
What now seems to be walking out and struggling to stand on solid ground is ONE-FULL-WOMAN! So, you may think at this point that’s probably all for the best. But you have to realize that once you have been battling with the half that has been so foreign to you in the Sacred River, and come out like you just had integrated it, you do look like a mess. It’s all confusing and to an outsider you look very inconsistent. Making a step in front of the other looks very awkward. You have one eye looking one way and the other looking the other way. The hair is all messed up, you look like a medusa, you do not know where you are, what has just happened and how long this new situation is going to last.
The one we can call now The Full-Woman felt she had enough cooling and decided to keep on walking the best she could. And so, she started to walk, and started to walk and started to walk. She went to some of the places she had been before until eventually she reached a place that she could not recognize. But she nonetheless saw that there was an old man sitting at the edge of the village she had just stumbled upon. She got closer and saw that the old man was in company of a old woman and that the closer she got, the bigger the smile on their faces seemed to grow. When she finally reached them, she asked them whether they could tell her what was the name of this place and where she was?
That’s where the two ancestors in the making looked at each other in disbelief and after a silent agreement between themselves, the old lady grabbed the hands of the Full-Woman and said the following:
“My dear daughter! Are you so confused that you do not recognize where you come from? Have you been away for so long, that you failed to see how much this whole village has missed you and wept and longed for your return? When you left the village, it was a very sad day for all of us and although we could understand, we could not stop mourning your absence. Could you not see back then, that in their hearts, all young girls were Half-Girls. And all young boys, were Half-Boys?
Could you not see and feel that the half of the heart that they were missing, was the half that the village could not provide?
That ultimately, all children are called to leave the village in order to find the other half and that it’s a pure gift of the Heavens if they ever make it back?”
Upon that revelation, all three of them fell in the most tender embrace, and tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears of grief and finally tears of love started to pour down their cheeks. And after a few more moments, other people from the village started to stop by and recognized whom this was. And that brought up more joy, and celebration and more call-outs to other neighbors, and relatives. And shortly after, an impromptu gathering took place where they had a feast, where they shared some stories, and where they were more laughter.
And there were tears, and there were songs, and there were dances, and there were prayers, and more to drink until they could no longer dance and went back to bed, and the next day they did it all over again!
As the weeks went by, every where the Full-Woman went, she found herself telling stories of her adventures abroad. Small impromptu gatherings took place and people, and young children especially went to her to hear more stories. And therefore she naturally became the village storyteller. She would spell out all the wisdom she had acquainted during her travels in a way she didn’t know she had.
It is considered true, by the ones who lived there, that in the place where the once known as the Half-Girl had been buried, a majestic and enormous oak tree that grew in all directions had risen. And that if you were to sit under that oak, closed your eyes to open your other senses deeply, and truly listen to the sounds of the landscape, you would hear her stories still being gently whispered in the wind. Or sung through the robins, the black birds and the bees. That her lessons could be felt delivered as a flock of wild gees would be flying south. Or as you contemplated upon a spider rebuilding her web in a branch as she expects dry weather for the coming days.
Now as I bequeath this story to you, dear reader and listener, as it has been bequeathed to me,
What are you going to do with it?
What are you going to do with it??
What are you going to do with IT???
Because.
This.
Is.
All.
I.
Know!
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