I got a big Fairy Tale book. That’s (almost) all I have been reading to Leilani for the past 3 weeks or so, and they are not at all Disney-like fairytales. I struggled with it for a while. On the surface they are more often horrible than beautiful, and not age appropriate, but I believe there is more meaning in them, they are messages from the common subconscious to a deep, dark part of the soul, the part of us that dreams, and can decipher dreams as well. Children have a much easier access to this realm of dreams and symbols, than most adults, at least Leilani does, but they are useful for adults to “play” with as well.
For example: Snow-White and Rose-Red inspired a forgiveness meditation (read the tale first if you don’t know it, otherwise it’s hard to follow): In it I have a friend who has been turned into a bear by an evil dwarf. I find a dwarf who is caught with his beard trapped, I free him but bring him to my friend the bear to ask if that is the evil dwarf. He does not answer, but kills and eats the dwarf. I am horrified, about killing and also about eating the dwarf, but then realize that’s what bears do, and that the dwarf had deserved it by creating the bear, and that I do not need to interfere and wholeheartedly forgive the bear (and the dwarf). In this moment the bear turns back into a prince.
The Juniper Tree is one of the brutal ones. Leilani just had me reread this after just 3 days, usually she does not want them repeated, she seems to be on a quest to hear them all… but she had a dark day, one was Godfather Death, and one the Juniper Tree . Anyway… when I read it originally the part where the stepmother decapitated the boy upset me. I can read a few lines ahead of what I read aloud so I stopped before she heard it and said it was too bad (but from the twists in the story it is already clear that something awful will happen). She asked me to silently read the end! OK, I did and she asked if the boy was OK at the end, and I answered yes. Read, PLEEEASE!!!!! I read it, she shuddered when the boy was killed, eaten, and when he came back as a bird and killed his stepmother with a millstone Leilani said splat and laughed. I was horrified, even more by her reaction than by the story… but to her it was just a fairy tale, just the way things go in fairyales. She turned around fell asleep, and had no bad dreams, or the need for the light on, and did not come into our bed either. The next day she pulled herself up on the windowsill and stuck her head out the open window and I yelled at her to get down right away – she looked at me like I had lost my mind, but came down immediately – “Why are you so nervous mommy?” “Well, I read a bad fairytale yesterday… ” “You know, I think you need to read it once more…” I did not really need to hear that from a 4 year old.
