Stories the Elders Tell

Today’s blog post will be a bit of a mixed bag with some thoughts on storytelling, some thoughts about reading and writing, and of course, art. Let’s see where it takes us….

In a previous blog post I talked about watching the 1990’s TV series called Northern Exposure. One episode in particular looked at storytelling, specifically oral stories told by elders. In the episode, a healer, or medicine man, is trying to discover the stories that white people tell to teach each other the wisdom of the times. He was looking for stories told as myths or legends, as far as I remember. As the healer conducted his interviews, he found that modern white people did not seem to have any stories that modeled the more traditional indigenous oral style. Eventually he came to see that white people, or more aptly, western civilization I’d say, told their stories through movies. I concurred but expanded on that to include books and television.

As I discussed this topic with my wife, Denise, we concluded that the likely reason for the discrepancy between early aboriginal culture and western culture had to do with education. Not education in the sense of wisdom and know-how, but with reading and writing. No disrespect is intended here, but in early times, and not just aboriginal people, people in general were less educated, in terms of reading or writing. As such, it made sense that oral storytelling was the means to impart wisdom. As education became the norm, and more and more people could read and write, that wisdom could be shared in written form. In this way, the stories were not lost, nor were they changed over time like they were when the oral stories passed from one person to the next. Are you familiar with that party game where someone whispers some message in the ear of the next person in a circular setting, and that something gets whispered to the next, and on and on. When the last person receives the message, they say it aloud and the first person tells what the original message was. Quite often, the two messages don’t compare at all. Think about how this is a small sample in a short time frame. Spread that message over eons and millions of people and imagine how the stories would differ. Unless a culture is rewriting books like they did in the movie/book 1984, the stories should remain the same.

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Art Interlude 1

Mosaic – Created by Don Cheke

Mosaic was created while thinking about mosaic patterns and mosaic art. This piece is a result of much experimentation — an abstract background, a stylized butterfly, and text to add a little something. I hope that you like it.

I have been interested in mosaic art for many years. My mother worked at The Catholic Center here in Saskatoon for 30 years. On the front of the building, to the side of the main doors, was a large mosaic featuring a religious theme. I have always thought that it would be an interesting experience to create mosaic art such as this.

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When I discuss books, keep in mind that I include movies and TV in this as well, as most of those are based on written works, be it a script or something similar. This also includes other forms of art as well, including music, with song lyrics and the like.

In a similar vein, keep in mind that when I say elder, I don’t mean people of a certain age or style, like one might imagine an indigenous elder, but rather, anyone who passes along the wisdom they have found through this journey called life. You as the reader may be considered an elder when you pass on your wisdom to your children, or the friends you encounter. Even I can be considered an elder, as this blog I write weekly is being created to share what I have learned. I am not saying that I think I am some wise all-seeing eye, but rather just someone who feels that I have learned things in life that have made my journey better. On top of that, I’m not forcing anyone to read what I write, and I certainly don’t promote myself as some self-appointed influencer. As I always say, take what you like and leave the rest. That said, there was a time after Denise and I watched the 2008 Acorn TV series, East of Everything, when I jokingly said that I wanted to be called Sadhu. That was what the father of the main character called himself. He was an old hippie still living in his past. Funny stuff! 😊 Sadhu, in case you are curious is a holy man, sage, or ascetic in Hinduism and Jainism religious context.

I had a great discussion with Denise about how reading books has been a part of our lives and how the stories our elders tell are found within the pages of those books. As she said, even those stories which may have been oral stories at one time, she discovered through reading, whether in school as a youth, an adult in university, or as an adult looking to broaden her horizons or for sheer entertainment. She mentioned Aesop’s Fables and nursery rhymes as early stories from the elders and later books like Huckleberry Finn, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, Chronicles of Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, and many more that she read as a younger person that certainly shared the wisdom passed down through history. Later she mentioned how she has always appreciated how songs, from time immemorial, have been written to share stories and the wisdom contained within, be it ballads, folk music, blues and jazz, or even pop music.

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Art Interlude 2

Diamond Mesh Walls – Created by Don Cheke

Diamond Mesh Walls began as an idea on a sticky note. After having spent much time creating geometric art, as seen in my blog post Ghost in the Machine, the diamond mesh was just another geometric shape that came to mind. I tried many variations for the walls and the background and eventually settled on this simple piece. Perhaps it is not brilliant, but I liked it well enough. After spending so much time on a piece, it’s hard not to want to keep working on it until something worth sharing comes out. This one, for some reason, gives me an Indo-Islamic architecture kind of vibe. What do you think?

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Here’s a cute story.

Since I met Denise, it has always been my opinion that she is a great writer. Anything she has penned in the realm of creative writing always reads so well. I have encouraged her time and again to write a book, or a blog, anything to share her gift and the wisdom that she has — and still, she doesn’t write.

In a past life (pre-Don as she calls it), Denise had a fascination with Adrianne Clarkson and attended journalism school with the intent of following in a similar fashion. As life sometimes will do, her path changed when she met a fellow (I call him Dick) and followed him in a different direction. That fellow, like many others at the time, was interested in music and put together a garage band that would play for fun and would occasionally play at weddings and the like. Do you remember when live music was typically part of most wedding venues — before the birth of the disc jockey? Denise joined the band, and she wrote the lyrics for a number of the band’s songs. While performing, Denise played the tambourine. Can you picture her with a tie-dyed dress, some beads, ribbons in her hair and a cowhide fringe jacket? That’s how I imagine her. Quite the hottie! A Hottie-Spice before the days of the Spice Girls. In those days, Denise’s song writing ability probably stemmed from even earlier days when she wrote poetry to let her inner-creative soar.

During my time with Denise, 41 years so far, I have seen her write speeches and other shorter works. I have seen her take memoir writing classes and I have seen her journal most days throughout our life. She won’t let me read her journals, but I have read her speeches and the sample writing she did for her classes. As I always predicted, it was always a good read — a helluva read as we say occasionally to make fun of a review we once saw in a book. Based on a “hell-of-a-read” if you didn’t catch that. 😊

I have also teased Denise over the years whenever she says something wise, which is very often, how she should write a book to share her wisdom. Maybe even a novel where she can intertwine all that good stuff that comes out of her so easily. Often, when she has done something wonderful for me, I say that she should write a book to teach other woman How to Keep Your Man, or How to Please Your Man. Humble as she is, the interest, she says, is not there.

The other day while discussing this writing business, after each topic we discussed or point I made about her talent, I concluded with … and still, she doesn’t write! I even threatened to write a blog post about it, of course, all in fun. Being a good story, however, I decided that it might be a cute addition to this blog post. That DeeDee, she is such a good sport! …and still, she doesn’t write. 😊

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Art Interlude 3

Abstract 080125 – Created by Don Cheke

Most of my abstract art starts as experimentation with color, brush strokes, textures, and blend modes. In most cases the artwork takes on a life of its own and leads me wherever it will. By the time a piece is complete, I have an idea about what it is saying. Sometimes it is something very deep, while other times it is just a simple thought that comes to mind. I called this piece Abstract 080125 for the date I created it on, but I already had other titles in mind. Before I added the green splatter, I had a deep sense of something nebulous, hauntingly so — something one might see through the Hubble telescope. I also saw within the piece a deep-sea adventure. I could envision the Nautilus, from Jules Verne’s book 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Note that the Nautilus played a role in a book I was reading at the time, so it was obviously somewhere in the recesses of my mind. I added the green splatter to hint at algae, or some other sea-based organism. All that said, I could have titled the piece Nebula, or 10,000 Leagues to hint at my artistic perceptions.

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Not all books (movies, TV shows, etc.) are created equal. Some are fluff, some are not meant to dig deep, and others, well they make for good landfill.

Some books are not fonts of wisdom, but perhaps what they share is how not to be. Consider the TV series, Sons of Anarchy. I watched this whole series thinking that, surely, there would be some “come to Jesus” moment when the main character, at least, would find redemption, and find a better path. (Spoiler alert…) Maybe the end scene was where the main character decided that his life was irreversibly on the wrong path and chose to end it by driving his motorcycle head-on into a semi-truck. If that was the point where good triumphs over evil, so be it, but there were seven whole seasons, ninety-two episodes of pure evil, before that one moment. As I watched the series, I often wondered how these people acted the way they did in this series (as actors), and later went home to families, and explained what they did at work that day, or one of the many others. Talk about compartmentalization!

I love it when books, movies, and TV shows delve deep into the human condition and share the wisdom of the elders. There are so many that do this so well. Can you think of ones that engage you in this way?

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Art Interlude 4

Canadians – Created by Don Cheke

Canadians, seen above, was created as an experiment with something called structures in my Rebelle painting program. Structures are similar to stencils in that they can be used to apply paint to a texture — the program filling in the spaces of the texture. I had been watching a YouTube video about structures and using text in the way I have done here. First, I created a textured background and then placed the text as a structure. For text, I decided to use a block of text that my wife, Denise, said in my Cultural Art blog post. After creating the piece, I decided to paint a maple leaf to complete the theme. As you likely know, the maple leaf is a prominent feature on the Canadian flag. The text block in full, is below.

Well, Canadians are typically known as being friendly and accepting, and tolerant and kind. We apologize a lot. We’re well respected, or at least we used to be well respected, as Canadians in in the broader world. Canada is seen as a thriving place to live and grow. In terms of specific culture, there are pockets of culture all over because we are a melting pot. None of us were here originally, other than the indigenous people and they have their own culture and beliefs and spirituality and so on. But geographically, we’re a little bit French, a little bit English, a little bit Ukrainian, a little bit Hungarian, a little bit Irish, and even a little bit Spanish. Really, a little bit of everything. All of that comes together and does it a create a specific Canadian culture? I don’t know.

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I, like Denise, read books for various reasons over the years, much of the time the reasons overlapped. We talked about reading to escape, reading to learn, reading for entertainment, and so forth. When questioned, she had this to say:

I have read all my life, since I learned at an early age. At different periods of my life, I’ve used reading for different purposes and I have read different types of books as those purposes changed. As a child and as a young teenager I read to escape the reality of what my own life was because it was pretty brutal. I read to see or imagine what my life could be like, as it was for those in the books I read. I read to see, or imagine what my life could be like in the future when I might escape the life I was in. I always had my nose in a book, so I was told from early on, and part of the reason for that was because I didn’t have glasses until I was 9 years old and I couldn’t see well before that. So, my nose was literally in the book so that I could see the words, but still, I was reading to escape.

As a young adult I didn’t read a whole lot other than what was required in school, so reading was purposeful in the sense that it was to learn and study. In my late teens and very early adulthood, I found other ways to escape, as many do at that age.

At some point in my early adulthood, I continued to use reading as a way of seeking knowledge — to improve myself. I read every self-help book that was on the shelf because my purpose for reading at that point was not to escape my life, but rather to find a way to live in a way that kept me from feeling like I had to escape. I continued to read to try to improve myself, to show me the way to become who I imagined I wanted to be and found that the choice of books and authors changed to allow that.

As a mature adult now, I read partly to escape — in the sense that it gives me something to think about other than just ruminating about other people’s lives and so on. I continue to read books that are deeper so that I may continue to learn lessons and widen my view. I really like those books that offer up nuggets of wisdom. All that said, I occasionally read what I call schmaltz, just something for giggles and to pass the time, but I don’t do that nearly as much as I did before.

I concurred with Denise, especially about the adult years, where my reading changed depending on what stage I was at on my journey. I mostly read fiction now, but I still want the type that offers that wisdom of the elders. Denise has always had a wider range of reading, and these days we share our Kindle eBook purchases. She suggests ones from her list that she thinks I might enjoy, based on how well she knows me. She usually picks a winner, and my reading view expands too.

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Art Interlude 5

Medicine Wheel – Created by Don Cheke

This piece, the feature image, started out as simple experimentation with concentric circles, but due to the colors I chose it ended up having an aboriginal feel to it almost right away. I experimented with different styles of canvas textures and I like how the one I chose added to the mix in an interesting way. It’s strange how a canvas texture can change the look of a painting whether digital or traditional painting. I considered overlaying a hand-drawn medicine wheel over this painting, but it only distracted from the abstract look that might already say something else to each viewer.

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One morning, I had an interesting discussion with Denise about the compactness of stories which are so different than the long-drawn stories of our own lives. I wondered if we compacted our life story if other folks would be interested in reading what was there. She had some interesting things to say.

I am thinking about sharing my story at an Al-Anon event, as I have done many times. Here, I’m compacting my entire life into 40 or 45 minutes, or however long the talk is. Is it of interest to anybody else? I hope so! Is it interesting in the sense that you’d want to write a novel about it. It’s certainly not comparable to other people’s lives in a sense, but it’s my life. I mean, I don’t think my life has just been one boring day after another — I think it’s been filled with many adventures and many experiences and many lessons. It has been filled with times when I was learning and growing and changing — and there are stories in that — and lessons learned. So, if some really good writer wanted to fictionalize my life, or a period of my life, it would probably be a pretty good read. Perhaps my trip to Europe would make for a good adventure book? When we’re living in the present moment it might not feel like the past had much adventure because it feels like it’s just one day after another. But I think if you isolate those days and look for events during those days, everything is interesting. Even the difficult stuff, or especially the difficult stuff, would make for good stories to tell, especially if one learned lessons from them.

Like Denise said in our continuing discussion, it is interesting to read the stories that others write and feel like our own lives are pretty lame or lacking, but who would want to live through a murder mystery, or world war two, or some other event that impacted the life we have now in a negative way. Better to read about it and learn the lessons vicariously. Well, maybe not the romances, hey!? 😊

I asked Denise if there was one single book that resonated with her with regards to similarities to her own life journey. She said, “there hasn’t been a book that had me sit upright and think, oh my God that’s me, through the whole thing, but there certainly have been books where I felt, oh my God, that happened to me or that was me for that period of time. The Glass Castle was an excellent book in that way, as was Uneducated at one time.”

As Denise talked, I thought about a book that resonated with me in my early days of recovery — Hinds Feet on High Places, by Hannah Hurnard. When I read that book, I thought, holy moly! Maybe I didn’t follow the shepherd, per se, as the allegory for God in the story, but I did follow my higher power, my Al-Anon program, to get through my own early barriers as Little Much Afraid. I too was able to conquer Craven Fear and other things like that. I chuckled because I thought just now how instead of having to overcome such fear it would have been nice to think they were telling my story in Raiders of the Lost Ark or some other cool adventure. Come to think of it, Indiana Jones was afraid of snakes. LOL!

What about you, do you have a book that resembles your life, or resonates with you in that way?

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I don’t know if I said much of interest in all the above, but I hope it gave/gives you something to think about in your own life. We all have a story, and I hope that you share yours whenever and with whomever you can.

Travel well!

Donald B. Cheke – August 25, 2025