Hidden in Plain View

I found what I was looking for.

Just as I was told in shrine, it was hidden in the tales of my childhood. Not the one offs which occupied me for a day or a week and then faded, but the stories which were on a rotation in my mind, like so many television channels to entertain me in private moments. Stories that were never written. Stories which, when they are stripped down to their naked core, to the themes that bind them under the flashy bits, say something about the mind that brought them into existence and the heart that kept them alive over months and years.

I think showing the exercise I have gone through is useful to others because those who are natural tellers of tales may find exactly what I have found by repeating the process. But a tip for others who want to try it:

No, don’t do this with your written stories: do it with your personal stories. If this will work for you at all, you know what I am talking about. I’m talking about those ones which are too guarded and too secret for you to share them with the world— save for perhaps an intent to jot them down “someday”… which is a lie we tell ourselves to justify the existence of these secret fantasies.

Once you have a list of them, the handful or so that have stood the test of time for you, simplify them until nothing but a sketch of a theme is left. It might take several tries to get them stripped down enough. Then, put them in order (roughly) of when they were conceived and they will tell you about yourself.

Here is an example from my own work with this:

The important thing to note, is that none of these stories have anything in common (“duplicates” were grouped and the most powerful among them selected before the stripping process). But despite the apparent differences at the surface level, once put in the order, their core concepts follow one another naturally, and one can see a history in them. The ones listed here are the oldest of mine. They have faded now, but were once important to me, and they speak of things which were once important to me and hint at what has been learned through the years:

A story about starting over after devastating tragedy and learning from the lessons of the past without letting those memories hold you back. (Keeper of Griffins)
A story about reclaiming hope and about honoring the memories of the lost. (Angels Within Us)
A story about reincarnation, redemption, and the meaning of self. (The Book of Eveylon)
A story about recovering from abuse through inner strength and gaining the courage to forgive but not repeat the cycle. (Psi-Gate)
A story about breaking away from society's expectations to follow ones heart. (Wild Wolf)
A story about the sometimes difficult and dangerous nature of the obsessions surrounding the creative process and about the foolishness of blind love and what makes mature relationships work. (The Ebony Room)
A story about taking on duty and a lesson about the honor required to see a commitment through even when the commitment is more than one bargained for. (Lantern Lighters)

They read like a chronology of my inner life. They are a history of my soul. And though I have not outwardly focused on myself in recent years, I have continued to work within, through the medium of story. And those which are still on rotation in my mind? They reveal something else:

A story about overcoming memories of abuse and betrayal, and learning to trust others enough to reveal ones true self to them. (Project Psion—a reworking of Psi-Gate)
A story about the power of creativity, the nature of balance and duality, and about learning to rely on oneself instead of on oracles. (Life Eternal—which shares some story elements with The Ebony Room)
A story about maturing and returning to once forsaken childhood dreams with the wisdom of age, expecting to find the ashes of what once was, only to find, instead, that the light of the hope has not diminished and that destiny is never lost. (Return to Talgeria)
A story about the brutal, but natural, cycle of life and death, and the importance of ancestry, and which also deals with the nature of trials and rightly earning the recognition one gets, as well as how that path can lead to strong and deep relationships with others who have walked it before you. (The Penumbra)

This time it reads not as a chronology but as a map. This is what is important to me now (in some cases, what has always been important and is still being worked on). These are the things that occupy my heart and mind whenever I am idle, and sometimes, even when I’m not. They are not just tales of what was…they are my present, and the foundation on which my future is being built.

So here is the thing which I have been looking for. Things which (as They told me) I say without saying. And while I know that the exact nature of what they say is cryptic to anyone who is not me, that is to be expected because personal truths are often cryptic simply by their nature, and the larger point is that it makes sense:  look into what you have created to find what you are trying to create.