A New Kingdom – a fairy tale of sorts.

Trigger warning: This blog post does not follow along the lines of previous posts, as I will cover the realm of our minds rather than the realm of our being. 

Here we go:

In a session that I participated in, there was a challenge to pose questions for the new year. Generally, I ordinarily do not pose queries or make promises at the end of a year, but these seemed apt for the time, and not the least, for several of the themes that have developed during the last 12 months or so. 

A perennial question, for me at least, is to continuously ask myself what I came here to learn; ‘why am I here’. Being a constant knowledge seeker, a voracious book reader, and a newspaper junkie, this was not a hard question for me. Or so I thought. But instead of rattling off some more mundane options of sharing grace and care, and their more obvious siblings love and understanding, I sought instead to deepen my reasoning around intentions and outcomes on a multidimensional level. Instead of looking around me, I looked up. 

And in looking up, the universe delivered the next question, asking where I wanted to be in the fairy tale of life. Now, we can possibly agree that life is no fairy tale, neither rosy nor shimmery. It is grit, brownish black some of the time and grey more often than not. But lifting our eyes to the sky will lift our spirits as well, and gazing outward towards infinity doesn’t have to mean looking into the abyss. The blues can be blinding, but also revealing.

If we can’t believe in fairy tales, then what can we believe in? In our own capacity to make things right? In our ability to set the record straight? Or in our capacity to slog through the tension and adversity as it hit us over and over again? If these are obstacles, then what are the new questions and the novel solutions? What are the beliefs that will help us get on the way to a more realistic fairy tale, where it actually ends well?

Creating our own fairy tale, or kingdom, doesn’t have to be a concrete example of a new world, or social or ecological environment; rather, it could be an aphorism of how we perceive the world around us through a new set of lenses, and a new set of rules. To envision this kingdom is what faith is made of and what we all have somehow gotten away from in the midst of the hardship that we face on a daily basis. To get there, a new set of beliefs needs to be created that can guide us, help us draw a new map, and put us on the road forward. But the inner work is not to be forgotten. 

External forces are often hindered by internal barriers. When we realize and familiarize ourselves with these barriers, or even are brave enough to stare them in the eye, we are better suited to confront them, and ultimately remove them. Like a coat with a thick lining, or when we dress in clothing in many layers to avoid exposure, shedding the burdens will take some time, but one by one, it will ease the weight and bring clarity. 

The fairy tale of our lives is in constant flux. What we make of it is largely up to each of us, without excuses or explanations. Circumstances could be predestined but what we learn from them are relentlessly similar – we decide how to react, and approach and change what is around us. 

What your kingdom will look like is up to you, and like a blessing and a curse, it’s in your hands. To change the world is within each of us; within our reach, be it in the heavens or here on earth. 

Now, go out and create the fairy tale of your dreams! 

Photo by Aldebaran S on Unsplash.