-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
