How Life works

The connection between Hope, Magic and Transformation in a Fairy Tale Life

Fairy tales - what are they all about?

For some people they're sentimental reminders of our childhood. For others they're descriptions of cultural traditions, sometimes in negative ways - sexist, supporting a patriarchal society, keeping women in their place. But others see positive attributes - teaching children right from wrong, that goodness always triumphs and bad guys are always punished. The result is that fairy tales can be considered moral, educational, cultural, spiritual, and much, much more. For every person who relates to fairy tales their response is a unique and perfectly legitimate perspective.

But I want to present to you another perspective that's not often seen. Fairy tales, when we look deeper than the fantasy and the magic, are allegories that contain very clear descriptions of how life works. They are transformative at the most essential level - both for the characters and for ourselves.

We can't talk about transformation in fairy tales without the idea of Hope. In fact, some would argue that without Hope, a story isn't a fairy tale. Ancient myths across all cultures are also descriptions of how life works. If you needed to understand why the sun rose in the morning, you invented a god to ride a chariot through the sky. But primarily, the myths we are most familiar with give us some of the darkest aspects of human behavior without any redeeming qualities. They tell us about incest, revenge, and lust for power. They show the relentless fall that ensues, but they can't provide solace or even understanding about anything but failure. They're incomplete.

When we consider what stories are actually for, there are several possibilities. They can preserve a history of a specific time or place. They can be a way to find meaning or make sense of the world. They can create a legacy or they can teach us the “rules of the road.” They also provide something that is shared. The word entertainment from its Latin roots means that we hold something together. We are bonded through stories.

Fairy tales are unique in the world of stories. They are as ancient as myths. They can be found in all cultures and time periods. They are still relevant and continue to find their way into movies, books, music and art. Despite the fact that we relegate them to the world of children, they are filled with metaphors that contain very sophisticated and very dark material. They describe real-world energies. Jack, with his beanstalk, is just another version of a guy who sees something and takes it, without so much as a la-di-dah. For a very long time we have seen this type of behavior play out over and over again in our newspapers and courtrooms.

But fairy tales, if you're willing to look, also contain solutions. Not political ones, not worldly ones, but ones that speak to each of us on a personal level. You could almost call them solutions for the spirit, or soul.

We can see this most clearly in Cinderella, the mother of all fairy tales.

For anyone who remembers the Disney version in the 1950s, Cinderella was a sweet, romantic rags-to-riches story, where the plucky young heroine, through her goodness and beauty, finds her Prince Charming and lives happily ever after.

But that's not the whole of it. If we scratch the surface we discover a different story, a multi-layered description of  ‘change' and how hard it is to make a new life happen.

For starters, Cinderella is a riches-to-rags-to riches story. When we meet her she is not what she really is. She's a wealthy young woman who has become an abused servant in her own home.

When we really look at her situation, the obvious question is "Why?" We can make guesses – it’s because she had lost her mother, and her father remarried an evil woman; that her step-sisters were extremely jealous and abusive, that the father was completely absent and offered no protection or help at all. All those things are true. They fully describe Cinderella's external circumstances. But are they her real problem?

All fairy tales begin with a problem - a deficiency, an imbalance, a weakness or failure of some sort, that stands as the central metaphor. It is the movement towards resolving that problem that lies at the heart of the story.

In Cinderella's case, she has magical powers long before the story begins. In some versions, she has the promise of her dying mother that she will always provide for her. In most of the tales she has animal helpers of one sort or another. Disney gave us the incomparable and brave little Gus the mouse. These helpers are already present in her life but she uses them only to alleviate her situation, not to change it!

Cinderella's singular problem is that she accepts her situation. It is an internal dilemma, more insidious than her external ones. It affects her future far more than the cinders could ever do. And it is one that requires real transformation, not accommodation. Fairy tales show us what it is like to tread that transformative path.

So what happens? We all know that everything changes when the invitation to the Ball arrives. What a perfect word to describe Cinderella's situation. She is suddenly invited to 'become herself!' Fairy tales are very efficient. They give you a set-up, describe the central problem (metaphor) and create a short back-story in a few paragraphs. Then they present a catalyzing event - the action that propels everything forward. In Cinderella's case, she is suddenly awakened to herself. She wants something for the first time. Desire has entered the life.

What follows from that awakening is a beautifully concise description of the complicated path to true change. It's all wrapped up in gauzy fluff - the fairy godmother, the pumpkin coach, bibbity-bobbity-boo - but all that masquerades the back and forth of real effort.

Cinderella starts to plan how she will go to the ball, which is a great step forward for her. But then, she asks permission, which is a great step back. She is given make-work, which is really a set-up for failure, and she summons her magical friends to help her accomplish the tasks. This last item is important because we see her using her 'powers' within the confines of the old life. She's using her magic not to change the status quo but to accomplish her new goal by reverting back to what she always does. In other words, she's accommodating, not changing.

When that fails, which it must for transformation to occur, she feels great despair. Her eyes are finally open to her situation. She has to face the life she has. It's only in that moment that real help can come.

Cinderella's despair is critical. She has reached the point where she can no longer deny the reality of her life. The "Invitation," the catalyzing event that seemed to hold out such hope has brought her to a miserable state. But it's the only state that could allow her to truly move forward, to move away from being complicit in her own suffering and captivity.

It's at this darkest moment that Real help arrives. All the Cinderella variants around the world have a different style or image for this Magical Help – we in our Western European tradition have the Fairy Godmother and the pumpkin coach - but it always comes down to her clothes.

Do clothes make the woman? Well, in this case, they allow her beauty to become visible. The cinders and rags had covered her in such a way as to darken her light. When she's dressed in clothes appropriate to who she really is she becomes radiant. The magic hasn't altered her; it's allowed her to be seen.

This emphasis on Cinderella’s radiance is important. We don't often see that kind of light even when we watch all the beautiful people on fashion walks across red carpets on TV. We're far more used to seeing the opposite in people, a deadened look that often comes from living a life that goes against who we really are.

So Cinderella achieves her goal, she gets to go to the Ball. The magic has given her everything she could have dreamt of, but for one requirement - she must be home by midnight.

What's that about?

When we begin to make real change in our life, there is almost always a disconnect between our 'plan' and the 'outcome.' All Cinderella wanted was to go to the Ball, to have a good time. On the grand scale of things, it really was just a small desire, a night out, a pretty dress, and a temporary break in her dull and dreary life. But this tiny wish and the steps she took led her to a far bigger future - she became a Queen.

 Once we begin this sort of journey, we can't really know where the magic will take us. It's not given to us to know. When we try to secure a specific outcome we kill the future, because that sort of planning and managing comes from our usual everyday self, the part that thinks it knows how things work. The part of us that is the butt of the joke in the phrase "Life happens when you're busy making other plans." Fairy tales are talking about people who are willing, despite tremendous temptation, to let some more mysterious forces guide their life.

But in this story, when the clock starts chiming at midnight Cinderella chooses to obey this strange injunction. It must have felt like a huge risk. She is being asked to literally run away from a surprising night of success and the full attentions of the prince. She got to the Ball, which is as far as her simple wish could take her, but even bigger things happened there than she had 'planned.' Now, obeying the strange injunction, she had to give it all up.

This seemingly arbitrary requirement has a real purpose. It pulls her away from too early success. The forces working for her benefit have a better understanding of the larger picture than she does, or for that matter than we do. The magic asks her to submit and she does, and that leads to the final steps in her story.

Even after everything she has seen and learned, she still goes back to her house, covers herself in cinders and pretends to be asleep. Change is harder than it looks. But forces have been set in motion. Her hurried departure causes her to lose the glass slipper. The token that eventually will lead her to her final destiny.

When the prince arrives at her home, her stepsisters take desperate measures to try and fit the shoe. It's part of the deadened world that they inhabit that they're willing to mutilate themselves to become what they aren't meant to be. Finally, Cinderella is summoned, the shoe fits, and she becomes Queen. The story is telling us that it's that simple. But only if you're willing to let Magic guide you to your very own Happily Ever After.

Cinderella image by Arthur Rackham