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.