Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
On Monday, September 28th we begin a 7-week journey with the fairy tale “The Handless Maiden.” You may or may not be familiar with it. There are over a hundred versions of this story which have appeared throughout Europe and other parts of the world, so it is an important story, one that can speak to our experience on many levels.
It is a story that first found me when I was living in Seattle, about 20 years ago. I participated in a workshop with a Jungian analyst where we spent the week embodying this story through art, writing, and movement. It was transformative for me and the story continued to call in the years that followed. Each time I read it again it touches me in new ways and deepens the previous discoveries. It is a story you can return to for a lifetime, always with new gifts of insight.
For some time, I have wanted to offer a retreat experience for the Abbey on this fairy tale about healing the wounded feminine and reuniting the sacred masculine and feminine. Even though the protagonist of the story is the “maiden” we all have feminine dimensions to ourselves and an equally important aspect of the story is the healing of the wounded masculine as well.
I have found working with Jungian ideas and archetypes a very helpful way of looking our place in the world and I have brought these concepts in service to seeing the saints and mystics and ourselves in new ways. Archetypes are universal energies we all experience and encounter in our dreams and longings. They help to guide us to fuller versions of ourselves. We each contain masculine and feminine energies within us and part of maturing as a human being is helping these to mature and embracing the gifts of both these aspects of being.
Jungian analyst Marie Louise Von Franz wrote about the power of fairy tales: “Fairy tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes.” They use symbolic language to express deep psychological truths.
Fairy tales are like collective dreams which can speak to us about powerful archetypal forces at work within us. We can find ourselves in each character and symbol.
The Handless Maiden is a story which speaks to the dis-ease we experience when the feminine is sacrificed and ushers us onto the road back to wholeness. It is a story about initiation into our wild and whole selves.
In Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ wonderful book Women Who Run with the Wolves, she describes this story as an initiation into the underground forest. She says that initiation is:
“the process by which we turn from our natural inclination to remain unconscious and decide that, whatever it takes – suffering, striving, enduring – we will pursue conscious union with the deeper mind, the wild Self.”
Conscious union with the deeper mind, the wild Self. The journey is rigorous. Stories don’t spare us from the suffering and challenges of following our deep heart’s desires. If anything, they demand the hard journey of descent. But they also remind us that this is an ancient way. That others have followed this path and emerged stronger, more resilient, wise, with more wholeness and joy.
If you are curious about what a deep dive into a fairy tale might be like, if you are on a threshold in your own life and seeking discernment and wisdom, or if you know this story well and want to enter it again in this season of life, you are most welcome to join us.
The Handless Maiden is a 7-week series with weekly live sessions led by me and Te Martin will be present to offer the gift of song (including songs they wrote for each threshold of the story). I will also be joined by Polly Paton-Brown, Aisling Richmond, Dr. Kellie Kirksey, and Dr. Jamie Marich who will invite you into a kaleidoscope of creative ways to engage the story’s meaning for your own life. We begin on September 28th.
I am also leading an online mini-retreat on a Spirituality of Blessing on Friday, September 25th for Mercy by the Sea. Join me to cultivate a way of being that blesses the world. Their registration closes tomorrow, September 21st at 12 noon eastern.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
Image: Paid license with Canva
