If story is central to human meaning why, in the research world, is there not more storytelling? Walter Benjamin (1973) noted that, “a story is different. It does not expend itself. It preserves and concentrates its strength and is capable of releasing it even after a long time” (p. 90). How might research not expend itself, but preserve and concentrate its strength?

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In this work, narrative provides the framework and storytelling, the act. Storytelling is woven through the narrative presentation of story making as meaning making. It is an attempt to show rather than to tell what stories do. It entwines the ontological and epistemological position of narrative with the demonstrative use of storytelling to exemplify the primacy of narrative in meaning making. Narrative and storytelling work together to create meaning and metameaning through story and projection. Come, listen to some stories.The old master instructed the unhappy man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. "How does it taste?" the master asked."Bitter," spit the apprentice. The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake." As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the master asked, "How does it taste?" "Fresh," remarked the apprentice. "Do you taste the salt?" asked the master. "No," said the young man. At this, the master sat beside this serious young man who so reminded him of himself and took his hands, offering, "The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the Qualitative Inquiry