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| The healing powers of story: Scheherezade saves a city by captivating the king |
The beautiful thing about the stories in "The Arabian Nights" is that they teach humans to be wise and ultimately how to live with love. The king, Shahryar, who is killing each wife in the morning after he has married them, because he has developed an attitude that all women will be unfaithful, is the classic psychological state where one starts to 'project' everything onto others and unable to live with love.
When human beings start 'projecting' or finding themselves assuming everything from their own viewpoint, they are not able to live a healthy love story. They are so dogmatic and fixed in their thinking, that they will even 'believe' that they know what the other is thinking. They will project their internal thinking scheme on everything around them.
They are so wounded by an 'ex' that it has affected how they value themselves. Rather than loving themselves despite what others have said or done, they are traumatized and numb from their love story. They also feel that they have 'done' everything to please that person, but they cannot understand why that person doesn't appreciate it. They are utterly jaded by love.
Scheherezade is then married to this killer king, Shahryar, and her family are terrified. Yet she is calm and has no fear and a master of storytelling. A wise woman, she has learnt all the ways of love and knows thousands of stories full of wisdom and love. She is able to understand others and knows how to give on all levels, without expecting return. She enters the palace, not with an attitude of judgement, but with a faith in her stories. She knows that the king will judge her harshly but she does not lose heart, and continues her story telling despite it. She epitomizes someone who CAN live a love story.
These two characters are put together: a prejudice, proud king, and a wise, discretely clever and faithful woman. Over time, the gentle persuasion of her stories and the solid and calm methods of love are an antidote to the king's staunchly ego-centric and stubborn mental state. Gradually, over 1001 nights, he changes, psychologically. The stories have an effect on him, as does her secure and assured inner world, in which he can feel trust for.
In a relationship, the tentacles of reach to be nourished on this inner calm, this assurance, this growth, far from a judgmental mind, but a mind open to insight, guidance, calm, peace, where conclusions are not drawn by EGO, but by a slow evaluation, listening to wisdom and different viewpoints, and maybe the evaluation will change, for nothing should be so dogmatic that it cannot change.
She is also the only real way to build desire in a relationship, because she titillates the king each day, willing him to want to listen to the next part of the story. She fills him with desire to know more about her, while retaining her inner sense of self, by building on her 'well' of stories.
Finally Scheherezade has managed to save her own life, for the king does not want to kill her. He is grateful that she has restored him to belief and trust. The city rejoices, that the tyrant has been redeemed and realize that the meaning of the name 'Scheherezade', saviour of the city, has not happened out of chance.
Other posts of interest:
Ernest Hemmingway: Bookcase Puzzle in Cuba
Katherine Mansfield: How to live life in BLISS
Transformation and Victor Hugo: "To love another person is to see the face of God"
Kafka’s Metamorphosis: How Art can be as Captivating as Dream
The wisdom of Confucius: How the I Ching can help you find the best answer
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