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The Elder Sister in the Dungeon, a fairy tale for enlightenment
The stone floor is cold beneath your bare feet. Peek out from the hallway and see the freshly stoked fire that crackles and spits. Wipe the sleep from your eyes! Find cushion and blanket close to the hearth, where it’s toasty warm. No matter the time is past midnight. It’s time for the crone to tell a tiny tale, so open your mind and heart and find what meaning you will.
The elder of two sisters scrubbed a chamber pot as her young sister, Handmaid to the Queen, fluffed the royal pillows.
“Your queen hangs innocents,” the elder whispered. “You must poison her. See here—I cursed this tart. Feed it to her. The queen’s sister is good and kind. Let her inherit the throne!”
The Handmaid to the Queen looked anxiously behind her and scratched at her eyes. “Still your tongue, sister! The queen dispenses justice, as she must. Besides, can you not see I am fed and dressed well as Handmaid? Do you wish me to clean chamber pots as do you?” In a fury, the Handmaid called the guard, who locked away the elder sister in a dungeon. There she survived on foul water and bits of fish.
One cold winter’s day, as the elder sister shivered against the filthy dungeon floor, a visitor did come. “You are free,” the Handmaid her sister declared. “The queen has died, and her sister now reigns. I have begged for your freedom and it is granted. Dear sister! I did marry. I have borne two children in your absence!”
The elder sister drew herself up on thin legs. “Do not call me sister. Do not speak to me. Not. One. Word!”
The elder sister returned to her village, though it was hard to find. Her eyesight had never been good, but it was even worse after living in a dungeon. She gave news to her father and mother of what evil had befallen her. Her mother wept. Her father wept. “Forgive your sister, our beloved daughter,” they begged. “She was young and afraid.”
“Never,” the elder sister sobbed. “I will hear no more of what you say.” She gathered her meager belongings and traveled far away to find work scrubbing. Night upon night she told herself sternly, “My sister betrayed me. My father and mother love her and not me. Plus my eyesight gets worse every day!” Bitterness flowed at the injustice served her. God Himself was unfair and cruel.
This made her burn for justice in all things.
The elder sister kept vigilant. She caught pickpockets in their thievery and blasphemers in their lies. Many were thrown into the dungeon thanks to the elder sister, but most were hanged. Villagers feared her thirst for justice and sought her favor by bestowing upon her gifts of pork and fine cloth.
One morning the elder sister rubbed itchy eyes trying to better see the fit of her gown in a mirror. She caught sight of her sister’s features, there in her own face. It had been many years but memory revived. “Oh,” she said, a hand to her heart. She saw a vision of her young sister, who did wish to eat and dress well though villagers did hang.
The elder sister fell to her knees. “What I did once condemn in my sister, I surely have done myself,” she confessed. She returned to the castle at once.
“We are the same, we are the same,” she told the Handmaid to the Queen, who at once recognized the words as true. The two sisters clung to one another in relief. But a fierce agony did come upon them. They screamed, clawing at their faces until fish scales fell from their eyes.
After this they poured compassion upon the world until they died together in old age. Even today, stories are told far and wide of the two wise crones with bright eyes.
Heaven on earth is like this.
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The Widow with a Perfume Cart, a fairy tale for enlightenment
A winter’s snow has fallen all the day long. Sit by the window, pour the steaming tea, and imagine walks through woods long, long ago. The crone is ready to tell a tiny tale, so open your mind and heart and find what meaning you will.
A young widow wheeled her perfume bottles in a cart to the goodly summer fair. There a minstrel sang of broken ships and maidens held hands as they whirled. The widow caught the eye of a handsome merchant selling doves from a cage, and smiled.
“Ugly witch!” he said, and spat upon her dress.
Hurrying past the merchant, she found a patch of muddy garden at the edge of the fair. She pulled back the cloth over her cart and arranged her perfume bottles for view. “For luck! For love!” she sang out. “For good humour!”
Villagers pretended they didn’t see her. Late in the day, a gaggle of maidens shouted that her perfumes did stink. A peasant boy threw a cabbage at her head. The young widow knew her perfumes contained good things. “Please,” she begged, holding out the bottles she so loved. At last she ran to hide in the woods.
It was the same at each goodly fair. The widow arranged her beloved perfumes in her cart and received cabbages to the head.
One clear autumn day she overturned her cart in a fit. “They don’t want what I have to give,” she lamented. Many a night she imagined the queen learning of her beloved perfumes and what might happen next. A Decree Against Cabbage! Come winter the young widow swore never again to think of her perfumes. She took up rug-braiding, and come spring she died inside.
To her surprise, she felt fresh and new. Laughter poured from her mouth at the notion that cabbage mattered at all.
The young widow knew her perfumes contained good things. At the next goodly fair and each one thereafter, the widow stood at her perfume cart and offered what she had to give. How could she not?
She loved. She loved. She loved.
Heaven on earth is like this.
Do you feel like who you are or what you have to give isn’t wanted by the world?
Love overwhelms all. Even feelings of rejection, or the experience of rejection, or confusion, or monumental sadness.
Love. Is. Absolute.
Whatever you love, include it in your life. You may need to pay the rent or weed the yard, and do that. But never, ever leave out what makes you fresh and new. Even if it makes no sense to others around you (they are not responsible for your soul), or it’s impractical (why would that matter?), or your small self tries to talk you out of it (let that part of you die and find laughter at what the small self took so seriously).
The Real You loves, and loves, and loves. The Real You IS heaven on earth. It has been all along. That’s what brings the laughter.
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The Ghost of Cottage Past, a fairy tale for enlightenment
Wind rushes leaves upon the cobbled doorstep, and woodsmoke swirls behind the grate. The crone leans forward in her chair. It’s time for a tiny tale, so open your mind and heart and find what meaning you will.
A ghost bound to the cottage in which she’d lived began her chores. Each morning required a hot kettle and baked bread. By the time sunshine fell upon her clouded windows, she’d be busy miming quarrels with a friend. The day ended with prayers for what she could not receive.
Her fate was to replay her life of the past, as is the case with all ghosts. How could she complain? At least the danger of wild goats was no longer real. Nothing was real. She only pretended to touch anything.
One evening unlike the rest, the sound of footsteps approached the cottage door. The ghost turned her head. There came a knock.
“Who’s there?” a voice called.
The ghost parted her lips to answer, but of course she could not. Her fate was to replay the past, and she’d never answered this question before. Not really. And so she hid in the flue waiting for the cruel voice to leave. At last it did.
Until the next evening. And the next. The ghost fretted over this state of affairs. Only what happened in the past should be happening now, she reasoned good and right. Until her eyes opened wide. There could be only one solution to this mystery. She wasn’t what she thought she was! At once, she began to clean her windows.
Knock! Knock!
“Who’s there?” the persistent voice asked yet again.
“I am,” she answered. There was no need to explain more, do you understand? She was dead to the past. The door opened and she touched the world.
Heaven on earth is like this.
This story is about the past. Are you bound by it? Does it replay itself in your life here and now? Social anxiety and loneliness are formed in such ways. Sometimes we believe in the power of WHAT ONCE HAPPENED TO ME so passionately that we end up unable to feel alive here and now. We can feel dead.
Notice that in the crone’s story, the ‘ghost’ doesn’t open the door. It’s opened for her. Her part was to let go of the past. Simply being as she was with no explanation–the door automatically opened.
Look and see who you really are, right now. There’s no need to believe anything about yourself. As author Byron Katie would say, “Who are you without your story?”
Without a story, you’re free. Free to go where you please, free to touch the world.
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The Fishing Witch Who Drowned, a fairy tale for enlightenment
A gale is swift upon the ship and treasure is our destiny. Climb belowdecks and join the reveling crew. It’s time for the crone to tell her tiny tale, so open your mind and heart and find what meaning you will.
A witch who lived in a starving village caught fire most every day. If ever she cast her eyes upon a passing villager, they tied her to a tree and held a flame to the hem of her cloak. The cloak burned but her body did not. In shame she would escape to cry on her bed.
At last they burned her cottage and set her free. Thereafter she walked the shore, practicing her craft on the fish of the sea and filling out her bones. Her spells and love of seagulls kept her warm.
And yet, she longed to be a good witch of good use.
One chill and blustery morn a fish merchant called to her from a safe distance. “Our nets are empty, while you are fat,” he complained. “You steal and poison our fish with your dark magic!”
The witch knew the villagers threw out the fish she left in baskets on their doorsteps. “I do not steal,” she called over her shoulder as she collected shells. “Beneath a full moon I walk into the sea and fish swim into my arms, a gift from Neptune.”
“Filthy witch, you lie!”
“Come and see,” she replied.
A fortnight later the man returned with his friends. They watched as the witch walked into the sea and drowned. Satisfied at the justice of the gods, they returned to their homes with empty bellies.
The witch, disguised as a miracle worker, served the welcoming villagers wine and fish from the next day forward. Storytellers say she drowned that others might live. But it was she who was reborn.
Heaven on earth is like this.
