Story Medicine

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore Princess Bari, a narrative shaman song from Korean tradition that is still sung over the dead in Korea today. A king throws away his seventh daughter because she is not the son he longed for. Years later, when he and his queen lie dying, only that discarded daughter will make the journey to the land of the dead to fetch the water of life that could sav...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore The Four Dragons from Chinese folk tradition: a story rooted in a relationship between dragons and the rivers of China stretching back at least three thousand years, and carrying medicine about what happens when the structures we depend on fail us. Four ancient dragons, playing high above the Eastern Sea, look down and see a land in drought and a peopl...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore the story of Chiron from ancient Greek mythology. This is a story about what can be made from the most difficult of beginnings, and what it means to be carried through life by purpose. Born into violence and abandonment, Chiron is raised by Apollo and Artemis. He goes on to become the greatest teacher in Greece, training heroes including Achilles and A...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore the Hawaiian epic of Pele and Hi'iaka. This is a story about two sisters who embody two of the most powerful forces in human experience: fire and devotion.  Pele, the volcano goddess, falls in love in a dream. Unable to travel to her lover herself, she sends her most beloved sister Hi'iaka on a long and dangerous journey across the Hawaiian i...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore the Epic of Gilgamesh. This is one of the oldest stories ever written, pressed into clay tablets over four thousand years ago, and it still carries medicine that feels just as relevant today. Gilgamesh is the mightiest king in the world... and the most alone. When the gods send him an equal - the wild man Enkidu, made of earth and water - his life tran...

Today's episode is released on Nowruz, the Persian New Year. This is an ancient celebration that has marked the arrival of spring across the Persian world for thousands of years. The Shahnameh, from which today's story is drawn, has been recited and celebrated at Nowruz for centuries. To anyone celebrating today: Nowruz Mubarak. In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore Zal and Rudab...

This is a short introduction to Season Two of Story Medicine: a moment to mark the beginning of a new season. It includes reflections on the experience of launching Story Medicine and making Season One; as well as the sharing of exciting news about the show's growing international reach, and two new developments for Season Two: a move to fortnightly episodes, and the launch of the Story Medic...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore Mwindo from the oral tradition of the Nyanga people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is a living epic about the son a father tried to destroy, and what that son became because of it. Mwindo is born already singing, and already carrying the symbol of his purpose. His father seals him in a drum and throws him in the river. What follows is a jour...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore the myth of Ra and Apep from ancient Egyptian mythology. This is one of the oldest recorded stories in the world, preserved in the Pyramid Texts, the Amduat, and the Book of Gates. It carries medicine for anyone who has ever wondered why the darkness keeps coming back. Every night, the sun god Ra descends into the underworld aboard his night vessel, tr...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore The Monkey King's Journey from Wu Cheng'en's 16th-century novel Journey to the West, itself drawing on centuries of oral tradition. This is a story about what happens when extraordinary power and genuine learning are pointed in the wrong direction, and what it takes to turn them toward something that matters. Born from stone at the inter...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore  Samudra Manthana, or "The Churning of the Ocean", from Hindu mythology... one of the great cosmological tales found in the ancient Puranas. When the gods lose their power through carelessness, they must undertake a profound journey to recover it. But Vishnu tells them: you cannot do this alone. You must work alongside the very forces you&apo...

In this episode of Story Medicine we explore "Baba Yaga and the Kind-Hearted Girl," from Russian oral tradition. This is a story about a young girl sent by her stepmother to face certain death in the forest, where Baba Yaga, the wild crone who shows no mercy, sets impossible tasks.  With only her aunt's wisdom and a selection of small gifts, the girl must survive through the web of...

In this episode of Story Medicine we explore Sedna, from Inuit tradition. This is a story about a young woman whose comfortable aloofness blocks her own evolution, leading to a devastating descent that forces her to release everything she's been clinging to, transforming her into the goddess at the bottom of the sea. This story speaks to anyone who keeps themselves from their own becoming, an...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "Prometheus" from Hesiod's ancient Greek texts: a tale nearly 3000 years old about a Titan who foresaw every consequence of his defiance of the Gods and chose to pay the price anyway. Prometheus, whose name means "forethought" stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, knowing exactly what would follow: plagues released...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "The Morrígan and Cú Chulainn" from Irish mythology's Ulster Cycle. The story is from oral tradition but was first written down as early as the 8th century. It's a tale about what happens when we refuse alliance with necessary forces, with strong themes around the masculine and the feminine. A seventeen-year-old warrior defends Ulst...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "Baldur and the Mistletoe" from Norse mythology - a tragedy about how our attempts to control fate often create the very conditions we fear, and what happens when the Warrior archetype remains in shadow. Baldur, the most beloved of all the gods, begins having prophetic dreams of his own death. His mother Frigg travels through all creation, se...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "Psyche and Eros" from Greco-Roman mythology. This story offers a map of the soul's journey from unconscious to conscious, from mortal to divine. It explores the themes of divine union of masculine and feminine, wholeness, and integration. Psyche's beauty provokes a goddess's jealousy, leading to a mysterious marriage, a forbid...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "The Crane Wife" (Tsuru Nyōbō) from Japanese folklore. This is a tale about the cost of hiding who we really are, and the courage it takes to face truth even when it threatens everything we believe we have. A young man rescues a wounded crane from a hunter's trap. Soon after, a beautiful woman arrives claiming to be his wife. She weaves...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen - a beloved tale about a boy whose heart freezes when splinters from an evil mirror lodge in his eye and heart, and the girl who journeys through winter to bring him back. This story speaks to anyone who's has been close to or loved someone whose heart has frozen; anyone who has watched parts o...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore the Haudenosaunee creation story of Sky Woman - a profound teaching about how life emerges not through force or individual power, but through receptivity, community, cooperation, and the willingness to both offer and receive help. Sky Woman falls from the Sky World, pregnant and carrying seeds as she descends into a world of only water. Birds catch her...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "Raven Steals the Light" from the oral traditions of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast - a story about how consciousness itself entered a world kept in darkness. Before there was light, an old man hoarded it in nested boxes, keeping it even from his daughter. But Raven - transformer, trickster, chaos-bri...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "Vasilisa the Beautiful" from Alexander Afanasyev's collection of Russian fairy tales - a profound feminine initiation story about intuition, ancestral wisdom, and the resources we carry within us when facing the impossible. A young woman loses her mother but receives a magical doll that helps her survive her cruel stepfamily and complet...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "The Descent of Inanna" from ancient Sumer - one of humanity's oldest recorded stories, carved into clay tablets nearly four thousand years ago. It carries profound medicine about voluntary descent, the stripping away of identity, and what can only be discovered through complete dissolution. Inanna, Queen of Heaven, voluntarily descends...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "Iron John" from the Grimm Brothers' collection - a tale about masculine rite of passage, initiation, service, and the integration of wildness with cultivation. A boy frees a wild man from a cage, leaves home on the wild man's shoulders, and enters the world to learn what poverty means. Through stages of humble service, fierce battl...

In this episode of Story Medicine, we explore "The Handless Maiden" from the Grimm Brothers' collection - a classic tale about loss, agency, and what can grow back through grief. A young woman loses her hands because of her father's bargain with the devil. She walks away from everything familiar, receives silver hands from a king who loves her, but ultimately discovers that wha...