Journal to a Muse

Fairy Godmothers and their kin.
When I was young, but old enough to read, I found my Fairy Godmother in the Great Grandmother in George MacDonald's The Princess and The Goblin. The notion that a kind, wise woman lived at the top of one's house and would always provide refuge, safety, guidance and new information was exactly what I needed. It helped that I strongly identified with Jessie Willcox Smith's illustrations!! In my teen years, I was too smart to rely on a fairy tale illustration, but when I became a mother, then a single parent, and occasionally when my anti-depressants just seem weak, that woman gives me hope to breathe a little longer until things sort themselves out and I can move forward. Imagine my delight when I read the following passage from Joan Gould's book Spinning Straw Into Gold. She is discussing the transformations that take place in the traditional tale known as Rumplestiltskin:

...the message of all fairy tales and, in fact, all religions:
When we are locked in a room alone with a spinning wheel and nothing more promising than straw to work with; when we cannot try any harder, or work more skillfuly at our present paltry level of being (in fact, our efforts may be what's balking us if we think we can force something new into existence); when life seems to hold no promise for tomorrow but loss or death; a locked door -- inside us, or out-- opens by itself. A curious-looking little man hobbles in a sits down at the wheel to summon what we lack out of the dross that lies under our feet, beneath notice. Straw is transformed into gold again. We grow closer to what we hoped to be.