Flying Folktales II

Folktales On The Wings of the Tibetan Wind Horse

In Tibetan folklore, the wind horse travels to all four corners of the world. In its travels it is able to deliver blessings and prayers intended to increase the world’s sense of peace, wisdom, strength, and compassion. According to tradition these qualities ultimately lead to enlightenment which recognizes human suffering as a temporary condition.

Historically the flags, rooted first in Indian religion, were used as a means to carry forth prayers. Today, Tibetans believe that these prayers and blessings are carried by the Wind Horse (blown by the wind) to spread good will and compassion everywhere. In this way the flags benefit everyone.

So what makes them prayer flags? The people who create them pray over the flags upon which they have written prayers and drawn sacred images. According to Tibetan tradition, the flags are generally flown in sets of five, one in each of five colors. The five colors represent the natural elements of the world and are arranged from left to right in a specific order. The colors and corresponding elements are:
• Blue (sky/space)
• White (air/wind)
• Red (fire)
• Green (water)
• Yellow (earth)

Because Tibetans, like so many other indigenous cultures, such as Native American tribes, use organic bio-degradable materials, the flags in time will fade and then dissolve.

I once wrote a news story about Virginia Ray, an artist who grew the materials she used to make her prayer flags for cancer centers in San Francisco as well as Atlanta. In those intimate workshop settings the flags provided cancer patients, cancer survivors and their families opportunities to write well wishes for the entire world community of cancer patients. Her paper came from garden greens and she also used vegetation as decoration. For example, a leaf dipped in beet juice and then placed on a flag would work like a stamp and stamp pad on paper. In the end a finely outlined leaf would appear.

It’s a good thing that papers made from plant materials and inks created from ground rocks and minerals, do not last forever. How else can the Wind Horse take the messages they hold and deliver them to the far reaches of the earth?

Prayer flags can now be found in many places. Considered to be art forms as well as visual and tangible blessing tools, they not only exist in healing centers and cancer wards, they can also be seen waving in the wind at school yards, farmers markets and elsewhere.

I once facilitated a writing workshop in which the members wrote short family folktales onto paper flags that were on display during a community-wide literary project. In this way they let the world know about select treasured memories.

Families can make their own family folktale flags. The flags can be written or painted upon. They can be created at a family reunion and then laced through the branches of a tree in someone’s yard. Installed on the back porch during an anniversary they could “announce” to the Wind Horse special moments in the celebrated couples’ lives. No matter the occasion, making of the flags themselves can become the source of another family folktale.

It is important to note that while the family folktale flags are temporary in nature because they would dissolve, the folktales themselves would not be lost. Make sure the flags can carry a copy of the folktale. The original can be preserved in a book or on a computer disc.

Perhaps with family folktale flags it will be as the Tibetans believe it is for prayer flags: that blessings which ride upon the Wind Horse will become a permanent part of the universe.

Be sure to read Flying Family Folktales I about the world of family folktales and kites
.

Flying Folktales I

The most blustery months of the year occur in early spring. March and April are rife with wind-blown possibilities, especially because these sun gladdened, blossom-filled months lure everyone outdoors.
We all know that this is kite season, complete with large spools of thread and dazzling colored kites swirling in the sky overhead.
Just last night while walking my dog in the neighborhood park, I saw a kite stuck in the branches of a mulberry tree and was reminded of how when my nephew Steven was nine-years-old he flew kites at the beach. Kite in hand he would run off towards the waves of the protected Bodega Bay alcove. Lifting the brightly colored kite up in the air, he always knew exactly when to let it go; the spool of white thread quickly unwinding as the wind whisked the nearly weightless paper kite out to sea.
Kites can become the center of a family folktale as mentioned above. They can also become a family folktale messenger. Here is one such example:

Paper Kites carry Family Folktales on their tails

When I was writing for the Marin Independent Journal, I interviewed members of the Hispanic community about their Dia De Los Muertos traditions. This community of immigrants whose homelands included Mexico, San Salvador and Guatemala held an annual Day of the Dead multi-media fall extravaganza that always included altars, skeleton cookies and a community procession of at least one hundred people; many of them in costume. The grassroots parade was always led by the local Aztecan dancers and drummers in full regalia.
During the interview, I spoke with Eduardo Galatia, a young man from Columbia who had only recently become part of the festival’s organizing committee. This family man had come to the San Francisco Bay Area as so many immigrants do in search of a better life for his family.
However, unlike other residents who baked and decorated sugar skulls upon which they wrote the names of deceased children or who built lavish altars displaying pictures, momentos and favorite foods just in case the ancestors were hungry, he explained that kites were an important part of how his countrymen remembered loved ones who had passed on.
Resourceful, his Columbian community took advantage of their mountainous geography. Exposed to sea winds not punctuated by trees, the terrain was perfect, he said, for kite flying. And because kites could virtually reach the heavens where ancestors resided, they became ideal vehicles for transmitting family messages.
Each family made at least one kite of paper that was colorful painted with designs the ancestors would recognize. The kites also had thickly woven tails that had handwritten messages on strips of paper or cloth tucked into them.
The kites were released during the afternoon when the winds were their strongest. In that way, Eduardo said, well wishes and reminders of love could better reach the other world.

Now It's Your Turn
So maybe the next time you want to remember someone (living or not), you can make a kite upon which you can either write a brief folktale about that person or you can weave the story (on a scroll of paper) into the kite’s tail.
This could also be done for special occasions such as birthday party celebrations. Everyone could write a brief folktale about the birthday boy or girl and then take turns flying the kite for a while before letting it go, sending it on its way to another place. Who knows? Much like a message in a bottle, it may be found by someone else!
Don’t forget that even the act of making and flying a kite with special messages can also become a family folktale to tell others about at a later date.

Flying Folktales II will explore Family Folktales on the Wings of the Tibetan Wind Horse
.