Under Their Spell

The Alchemy of Relationship: A meditation on the “Singing Soaring Lark”, a fairy tale about what comes after the ‘happily ever after’. This tale gives a description through symbols of the process of a committed relationship. Some fairy tales end with marriage; the “Singing Soaring Lark” begins with the marriage ceremony and describes the long and sometimes difficult journey towards the realization of the true inner marriage of a man and woman.

In this fairy tale meditation, we will contemplate the alchemical processes of transformation symbolized in fairy tales, especially in the richly symbolic story of Snow White.

Here We Wonder in Illusions

In the show we will look at the story of little red riding hood, and meditate on the theme of appearance and reality in fairytales. The enchanted world of the fairytale is a strange realm in which things can appear other than they are. The fairytale forest is a dangerous space in which one can be seduced and deceived, where one can wander or become lost. It has the capacity to devour and destroy. Yet it also contains powers for transformation and rebirth.

Untying the Knots of the Soul through Imaginative Journeys.

This contemporary fairy tale describes a boys efforts to resolve inner conflicts arising in family life by taking an imaginative journey. We will use this tale to meditate more on the ‘story’ aspect of fairy tales: the arising and resolving of conflicts, both inner and outer.

Externalizing Inner Conflicts Through the Imagination

The modern children’s story “The Cat in the Hat”, while not strictly a fairy tale, has fairy tale qualities. It also provides a more apparent example of something that can be less obvious in fairy tales: that the imaginative world of the fairy tale, and the dark forest or underworld, is a way to make more sensible to us our own more hidden inner souls and their conflicts.

The fairy tale “The Devil’s Three Golden Hairs” symbolizes some fundamental conflicts humans have when coming into this world: conflicts with the established cultures and traditions. This fairy tale also offers beautiful examples of ‘parallelism’ in fairy tales for us to consider.

In this fairytale meditation we will explore the fairytale called "Mother Holle". In this tale a young girl with a troubled family life journeys to the realm of Mother Holle for healing and transformation. We will meditate to see what the imagery of this tale suggests to us for our own healing journeys.

Using the fairy tales we have meditated on so far, in this episode we will explain what really is an archetype and see how an understanding of archetypes illuminates what is occurring in fairy tales and why they have such power.

Having seen in previous episodes how place and landscape are symbolic in fairy tales, "the Frog Prince" will show us that time also is non-literal and symbolic. More than being hero-quest stories, fairy tales symbolize developmental life transitions.

Fitcher’s Bird: Dissociative Fantasy vs. Symbolic Imagination. The fairy tale “Fitcher’s Bird” provides images about different uses of the imagination. From it we can draw guidance regarding healthy and unhealthy uses of imagination.