In olden times when wishing still helped one, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, which had seen so much, was astonished whenever it shone in her face. Close by the King's castle lay a great dark forest, and under an old lime tree in the forest was a well, and when the day was very warm, the King's child went out into the forest and sat down by the side of the cool fountain; when she was bored she took a golden ball, threw it up on high, and caught it. This ball was her favorite plaything. So begins the much-beloved fairy tale of the Princess and the Frog, a tale of redemption on many levels. The opening lines tell us that this is a father-daughter story, and a story about a certain quality or expression of femininity, idealized by collective consciousness, i.e.,"the sun." And yet as beautiful and revered as this femininity is, it will undergo an essential transformation through contact with the frog. It is important that close by the King's castle is a great dark forest, and in this forest is a well under an old lime tree. The dark forest is a wonderful image for the unconscious in its mysterious and secretive nature, and the lime tree and well add special significance. The lime tree in Europe is not our American citrus tree, but rather, it is a tree of great height and longevity, sacred in Slavic countries as the holy tilia, and in Germany it is known as the "tree of lovers." Ovid tells us the story of Baucis and Philemon, who, because of their hospitality to Zeus and Hermes, and because of their wish to be forever together after death, were turned into a lime or linden tree and an oak, respectively, when they died, and so lived on intertwined in each others' embrace. How wonderful that there is a well right at the base of this tree. How wonderful that the very water that enlivened and sustained the roots of the "tree of lovers" is accessible through this well. One can easily imagine that it was the earnest quest for these special waters that led to the creation of the well. The well is an access point, a portal, to the waters of the unconscious. In the tale, it is described also as a "cool fountain," so one has the sense of how refreshing its waters must have been. The King's daughter went into the forest when the day was warm. Perhaps all that admiration from the sun was a bit too much. Here is the hint that indeed the reverence from collective consciousness was overdone. One can sense the need of the feminine for shade, for a bit of cooler darkness out of the bright sun, and of her attraction to this sacred tree and water. She would sit by the side of the well and, when bored, toss her ball high into the air and then catch it when it came down. Bored. Oh, well, it seems that she does not yet fully appreciate the magical quality of the place where she is sitting! The symbol of the golden ball is an important fairy tale motif, and an important dream motif as well, for that matter. The ball itself has quite magical qualities--it seems to have an energy all its own as it rolls right along, and a mind all its own, too, as it rolls this way and that way. And who can say just what is it about tossing a ball back and forth that is so satisfying? Symbolically, the ball or sphere is an image of wholeness, and represents what Jung calls the Self, especially in its dynamic capacity. This would be the active principle in the psyche that moves us toward wholeness--the urge toward individuation--in such a circuitous way. The fact that the ball in the tale is golden gives it even greater significance, as gold is the most precious of metals.
It is the King's daughter--this young femininity--who carries and plays with the golden ball. She is the pivotal figure. She holds the key for transformation. But she tosses the ball upward, toward the heavens, and she enjoys this aerial game. So she is femininity, which engages the energy of wholeness in a spiritualized way, an ethereal way, and the law of opposites tells us that it is only a matter of time before it will have to come down. And we also just instinctively know that this is not her whole nature. If we looked at these dynamics in the case of an individual woman, they could be exemplified in the woman who is a "father's daughter." Often a "father's daughter" can look for her wholeness in a more spiritual realm, valuing a life of principles and transcendent ideals. In other words, she tosses the golden ball high up into air. In the fairy tale, though, it is the "sun that shines so admiringly on the daughter," so we can also think about a collective attitude that values such a femininity--one characterized by being spiritual and idealized. In an individual man, this would represent an idealized view of things feminine, a tendency to put the woman of his life on a pedestal and then relate more to a projected ideal, a fantasy of his partner, than to who she really is as her own person. In the West, we have had a very difficult struggle with joining the masculine and the feminine in a way that honors the nature of both. Witness our struggles in relationships and marriages and attitudes between the sexes in general. The Christian myth, as it has been lived out in Western culture, very often took a highly spiritualized perspective on life, typically valuing spirit over body/matter. More specifically, it could value an ideal of what it meant to be feminine, rather than true feminine wholeness. And that struggle applies to both men and women, as both live out aspects of the feminine within their psyches. This is ultimately why the fairy tale in general is so important. The fairy tale served to compensate the collective attitudes of the time--to balance them out or fill in their missing elements. As the dream guided the individual in a compensatory way, the fairy tale would guide the collective group such as a tribe or culture. We will see in the next segments of the fairy tale how the compensation of such a one-sided idealization of the feminine might happen. And as you know how this tale unfolds, you already have a pretty good idea!
Poetry at San Antonio College English Department
The Cheshyre Cheese Club was founded in 1926 at San Antonio College and emulates the supper club organized by Samuel Johnson in London at the Cheshire Cheese pub in the seventeenth century. Johnson and his friends* met regularly to discuss culture, the arts, language, literature, politics, and biography, as does the Cheese Club. Today's CCC also enthusiastically supports literacy, sharing ideas, writing, debating, thinking, and dreaming. Community projects include supporting the Limpopo Writing Project in South Africa, providing information, assistance, and encouragement to other campus organizations (we helped Phi Theta Kappa--Beta Nu expand the children's library at the Ronald McDonald House on Cypress, for example), and providing our open mic venue in partnership with the Office of Student Life. Our primary fundraising activity is selling low-cost used books to the SAC community. Open Mic night, usually three Friday evenings during the Fall and Spring semesters, is scheduled from 6:30-9:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
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