• CRONE TALES

    The Sheep who Preferred Sane Company, a fairy tale for enlightenment

    December 4, 2019 /

    It’s been a long day at market, but you’re home safe with curds and cream, salt bacon, and a cake of oats. There will be no hunger tonight. Be glad! Rest with good food and drink by the hearth. As a quiet rain arrives and wolves begin to howl, the crone stretches gnarled fingers toward the fire. She’s ready to tell her tiny tale, so open your heart and mind and find what meaning you will.  

     

     

    There was a widow who tended sheep on a mountainside above an aged village. Rarely did she descend from the mountain as all the village women did despise her. There was good reason for this, and not good reason, as is almost always the case with hard feelings cast like dark spells. 

    Our widow spent day after day, year after year, remembering bad things which had been said about her. She could not help herself. Though she promised the herd in her care to think no more of things which made her sick inside, the sheep nevertheless did find their gentle selves subjected to her angry arguments with persons unseen. This confused the wooly creatures to no end. Not only that. The sheep grazed sheepishly, unnerved by the widow’s red-faced shame when she fell silent at last. Which was not often.

    And so, the sheep did whisper wisdom to the widow one night as she slept. For sheep know well of apology and needing the approval of no being.

    The next morning the widow did wake and for once without thinking, hiked down to the village. There she approached the village women whom she knew she had offended in days long gone but not forgotten. Our widow surprised herself. She made apology to the women for her shortcomings, and when they unloaded their ugly opinions of her to her face, she did not resist.

    She did not resist.

    After this, the village women considered, privately, in each her own way, the matter of the widow.

    As for our widow, she walked and did live thereafter with great ease, marveling at the sharp outline of mountain peaks and the soft petals of flowers. When she looked down upon the village and saw the women there, she bore them no ill will. For she understood they suffered enough with the thoughts in their heads, as she would sometimes still do. In this she and they were the same.   

    The same.

    And as for the sheep? No longer were they forced to endure the widow’s insanity. Instead, they did graze beside her in peaceful quiet, delighting in her company.

    Heaven on earth is like this.

     

    Perhaps you may wonder…

    If there are those who still hold fast to hard feelings for you, even after your sincere attempt to reach out, to apologize—then what?

    That is none of your business. It’s theirs. Do you understand? Let them be.

    This is your business: Each day make peace as best you can—without judging others or assuming you know who they really are—as you practice being a beneficial presence in the world.

    Staying in your own business makes life ever so easier. And good.

     

     

     

     

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  • CRONE TALES

    The Nun Who Allowed Bad Things to Happen, a fairy tale for enlightenment

    November 20, 2019 /

    Whispered songs of long ago rattle trees ’til they drop their leaves and sleep. Dark days come, the season of storytelling to pass the time. Shutter the windows and come by the fire. The crone is wrapped in her shawl and ready to tell her tiny tale, so open your mind and heart and find what meaning you will.

     

     

    There once was a nun who loved God but secretly longed for a life she believed could never be hers.

    It so happened one day that as she tended garden in her abbey, a traveling minstrel did sing her a song in exchange for carrots and onions. The nun cried abundant tears at his song of far-flung lands and courtly love.

    The minstrel, for his part, fell in love with the nun and suggested this: “Leave behind your life for God and marry me, for you are beautiful and I am lonely.” The nun cried anew for she did love God. Still, the two married the very next day.   

    Soon enough, the nun-wife knew she had made a mistake. The world was not safe. She saw men abuse their wives (though hers did not, praise God). She witnessed the murder of innocents for their meager purses, and the suffering of children who did starve in their filth.

    The nun-wife begged to return to the safety of the abbey. But it was too late, too late. For her minstrel-husband did love her and would not give her up.

    Plague arrived and swept the countryside. “Lord God,” the nun-wife prayed in horror, “why do you allow such suffering? Is it because we sin? Is it punishment for our lack of faith? I cannot bear it. Please, help me understand, or else how can I love you?”

    She survived the plague. Her minstrel-husband did not, and so she burned his poor body. After this, the nun-wife-widow felt angry and in fear all the time, for she knew God could not be trusted in the end. The world was not safe. It was then she gave up all hope of happiness and peace.

    In despair, she found work as a servant and accepted earthly life exactly as it was, without hoping it could be anything different.

    A strange thing happened. 

    The nun-wife-widow often found herself in wonder over a singing bird. A blanket in winter. The taste of onion soup. Such ordinary things delighted her as they never had before.

    And when she came upon a man abusing his wife, she did befriend the woman and sing her the minstrel-husband’s songs. She walked without fear along mud roads beloved by thieves, noticing the flowers. When she laid eyes upon starving and filthy children, she did what she could, chasing them to the river to wash and sharing food from her garden.

    Years later, plague came again, and the nun-wife-widow lay at the edge of death. She was not angry. She was not afraid. For by this time she was quite practiced at expecting nothing to be different than how it was. She was quite willing to open her eyes and choose a good purpose for whatever came upon her. 

    Her eyes were open as she died, and when she saw God, she saw herself.

    Heaven on earth is like this.  

     

     

    So. Why does God allow suffering? Well, find out. You allow suffering to be, and see what happens.

    In this story there’s no answer to why bad things happen. Instead, the nun-wife-widow inadvertently emulates her God: She allows. To be clear: SHE ACCEPTS REALITY.

    Humans desperately try to control life and thus expect God to be about the same business. No matter this desire to be in control delivers neurosis rather than peace. Really think on this. What happens when you believe you need to take control and make something be different than it is? How does it feel?

    Can you see the insanity of insisting reality not be what it is? Small wonder well-meaning people are drowning in stress.

    Notice that when the nun-wife-widow surrenders to reality, her relationship to the world is brand new. She’s born again. And notice she doesn’t disengage and sit in a useless heap, all uncaring about anything.

    On the contrary, she quite naturally does what comes to her to do.

    ‘And it was good.’ (Mysterious, isn’t it?)

     

     

     

     

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  • CRONE TALES

    The Maiden Stuffed with Puppet Strings, a fairy tale for enlightenment

    November 7, 2019 /

    Stoke the fire on this chill and leafy autumn night. Though you’re sleepy from our heavy meal, keep wide awake. The crone is ready to tell her tiny tale, so open you mind and heart and find what meaning you will.

     

     

    There was a maiden who was neither pretty nor good at heart, a calamity.

    Her tongue was sharp, and she found fault in others as a matter of course. This led to a glaring absence of suitors upon her father’s front porch.

    Every night she stared at the stars from her bedroom window and knew this: God had made her wrong.

    A traveling puppet show arrived in our maiden’s village one fine summer evening. As fate would have it, when the colorful curtain parted, a villain-puppet appeared which bore an uncanny physical resemblance to our maiden. Not only this. The villain-puppet called the other puppets bad names and was overall insufferable.

    Eyes turned in our maiden’s direction. Her name did float upon the warm and pleasant air, and there was much snickering laughter. At last, our maiden’s father and mother did rush away with tears and rosy faces.

    The maiden felt dizzy as her heart failed to beat. No part of her body would move, not even her lips. Fervently, she willed herself to vanish from the world, so great was her humiliation. An old crone moved beside her and asked why she did weep.

    “They all believe me to be the awful puppet!” our maiden whispered with rage.    

    “And so you are,” the crone agreed. “But notice how the villain-puppet knows not what it does. Puppets are not real. And yet this one pulls its own strings, no matter there is someone behind the curtain who wishes to do so. I suppose you had not noticed.” The crone eyed our maiden. “I can rid you of the puppet, but there is a price.”

    Our maiden first glared at the rude puppet which indeed pulled its own strings. Second she glared at the crone. “What does your foolish talk mean? Never mind. I only want to be rid of that puppet!” 

    “Then you must cough up every lie in which you have faith. I can help. Hold still.” The crone grasped our maiden’s chin, pried open her jaw, and shoved a hand and arm down our maiden’s throat. With a grunt, the crone yanked out a tangled wad of puppet strings, dropping them upon the ground. 

    Our maiden blinked in surprise. “I never knew I was a puppet!” 

    Without her swallowed puppet strings, our maiden had nothing to believe. All of sudden, she became someone entirely quiet and unknown. “All this time, I am what stands behind the curtain!” she blurted. 

    “And wanting to come out. This is true of everyone else as well,” added the wise crone. “Therefore, go, and call no one bad names.”

    After this, our maiden was set free. No longer did she entertain false notions that God had made herself or anyone else wrong. Puppets were not real! And so, it made good sense to come out from behind the curtain and be kind to all she met.

    Next a curious thing did happen: many in the village did cough up puppet strings. 

    Heaven on earth is like this.

     

     

    If an angel named Clarence visited you, and suddenly you were like George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life, with no history BUT ALSO WITH NO MEMORY…

    Who would you be? Right here and now, who are you? If you can’t identify yourself by the curtain of your gender, name, personal history, talents, career, nothing at all—things get very quiet. The puppet collapses. And so, the curtain may as well come down.

    Enter the Real You.

    Be still, and sense into who you truly are. It will pass all your current understandings and take you into peace. And compassion. For our maiden forevermore was known to show great compassion to all who still believed in shame.

     

    A FEW RELEVANT QUOTES TO TAKE YOUR TIME AND PONDER:

     

    All the world’s a stage,

    And all the men and women merely players

    ~As You Like It, Shakespeare

     

    Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

    ~Luke 23:34

     

    We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human

    experience.

    ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 

     

    Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.

    ~ Joseph Campbell 

     

    “Enlightenment means waking up to what you truly are and then being that.”

    ~Adyashanti

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  • CRONE TALES

    The Peasant Woman Who Felt Strange in the World, a fairy tale for enlightenment

    October 31, 2019 /

    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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