Waking Up Sleeping Beauty

Image copyright: 123rf/kostins

Lately I’ve become fascinated with Sleeping Beauty, the fairytale about a lovely princess who, when she turned 15 years old, pricked her finger on a spindle and fell asleep for 100 years. Pretty boring, right?!

The princess was born. There was large celebration. All the kingdom was invited, including the fairies. Each fairy brought the baby a special gift. She was given beauty, wit, grace and virtue, as well as the gifts of music and dance.

Before the last gift was offered, a fairy who hadn’t been seen for many, many years suddenly appeared, and I believe her words have been misinterpreted over the centuries.

With a look of tremendous sadness and grief, she proclaimed, “If these are the only gifts this little girl is given, she will certainly die by her fifteenth birthday, for no one thought to offer her gifts of courage and strength, of adventure and purpose, of self-worth.”

Then this forgotten fairy turned and vanished as suddenly as she had appeared.

Everyone was horrified. Yet there was still one last gift to be offered. There was not a sound to be heard when the remaining fairy spoke. “This precious child will not die, but only sleep for one hundred years and be awakened by her true love.”

Reading this fairytale, I wondered why we believe that our special gifts are given to us by someone outside ourselves. I wondered why we limit the kinds of gifts we believe we can embrace. When we become disconnected from any of our gifts it’s easy to feel as if we have been asleep for 100 years. For certainly they are waiting within each us to be discovered, to be examined, to be celebrated.

We will always awaken when, imperfectly as it may be, we learn to love ourselves.