News from the Rainbow World E-Book

Christa Muths

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 145

Beschreibung

The themes of the fables deal with the necessary changes we all must go through in our lives. By showing the effects of change in humans, animals, and even in normally inanimate objects such as lighthouses, we encourage children to think of themselves as part of nature, to care for it, and to think about the ways in which we all interact with the world and with each other. Whilst they are designed to be read to small children and for older children to read by themselves. In the schools, the fables have been used as educational teaching materials that serve the learning experience and the understanding of the relationships between man and nature. The respon-sibility for each other is evident in all fables. The rainbow serves as symbol of hope and the power of implementation.

Leseprobe

Impressum:

© Christa Muths

Image Cover: George Rix – http://www.seawithartist.com

Layout Cover: Maria Grandolfo – https//www.fiverr.com/renflowergrapx

Illustrationen: George Rix, seawith artist

Robin Muths, freeideas

Maria Gandolfo, Renflowergrapx

Bookset: Angelika Fleckenstein, spotsrock.de

Verlag: tredition GmbH, Hamburg

ISBN:

978-3-7323-1256-6 (Paperback)

978-3-7323-1257-3 (Hardcover)

978-3-7323-1258-0 (e-Book)

The work, including its parts is copyright protected. Any use is prohibited without the consent of the publisher and the author. This is especially true for electronic or other copying, translation , dissemination and public disclosure .

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The German National Library lists this publication in the German National; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

News from the Rainbow World

Fabels by Christa Muths

About this book:

The themes of the fables deal with the necessary changes we all must go through in our lives. By showing the effects of change in humans, animals, and even in normally inanimate objects such as lighthouses, we encourage children to think of themselves as part of nature, to care for it, and to think about the ways in which we all interact with the world and with each other.

Whilst they are designed to be read to small children and for older children to read by themselves. In the schools, the fables have been used as educational teaching materials that serve the learning experience and the understanding of the relationships between man and nature. The respon-sibility for each other is evident in all fables. The rainbow serves as symbol of hope and the power of implementation.

When Christa presents the stories, she uses a PowerPoint presentation, communal singing of texts from the fables set to well known tunes, and prepared colouring pages to create a complete experience.

About the author:

Christa Muths is a social scientist, a colour therapist, a shaman and storyteller who works internationally. Originally from Germany, she has lived in the UK, USA, Mexico and is now resident in Spain.

Christa trained as a chef, administration officer and practitioner of various complementary medicine therapies. She also studied social work, politics, history and social science. 1982 she founded in England espacio, a training institute in the pioneering field of colour therapy, of which she was director until 2012.

Her first textbook entitled “Colour Therapy” was published in 1989 and since then she has published so far a total of 8 books. During her time in England she began also to work as storyteller.

Since 2007 she has lived in Spain, on a a finca in the mountains near Valencia.

Her book about the daily life of resistance fighters in the 3rd Reich will be released 2014.

The Fables

A Day in the life of a lighthouse

The Unicorn, the Light and the Rainbow

Alina, the Colourful Rainbow Ship

El Tonto, the Rainbow Fool

Story of Creation

Oackie and his clever friends

A Day in the life of a lighthouse

“Good, morning, good morning, wakey-wakey!”, cried the seagulls, flying around the lighthouse, laughing, shrieking and wheeling.

The noise startled the lighthouse and he woke up. Well, lighthouses don’t sleep really, but every so often they get dozy and day dream while their light keeps on shining so that no ship can get lost. Nowadays, of course, ships don’t often get lost but they can come off course and not only miss the harbour but also get stuck on sandbanks or might hit cliffs or rocks under water.

When ships get stranded on a sandbank, normally they sit in the sand until the next high tide comes and this can take up to 12 hours! The fate of ships which hit a rock or cliff is even worse. They can be damaged severely and even sink.

It was very early morning, the sun had just risen on the horizon and it was time for the lighthouse to switch of f its light for the day and to wait for the night.

Such a day, after he had done his work, was of course not boring for a lighthouse, no, not at all. There are always new ships on the horizon and the lighthouse is always very eager to see whether the big and small can make it safely into the harbour. There are so many dangers lurking for the ships and the lighthouse knows them all. He has been standing on his place for several hundred years and has seen and experienced almost everything a ship and a lighthouse could see and experience.

The water can be totally unpredictable and together with the wind it can turn into an overwhelming power, so that even the most experienced captain has great difficulty and has to fight for his ship and the lives of his seamen.

Also, the ships change constantly: not only have they become bigger and bigger, they have also became louder and create more noise. The small ships with the white rags change their forms constantly. And recently he has noticed on the water all types of small ship-like creations which roar loudly across the waves. The lighthouse did not like these creations. In his eyes they were totally useless and even dangerous.

There were people on the water too. They stood on a piece of wood, clinging to a long thin upright thing, which was blown forward by the wind. These things did not create any noise but the people on them fell constantly into the water and had to heave themselves back out of it. This whole procedure also did not make any sense to the lighthouse.

But he really enjoyed the people who were ”riding” on a piece of wood on the top of the white crest of a wave. Although they were “buried” by the waves, they always turned up again in a different place. How exciting, he thought. He would really like to try that out and sometimes he dreamt how wonderful it would be to ride around the world on the white crest of a wave, just as weightless as the humans.

The lighthouse loved his place and he knew his surroundings very well: he stood high up on a headland, which reached far into the sea, so he could be seen from afar. Not much grew near him, but further away on the horizon were some trees. Close to him stood some bushes, they were all bent by the wind in one direction.

So the lighthouse could see a long way not only across the sea but also across the land. Far away on the horizon there were some small houses and the people had to walk far to come close to him. He was therefore used to being alone and loved it.

He did not feel lonely at all, because he was very proud of himself and the work he did. Not only that, he was also very proud of his height and his colours: he was wearing colourful bands on his body. At the moment his stomach was painted in black stripes. Sometimes the humans painted his stomach in red or blue stripes, so that he could be seen from far a field. He loved his stripes and was always very eager so see in which colour he would be painted next time. He always observed the colours the humans were wearing very closely and loved orange and a strong and shining pink. Yes, sometimes he dreamt of wearing orange and pink stripes too.

Lighthouses dream during the day, only very rarely at night because their own light keeps them awake. The sun, the birds and also the people and their dogs can sometimes keep him awake during the day.

Unfortunately so far he has not been able to tell the humans his secret desires, so the colours of his stripes have only been black, red and blue.

Yes, he was very proud of his work:

He had to be strong and immovable, proud and upright to stand against wind and weather and to light all the ships on the high seas and also to show humans the right way to go. He also had to shine his light to warn of all places of danger such as sandbanks, rocks and cliffs, so that the ships could make it safely into the harbour.

During the many centuries of his life the lighthouse had seen and experienced a lot: the ships had changed, they had become bigger and stronger but also more colourfull. The land around him had also changed: some rocks, which he could see from his high position, had been broken by the storms and high waters and sunk into the sea. So the coastline had changed.

The sea had changed also. The huge new ships released a lot of dirty water which had polluted the sea. Water and fishes complained about it.

Lighthouses are in direct contact with wind and water. During the course of centuries they have learned to understand the language of the wind, which blows from continent to continent. They also understand the language of the water and therefore also the language of the fishes.

Wind and water are good friends just like all elements are friends. The two W’s – Water and Wind – are very mischievous, they create storms and hurricanes and cause floods. Floods can bring good and new soil for the land, but often animals die and sometimes even humans. But for the two W’s, as for all elements, dying has a different meaning than for the humans. The elements think and feel very differently: they see life as a cycle, everything has a beginning and an ending and then the old appears again in a new form.

Humans and animals are also made of elements and these never end. They form again and again new humans, new animals, new plants.

“It is a funny day today”, the lighthouse thought in the afternoon. “The whole day I have been thinking about my life and how the world turns. I have become a philosopher”, he grinned to himself. “I am sure the stars last night influenced me. I will have a look at the stars more closely tonight.”

The lighthouse knew the stars just like his pocket or better like his colourfull stripes! He also knew about the cycle of nature; the influence of the moon on the cycle of the tides; the power of the sun which defines the temperature of the water and he also knew, that sun and water influence the movements of air and wind.

Slowly night set in. The sun went down and the moon appeared on the other side. The light of the lighthouse switched on.

Yes, today was a funny day, a day in which the two W’s were very mischievous again. Sometimes they were like identical twins, as if they could read each others thoughts. All day long they played calmly and relaxedly with each other but later in the afternoon they got very playful and encouraged each other more and more. The wind blew much stronger, the waves became much higher and faster and faster until a real storm developed.

The lighthouse could see how the ships on the sea swayed and had difficulty in keeping to their courses. The little ships danced on the sea and all wanted to get into the safe harbour as soon as possible. But this was not easy anymore and quite dangerous. Even the big containerships had huge problems in keeping their courses.

Slowly, the lighthouse began to get worried about the people and ships out on the high seas. Suddenly he noticed how a small ship began to drift and was pushed by the waves close to a huge oil tanker. The tanker suddenly stopped moving forward, - it had hit a rock in the water and was stuck fast!

“Oh dear, oh dear”, the lighthouse sighed loudly. “That‘s awful! And then he noticed black, heavy water coming out of the ship.

“Oh My!”, the lighthouse thought. “This is really bad.” He had seen something like it before and then many, many fishes and also birds had drowned in this black, heavy sauce. The water was dark and dirty months later and he could hear for a long time how the fishes coughed, to get rid of the black sauce.

Well, it did not help them very much because they had to swim in this black stuff and were taking it in all the time.

At that time many, many people came and cleaned the coast and the sea for a long time. He was in no danger as he stood high up on his cliff but he could hear the crying of the dying birds and fishes and it really upset him.

The two W’s understand very little about the living and dying of the beings on earth but for birds, fishes, other beings and especially for humans it can be very sad.

Anxiously, the lighthouse watched the big ship which had run aground and more and more of this awful black stuff poured of the ship and into the sea. And now he could see how the little ship with the white rag not only swayed more and more but was driven towards the rocks of the dangerous coast.

Suddenly he heard a terrible scream: the little ship with the white cloth had also run aground and he could see two people on the ship: a little boy and a bigger girl.

“How is this possible?”, he thought. He had never seen anything like this before: little people alone on a boat. So far away they appeared to be very small. Augusto knew that everything including people came in differ-rent sizes and colours.

He often had thought about this and had an explanation as to why people have different skin colours. They were painted differently just like he was every so often. And therefore there were light and dark skinned people. One thing puzzled him however: he had never seen orange and violet coloured skin.

“That’s funny”, he always thought when he pondered about this: “They don’t paint me in orange, pink and violet either, although I would love these colours.” Fishes on the other hand were painted in all colours of the spectrum. But he didn’t know who painted the fishes. Except that it wasn’t the humans, he was very sure about that. Lighthouses are very patient. He had all the time in the world to find out who painted the fishes.

There was another puzzle he had solved: the different sizes of the humans. He knew, that humans -as opposed to lighthouses - grew from small to tall and he also knew why. During his century-long life time he had noticed that humans constantly put something into their bodies. They opened a hole on their heads and put things in. And it was totally logical that if you put things into something all the time, it has to expand, to grow, to become bigger. So they expand either sideways, or upwards. The ones who expand sideways become bigger and fatter, the ones who expand upwards become tall and slim. Some people don’t put so much into themselves so they are the ones with a middle size. Animals do the same, they start being very small and because they fill themselves up all the time they grow bigger and some get fat too.

The lighthouse was very proud of himself: “Yes, I really know a lot”, he thought. “But right now there is no time to waste on these things. I have to see how I can help the little people in the cloth boat.”

Now he sounded his siren very loudly - so hard it should be heard a long way away. But the storm was so strong and loud, nobody heard the siren and his light was hardly visible.

He heard the big tanker was also sounding his siren and after a while he saw a little red boat which came and picked up people out of the water.

Slowly it got dark and the lighthouse himself could only see when his light was shining through the air and across the water, which became blacker and blacker. He did not see any humans in the water anymore. “Well, the red boat must have picked them all up - or maybe some have drowned”, he thought, wondering what had happened to them.

The storm slowly calmed down because the two W’s got tired of their wild games, but the lighthouse was still worried about the two little people in the small boat. He knew that he could not do a lot, but he hoped very much that the two had been picked up by the red boat as well.

Again he became very thoughtful. “I guess the stars must make me so thoughtful today”, he kept on thinking. “Something is different today. I will have a close look at the stars tonight. Hopefully the two W’s did not play so much that we will have a sky full of clouds, and I won’t be able to see the stars.”

Often after a storm the sky is very clear and that’s what the lighthouse hoped for.

Suddenly he heard voices, first very faint but slowly they became clearer and louder.

“What”, he thought. “Are voices doing here and where are they coming from?” And he listened very carefully and realized that the voices were coming closer and closer. He heard somebody gasping and sometimes a deep breath and suddenly the voices had reached him and two humans lay exhausted and ringing wet at his feet.