Fairy Godmothers of The Four Directions

by Jennifer Morse

  He smoothed her hair, “I’ve got you.” The Prince drew her close. Resting his forehead against her forehead, he said, “What you’ve been through. It’s something to cry about.”

  Wiping away a flood of her tears, he said, “Shh…I know…. I know. It’s been hard. But Charlotte….” A soft sigh, a caress against her cheek, he swallowed worry. “Without your return to wholeness, without personal growth beyond the trauma’s of these last years, our Kingdom will wither.”

  His groan of frustration, so deep and punishing, captured Cinderella’s awareness like nothing else could. She raised her tear-stained face to study him. She explored the crevice of concern furrowing his brow. Hadn’t she seen the same look on the faces of the King and Queen?

  Beyond the shimmer of health his eyes struggled with panic. Panic!

  For the first time since returning to the palace Cinderella stood outside her fears. Information, the staff’s stiff postures, the hitch of worry in the Queen’s voice, the veiled glances of friends, she was beginning to understand.

  The Prince continued. “Without health in the Kingdom the ancient trees will sicken. Already many have fallen. Crops struggle to produce a bountiful harvest. More trees will be lost to colder winters, chopped down for firewood and kindling. Even the fragrance of flowers will retreat. Colors will dim. Truth will be veiled.”

  For a moment his voice failed. “As a result arguments will increase and linger. Some will morph into generational feuds.” He pulled on his hair and turned to face her. Now it was his eyes bruised with anguish. “This morning crowds were waiting at the gates. They tell wild-eyed stories, stalked by a creature, invisible leaving an acrid trail. Only the stench of rotten eggs marks its passing.”

  Cinderella frowned, “Know one has actually seen the creature?”

  The Prince held Cinderella squeezing her tight. She could feel his worry travel the length of his arms infiltrating her heart. He said, “We have an unseen enemy. If you cannot learn from the Fairy Godmothers how to stalk or confront an enemy, in your case the trauma of the past, others in the Kingdom will reflect your disabilities.”

  He gave her a small shake. It surprised her. Leaving her wobbly as he continued, “It’s this simple. If you don’t learn how to process feelings and thoughts in a way that leads to greater understandings, others in the Kingdom will be unable to resolve their feelings and thoughts. Fights and misunderstandings will become epidemic.”

  The Prince ran his hands through his hair, pulling and tugging. “And that’s just the beginning. Unable to bear the burden of unresolved strife, some people sink into the oblivion of drinking spirits, just as your stepmother did. Whole families ruined in the chaos of addictions.

  “Can you comprehend the enormity of the cascading problems? You play a pivotal role in this Kingdom. Your inability or unwillingness to resolve the pains of your past or face your problems in the present spreads like wildfire.”

  Cinderella raised her face, flushed and stained with tears, she gave a shaky sigh. “I would love to study with the Fairy Godmothers.”

  Chapter Four

  The Fairy Godmother of the West

  The morning of their goodbye, the Prince whispered, “What happened to you was not your fault. We’re preparing for a life together. Sharing responsibilities with me isn’t easy. People manipulate, threaten, bribe. Others are just plain dangerous when they don’t get what they want.”

  The Prince gripped his hair tugging, “Arghh. Listen to me, Charlotte! People live their entire lives in a love affair with knowledge. They live and die driven by their minds ideals. Knowledge is only an imitation of wisdom! Some people say wisdom lives behind knowledge in the silence. My experience tells me wisdom lives in the pinnacle of the Four Directions. This is your quest. Find the true home of wisdom in the center of the Four Directions.”

  He pulled Charlotte close whispering parting words in privacy behind the curtain of her hair. Cinderella’s throat swelled. Grief tightly lodged. She pushed him away. He held onto her arms, “Okay?” he asked.

  Cinderella nodded. Her eyes shiny with tears, “How do I reclaim…?”

  “The Fairy Godmothers will train you. You’ll learn to track thoughts and feelings, balance challenges with skills. Out of the friction of forgetting and remembering you’ll claim your throne. They were my teachers and now yours.”

  Cinderella shook her head and sighed. This unfamiliar flame invading their personal chemistry scorched her face until she was bright red. Her eyes glued to the ground she felt lost, off-balance. “What do you mean? Talking about the friction of forgetting and remembering? Who is stalking the Kingdom? How do I claim a throne?”

  But the Prince had already turned away striding toward his horse, leaving her in a circle of questions.

  Watching his retreating form she whispered, “Do I want to seal my fate? Sitting on a throne?”

  The Fairy Godmother was waiting in the distance. Cinderella hurried to catch-up. She spent the remainder of the morning, well into afternoon, chasing the Fairy Godmother up and down hills slapping at mosquitoes. “If I hear anymore buzzing insects I’ll scream.”

  As the Fairy Godmother’s long legs propelled her up the hilly terrain she thought about Charlotte: Severe losses at a young age. The death of her parents, living with a witch, losing her status as a daughter, transformed into a servant. The loss of her name declared her misfortune. Charlotte was a princess in training. Cinderella was a girl blackened by household chores.

  At seven thousand feet, they were high enough to see the panorama of mountains unfolded like waves of the ocean one cresting after another. The Fairy Godmother inhaled tree sweetened air. Its perfume healed a bit of her frayed spirit.

  Yes, even Fairy Godmothers, especially the Fairy Godmother of the West, deal with loss and grief. Depending on the phase of the moon her fragilities waxed and waned. Now she was training a young girl who had no idea how to transcend grief. She had no conception of coping with life’s irredeemable events.

  “It’s my task to teach Cinderella the transformation of the Great Silence. A time of unbearable loss and life seems to work against her. Endless silence, numb to life’s joys, yet trapped in inconsolable grief. To find redemption Cinderella must bond with the powers of the West. The Great Silence transformed.”

  Waiting for Cinderella to come into view before proceeding, absorbing the forest shadows and light, she continued her ruminations. “Silence, in the West is a conduit into ecstasy and even perfection. To the uninitiated, and Cinderella certainly falls into that category, the transformation of grief is an impossible task.” The Fairy Godmother sighed with her burden. “Initiations never become easier over time!”

  As if transformation alone wasn’t a monumental task, promised to marry the Prince, Cinderella’s life is in jeopardy….The Fairy Godmother stopped and absorbed the far distance, taking in the endless horizon of trees, where her dark-brown eyes rested.

  One danger to Cinderella stemmed from jealousy. Being the recipient of girl’s envious feelings could erode Cinderella’s self-confidence. But the West Fairy Godmother didn’t worry about these mundane predicaments.

  “No. My challenge is to navigate Cinderella through the grief of her parent’s deaths, and the trauma of living with a wicked stepmother. Her stepmother, disarmed by the Prince, is no longer a threat. But her injuries to Cinderella’s mind and spirit lived on.”

  Other dangers: physical attack, mental attacks and psychic attacks had filtered into the Fairy Godmother’s waking dreams warning her. Spiritual attacks, launched through dreams, were a particular concern while Cinderella solved the paradoxes of the West.

  The other Fairy Godmothers could worry about nurturing and calming Cinderella. The Fairy Godmother of the West held the wisps of the Sacred Dream, the light within darkness, like the radiant Black Madonna. She watched Cinderella crest the hill and tumble at her feet.

  Coughing and wheezing Cinderella pushed herself to standing. She stood head hanging, sweat dri
pping. Unable to catch her breath, she leaned over, resting her hands on her knees. Wracking coughs shook her body. “Altitude and strenuous exercise is a tough adjustment,” she gasped.

  The Fairy Godmother embedded in silence where each moment unfolds, through the dream, into perfection, she said, “Cinderella, you need to synchronize with harmony aligning with the silence of the West. This is the path to the Sacred Dream.”

  A paradox, she would not bother to explain. The Fairy Godmother knew, to help Cinderella establish this silence and her dream body, she would need to build strength in her physical – corporal–body. When Cinderella’s coughing finally extinguished she was still gasping for air.

  The Fairy Godmother watched her impassively. Shaking her head she said, “That was pathetic.”

  Gritting her teeth, Cinderella ground out the words, “Why? Why do I require silence?”

  The Fairy Godmother stood, arms crossed, brown eyes glaring at Cinderella. She gathered to her the Sacred Dream. Currents shifted between them, pulling Cinderella into a hush, softening the edges of her grief.

  The Fairy Godmother said, “A profound silence is greater than your past or future problems. It is more powerful your undisciplined runaway thoughts. A silence born from the powers of the West will fill the present, accessing the intuitions of the Sacred Dream.”

  She turned away to continue walking. Cinderella would, she must, learn to intertwine the silence of the West with circumstance. It was a task requiring enormous physical strength. This was the geography of the Fairy Godmother of the West. She called over her shoulder, “Listening to your incessant coughing is like listening to the yowling of a cat.”

  Straightening, Cinderella quickened her pace to catch–up. “Ugh. I’m sweating!”

  The Fairy Godmother smiled. Severe in repose, a brilliant smile, the whites of her eyes, in contrast with dark skin, transformed her features from introspection into beauty. She said, “Sweating purifies toxins out of the body, Cinderella.” She tapped her lips in the gesture for silence before adding, “Fairy Godmother’s of the West use sweating as an instrument of purification.

  “Some Fairy Godmothers build a sweat lodge of willow branches covered with blankets. In the center of the interior is a hollow for rocks baked in the fire. The more rocks the more intense the heat. Sweating purifies the body before seeking the Sacred Dream.”

  Glaring, Cinderella shouted, “Don’t most people try to avoid sweating?”

  Using her sleeve to wipe off the beads of moisture rolling down her hairline she said, “Hmmm….If sweating purifies, when I’m cleaning the house, to beautify my surroundings, if I sweat, then the house is purifying me?”

  The Fairy Godmother grinned, her long hair braided into hundreds of tiny braids, pulled back with ribbon, swayed. “Yes. You and the house are engaged in mutual purification.”

  Cinderella rested her hand on the rough surface of a granite rock towering above them. She leaned into the boulder twice her size. The afternoon sun warmed the surface. Bits of mica, caught in sunlight, shining silver and gold. An electrical current surged gluing her to the massive rock.

  She screamed “Help me! Help.” Shaking her body free, dancing in place, she yelled, “What happened!”

  The Fairy Godmother ignored her. Digging in her pack, finding the container she handed in to Cinderella. “Drink.”

  “What’s in it?” Cinderella asked suspiciously.

  Pinning Cinderella with her dark eyes she said, “Cinderella your voice is grating. I long for silence.” Looking meaningfully at Cinderella she added, “Silence is a good preparation for twilight.”

  Tipping and swallowing the contents of the container Cinderella choked. The bitter liquid burning in her chest was filled with bark and sediment. She coughed, “I long for the familiar routines of the palace. What is the point to this arduous climb and this terrible drink?” She said, “What exactly is in this concoction?”

  Still holding the currents of the Sacred Dream, the Fairy Godmother said, “Be honest Cinderella. What kind of serenity have you had over these last years?”

  Barking in the distance alerted Cinderella. Avoiding the Fairy Godmother’s question was a relief. She called, “Blackie! Over here! So good coming!”

  A missile of black fur flew into Cinderella. She knelt down to hug her sweet friend. Looking up at the Fairy Godmother she said, “Well, I’ve had moments of happiness with Blackie and in nature.”

  “Did you find your mother’s medicine bag?”

  The Fairy Godmother’s face, fierce and remote, made Cinderella’s aching legs tremble. She was confused. “Have I offended you somehow?”

  Still looking past Cinderella but somehow seeing everything, the Fairy Godmother laughed. “Why would you think you have the power to offend me?”

  The Fairy Godmother’s face was sharp in profile. Cinderella felt tears burning…She swallowed hard. Putting a hand on Cinderella’s shoulder the Fairy Godmother spoke softly, “I know you miss them.”

  The grief of her parent’s death….In this moment, Cinderella chose anger and defiance. She used her anger as a shield allowing her to avoid her feelings of unfathomable loss. Cinderella shouted, “I thought Fairy Godmothers were supposed to be kind.”

  The Fairy Godmother laughed. “Cinderella I am the Fairy Godmother of the West. My job is to awaken the power you have buried beneath your unresolved feelings.”

  Tapping her lips for silence she continued, “The grief of losing your parents. The trauma of living with a woman twisted by greed, in her hatred she sabotaged your every happiness. She transformed you from a daughter into a slave.”

  Cinderella wouldn’t give into tears. She gritted her teeth. Wrapping her arms around her waist, hugging her sides, she viciously dug her nails into her ribs. Shadows lengthened across the face of the rock. The tree line disappeared into a murky darkness. Day was coming to a close, edged into the balance of light and dark was twilight.

  They were deep in the mountains with night falling. Cinderella shivered. There was no way they’d travel home before night fell in the forest. Anxiety loomed, threatening to crash through her like an avalanche.

  The Fairy Godmother interrupted her thoughts. “What do you know of the powers of the West?”

  Cinderella watched the Fairy Godmother sway, tendrils of luminous fibers floating. Encroaching anxiety, so fierce Cinderella didn’t notice. Biting the inside of her cheek she could think of nothing. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, strangled with feelings, she whispered, “Uh….The sun sets in the West?”

  The Fairy Godmother bit back a sigh. She grabbed her braids and twisted the entire mass at the top of her head. Leaning down she picked up a thin stick from the rocky ground and secured her hair using the wood sliver as a hair pin. When she looked back at Cinderella her eyes were patient. “Yes. What happens when the sun sets?”

  Cinderella was confused, “It gets dark?”

  Chapter Five

  Tools of the West

  The Fairy Godmother disappeared into the space between the mountain and the rock twice her size in width and height. Blackie followed the Fairy Godmother. When he disappeared Cinderella’s heart began to hammer. A thin line, burning its way up through her guts and into her chest, stole her breath.

  She looked behind the massive rock and found a gap. Terrified to follow, even more terrified to stand alone in growing darkness she tiptoed into the narrow space. The rock hid the mouth of a cave! There was just enough light to make out the shadowy figures of Blackie and the Fairy Godmother. Cinderella felt the residue of moisture in the air. Coolness lay against her skin. Sound was muffled.

  The Fairy Godmother knelt by a fire pit. Striking two large rocks they threw sparks of light so bright Cinderella could see shadow reflected along the walls. The Fairy Godmother blew on thin wood shavings. Flame leaped into the larger sticks and branches. Cinderella turned in the growing firelight. The temperature in the cave was moderate insulated by mountain walls. But Cinderella fel
t a chill. She began to tremble as smoke was pulled up through a small hole in the ceiling. Quietly, ordering, she whispered, “Do not panic.”

  Just that easily she shifted. Relaxed now, when she looked more closely, the cave was homey. There were four flat rocks maybe three feet high and six feet long. Covered with sheepskin, furs, and wool blankets, there was a rock set in each of the four directions. She asked, “Are these dreaming rocks?”

  The Fairy Godmother continued working surrounded by silence.

  Wood was stacked high against the south wall. A stone cache contained food and utensils. Pictures drawn on the west wall depicted star journeys. Lightly touching the drawings she murmured, “Hmmm…curious.”

  In the east was the moon engraved in its waxing and waning. Turning toward the Fairy Godmother she asked, “Is this my imagination? Is the wall glowing?”

  Furious, the Fairy Godmother swiveled toward her, “Do you ever stop talking?”

  Cinderella’s eyes went huge. She put her hand to her lips. Gestured them locked, throwing away the key. She continued to investigate the cave. The north of the cave extended beyond view in inky darkness. Blackie curled up on the floor between Cinderella and the fire. She asked, “Can I help?” Slapping her hand to her mouth, she said a muffled, “Opps!”

  The Fairy Godmother smiled. “What tools do you use when you are in the metaphoric dark? When you cannot see your way clear to the solution of a problem?”

  Cinderella waited three breathes, disappointed when no answer surfaced. “Um, I sit by the fire to watch the shadows and light. I let my mind wander.”

  Dark skin rippling in firelight, the Fairy Godmother stood gripping Cinderella’s arm. Squeezing the bicep muscle she said, “Good. You let yourself dream using the light and shadows of the fire. The tool is your imagination.”

  Cinderella squinted. “I never thought about it that way. I guess I do use my imagination.”

  The Fairy Godmother’s eyebrows descended. Her lips pressed into a line. She crossed her arms. “You guess? When you imagined yourself dancing in the Prince’s arms were you guessing?”