...
Show More
Just now, as I sit to write a reflection on Miss Gertrud’s work, my cell phone – just a few inches away from me at the table – is suddenly beeping a warning that its battery is low. Normally I would stop whatever I was doing and rush away to find its charger – suddenly enticed by the challenge of being able to plug it back in before it actually dies (and already annoyed – but even more motivated – by the prospect of not finding the charger where I’d last left it). Having just finished Miss Gertrud’s work, which seeks to help heal and bring balance to the masculine and feminine aspects housed, by Design, in all things including men and women, I am strangely yet comfortably unaffected by the phone’s incessant alarming. Through the analysis of two fairy tales with universal symbols and themes – “The Handless Maiden” and “Briar Rose” – Miss Gertrud explores what is wounded, particularly in Western society, and demonstrates how the very same tales of wounding also contain the seeds for healing. Now (in this Now anyway) the red blinking light of my cell phone – trying so very hard to be imperative, ominous even – still leaves me unmoved. It’s ok, I speak to it. Go to sleep then…
Miss Gertrud writes, “…I can put forth the conscious rituals of preparation that call down to the deepest part of me: I order and honor and bless my world. I name the four holy corners of its walls. I offer prayers to the Spirit over my head and bless the earth under my feet. I walk through the mazes of this walled and inner garden and come to the wellspring at its center. The water is black and deep, but cool and moving. I let myself down the well. Diving, but slowly. Slowly. Deeper and deeper. Deep down – way deep down – something is indeed stirring. Here is another world. Here I may find what has actually been conceived and incubating all along – here the Spirit fructifies what waits. Waiting is impractical time – good for nothing – but mysteriously necessary to all that is becoming.”
