I published this article with Be You Media in 2015, but it seems that Be You is no longer functioning. So here is the original draft.
A Tower in the Woods–Emerging
An abandoned tower lies deep within the forest. And in the tower, hidden from the world, is a girl. A lovely girl, innocent, taken from her parents and imprisoned. This is all she’s ever known: the grey stone tower, the deep, dark forest, and the witch, who is the only person she’s ever known and the only love she’s had. Her hair is the only gateway to the space of her confinement, and song the only way to pass the time. But these, her only two gifts, prove to be enough. For they bring to her someone she never knew existed. A Hero.
But this Hero does not storm her prison by force. He follows her song, learns the magic words to gain her trust, and entrusts himself to be admitted through the only doorway, herself. And in doing so, opens before her a completely new world. A world that was always there, outside her window, just beyond what she could see. Beyond what she was told was real, beyond what she believed. After that, who could return to being nothing; safe, secure, but barely half-alive? She knows now that there’s more. She’s tasted a little of what it might be like out there, in the world of sunshine, of experiences, of people.
So, though it costs her everything that she knows, she chooses a larger view. No longer willing to be a child, she is cast from her tiny, safe world out into the darkness of the unknown. No tower, no hair, no witch, and no Hero. What is she to do? The only thing she can. She sings. With all her newfound strength and courage, with all her sadness and loss, she sings. And without even knowing it, she guides a lost Hero and heals what was injured beyond repair, returning the Hero to himself with her love.
Yes, that’s a fairy tale. And no, that doesn’t make it not true.
We are all told what the world is like, when we are considered too young to know for ourselves. We all grow up in a society to which we are expected to mold. And it takes strength to grow beyond what you were told to believe. Chances are, there’s a whole lot more out there than anyone knew to tell you.
They had good intentions, perhaps. Just trying to make sure you had a safe and happy life. Everyone wants that for their loved ones. But there is that element to life that will not stay where we think it should. The wilderness, the unknown. Where adventures wait, where our deepest desires beckon, where every dark fear lurks. And at one time or another, the call comes. To venture out of our well-behaved world into unpredictable environs. They may be physical, they could be mental or emotional or spiritual terrains that we have not experienced before.
And in order to venture beyond the mapped confines, it takes the emergence in our souls of the Hero. The Warrior. The Explorer. The King—or Queen—bearing a name not quite known yet. You don’t discover that you’re brave in the tower. You learn and become in the forest, in the desert, in the wilderness. When there is no longer anyone to tell you what you ought to do, your heart can speak loud and clear. When you desire something deeply enough, you will seek it. Maybe you will find it. Or something else entirely. Either way, nothing will turn out as you expected to find it. Reality has a way of doing that, in the wilderness. Nothing is just as it seems, and one action may have consequences that ricochet further than you expected.
To stay in the tower is to allow someone else, or at least the assumptions you learned from them, to hold power over you, to keep you from learning about reality, from knowing that the only power is, in fact, yours. To exit the tower may be painful. It may mean loss and hardship. But the soul is free. Into the forest is into yourself. To go into the wilderness, whether by your own choice or by necessity or by happenstance, is to journey into the depths of who you are, what lies buried deep in you, so deep you forgot it was ever there.
What forgotten pieces are still desolate, longing for you to find them and bring them home? Where do dragons lie in wait, ready to singe your brave heart with accusations that you aren’t enough? What hero waits to be awakened, strength intact and spirit whole, to become the infinitely possible you? And when he does, what love lies within, boundless and pure, waiting deep inside her fortress, hoping for someone—she knows the only one who can—to scale her defenses and show her the world beyond the prison she formed in her mind.
Rapunzel’s tower doesn’t have doors because she is the door. We are all the door for our own lives. There’s no easy magic portal we can take to instant freedom and bliss. Our choices can forge the prison, or they can propel us into the unknown. And when the soul finds herself, the tower crumbles. When her heart grows strong enough, the spell of others’ power over her shatters. When she learns who she really is, not even the wilderness can break her spirit. Her song rises, indomitable, to guide the wounded, and her love heals their scars.
How have you moved beyond your “tower”? Have you discovered the world that is waiting just beyond your supposed limitations?
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