The function of stories is to regulate the household of our soul. They are part of our interior ecology. They transform, heal and educate the psyche, and via the psyche the world. Review from New View Magazine UK, Summer Edition 2007
"This beautifully written and wise book taps into a deep source, the spring of imagination which is at the same time a fount of healing. Horst Kornberger shows how stories and reality are not two separate realms but can and must continually inform each other. It is an obvious but much overlooked truth that we create in our outer world and circumstances the realities that live within us. Imagination precedes reality, says Kornberger, as the mother precedes and nurtures the child. The cornucopia of stories which pour from the human psyche are a soul ecology which we must nurture and without which the deep woods of the soul can become a wasteland...
If you have anything to do with children, buy this book. If you have anything to do with yourself, buy it as well."
Matthew Barton
Read the complete review hereThe Tale in the Tale
The Tale in the Tale Stories surround us. We can never escape their influence. Our own life is a story in the making and with every deed and decision we continue the telling of it. Our own story is embedded in the larger tale of our time and interwoven with the many tales of all those we meet. We are story-beings and because of it we are often helped by the stories that come our way. The practice of Story Medicine is as old as the stories themselves. All ancient traditions used stories as a means of transformation and healing. American Indian Medicine administered stories alongside herbal remedies. Therapy in classical Greece was embedded in ritual and mythos. The Druids, the healer priests of the Celts, began their training with a long apprenticeship to a bard. In the Sufi tradition tales are used to heal the first and last of wounds — the separation from the divine. Read more from The Tale in the Tale...
Arabian Nights: A Manual of Story Medicine
The Arabian Nights is a collection of Persian tales. Their hero is Scheherazade, unofficial patron saint of Story Medicine. It is her marvellous telling of stories over one thousand and one nights that heals the fatal obsessions of King Sharya. The stories of the Arabian Nights are ornamental and complicated like the patterns of Islamic art, aptly expressed in the flowing calligraphy of Arabic script rather than the staccato of western print. The tales are like a costly Persian rug, a flying carpet for the imagination woven from the weft and warp of stories within stories within stories. In their original form they are adult tales, unsuitable for children, with moments of unashamed eroticism. Read superficially, they are simply entertainment, a noisy bazaar of tales. Read more closely, the labyrinth reveals itself as an authoritative manual on Story Medicine. Read more from Arabian Nights: A Manual of Story Medicine...
The First of Tales
The first of tales is the most important tale of all. Though we never remember it, it is the one tale we never forget. For it has become who we are. It has shaped us before we have shaped ourselves.
It is the tale of care, told by the mother in the primal language of love; it is her presence and warmth. It is a tale elaborated upon by the father, by brothers and sisters, by family and friends. It is the long tale told before words, in the vernacular of touch, the texture of skin, the taste of milk, the cocoon of warmth.
It is the story expressed through the comfort of closeness, the tone of voice, the mantle of smells; through all the changing moods that mark the seasons of family life. But most of all it is told through the mother, who sifts the coarse world through the gossamer of care. Read more from The First of Tales...
The Mother Tongue
The expression ‘mother tongue' is especially apt: language is our second mother. In the care of this mother we imbibe a whole world of nuances, attitudes and ways of seeing that are indigenous to our culture. Language structures our world. It pervades our perceptions with meaning and so shapes the way we see and how we feel about the world. Each language filters reality in unique ways. Compare the English word tree with its German equivalent Baum. ‘Tree' is a straight and tall word. It emphasises the trunk. A tree is best looked at from a distance. It can be used for ship masts and long beams. Tree is a slim, thin, longish, almost pointed word. A word that awakens, rises and moves. ‘Baum' is different. It is comforting and encompassing. Baum is a steady and slow word, suggesting largeness and roundness, perhaps standing by itself on the village square with dense foliage and ample shade. People gather beneath it in the afternoon. The word ‘Baum' makes lovers carve love-hearts in its bark for it is an embracing word. Read more from The Mother Tongue...
The Childhood of Language
Children with brothers and sisters are lucky. Siblings are reliable company. They are our first community and the perfect opportunity to learn the human trade of give and take, closeness and distance. The mothering tongue also provides us with siblings — the hums and songs, play-languages and nursery rhymes that populate our early years, as playful as any brother or sister. The hum comes first. Born at the same time as we are, she is our delicate twin-sister (the ruffian nursery rhyme is older brother). The hum continues the music of the womb. It is the softest of all songs, the swaddling clothes woven from the mother’s voice. It envelops the child like a cocoon, soothing its entrance into the world of sound. The hum is the first music, a primal song in which mother and nature still coincide. Like a slow, warm, steady cradle it calms the baby into contentment. Read more from The Childhood of Language...
The Trial of Boredom
Boredom is a modern epidemic. It is persuasive and highly infectious. Boredom has two faces: one that is bored not knowing what to do and one that is bored whatever it does. The faces are identical twins; it is hard to tell which is which. Such patterns often have their origin in childhood. The problem of boredom comes in many guises and it begins to court us seriously at the age of five. If it is not dealt with then, it may weave itself into the fabric of our life. It either finds a hidden niche to wait or it is kept unashamedly as a favourite pet. Boredom’s most outstanding feature is its insatiability: the more it is fed the more it writhes in contortions of hunger. It is unfailingly opportunistic and is always ready to pounce on our time. Read more from The Trial of Boredom...
Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia
I am in two minds about Rowling's creation, particularly as literature for young children. I think the books and films are often encountered too early. Harry Potter is great fantasy, but a certain foundation of soul needs to be established before a child enters the gothic labyrinth of Hogwarts. The Potter books are based on the mystery novel and the emotional suspense created by this genre. In most mystery novels we do not know who the murderer is until the very end. In the Harry Potter books, the murder is yet to come. Though we know it is the Dark Lord who is attempting to kill Harry, we do not know under which mask he is hiding. This makes the books even more harrowing for the soul than conventional mysteries. Read more from Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia...