This is the story of ‘Finart and Dorla’. (audio at bottom)
Finart and Dorla had grown up together. They were friends from different families and they were close in age, similar temperaments and they were a good fit, shall we say.
So everybody was imagining that they would, of course, end up together because in small communities there is not a lot to choose from and if the situation arises that people are so aligned with each other from such a young age there is a natural inclination that they will end up together.
They grew up and they were not beautiful in the sense where they were physically attractive, they were very ordinary but they were so happy and bouncy and ready for life and ready for a life together. They had fallen into this rhythm that they would end up together, they would produce children and they would live long lives and be extremely happy and so on.
Finart’s father was a carpenter and so he had learnt that trade from him. He was working with the father as an apprentice and, of course, was expected to take over this business when his father got old or passed over.
So, there was a definite solidity and story that this was going to be real and it was going to become, their life was planned out and they were happy about this and they could see the projectory. There was a comfortable knowing.
There was often travelling fairs and things like that, and one came to the place Finart and Dorla lived. This one day, this fair had a fortune teller. They went to see the fortune teller, to find out, even though they knew the answer, whether they would they be happy for the rest of their lives and so on, how many children would we have and these type of questions.
They went to ask these questions of the fortune teller and it is important that YOU know, even though they knew the answer, they still went to the fortune teller.
So, for them it was somewhat of a game, it was not considered, they were doing it for fun. They didn’t really believe so much in that and they had not been brought up in that environment of the fortune teller. So, they went along to the fortune teller, bounced in, sat down and asked their question: ‘Will we have a long, happy life together?’
The fortune teller looked at Finart and looked at Dorla and just looked at them for a very long time and they became quite nervous and the fortune teller said to Finart: ‘You will not live as long as your wife!’
Now to say that to a young, impressionable, innocent individual who had no thoughts of mortality, no thoughts that anything could be wrong in the world, had an incredibly devasting effect. He was taken aback, became quite angry, dragged Dorla from the place and didn’t leave any money and spent the rest of the day quite morose and sulking and he was not himself.
They left and continued on with their life but something had changed in Finart. He became quite withdrawn, he found it difficult to do his work, he didn’t want to be around Dorla. He didn’t want to be socialising or communicating with people. He started to drink and Dorla did not know what to do as everything in her life had been about being with Finat and spending their life together.
Dorla, as we said was not attractive, but she was not unattractive, she was appealing and as Finart pushed and pushed Dorla away, some of the other men starting to swoop in on that territory.
Finart became quite depressed and angry, drank a lot, was abusive to his father, was not able to work and Dorla waited for him for what seemed like an eternity, but he couldn’t even look at her, he couldn’t be with her, he couldn’t have anything to do with her.
So, it was customary for women to marry, so in many ways she had no option but to marry, which she did, she married one of the other boys in the village and they went on to have many children and they were quite successful in their own way. He was the Smith’s son so he was apprenticed as the smith and he took over that when his father was too old and they had several fine sons and some daughters and were very successful and very happy.
Of course, Dorla always had a sadness in her heart about Finart.
Finart, interestingly lived to a ripe-old age but was from that time, but was never himself again, not the Finart that everybody knew. His father’s carpentry business folded because Finart was the only boy, and he became a lost person, travelling really only between his house and the inn where he drank. He ate hardly anything. He just drank.
And so, this story has many points to it.
The first point is that as a Shaman, or in this case a fortune teller, but we are going to instead use the word Shaman, it’s incredibly important to not predict. Because prediction often fills people with a reality that is actual, so they realise that reality.
So, for Finart to find out that he would not live as long as his wife, for him meant that he was going to die young and that it was Dorla’s fault. So if he was not with Dorla then he could live a long life, which is what happened. However, being with Dorla meant that he was happy and meant that he could thrive, but because he also held this resentment against Dorla now, he was unable to grasp any kind of life for himself.
The life that he could have had, that was for him to have, he thrust aside in anger and resentment and blamed it for his inability to live a long life, when in fact, he was creating the environment for himself not to live a long life.
Prediction also limits people’s ability to think for themselves and to create. So as a Shaman you never predict, you give options, you suggest, you open up the pathways, you don’t close the pathways to one very narrow one. You open up many pathways so the people themselves can come to their creation of themselves, themselves.
Sometimes the creations of the self entails being with other people or being with another person.
This story also looks at that idea that as a human being, to trust what you know is a very difficult thing to do because we are bound by the view of everybody around us, of what we can see and what we can hear.
If you remember Finart and Dorla went to the fortune teller. They knew they were going to have a happy life and they knew they were going to be successful and they knew they were going to have a lot of children and be a wonderful family and in a matter of minutes that was all shattered because Finart had this impression that they didn’t know, that they were wrong and obviously this person who is a person of authority and knowledge and knowing must know more than they do.
But it is very often the case that those people don’t know more than you do because they are not living your life. They are not your life. They have never been in your life and to rely on those people, or any person to tell you what is right for you, how to live your life and what is going to happen… if you don’t do this, or if you do do that, is again a limiting prospect and can be a destroying prospect.
So the story of Finart and Dorla is really about a knowing of the self and honouring the knowing of the self. Yes, sometimes in the knowing of the self, you are going to make mistakes, but, it doesn’t’ mean that that knowing was wrong, perhaps it means that you had to learn something to take you in another direction, or, you had to learn something to give you support and strength to go on a different kind of journey.
But that internal knowing should never really be pushed aside as ‘wrong’. Yes, it’s important to listen to people around you to find other points of view, but not necessarily about you as an individual, as a person, but about situations, about the environment you are living in and then you can develop your own idea, your own knowing.
But the internal knowing is something that is your eternal knowing, so if you imagine that you have this idea of reincarnation or that you, if you like you come-back, that you have past lives and people wonder why; ‘Why don’t I remember? Why don’t I have that knowledge with me now? Where does it go to? Why does it disappear?’
That inner knowing has to come from somewhere, has to come from some knowledge, has to come from some insights. So, whilst it’s not always going to be perfect, it is always worth listening to.
Thank you,
The Mothers & Mother Sha-Riah.
More like this: Naturistic Shamanic Tradition Stories and Talks
Channeled in Ravenshoe July 2020. Transcribed in Cairns, Australia, for a story in our Shamanic Tradition library. We run Medicine circles in Sydney and Cairns Australia.
All rights reserved 2020 (c) Brad Dunn and Caroline Allinson-Dunn.
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