Nina Lois Turtledove

The Handless Maiden & the ill Bargain

“The poor ego is always looking for the easy way out.”

The Women Who Run With the Wolves has been a fascinating book in which Clarissa Pinkola Estes P.h.D tells selected myths and fairy tales from various cultures- all relating to deeply spiritual aspects of living- and she explains the archetypal messages contained therein- unlocking them with symbolism and knowledge accumulated from a long career as “Cantadora,” (keeper of old stories in the Latin tradition) and Jungian psychoanalyst. She releases potent teachings about life passed down by the storytelling of our ancestors. It is really quite fascinating and has filled a vacuum with information supporting me substantially in this period of reflection- enabling me to go further, as I’ve been digging around to find the roots of sadness in my past.

These stories remind us we are not alone, that there are others who have walked this road, and they offer insight and show us the way. It gives a framework to what we have been through, surprisingly what I am going through, and provides a map to where I am going. I related to many of the stories in Estes’ book, but as of late I have been very touched and inspired by “The Handless Maiden.” In Estes’ own words regarding the story:

The Handless Maiden is a remarkable story, one in which we find the toes of the old night religions peeking out from under the layers of the tale. The story is formed in such a way that listeners participate in the heroine’s test of endurance; the story pulls us into a world that lies far below the roots of trees. From that perspective we see that “the Handless Maiden” offers material for a woman’s entire life process. It deals with most of the key journeys of the woman’s psyche “the Handless Maiden” covers the journey of a woman’s entire lifetime.

[It] is about women’s initiation into the underground forest through the rite of endurance. The word endurance sounds as though it means “to continue without cessation,” and while this is an occasional part of the tasks underlying the tale, the word endurance also means “to harden, to make sturdy, to make robust, to strengthen,” and this is the principal thrust of the tale, and the generative feature of a woman’s long psychic life. We do not just go on to go on. Endurance means we are making something substantial.

In mythos, the teaching of endurance is one of the great rites of the Great Wild Mother, the Wild Woman archetype. It is her timeless ritual to make her offspring strong. It is she who toughens us up, makes us potent and enduring and where does this learning take place? La Selva Subterrenea, the underground forest, the underworld of female knowing. It is a wild world that lives under this one, under the world perceived by the ego. While there, we are infused with instinctive language and knowledge. From that vantage point we understand what can not be so easily understood from the point of view of the topside world.

The Wild Woman
Is the One Who Knows
She is the River Beneath the River
Instinctual Nature
Dispenser of Medicines
Guardianne of Wisdom
To whom we go in Death
From whom we spring forward in Life
She is the Great Wild Mother

In this underground forest, the misty world of the unconscious, light filtering in to down here where the healing is taking place.

So, anyhow, the first part of the story “the Handless Maiden” evokes much reflection and discussion on my part. It deals with the poor bargain that is made with the Devil during a period of slumber of the soul.

The story begins with a miller who is out of work, with nothing left but his millstone and a flowering apple tree behind his mill. He sets out into the forest to chop some wood. A man appears from behind a tree, and says, “There is no need to torture yourself by cleaving wood. I shall dress you in riches in you will but give me what stands behind your mill.” The miller, not knowing that his daughter was back there sweeping, agrees, and is devastated when he learns that it is the Devil and that he has lost his daughter to him in a poor, poor bargain.

Estes speaks of a time in a little girl’s life around age 11, that is a period of “endarkenment.” I look back to that time in my life, and saw for myself what occurred and how bits of my soul are still trapped by a very ill-made bargain.

I remember myself before that age. I was very grounded and secure in who I was. I was in touch with all things, “Wild Woman,” I was creative, interested in many cool things like astronomy, psychic abilities, books, animals, God. Then along I came into fourth grade.

The focus of my peers was pop culture. It was clear that I did not fit in. Ah, the pain comes back just reflecting on this. To fix this tragedy, I thought that if I did my hair just right (big, tall bangs), had an Esprit bag, and knew the right dance moves, (which I could never, never do- shyness prohibited this) I’d win over some friends, and I’d be happy.

I sold myself out. I took a shortcut to win affections, I traded my Self and the treasures deep inside me in for superficiality and to find a way to belong. I lost my connection to the depth of belonging in my soul.

Here was my deal with the Devil. The Devil- that which “needs, wants, and sucks up the light.” The ego, always looking for a short-cut. Like the miller, instead of chopping wood to feed my inner fire, my hearth went dark, I lost the maiden. The feminine, wild and free, and the fruit of knowledge of the self, traded away. I surrendered my instincts. I believed that I had to be a certain way to belong, that I am not lovable as I am.

The remnants of this are interesting. Although being and looking like the others was essential, wanting to fit in was taboo. I remember being absolutely undone when I overheard my sister say to my mother in a most disparaging way, “Oh, she just wants an Esprit bag to be popular.” Not only did I not fit in, I was doubly a miss-fit by wanting to fit in. To this day I can’t look in the mirror to check my appearance in front of a guy I like. I barely bring myself to do it at all, although understandably a lady doesn’t want running mascara or something like that.

In this state there arise tendencies to want to look for a fix to the sadness from the outside. Drugs and alcohol, relationships, whatever distractions and what one thinks they need, come up to plug the hole inside. Then one day, when one is waking up, they realize that those things just don’t solve anything that’s amiss. In the story, when the Devil comes to get the maiden, she has bathed, dressed in white, and has drawn a circle of chalk around her. The Devil can’t lay claim on her, and instructs her to not bathe. When she is filthy from un-washing, she still cries and cries, crying the dirt off of her hands. The Devil, infuriated, demands that her hands be chopped off. She continues to cry the dirt off of her arms, and the Devil, frustrated, leaves empty-handed. There is much to be said for the healing power of tears, but the point I found most profound, is that when one is setting oneself free, there can be simply nothing to hold on to.

The maiden then wraps her stubs in clean gauze, and sets off to wander in the world. This is what followed in my life as well. In the years that followed, after the mists of endarkenment began to recede, I set off on a course to recover the connection that I had lost. Here I am today, recovering the wild, fertile, flowering spirit and the Soul.

Estes, in the chapter Marking Territory, deals with healing rage by rituals of forgiveness. Recognition, blessing, containing, and releasing. All these times I have made poor, life-eating bargains- my higher self is entitled be angry about this. Estes brings up a beautiful image” descansos.

In my part of the world I am very familiar with these white crosses set up along side the road in places where there has been a death. Sometimes there is a name inscribed, sometimes it is decorated with flowers, pictures, and candles.

I love these words Estes uses as she treats this subject: “Women have died a thousand deaths before they are twenty years old. They’ve gone in this direction or that, and have been cut off. Anyone who says otherwise is still asleep. All that is grist for the mill of descansos. While all these things deepen individuation, differentiation, growing up, blossoming, becoming awake and aware and conscious, they are also profound tragedies and have to be grieved as such.”

The idea is to reflect upon one’s life and to mark these little deaths, bless them, pin them down, and enable the soul to be set free. Estes recommends we draw a time-line of our lives and do this.

I realize that the novella I have written, my little book in its skeleton stage, is just this. It marks the series of heartbreaks, it pinpoints the discovery of how I saved my life. It is my own story about the Handless Maiden. I realize strongly that it is time for me to complete the creation of my first literary baby, marking my descansos poetically. I may not be writing as regularly here as it’s time to finish these books, reflections, and creations from the results. What a transformative period it has been.

Also following the recommendation of the author, I am going through “The Handless Maiden” story piece by piece, as there is much territory covered, and I am processing it how she advises: “sitting with my Muse” and assimilating the information in my own time.

Mythology, Psychology, Reflection | 23.03.2006 13:50 | 2 Comments