morgan schatz blackrose

stories in my life
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Storyteller, Musician, Author and Traveller. www.schatzblackrose.com All stories are copyright of Morgan Schatz Blackrose Available for performances, concerts, workshops worldwide

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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

Butterfly

Filed under  //  China   Zhuangzi   butterfly   transformation  
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The Leopard Woman

Change. I am experiencing the change of seasons, metaphorically speaking, but I'm also in Switzerland during November, and can therefore witness the changing colours of the leaves and their subsequent fall as autumn or herbst as it is known as here, moves into Winter. It is a transformation, testament to the power and beauty of Nature. It is also a reminder of how my own life as a woman is mirrored in that of the apple tree; blossoming, fruitful, vibrantly clothed and finally naked. I too have experienced the seasons, although unlike the apple tree, not as an annual event. And yet even if my appearance does not reflect the season I am in, I can feel like Spring with the budding of a new idea, bountiful Summer when I have gifts to share with my friends and family or as vulnerable as the apple tree in Winter as the passing years take their toll on my body. My transformations are governed by my choices, with some concessions to hormones. The following folktale has always resonated with my belief that we always have a choice. I choose Life.

The Leopard Woman  - a retelling of a Liberian folktale

There was once a man and a woman who prepared themselves for a long journey. The woman strapped their child to her back, along with two gourds, one filled with water, the other with corn. She carried her favourite pot, a bag of medicinal herbs and a digging stick. The man carried his hunting knife and spear.

They walked for many hours, until the child wailed for food. They stopped in the shade of a mango tree and the woman transferred the baby from her back to her breast. When she had finished feeding him she returned him to her back and collected wood to make a cooking fire. As she prepared a meal, she sang a lullaby to him.

la la Udolo la la o

la la Udolo la la ay

la la Udolo la la o

la la Udolo yay dom o ay.

 

The following day they travelled again, stopping near a waterhole to refill the gourd. The woman lay the child down upon the ground to kick his legs, while she pounded the corn to flour. From the corner of her eye she saw a snake slither up to him.  She screamed, grabbed her digging stick and beat the snake, so it retreated to the bush. She hoisted the child up on to her back and continued with her work, while her husband slept on, in the shade. That afternoon they ate the last of the cornbread, but the man was not satisfied.

"We have one more day's journey," he said, "and I will die of hunger if I do not have meat."

The woman looked at the herd of bush cows leaving the water hole and replied.

"You have your knife and spear. In half a day you could chase down and kill one of those bush cows and I will cook it for us."

But the man sat and sulked. He turned to her and yelled.

‘You can change yourself into anything. Why don't you become a leopard and catch a cow?’

‘Are you serious?’ asked the wife.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Do it.’

‘Husband, are you sure that is what you want?’

‘Yes.’

The woman lay the baby on the ground in front of her. She removed her loincloth and knelt on all fours. Her body began its transformation. Downy fur covered her skin. Beneath her spotted pelt the woman's muscles enlarged and lengthened. Her senses sharpened. Her hands and feet sprouted razor-sharp claws and her mouth filled with fangs. She bared her teeth and snarled at the man facing her.

Realizing that he was staring at a leopard, the man panicked and bolted to the nearest tree. He scaled its trunk and hid in the foliage. In a few bounds the leopard was at the foot of the tree. She ranged around it, staring at the man hiding in its branches. In an instant she could leap up and drag him to the ground. He crouched on a limb, deeply regretting the foolish demand he placed on his wife. If only there was something to distract the beast.  And then he heard the child's cry.

The leopard left the tree and padded over to the waterhole. She sniffed the squirming bundle that lay on the ground in front of her. Feeling the animal's hot breath on his face and seeing her toothy grin, the baby wailed. The man closed his eyes and looked away. But the leopard sprang over the child and ran after the herd. She singled out a small heifer and brought her down, then dragged the carcass back and dumped it at the foot of the tree.

The man called down to her.

‘Change back. Change back.’

The fur and fangs receded, her senses diminished and the woman returned to her self. But the man would not come down from the tree until she had put on her loincloth and picked up the baby. When he did touch the ground he could barely look at her.

‘You must never do that again,’ he reprimanded. ‘You might have killed me.’

‘Yes,’ said the woman, ‘but I chose not to.’

She smiled as she brought the baby to her breast.

‘The power of transformation lives within me. I can call upon it at my will, but it must always be my choice to do so’.

 

Source: African Folktales selected and retold by Roger D. Abrahams ©1983 Pantheon New York  
Photo by Roman Schatz

Leaves

Filed under  //  Africa   Liberia   folktale   transformation  
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