UPDATE! – NEW BOOK: Mahabharata: The Eternal Quest by Andy Fraenkel
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Mahabharataproject.wordpress.com
Site of Sacred Storyteller Andy Fraenkel
Sacred Voices Files, Multicultural Storytelling, Workshops, and more…
Nasreddin took off his turban and wiped the sweat from his brow. He had been on the dusty road since morning and now he took refuge from the sun under a magnificent walnut tree, across the way from a watermelon patch. He looked up at the tiny walnuts hanging from the branches and then glanced toward the bulging watermelons. He noticed the scrawny vines that ran along the ground from which the melons grew. Back and forth he looked.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Nasreddin ruminated. “If Allah had only given me the task of arranging this world, I would have put the little walnuts on those little vines and placed the grand watermelons on this grand tree.”
Just then a walnut dropped from the tree and bounced off his balding head. He cringed. His head was smarting. His brain was aching. And he realized he had it all wrong. What if his head had been smashed with a watermelon? Nasreddin realized that Allah, in His infinite wisdom, had arranged it perfectly after all.
Thus speaks the heart’s Companion to those who listen….
From Award Winning Storyteller Andy Fraenkel
Warm Greetings. Sacred Voices is the culmination of years of research, travels and meetings with practitioners of many spiritual traditions. Sacred Voices is an exploration into the world’s sacred traditions. It is both an inquiry and a proclamation. It is an adventure. An offering. A sharing of stories.
Sacred Voices is an invitation to see and hear and speak with our hearts. A confirmation to seek the path of love and understanding. It may seem that there are many voices to many paths, but there is only one voice found everywhere – the healing voice of unconditional love.
The wisdom of the world’s cultures is traditionally shared in the form of storytelling where everyone, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the learned and the not so learned, can find a place. Stories entertain us, help us to grow, to heal, and to understand and honor the world around us.
Franz Kafka tells us that a story should be an ax for the frozen sea around us. The Koran urges, “Tell the tale and let them reflect.” The Jewish writer Elie Wiesel warns us, “To keep a story to oneself is to betray it.” An ancient African storyteller implores us “Hear my story. It’s not the truth, but then again, not everything in it is false.” And W.B. Yeats commands us, “Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart longs for, and have no fear. Everything exists. Everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.”
In 1990 I started gathering materials from which I developed a program of storytelling, poetry and meditations entitled Sacred Voices. Over the years I’ve presented Sacred Voices at colleges, churches, Earth Day celebrations, cultural events, and at interfaith gatherings, including the 1993 Centennial Anniversary of the Parliament of World’s Religions in Chicago and the Religious Communications Congress 2000.
Check out my Programs/Workshops. I offer a workshop of special interest – In Search Of Story – which helps people explore and share the stories of their life’s journey
Also visit my Sacred Voices Files and blog. I hope you enjoy them and that they may inspire you.
Peace with every breath.
Unless otherwise indicated, all text by Andy Fraenkel
Copyright, Andy Fraenkel, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2010, 2011