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Author
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Comment
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(12/28/02 4:36:14 pm)
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the enchanted imagination
Greetings all, my name is Margaret Anne. I am not new to the board but I have finally worked up the courage to post. With so many wise and enchanted minds on this board, I admit I have been a bit reluctant to come out of hiding.
First, here is my question for the board: Are there any tales that you know of - old or new, fiction, or an event from real life - that illustrates/ illuminates the healing/transformational/ spiritual power of enchantment?
I am doing some research on the “enchanted imagination” as a potent spiritual, healing and transformational force for positive good/change/healing in the world. This work is born and driven by a passionate and mysterious encounter I had with enchantment as a child. I guess you might say exploration of this theme has since become a lifelong quest for me i.e. a part of my purpose and calling. Therefore, I deeply appreciate any offering of knowledge and insight you might share with me about this topic.
If you need greater clarification of the kinds of themes I am exploring, I am sharing a personal story of an early encounter with the realm of fairy tale – one that for me was profound, powerful and life changing. If this is TMI (too much information), please just skip to the last two paragraphs of this post.
Here is my personal story:
When I was very young, I was a very sickly child and I frequently had bouts of severe bronchial pneumonia. On one particular occasion my fever spiked very high and my parents thought they should hospitalize me. Instead of calling the doctor my father (who is generally a quite logical, rational, kind of man) felt an intuitive tug to go to the dime store. When he got there he went to the toy shelf and immediately felt drawn to a package of fairy tale punch outs, which he purchased and brought home to me.
When I opened the package of fairy tale cutouts, my eyes lit up - It contained an array of fairy tale characters and other magical elements – there was Cinderella and her castle, Hansel and Gretel and a gingerbread house, magical trees with faces from the enchanted forest, etc. Even though my fever was quite high, something began to stir in me. I rallied myself enough to sit up in bed and I begin to punch out my fairy tale world –
This went on for sometime and as the process unfolded I began to feel better. I finally moved from the bed to the floor of my bedroom where I began to set up an imaginary world – At some point in the experience I crossed over and the paper figures and scenes became real people and places to me with their own lives and stories and events… And by the end of the experience my fever had broken and I began to not only feel better, but to heal.
The experience was akin to one of those charismatic contrived religious experiences at church revivals where the preacher says “take up your bed and walk” and the blind can then see and the lame leave the church walking – only this was quite real. Call it a flow state, or whatever you wish, something very powerful happened for me that day that I really don’t have an explanation for. My fever broke in the process of playing on the floor with that fairy tale world and I got well that day, literally, physically, and permanently. I never got bronchial pneumonia again, nor have I been sick a day in my life since except for an occasional winter cold.
I believe -or rather I know that this encounter between the realm of enchantment and my own imagination had an impact on my immune system – but I would really prefer not to try and explain this away or reduce it to a scientific or rational explanation. I believe real and imaginary stories have the power to convey the magic and the wisdom of this phenomenon much more potently.
I also know there are skeptics that would say the experience was just coincidence. But my heart knows better – not from the place of the intellect but from a place of experience and deep intuitive knowing. Enchantment is powerful, and I experienced first hand how a deep encounter with it through story and art can be life changing.
Anyway, that’s my personal story, – I am looking for others – from folklore, fairy tales and from real life. I am not only looking for stories and examples where the power of the enchanted imagination impacted a physical healing for someone, but where emotional and spiritual transformation has taken place as well. This theme can be cloaked in metaphor or embedded in the deeper wisdom of fairy tales – i.e. it doesn’t have to be explicit - it can be implied or symbolized through magical encounters, magical objects, metaphor, etc. In particular I am looking for examples and themes that can be applied toward the issues and complexities of modern life – i.e. where an encounter with enchantment/story/fairy tales/the fairy tale world helped someone get out of a difficult situation, solve a problem, claim their power, change their circumstances, gain an important insight, etc.
While I am looking for themes of healing and transformation from folklore and fairy tales, I also want to hear real life stories that anyone may wish to share. The real encounters may be off topic for this board so if anyone wishes dialogue off site, please feel free to email me at enchantmentweaver@hotmail.com.
Blessings to all and thanks for the offering of your knowlege, your insight and your wisdom.
– Margaret Anne Saizan
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cpe
Unregistered User
(12/28/02 10:28:04 pm)
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experiences of the psychoid
take a look at Visitations by Lee Lawson.
also, in curanderismo, we understand people as being under the sway of both positive and sometimes negative influences that must be balanced in the latter case, and followed in the former.
welcome as first time poster!
all best
cpe
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(12/28/02 11:46:46 pm)
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Re: the enchanted imagination
Your post made me feel that of course I've had similar experiences ... if I can just remember them....
The idea also seems to be part of popular culture. Both Oz movies imposed it on their stories. In the book of THE WIZARD OF OZ, there was no sub-plot of conflict about the dog, or anyone reproaching D for anything. She wasn't running away, and she wasn't injured. That was all added in the movie: giving her family conflicts and an injury which could be healed by a dream journey (to Oz). In the movie RETURN TO OZ another conflict and injury were added which had nothing to do with the books, and again she was healed while 'dreaming'.
I feel like there were many popular movies and books using such a motif from 1900-1950. Magical events that turn out to be a dream -- but heal the person or situation anyway....
Not quite in that category, but Collette's story "The Sick Child" is all about a fever delirium (out of body, we'd say), which ends with him waking cured. Being Collette, she made him disappointed he didn't get to stay out permanently.... Surely Kipling must have done some like this....
I'll try to remember something closer to home....
Hm, here's a fairytale where I used it myself.
www.rosemarylake.com/never-summer.html
Rosemary
Edited by: Rosemary Lake at: 12/28/02 11:53:19 pm
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(12/29/02 4:13:02 am)
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Terri
You need to read the opening essay by Terri Windling in her adult fairy tale anthooogy, THE ARMLESS MAIDEN. She talks about how fairy tales saved her life. It's both brilliant and moving and extraordinarily revelatory.
Jane
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Kerrie
Moderator
(12/30/02 9:36:54 am)
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Links...
As Rosemary said, I too feel as if I've experienced this phenomenon, but cannot seem to recall exact moments at this time...
Here are a few links that you may find useful and enlightening.
3 articles/stories from Terri Windling's Endicott Studio site:
"Unriddling the World: Rites-of-Passage Tales"
www.endicott-studio.com/forrites.html
"On Tolkien and Fairy-Stories"
www.endicott-studio.com/fortolkn.html
"Color of Angels"
www.endicott-studio.com/forcoa.html
A few rites-of-passage sites:
"The Adolescent Mind; The Hero's Journay: A Model for Growth" by Bret Stephenson, M.A.
www.adolescentmind.com/he...urney2.htm
and in particular, "Transpersonal Approaches to Working With At-Risk and High-Risk Adolescents":
www.adolescentmind.com/tp...aches1.htm
"The Midway Center for Creative Imagination"
www.midwaycenter.com/
A discussion group called "Healing Stories" that started here and seems to have halted (maybe you could post and get it going again?):
groups.yahoo.com/group/HealingStories/
Here was the original post from this board:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...group.html
And the appropriateness of fairy tales, healing aids, etc:
www.surlalunefairytales.c...ories.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c...shoes.html
www.surlalunefairytales.c...riate.html
We've also had several discussion on stories that help us cope with death and crisis, the color of death, and more, if those can help with the emotional and spiritual aspects. I will think more and reply again soon...
Sugarplum dreams,
Kerrie
Oh, I almost forgot! Kate Bernheimer edited Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales. I don't have the book in front of me (and for some reason Amazon won't let me read the TOC), but if I remember right, there were essays on the healing aspects of fairy tales. Excellent reading!
Edited by: Kerrie at: 12/30/02 6:28:06 pm
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(12/30/02 5:35:24 pm)
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Re: the enchanted imagination
The collective knowledge on this board is amazing! all of your answers were so unique that I have many new and different lenses from which to view, mull over and reimagine this theme - Of course I chuckled a bit when I went to Lee Dawson's site and realized who CPE is, especially in light of the question I was asking about healing through stories/fairytales/myth. CPE's book "Women Who Run..." and especially her version of Bluebeard set me off on a ten year journey of profound emotional healing - I think it's still in process... It was the part about the blood staining the wedding dress as the key was put in the forbidden door that did it - That encounter was a moment of profound relevation for me.
On another note I have always been willing to affirm that archetypal encounters have the power to heal emotionally and spiritually - I get really afraid to affirm that physical healings are possible, even though it did happen to me- if this is true - if stories are indeed that potent, shouldn't we (the culture) be sending storytellers by the droves into hospitals - battered women's shelters, addiction facilities - shouldn't we just be telling more stories?
Some food for thought...
Thanks to all who posted - you've given me alot to peruse and to think about.
blessings, margaret
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(12/30/02 6:19:48 pm)
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Re: the enchanted imagination
i had a few other thoughts regarding the idea of stories and physical healings - i guess a part of my reluctance to embrace this as truth ,or rather to deny my own experience is because it leaves me wondering - why would an encounter with the realm of fairy tale have the capacity to heal me of a bronchial condition when there are people dying from diseases every day that don't have these kinds of experiences. And why can't they? And I don't know if I am on the right track here, but it occurs to me that a year or two before the experience with the bronchial condition, I had an earlier encounter with fairy tale. I won't post the story here, but I remember it as being a profound moment of knowing that a world existed beyond the mundane - I was only about two. it seems to me that this primary, earlier encounter and my response to it/my recognition of this world, in some way awakened me/opened me/or made it possible for the later physical healing to occur - CPE in another post said something about people who are open become homing devices....I guess my question is, if storytellers expose people to more stories, to more archetypal phenomena does that in some way open the listener/reader/receipient of the story to receive greater guidance, wisdom, healing from these encounters? Would this phenomena be accumulative? Is this making any sense at all?
Thank you for your thoughts,
margaret
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(12/31/02 1:39:04 am)
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Re: the enchanted imagination
I'm sorry I don't have a lead for more on this ... but I seem to recall hearing from a good source that the traditional medical system in India, ayurveda, actually prescribes certain fairytales (repeated) for certain complaints.
Rosemary
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MollyBee
Unregistered User
(1/2/03 5:15:11 am)
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Enchantment Imagination
Recently I have used the fairytale THROUGH A MOUSEHOLE from an old "My Bookhouse".as I was preparing to go storytelling in a far away place. MollyBee
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(1/2/03 11:31:53 am)
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Stories and healing
I'll once again recommend Levi-Strauss' thought provoking article in his STRUCTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, "The Effectiveness of Symbols," along with Barre Toelken "Life and Death in Navajo Coyote Stories" and Paul Zolbrod, "When Artifacts Speak, What Do They Tell Us?" both in Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat eds., RECOVERING THE WORD. In one way or another, these all deal with shamanic healing and myth, and the way that the healing depends upon the patient being taken up into the story, story time invading "real time" (a common element of ritual in general) and the potency of particular "root" stories. Interesting stuff to chew on.
Judith
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cpe
Unregistered User
(1/3/03 12:45:52 am)
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archetypal reality
Dear Margaret; this is just my two cen'ts worth: there are mysteries; some are only waiting for our wits to grow sharper, some are God's Business, not ours. Your questions about your experiences are good ones. Just remember archtypal reality has been denuded of its actual meaning in our current popular culture. As it seems meant originally, "archetype" describes symbolic representations (shards is not too strong a word) of the Irrepresentable. The palpable, sensate, experience of that which cannot be fully comprehended by rational mind alone. That which some have postulated has a "psychoid" quality, a place where perhaps biology and psychology meet and influence one another. Aristotle was one of the first who recorded the thematics of the idea of archetype, as a kind of far-reaching universal set of ideas that surface across the world without "actual" ordinary transmission, as more often seems traceable to moderns via migration records, during conquests, colonizations, cross-marriages between souls of differing cultures, and so on.
Dreams are often archtypal; people can dream what they have never seen, been told, or been exposed to in consensual reality. Yet peple across the world can dream a multi-handed creator or the keystone structure that holds an arch intact, or an insight into the way the heavens move in reality.
Also everyone else's suggestions and comments here are very good. I will also say this, that first order experience (that you describe you have had) is VERY different than second order analysis, say for instance of a person studying your experience without having had similar experiences themselves. The conclusions drawn might be very different that those you will find to be so all in and of yourself. Validation of these evanescent experiences are most often effected by others who have had them also and who, like you, are thinking deeply about them.
The meaning inherent in such experiences need be nothing more than that which enriches the soul who has the experiences. INSIDE the experience, ALL is understood already, or else the ego's usual questions seem irrelevant. INSIDE the experience is the understanding of the experience. You are on the right track in my estimation; There is a story in Women Who Run about the four Rabbinum who were taken to see the seventh vault of the seventh heaven--and 3 of the 4 were destroyed or else became foolish as a result; The fourth sat by the window writing poem to the evening star, and cradling his child in his arms. it was said he was the only one who understood what had transpired.
con cariño
cpe
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bielie
Registered User
(1/3/03 5:11:09 am)
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Re: archetypal reality
I believe that just as the complete blueprint for a weaver's nest is coded in the bird's DNA, some basic themes, symbols and archetypes are coded into the human DNA. Somebody referred to Lewis' ideas on universal morality on another thread, as far as I am concerned, it is genetically coded. That is why so many tales are found in different unconnected cultures. Just as two weavers build identical nests even though they have not met for architectural discussions, two storytellers will independently adress the same universal themes casting the same universal archetypes and often, since the premises coincide, come up with parallel plots.
Fairy tales are hardwired into human biology.
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lmallozziattnet
Unregistered User
(1/3/03 11:54:55 am)
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fairy tales for healing
If I'm not mistaken (and I could very well be), in collections like the Decameron and the Pentameron, wasn't there a frame story that had people telling one another stories to escape the horrors of a plague-stricken world? Perhaps the stories could not cure the plague, but certainly tales could help soothe a troubled mind. I know I always turned to a favorite book or story when I was feeling upset.
Luciana
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Storyhunter
Unregistered User
(1/3/03 1:06:22 pm)
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help
My name is Cindy and I am a marine science teacher. I am looking for stories that explain things that happen in the ocean
for example kiplings "the crab that played with the sea" tells a story of the tides
i would like to approach some scientific topics through the use of literature
this would provide an opportunity for students to learn about the writers themselves and about science
anything anyone can send my way would be appreciated
clkern@interact>ccsd>net
> + dots
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Jess
Unregistered User
(1/3/03 1:24:32 pm)
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Marine Science
Cindy,
How old are your students?
Jess
Off-thread - Cindy, if you can get a copy of "Between Pacific Tides", it was written by Ricketts the model of the character "Doc" in Cannery Row by Steinbeck. It is also an excellent introductory book on tidal invertebrates, the various tidal conditions, and taxonomy.
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bielie
Registered User
(1/3/03 1:37:51 pm)
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Bubonic plague
Hi Luciana
The Bubonic Plague is carried by rats and from rats to people by fleas. When a human is bitten by a rat he gets swollen lymph glands called bubos, and the pneumonia, and then he dies. In the pneumonia phase it is highly contacious by aerosol. The interesting thing is that the fleas will not bite the humans as long as there are enough rats. (not tasty enough) It is only when the plague kills the rats that the fleas jump on humans, and the humans start getting the plague.
So my theory is this: There is a rat plague. The city council hires the Piper to get rid of the rats. When the rats are gone, they do not honour their contract, and so the Piper takes their children.
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(1/5/03 2:40:10 pm)
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Re: archetypal reality
I have experiences of the numinous ranging from fleeting images to complete shifts in ordinary reality – I don’t know how or why these things happen to me. I know that these forces feel powerful, erractic, and seem to have their own agenda. Yet, everyday I see art and read stories that I am certain are coming from the visionary ground. I relate to what the artist/writer mirrors, and I feel comforted by it. CPE, You suggested that I need to seek validation from people who have had first order experiences. By connecting to art and stories that are rooted in this dimension I do receive validation for my own experiences. But I find I am no longer satisfied to peek into the windows to the transcendant provided by others…I feel a restlessness to express my own glimpses and experiences...
I have experiences of the numinous and I am moved, touched, inspired and healed by them…But with these encounters you never know what you are going to get, you never know what the outcome will be….so far this has been okay.
....and then I write stories. They are good stories, but are they coming from an archetypal dimension? It doesn’t feel to me that they are….When you write stories you want stories…you have goals and outcomes. The numinous doesn’t seem to respond very well to plans and goals…So how does one bring these worlds together? Do you even get to choose?
–To suggest that artists and writer’s of visionary/archetypal/mythic works are able to “direct” the archetypal forces they encounter to produce completed works –story, art, films, theatrical performances – it feels sacriledge – like trying to take “God’s business” into your own hands. Can you harness the mystery toward directed goals? Yet, some seem to be doing just that.
On another note, I hear artists and writers say all the time that they do not know what brings the muse….So does this mean the artist or writer working with archetypes and mythic material has no conscious control over the process that is working through them? Is this simply God’s business, gifts granted to a chosen few? Or is this a process that can be intentional, conscious cultivated and directed?
When spiritually directing someone I tell them to create a sanctuary and go there everyday and just sit…sometimes I suggest a prayer discipline like centering prayer – I say to them, “be patient…some days nothing will happen” – but if they continue to go to that space everyday eventually something will happen… ….Is this the same with writing and creating – if you go to your creative sanctuary every day and have the willingness to show up – does something magnificient eventually happen? I am really afraid I will pound this keyboard for the rest of my life – and I won’t have the depth of creative encounter that I seek….
I once read somewhere that Jane Yolen said you just sit on your butt and do it – I sit on my butt and do it but nothing as grand as what Jane writes seems to come through me….Ian McCaig at Terri’s site – said something to the effect that he had only one rule for artists… “follow the muse”…But nobody tells you HOW you summons the muse…are there some better ways than others to call forth and feed the muse so that the works that come through you express something deeper than what the ego would have you write?
Questions and thoughts,
margaret
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(1/6/03 4:17:10 am)
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The Muse
The Muse is an onery creature and rarely comes when called. She wears feathers in her hair and birkenstocks on her feet and is as often out in the woods when you are home at your keyboard.
But sometimes when you are writing, and are so concentrated on what you are doing that you pay her little heed, she comes into the room, looks over your shoulder, and breathes softly in your ear. It is a tickle, like baby's breath, and could be mistaken for a shift in the internal wind in the room.
And you won't know she's been there, not until minutes or days or weeks or months or years later. You will think that what you put down was ordinary but it turns out to be extraordinary. And that's when you understand the Muse had visited you.
Trust me. Some things I do know.
Jane
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(1/7/03 12:58:41 pm)
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Re: The Muse
feather's and birkenstocks, eh?
well as i was reading your words, suddenly I felt a stillness in the room, a tiny little shift in the internal wind - and I felt her, I really, really did...you describe her as a tickle, a soft breath in the ear. For me she appeared as a faint stirring in my heart and a brief moment of inspiration...As I recognized her, I realized she has been tapping on my shoulder, trying to get my attention but my mental chatter, my fears, and my need to control has prevented me from really noticing - She has often come for me but my self talk has been drowning out her soft, subtle, urgings.. How sad to have missed so many good writing opportunities because I wanted to or expected to experience bells and whistles and thunderbolts coming from the heavens....and when it didn't happen this way, I got discouraged. I thought I was not meant to write, even though it is the desire of my heart.
Later, I went to the keyboard and let my heart spill open on the page without thought to whether I was writing good or bad pages...and I felt a sense of peace about my writing for the first time in a very long time. I think I can let go now and just write without expectation. But when the muse does slip quietly into the room, breath softly in my ear, and stir my heart, I vow to notice her and make her a little offering... Thank you so much for this Jane....
blessings, margaret
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