Below is a story created on the spot at a Soul Story Circle in Maui, Hawaii.

Dave was the recipient of this story.

 

The best way to consume this content: Listen to the 10 minute recording,  then read the description about how to work with the symbols and metaphors and apply them to your life.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This a story about changing the paradigm about leadership in our time.

 

We begin with Dave, who is riding an elephant.

 

In this story, the elephant is larger than life itself, larger than the moment, larger than the mere symbol of elephant. And so we will treat it as such.

 

While the mountain seems to be the destination:  it is actually what is behind this symbol of destination, but the lake that is the goal. This great lake will quench the thirst of desire, and satiate beyond belief. Dave and the elephant hold the secret of how to get access to the lake, but what isn't expected, as he makes his way across a great desert, is that a great parade of merry partiers will follow you!

 

He wonders about the special access you have to the lake, and his responsibility to this unique access: "Is this for all, or is this for you?" He seeks the answer by knocking on the head of the elephant.

 

By  tapping on the consciousness of this great being...is to arriving at the door step and ask to gain entrance to the great mystery. Because remember, he was not riding just any elephant, but an elephant that was larger than all of life, a being that represents both guide and spirit. 

 

To you I ask: How do you seek to gain answers for your deepest questions? Where do you go? How do you access your answers?

 

Then elephant does something unexpected, she grabs a piece of golden wheat and shakes it above his head, drips of water fall onto him, but not just water, it falls like a waterfall. HIs desire, curiosity, everything, is satiated. Now that he has experienced what is on the other side, he can't imagine not sharing it. What he has access to is to be shared with all, and not to be kept all to himself.

 

An ironic moment in the story where the obvious journey has shifted. It is no longer just about using his secret to gain access. Because now we see he didn't need to go to the lake itself to experience her powers. All he needed to do was know how to ask and be open to receiving.

 

But there is still a question about how to bring this wild group of partiers to the sacred lake. Getting through the mountain is dangerous, people have died.

 

That night, Dave invited people to gather around a fire, and dream with him. In the dream he walked around the outer edge of their circle, knowing something that they didn't because he had touched the water, he ws drenched in its meanings, and as he walked around the circle, with the scent of lake on hiim, everyone else smelled what thet desired, felt what they desired, but unlike Dave, who was embodying it, because they didn't own it themselves, and were lieft with nothing but to snif at lingering smell in the air.... rather than receiving a knowing and confidence about how close they were to getting access to the lake (to the great mystery, to depths of their souls), instead they became filled with fear that they would not actually get what they most desired.

 

This is a pinnacle moment in the story. As teachers, as leaders, how often do we grapple with how to teach? How do we keep ourselves separate? What stories do you create about the limitations of your students? Of your community? Of your children?

 

So then Dave decided to give them a different dream. Some say he reached into the stars, and pulled one out of the galaxy and threw it into the fire. Others say he asked  a redwood to give her life, and as he burned through the night,  her smelled burned into their dreams. Still others say that's hogwash and that you made a special soup and created a potion. This much we know is true. Everyone slept in a way that was most unexpected, they woke up from sleeping as if they had never left the fire. They became suspicious, but the affect was the same, they knew something they didn't know before.

 

When we look at this part of the story, an element that comes in often, some say this happens, some say that happens, we are working in the greatest manner of the mystery. It doesn't matter exactly what created the change....because change is never created by just one thing. I like looking at the scope: in this story Dave had the capacity to reach into the galaxies and pluck a star. He also had the ability to commune with the redwoods and ask them to give their life and wisdom. We should also note that all of this came through the dreamtime, where the lessons that come through can live in our cells and aren't always meant for our literal mind to take hold of them. What I see in this access to the highest part of the heavens, and the deepest and oldest roots in the planet. That the leader needed to know how to access all the breadth of this range in order to...make a potion, or a soup, that could then be digested, metabolized, by the people he was leading.

 

Because this piece of the story takes place in dreamspace, it also makes me consider the work of the teacher who sets an intention to do transformational work: (because remember, how in the story, once he realizes that his technique created fear rather than peace, he reset his intention, and invited everyone into the dreamspace. The deamspace is the place where we alone are masters of our universe). We can only bring people as far along as what we know, and in this case, Dave had great breadth, but didn't need to show it off, instead, he accessed those places, and from it created something that could be digested by all. And when they woke into consciousness, they were different, and they also knew that magic had taken place even though they hadn't seen it happen. Because they felt it.

 

That morning, when the sun rose, rather than form a line with everyone behind him, Dave put elephant at the center, and everyone formed a great line on both sides of her. And as he rode on her back, everyone, all at once, raised their right hand, and all of knock knock knocked together. Mountain, upon hearing the call from so many, opened her great door, and together all walked through.

 

I just love this part of the story, and this is where the real teaching is in the shifting paradigm of leadership. Our leader places his relationship with spirit at the center. He changes the configuration, from following behind, to lining up beside him. And rather than teaching them how to knock, the work he had done in the dreamspace,  gave them access to their own inner knowing, so that they approached the mountain with no fear, no query, just open hearts and a mindset of collaboration.  It would seem, that the great key Dave thought he was holding all along that would give him access, was the key to collaboration. It was when all knocked in unity, that the call was answered.