Reaction: The Good Queen, Part II

Alcestis, your story lines up perfectly with the Jungian hero's journey, how you arced into the underworld and back again. Are you an example of feminine-energied representation, a yin hero rather than a yang hero? A yang hero hurls him/herself actively to die in another's place, a theme that familiarly sends young men to wars and wars. The yin hero instead quietly passes away for another, and the theme is less acceptable for some reason.

Alcestis, what are you trying to tell us?

Are you just a better person or a doormat? You trying to make martyrs look bad? You just lording it over us? I hear you saying something else, which sounds like this: What if we have a great power to save someone else, and we use it consciously instead of unconsciously?

What if we awaken to our heroic power and to its proper use rather than letting it use us? Instead of busily giving our lives to every person whether they ask or not, what if we resist our instinct to give our lives up before breakfast every day? What if we reserve this supernatural ability to make a deal with Thanatos until one is actually on the table? And then freely given, however our gift is used, we wait only for the right time to give it again.

Reaction: The Good Queen, Part I

Keeping in mind that there is an infinite number of archetypes, I am learning that the study of the established archetypes is still uncomfortable, wild. The most uncomfortable so far have been The Armless Maiden and the Hungry Ghost. And now Alcestis has been brought to me.

***Spoilers Ahead for Euripides' Alcestis***

Alcestis is a good queen, a great beauty, and a wonderful mother to her children, who volunteers to take her husband's place when it is his time to die. She dies. She is later rescued by Hercules and returned to her family. Her journey to the Underworld and back ring with upsetting hints that this might have been unfair (the one she sacrificed herself for may not have deserved it) and that she cannot in the end be credited with saving herself (Hercules leads her back by the hand like a child crossing the street, and she has lost her power to speak), and we are left disturbed because these are uncomfortable overtones in every woman's life. Goodrich describes her as The Good Woman archetype, who "dies for her husband and abandons her children."

Alcestis, I have thought about you for weeks now after reading about you. I read what others had to say about what happened to you. I looked for you in my own life. I wondered why I could not find you in the fairytale role lineup: you are not the princess, not the stepmother, not the ogre, not the dwarves, not the fairy godmother. Then I realized that you were right there the whole once upon a time, you who died, the good and beautiful queen who left behind a grieving king and young daughter. I see you now. I see how you remain.

Reflection: Full Moon in Pisces

Today's full moon in pisces calls for mermaid reflection. The Hans Christian Anderson Little Mermaid, probably told to him by a mermaid, is a perfect illustration of Pisces energy interacting with the world.

We pisces signs were born in the deepest part of the ocean, and are most comfortable, if not always the most healthy, when we are finding ways to return to the deep unconscious. We are the most enthusiastic about the surface world, but we find every step in it to be painful. We are made of powerful magic that, as soon as we use it to force our own outcome, fails us immediately. When this happens, we lose all of our confidence, forgetting that we wouldn't really want to find our meaning tacked onto whatever we were trying to pin it. The ending of the story, like the spiritual journey itself, is inexplicable and unrelatable because it speaks to a place in us that does not use words. This makes the magic of the story timeless.

Looks Like I'm About to Get Pretty Busy

...pre-ordering this from faeriemagazine.com.

Wishing Makes it True; Sorry Does Cut It

Me: I wish for everything to be easy for me, extremely easy.

Fairy Godmother: Granted.

Me: But still full of meaning!

Fairy Godmother: Granted. Or do you still believe you may only have one without the other?

Newer Than I Was

You are newer every day. Yesterday's you was older than you are today. Young you is the old you, and today makes you the newest you have ever been.

This Is Easy

My pretty big dream is calling, and I need to invoke some shadow parts of my Self to give me the power to focus on it. Ferocious skeleton knights, the kraken, the Corn Mother -- I can use these to protect my time, to torment my environment, to withhold from others. These are the only energies that can create the destruction that is change.

I have to call on the shadow powers to ruin my image or my habits or my ego or whatever is holding me back, before I eat all of my children in my sleep.

I don't know what I am doing.

So this is hard.

I don't know what I am doing.

So this is easy.

Oh, Great. Who Summoned This?

Working with the Unseen

Ginger pointed to this beautiful article describing "the Invisibles" as the shaman's animistic layer of the world where the souls of the of landscape, people, animals, and objects of the physical world exist unseen. The article describes beautifully how the Tarot energies that participate in the cards, energies living in what I consider the Higher Self, "aren't cognitive processes that the querent has control over, but are better understood as invisible personalities (or spirits) that the querent is having a relationship with in the context of the reading."

In the words of the Little Prince's fox, in reply to the Prince asking what makes his rose different than hundreds of other roses, the fox explains, "L'Important c'est invisible pour les yeux." What is Important is Invisible to the eye.

The fox describes perfectly to the Prince how anything that is unseen is automatically more important than what can be seen. Another word for the Invisibles could be the Importants, very Important because we cannot see them. This word also fits because these mythic, mystic energies see YOU as the most Important thing there is. This is why they operate and come through to you because that is the aim of the divine energy flowing through as the Invisibles.

The Invisibles and the Unseen are the origin of everything that is seen:

• This is where, in the non-doing of the Tao, things get done
• This is where new ideas come from
• This is where new theories, inventions, scientific discoveries, and plays come from
• This is where spiritual insights come from
• This is where shared symbolism lives
• This is where miracles come from
• This is where meaning comes from
• This is where synchronicity connects everything

All of these come through to us not because we are worthy, but because we are special. The only thing we can do is try to block it, which we do unconsciously. (Or maybe the Divine should just try harder).

A conversation:

SATAN: So God, am I making you crazy? Doing things the way you hate.

GOD: God doesn't hate.

SATAN: I bet you wish you could be me for just a while, so you could hate. So you could hate me for a while.

GOD: Actually, every day, for at least a moment, I wish I could be you.

SATAN: You are God. Why do you wish you could be me?

GOD: I want to do what you do. I want to tempt them, pester them, haunt them, possess them. I want to lure them, and seduce them, and madden them, and then fill them and fill them, free will or no, with Love until they cry "In the name of Satan, get thee behind me, Jesus."

I Love You, Tarot

If soul journeys can be decoded using the language of storybook symbols, then Tarot is one of the dictionaries for this language. Tarot is full of fairytale symbols: kings and queens, princesses, towers, knights, monsters, children, magicians, and quests. I love you, Tarot.

Suggested Resources:

The best Fairytale Tarot commentary and guidebook is Isha Lerner's Inner Child Cards Workbook. This is also a great resource for Tarot beginners.

Discover magical Fairytale tarot card spreads at Once Upon a Time's wonderful tarot blog.

For advanced Tarot study, Auntie Moon is posting this amazing series of the astrological energies associated to each 10-day section of the year by tarot card.

Why We Need to Tell Stories

With a few exceptions, any time I discuss spirituality or my personal feelings on it, I immediately wish I had not. Everything feels like it comes out wrong. For me, literally saying "I believe this" or "this is what I practice" leaves me feeling off. This discomfort is a gentle reminder that, in the dimension of physicality that uses voices and words, the mysteries must be explored externally, but using the language of metaphor. Myth and story and parable take away the responsibility of being understood, and I feel better. Plus I hate to call myself a spiritual person out loud, because I know there is no one who could vouch for me.

Oh Uh-Oh

Oh, crap.

Craaaaaaaap, that's cute.

Lost at Last

Fairy tails represent the soul journey, and they are a lot about being lost and probably frightened. The journey takes all your courage and heart and goodness - takes it right out of you. You cannot bring anything about on your own - so you finally wish for things to change because you have run out of any other ways to fix everything. You do not write your own story, but you live it which is much more surprising and magical.

Happy New Year

Today starts the Year of the Rabbit, a year of great energy for connection to and establishment of artistic pursuits. My Chinese New Year's Resolution is to post art and writing on a daily basis. I already invalidated my January New Year's Resolution to Only Buy and Use Handmade when I bought a sewing machine.

Here is an early sketch of a special witch from a tale that has been a long time in crafting. More on that soon.

Wonderfulness

Colette Baron-Reid just launched her new book on navigating the Inner Landscape: The Map, and it looks fantastic.

Terri Windling recently posted this great commentary and link to a beautiful idea of the Long Tale as conceived by the inspiring Amal El-Mohtar.