Fairy Tales and the Journey of the Soul
Last week a friend from Germany sent us a folder with two fairy tailes of the Brothers Grimm and thoughts from her and from a group work. It is fascinating to see how the genuine folk tales contain in a symbolic form teachings of eternal wisdom stirring the souls of the readers or listeners. Many modern scientists think the tales, often full of seemingly cruel adventures, are expressions of existential fear and need to be “purged” before reading them to children. But when you read them with a spiritual understanding, you see that they are telling about the path of the soul. The soul,� encaged in matter, through a long journey (of many lives) finds back to a union with its origin.
One of the tales I got was about a girl whose hands were cut off to avenge a curse of the devil on her father, who later got silver hands, then, because of her pure life, new hands and finally found union with her husband, the king. The hands represent our attachment to material life (the grip) and silver or moonlight the denser worlds of matter. The girl are we as a soul, who finally finds back to an eternal life with the spirit-king.
This tale deeply touched me, because it expresses the inner urge towards light which is a thread through my life.
