'What happens if the gift is not allowed to move on?'

Lewis Hyde | The Gift

Celebrating the Creative Spirit within You!

Today, in a long time, I had the lovely opportunity of talking to a very senior professor, who is so passionate about creativity!

The call lasted for one hour and forty two minutes to be exact, and all along, we were discussing the various facets of creativity and how it could be made to relate to our academic set-up of today’s, where the ‘creativity part’ has taken a nose-dive for sometime now, for various reasons, what with the ‘creativity code’ or the ‘machine code’, adding to our list, and slowly intruding into the much celebrated ‘creative space’ of humans!

I was in fact, reading through a lovely article on ‘Creativity’, by this vibrant professor, which has insightful analogies and impactful lines for anyone who loves upping their creativity quotient!

There’s this lovely comparison that she’s made between ‘The Thirsty Crow’ and Henry Ford, who according to her, are both alike, innovators!

And Professor then proceeds to examine the concept of ‘Creativity’ through seven beautiful lenses –

Creativity is like a bird

Creativity is like electricity

Creativity is like breathing

Creativity is a muscle

Creativity is insight

Creativity is ‘magic’

Creativity is ‘your signature’

Then, for my little part, I told her about a book I’ve been so obsessed with recently, (yes! reading it for the third time in a span of ten months’ time!) by Lewis Hyde, titled, The Gift!

You might want to read out our past post on The Gift here!

Well, this particular book has the ‘gift’ of offering you such newy-dewy insights of the most tasteful and graceful order, every time you read it anew!

Suchmuch is its charm! Suchmuch its impact! On us, the readers!

Would so love sharing with y’all from that particular part of the Scottish folk tale from the middle of the nineteenth century, from off Lewis Hyde’s The Gift!

It’s titled The Girl and the Dead Man

Once upon a time there was an old woman and she had a leash of daughters.

One day the eldest daughter said to her mother, “It is time for me to go out into the world and seek my fortune.”

“I shall bake a loaf of bread for you to carry with you,” said the mother.

When the bread came from the oven the mother asked her daughter, “Would you rather have a small piece and my blessing or a large piece and my curse?”

“I would rather have the large piece and your curse,” replied the daughter.

Off she went down the road and when the night came wreathing around her she sat at the foot of a wall to eat her bread.

A ground quail and her twelve puppies gathered near, and the little birds of the air.

“Wilt thou give us a part of thy bread?” they asked.

“I won’t, you ugly brutes,” she replied. “I haven’t enough for myself.”

“My curse on thee,” said the quail, “and the curse of my twelve birds, and thy mother’s curse which is the worst of all.”

The girl arose and went on her way, and the piece of bread had not been half enough.

She had not traveled far before she saw a little house, and though it seemed a long way off she soon found herself before its door.

She knocked and heard a voice cry out, “Who is there?”

“A good maid seeking a master.”

“We need that,” said the voice, and the door swung open.

The girl’s task was to stay awake every night and watch over a dead man, the brother of the housewife, whose corpse was restless.

As her reward she was to receive a peck of gold and a peck of silver. And while she stayed she was to have as many nuts as she broke, as many needles as she lost, as many thimbles as she pierced, as much thread as she used, as many candles as she burned, a bed of green silk over her and a bed of green silk under her, sleeping by day and watching by night.

On the very first night, however, she fell asleep in her chair. The housewife came in, struck her with a magic club, killed her dead, and threw her out back on the pile of kitchen garbage.

Soon thereafter the middle daughter said to her mother, “It is time for me to follow my sister and seek my fortune.”

Her mother baked her a loaf of bread and she too chose the larger piece and her mother’s curse. And what had happened to her sister happened to her.

Soon thereafter the youngest daughter said to her mother, “It is time for me to follow my sisters and seek my fortune.”

“I had better bake you a loaf of bread,” said her mother, “and which would you rather have, a small piece and my blessing or a large piece and my curse?”

“I would rather,” said the daughter, “have the smaller piece and your blessing.”

And so she set off down the road and when the night came wreathing around her she sat at the foot of a wall to eat her bread.

The ground quail and her twelve puppies and the little birds of the air gathered about.

“Wilt thou give us some of that?” they asked.

“I will, you pretty creatures, if you will keep me company.”

She shared her bread, all of them ate their fill, and the birds clapped their wings about her until she was snug with the warmth.

The next morning she saw a house a long way off … [here the task and the wages are repeated].

She sat up at night to watch the corpse, sewing to pass the time.

About midnight the dead man sat up and screwed up a grin.

“If you do not lie down properly I will give you one good leathering with a stick,” she cried.

He lay down. After a while he rose up on one elbow and screwed up a grin; and a third time he sat and screwed up a grin. When he rose the third time she walloped him with the stick.

The stick stuck to the dead man and her hand stuck to the stick and off they went!

He dragged her through the woods, and when it was high for him it was low for her, and when it was low for him it was high for her.

The nuts were knocking at their eyes and the wild plums beat at their ears until they both got through the wood. Then they returned home.

The girl was given the peck of gold, the peck of silver, and a vessel of cordial.

She found her two sisters and rubbed them with the cordial and brought them back to life. And they left me sitting here, and if they were well, ′tis well; if they were not, let them be.

This story also gives us a chance to see what happens if the gift is not allowed to move on. A gift that cannot move loses its gift properties.

Traditional belief in Wales holds that when the fairies give bread to the poor, the loaves must be eaten on the day they are given or they will turn to toadstools.

If we think of the gift as a constantly flowing river, we may say that the girl in the tale who treats it correctly does so by allowing herself to become a channel for its current.

When someone tries to dam up the river, one of two things will happen: either it will stagnate or it will fill the person up until he bursts.

In this folk tale it is not just the mother’s curse that gets the first two girls. The night birds give them a second chance, and one imagines the mother bird would not have repeated the curse had she met with generosity. But instead the girls try to dam the flow, thinking that what counts is ownership and size.

The effect is clear: by keeping the gift they get no more. They are no longer channels for the stream and they no longer enjoy its fruits, one of which seems to be their own lives. Their mother’s bread has turned to toadstools inside them.

Another way to describe the motion of the gift is to say that a gift must always be used up, consumed, eaten. The gift is property that perishes. It is no accident that the gifts in two of our stories so far have been food. 

Food is one of the most common images for the gift because it is so obviously consumed. Even when the gift is not food, when it is something we would think of as a durable good, it is often referred to as a thing to be eaten.

For more such lovely folktales, please grab for yourself a copy of The Gift and promise yourself that you’d read it at least a minimum of ten times over and over again! ;-)

As such, continuing further, on this, our long conversation on ‘creativity’ over the phone, I also gently persuaded madam to write down her thoughts on a blog, which would be, in a way, a real sharing of one’s gifts, that the youngest daughter so ably did in the folktale!

The youngest daughter of this folktale so reminds me of my own cousin Dr. Gabriella who is also the youngest paapa in our house, and who always so loves sharing and celebrating the lovely gifts bestowed upon her.

And if you feel, words are the gifts you live by, go ahead and celebrate them rightaway! 

As in Byatt’s Possession, where Christabel LaMotte says in her letter to Ash, ‘Words have been all my life, all my life - this need is like the Spider’s need who carries before her a huge Burden of Silk which she must spin out - the silk is her life, her home, her safety - her food and drink too - and if it is attacked or pulled down, why, what can she do but make more, spin afresh, design anew!’

How trueee!

And today I was doubly delighted when a vibrant alumna of ours at MCC, Aparna mol, sent me the link to her latest blogpost! A beautiful way of celebrating and sharing one’s gift to the world!

I’m so happy and delighted to share the link to Aparna’s blog HERE, [and to the top right of our blog as well!]

Please do read through her post and give your valuable comments for her.

Well, Aparna has been one of our bestest students, and has always been the pride and the delight of all her teachers! She has also cleared her NET with JRF! Apart from having written a lot of feature articles for various magazines in Malayalam, Aparna has also done such noble work during the Kerala floods by helping the deserving and the needy, in her own ways!

Kudos to you dear Aparna mol! We are so proud of you!

And yes! This post would be a clarion call to all ye creative spirits out there, to please bring your gifts to the world! By sharing your gifts you grow and grow, like ‘blossoms of snow’ forever!

To be continued…