by | May 4, 2013

Fazia’s Destiny by Marva Dasef: Persian Deities

Faizah's Destiny

Faizah’s Destiny

The Gods Must be Crazy

*** Leave a comment for a chance to win a free ecopy of “Faizah’s Destiny.” ***

FAIZAH’S DESTINY borrows heavily from Persian mythology, but the gods pretty much match up to the Roman and Greek gods. Essentially, every civilization re-uses the same gods, but give them different names and their own special flavor.

The heroes are often the mighty warrior types: Hercules, Gilgamesh, Samson. Since I’ve written this book for kids, my heroes are teenagers, not at all like the legends (might become legendary themselves). But they’re not in mythology, so you’ll just have to read “Faizah’s Destiny” to find out about them.

As usual, the “real” info is from the Encyclopedia Mythica (http://www.pantheon.org).

 

Ahura Mazda

The image of the kingly ring of power.

Ahura Mazdah

In Persian belief, Ahura Mazdah (“Lord Wisdom”) was the supreme god, he who created the heavens and the Earth, and another son of Zurvan. Atar, his son, battled Azhi Dahaka, the great dragon of the sky (note that Azhi shows up in “Setara’s Genie”), and bound it in chains on a high mountain. The dragon was, however, destined to escape and destroy a third of mankind at the final reckoning, before it was slain. Ahura Mazdah was the god of prophetic revelation, and bore both Ahriman and Ormazd.

As leader of the Heavenly Host, the Amesha Spentas, he battles Ahriman and his followers to rid the world of evil, darkness and deceit. His symbol is the winged disc.

 

Anahita

Anahita The Moist one, the Pure one, the Strong one

Anahita

The ancient Persian water goddess, fertility goddess, and patroness of women, as well as a goddess of war. Her name means “the immaculate one”. She is portrayed as a virgin, dressed in a golden cloak, and wearing a diamond tiara (sometimes also carrying a water pitcher). The dove and the peacock are her sacred animals.

Anahita was very popular and is one of the forms of the ‛Great Goddess’ which appears in many ancient eastern religions (such as the Syrian/Phoenician goddess Anath). She is associated with rivers and lakes, as the waters of birth. Anahita is sometimes regarded as the consort of Mithra.

Ahurani

Ahurani is a water goddess from ancient Persian mythology. She watches over rainfall as well as standing water. She was invoked for health, healing, prosperity, and growth. She is the daughter of the great god of creation and goodness, Ahura Mazda. Her name means “She who belongs to Ahura.”

Dev

In Persian mythology, Dev is a demon of enormous power, a ruthless and immoral god of war.

The Gods’ Roles in Faizah’s Destiny

I use Ahura more or less as described in the mythology site. Because he was the leader of the Amesha Spentas (the good guys), I decided to portray him like Zeus or Thor, just another god amused at the foibles of humankind, but rarely steps into the action. He is also equated with Mithra, so I have him married to Anahita. Ahura shows up in only one chapter (“Demons and Deities”) and he chats with Anahita about the progress of the heroes. He claims to have set up the whole situation (just like a man).

I made Anahita my main character’s supporter. She appears to Faizah hovering over a lake. She tells the girl that one or more of her companions (three boys, wouldn’t you know) will be seduced to the dark side by demons. In typical godly fashion, she can’t give Faizah a straight story; she only hints at what might happen.

I also include a guest appearance by Ahurani, another goddess associated with water. One of the boys is in need of motherly advice, and Ahurani provides it for him. To say anything else would be a spoiler.

Finally, Dev is the villain of this book. As a god of war, his purpose is to create chaos and disruption. He feeds off anger and strife. He’s just downright mean and Evil is his middle name (if he had one). He’s the god who sends the lesser demons to tempt the boys to his side in the first skirmish of the upcoming battle between good and evil, Armageddon.

Excerpt:

Each time the light dimmed, it returned brighter than before, pulsing in time to the beat of her heart. As the shape within the light grew more and more distinct, a part of Faizah’s mind wondered if she should be afraid. Somehow she wasn’t. Instead, she felt a strong attraction to that glowing figure and walked to the lake’s edge to get a better look.

The apparition hovered a few inches above the surface of the lake. Faizah could now see, through the shimmering aura surrounding her, the figure was that of a woman. She was looking out over the lake to the point where the shooting star had disappeared over the caldera rim. Clad in a golden cloak, a diamond tiara adorned her brow, and two small lions lay at her feet. The figure turned slowly to look directly at Faizah, and a gentle smile curved her lips.

Faizah gasped in sudden recognition. This was the goddess Anahita! She did exist! Faizah stood entranced as the patroness of all women, the goddess of water and fertility, and of war, came gliding smoothly over the surface of the lake toward her.

As the figure halted before her, Faizah glanced quickly over her shoulder at their campsite. The boys hadn’t moved, and she could hear Menog’s rumbling snore. She turned back to face the goddess.

“They will not awaken, Faizah,” Anahita’s lilting voice sounded in her ear. “I would speak to you alone.”

“Why…what…why have you appeared to me, Goddess?” Faizah stammered, her voice trembling.

“My husband has listened to your thoughts, Faizah. Ahura favors your purpose. He sent Menog to guide you through the cavern.”

Faizah’s eyes widened as she struggled to grasp what she was hearing. Ahura, too?

“Ah…we are grateful to Ahura for his favor. But…but, if he is protecting us, why did the boys become ill? Why didn’t I get sick, too?”

Anahita’s musical laugh was the tinkling of bells in a breeze. “Pazuzu of the southwest wind controls this valley. He guards it jealously and blows illness toward all who enter. This is why no one lives here.” Her smile widened. “And I might have had some small part in keeping you from getting sick.”

“I have read that Pazuzu can kill,” Faizah ventured, “yet the boys only have a cough. Did you do that, too?”

“No. That was your doing. Pazuzu can indeed kill. The medicine you made is what saved the boys. There is magic in you, Faizah, which is stronger than you know.” Anahita looked over Faizah’s shoulder at their little camp then back at Faizah. Her smile vanished, and her look became serious.

“I, too, favor your journey. But your friends,” she continued with a gesture toward the sleeping boys, “have lost their purpose. Be always on your guard, Faizah, for powerful forces oppose you.”

“If you favor our journey, Goddess, can you not tell me where to find Master Wafai?”

“A fair question, but the answer, I’m sorry to say, is no, I cannot.”

“But…but, you’re a goddess! Surely―”

“Master Wafai is safe; you needn’t worry about him. You are destined to follow a different path.”

Faizah’s brow wrinkled with concern. Why would she be selected by Anahita? She stammered, “What path?”

Anahita’s gaze lowered. “Many no longer believe in us, the gods and goddesses. As their belief wanes, so does our influence in the world. I, my husband, Ahura, my brother and sister goddesses, none of us are as strong as we once were. There are those, like your Master Wafai, who serve us still, and so we retain some of our strength. Even you doubted our existence, but your hope that we were real allows me to appear to you.”

“I’m sorry I ever doubted, Goddess,” Faizah whispered. “What must I do? Is it right that we go first to find the Simurgh, or should we be doing something else?”

“So many questions!” Anahita’s musical laugh drifted across the water. In the distance, a peacock’s raucous shriek seemed to answer her. “Listen, my pet calls to me,” she said. Then her smile faded, and her eyes mirrored the seriousness in her voice.

“Know this, Faizah. I will protect you as much as I can and lend you what assistance I am able. Even so, your success or failure depends on you. Your own wits and your own strength are far more important than any aid I may give you.”

 

* * *

 

FAIZAH’S DESTINY

The gods are at war and only a farmer’s daughter can save the world from Armageddon.

MuseItUp (all ebook formats): http://tinyurl.com/faizahsdestiny

Also available at Amazon, Kobo, B&N, and other on-line stores.

Blurb:

The village magician has gone missing. His students search for him, but are caught up in a war between the forces of light and dark. The magician’s best student, Faizah, is chosen by Anahita, the goddess of light, to lead the humans into battle on the side of good. Can a simple farm girl stave off Armageddon?

Bio:

Marva Dasef lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two ungrateful cats. Retired from thirty-five years in the software industry, she has now turned her energies to writing fiction and finds it a much more satisfying occupation. Marva has published more than forty stories in a number of on-line and print magazines, with several included in Best of anthologies. She has several published books, including six since 2011 with MuseItUp Publishing.

  • Website: https://sites.google.com/site/mdasefauthor/home
  • Blog: http://mgddasef.blogspot.com
  • Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/MarvaDasef
  • Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/?tab=wX#107073845875601488093/posts
  • Twitter Handle: @Gurina
  • Book Trailers: http://www.youtube.com/user/MarvaDasef/videos

 

3 Comments

Filed under Babbling

by | April 15, 2013

How Old is an Old Woman?

2 million year old woman

2 million year old A. sediba is on the left, and a male chimp is on the right.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130411142931.htm

I’ve been listening to Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ audio book the Dangerous Old Woman, where she speaks of the two milion year old woman, the ancient female self.

Recently fossils of two women, a boy, and an infant, dated roughly at 2 million years old were found in the African plains by the 9-year-old son of a paleoanthropologist, adding many clues to the changes between Lucy, the 3-million-year-old woman and the 1.5 million- year-old homo erectus. The fossils are named Australopithecus sediba, southern ape of the wellspring.

The people found by the anthropologist apparently died quickly after falling into a sinkhole and being covered with mud. What they were doing is impossible to tell, and there is as yet not much else known or theorized about them, other than that they could walk upright, if pigeon-toed, with somewhat modern hips and knees, and they could easily climb trees with long, ape-like arms.

The woman was in her late 20s to early 30s, “middle-aged,” as described by one reporter. If the common life expectancy was about 20 years as suggested in The Heart of Listening: A Visionary Approach to Craniosacral Work By Hugh Milne (p. 37), she might have been the boy’s grandmother. Another scholar suggests that the lifespan of Lucy might have been about 45 years, based on dental records, while she might have lived to be in her fifties, since she survived adolescence, at around age 15.

How old is old? Thirty seems to be a milestone, or even 25–the quarter century. But some claim 50 is the new 30, and scientists are studying “super-agers” in their 80s who are mentally and physically as active as their children in their 50s and 60s. A. sebia would have been active…always on foot, at less than 4 feet tall, she was prey, not predator.

There is some evidence of grandmothering being a survival skill. A mathematical model of evolution by the University of Utah suggests that “Grandmas Made Humans Live Longer.”  Chimps do not outlive their reproductive years, dying in their 30s or 40s, but humans, especially in recent centuries, live half again as long as they are fertile. The theory is that with a grandmother to help with the children, there is a better chance of survival, and a longer dependence period allows for more development of brain size and other traits Homo Sap is so proud of.

Based on observation of hunter-gatherer tribes, researchers  found that grandmothers foraged food for their grandchildren, a task not observed in other primates or mammals. The granmother hypothesis suggests that kinship bonds were based in the fact of menopause, with elder women helping to support the their daughter’s children, rather than continuing to bear children.

So the image of the grandmother goes back a long way, and may have contributed to the survival and evolution of the australopithecus into the homo of today, along with the loss of the great forests to the grasslands as the planet warmed up two million years ago.

But why is this grandmother dangerous, and to whom? Why is she the witch, the hag, and the crone?

Comments Off

Filed under Wise Women & Clarissa Pinkola Estes

by | April 9, 2013

Book Review: Angel Falls by Michael Paul Gonzalez

Angel Falls by Gonzales

It takes a suburb to keep Heaven safe from Hell.

Take a non-stop romp across the mad landscape of the underworld in Angel Falls by Michael Paul Gonzalez, a fun read for a long afternoon or evening. Find out who wants to be THE BIG BAD, and the answer to the ultimate question of what any  given person will do for love–a time-honored reason for going to Hell when you don’t have to.

Morningstar Lightbringer is not your grandmother’s Satan. A bit of a slacker, he thinks it’s too much work to torment those who turn up in his realm, even the elder gods whose worshippers have died into mythology ande set up shop in their own eternal themepark suburbs and malls of mythology. Most of the dead are not willing to take up their anima balls and trek across the great unknown desert of the soul to get to Heaven.

Then there’s the Garden of Eatin’ where Mother Eve slings manna pancakes heaped with syrup. Trouble is, someone wants to bring it all to an end, and it’s up to Morningstar to put a stop to it. The more mythology you know, the more you will enjoy this as several pantheons come into play, including the Sumerian god of blacksmiths, Hecate and her cosmic Tarot deck, and the Aztec couple of death.

Can Satan get his balls back  from heiress Aspen Biltmore with Goliath, Even and Lenny tagging along,  and prevent the first brothers, Cain and Abel, from breaking down the pearly gates?

I received an ecopy of this book for an honest review from Novel Publicity Book tours.

4 Comments

Filed under Book review, Reviews

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

by | April 7, 2013

Initiation of Housework

Ivan Bilibin_Baba_Yaga

Terrifying, but not evil as such, the witch Baba Yaga.

Baba Yaga is an interesting witch. While she is definitely dangerous–her fence is made of human bone and skulls, her kitchen cabinets pegged with fingers and toes–she is also fair and plays by her rules. Without the magic doll and the intuition it symbolizes, Vasalisa would be a goner.

Vasalisa has courage, though. She does not cower or hide from the fearsome witch, but accepts her, warts, wild hair, and all. She is brave in the face of her own wild nature, even though she is inexperienced and does not know how to do the impossible tasks of her initiation. She has done the housework of the step-mother, and now she faces the Wild Mother. She washes Baba Yaga’s laundry, sweeps the yard and then cooks her dinner.

Dr. Estés says, “Women’s cycles…are these: to cleanse one’s thinking, renewing one’s values, on a regular basis,. To clear one’s psyche or trivia, sweep one’s self, clean up one’s thinking and feeling states on a regular basis. To build an enduring fire beneath the creative life and cook up ideas on a systematic basis, means especially to cool, and with orignialty, a lot of unprecendented life in order to feed the relationship between oneself and the wildish nature.” (p. 102)

Each of the tasks symbolizes the self-care that we need to nourish and feed our creative selves, our souls, our wild nature. Laundry has to do with putting on a persona, sweeping the yard means preparing space for creativity, and cooking the food means paying attention and keeping the fire going. For many of us, housework is outside our normal lives…with “labor saving” machinery, we are not so much in touch with the historical rhythyms of these tasks.

We all have wardrobes of personae, our work face, our mom face, our wife face, our writer face, and whatever other roles we might perform each requires it’s own persona, it’s own costume. A key to cosplay is creating a character, not merely being Laura Croft or Princess Laia as the slave of Jobba the Hut, as fun as that can be, but creating one’s own character and backstory, one’s own persona. Doing someone else’s laundry gives Vasalisa an insight into the witch’s life.

As Vasalisa is doing the laundry, or rather as the doll is doing it, she learns about the roles Baba Yaga plays, how she dresses, how her garments are made. When women knew how to sew, it was not unusual for them to look at the inside of a garment to see how the seams were done or how deep the hem was. I know the elder women in my family paid attention to such, and had a low opinion of store-bought clothing. When I was allowed to order a dress from the Sears catalog for the first time, I knew the disappointment of the reality that did not match the image. The fabric was cheap, and the dress didn’t fit. My home-made clothes suddenly seemed so much better.

In older days, the yard often did not have grass, but was swept down to dirt with a broom of willow or other branches. That kept down the critters and insects which lived in the grass. Here the idea is to clear the decks for creative work, making space and time for it to be accmplished. It’s hard to work on something that must be put away for every meal or any other distraction. That some women manage to write between their children’s naps and activities is nothing short of miraculous. They have made the committment to do what they can where they are with what they have. Clutter takes the mind away from the project, and it takes energy just to look away from it.

I am not a good housekeeper (with no excuses now that I’m the only resident) but I can say that merely sweeping under my desk has made a difference this week in the energy in my office. Maybe I can move the other things to the now empty studio and begin to weed them out, to have my office space just for myself.

Cooking the meal has to do with feeding the fire and keeping an eye on the food, so that it does not burn nor get overcooked. Cooking over a fire is so different from punching a

microwave’s buttons or setting a timer on the glasstop stove, as I usually do. I’ve taken to using timer to keep track of the time I actually spend writing, but it’s important for me to keep the fire of my enthusiasm going as well, feeding teh fire jujst the fuel it needs, neither wasting energy by throwing too much at the fire at one time, nor letting it die down from neglect. It takes constant vigilance–and practice.

Housework is hardly seen in any fairy tale as being rewarding in itself, as the heroine often manages to escape having to do it. Even Baba Yaga has disembodied hands to do the chores that she does not assign to Vasalisa, the ultimate in doing without doing.

I’m sure that my reluctance to keep house is partly due to the presentation of the mundane side of housework as being a punishment, a slavery of the various princesses–even Snow White was housekeeper to the seven dwarfs. In one tale, the old women show the young peasant girl how to get out of doing the spinning she hated, by suggesting to her husband that she would grow as ugly as they were if he allowed her to spin.

So perhaps it is in learning to manage the mundane tasks of self care that provide the  energy to do the creative work of nurturing the soul, of producing new material, or at least reworking that ground which someone else has plowed. But it’s important not to slide into the mundane all the time, and escape from facing the often fearsome tasks of the soul.

Comments Off

Filed under Fairy Tales, Ultimate Blog Challenge, Wise Women & Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Tagged as , , , ,

by | April 6, 2013

Red-headed-step Child in a Strange Land

Vasilisa the Wise brings back fire to her cottage in a skull. image by Ivan Bilibi

Vasilisa the Wise brings back fire to her cottage in a skull. image by Ivan Bilibi

In her discussion of the tale of Vasalisa the Wise, Dr. Ested talks about the evil step-mother and sisters and how they represent the impact of culture and socialization on the wild soul.

I think each of us at some point has felt like we didn’t belong to our family of origin. I often hope the mother ship is going to come back to claim me one day…I feel like a stranger in a familiar land. My mom once pointed out to me that she was literally a red-headed step-child, and that gave me some insight into her life that never clicked before.

Cultural norms are those behaviors that are acceptable, but that may not be in our best interests. If we are well-behaved, we may never live our live. The culture of the step-mother and her daughters ( in this and other Cinderella type tales) is against the culture of the heroine, negating her and in this case, setting up her demise in the forest.

well-behaved-women rarely make history

Of course, this one might be planning any sort of mayhem, and is only behaving as a cover.

Vasalisa is young and not able to fight back against the abuse from her stepmother and sisters, even when they force her to go to the witch, Baba Yaga, to get fire. The only reason Vasalisa survives, and it’s clear that Baba Yaga would have no problem making a snack out of her, is that she has her real mother’s blessing, a doll that acts as her intuition. Following that intuition, listening to it and feeding it, is how Vasalisa accomplishes all the impossible initiation tasks and brings back the fire that destroys the stepfamily. Vasalisa not only has help from the doll, but also from the skull that carries the fire from Baba Yaga. Now Vasalisa has her own intution and the power to take care of herself, to overcome that which threatens her.

I’ve heard my African-American students complain about being told they “talk white” if they use the grammatical structures I’m teaching them to write. I’ve learned to speak of conversational tone, academic tone, of the different genres of writing that they read–blog posts, magazine features, email, text messages, and news articles–none of which are as formal as college essays.

There are no brownie points for “writing like you talk.” In fact, it takes a skillful writer to create natural sounding dialog that moves the story along and is not as banal and boring as real speech. But to tell students that their speech is “wrong” is not the answer. It’s that kind of answer that stills their soul expressions. I try to teach them (as well as my speakers of mill-hill, marketing, and just-the-facts-maam official reports) to broaden their audience appeal, to think of what the audience needs to know and how best to appeal to that audience. Still socialization, still a denial of self-expression for approval, but at least I’m not saying “You are wrong.”

Both women and men are constrained to approved behaviors–men are not allowed to express tender emotions (despite facebook kitten-huggers)–and women are not allowed to be logical and analytical. These cultural restraints are changing, which makes us all a bit uncomfortable and ambiguous, but at some point, we have to negotiate between allowable public behavior and keeping our souls alive through self-expression. It’s frightening to step much out of line, and in some cases, dangerous. But the risk of killing the soul is worth the risk of the body. Ask Malala Yousufzai, the 15-year-old girl who was shot at close range in the head by a Taliban gunman in Pakistan while she was on her way home from school if it was worth getting shot to tell her story, and to go to back to school.

merida-brave

Not a step-child, but Merida of Brave is definitely out of touch with her mother’s culture.

There is always tension between the culture of the family, the clan, the city, the state and the individual. I’m a liberal living in a red state, so I know how that is. But that makes it more important for me to express myself, to write and to listen to and feed my intution. I know from past experience that intuition stops talking if you stop listening. Our job in this life is to become aware and conscious, which requires listening to our deeper, higher selves.

Even if we feel like red-headed step-children.

2 Comments

Filed under Wise Women & Clarissa Pinkola Estes

by | April 5, 2013

Weavers of Life

Ariadne, the spider, dared to compare her weaving with that of Athena.

Ariadne dared to compare her weaving with that of Athena, and was turned into a spider.

In Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ audio book, she talks about the weaver, an archetype of all cultures because in even the oldest human tribes, women made cloth by weaving, knitting, crocheting, or in other ways. Archaeologists have found impressions of fabrics in ancient shards of pottery, and images of nearly all cultures show women spinning and weaving. At least one goddess of each pantheon is the patron of weavers, among other crafts.

The Sumerian goddess of weaving and life was Uttu. In ancient Egypt, the goddess of Upper Egypt, Neith, was the weaver of life; her name comes from the root of the words for being and weaving. Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess, was insulted by her brother while she was among her maidens, weaving, and Saule, the Baltic sun goddess wove sunbeams. Queen Penelope, wife of Odysseus, worked at her weaving every day, unraveling it at night as a ruse to delay the suitors who wished to marry her to take over the kingdom, and the suitors clearly did not pay enough attention to her and her women’s work to see what was going on, even after 20 years. Athena, Greek goddess of all craftwork, turned Ariadne into a spider for daring to weave as well as the goddess–and brag about it. Arianrhod was a Celtic weaver of fate. The Scandinavian name for the three stars of Orion’s belt is “Frigg’s Distaff”, the stick on which unspun materials such as wool was carried so that the spinner could make thread of it–hence the phrase, now nearly obsolete, the distaff side of the family–the wife’s side. Spider Woman of the Hopi wove the road of life, and gave birth to twin sons and daughters who created the physical world.

Dr. Estés asks, “Did you know, you were born as the first, and the last and the best and the only one of your kind, and that eccentricity is the first sign of giftedness? These are two of the crone truths I have to offer you.”
Estés stresses the part that the stories only suggest: when the weaving is done, the weaver knots the warp threads, and takes the fabric from the loom for its purpose–a blanket, a skirt, a rug, decorative braid. Then she starts another piece. I imaigine that the flowing robes of the greeks and romans had much to do with making clothing that did not require cutting of the cloth, but only sewing pieces to gether. A skilled weaver can make double cloth, or a tube of fabric, such as the seamless robe that Jesus was said to wear.

No matter what level of self awareness we gain, we need to do something with it, to express it in love for our friends and families, in creative work, be it cooking, gardening, buisiness-building, art, music or dance. An obstacle, a predator of the mind, is the idea of perfection in our weavings, our awareness, our growth. If we think we must be perfecdt before we can move into takking the weaving off the loom and using it, we are stuck within ourselves. The natural predator says, “It isn’t good enough. you must rip it apart and make it better.” But that is not the truth. The truth is that we are good enough, and as we grow and change, we are good enough, and as we gain skills and insight far beyond our earlier understanding, even when we gain the level of wisdom that makes us dangerous old women, we are good enough.

2 Comments

Filed under Wise Women & Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

by | April 4, 2013

Bluebeard:The Natural Predator

bluebeard

Bluebeard does not reveal himself until his youngest wife uses the forbidden key. The key shows her the truth, and it is the knowledge that sets her free by letting her know that she must escape.

Why do we have a natural predator in our own psyche? It hardly seems healthy to have to protect ourselves from some kind of a death wish or built-in trickster. Living at the top of the predatory food chain, as we H. Saps do, we forget that we evolved in dangerous times, where anything out of the ordinary could be lethal.

People who live today in what Westerners consider primitive conditions are aware of what is natural. Their brains are attuned to their worlds and they are attuned to their bodies, their senses in ways that the asphalt and concrete savannahs have fenced away. Our brains have the same hard-wiring to recognize danger, and to avoid it by flight or fight responses. Unfortunately for denizens of the civilized world, those responses are triggered by events that require some front-brain thoughts, while the fight or flight response cuts off cognition. We lose control, we react, and we make choices that put us into danger.

To be conscious, we have to learn how to restrain those responses in ways that let us think. If you watch any action adventure, despite the pain and stress of the situation, the hero keeps a cool head and figures out what to do, even if it takes doing terror-inducing actions. But the hero never lets the adrenaline/cortisol cocktail cut off his brain until he has to jump off the cliff (aka Butch and Sundance) to avoid a worse fate.

That’s where the Bluebeard story comes in. The youngest daughter, the inner child, does not yet recognize the natural predator. She hasn’t been bitten, burned, or bruised, and so she doesn’t know what might happen. We forget that all of the characters in a story are parts of ourselves, which is one way we know that these old stories were not told for children. Children think literally, expecting someone to rescue them, as the brothers do for their sister in this story of lost innocence. The metaphor of the male protector poisons both the boy and the girl, as boys often need protection as much as girls and neither is taught much about rescuing themselves.

Bluebeard, the abuser, the seducer, the molester, presents a pretty picture, and the child-mind, the pleasure-seeking ego, is taken in. The adult mind, the other senses, represented by the mother and the daughters, are not strong enough to reach the child, who wants to live in a pretty fantasy. The key that breaks the fantasy is knowledge, the thing that is once known, cannot be unknown. The key continues to bleed, changing everything in the young mind’s world. We call that loss of innocence, but it more like loss of ignorance and naivety.

We have to learn to discern what is real, and what is not. Ironically, it is the “real” world that is the illusion, and we learn as children to behave the way that keeps the illusion safe, to the extent that it is possible. The purpose of the ego, as near as I can tell, is to build a persona that protects and hides the inner self, often long after the need to placate caregivers is over.

Without listening to that inner self, we follow our habits, and choose the familiar over the fearsome new and strange–better the devil we know. A softened up version of this story is Beauty and the Beast, which carries the message: “If you love him enough, he will change.” No, he (or she) won’t. Only if we ourselves make that change, that uncomfortable choice, that deprivation of the comforting chocolate, margarita, or “happy pill,” will the other respond. That person likely will leave or will try to make us go back to the pattern that is comfortable for them. Living consciously requires finding one’s own feet and standing on them.

Scott Peck starts off his book, The Road Less Traveled, with the words, “Life is Hard.” We are always learning, we are always making choices, and there is always another level to attain. but without our awareness of the predator, without our conscious restraint of the predator, we can’t make the conscious response that lets us live in our own reality.

Comments Off

Filed under Wise Women & Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Tagged as , , ,