Once upon a Time

“Once upon a time”. How familiar these words are to us, even though it might have been long years ago in our childhood that we last read them on the printed page. The words conjure forth a sense of events about to unfold for us, of ‘what is going to happen next’, and we know then that we can settle down and listen captivated to some magical story filled with heroic daring and romance. 

Beginnings are full of promise. They hold something that is at the same time majestic and delicate, grandly unfolding and yet also fragile. We might not always know what is to come, but that ‘not knowing’ is the very thing which creates a sense of tension. But because this familiar phrase finds its place at the beginnings of stories, and because these stories have already been written, we know that we are going to find out ‘what is going to happen next’. All that we need to do to find out what that something might be is to sit and listen or read further.

And so we accompany a little girl in a red cape as she goes to visit her grandmother in her cottage in the dark woods, or we journey with a mixture of courage and dread with Beauty as she nears the castle of the Beast. The variations are as infinite as the human imagination, and it is our imagination that defines these stories. 

But whatever their individual variations, these stories always begin with “once upon a time”. But so do they always end with another familiar ringing phrase as well. There waiting patiently at the end of the story like an old friend is the reassuring phrase: “…and they lived happily ever after.” Even as we experience all the adventures and setbacks with which the characters must contend along the way, we know that things will work out in the end because ‘happily ever after’ will be the story's concluding words.

Our life, as we know all too well, tends to have a rather different format from one of these stories. What our imagination cannot define, but only wonder about, is what has yet to be written down. “Once upon a time” could also be the commencement of our own lives, or of the coming year, or even of the day that is about to unfold, but whose events have yet to happen. We can guarantee that it will begin with this phrase. How our own story might end is less certain. Those words ‘happily ever after’ are so imprinted in our consciousness that they might lead us into a sense of false expectation, into thinking that this is the way that things ought to end. But perhaps the words offer something more significant than false expectations which might lead only to disappointment.

Perhaps these formulaic story phrases also offer us promise, of a sense that events are unfolding as they should, even if these events are very different from what we had imagined for ourselves. “Once upon a time” is always the beginning. And if we allow ourselves the space, and perhaps also the compassion and forgiveness for our circumstances, it is always possible that “happily ever after” will be the conclusion.

Illustration: Snowwhite and the Seven Dwarfs by Lidia Postma

Grace

So small a soul, so large a house

with dark and gloomy rooms.

A child divine in search of light

her own light now subsumes.

But in her heart she weaves

the mystic window of her skin

through which her dance takes flight

translucent, pure and wondrous thin

on wings of purest light.

The searching child .. she reaches out 

to touch a state of Grace

 A bud in flower - a single glance ..

No soul remains untouched by love

as long as spirits dance.

Painting by Polina Yakovleva

Little Spark

She is dearly loved by her mother. In all that Little Spark does, she feels her mother’s guiding hand and thoughtful attention. And the girl also loves her mother as much as she herself is loved. It is a quiet harmony of being: a harmony that comes to an abrupt and unwished-for end when, after a short illness, her mother dies.

From one day to the next Little Spark’s world changes forever. There are times when she feels that she needs to comfort her disconsolate father more than she herself receives the comfort which she as a child so needs and deserves. But things are to change still further, and the change is for the worse. Her father remarries soon enough. Perhaps too soon. Little Spark’s new stepmother is everything that her dear mother was not. No scrap of love or comfort comes from this stranger in her house, in her life. 

Instead, Little Spark finds herself sent downstairs to the cheerless kitchen, and there she must scrub the pots and pans and tend to the stove fire as if she were a common servant; which, to all intents and purposes, she has now become. Her father, if the truth be known, discovers all too late that he is rather intimidated by this doughty woman, and keeps silent over the treatment of his daughter.

Miracles happen. As she sits quietly weeping among the blackened pots and the even blacker soot and charred wood of the kitchen stove, a miracle happens to Little Spark. An ineffable essence, a shining form, appears before her. Again her world changes. She feels herself overwhelmed with an unnameable love, and although her tears flow, they are now tears of an inexpressible joy and hope for what might now come. Is this the spirit of her mother come to comfort her? Or some other being? Although no word is spoken, she knows that all her desires will now be answered. What the form of light offers to her is transformation.

And Little Spark transforms. From a girl dressed in servant’s rags she is now a radiant beauty, worthy of the hand of a prince of the land. And it is the prince who duly claims her hand and gives to her all love, honour and happiness in his palace, ‘forever after’. Well, we recognize this story, of course, as the story of Cinderella, which is the translation of the literal name ‘Little Spark’. The story endures through the generations as an evergreen fairy tale. But such stories retain their magic for a reason. In the story of Cinderella we can recognise a far older and deeper story: the story of us all.

Just as with Little Spark and her mother’s love, we also know an initial perfect bliss, a heavenly state. But we (or Eve, or Cinderella, or whatever name we give to the little spark that is the soul in these stories) must descend ‘downstairs’ to toil in the grease and grime of the ‘kitchen’ of the material world, in order to learn the hard and necessary things that will help us through worldly experience to progress. But there always is redemption, both in fairy stories and in the soul’s journey.

These eternal themes echo in our awareness. They travel through time to reach us, and they travel ‘in disguise’ as stories so that their inner meaning may be preserved. They continue to speak powerfully to us if we open ourselves to them. And perhaps now you might never read the story of Cinderella in quite the same way again!

Painting: Cinderella by Terri Windling

Hunger

HUNGER

Are you hungry, my Little One?

Never mind - soon it will be time to eat.

Look: Mamma is putting yams in a pot to boil;

you can eat them mashed,

that way your mouth will not hurt

the way it does when you have to chew.

Why don’t you lie down and rest now?

When you wake up, it will be time for dinner.

My Little One, my Beloved, watches me,

sees me take yams from a basket,

sees me place them in the cooking pot.

I make a show of putting the pot on the fire,

cleaning pans, busying myself

with preparing the meal to come.

From the corner of my eye I watch.

Little eyes grow drowsy at last with waiting.

Little eyes fall closed at last, still wondering

when the meal will be ready to eat.

I look down at the stones

which I have placed in the pot.

The water is boiling at last.

I let it boil. My Little One will sleep now,

and I will let my Little One sleep.

Sea Children

SEA CHILDREN

On the shore

the children of the sea

are playing,

Gathering shells, strands

of marine plants,

DREAMS

At the waves' edge

the children kneel,

Writing the secret name

of God in the sand

in the language of

INNOCENCE

Children playing on the beach 

by Bernardus Johannes Blommers - (1845-1914) 

With the Wild Winds

On her recent visit my five year-old granddaughter told me that she had learned a song which she would like to sing to me. Full of confidence, she launched herself into this little song, both simple in the truth of its message, and charming in the directness of its words. Translated it goes like this:

Now I'm going my own way
fearlessly and far away
I might come back, but it won't be soon
I'll see where the pathway winds

Over valley, over hill 
wandering always, wandering still 
under the sun and under the moon
with the wild winds 

And in Dutch:

Nu ga ik mijn eigen gang
ik ga ver weg ik ben niet bang
ik zie wel waar ik heen zal gaan
ik zal de weg wel vinden

Over bergen over dalen
moet ik lopen moet ik dwalen
onder de zon en onder de maan
met de wilde winden

Dear Child

Dear Child

Even before you
Could behold the light of Earth
Your mother and you were one
Invisible and inseparable
Enfolded in the Infinite


Breathless
She awaited the tender weavings
Of the threads of life
Till once in the light of day
Your soul awakened, and one became two


Patiently
Time, like a spider, weaves
Its web of silver pathways
Upon which we are borne along
Alone, and yet together


The light of love
Weaves inner threads
That bind us on the journey
Becoming, one by one
In the Infinite, once more... ONE

*

For Marthe
our newly born granddaughter
in gratitude

Art by Iris Sullivan