Introduction

Creation is both matter and spirit.

The crude and the subtle are two parts of the One.

The whole limitless universe, with its infinite diversity, is the expression of Oneness.

The macrocosm and the microcosm.

As above, so it is below. 

The sun and the moon rule over the Earth, as king and queen.

All forms are nurtured into being by the wind, earth, rain and warmth.

Once spirit has manifested, it must then return to spirit –

This is the in-breath and the out-breath of creation. 

Through manifestation and spiritualisation, two become one,

And creation perfects itself.

The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Tristmegistus

Stories crafted to inspire transcendental understanding have been passed down from generation to generation. These are the foundations of all cultures. The urge to create ritual enactments of sacred stories, to maintain the memory of origin and purpose, is the source of all religions. Mythology and ancestral stories use symbolic language, appealing not to literal truth, but more to intuitive understanding. Just as a dream can shed light on shadow areas of individual consciousness, mythology stimulates illumination and self-realization for the village, clan or tribe.

Through the medium of sacred stories, our ancestors continue to speak to us across the ages, from storyteller to storyteller, throughout the generations. Sacred stories offer solutions to the questions of origin, meaning and purpose. They provide a bridge with the ancestors, and help to maintain the memory that links us to our spiritual home. This is not the personal memory of past events, but the memory that unites all.

The stories themselves have subtly evolved, as they are part of living cultures. At times, stories were abandoned or fell into disuse, only to be resurrected once more by future tellers. They have crossed cultural and language barriers, and been retold countless times with new heroes and different gods. The process of how stories have served humanity through the ages is, in itself, an expression of the remarkable adaptive power that lies at the heart of human cultures. As unconscious needs emerge, the collective imagination draws on ancestral memory, and the storyteller, novelist or screenplay writer is a conduit or medium to meet those needs.

The sharing of sacred stories is ceremonial. The storyteller is a messenger who brings the eternal truth to life for the village or clan. During the telling, we are drawn together by the rhythms, the rhymes and the potent imagery, which touch a deep ancestral chord. Ritual responses unite us in laughter, song and tears, and the evocation liberates us from the mundane world of planting, building, cooking, and the other pre-occupations of everyday life. During these ceremonies and sacred rites, the memory of common origin, and the bonds that unite, are restored and strengthened. In possession of the memory of Oneness, we can better maintain the connection between the outer and the inner, the circle and the centre, or Heaven and Earth, within ourselves. Ancestral memory lies dormant within us all, and it can be activated in even the most closed mind, as it is centred in the heart. If we have the ears to listen, and the heart to respond we can hear ancestral memory, carried across the ages, within sacred stories.