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The Peasant Woman Who Felt Strange in the World, a fairy tale for enlightenment
Women cook together in the kitchen, laughing and sharing stories of their wild youth. And yet these women still are wild no matter their children are grown. Given to adventure and wisdom and love, each morning they wake to wonder over the world in which they find themselves. The crone listens to the laughter and stories and remembers one of her own. Come, bring your coffee and sit in a circle around her. Listen to her tiny tale. Open your mind and heart and find what meaning you will.
There was a peasant woman who lived as she should, selling eggs from her chickens at market, beating rugs for fine ladies, and suffering the puckered lips of men she did not wish to marry. All was well. And yet, something was all wrong. It always had been.
“No one really knows me,” she told the birds, the flowers, the pigs. “And I don’t know them. I can’t bear small talk! It leaves me empty. I feel so strange in the world, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
One day she did come upon a traveling fortune teller dressed in colorful scarves. The gypsy smiled at her and crooked a finger as she went into her tent. A powerful intuition drew our peasant woman to follow. It was dark and pungent inside. A small oil lamp burned, and incense. “Where do I belong?” our peasant woman asked. “How can I feel normal?”
The fortune teller nodded her head as if she understood the question perfectly. She peered into a common wooden bowl filled with water. “Ah, I see the truth,” she said. “You do not belong in one single place!”
Our peasant woman sobbed and paid all her purse coins as the fortune teller cackled with glee. Fleeing the tent, our peasant woman became like a gypsy herself, traveling from village to village, working for warm shelter, but often living in the woods where she would eat mushrooms for her dinner and dance about a fire. No longer did she hope to belong anywhere.
From then on, people believed her to have no power of speech, for she never spoke a word, abhorring small talk. Do not pity her.
In summer she took long walks on hills where grasses did sway, and she swayed as well, holding out her arms and feeling the wind as she imagined the grasses could do. Come autumn, she tended an elderly wife, praying in silence alongside the husband. Leaves fell from the trees and the wife met the ground, too, and the peasant woman moved on. Come winter, she did stitch warm clothing for children and earned coins. These she took to taverns when the heavy snows arrived, and listened rapt to stories of tricksters and ghosts and faraway lands. Come spring, she was sore glad to wash herself in rivers and sun herself as did the flowers.
But one fateful evening, she happened upon a maiden weeping upon a doorstep.
Our peasant woman understood why the maiden did cry, for she knew what it was to be disappointed in the world. Tears came to her own eyes, and she wandered alone into the forest for many days, surviving on mushrooms. One evening the right sort of mushrooms appeared.
She was grass, swaying in the wind. She turned red and gold and twirled from the trees and melted into the ground. She was cold because others were cold, laughed because others laughed, cried because others cried, and worked because others worked. Next she became a fish and did swim because others fish swam. Finally she bloomed into a single, blue wildflower.
Our peasant woman did speak words, the first in a year’s time.
“The fortune teller spoke true. I do not belong in one single place! I am much too big.”
Her laughter was good and true. Hereafter she made small talk and deep talk, and one was not greater than the other. It was all the same, spread evenly upon the earth, herself included. There was no place she did not belong.
Heaven on earth is like this.
Often, we seek a ‘tribe,’ meaning a group of like-minded people who share with us common values, worldviews, and maybe a mission for how to serve the world. It’s satisfying and nourishing to live or work within such a tribe. At the same time, it’s critical to keep in mind that ultimately, there’s not one single group of people that’s like you and another that isn’t. Such a belief creates separation in your mind, where in reality, no separation exists. You breathe air, you have feelings, you struggle, you have DNA, you live beneath a sky, you evolve, and you do not live in isolation, you cannot, because these are experiences shared by all the world. Look closely, and it will be apparent that though you may work and play within a smaller tribe, you belong to no one single tribe, for you are part of all the world. Your belonging is stitched into the very fabric of the world.
Interconnected. At one with. Living and breathing and BEING with.
So you see, if you believe that you have no tribe of which you are a part, and feel lonely or unknown, remember that’s a small thing compared to the Belonging that is naturally yours. It may be that when you realize this, you find yourself more easily able to find those others in the world with whom you’d like to work and play. And yes, that is good.
I wish you a deeper and truer and wilder life today.
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The Widow Who Perched Upon a Chimney, a fairy tale for enlightenment
The day grows short and cider steams from mugs on a table outside. Take one, and take also the hand of someone you love. The crone sits beneath a full moon, ready to tell her tiny tale. Wind blows white hair about her beautiful, aged face. She catches your gaze and speaks. Open your mind and heart and find what meaning you will.
A widow of less than a year sipped a medicinal tea to calm her nerves.
Her home was silent but for the ticking clock. She looked in the mirror and prayed to see the Reaper behind her, but was disappointed. When her stomach grumbled, she put on her shoes and clutched her coin purse tight against her waist.
The widow hurried down the road of the quaint village in which she lived. There were flowers, open windows, and peeling shingles lying upon steep-pitched roofs. Children played nearby. She heard their voices singing in a game. And yet, the widow felt her breath was being stolen.
Glancing back over her hunched shoulder, she had the strange feeling she was being watched.
No. Her body trembled because she feared she was NOT being watched. The Reaper was not there. Her husband had watched over her. Who now? No one. She wished only to be with him in heaven.
Despair and great fear overcame her. In panic, she dropped the coin purse and ran. Pain blossomed in her chest. The same moment, it seemed, she found herself perched upon a chimney, as if she were a bird. Perhaps an owl. She did see in every direction. Wind rustled leaves, sunlight shifted shadows, and a body lay crumpled on the cobbled road below her.
She felt a great push toward this body. And so, she did rise again.
“Oh,” she realized upon sitting upright. “I am not entirely what I thought!” She peered up at the chimney where she had known herself to be. To her surprise, she saw herself still there, crouched and watching with bright eyes. Her spirit!
After this, the widow walked the village with an open heart. She enjoyed the world with bright eyes that were her own. When anyone spoke of a desire to leave this world for another, she could not help breaking into sweet laughter.
Heaven on earth is like this.
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The Wedding Cake Beneath the Bridge, a fairy tale for enlightenment
Thunder lulls you to sleep but now is the time for waking. Coffee is brewed. Snuggle beneath the sheepskin blanket and listen to the rain trickle down the window panes. It’s time for the crone to tell a tiny tale, so open your mind and heart and find what meaning you will.
A storm overtook an anxious maiden traveling a lonely road.
Sliding in mud down a hill, she found her way beneath a bridge, taking care not to fall into the swift river. Anxiety overcame her. She held her belly and began to moan.
Beside her came a sneeze.
There sat an old woman much concealed by her cloak. She held a plate with a cake. “I baked it for a wedding,” the crone rasped, “but this storm came along and so the cake is ours. Take a piece.”
The maiden nibbled at the sodden cake as thunder crashed. After a time, she said, “I expected to have the taste of poison on my tongue this night, not the taste of cake.” She reached into a pocket and brought forth a small bottle. “Herein lies escape from this cruel world.”
“I see nothing wrong here,” the crone said, squeezing rain from her tunic. “What need have you of poison?”
“Can you not guess? I do not know the man who gave me this child and left me in shame.” The maiden gazed at her swollen belly. “I am scorned. Never will I taste my own wedding cake. I am so frightened of being alone I cannot bear it any longer.”
The crone smacked her lips noisily. “I am glad for your company. You eat wedding cake as we speak. You are safe beneath this bridge. It appears as if you have no need of poison after all. How grateful this makes me!”
The maiden glared at the crone, uncorked her tiny bottle of poison and swirled its contents. “I take shelter from storms beneath a bridge with a madwoman,” she muttered. With her next bite of cake, her memory vanished. The maiden held a hand to her heart and wept with abandon for three hours. At last she was empty of pain. Her tears ceased, and she looked about herself in wonder.
“Hello,” the maiden greeted upon sight of the crone. “I have no idea why I was crying, how strange. I’m fine now.” She noticed the piece of cake in her hands and took a bite. She smiled with pleasure. “This cake tastes delicious, and I am glad to be here with you out of the rain. But who am I? I do not know.”
“That is good.” The crone leaned forward with kind eyes. “I am happy to meet you as you truly are, at last.”
Heaven on earth is like this.
The next time a painful memory arises, play a game of pretend.
Imagine a magic wand is waved and you have complete amnesia. Then, look around you. How okay are you, right here and now, in this moment?
It may be that though you see you are safe and sound, sensations of anxiety or sadness or anger stay put somewhere in your body. Notice those feelings while having ‘amnesia.’ By that I mean feel what you are feeling, without turning away, AND WITHOUT ANALYSIS OR STORYTELLING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED.
So much of our suffering comes from denial or repression of things we didn’t want to feel at some place and time. They will continue to come up so that they can pass away, because the nature of things is to pass. But when we tell stories, we tend to distort reality and either go into denial or indulgence. That often looks like anxiety, depression, or even lashing out in anger. It can look like thoughts of suicide.
Try letting your feelings move however they wish without mental commentary or reactivity.
It may be that what you find is that you really are okay here and now. It’s wonderful to trust that our feelings know how to move without our help. It’s a matter of allowing. No denial. No repression. No storytelling. No interference or distortion.
Let your feelings move, let them pass. This way you stay present instead of imagining yourself into the past, which is no longer real. The feelings are here now, but the story of the past is not. This doesn’t mean the past doesn’t matter or that you shouldn’t learn from it. It just means the past has no power over you here and now. The emotions that wish to move and pass are the last remnants of a painful moment in the past.
This is important. Who are you—not in the past, but right here and now? The you of yesterday is past, like the feelings you let go of at last.
This is being reborn.
