"Before there was medicine, there were stories.  People used them to explain the fevers, the pox, the tumors, the pain -- the stories gave meaning and understanding to these things, to help survive them or accept them when death came.  The stories gave meaning to death and therefore to life itself.  The story is the medicine. 

"You are the story you tell yourself, Geser; we all are.  Shamanism is the religion of stories.  The shaman knows and understands all the stories.  It is time for you to complete this story so that it can be told to others.  It is foreordained that you must drop the stone to learn the secret," said Raven evenly.