WELCOME TO PARABOLA’S ISSUE ON IMAGINATION, which is also our first Story Issue. The confluence seems appropriate because at their best, stories offer guidance on the spiritual path. The story of Jesus, or the life of the Buddha, or the tales of Beelzebub told by G. I. Gurdjieff come to mind.
This issue of Parabola features nine stories drawn from nine cultures. First comes “The Heart Eater,” a traditional story from the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone, translated and retold for Parabola by Ishmael Beah, the author of A Long Time Gone, the bestselling memoir of Beah’s harrowing time as a child soldier. Joining Beah with another story is the woman who sheltered him from war, his adoptive mother, renowned storyteller Laura Simms. The issue also includes a traditional story heard in the mountains of Bhutan and retold by Bhutanese folklorist Dorji Penje. Internationally acclaimed storyteller Diane Wolkstein contributes an excerpt from the Chinese epic Monkey King. Psychologist Jean Houston reintroduces readers to one of the great Western epic stories, the Odyssey, and Parabola’s epicycle editor Margo McLoughlin offers a tale that demonstrates the universality of themes (and human character traits) across traditions.
Imagination plays a critical role in helping us explore how the world works. As anyone who has prayed or meditated knows, imagination can too often and too easily take the form of daydreaming and distracted thinking. Yet as demonstrated by Thomas Shor’s true-life tale here of fantastic Tibetan adventure, and by Stephan A. Schwartz’s provocative witnessing of a shaman tearing a crack in the cosmic egg, imagination can bring us into contact with a reality greater than that known by our everyday minds. (As St. Paul said, “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.)
With five further essays from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Traditionalist, and scientific perspectives, the evidence indicates that, as with any faculty, imagination proves useful or not depending upon intent and aim. In this issue’s special Story Section, we hope that the tales offered prove of enduring use, opening the heart and mind toward the eternal questions, toward the Unknown Self.
– Jeff Zaleski (Editor)
