Let Me Introduce you to Bluebeard
To tell you what has unfolded in my silence, I have to introduce you to someone. His name is Bluebeard. He is a character in a french fairy tale from the 1600’s. As most fairy tales do, the tale of Bluebeard is infused with meaning and symbols. Literary mythologists tell us that each person stars in a production of their own life story, pulling from the cast of the characters our complex inner world holds...I call this “parts work”.
[Parts Work]
Beloveds, you have heard me think from this framework before. It is so practical.
It makes so much sense: the conversation that is happening in your depths anyway, you might as well organize it.
That thing you do when you have an inner conversation: “part of me wants to watch Netflix”...”part of me wants to make a special meal for my children”...”part of me wants to take an adventurous trip”...which tug do you respond to when the clamor of inner needs and wants call for a decision to be made? A lack of intentional navigation all of our needs stemming from our complex parts and identity is always a recipe for dissatisfaction. When we do not slow and pay attention and nourish what needs to be nourished, things decline in your inner world. Bluebeard, usually not known by this name, lurks in all of us as one of these many “parts”.
[Meet Bluebeard]
Who is Bluebeard? His component in the fable sheds light on that question we ask ourselves… How did things end up like this? At what
Click Here for the full fairy tale and you may choose to read it, or there is also an option to play an audio reading of this meaning-laden tale.
[Your True Self]
To appreciate the loss, what Bluebeard steals from us, we need to develop an awareness of what was lost. Diane Langburg states we need to consider the “ nature of persons as they were created to be. The shattering of something is better understood when a picture of its original wholeness is seen" ( Langberg, 2003)
There is a part of you that you see in the eyes of the baby picture of yourself as you marvel…” those are the same eyes I see when I look in the mirror today, there is an original center that existed then and exists now”.
That is the part of you that was made in the image of
We had a True Self (see blog on the Beloved and the Impostor) that was designed for a life of wonder, a life of connection, a life of passion. If you have lived long enough, you will feel a tug and a tearing: wonder, connection, and passion are torn away by the blows of storms in the experience of your life and the erosion of mundane obligations.
[Tracking Bluebeard]
I found a list of beacons in life that indicate that we have been unplugged from our Source (Jesus). This is a list of very soul cracking, heart diminishing qualities we tolerate being stolen from us without even noticing in some cases. Pause and muse over this
snapshot of symptoms pointing toward the awareness that compromise has happened in your inner-territory.
Clarissa Estes labels this cluster of experiences “ennui”; defined as a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction, weariness or boredom arising from a lack of occupation or excitement. She says, “To chronically feel, think, or act in any of these ways is to have partially severed or lost entirely the relationship with the deep…” true self (2003).
[Bluebeard Implicated]
It is where if we have learned his name, we notice Bluebeard standing in the middle of the stage. Our tender authenticity is shadowed by real interior and exterior enemies . Before those enemies grew large enough for us to suffer the pain they deliver, we had instincts to nurture ourselves and anchor into the Lord of an Unseen Kingdom.
Bluebeard is a symbol of that part of ourselves that works against us. Who doesn’t “do the thing” that you know you need to do. Who doesn’t “say the thing” you know HAS to be said.
Who collapses against the “NO” that needs to be said - to self or others. Who does that behavior she knows diminishes her every time. Who doesn’t take that risk because she doesn’t feel adequate. Who cannot see past the mundane because she is chained to an obligation that you tell yourself is not optional.
He is the part of you who whispers, “It’s okay” when someone mistreats you. Who tolerates starvation when there is emotional neglect or abuse. Who hates the body-container she was given, the most powerful weapon she has, because it is there that she encounters the Living Lord and it is there in the present moment she finds peace.
“So the fateful marriage occurs, the mingling of the sweetly naive and the dastardly unlit...Many women have literally lived the Bluebeard tale . They marry while they are yet naive about predators, and they choose someone who is destructive to their lives. They are determined to “cure” that person with love. They are in some way “playing house”. One could say they have spent much time saying, “His beard isn’t really so blue”. ( Pinkola, 2003 P. 50) But many, maybe most, our Bluebeards do not have an external correlation like a toxic mate or romantic partner.
Even more concerning is that toxic unseen Bluebeard that is hosted in your mind. She is not for you. She opposes you from the inside. She allows what shouldn’t be allowed. She holds no boundaries when they are needed and harshly demands them when they are not life giving. We can address an internal Bluebeard just as aggressively as we can an external Bluebeard (a specific person)...and we should, we have to.
[Jesus VS Bluebeard]
When Jesus left the earth, in Matthew 28 He said to his beloveds, “All authority in heaven and earth I give to you... And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” If Jesus has ALL the power, who has NO power? The Enemy! Bluebeard!
So, why does this list of listless, life-drained seasons or lifestyles come upon us if we have the power to dethrone the enemy and walk in thriving authority?
It is simply because we do not walk in the present moment in awareness of an open heaven...we believe the lie, empower the liar.
We pray small prayers God has already answered, (i.e. “God please be with me today”) instead of claiming what we already have and reaching for the next thing we hunger for and God has waiting for us.
[Bluebeard Weapons]
Thankfully, this is not just a nice thing to write and
pontificate about (I hate it when I read books that make me desire change or inspire me with no real path to receive the revelation).
There are insights to engage with, practices to
employ, breath to be breathed. There are tools.
Beloveds, I can say this with confidence because I
have depended on them.
They give me access to the Living Hope that offer endurance and an ability to keep my eyes locked on
the Unseen when the seen is so horrific it is impossible to tolerate alone. When you stare down
the worst, you HAVE to abide. You just have to.
So...how do you “Abide”? This is a theme I address in my blogs fairly consistently, but upcoming there is more good to be had in the service of abiding.
Here is the current line up:
Symbol
Reclaiming Instinct
Key Questions
Ritual
Practices
Guardrails
You. Are. Loved.
Estés Clarissa Pinkola. (2003). Women who run with the wolves: myths and stories of the wild
woman archetype . New York: Ballantine Books.
Langberg, D. (2003). Counseling survivors of sexual abuse . Place of publication not identified:
Xulon Press.
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