What is the most important story in your life right now?

My muses know me well. The story that is sustaining me now is-as always-the story that is unfolding before my eyes, leading me on, keeping my interest and my enthusiasm, making the heart radiate-for I only follow positive stories; don't want that other kind getting lodged in my DNA!

I have been blessed with many inspiring stories, presented in many formats. They have come in life, in fantasy and dream, have fallen out onto page and onto the screen. They have been my own, and those shared with me by others. They have been collective stories and personal ones. They replay in my mind, my dreams, and my heart to keep me through those moments when the vision of my own stories dim.

Yes, my muses know how to work me. Just as my mother found when I was a child, given a good story, I will sit, unmoving, for hours-otherwise, I am probably into some mischief that never seemed to benefit any of us. Something about a story unfurling, magic arising as mist from nothing into majesty...be it the story contained in a book, a movie, or my everyday life.

I am being drawn forward by the unfolding story in the 21^st year of my marriage with my dear wife; the manifestation of who we are becoming together and alone. The muses dangle my next novel before my eyes-trying to lure me into finishing some non-fiction work first. I eagerly watch the story of summer moving into fall in the mountains. I watch the ever-progressing horizon rise before me, finding new realities in my mind that surely were not there the moment before!

I am still the child, sitting in the lap of my Mother Muse, listening, seeing the story, feeling the story-feeling it give me life and enthusiasm to follow. I hear the story teller say, "Come along, little one. Have I got a story for you!"

There is one formal story that I think is very significant to me, you, and all of us these days. I quoted it recently, but think it bears repeating, along with "just what item of critical mass are we holding our attention to?"

The 100th Monkey

A story about social change.

by Ken Keyes, Jr.

The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant. An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

 This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

THEN IT HAPPENED! By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea...Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes. Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way-a new horizon,-it  may remain the conscious property of these people.