Sit with Wise Women, Listen to Their Tales

Wise women are weavers of stories. Sitting at the feet of our mothers, grandmothers and aunts and really listening to them from the heart is almost like a ritual. It’s a way to connect with our past and gain new strength for the present.

The kind of oral legacy that older generations give us often has a huge impact. This impact is even bigger than just our genetic inheritance or anything material our elders could ever give us.

These stories have a purpose. Values and principles, magic and spirituality, are interwoven like threads. And we’ll never forget it.

“Wait calmly for a breeze worthy of your flight.”
-Scheherazade-

Anthropology always reminds us that women have been, since ancient times, great transmitters of culture. Females have always been the ones to gather the younger generations at their feet, on their laps. Giving them the gift of oral stories, history, legend.

The female voice has served for many years not only to teach but also mold and inspire young minds towards change. Towards a more equitable progress, bold yet sensitive.

Let’s think about it…

Woman, teller of tales

Maybe we look at countries like Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya and picture the classic submissive woman, no voice or vote of her own. We imagine her cloistered in that patriarchal culture.

However, if you think this, you’re wrong. Because women have never been silent. In fact, we heard their screams and saw their faces fighting for change in the Arab Spring of 2011.

Women have always been there, with their presence, with their wise eyes, and above all with their voice. It matters not whether they live in oppressive or discriminatory societies.

They start peaceful revolutions in the home — with their words. With language that combines sensitivity and intelligence, the traditional with the challenging.

It’s very common for women to tell stories about other women. Because the story of life itself is found in these tales. They are oral legacies often silenced in public for making people uncomfortable or being too revolutionary.

Hence the importance of those intimate spaces where grandmothers, mothers and aunts gather their youngsters to tell them what other women are achieving.

It’s an exceptional use of language as a critical conscience. It works for progress.

Stories as a form of therapy

Listening to a meaningful and inspiring story acts does huge things inside of us. That is, stories push us upwards, towards insight and truth in order to initiate change.

Think about how your brain reacts when it listens to a story told out loud. We don’t receive just the message. Our minds are marked by the emotion too. This makes the memory more permanent.

This explains why even now, well into adulthood, we remember with such precision the stories our grandmothers told us as children.

The use of language is an art, it is therapy. It’s the tool we use to create dynamics with which we confront others and through which we get to know ourselves.

Therefore the stories women pass down generation to generation are truly healing. They are a means of personal growth for the following generations.

A story always contains values and emphasizes things that should inspire us. It costs nothing to sit at the feet of the wise women in our lives to listen to stories from the past. Stories that speak of a different era.

Stories are a universal language

Because love always speaks the same language. Disappointments all feel somewhat the say, in the past as well as in the present.

Let’s listen to their voices. Let’s be part of a legacy that shouldn’t be lost. Let us seek time with them. There, we will find wisdom.