Joel's Story

Many years ago, after reading an antroposophic book on story telling, I put all the ideas I had gathered together and wrote a story on storytelling.
I would like to share this story with you today. I hope you find it useful.

A young boy named Joel
A story on storytelling

By Marian Derfler

Once upon a time there was a young boy named Joel. He loved listening to stories and had a bunch of favourite ones, all very simple, which he would adore to listen to over and over again.

When the time for stories came, usually just before bed time, he would choose his favourite corner in the house, and get in the right mood for one of his most beloved stories.

Joel enjoyed the way his mum told tales. She would take her time, sit down, breathe deeply and start telling the story. She always knew the story of the day very well, and Joel could tell she loved it too. It seemed to him as if she loved it so much that she became more of a vehicle for the story to be told, than a teller. He loved the pauses she made, and when he had to join in with a line or phrase, and the way she would sit still when she finished and wait for his applause. And he would always applaud.

Joel’s mum would never moralise on a story, she just said the magic words and those wonderful images stayed with Joel for the rest of the night, and for the rest of his life, and his body and soul kept them, and he learnt a lot from them without realising it.

Sometimes, the words in the stories were new to Joel, but not really. Their musicality told him what they meant, so how could the words be changed from one telling to the next? It was impossible! Different words meant a different tale, and he didn’t want a different one, not just yet.

On other occasions, stories spoke of death and loss, and it was OK with Joel, because that is what life is like, and there is no use denying sad events in life. However, he really loved happy endings, and he understood they could not all be happy.

Joel loved to listen to the words and their rhythm, to the sound effects his mother produced for every single story. He loved the images he created in his head, or the ones he saw in pictures his mother showed him. He would really feel the heat, the cold, the wind, the grass and many other things in the stories and he enjoyed that…Joel, being a kid, was connected to the essence of things, and that was why he could understand and enjoy all things so much even if he has never seen them in real life.

Joel possessed a choleric temperament, so he loved stories with brave characters and great adventures, and he loved it when his stories were told energetically.

Joel loved stories so much, because they were like bread to his soul. Just like there was a home made remedy for every little illness he suffered, there was also a story for every moment in his young life.

Above all, Joel and his mum knew very well in their hearts and souls, that only those who could open their hearts to the great imagination of fairy tales and stories as kids, would be able to understand the real language and meaning of life in depth as adults.

So long!


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