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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.
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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. Â Â
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. Â Â
She felt a great push toward this body. And so, she did rise again.
âOh,â she realized upon sitting upright. âI am not entirely what I thought!â 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 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.
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A ghost bound to the cottage in which sheâd lived began her chores. Each morning required a hot kettle and baked bread. By the time sunshine fell upon her clouded windows, sheâd 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.Â
One evening unlike the rest, the sound of footsteps approached the cottage door. The ghost turned her head. There came a knock.
âWhoâs there?â a voice called.
The ghost parted her lips to answer, but of course she could not. Her fate was to replay the past, and sheâd 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. Â
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 wasnât what she thought she was! At once, she began to clean her windows.
Knock! Knock!Â
âWhoâs there?â the persistent voice asked yet again.
âI am,â 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.Â
Heaven on earth is like this. Â
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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.Â
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Damn sweet unique is what you are
Do you ever in a quiet moment
get smacked by the
WEIRDNESS of being here?
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Donât be afraid.
I see you as You Are.
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No quality
no achievement
no appearance
compares in the slightest to
THE MYSTERY
of your existence, of your being real.
Here: on a planet,
poured from a luminous milk bottle of stars
set on the soft black cloth of
a uni-verse stitched with a
hundred
b i l l i o n
galaxies
in which you canât be lost
because HERE YOU ARE,
Found.
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Your existenceâwhen you noticeâ
is a sublime opportunity
to be stupefied
into
GLORY.
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No quality
no achievement
no appearance
could ever compare with, yesâ
the w o n d e r of you.
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Rush awake from bad dreams
in which you are not admired by the heavens as
DAMN SWEET UNIQUE.
*photo by Daniel Filipe Antune Santos–thank you!
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Your most ordinary day isn’t. Cosmic forces are at work within you.
If you must identify with anything, identify with Life itself.
Consider yourself a part of the magnificent movement of the universe, mysterious and fundamentally creative. Write down your agenda for the day if you like or if it helps, but remember to open yourself to going off-road with Life/God in case thereâs a better movement than what you had planned or could have imagined.
It so happens that cosmic movement isnât only in the planets and stars, itâs within you too. Can you feel the energy in that?
There is no âboring,â which could only ever be unnatural to you, a silly joke for the cosmos to pat on the head with laughter. What appears to be the most ordinary (or even bad) day is actually ripe with creative and evolutionary force.
Go, be filled with Life today, which is to say—
GO BE FULL OF YOURSELF.
*photo of woman covered in paint by Shubham-sharma—thank you!!
