morgan schatz blackrose

* 路(lù)遥(yáo)知(zhī)马(mǎ)力(lì), 日(rì)久( jiǔ)见(jiàn)人(rén)心(xīn) Over a long distance, you learn about the strength of your horse; over a long period of time, you get to know what's in a person's heart.

Roman and I attended The Shanghai International Literary Festival in March 2010, and presented a bookmaking and storytelling workshop. I began with the Haitian folktale, Tipingee. Its one of my favourites because it shows the resourcefulness of children and their ability to care for each other. There is an action rhyme that invites children to participate in the story and it offers a poetically just resolution: Tipingee's stepmother's attempts to sell the girl are thwarted by the cunning, collective actions of the children, resulting in her own demise and Tipingee's new life living with her friends.

Although I have been telling this tale for a number of years, I felt a particular need to share it in light of the recent earthquake in Haiti. Telling to an audience of caring parents who had brought their children along to this family activity made it all the more poignant; a contrast to the lives of hundreds of thousands of orphaned children who are doing their best to survive the devastation of their country.

One of my purposes as a storyteller is to ensure that people don't forget. If we forget, we become complacent, insular and disconnected. However it is not enough for me to simply remember a story; I need to contextualize it in relation to other stories, personal, folkloric, historical and contemporary. Even if I don't tell my listeners why I've chosen a particular story to tell, I need to know myself why I am telling it.

Telling Tipingee at this time ensured that for all listeners the resourcefulness and resilience of children could be celebrated in the entertaining format of an oral performance, and yet the real life experiences of Haitian children could be easily realized by the adults.

During my visit to Shanghai I chose to read Adeline Yen Mah's book, A Thousand Pieces of Gold. It explores the relationship between her own experiences growing up in Shanghai, the history of China and Chinese Proverbs. A storyteller after my own heart, she successfully interwove the story of her life to events and people across time, cultures and countries.

She explained about thinking in proverbs and I immediately identified with her because I think in stories. Traditional stories help me make sense of the world and show me a way to live productively within it. I know that I can be an Australian storyteller, telling a Haitian folktale to a cosmopolitan audience in China and it makes perfect sense, because the story transcends time, place and culture to connect to all humanity.

References:

The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales, by Diane Wolkstein, Shocken: NYC, 1978.

A Thousand pieces of Gold, by Adeline Yen Mah, Harper Collins: London 2002

Photograph by Roman W. Schatz

Filed under // China Haiti literary festival shanghai

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Butterfly Boy

I wrote this poem as a way of retelling the Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi's famous story, The Dream of the Butterfly. Discussions of oneness, awareness and transformation have been inspired by the story's telling and retelling over the 2300 years since Zhuangzi wrote his insights into human nature and the nature of the cosmos.

Butterfly Boy

In the warmth of the sun,

In the cool of the breeze,

a boy went to sleep

in the shade of the trees

and dreamt,

he was a butterfly.

With silken wings

of colours bright,

He swooped and soared,

both left and right.

No happier creature

ever took flight.

Then he alighted

on a leaf,

And the boy

awakened

from his deep, deep sleep.

My wings are limbs

I cannot fly.

I am a boy dreaming

I was a butterfly.

But then his heart

it leapt for joy,

Perhaps he was a butterfly,

dreaming

he was a boy.

Who am I? How do we define ourselves? So often we are defined by our relationship with others; Roman's wife, Moriah's mother, Lorna's daughter. We identify with our work: Morgan the storyteller, musician or writer, or our socio-cultural identity: Australian, global citizen, woman, feminist. We are like the elephant in the Indian story 'The 6 blind Men and the Elephant', who each man describes differently, depending on what part he has touched. I am all and none of the above, depending on the context I am defining myself in. As to being ascribed an identity by others, that is simply for the describer's convenience. Sometimes I feel like the broadest epithet is the most appropriate for me. I am a human being. But there have been times when I don't feel human. There have been times when I don't feel...

We believe we can be anything, everything, something, or nothing. The fact that these feelings can co-exist is testament to the mutable nature of our identity.

The Boy and the Butterfly is a comfort to me in the paradoxical world of constant change. A reminder that all things pass, and in the words of the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus, (544 - 483 BCE) No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

Photo by Roman W. Schatz

Filed under // China Zhuangzi butterfly transformation

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The Useless Tree

I look at my mandolin and I think about my role as a lifesaver. Drowning in a river? Quick, grab my mandolin and I'll pull you out. Maybe not. And the roar went up,' Its the storyteller, the city is saved!' These are unlikely scenarios, but do beg the question of the role of artists, musicians and writers to 'save the world.' I do lump us all together because there is a crossover in both our working mediums and identity. As a storyteller I identify as all three. And I'm sure you couldn't find three more useless groups if you looked the world over (lets assume jugglers, dancers, actors and poets are in the mix). We are not builders, engineers, manufacturers, agriculturalists, doctors, scientists, cleaners...in short, useful people. Plumbers are needed, painters are not, unless they paint buildings and bridges. Maths, English and Science are mandatory school subjects, whereas art, dance, drama and music are not. You may well hear 'we're all very proud of him; he's a surgeon/chemist/architect, but how often do you hear 'we're all very proud of him, he's a poet?

While I am in agreement with the sentiment of the US painter Robert Henri (1865 - 1929) who said that he was interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living, the reality is that being a storyteller is how I make my living. I know I am not going to invent a life saving medicine or help humanity in any great way. No-one is ever going to say 'We've got an emergency. Is there a storyteller in the house?' Some may consider artists indulgent and art a luxury, but I believe art serves a purpose. A play may act as a bridge between cultures, a poem may inspire hope, a song may revive a spirit, a painting document history, a sculpture unite a community and a story may offer a means of understanding the world. The intrinsic value of art is stated succinctly by Albert Camus (1913 -1960) in his declaration, 'There is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it.'

In that light I'd like to share my tale, extrapolated from the story, The Useless Tree by the fourth century BCE Chinese Philosopher Chuang Tzu, now known as Zhuangzi.

There was once an old man who took his grandson to the top of a hill, where stood a solitary tree. Its trunk was knotted and gnarled, its branches twisted and bent. The boy turned to his grandfather and asked why he had brought him to this tree.

The old man smiled and gestured to the barren land around them.

"Once the earth here was covered with tall trunked, straight limbed trees, but the woodcutters came and cut them all down for their timber."

"But why didn't they take this one?" asked the boy.

"Because it is of no use to them," answered the Grandfather.

And the two sat down in the shade of the useless tree and shared stories.

Photo: The Useless Tree by Roman W. Schatz

Filed under // China Zhuangzi tree

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morgan schatz blackrose

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* 路(lù)遥(yáo)知(zhī)马(mǎ)力(lì), 日(rì)久( jiǔ)见(jiàn)人(rén)心(xīn) Over a long distance, you learn about the strength of your horse; over a long period of time, you get to know what's in a person's heart.

Butterfly Boy

The Useless Tree