Yesterday I mentioned the exile of characters in our most well-known fairy tales. And that reminded me of a song by Sara Bareilles.
A brief respite from the heat of the desert. Enjoy.
Fairytale
{ 0 comments }
Compliance causes us to be exiled from ourselves.
To be ourselves causes us to be exiled from others.
The choice is clear. Or is it?
This was the rhetorical question left hanging in yesterday’s post. The choice may be clear, but that certainly does not make it easy. Few important choices are.
We don’t want to be in exile. We don’t want to be the outcast. We want to be embraced, welcomed, and understood; known and loved for our truest, most-honest selves. A given. And rare.
Exile is a common theme in stories – sacred and secular, fictional and true. Again, in Women Who Run With The Wolves, Estes says, “In fairy tales, the role of the stranger or the outcast is usually played by the one who is most deeply connected to the knowing nature.” Ahhh. Now this makes so much more sense to me.
Think of the outcasts so common in our fairy tales – whether Disney’s version or not:
Cinderella
Snow White
Sleeping Beauty
Rapunzel
Belle
Think of the outcasts so common in scriptural narratives – regardless of how you’ve heard them interpreted:
Eve [Genesis 3]
Hagar [Genesis 16]
Jepthah’s Daughter [Judges 11]
The Woman at the Well [John 4]
The woman caught in adultery [John 8]
What if we understood all of these women as those who were “deeply connected to the knowing nature?” They were not waiting for Prince Charming or any kind of white-knight-rescue. They were in exile expressly because they would not comply, because they could not choose exile from themselves, because that decision meant exile from others.
These are tough choices – made from a place of deep groundedness, deep knowing, deep truth. Not fairy tale. Real.
Exile, yes. Alone, no. These women and so many more are our companions.
It’s a feast, a reunion, a stunning and beautiful gathering that occurs in the desert! A joining of the many souls who know – deeply; who know you – deeply; who invite you to be in exile with them.
There is no way to both stay and go.
(Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With The Wolves)
For your reflection:
- Not easy choices, these. Do you feel the binary, the dichotomy, the either/or? What do you do with that?
- Do you feel at all encouraged that the stories you’ve known – whether sacred or secular, fairy tale or real – provide you companionship in your own exile? Which stories speak most deeply to you?
- What is your instinctual, gut-level response to “there is no way to both stay and go”?
{ 5 comments }
Yesterday I talked of our shadow-selves, the part we keep hidden because we fear that if revealed, would be too much, too wild, too overwhelming. So instead, we choose compliance.
com·pli·ance:
- the act of conforming, acquiescing, or yielding.
- a tendency to yield readily to others, esp. in a weak and subservient way.
- conformity; accordance: in compliance with orders.
- Physics
a. the strain of an elastic body expressed as a function of the force producing the strain.b. a coefficient expressing the responsiveness of a mechanical system to a periodic force.
Really? I don’t want ANY of this! Nor do you, I’m sure of it!
Again, Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run With the Wolves:
Compliance causes a shocking realization that must be registered by all women. That is, to be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves. It is a tormenting tension and it must be borne, but the choice is clear.
This does not mean that the choice is easy. To reveal ourselves, to tell the truth, to live out loud, is difficult, painful, and sometimes downright excruciating. But so is the alternative: to remain hidden, silent, small. Even exile seems better than that!
I know: exile is a harsh word with all kinds of ramifications. Exile takes us right straight back to the desert. And yet I continue to propose that the desert is where we are most at home, most ourselves, most nurtured and cared for, known and seen. (More on exile tomorrow…)
Compliance causes us to be exiled from ourselves.
To be ourselves causes us to be exiled from others.
The choice is clear.
For your reflection:
- Are you aware of the places/times in which you have chosen compliance?
- What does the word “exile” conjure up for you?
- Do you understand/know what does it feels like to be exiled from yourself?
- From whom would you be exiled if you chose to be yourself?
- Is the choice, in fact, clear?
{ 14 comments }
In my opening, thematic overlay for this Lenten series, I used a quote by Jan Richardson:
…to create, to take what we find in the shadows of our lives
and craft what never before has been seen.
The shadows of our lives are tricky. They are called “shadows” for a reason: ostensibly to remain hidden, lurking behind-the-scenes. This becomes problematic when we see them exclusively as such; when we believe that they only represent aspects of ourselves that are undesirable, dark, and dangerous.
We fear that were we to let our shadows into the light of the day, we’d be too much, too wild, too overwhelming.
This is where I disagree. Shadows, I think, are the shadings in which our truest sense of self is brewing, stirring, waiting to be tasted, enjoyed, and celebrated. And to return to Richardson’s quote, they are the very things that enable us to “craft what never before has been seen.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estes speaks to this in her brilliant book Women Who Run With The Wolves:
…shadow elements, meaning aspects of oneself which are considered by the ego to be undesirable or not useful are therefore relegated to the dark. On one hand, shadow material can be quite positive, for often a woman’s gifts are pushed into the dark, hidden there and waiting to be discovered. On the other hand, negative shadow material – that which busily kills off or derails all new life – can also be turned to one’s use…When it erupts, and we finally identify its aspects and sources, we are made all the stronger and wiser.
Mmmm. I love this. Gifts that are pushed into the dark, hidden there and waiting to be discovered. Negative shadow material that makes us all the stronger and wiser.
We spend so much time shoving shadows down. We morph. We become what others need, expect, and demand. And in the process, our stronger and wiser selves move into the shadows – waiting to erupt. We remain silent. We comply. (More on this tomorrow.)
What would happen if we believed that our shadows know; that they can be trusted and are worth bringing into the light?
For your reflection:
- Same question: What would happen if you believed that your shadows knew; that they could be trusted and are worth bringing into the light?
- Do you fear being too much, too wild, too overwhelming?
- Can you imagine what you’d look like, who you’d be, if your truest, out-of-the-shadows self emerged?
{ 10 comments }
