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.