Story of Stone Soup

"According to the story, some travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travelers. The travelers fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire in the village square. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which they are missing. The villager doesn't mind parting with just a little bit of flour to help them out, so it gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travelers again mention their stone soup which hasn't reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all."
(Wikipedia at...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_soup

There is other internet chatter that Stone Soup is a Grimm's Story though I have not yet found that nor able to verify Grimm's Brothers as a source. However it has been called a folk tale and for its revelation of the unconscious it is valuable. Another version casts the travelers as soldiers which adds a different dimension to the story, one relevant for our times. When three soldiers are returning from the Napoleonic wars they stop off in a town and ask the townspeople for some food and shelter. The townpeople all close their doors and windows. So the soldiers set up a large pot in the center of town and the story continues pretty much as above.

In the story in the context of my relationship with Rose I am taken by the added detail of the soldiers. What do soldiers bring back with them from war? They bring back death, the experience of premature death and its aftermath, it lingers about them and the townspeople sense its presence and they close the doors and windows. The soldiers realize the townspeople cannot bear dealing with death at such close proximity so they use the ritual of preparing soup for the purpose of sharing the positive aspects of their death experience with the townspeople without scaring them. They did this by using the stone to sybolize death and creating a wonderful nourishing soup around the experience, a soup the townspeople helped create. It is this nourishment that paradoxically is created around death, the stone, the one immutable force of nature that we cannot excape and its pedogogy if we choose to listen. It can be undrestood that what the townspeople bring are their unconscious material to the death experience thereby enriching the broth for all.

I remember Rose struggling with the staff in the facility, everyone afraid of her and tiptoeing around her, getting angry at her when she scolded them, then avaoiding her. Then after months of therapy she began to soften and she became their mentor. Many of the aides were young girls who were pregnant or with children who were being manipualted by men because they lacked the self-confidence to make it the world on their own. She would tell them you can make it on your own. You don't need a man to give you self-respect. They would all flock around her for advice.

The last time I saw Rose awake she was sitting up in bed and was being fed by one of those aides who cared for her like a mother carefully feeding her very slowly. I remember that image of her being nurtured by those who a year or so before would go out of their way to avoid her. This was the stone soup she created while we were together and we all were nurished by it.