Ann Moir-BussyIn our last column, we urged you to give yourself permission to be YOU. But how can you be YOU if you are asleep? How will you know if you are awake or sleeping, or do you actually know?
We’ve often said that stories are amazing, and that stories can break you or heal you. There is a fairy tale or story that you are probably familiar with, though maybe today, young people don’t hear fairy tales as much as we did when we were young. However, fairy tales weren’t told initially for the young. They were known as the “wisdom of the kitchen” and contained powerful messages for adults.
So let me remind you of the story of Sleeping Beauty – a story containing the ancient motif of birth, death and rebirth. Here is the story of the birth of a beautiful princess, gifted by 12 fairies and cursed by the 13th fairy who was not invited, cursed to prick herself on a spindle and fall asleep for 100 years. Falling asleep as though dead! And then awakened to a new life, seemingly by a prince. Oh! It’s a peculiar fairy tale and has been told in so many ways that it would take pages to explore; we have only one column, so I’m selecting one essential messages for us today.
Consciousness versus Unconsciousness
Firstly, a quick look at the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness or awake and asleep. To be conscious is to be aware and alert, to take in one’s environment, feelings, and motives. To be aware of others’ agendas, whether they speak out or don’t speak it out. It is to be aware of what’s above ground and what’s below ground. Consciousness means we are living by the deep inner wisdom of the archetypes.
Unconsciousness is being totally unaware. It’s living only by what we have been told and then believing that is the whole of reality. For us as women, this is one of the great falsehoods we learned – that there is only one kind of woman, and she must fit into that image in the boxes we then crawled into and in which we could never quite fit. Boxes that were beliefs about our bodies, spirituality, politics, and so on. Women who are asleep or unconscious follow orders, blind to what is possible – they follow automatically.
These cultural falsehoods and beliefs put people to sleep. Being conscious and aware means, we live by archetypes and can question the world and be curious and grow. Being unconscious means we are pulled in all directions by the falsehoods of culture, and we live by a stereotype – a single idea that does not grow, that shuts down curiosity or change or development and leaves us stagnant – asleep, robotic.
Can you think of the many stereotypes you were fed as you grew up? Are there any stereotypes that still imprison you in a box – keep you asleep?
Sleeping Beauty
She was gifted with all the gifts that a woman was expected to have and be and was told how to fit in with the community in the castle, not to think for herself – but to follow the stereotypical pattern of the castle. She did this, and to ensure she did fit in, the castle king had all the spindles in the kingdom burned. She would be the paragon of perfection of womanhood.
The 13th fairy – the old woman who was excluded was a symbol of the pregnant crone who knew how to give life to those coming after and who knew the princess could only become aware or conscious by ‘dying’ to the stereotype she had been taught, and so she had to fall asleep – “die” so she could be reborn with a new vision of life.
Jungian Analyst, Marion Woodman challenges women to be “forever pregnant, forever giving birth and forever a virgin”. I love this saying of hers.
This is what the old woman wanted the princess to learn, and so as the ‘elder’, she had her “fall asleep” so she could bring her to this new way of being. The story of the prince who came to the rescue is another story or element in itself, and that will have to wait for another column one day!!
What brings us awake, what can shake us out of this sleep that has us acting in the world like a zombie or a robot?
Knowing and not knowing
The fairy tale has so much richness; this is only a taste of inherent wisdom. maybe in later columns or classes, we can explore much more. My question is, are you still sleeping, or are you awake and conscious? Are you living knowingly or not knowing? As women who are growing older, are we learning from each other and teaching one another? Clarissa Pinkola Estes reminds us that “none of us are as dumb as all of us together, and none of us are as smart as all of us together”. Life-giving beliefs can catch fire – otherwise, none of us is as ignorant as all of us together.
As we age, there are so many opportunities for us to see and act more clearly, but only IF we are awake and conscious. There may be times we choose to be invisible, but sometimes we must come out roaring. We must not wait for the invitation to be visible and to carry love and presence for others. We must become a soul made visible before it is too late. As Estes notes in one of her talks, life is like an ocean that, on its incoming tide, brings up everything, but after a storm, it brings up amazing things!
When you stop living by stereotypes, amazing new gifts, and wisdom are made visible. So, again, in her words:
Do not fold your wings so small
To pass through a door too small.
Instead, cut a wider enough door in the formerly blank wall.
This is done by knowing things that you know
By being faithful to all 13 of the angels (fairies)
That hover near you and that you were born with
And so may it be for you
So, may it be for me
So may it be for all of us.
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And if you would like to contact me: ann@annmoirbussy.com.au
Lucy Becks
Vivienne Spanopoulos
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