Many stories can be summed up in a few tales. Storytelling can be understood as a wonderful and powerful crystal that grows deep in the narrator’s mind and heart to flourish in words and images.
Let me briefly introduce to you the four main parts of this book as if I were describing beautiful flowers. But may those special flowers, instead of withering and perishing, grow and blossom, again and again, in your lives…
Let’s imagine a circle made out of those four elements. They make a wheel, a vivid wheel spinning over the world and in its innermost part: our hearts. If a traveller could travel to the end of the world, he might discover this wheel turning in front of him and within him. And he would be complete, as one. Indeed, those four elements form an idea of the whole, of the universe. To feel complete, as a being, can be a very difficult task. And an anthology like this one can never be complete until, reader, it is read by you. And your insight completes the circle and makes it turn again.
Like this traveller, let us go to the end of the world, to gaze at those elements scattered in the heavens. And what will be the first journey?
Introduction
Water. Deep water. Infinitely deep water of the primordial ocean, where everything is possible. It is the origin of the world, an ocean far bigger and wider than what we see on earth. Something huge and fantastic, bottomless. It is the return to a kind of dissolution, with all its dangers, and the chance for a new birth. We can find horrid monsters and fascinating creatures in the depths of the water. The liquid cannot support us, but we know that life itself first appeared in water. The unconscious life dwells here, the deepest desires form like fishes in the darkest part of the ocean and then rise towards the light, where they can transform themselves into new dreams and ideas. Water was linked to the ‘lymphatic’ temper in ancient medicine, to signify a sort of calm but rather passive temperament. Of course, our body and the world are bound together by myriads of subtle links and correspondences. The following texts illustrate this in their own ways.
With The Ugly Duckling, by Hans Christian Andersen
, we confront the awkwardness of a different life among more ‘normal’ lives, and the struggle to affirm something worthwhile. Then, with the beginning of The Thousand and One Nights, we hear the whimsical story of Shahrazad and her tormented destiny: because she was supposed to die, she invented a strategy to survive. Water is likewise imagination and invention, the very deep root of our mind that can reveal to us many treasures. Those treasures, unfortunately, can be ambiguous. Machiavelli’s The Prince illustrates how fear itself can be a valuable tool in some situations. Fear, like those unknown monsters from the deep, can show us how strength is often linked to the stranger parts of the human being. Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass tells us that reality can be slightly different from how we usually think about it. And the expression, ‘to walk through the looking-glass’, is now commonly used to explain how the way we perceive reality can be altered, sometimes in its own way, and without us. The Art of War, by Sun-tzu, provides us with enigmatic and puzzling advice. The ground, or the earth, is called forth, but water lies like a sort of reminder – a reminder of the origins of mind and the very basis of will.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The Ugly Duckling
It was so lovely out in the country. It was summer. The rye was yellow, the oats green, the hay had been gathered in stacks down in the green meadows. That’s where the stork was walking around on his long red legs, speaking Egyptian, because that was the language he had learned from his mother. Surrounding the fields and meadows were great forests, and in the middle of the forests were deep lakes. Oh yes, it was truly lovely out in the country! In the midst of the sunshine stood an old estate with a deep moat all around. From the walls and down to the water grew huge dock leaves that were so tall that little children could stand upright under the largest of them. It was just as wild in there as in the thickest forest, and this was where a duck was sitting on her nest. She had to sit there to hatch her little ducklings, but now she was getting tired of it all because it was taking such a long time, and she rarely had visitors. The other ducks were more fond of swimming around in the moat than running over to sit under a dock leaf to chat with her.
Finally one egg cracked open after the other. ‘Peep! Peep!’ they said. All the egg yolks had come alive and were sticking out their heads.
‘Quack! Quack!’ she said, and they all rushed out as fast as they could and looked all around under the green leaves. Their mother let them look as much as they liked, because green is good for the eyes.
‘How big the world is!’ said all the youngsters, because now they had quite a bit more room than when they were lying inside the eggs.
‘You think this is the whole world?’ said their mother. ‘It stretches far away to the other side of the garden, all the way to the pastor’s field, although I’ve never been that far. But you’re all here now, aren’t you?’ And then she got up. ‘No, I don’t have all of you. The biggest egg is still lying here. How long is it going to take? I’m getting very tired of this!’ And then she sat down again.
‘So, how’s it going?’ said an old duck who came to visit.
‘One egg is taking such a long time,’ said the duck on the nest. ‘It won’t crack open. But take a look at the others. They’re the loveliest ducklings I’ve ever seen! They all look like their father, that rogue who never comes to see me.’
‘Let me look at the egg that won’t crack open,’ said the old duck. ‘I’ll bet it’s a turkey egg! I was once fooled like that myself, and I had my share of troubles with those youngsters, because they’re afraid of the water, let me tell you. I couldn’t get them to go in. I quacked and snapped, but it did no good. Let me see that egg. It’s a turkey egg, all right! Just leave it here and go teach the other children to swim.’
‘I think I’ll sit on it for a while longer,’ said the duck. ‘I’ve been sitting here this long, I might as well sit here the rest of the summer.’
‘Be my guest,’ said the old duck, and then she left.
Finally the big egg cracked open. ‘Peep! Peep!’ said the youngster and tumbled out. He was so big and hideous. The duck looked at him. ‘That’s certainly an awfully big duckling,’ she said. ‘None of the others look like that. He couldn’t be a turkey chick, could he? Well, we shall soon see! Into the water he goes, even if I have to kick him in myself.’
The next day the weather was gloriously beautiful. The sun shone on all the green dock plants. The mother duck and her whole family went down to the moat. Splash! She jumped into the water. ‘Quack! Quack!’ she said, and one duckling after the other plopped in. The water washed over their heads, but they popped up at once and floated around so beautifully. Their legs moved on their own and all of them were in the water; even the hideous grey youngster was swimming along.
‘No, he’s not a turkey,’ she said. ‘Look how beautifully he uses his legs, how erect he holds himself! That’s my child! Actually he’s quite handsome if you take a good look. Quack! Quack! Come along with me, and I’ll take you out into the world and introduce you to the duck yard. But stay close to me so that no one steps on you, and watch out for the cats.’
And then they went into the duck yard. There was a terrible ruckus going on because two families were fighting over an eel head, and then the cat ended up getting it.
‘See, that’s how things go in the world,’ said the mother duck, licking her bill, because she too would have liked to have had that eel head. ‘Use your legs now,’ she said. ‘See if you can’t hurry it up, and dip your necks to the old duck over there. She’s the most refined of anyone here. She has Spanish blood, that’s why she’s so fat. And see there: she has a red rag around her leg. That’s a remarkably lovely thing and the highest honour any duck can be given. She’s so important that they won’t get rid of her, and both animals and humans must respect her. Hurry up! Don’t put your legs together. A well-mannered duckling keeps his legs far apart, just like Father and Mother. Come on! Now dip your neck and say, “Quack!” ’
And that’s what they did. But the other ducks standing around looked at them and said quite loudly, ‘Look at this! Now we’ve got to deal with that bunch too. As if there weren’t enough of us already. And ugh, just take a look at that duckling! We’re not going to put up with him!’ And one of the ducks flew over and promptly bit him on the back of the neck.
‘Leave him alone!’ said the mother. ‘He’s not hurting anyone!’
‘Yes, but he’s too big and too odd looking,’ said the duck who had bitten him. ‘So he’s going to be pushed around.’
‘What handsome children that mother has!’ said the old duck with the rag around her leg. ‘All of them so handsome except for one; that one certainly didn’t turn out too well. I wish she could hatch that one over again.’
‘That’s not possible, Your Grace,’ said the mother duck. ‘He may not be handsome, but he has a genuinely good nature, and he swims as beautifully as any of the others; yes, I’d venture to say even a little better. I think he’ll be handsome when he grows up, or with time he might get a little smaller. He was too long in the egg, and that’s why he isn’t the right shape.’ Then she plucked at the back of his neck and smoothed out his feathers. ‘Besides, he’s a drake,’ she said, ‘so it doesn’t matter as much. I think he’ll turn out to be strong, and I’m sure he’ll win a place for himself.’