
The Story Of Amanda
Once upon a long time ago, there lived a little girl named Amanda, and although Amanda was not born in a castle or palace, her Mother and Father believed her to be their princess, a largely tatty, messy and boyish princess, but special to them all the same.
One sunny day Amanda went for a stroll in the woods, while out in the woods she came across a fallen tree covered in silky green moss. The bend in the trunk made a perfect place to perch a small bottom, so upon the trunk Amanda sat. As Amanda sat, eyes closed, sensing the gentle breeze on her skin, hearing birdsong and small scurrying animals and insects busying around in the ground, she found herself experiencing magic. Without words, the trees and flowers, animals and insects, seemed to somehow reach out to her, or she to them, and for a short while Amanda was a tree, was a bird flying above, she was a worm pushing its way through dank cool earth. Amanda was instantaneously connected to all living things, she was spirit flowing freely with life, she knew what God was and it was not what she had been told it was at church, at home or at school. The Earth itself held her gently and urged her to remember to come back to this place anytime life as a human felt too challenging to bear. Amanda heard a whisper on the wind, it was the echo of a time long ago, an ancient wisdom told in symbols. A sacred wisdom that had to be remembered in order to allow the future to flow. Rolling her eyes to the skies, Amanda sighed, “c’mon guys, I’m six years old, that’ll have to go on the back-burner for now!”
And up she jumped and skipped and tripped and clumsily danced her way home.
There were many times in Amanda’s young life that she found herself taking refuge in gardens and country lanes, in fields and next to streams in woodland. Life amongst the human’s was tricky, people told lies, their mouths spoke words that simply did not match what their energy was saying. The children she shared her days with at school played games of the not-so-fun kind, they were cruel, bullying, fighting with one another for power and attention. Amanda was not happy here, not comfortable in this awkward gangly body of hers. People were confusing to her, she felt an absolute love for all things, for everything found in nature, this included humans, but she could never feel the love being returned. So Amanda sat, as the Earth had previously urged her, and connected with something bigger, something ever flowing with the energy of love and this connection kept her strong and capable, in a small and fearful way.
Then one day, Amanda’s father surprised her by finally allowing her to do something she had been begging to do for as long as she could remember… He allowed her to go with him on a bike ride with a big cycling club. On this huge day of adventure, her little legs pushed her peddles for twenty miles over hills and into valleys. Amanda met with a group of teenagers, who, unlike the children of the unhappy school variety, accepted Amanda just as she was. They didn’t pick out her freckled face and gappy teeth as something ugly or weird, they didn’t comment on her spindly legs or puppy fat tummy. Instead they were interested to hear her thoughts, they found the jokes she told funny, they gave her jovial little hugs, and they told her they hoped she would be back next week. And she was, and the week after, and the week after that. Amanda grew with this group of companions throughout her teenage years and into her twenties, and in amongst this group Amanda found her first Prince Charming, and her second, and third, well, a few really (she was in her teens after all!)
One Prince Charming was a little more persistent than the others, to the point that on another day, a long time ago, Amanda married this Prince… But far from the happy ending as found in so many Fairy Tales, this was simply the beginning of another adventure into the complexities of human relationship. So long and complex was this adventure that it requires a little side-step, a different tangent, a story within a story, so here it is:
Once Upon a Golden Time there was a little girl, who dreamed her dreams of Kings and Queens and sparkling never-worlds....
I met you as a tender teen and swore I'd found my prince
I clung on tight through rough rebukes that turned my brain to mince
I wore your ring too readily tho t'was heavy with rejection
The icy looks of pure disdain took place of sweet affection
All those hopes and dreams and needs and lists of expectations
Were ripped and torn and unfulfilled, stamped out with condemnation
You too my Prince were led astray by the given label “wife”
I did not fit the category so burdened all your life
Until the day I spat you out, frustrated with suppression
The victim turned from whining cow deep seated in depression
To fearsome feline, like cornered cat I hissed and scratched and bit
I thought I'd share my battle scars and gave you wounds to lick
The ring was tossed into the night in furious bid for freedom
My heart did bleed as did my eyes with tears for all years stolen
The fairy-tales of Kings and Queens were bitter in my mouth
I ripped them out, with my tongue, and buried them along with my youth
Encased in brittle cast iron shell I found my independence
With self-sufficient warrior soul I kicked against dependence
I stood so strong, a tower of might cascading through the world
I took God's love in place of man's and entered a spiritual swirl
And in that swirl I opened up and tasted all the lessons
In awe I gazed into your soul and recognised your blessings
Through you and others who have since been I have learned of many things
Of what love is, of what love is not, of truth and how life sings
Of challenge, of joy, of peace, of hate, of Oneness with all souls
Of the illusion of expectations, and of the beauty as grace unfolds...
Once upon a Golden time there is a wiser Queen, who dreams life's dreams, who flows with love, who is now ready for her King.
And so to present day…. Amanda is now all grown up, well, nearly, and is hearing the whisper on the wind once more, a whisper of intangible truths given in etheric symbols. Now she rolls her eyes to her third eye and says to the world ‘ok guys, bring it on!’ Although Amanda can only sense a hint of what this may mean, she is willing to go there, wherever there may be, and be whatever she is, in order to bring forth the ancient past to support the flow into the future. The future that is yet to be written…
This is not the end!