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                                                                                              Rave Reviews

 

 

A PROSE POEM BY JENNIFER

 

 Prelude to the Fairy Godmother

Life is like a fairytale filled with insurmountable obstacles, enormous burdens and heart-breaking tragedies. Prior to the arrival of the Fairy Godmother the story is composed of mind numbing monotony….or is it? If fairytales are templates for living a life of wonder and happiness… and who doesn’t believe in fairytales? Be honest. We are all awaiting our happy ending.

So…What went on in Cinderella’s life before the arrival of the Fairy Godmother? How long did she mourn her parent’s death? How many years did she scrub the house, run errands, cook meals, take care of the animals and garden, living with a wicked stepmother, before the entrance of the Fairy Godmother? What goes on inside Cinderella to prepare her for the Fairy Godmother’s arrival? Are impossible circumstances the fertile ground required before the arrival of beneficent-supernatural-aide?

Here is what I think happened. After the death of her parents Cinderella was lost within her grief. She fell into a time I call The Great Silence. She scrubbed floors, dusted the furniture, washes dishes while she felt like she was walking on the ocean floor in cement boots.

Cinderella’s only solace was walking in the woods or working in her mother’s gardens. It was several seasons of pruning roses and tending the vegetable and herbs before The Great Silence let go its grip of Cinderella. Until then soft summer days carried rose fragrance on the hint of breeze while bees hum around Cinderella’s still blank features.

Five times early spring trees renew their green canopy under blue skies then thicken with summer’s heat. Five times seasons change bringing bare branches pristine and stark under winter’s grey sky. Cinderella feels a kindred spirit in the tree’s loss of foliage. She too has lost the comforts of her outer life. Trapped in The Great Silence it is at once hard to care or feel and simultaneously the anguish is overwhelming.

Slowly Cinderella begins conversing with the garden. Beginning with the stirring of power in spring and feeding and grooming the animals she finds she can laugh at their gentle bumps. They press and snuffle against her pockets looking for apples and carrots she brings from the garden.

Returning to the beauty in life, on days bright-edged after rain, Cinderella follows mountain streams. Gathering moss she stores nature’s bandages in her mother’s leather bag she rescued from the trash, thrown out by her stepmother. The flowers embedded and dyed are faded. One day she promises herself she’ll repaint the flowers. She’ll follow the lines and curves of her mother’s design. Lost in reverie, imagining colors, sometimes she feels her mother looking over her shoulder with a smile. It makes her heart beat fast. The moment passes in a flash leaving her shaken and so alone. But Cinderella would never trade the split-second communion for the renewed loss.

As The Great Silence slowly loosens its grip she can breathe freely. Sitting against the trees on the edge of the stream she sighs and dozes. She drifts along the edge of sleep pulling her toward a destiny she can barely remember. The warmth of summer sun softens stiff muscles. Dappled shade fragrant with Bay Laurel, the abundant leaves and tree arms create a lattice. Light shines through in greens and hazy gold. In the safety, the congruency of life embracing her, she dream walks with the Fairy Godmother. Cinderella prunes her dreams shaping them with her Deepest Desires.

Her Deepest Desires buffer her from the gut wrenching pain of living with people who will destroy genuine love without a backwards glance. Cinderella’s antidote is Beauty and Love. She tends the gardens with love. She walks her dog, Blackie, in the forest communing with Mother Nature. When did “communing” become laughable in our task-urgent-time-sensitive culture?

Something has changed. By calling on her strengths each day; morning, noon and night she waits on her wicked family. But now Cinderella does not focus on who she serves. She is engaged in giving and receiving love. She is filled to overflowing with her Deepest Desires to love well. Kitchen and wash rooms are scrubbed. Furniture is polished. Rugs are beaten free of dust. Food is prepared with a prayer. The world under Cinderella’s care shines with love. In this way she is preparing to meet the Fairy Godmother.

Have you forgotten fairytales are designed to impart wisdom? They are a map to living a life filled with wonder. But who, exactly, is the Fairy Godmother? Some say she is a magical creature. For her prolonged exposure to the toxicity of modern life is lethal. Negativity, pollution, deceit, conflict and duplicity these are deadly for you too. Her home is in the ether realm of Fairy. But out of her deep and abiding commitment to share the qualities of love, beauty and virtue she occasionally penetrates our mortal world to teach us.

Cinderella’s first encounter with the Fairy Godmother takes place in the lush rows of the vegetable garden in early evening. The air is beginning to cool. Lengthening shadows bend color. The garden reflects the deepening colors of plants and trees saturated in twilight. The Fairy Godmother often appears at twilight. Within the balance of light and dark, transitioning day to night, night to day, sunlight to moonlight, while the trees sigh and take their breath, the Fairy Godmother slides into the mortal world.

Cinderella’s eyes pass over the Fairy Godmother and back track. Startled by the Fairy Godmother’s perfection Cinderella is jarred out of pessimism and the weight of her depression. Why? The Fairy Godmother is complete in herself. She is whole, in a totality, both unique and magical. Practical and specific to her goals and dreams, she is unshakable in her optimism. The light and color of a million rainbows fragment and permeate to surround her.

Cinderella’s eye fell on the Fairy Godmother standing within the green leaves and tassels of golden corn. How many times had Cinderella’s eye slid over and away from the Fairy Godmother before she was able to hold her vision steady? She knows society will say the Fairy Godmother does not exist. Rational people do not see Fairy Godmothers hanging out in the vegetable patch.

Have you ever noticed when you are shocked or terrified suddenly your priorities change? Cinderella’s world tilted. When she looked again the Fairy Godmother stood next to her wearing a dress made from the silk of fairy dust spun together into living oscillating threads of light. Her face filled with ineffable beauty takes Cinderella’s breath away.

How does the Fairy Godmother teach? We each vibrate at the rate and frequency of our thoughts, feelings and behavior. The Fairy Godmother is incontrovertibly positive. For generations, millennium after millenniums, she lives an uncompromising, radiant happiness creating acts of beauty. Her lifestyle is dangerously optimistic. As a result she expedites miraculous outcomes. Can you imagine being around such a presence?

She teaches as she lives; authentically. In her presence Cinderella can hear the ring of truth. Knowing the sound she will never forget to listen for its reverberation. The Fairy Godmother is aligned mind-body-spirit-action. Understanding this congruency Cinderella can achieve it. In the future she will recognize discrepancies, incongruence’s like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

In the presence of the Fairy Godmother Cinderella is jolted into self-awareness. When we are in the presence of someone like the Fairy Godmother, who knows their strength, knows their skills and engages these resources to manifest Positive Possibilities: hope awakens within us. We no longer vibrate at the frequency of our problems. Instead we vibrate at the frequency of hope.

The Fairy Godmother paid no attention to Cinderella’s difficulties or ugliness in her life. She shifts Cinderella’s attention from what’s wrong with her life (for example living with a wicked stepmother and two selfish stepsisters with their never ending demands sucking Cinderella dry of every ounce of life each day.) Instead the Fairy Godmother asks Cinderella to define her Deepest Desires. Why? The seeds of our happiness are embedded in our Deepest Desires.

There is a time to grieve the past, calm and soothe trauma, comfort and explore the depths of pain. But when you are ready for change and the Fairy Godmother appears it’s time to focus on the future. It’s time to find and define our Deepest Desires. Entwining our Deepest Desires with our personal strengths ushers us into a state of absorption and flow. We are lost in the pleasure of our growing mastery. Our Deepest Desires ground us in our essential self and the beneficence in our dreams is larger than our problems.

When we are disconnected from our Deepest Desires life is a cardboard imitation of happiness. Think of the people living in the beautiful homes, with full access to opportunities and yet they are unhappy. All women want to become queen. Cinderella’s stepsisters are in a competition to become queen. For them becoming queen means they will not have to do any work. People will line up to do them favors and bring them gifts. They will have the most beautiful clothes and their jewelry will outshine every other woman in the land.

Cinderella doesn’t want to be queen in the “I’m more powerful than you” sense. She wants to fulfill her Deepest Desires living within the warm glow of realizing her ambitions. She wants to interact with life from her strengths. Her actions will bring beauty to her world and touch the lives with those she loves with beauty. True power is our ability to create beauty. True power is our skill, our capacity to choreography, while engaging our strengths our life with well-being.

This is what Cinderella means when she wants to be queen. She wants to give and receive love in a mutually beneficial loop of reciprocity. She wants to share with her Prince. Their strengths will dovetail. Together they are more powerful than when they are apart. Returning to the garden landing with a jolt in the here and now, Cinderella sighs. “It seems impossible…look at me dressed in rags.”

The Fairy Godmother startles Cinderella with her laughter. “This is what Deepest Desires looks like with everyone! They seem unattainable. The obstacles are insurmountable. The burdens are enormous.” The Fairy Godmother smiles at Cinderella. “By clarifying your Deepest Desires, a relationship with the Prince, Cinderella, you make contact with your authentic self.

Creating beauty and positive outcomes in the midst of stress is at the heart of the Fairy Godmother’s teachings. The Fairy Godmother is in her way a transcendent quintessential radical. Yes, her teachings are revolutionary. Awaken to the teachings of the Fairy Godmother and prepare yourself. You too may stumble into transcendent happiness.