Re-membering the Tales
Next steps to walk with the tales
Over the next articles of this series, we will cast the fractal net and the abyssal ground that gives context to the Tales of the Serpent and the Moon. We start with disappointment and then reclaim the Cosmic-Chthonic Cartography, that of the primeval subterranean mysteries, inviting some mythical entities to assist us on the journey.
The ancient Washer Mouras1 help us wash deep History, bathing and purifying the Christian veils. The brave Warrior Mouras guard the entrances to other perceptions of the world, hybrid and shamanic, and we ask for their help to get through. We then evoke the Building Mouras, who build bridges of the relationship between worlds and dimensions, and we draw on their strength to rest for a while and continue the journey. The ancestral fire of imagination will be evoked together with the Enchanted Mouras, Maidens and Princesses. And in the end, or perhaps in the beginning, we ask for the sacred assistance of the Spinning Mouras, who bring us the valuable threads with which we can mend the Shawl on the Loom of Enchantment, providing tools to work with the tales in a symbolic, ritual and creative way.
Disappointed Mouras
THE DISENCHANTMENT OF GROWING UP STORYLESS
I have long felt orphaned by Western culture, alone in the deep feelings that flow through my body and Soul, with all the ancient and visceral needs having nowhere to go, and landing in a vacuum devoid of connections instead of benefiting from the guidance and embrace of the earth and the elders; instead of actively participating in the reciprocity for the (re)emergence of balance, communally and humbly maintaining and repairing the living web of creation.
The culture I was born into has forgotten its transformational tools, experiences and wisdom. Usually, in seeking deep meanings, we are inspired by and essentially learning/stealing/borrowing from other cultures (which is different from the real-life experience of sacred wisdom exchange between cultural groups). In this culture, we take knowledge from the context of the earth and the sentient beings that make it up, usually without saying thank you or acknowledging its origins, and reducing the deep complexity of wisdom, always looking for absolute truths laid out in easy-to-read lists. We act this way for many reasons (illusions of rights without responsibilities or consequences, ignorance or simply rudeness), but mainly because of a hunger for deeply rooted metaphors. Even information, not necessarily wise, available today in Western culture is fragmented, normative, biased, sometimes superficial and almost always dogmatic. It usually does not support or embrace all the nuances, paradoxes, phases, cycles and unique diversity of the complex living systems we are and belong to.
This culture is afraid. Afraid of loss, scarcity, difference and death. So, it tries to control, subjugate, normalise, simplify, linearize and sever connections that might bring chaos to its illusion of pure security and control.
I also see much of this deep loneliness in my work with others. When we talk about personal challenges, defeats, losses, heartbreak and grief, we inevitably come to the normative culture that cages us, confronting what it asks of us, and challenging what it neglects. How it closes us off, confining us in Soulless exile walls from what we superficially manifest, forgetting who we are, despite our cyclical nature and the real needs for guardianship, connection and in-depth relationships that forge our ancient and deep-rooted responsibility to care.
It is a culture that lives in the mind, fearful of being confronted by ambiguity, paradox, diversity, or complexity. So, the solutions are usually recipes for making lists and superficial positive statements.
The tamed mind has forgotten the ancient power of heart, place, and body. This modern mind lives and creates this culture of plunder and extraction, walls and fences, strictly good or bad. It has forgotten its roots, belonging, abundance and spontaneity. It has left us without a foundation to care deeply about all life.
Growing up without stories
I grew up in an urban environment, from a biologist mother and an engineer father. Following science as the only God, family stories were about technology, facts or science. I grew up without stories, as everything was reduced to facts or formulas, the right and wrong. But I knew that having no stories is itself a story. In the narrative of my childhood, stories were nothing but inventions of something inferior or immature, nothing to take seriously, as they were just empty entertainment that diverted us from what was really important. Not that it was said in these words literally, but it was the meta-message of my daily life. Indeed, often what is not said is reinforced and stamped on our perception of the world.
And yet, there was a fascinating story that fed my inner mythology. On bright summer nights by the ocean, my father used to expound on the universe, saying that before starlight reached Earth, the star itself might have exploded millions of years ago, so light travelled alone through the cosmos in an ancient pilgrimage of photons illuminating the night skies. This story captivated me because it carried mystery, although my father told it for the science and all the factual elements. The mystery attracted me because it was not abundant in the exact science narrative of my childhood, where everything could be measured and emotions and feelings repressed to the inevitable non-existence of the invisible. If I only knew the right method or specification, I would be "successful," I would be able to understand life.
My parents did the best they could, however, they were born into a gap generation. This period found a new purpose in dissociation and intellectual superiority in science and technology, neglecting ancestral stories, and abandoning the land as it was full of folklore and traditional beliefs, which were seen as inferior knowledge - not even considered wisdom, just the device of hard and poor lives, full of idle beliefs. People fled from the scarcity of poverty and hunger, believing modern science would save the world from this harsh reality.
Consequently, I grew up without stories. No stories about the ocean or the deep. No stories of the land, the forests, or the mountains. Nothing spoke, not even the animals. I grew up in a void of deep relationships with the land and the ancestors. Devoid of belonging. There were no subtleties, subjectivities, or fascination because everything could be measured and mapped, the world was very objective - just a dead place that served as a backdrop for human life and needs. A factual context that did not hear the embrace of life's songs or cosmic rhythms.
There could be no dialogue because the expected answers were, to be exact, in a monolithic language and always and exclusively human. Such an immature need to validate the abstract human-centric vision of the world, totally oblivious to the richness of nature and its abundant voices.
My family told me stories are just imagination for small children, simple fantasies to help the little ones sleep. There's nothing there, just illusions and empty fantasies. Fables avoid reality itself, so they could never be trustworthy. You can never factually measure a story or a myth. But despite all the warnings, I read Fernanda Frazão's Colecção de Lendas Portuguesas (EN: Portuguese Legends Collection) repeatedly, sitting on my bedroom floor, on the living room floor, or wherever it suited me. The Lady with Goat's Feet and The She-Wolf’s Maid fascinated me, and I read them over and over again.
Still, I grew up believing that I had no stories that connect us, the ones that bring meaning and help us to belong beyond facts or causes. And as a consequence, I lost myself, falling into the monolithic superficiality of factual abstractions - separate from the Soul of the world and my visceral place in it. I grew up without stories, but that made me (re)discover them throughout my life.
Some thirty years later, with the birth of my first daughter, the stories began to (re)weave themselves inside me. But this time, I noticed, heard, and recalled forgotten memories of the mystery of invisible things. I began to recognize the stories I had been sewing inside me as a child, especially when I was daydreaming - those moments I had to hide because the stories weren't real, and it was shameful to waste time imagining them. However, I nurtured them throughout my body and Soul over the years, so the stories flourished when I became a mother. The meaning and mystery embraced me and fed me once again.
I never want to go back, I never want to accommodate forgetfulness, I don't intend to silence the world or the cosmos again. Because stories are alive with their own pattern and vibration, and it is not me who controls or creates them, I am only in ancestral dialogue.
Why are these tales important now?
INTRO, tale list and chapter references.
THE TALES
The Goat Girl - Belinda & Benilde & What breathes through the Tale
The Shepherdess - Hystera and the thread of life & What breathes through the Tale
The Red Cloak - Ananta the She-Wolf Woman & What breathes through the Tale
Lucífera and the Cauldron - The Cinder Girl & What breathes through the Tale
Carisa - The First Wailer & What breathes through the Tale
Monster Sanctuary - Brufe and the Bears & What breathes through the Tale
Queen of the West Sea - Oki-usa and the Black Rock & What breathes through the Tale
FOLLOWING CHAPTERS
Remembering the Tales / Disappointed Moors - The Disenchantment of Growing up Storyless, Part I
Disappointed Moors - The Disenchantment of Growing up Storyless, part II
Washing Moors - Washing History, part I
Washing Moors - Washing History, part II
Builder Mouras - Mythical Territory
Warrior Mouras - Guarding and Protecting the Sacred - Part I
Warrior Mouras - Guarding and Protecting the Sacred - Part 2
Enchanted Mouras - The Power of Imagination
Spinning Mouras - Telling and Weaving the Stories
From the Book - Contos da Serpente e da Lua, Sofia Batalha(in portuguese)
T.N.: In Iberia, the name “mora encantada” (Spanish) or “moura encantada” (Portuguese) is a hybrid denomination for nature spirits, dryads, or goblins, or spirits of the dead, as well as actual Moors who lived in the territory and professed the Islamic religion. Theories regarding the etymological origin of the words range from Gaelic to Greek to Latin.