Zette

Even a simple story can be a rich source of wisdom. “Look deeply and with kind curiosity into these mirrors of your own Soul. Embrace and appreciate the wisdom they hold. Listen from that still place in the center of your being. Hear the call of the Love that lies beneath beckoning you to come home.”

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Subscribe to this podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many more.

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My book, Love Lies Beneath: How Reclaiming My Soul Through Story Became The Secret To Healing My Heart is available in paperback and as a Kindle at Amazon. 

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Transcript

Transcripts are approximations of the conversations

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Truth & Beauty

There was once a man who had everything. He had a successful business, a wife and children, and his health, but still, he was not happy. He was deeply unhappy because in his heart there burned a question, “What is Truth?”

He devoured all of the books that he could find on religion, ethics, philosophy, and spirituality, and nothing in any of those books eased the burning in his heart.

So, he sought out all of the wise beings that he could find, and he asked them the question, “What is Truth?” 

None of them could give him an answer that eased that burning question in his heart, although someone told him that Truth lived high up in the mountains far, far away.

The man realized that what he must do was go on a pilgrimage. So he sold all of his possessions, he released his wife from their marriage, he bade farewell to his children, and with nothing but the clothes on his back, he went out into the world seeking the answer to the question, “What is Truth?”

His pilgrimage took him far and wide, across vast plains, deep into forests, and high, high up into the mountains. There, in a clearing in front of a cave, he came upon an ancient, bent figure crouched over a cauldron.

He walked up to this venerable old being, and he said, “Are you Truth?”

This primordial soul slowly turned and looked at him. It was a hoary aged woman. Her skin was so deeply wrinkled it looked like it had a million rivers running over it. Her eyes were rheumy and red-rimmed. One was nearly swollen shut. Her nose was covered in festering sores. Her teeth were green and rotted. Her hair, what little was left of it, was stringy, grimy, and greasy.

She creakily swiveled her neck around and looked up at him, her welcoming smile unhesitatingly exposing her disturbing grimace, her one oozing, good eye twinkling and said, “Yes, I am Truth.”

“Oh please,” said the man, “let me live with you. Let me live with you so that I can learn all there is to know about what is Truth and finally be able to ease this question that burns relentlessly in my heart.”

The old woman quite agreeably accepted. The next morning and for many mornings after, the man awoke with her, and together they went through the day, she showing him all that she knew. Day after day, month after month, and year after year, until finally, one morning, he awoke to find that his heart no longer burned with the question. 

With immense relief and joy, he realized that he had finally learned all there was to know about Truth. He had found the answer to the question, “What is Truth?” His heart and he were free.

He knew that it was time to return home, so he went to say farewell to the old woman. He told her, “Thank you. I now know the answer to the question, “What is Truth?” You have eased the burning question that I carried in my heart, and I am free. You have given me so much, and I would do anything to repay you. Is there anything, anything at all that I can do for you?”

She turned and looked up at him. Her one good, oozing eye sparkled, and her cracked red lips split open, revealing her green, rotten teeth. Every wrinkle on her face deepened into chasms, and she brushed a string of greasy hair back as with great eagerness she said, “oh yes, yes, there is one thing you can do for me.”

“When you return home, and when they ask you about me, tell them I am beautiful!”

Exploring Truth and Beauty

I love the old woman. I love that she is breathtakingly ugly and terrifyingly ancient, yet she has an ageless inner spark and sense of humor. I love that she has a twinkle in her one good eye. 

I love that it is in living by her side that Truth becomes known to the man. She does not explain things to him. He does not have to study and learn things. To me, this is the most truthful story about how I eased the burning question in my own Heart. From early days, I ached to understand why I did not matter enough to those who were supposed to love me.

This story does not deny the value of those other things, the books, the wise teachers, the traditions, and the practices. There is a richness in all of them, too. It is just that I see those things as what we expect to be the way we evolve and unfold into who we are here to be. The accepted message is, do enough, and one day you will be enough. 

It is surprising and delightful to hear that just living by the side of an ancient, wizened, and unlikely being is the path to fulfillment and awareness. This is being as a way of becoming. The realization feels spacious and liberating. 

When I spend time with this story, I yearn to make that journey. I, too, want to come upon this solitary, startling creature and discover that she is the teacher I have been seeking my whole life. There is an itch inside me that can only be relieved by my faithful, daily attendance to living life by her side. Ahhhh, to finally feel that burning question ease and fade away by some means I may never fully be able to explain.

Living inside this story for even a few moments, I step into the freedom that the man realizes after being with her for a year. And, just as my burning question fades from my Heart and I am filled with gratitude, she teaches me an even greater lesson. ‘Tell them I’m beautiful.’

Burning Question

As I spend time with this story, I observe that I have a lot of prejudice against the externally successful man. My perception centers around the idea that he has wasted a lot of his time chasing those external signs of success. Those were never going to be the path to any real or lasting happiness, in my opinion. I do not have sympathy for his situation, which is really unusual for me. In every other story that I have chosen to perform, I believe in being one hundred percent accepting and faithful to every character, whether they appear to be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

This discovery of my prejudice is actually very revealing and surprises me. In it I can see my own story about how success’s external measurements have not been a priority for me. I can also see how this has been a cover for my deeper story that I am not worthy of success, material manifestations of wealth, or physical property. Believing that superficially true story allowed me to continue to, quite reasonably, turn a blind eye to my deeper, impoverished one.

It was so easy for me to find evidence that external success and wealth were unimportant, not the point of life, the shallow person’s desire, not mine. I was deeper than that; I could tell myself.

I am deeper than that, but that is not why I did not pursue physical wealth.

I did not pursue physical wealth and property because I did not want to face my core wounding around my being unworthy, unloveable, and undeserving. I had built that wounded story around the pain of being abandoned by my dad and with him, his entire family. I could not know at the time that it was my mother’s choice to make this break with them. I imagine now that she believed it was the best thing for my older sister and me.

All I knew then was that I was not worth enough to matter enough for him to put the energy and time into keeping me in his life. And, there was the fish. My dad, as with all the men in his family, loved fishing. He may have loved it the most of all of them. One of my last memories as a very young child was being out on a boat with him on one of the lakes in upstate New York.

My memory is that I was about 4 years old. My older sister and my dad’s new wife were on the boat, too. It was my first time fishing with my dad. I can see the boat, my new kid-sized fishing rod. It wasn’t a toy. It felt like the real deal, just smaller. I was super excited because I knew how much fishing meant to my dad. Clearly, our family had already broken apart, so I probably did not get to see him much. I am sure I missed him and would have done anything to please him. 

I can feel how much it mattered to me to have him love me and think I was important and worthy of his time and attention. I do not think I had yet lost hope of having both of my parents in my life.

I can see the scene, me with my fishing gear, the boat rocking on the water, the sun shining, a fortuitous breeze blowing. And then it happened, I caught my very first fish, ever! I can hear my squeals of delight as I exclaimed my triumph. “Daddy, Daddy, I caught a fish!”

I was beaming with pride and confidence that he would think I was amazing. I do not actually have a memory of his response beyond seeing him smiling at me. That part receded into the mists as unimportant as time went by. What remained was the memory of my accomplishment and how it simply had proved not to be enough. Because not long after that, we moved to another state, and I was cut off from him and his entire family.

In my grief, I surely wondered why I was not worth his time and attention. I am sure I puzzled over the lack of even a letter or a phone call from him. I no longer got to play with the many cousins or visit the multiple aunts and uncles I had felt surrounded by. The hole in my life felt large, and it grew larger with every passing season. It became a black hole in my soul, sucking any light or matter foolish enough to get too close, never to be seen again. 

To survive, I had to stop the leakage or, at the very least, slow it down. So, at a certain point, I began to search for a story that could form the basis of my defense against the blackness. It turns out that the best story I could find was that I simply must not have been worthy enough to matter to him. I could point to that fishing trip and tell myself, ‘Well, you failed. You just did not catch a big enough fish.’ 

I can imagine my inner self saying, 

‘If you had caught a better fish, he might have stayed in your life. It has to be your fault because you cannot prove otherwise. You know that the fish you caught was pretty small and unimpressive. It was a lot smaller than the ones he was normally excited about having caught himself. 

So, you aren’t worth it, and your accomplishments, if you want to exaggerate and call them that, aren’t particularly interesting or worthy of attention. In fact, you ought to just forget about ever accomplishing anything special. You won’t succeed, and you don’t deserve the rewards that come with accomplishment.”

This narrative worked. It formed enough of an inner wall that most of the deadly leakage stopped or slowed down. This firewall was a costly investment, though. I was now blocked from accomplishing, succeeding, or being rewarded by success. I would never be seen as worthy in this story, so I did not even really try. Whenever I did come close to feeling accomplished, my shame would appear just in time to make sure and derail it.

Over the years, I managed to scrape by, put on a good face, and pose as the happy underachiever. When I did try, I was careful to choose an arena that was still small enough to feel comfortable. This was my ‘fake it until you are sure not to make it’ pattern. I wanted to appear to be someone striving for success but always have something to get in my way. 

I could also claim that I was following a more spiritual path to explain my success-avoidance lifestyle. Material wealth was not important to me because I knew in my core that possessions would not fill an empty Heart or heal a splintered Soul. Using this belief as a shield for my unhealed wound of worthlessness had the benefit of sounding really profound. I even fooled myself for quite a while. 

The price for removing this block was to face that original wounding and wrap my arms around that young girl. Assure her that the adults made decisions that had nothing to do with her value, but it makes sense why it would feel that way. Then, let her know how much I appreciate her bravery and sacrifice. And tell her that I love her.

Again, that sounds easier than it was. Facing this story about myself felt like opening a metaphorical closet jammed with every instance in which I had betrayed myself throughout my life. It spanned decades, and that meant a deluge of boxes and clutter cascading out onto my head. For days, I felt like I had been buried in a pit of despair.

All I could see and feel was regret. How many opportunities to become someone or something had I sacrificed in the name of this inner firewall? As I sat with the knowledge that I had been my own saboteur, a tsunami of grief washed over me. It seemed as though I would never be free of it. As I looked back over my life, I felt deep pain over every missed opportunity and every rejected invitation to genuinely flourish. All of this was done in the name of protecting me from that early, overwhelming pain. 

Over time, my cover story became more and more solid. I could point to plenty of evidence of its truth as I continued to self-sabotage. I never forgot the original hurt, but I just did not have to feel it very much. If I unplugged that black hole too soon, I risked being sucked into it and never getting back out. If I kept up this barrier, I would never know the joy of becoming my full, true self. 

It was in spending time with the story of Truth & Beauty that I found out the Truth. In allowing the tale to be a mirror within which I could see myself, I uncovered this decades-long deception. As I explored what I disliked about the man and what stories it brought up in me, my vision cleared. I saw this sacrifice of my success to protect me from being lost in the pain of abandonment as a child. I had betrayed myself; only it had come from a place of deep Love.

I was too young to have had good coping skills, and so the best my ill-equipped mind could do was to try to take control of a situation that felt dangerously out of control. If I could claim to have caused this hurt, then I had the chance of making sure it never happened again. Sure, it required me to amputate parts of myself, but an amputation is preferable to death. And that is what that huge swirling black hole of pain felt like…death.

So, this is where the Love comes in. There is within me a subterranean reservoir of universal Love. It lies out of reach of the pain and suffering of my ordinary existence. It is the source of my deep, inner wisdom, and it holds the secrets of my destiny. It is a potent, still, pond within. Whenever the pebbles, rocks, or even boulders of life are thrown at it, they cannot make even a slight ripple.

It is this Love that helped my young mind craft my coping stories, knowing that they were temporary and that one day I would pull back the curtains and see the Truth. It is also this Love that has its arms wrapped around me as I do, so I can complete my grieving and heal that core wounding. She is with me all the time, quietly, comfortingly, showing me how to live in a way that eases the burning in my Heart. She is Love, and she is Truth.

Truth Is Beauty

I know that within me, I have each of the characters in this story. My Soul sent a question to burn in the Heart of the part of me represented by the successful man. It is calling me to reclaim what I may have sacrificed along the way as I collected the outer trappings of success. 

The breakdown of his ordinary life is necessary for him to connect to the deep wisdom he seeks. This is true of my own life. The path to easing the burning in my own Heart required me to release my grip on any stories I had created that served as diversions from my wounding. It reminds me of the saying, ‘You can’t buy happiness.’ And yet, I did try to do just that. For me, it was not material wealth. I collected stories that cushioned me from having to feel the burning.

I also have within me the character represented by the ancient woman. I only need to spend time with her day to day, side by side, and her wisdom soaks into my very being. There are no particular strategies or techniques I need to use. It is in being present that whatever burns in my Heart will be healed. The Soul calls, and the Heart answers.

Now that I see myself in the character of the successful man and understand why I have always felt disdainful of him, I can measure my level of self-acceptance by how compassionate and loving I feel toward him.

Do I empathize with his plight? Can I acknowledge and validate how it must feel to have striven and accomplished so much according to others and society’s measure? I can feel my inner block moving. It feels like a boulder being shifted on the ground. I feel the weight of it, I hear the scraping sound and feel the friction as it moves. I feel my resistance even as acceptance patiently waits, trusting, knowing that it is inevitable now that I have seen the story as it truly is.

In seeing the story as it truly is, the cascade of awareness and transformation are set into motion. Once begun, it is never possible to put it back in place. Like labor and delivery, once it starts, there is only one possible outcome: that baby is coming out. Whatever else it looks like, I will no longer be pregnant when it is over.

Likewise, I cannot force or rush the awakening. It has its own timeline and pace. I can only tend to it, feel into it, and give it my attention. Like the man in the story, I will wake up one morning, and the burning in my Heart simply will have vanished. It will feel like it happened overnight, when, in fact, it is the result of living beside the Truth for days, weeks, and months.

And this is the other great gift of this story. Awakening takes time. It requires only that I show up to do the work, the daily chores. It tells me that I need only to live beside Truth and follow her lead to ease my heart’s burning. 

So, this story is a map for my awakening and becoming more fully who I am here to be. Even though I am not a successful business person, I do not own a large house and am not seen as rich, I have accumulated the trappings of a persona that would appear to most as successful-ish. I have built a veneer that gives me the appearance of success. 

However, behind that facade, I hid my impoverished self. It was an exhausting way to live, to perpetually be projecting what I believed to be socially acceptable. At the same time, in my deepest, hidden part of myself, I had secretly deemed myself unworthy. So, like this character, I had a question burning in my Heart that I did not know I would ever be able to answer fully. This story tells me that it is possible to answer it, and it tells me how to do it. 

• Follow the question that burns in my Heart. 
• Live beside Truth, however repulsive or ugly she may appear at first. 
• Show up every day. 
• Follow her example. 

In this way, one day, I will awake to find the burning in my Heart will have vanished. I will joyfully and triumphantly exclaim that I am ready to go home, to return to the ordinary world. I will ask her if there is anything I can do for her.

She will ask me to tell everyone that she is beautiful.

Look Into The Truth & Beauty Mirror

As you read the story of Truth & Beauty, notice how you feel about each of the characters. Which one stirs the strongest feelings, either positive or negative?

• Write about the character you dislike the most in this story. As you do, see if there are any signs of what part of yourself or your life you see reflected there.

• Which of the characters is the exact opposite of who you believe yourself to be?

• Which character do you feel the most positive feelings toward, and why do you think that is?

The story reveals that daily presence in companionship with Truth is the secret to healing the Heart’s discomfort. 

• Explore what hurts in your Heart that does not seem to go away no matter how many books you read or teachers you listen to. 

• What is the unappealing Truth that might be the key to easing the burning in your Heart?

• How is this different from a more heroic approach to conquering pain, confusion, or suffering?

Wealth means different things to each one of us. Become clear on the story you have about it to transform your relationship to it. For some, wealth is a four-letter word. 

• What is your definition of wealth, and where do you find it in your life?

• Where do you reject it?

• Who is your most powerful role model regarding wealth? What lesson did you learn from them?

• What is your vision for being wealthy?

There are many voices in your life telling you who you should be and what you should do to be successful. The key to living joyfully is to know which voice is your own. 

• List all of the ways you are meeting others’ expectations and rate each one on a scale of 1 to 10 to see how much they match your Heart’s true desire.

In this episode, I share the potent story of The Handless Maiden. This tale opens many doors into our inner landscapes and I share some of mine. We often avoid disturbing stories because of what they trigger within us. Being present with kind curiosity to the story wisdom is the key to receiving the powerful gifts of this timeless folktale.

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Subscribe to this podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many more.

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My book, Love Lies Beneath: How Reclaiming My Soul Through Story Became The Secret To Healing My Heart is available in paperback and as a Kindle at Amazon. 

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Transcript

The Handless Maiden

Welcome to Love Lies Beneath. I’m Zette Harbour.

I’m glad to have you here. Do you feel like stress, fear, or pain take up way too much of your energy? Have you wondered if you’ll ever be free of that heaviness of your past? Do you long to feel as good on the inside as your life looks on the outside? In this podcast, you’ll discover the story of who you really are and how to set yourself free together.

We’re going to travel into those wild spaces of our inner landscapes and dive deeply into the rich soil of our lives. Reclaiming soul through story and healing. Our hearts. My book Love Lies Beneath is the. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast. So you don’t miss any of this enriching journey. And now let the adventure begin.

In episode 29, I share a rich, powerful, although sometimes daunting story called The Handless Maiden. It’s one of the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm. I invite you to listen to the story with kind curiosity, allowing the story wisdom to show itself to you. Invite the parts of you that you see reflected in this mirror to tell you more about your own journey, about the losses, about the struggles, and about the triumphs.

The Handless Maiden

Once upon a time, there was a miller. He had a wife and a daughter. Times were hard, and his millstone lay useless in the shed behind his house. He and his wife were very worried. They didn’t know what it was they were going to do to survive. 

The wife had heard stories about the Tree of Life; She urged her husband to go out into the woods and find it and to bring back whatever wisdom was there. And so, the miller took his silver-tipped ax, and he walked out into the forest searching for the Tree of Life. He found a tree, tall and ancient. He thought, perhaps this is the Tree of Life, although he saw no wisdom there. He took his silver-tipped ax and cut it down. He walked from one end of the tree to the other and back, but he didn’t see any wisdom, so he went on. 

He walked along until he found another tree. Perhaps this was the Tree of Life. He couldn’t see any wisdom from here, and so he took his silver-tipped ax and cut it down. He walked from one end of the tree to the other end and back, and he found no wisdom. He continued walking through the forest, searching for the Tree of Life. 

He found a third tree. This one was very tall, very wide, more ancient than the others, and gnarled. He thought that perhaps this one might be the Tree of Life, and so he raised his silver-tipped ax, and right then a grim, strange man hobbled out from behind a bush. He held up his hand and bade the man stop. He said, ‘I see that you have come upon hard times, Miller, and I am here to offer you a bargain. I will make you as rich as you are now poor if you give me what stands behind your house. 

Now, the Miller thought, and what stood behind his house was the flowering apple tree, and surely that was a worthy bargain. He agreed with this grim man. The man said that he would come in three years’ time to claim what was his. 

And so, the Miller shouldered his ax, and he began walking back through the forest. He’d come just to the front of his yard when his wife came running out of the house. Her eyes were wide with fright, her hair was wild and askew, ‘Husband, Husband! Things are appearing in our house, treasures, and riches! Look at my clothes. They’ve changed before my very eyes! Husband, what could be happening?’

‘This is the bargain that I’ve made with the grim man in the forest,’ he told her, and in that instant, his own clothes changed and became rich and luxurious. He explained to his wife that all he was required to give in return was what stood behind their house – the flowering apple tree.

‘Oh Husband, do you not know who that grim man was? Do you not know what you have promised? Our daughter stands behind the house sweeping the walk with the willow broom! Oh, Husband!’

Together they walked behind the house, and sure enough, there was the flowering apple tree, and also, their beautiful daughter sweeping the walk with the willow broom. With tears in his eyes, the Miller explained to his daughter what had become about. She couldn’t believe what had happened. She couldn’t understand why they would be willing to give her away, but they kept her alone and separate for three years in preparation for that grim and strange man to come. 

On the day he was to arrive, she bathed and anointed herself with oils and dressed in a long white gown. The grim man hobbled out from the forest and reached out his long, gnarled hand to grab her, but he was thrown back across the yard as if by some unseen force. He got up off the ground and said, ‘she cannot bathe! I cannot take her if she is clean. I’ll be back in three weeks. Don’t let her bathe!’ and he hobbled off.

The Miller and his wife did not allow their daughter to bathe, and in three weeks, the dress had become stiff and soiled, her hair was greasy and tangled, and her skin, grimy. The day that the grim and crooked man was to come arrived. The daughter stood there, dirty, filthy, and weeping, hands covering her face, and her tears washed her hands clean and white. The grim man hobbled out from the forest. He reached out to grab her, and again, he was thrown back across the yard. 

He was furious. ‘She can’t have clean hands. She can’t! Cut off her hands! If you don’t cut off her hands, I can’t take her with me.’ 

The Miller couldn’t do it. He couldn’t cut off the hands of his own daughter. 

‘Fail to keep our bargain, and everything will be laid waste for as far as you can see.’ The grim man said that he would return, and he hobbled off into the forest. 

The Miller, weeping, and crying, apologized to his daughter as he sharpened his silver-tipped ax. She told him that she understood that he had no choice. With tears in her eyes, she held out her hands, and her father raised the ax and, with one stroke, cut off her hands. The mother and the father watched as the grim man hobbled back out from the forest. 

The young maiden wept, the tears washing the stumps of her arms white and clean. Again, he reached out to take her, but he was a third time thrown across the yard, and now he was really furious because he had no more power over her. He stomped, and turned, and disappeared into the forest. 

The Miller and his wife put their arms around their daughter. They begged for her forgiveness. They tried to comfort her. They wrapped the stumps of her arms in clean white cloth. They told her that they would take care of her. They would give her everything she ever wanted for the rest of her life.

‘No,’ she said that she knew that she must now wander throughout the world with nothing. And so, she bade them farewell and began walking out into the world. She entered the forest and walked for days. In her wanderings, she even unknowingly walked right past the Tree of Life. 

When a week had passed, she came to a moat that surrounded the pear orchard of the king. By order, his gardener watched it day and night. She could find no way to cross the moat to reach the fruit-laden trees. As darkness fell, a white spirit appeared to her and closed the sluice gate of the moat for her. The water all ran down, draining the moat, and the maiden was able to cross into the orchard and the white spirit with her. 

She stood among the trees, handless and unable to reach up and pluck one of those juicy, ripe pears. She walked along, and one of the trees lowered its branch to her enabling her to eat the fruit right from the limb. Then she and the white spirit crossed the moat out of the orchard. The white spirit opened the sluice gate and, once again, water-filled the moat. 

All the while, the king’s gardener had been watching. In the morning, he ran to the king and told him everything. The king decided that he, himself, along with his wizard, and the gardener would watch that night to see if these two ghostly spirits returned. 

The three were hiding behind a bush as darkness fell. There she was, hair wild, clothes ragged, and skin so covered with grime that she was unrecognizable, accompanied by the white spirit who closed the sluice gate, allowing her to pass into the orchard. The trio watched as another one of the trees lowered its branch to the maiden, allowing her to eat the fruit right from the limb. 

The king told the wizard to go out and speak to the two specters. The wizard approached quietly and asked, “What are you? Are you of the spirit world, or are you of the human world?” 

The maiden answered, “I was once of the human world, and I am not part of the spirit world.” 

The wizard went back to the king, telling him that the creature had claimed that it was both human and spirit. Moved deeply by the sight of her, the king came out from behind the bush and knelt at the foot of this spirit, this woman. He promised to care for her for the rest of his life if she would come with him. 

The maiden returned to the palace with the king, where she was well taken care of. She was given fine clothes and bathed and fed. After some time, she and the king grew to love one another and were married. As a gift, the king had a beautiful pair of silver hands fashioned for her.

Not long after, it came to pass that the king had to fight in a war in a far off country. While he was gone, he asked the queen mother to take good care of his wife, and if she were to bear them a child to let him know immediately. Indeed, while he was gone, the young queen gave birth to a beautiful daughter. Immediately, the queen mother sent a messenger to the king to give him the joyous news.

This messenger stopped at a river to drink and rest. Weary and hot, he fell asleep beneath a nearby bush. While he was sleeping, that grim and crooked stranger hobbled out from the forest. He took the note that the messenger was carrying, and he replaced it with one of his own. His note said that the queen had given birth to a child that was part dog.

Upon receiving this news, the king was horrified. His heart was heavy with sorrow. He sent a note back to his mother saying, ‘Care for them both until I return.’

The messenger once again fell asleep by the river. The grim, crooked man came and, as before, switched the notes. His message back to the queen mother said, ‘Imprison them both.’

The king’s mother could not believe what she had read. She sent another messenger back to the king. That message was switched. The king sent one back to her, and it was yet again switched. The messages went back and forth, each getting more and more horrible until the final one told the queen mother that she must kill the queen and the child and keep the eyes and the heart as proof.

This the mother of the king could not do. She told the young queen all that had happened, and together they made plans for her escape. 

The king’s mother helped strap the baby to the queen. She hugged her and sent them off into the world. She had a doe killed and kept the eyes and the heart as proof for the king. Meanwhile, the young queen carried her baby into the world, and there was met once again by the white spirit, which led her through the forest. 

Deep into the forest, they came to a hut. This was the home of a woodcutter and his wife. The woodcutter and his wife knew all about them, who they were, and why they were there. When the queen wondered at this, they told her,’ The people of the forest watch, and they know.’

So the queen and her daughter lived safely and happily for many years. Meanwhile, the king returned from the war. His mother showed him the doe’s eyes and heart and told him they were the young queen’s. He was horrified.’ What had caused this to have happened?’

The queen mother saw the genuineness of her son’s remorse, so she told him the truth. She had sent his wife and daughter out into the world. At that moment, the king vowed that he would search for them and not eat or drink until he found them. He left the palace, entered the dark forest, and began wandering. Over time, his hair grew wild and tangled, and his own skin became brown and grimy. 

After seven long years, his path took him to the center of that deep forest where he came upon the woodcutter’s cottage. Only the woodcutter’s wife was home. She welcomed the king, gave him something to drink, and invited him to lie down and rest. She laid a cloth over his face. As he slept, the woodcutter, the queen, and her young daughter came home. 

The cloth slipped from the face of the king, and he opened his eyes to see standing before him a beautiful woman with a young girl by her side. She explained that she was his wife and that this was his daughter. The king did not understand how this could be because this woman had hands. His wife did not have hands. 

The woodcutter’s wife reached into the trunk and lifted out the two silver hands. The queen explained to him that her hands had grown back through her trials and her own good care. First tiny and pink as a baby’s, then longer and stronger as a young girl’s, and now finally, slender and lean and strong as a young woman. When the king saw this, he wept and rejoiced. 

That night they celebrated with the woodcutter, his wife, and the other people of the forest. The very next day, the king, his queen, and their child returned to the palace, where they held a wonderful celebration welcoming them all home. The king and queen were married once again, and they all lived happily ever after.

Exploring The Handless Maiden

There are a fair number of Grimms’ tales that feel dark, grisly, and a bit horrifying. It is common to avoid them, especially if it is a mirror for our own painful journey. There is a reason we bury our unhappy feelings. They are like hot coals handed to us, and our instinct is to get as far away from them as possible. Only a daft person would willingly try to hang on to them.

So, exploring a story like the Handless Maiden can feel like a bad idea, something a foolish person would do. It is normal and natural to decide not to poke a wound with what looks like a sharp stick. That is why developing your skill in seeing Story as a mirror is so important. It is essential that you have spent some time with less daunting stories before diving into one as deep as this one.

If you were learning to scuba dive, you would start in the safe and controlled waters of a pool. Eventually, as you began to master the mask, snorkel, and regulator, you could venture out into the ocean. Not the deepest part of the ocean, though. Your instructor would take you to a calm, relatively shallow cove, first. Once you had achieved the level of mastery needed, you could expand your diving territory and enjoy the extraordinary underwater scenes in the ocean’s depths.

So, do not start with the biggest, deepest, most scary story about your life. Practice this Story diving in small pools first. You will find more than enough awakening and wonder no matter which pool you choose. I did not start my own Story exploration with the Handless Maiden. By the time this story revealed itself to me, I had plenty of practice with Rumpelstiltskin and the Woman of the Sea, as well as many others like them.

It took me many hours of living with this particular story, telling it, and writing about it before I felt confident enough to really allow it to come to life within me. Once I did, what I found there shifted the tectonic plates of my life. This story let me see that there was no simple, straight path back to wholeness. There would be fruitful moments, unions, betrayals, and a fair amount of wandering. Like the maiden, ‘through my trials and my own good care,’ I allowed my hands to grow back slowly. 

In the beginning, the miller and his wife are afraid because their world is falling into ruin. I have adapted this part of the story to include the idea of the Tree of Life. This is a mythical tree representing the connectedness of all life. It speaks to my understanding that when my life and livelihood are in distress, there is a lack of connection to what is vital and important. Like many of us, though, the miller thinks that the way to regain this connection is to chop down and harvest the tree. Of course, that is the exact opposite of what the tree represents.

Paradoxically, it is the grim stranger’s intervention that saves the miller from destroying this powerful tree. This mirrors my own experience that often some entity within or outside of me that appears to be dangerous or bad actually plays a central role in my transformation. Without the presence of the grim stranger, the miller’s daughter would never have taken her journey. It invites me to hold the room for the question, ‘if those wounds had never happened, would I be who I am today?’ 

To be clear, this is very different than saying, ‘It’s all good.” That is avoidance and denial, and both are extremely toxic. They act like a perpetual fog within which no life-giving sources of nourishment can grow. Denying or ignoring the depth of grief and suffering I experience is not healing. Like the Handless Maiden, I must walk through the forest, and I must have my eyes wide open. 

This is one of the greatest gifts of mythological thinking and archetypal imagining. A thing can be both dark and light at the same time. I acknowledge the darkness while understanding its power to transform. Likewise, I accept that there is a purpose to my journey, making it possible for me to receive its richness. As a result, I grow strong, healthy hands with which to reach out into the world.

This paradoxical awareness is what allowed the truth of the existence of my own woundings to live alongside the value of the paths I have traveled. It has enabled my acceptance that the journey would not have been possible without them. Those wounds are found in the soil of my life. My roots require the darkness to deliver life-giving energy to my Tree of Life. This understanding is an essential key to reclaiming the dismembered parts of my Soul.

Living In A Handless World

The painful beginning of this story makes me cry. I feel my Heart absolutely break when the father cuts off her hands. Even worse, she offers herself up, willing to bear the brunt of the damage so that others may avoid harm. I felt something similar, growing up. I was worth less than others around me. Therefore, I could and would sacrifice what was asked of me.

When I spend time with this story, I see myself. I see that I am not the only one to have been used by others to keep their own destruction at bay. For instance, my stepfather had something very wrong with him. I was one of the children in our house who suffered because of the ominous stranger that lived within him. Rather than face his own brokenness and the pain that would bring him, he used us to make himself feel better.

I also see the path to wholeness laid out in this tale. There is power and beauty in the young woman’s courage as she chooses to leave her parents’ broken home and sets out into the world. She knows that she has lost the very parts of her to enable her to make something of her life. It is the loss of her hands, the part of herself that would have allowed her to reach for things she desired or even needed to survive.

When I am present to the Handless Maiden’s story, I am able to tell myself the truth of my own loss, pain, and dismemberment. I lost the safety of a home in which I was supposed to, at the very least, be cared for. In truth, the loss was much greater since it was clear there was no hope of being valuable just because I was me. I would not be kept safe, nor would I be cherished, treasured, and believed in. 

This story helps me reunite with my pain at finding myself responsible for fixing others’ mistakes and evils at the cost of my own body. It is the pain of knowing that there is no one coming to save me. I feel the intense weight of the sorrow that I did not matter at all. And, like the Handless Maiden, I comply with their misguided betrayals until I can leave and make my way in the world. I may be disfigured, but I am free.

Looking into this story, I understand the extent to which my early betrayers maimed me. It legitimizes how I felt about that time and what came next in my life. The Handless Maiden gives me words to express and heal what happened to me. I am also able to make peace with how I acted as a result of those early woundings. I, too, had times when subversive influences and confusing messages disrupted my life.

In this tale, I love that there is no straight path to a happily ever after because that seems more like the world I live in. The Handless Maiden’s journey to restoring wholeness is one of twists and turns. There appears to be a safe place for her with the king, and he even gives her beautiful but false hands. Within this union, she finds love that promises to offer safety, although that turns out to be fleeting.

This illuminates the truth that there is no reclamation of the self to be found in any relationships outside of the self. To truly heal the early wounds and restore her full capacity to reach out and grasp life with both hands, she must through all of her ‘trials and her own good care,’ grow her hands back. My own journey has shown this to be true. The only way to truly restore me to wholeness has come through my reclamation of my Soul. The path to this is in living with intimacy and compassion with my stories.

Through My Own Good Care

I have been avoiding accepting one of the hardest gifts of this story for a long time. It is not even the biggest revelation I have received in my Story wanderings. Instead, it is the one I have been spending the most energy trying not to see. All of that energy I have been using not to look this one in the eyes has been quite costly to my ability to make choices and find fulfillment.

Even as I make space in my conscious awareness for the message, I feel the turbulence of the shift in my entire body. My denial of this belief about myself took a heavy and sustained investment that will not dissolve easily. What I must do to ensure my safe passage is to remember everything I have learned about Story’s wisdom. And so, I will choose to enter this particular landscape, feeling my fear and grief. I also cling to a flickering flame of hope that I will come out on the other side, having grown my own hands back.

As I look unflinchingly within, I see myself living in a hellscape of self-hatred. This is one of the last and most disheartening pieces of my Soul that I had lopped off and buried long ago. It contains the story of my struggle to manage the truth of my vulnerability, abuse, and pain. It is the best my younger mind could do to save as much of me as it could. 

In this imagery, I can see two of me. One is furious and full of hate toward the other. The other is pitiful. They are the Hateful and the Helpless. The Helpless self yearns for love and carries a horrible secret. 

She is so desperate; she would accept love from even the stepfather. This is her great shame, and she is gutted by it. It is precisely the wrong thing to allow. It feels despicable. He is the abuser of her sister. He is her own abuser. He is the man who has usurped her father. 

My Heart is so empty from the loss of that original love. Feeling the absence of being nourished by the male attention and praise. Seeing my dad smile at me. Hearing him sing to me, play guitar for me. All of this is lost.

In this vision, Helpless is rendered asunder. There is a great gash along the left side of her torso. It is bloody and deep. Hateful knows what a betrayer she has been. How weak, pitiful, and ugly she is. 

All around them is the ultimate hellscape. Red, fiery, winds of self-loathing raging ceaseless and eternal over the scarred, desolate, charred ground. Everything glows with a bloody red, only how you would think a bloody red would look if it were also in intense heat, like an incinerator.

Hateful stands in full wrath posture, legs and arms wide. Her arms are held high, and one brandishes a sword. 

Helpless lies on the ground, plaintively upturned face begging for mercy. There is none. And she knows that she doesn’t deserve it anyway. She is ruined and ruinous. She is sentenced to this parched suffering of the ever-wounded, never-healed untouchable state.

Of the two, for many years, I have been more comfortable acknowledging the Hateful. However, I do not let her turn her hate onto the world or anyone else in it who does not deserve it. There was a period in my life when I allowed it to flow without restraint onto my thoughts of my stepfather, foster-father, mother, and foster-mother. I was very willing and comfortable to turn my fiery gaze on them as a way of deflecting it away from myself. 

This brings to mind another image. I see my anorexic behavior during my early teen years to young adulthood. I can remember a schoolmate in my sophomore year telling me that I looked like a skeleton. I don’t recall ever seeing myself as skeletal nor even as overweight. How I looked wasn’t what it was about for me. It was my self-punishment to refuse to feed myself. 

Like the handless maiden, I couldn’t reach out to pick up the food. Unlike her, I hadn’t yet met my White Spirit. I can remember being in the kitchen, opening a cupboard or the fridge. Although I could use my hands to open the doors, I remember feeling like I had no muscles to lift my arms to pick up any food. I could see it in the cupboard and fridge. There was plenty of it. I just didn’t have permission from myself to eat. I could not and would not be nourished. 

For a long time, I believed that shrinking my body had also been a tactic to help me be less visible. This was in the hope that I would avoid being a target for my stepfather’s abuse. Having a wraith-like appearance also matched my sense that I did not feel like a real person in many ways. Another benefit was that focusing on depriving myself did help distract me from the worst of my pain. I can remember feeling a bizarre but quiet sense of satisfaction every time I submitted to my unwillingness to reach for food. It made me feel good about myself.

Paradoxically, I did eat enough to avoid any health complications. Perhaps my unconscious self understood my purpose for this behavior and prevented me from taking it too far. Or it may have been that going into the danger zone healthwise would have drawn too much attention to me. I could not risk causing my stepfather to focus on me any more than he already did. My purpose was to achieve a sense of control, and withholding food was one way for me to do that.

Please note: I feel that it is important for me to be explicit here. Anorexia is serious, and my experience does not apply to nor diminish anyone else’s. 

Looking at these layers of self-hatred and abuse, I can see how they had been woven together to form a protective robe. These Self-Betrayals formed a cascade of hurts designed to shield me from what I believed was the worst thing I could feel. That would have been to acknowledge my sycophantic, obsequious yearning for love and connection, even from a monster. Diving deeper, I can see that this self-condemnation was itself a cover story for the terror of living so close to the potential of the annihilation of myself.

If I could be the evil antagonist of my own suffering, then at least I knew who was in charge. On the other hand, to accept that the pain and abuse were completely outside of my control was to face a mind-shredding fear that my existence could end at any moment. It was better to wrestle the devil I knew and harbored within me than the one I was powerless against. In other words, it was better to allow my hands to be chopped off than to disappear altogether. 

Somehow I did manage to lift my eating embargo long before facing this lowest of lows in myself. Perhaps that is equivalent to the silver hands that the king had made for the Handless Maiden. They were not the real thing, but they were something. He had also had them made to be beautiful even if they were not fully functional. I had learned to feed myself, but that was not the same as fully forgiving and loving myself.

At the heart of all of this is that Hateful is really, really, really hurt. This great pain of nothingness is the source of her wrath. I think that she knows she can take it out on Helpless whether or not she has done anything ‘wrong.’ The reality is that Hateful is furious at those adults who hurt her, and she knows they will never be held accountable. Someone has to be, though, so she has turned to the one being she knows she can trust…Helpless. 

She knows that Helpless will take it and never leave or betray her, unlike others. I am reminded of that Star Trek episode, The Alternative Factor, in which a man is trapped in an unending struggle with his counterpart from an alternate universe. They are locked in relentless hand to hand combat so that the universe will be safe. These two opposites within me are locked in our own epic saga of fury and submission. Dancing eternally, the balance never being shifted. There is no outcome or victory here, ever, not even for Hateful. 

The purpose of this particular battle is not to vanquish. That would mean there would be an ending. Instead, this is a container for unceasing emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual wrestling. The bloody skirmish can end only when Hateful extends her hand to Helpless in compassion and willingness, because the only way to face the core of the black hole created by the threat to my Original Self, is together.

I accomplish this by spending time with the story of their separation and struggle. I see, embrace, appreciate, and love each of them as valued parts of myself. That sounds easier than it was. I definitely felt the distressing feelings of fury and fear. My transformation began when I understood that I could embrace both Hateful and Helpless at the same time. 

At first, I felt like I needed to negotiate a truce between them. This felt overwhelming and impossible. I did not think I could do that without one of them having to be the loser. My gut told me that would not work and, in fact, could increase the turmoil between these two aspects of myself. The more I tried to placate Hateful and implore Helpless, the more intense the pain became. Fortunately, I had coaches with whom to work through my thoughts and feelings. 

That is when it became clear that the path through this intimidating and fearful terrain lay in seeing the beauty and value of each one. These two aspects were holding archetypes that expressed deep, universal truths about the human experience. Neither needed to win nor lose. I had gotten caught up in the drama of the story, and this had prevented me from seeing it from a more expansive point of view.

The secret was in letting myself truly see them as they were. Then, I needed to wrap my arms around them, no matter how frightening or repulsive they appeared. Next, I needed to tell them, ‘thank you’ because they were essential to becoming more whole. And finally, I needed to say, ‘I love you’ to both of them. The shift was immediate and amazing.

Suddenly, I no longer felt like I was being held at metaphorical gunpoint. This story had revealed itself to me, not so I could ‘fix’ it but for me to show it recognition, respect, and compassion. This was the secret to reclaiming these particular bits of my Soul. In doing so, I experienced a full healing of my pain. They did not need to be vanquished or conquered. What they wanted most was to come home.

Seeing Through Many Lenses

As I spend time with the Handless Maiden story, I can also see messages from cultural, individual, and intrapersonal perspectives. Looking through these different lenses can help connect to your own place in the story and how it shows up in your life. These influences can be subtle and disguised, or they can be direct and overt. For instance, culturally, a man’s response to feeling disempowered is expected to be anger and possible retribution. A woman will feel like she is supposed to accept it or ignore it and be polite in response.

Here are some thoughts about these various perspectives that may support your exploration of this tale.

• Culturally, females may experience a sense of a patriarchal or grim male, which influences them from manifesting or achieving in the world.

• Culturally, men’s and women’s Feminine Principle may experience a sense of being impotent and helpless to express in a strongly masculine-oriented world.

• Individually, girls and women may experience a limiting of their abilities and opportunities to be an active creator of their lives by patriarchal and heavily masculine-oriented society.

• Individually, males and females may experience a cutting off by patriarchal and heavily masculine-oriented society of their own Feminine Principle’s expression and ability to manifest.

• Intrapersonally, girls, and women may find that their own internal masculine aspects, symbolized by the father and grim, strange man, have cut off their access to manifesting and creating.

• Intrapersonally, it may reflect women feeling, for whatever reason, unequipped to fulfill their creative destinies. It may simply speak to those times in life when the choice was made to sacrifice the creative feminine during times of duress or threat.
  
• Intrapersonally, males and females may experience a sense that their own internal masculine aspects cause them to be unable to express themselves from a Feminine Principle perspective.
  

Look Into The Handless Maiden Mirror

As you look into this story to see what aspects of your life and yourself call to be seen, take some time to write down what shows up. Remember that even if what you see feels daunting, threatening, or fearful, what you are being called to do is to be present. That willingness speaks to your Soul and lets it know that you are ready to reclaim those roots that had been cut off. Once you do, the nutrients of the soil will once again nourish you. 

• Describe which character in the story causes the strongest feelings for you.

• How do you think the character should have behaved?

• Is there someone in your life, including yourself, that reminds you of them? 
  

You may resonate with the Handless Maiden’s decision to go out into the world, leaving her parents and their offer to take care of her behind. 

• Why do you think the Handless Maiden refuses to stay home and be taken care of?

• When have you faced a wilderness in your life?

• How have you nourished yourself when you did not feel equipped to do so?
  

Once the Maiden meets the King, it appears that she will now be able to live in happiness and safety. He even has beautiful silver hands made for her. When they are to have a child, life looks like there will be a happy ending. Instead, she is betrayed once again, and the communication between the King and his mother is hijacked. Despite still being handless, the Maiden sets off to find safety once more.

• Do you recognize the experience of life looking like it is all on the verge of working out only to find that there is more confusion and betrayal?

• Has there been a time when you had to take your life into your own hands and set out to start your life over again?
  

Through her trials and her own good care, the Handless Maiden grows back her own hands. This part of the story happens without us being able to witness it, and yet, it is the most important chapter in her life. We are each called to grow back our hands and take authority over our own lives and creativity.

• Why are returning to the forest and a simpler life necessary for the Maiden’s hands to grow back?

• Where in your own life do you still need to grow back your hands?

Grasping Life With Both Hands

The Handless Maiden is a long story to perform, to listen to. And it’s a big story. It takes us on some pretty demanding ups and downs. It takes us into places we might be uncomfortable going. And yet when we understand the story wisdom that lies within every tale and when we understand that the parts of the story that get your attention, whether they feel good or bad, those parts of the story are messengers from your Soul, from your deep inner wisdom.

And this part of you is using this story to remind you that there are places within you that you yourself had cut off, that you had put away in service of survival and that you are ready to re-member them to restore them and to come back to home.

If this story causes you to feel things that you would rather not feel, if you find that the questions at the end of this episode, stir up resistance or criticism or rejection within you, trust that those are all signs that you are on a path toward wholeness. You are coming home to yourself and that you are through your trials and your own good care, growing your own hands back, lean and strong over this next week.

I invite you to spend some time with those questions, write about what you feel, what you see within you, what you hear. Even places in your body where you’re experiencing sensations, write it all down, because that is how you let your deep inner wisdom know that you are paying attention. And truly it is presence that will create your wholeness.

I am Zette Harbour. This is Love Lies Beneath. I hope you subscribe to this podcast. I love having you with me on this journey. And I’d love to hear more of your thoughts and answer your questions so you can visit LoveLiesBeneath.com. There you’ll find show notes, transcripts, other resources, links to the guests that I’ve interviewed and the opportunity to set up a virtual coffee date with me. We’ll talk story.

Go raibh míle maith agat! 

In this episode, I dive deeply into one of my life’s most potent stories, The Woman of the Sea. I share my explorations from my book Love Lies Beneath: How reclaiming my Soul through Story became the secret to healing my Heart. I highly recommend listening to Episode 22 Woman of the Sea to refresh your own connections to this tale.

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Subscribe to this podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many more.

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My book, Love Lies Beneath: How Reclaiming My Soul Through Story Became The Secret To Healing My Heart is available in paperback and as a Kindle at Amazon. 

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Transcript

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Woman of the Sea As A Mirror

My Sealskin

Living in a home steeped in trauma, one survival skill I developed was to dampen my instincts. They were the alarms that would go off telling me whenever I was in danger. At a certain point, the danger was chronic, and having alarm bells constantly firing was putting my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health at too great a risk.

I see that process of shutting myself down reflected in the story of the woman of the sea. Like her, I also had something wondrous which I could turn to in moments of pain and despair. Something crimson with the warmth of promise lay at the center of my inner hearth. Even when I had no words for it, I could spend hours transfixed by it as a way of helping me forget where I was. It turns out that Story was a part of that, even then.

I would escape into books, taking comfort in the trials and triumphs of the characters’ lives. I saw that not all families were as broken as mine, and, on occasion, I saw that some were worse. Books carried me away, and I learned how to be hopeful from the heroines and heroes I read about. They felt like those fairy places deep down in the sea, and like the Selkie, I visited them in my mind.

This story also speaks to me of my own continued suppression as I became an adult. I accepted the dutiful roles that appeared in my life and never spoke of my sealskin, not ever. I had grown comfortable with my own discomfort and found ways, mostly unhealthy, of managing it. I looked around me and could easily find others to blame for the pain and emptiness I felt. This kept me looking ‘out there’ for the source of the hurt. It meant that my story about myself did not have to change.

The story I had constructed about myself was carefully designed to maintain my separation from my wild nature, my true identity. In fact, I would only actually be able to see, hear, and feel those things that supported it. If anything or anyone did show up to contradict my chosen narrative, I could deny, ignore, or attack. Denial worked the best.

The children in the story represent my creativity and intuition. However, undeveloped and small, every time I allowed space for them in my life was a step toward my awakening. Being creative and intuitive strengthened my instincts and my ability to listen to what they were telling me.

When they pulled back the hay and revealed my sealskin, they were reminding me of who I had always known I was. It really was not so much that I had forgotten. It was that I had had to set it aside for so long and so thoroughly to survive; I almost did not believe it was real. You see, something happened as a result of being a captive for a really long time. 

It did not matter whether it was another person or me, myself, who took away my freedom. I had adapted and buried the instincts that told me how happy I was when I was free. The longer I did this, the deeper the pit became. Because of this, diving back into the sea where I could return to my wild self felt risky and even a bit alien. 

It has been the sound of the waves over much of the past thirty years that has helped me to recover my sealskin. Hearing the truth of where I came from, where I belong, and how to return has come in the form of therapy, lots of books, teachers, vision boards, meditation, mindfulness practices, time in Nature, workshops, trainings, and most importantly, Story.

Writing this book is me running along the track to the shore with all of my strength. I look forward to leaping into the sea once more. And from there, I will look back at my inner farmer and tell him that, ‘yes, my Heart has always been in the sea.’ And I will turn and with that great gray seal beside me, dive back down into the fairy places where neither rain, nor cold, nor darkness ever come.

Fairy Places

There is such a complexity of relationships in this very simple story. The Selkie is one of the fairy people known to come to the shore on the full moon in midsummer. This is their time to remove their seal skins and dance for joy. I revel in that delight and celebration every time I spend time with this tale. I can feel the strangeness of those fairies, furless, with legs and arms, joyfully moving in a circle and singing. This is unlike anything they do in the fairy places deep in the sea.

On a deeper level, this reminds me of my own Soul shifting into form to experience human existence’s sensations and delights. It comes with risks, as it did for the Selkie woman on this night. I might be caught by that industrious, dutiful, well-meaning farmer who keeps my true nature from me.

While my Soul is held captive in human form, I, like the woman of the sea, find ways to experience love and connection even while managing the ordinary bits of life. I care for the sheep from which clothing and food come. I bake the bread to nourish us all. I bring children into the world and show them a wonder that I hold dear while living as a stranger in a strange land.

All the while, I never forget my true nature and my true home.

This is a tale of feeling blocked by ordinary human life requirements from diving deep into my own fairy places. It tells my own story of being trapped by a part of me that only sees what it desires. There is mundane work to be done. There are children to be raised, and it loves my Soul very much for being a part of it. 

My captor-self’s only true gift can give my Selkie-self is to allow my return to my true identity. But, in doing that, my inner farmer loses the very thing he holds dear. I am in love with the tension of that particular space. I know that within me is a farmer. He wants an ordinary life but seeks partnership with an extraordinary being. My inner Selkie loves her children and knows the man loves her. However, her only true happiness lies in her return to the sea with her skin.

My Soul wants me to spend time in the depths, finding rich emotions and wisdom. My absence heightens my desire to return to my true nature. The time I spend on land taking part in the common moments of life has shaped me. I understand the desires of my inner farmer; I simply can not surrender my entire life to them. I must take possession of myself, as I truly am. 

Once my Soul is returned to its rightful home, the Selkie to the sea, I am able to visit the shore without losing my identity. When I do, I bestow the treasures and nourishing gifts of the sea onto my children. This is where I merge the mundane with the mythical. As a result, I experience a soulful life in which there is the freedom to bring my most authentic self to my entire world.

Look Into The Woman Of The Sea Mirror

Even though this story appears to be about being female, it can offer both men’s and women’s reflections. Everyone has a sealskin that lays hidden, waiting to be rediscovered. It is natural to suppress or hide your wild nature to fulfill the demands of mundane life. Take some time with these questions to discover what lies in the ‘fairy places, deep, deep in the sea where the water is warm as a river in summer, where neither snow nor darkness ever come.’

• When you read this story, what part of your own life does it reflect?

• Have you lived a domesticated life? 

• How would it be different if you were free to join with your wild nature?

You may feel more like the farmer, reliable, and unsurprising. Perhaps you also have discovered a ring of fairy people dancing for joy beneath the full midsummer moon and wanted to carry one of them home with you. This part of you truly believes that this is how to bring that wild beauty and mystery into your life.

• Do you see some of the farmer in your story of yourself?

• How have you tried to harness the beauty of the untamed in the service of your ordinary life?

• Is there something calling you to dive deep down into your own fairy places?

As you look into this story, you may feel strongly about one or more of the characters and the choices they make. Notice what those feelings are and describe them in writing. Like a mirror, it shows you the image you have about yourself and what is behind you that makes it possible.

• Who do you see when you look into this story as a mirror?

• How do you feel about diving deep into your own fairy places?

If the adults responsible for your well-being and safety as a child were limited and even dangerous, your instincts would have let you know. When the threat to your physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual well-being is chronic or unavoidable, you will need to find a way to manage them. 

• How have you hidden your natural instincts from your conscious self to navigate an unsafe situation?

• What does it look like to pick up your own sealskin and return to the sea?

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