The Crystal Clear Waters of Mount Elbruz
Michael Berman, UK
Michael Berman BA, MPhil, PhD (Alternative Medicines) works as a teacher and a writer. Publications include A Multiple Intelligences Road to an ELT Classroom and The Power of Metaphor for Crown House, The Nature of Shamanism and the Shamanic Story for Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and Tell Us A Story (a resource book for teachers on storytelling) for Brain Friendly Publications. Shamanic Journeys through Daghestan and Shamanic Journeys through the Caucasus are both due to be published in paperback by O-Books in 2009. Michael has been involved in teaching and teacher training for over thirty years, has given presentations at Conferences in more than twenty countries, and hopes to have the opportunity to visit many more yet. Although Michael originally trained as a Core Shamanic Counsellor with the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Studies under Jonathan Horwitz, these days his focus is more on the academic side of shamanism, with a particular interest in the folktales with shamanic themes told by and collected from the peoples of the Caucasus. www.Thestoryteller.org.uk. E-mail: michaelberman@blueyonder.co.uk
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Introduction
The Prometheus saga – a Kabardian variant
The healing power of water
Bibliography
Versions of the Prometheus saga can be found throughout the Caucasus as it was to Mount Elbruz that the figure from Greek mythology, was chained. He was exiled to the Caucasus for disobeying the gods by bringing fire to mankind. The variant presented below is Kabardian and was taken from Georgian Folk Tales, translated by Marjorie Wardrop. The Kabardians are Circassians, and Kabardino-Cherkess is an Adyga language which is spoken in the Kabardino-Balkaria autonomous region of the north-west Caucasus between Karachay-Cherkessia and North Ossetia.
“The first reference to Circassians in English dates from 1555. Thereafter the term became the equivalent of the Russian gortsy, a blanket label for virtually any exotic Eurasian highlander, whether dark or fair, caftaned or trousered, noble or commoner” (King, 2008, p.92). However, what Circassian (Russ. cherkes, Turk, Çerkez) refers to in its narrowest sense is speakers of Adyga languages, the major linguistic group of the region.
The people who inhabit the region are Moslems, “but with significant remaining traces of Christianity and paganism, even to the present day” (Hunt, 2004, p.9).
Conference of Cirkassian princes in 1839-40
From the album 'Le Concaseploresque. Dessine d'apres nature par le Prince G.Gagarin', Paris, 1847. Scanned from pdf-file Оружие Народов Кавказа of E.G. Astvatsaturyan, St. Petersburg: Atlant, 2004. Located on the website «Encyclopedic Album of Chircassian weapon» (www.nartalbum.com) Grigory Gagarin (1811-1993) This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, Canada, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.
A long, long time ago, a certain giant who had one eye in the middle of his forehead dared to penetrate into the secrets with which God had surrounded the summit of Mount Elbruz. He came to the saddle between the two peaks, from the rocks at the foot of which a well of crystal clear water springs up. But God would not permit that, and chained the violator of His secrets with a long chain to the rocks. Many years have passed since then. The giant has grown old. His long beard reaches to his knees; his once mighty frame has become bent and his proud countenance is covered with wrinkles. To punish him still more God sent a bird of prey, which lies up every day to peck at the giant’s heart. And when the tormented giant bends forward to drink, the bird swoops down and sucks up the water down to the last drop. The water of that spring has a wonderful power; whosoever drinks of it will live forever.
But a time will come when God will be angry with the sons of Adam. Then He will set the one-eyed giant free, and woe betide mankind. For he will wreak vengeance on them for his long sufferings.
***
Writers of all ranks, from belletrists to the titans of the Russian literary canon, have found inspiration in the Caucasus as a subject and a setting, including Lermentov, Pushkin, and Tolstoy. John Steinbeck can be included among their number too. During a visit in the late 1940s, he described it as “a magical place” and one that “becomes dream-like the moment you have left it” (see King, 2008, p.206). And anyone who has visited the region will have no hesitation in confirming this as it undoubtedly does leave you with the impression that you have been to another reality and back.
As for the waters, they have been described as the reservoir of all the potentialities of existence because they not only precede every form but they also serve to sustain every creation. Immersion is equivalent to dissolution of form, in other words death, whereas emergence repeats the cosmogonic act of formal manifestation, in other words re-birth (see Eliade, 1952, p.151).
As Eliade points out, in whatever religious context we find it, water invariably serves the function of dissolving the forms of things, and it can be seen to be both purifying and regenerative. ‘The purpose of the ritual lustrations and purifications is to gain a flash of realisation of the non-temporal moment … in which the creation took place; they are symbolical repetitions of the birth of worlds or of the “new man” ‘ (Eliade, 1952, p.152).
The idea of regeneration through water can be found in numerous pan-cultural tales about the miraculous Fountain of Youth. So pervasive were these legends that in the 16th century the Spanish conquistador Ponce de Leon actually set out to find it once and for all -- and found Florida instead. In Japanese legends, the white and yellow leaves of the wild chrysanthemum confer blessings from Kiku-Jido, the chrysanthemum boy who dwells by the Fountain of Youth. These leaves are ceremonially dipped in sake to assure good health and long life. One Native American story describes the Fountain of Youth created by two hawks in the nether-world between heaven and earth. Those who drink of it outlive their children and friends, which is why it is eventually destroyed.
What follows is a guided visualisation based on the story presented above. If you are working on your own, it is suggested that you record the script, perhaps with some appropriate background music. You can then lie somewhere comfortable, where you will not be disturbed, and play the recording back to yourself as you go through the process described.
Script for the guide: (To be read in a gentle trance-inducing voice). Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths to help you relax. Feel the tension disappear stage by stage from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Let your surroundings fade away as you gradually sink backwards through time and actuality and pass through the gateway of this reality into the dreamtime. (When the participants are fully relaxed, begin the next stage).
You find yourself standing at the foot of the two peaks of Mount Elbruz, a place of power, where many have come before you for, and where many will no doubt come after you. And you know, whatever your problem is, that it is here you will find help, and that is what has brought you to this place.
Ahead of you there’s a winding path, leading up to the summit. The climb is steep but you’re determined and refuse to be deterred. And the higher you climb, the stronger your resolve becomes, the resolve you have to achieve what you have set out to do.
Eventually you come to the saddle between the two peaks of the mountain, where, from the rocks, a well of crystal clear water springs up. And, as you know, the water of this spring has a wonderful power; whosoever drinks of it will live forever in that their spirit for enjoying and making the most of life will be rekindled and never die again. This is the moment you have been waiting for.
And, as you stoop down low to cup the water in your hands and savour it, take a minute of clock time, equal to all the time you need, to appreciate the renewed spirit it fills you with, like liquid crystal running through your veins …
And you know now, with an unfailing certainty, such as you have never experienced before, that never again will life seem to be nothing more than a chore to you, that never again will you feel that you can’t go on. For, refreshed and revitalised, you know now that you will never grow tired of life again, and that as a result, you are now able to act and move forward once again. So take a minute of clock time, equal to all the time you need, to reflect on what it is you have blessed with today …
And now that the purpose of your journey has been accomplished, now that your spirit has been rekindled, the time has come to make your way back home, back, back, down the side of the mountain, back, down to the base where you stood at the start of your journey and back on to the track that leads you to your home, back, back, back to the start of your new life and back to the place you started from.
Take a deep breath, let it all out slowly, open your eyes, and smile at the first person you see. Stretch your arms, stretch your legs, stamp your feet on the ground, and make sure you’re really back, back in …, back where you started from. Welcome home!
Now take a few minutes in silence to make some notes on the experiences you had on your journeys, which you can then share with the rest of the group.
Or
Now take a few minutes in silence to make some notes on the experiences you had on your journeys, which you can then make a note of in your dream journal.
Or
And now you might like to turn to the person sitting next to you and share some of the experiences you had on your journeys
Eliade, M. (1991) Images and Symbols, New Jersey: Princeton University Press (The original edition is copyright Librairie Gallimard 1952).
Hunt, D.G. (2004) Folklore of the North-West Caucasus and Chechnya.
King, C. (2008) The Ghost of Freedom, New York: Oxford University Press Inc.
Wardrop, M. (1894) Georgian Folk Tales, London: David Nutt
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
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