"where closed human understanding is pried open by fate"

Navajo storyteller doll.

Thomas Moore on stories from The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life:

"Themes are interventions of providence that make an opening through which life can be born again and again, and the many stories with their many themes keep us aware of the liminality of everyday experience, the threshold where the human and the divine converse, or where closed human understanding is pried open by fate.  It is at this very point of convergence that enchantment is born, for our stories grasp and contain the mystery of that wonder of divine incarnation that gives our lives purpose, meaning, and value beyond all personal, human capacity."

and this:

"We are all bundles of stories that are interlaced, embedded in each other, and connected to stories of greater scope.  One story, even an autobiographical one, only hints at other stories that could be told."

Finally:

"The enchantment of a story lies in its capacity to take us away from the rules, expectations, physical laws and moral requirements of actual life, and that is why the best stories usually betray an influence of mythology, fairy tale, sacred parable, or some form of magic.  A good story is like a wand brushing against the mind, sending it into trance, teaching it lessons from another land, beyond East and West, or from a golden time before and outside this realm of fact and history."