Monday, July 11, 2022

The Princess and the Frog

 

The Kiss of Life

“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love.

Leo Tolstoy (Where Love Is, God Is; 1855)

          Have you ever noticed that in fairytales it is always the fool, or dullard, who wins the hand of the princess? He is usually kind, humble and innocent. There’s always an opponent who is determined to win the princess to get her dowery, her castle and her kingdom. He plans and schemes, vies with every suiter, and wins until the dullard comes along with his golden egg, or his lucky charm, and without much effort, performs whatever task has been set by the king to win his daughter’s hand. When the princess provides the obligatory kiss, even though she is loath to do so, the fool transforms into a prince who is both handsome and intelligent. The opponent goes away dejected, and the now-willing princess rides away with the now-beautiful fool.

          When you tell it like that, it sounds ludicrous, right? Yet history is replete with such scenarios—from Gabriella-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s Beauty and the Beast to modern-day Prince Charles who ended up with the ugly duckling, Camilla, instead of the beautiful princess Diana. A gender-role reversal, certainly, but one that set the stage for his son Harry to marry a woman who was neither English, Caucasian, nor Royal. The magic that made all of this possible was that kiss that transforms—love. This is the person they loved, and love will find a way.

          As for those of us who are neither princesses nor dullards, we simply have to find our magic where we can. I’m told that energy attracts energy; that like attracts like. But I have found that in most cases our choice of mate is more earthy and less mystical. We are attracted to others because unconsciously we see something in them that will allow us to grow and change—to transform our childhood wounds and fears and become the prince/princess (that is, the whole person) we are destined to be. Love transforms even the ugliest frog and expands our connection to our soul.

          As Tolstoy wrote, “Love is life.” The more we love, the happier we will be. And, the more we love, the more likely we are to get our hearts broken. That’s the nature of love—it breaks you into wholeness.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane

 

         

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