Wisdom of the Jungle

You're reading this as I'm living in the jungles of Costa Rica. I'm writing this before Paul and I leave to explore ancient paths through heavy forests and immerse ourselves in a culture that has evolved on a strip of mountainous volcanic earth between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Eight nights and nine days of living in the jungle will surely teach us something new, and I'll emerge with stories to share with friends and family. Maya Angelou write that "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” That's what drives me to write. You may tell your stories out loud and repeat the same ones over and over again, and as you do that, as you wait for the right moment to say what comes to mind at a dinner table or while walking in the woods, you are letting that untold story out into the world. What is it about human nature that makes us want to tell others what we've learned, what we feel, what we've experienced? I'm intrigued by storytelling, that desire we have to get our stories out into the world. I suspect that part of what we're doing when we tell them is wishing for a response from those to whom we tell our tales. No writer wants to write in a vacuum--even if our stories are never published, we have a sense, while writing, that someone's listening, even if it's only our muse or the God that watches over us.