Finding the Stolen Child Within – A Search for Meaning
The stolen child in the poem by W. B. Yeats can be viewed as an invitation to search for meaning in life. The stolen child, who appears in Irish fairytales such as A Brew of Eggshells is about young child who is stolen and replaced by the one they call the changeling. The changeling tends to be wooden and is does not speak. We, in our own way are changelings. What brings the changeling alive and releases the ability to speak is the discovery of the new and witnesses something that has not happened before. This story of the changeling and the Stolen child is the story of rediscovery of who we truly are and within that discovery finding our life’s meaning and purpose. The central invitation from the poem by W. B. Yeats called The Stolen child is this:-
Come away, O’ human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a fairy, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Terri Windling the folktale website Endicott Studio writes about the Stolen Child as follows:-
Yeats was a folklore enthusiast and a life-long believer in the fairy folk. His poem “The Stolen Child” is rooted in changeling tales found throughout the British Isles, as well as in other lands with fairy traditions of their own. Changeling stories are not “fairy tales” as the term is commonly used today. They are not set “once upon a time” in magical lands distant from our own, like fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, or Puss in Boots. Changeling stories are folk legends, usually set in the same country as the teller, and come from an ancient belief system in which fairies are real, co-existing with mortals.
That which is stolen from each of us is our connection to our souls. It is in order to find that which is stolen from us that we go on a search for meaning. This is usually in the 2nd half of life and is often preceeded by the crisis to meaning called the midlife crisis. This goes hand in hand with our ability to live a wild and precious life filled with passion, purpose and prosperity. Prosperity, in the way this writer means it, is the prosperity of meaning. This is your life’s energy allied with creative activity that expresses that meaning within form. It isn’t simply the acquisition of more nor is it simply production for productions sake. It is what is truly productive that arises from a hand in hand connection to the dimension of the infinite.
We get disconnected from the water and the wild. This is the water of our unconscious. This is the disconnection from the living of our dreams. This invitation to the waters and the wild is wonderfully invited in the writing of Robert Johnson. He writes in his book Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the worldtoward that same church, which he forgot.
From Sometimes a Man Stands Up during Supper – Translated by Robert Bly
A Yeats tells us in his poem this world is full of weeping and you might not understand the why of it. This is because there are aspects of creation that are a mystery and will forever remain a mystery. There is suffering but there is also the end of suffering. It doesn’t mean that you cannot understand your part in that mystery and especially your part in such mystery as a co-creator. In the wonderful words of Marianne Williamson written in her book entitled Return to Love she invites meaning and purpose in this way.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
In the words of Rumi, which I often quote to school children when telling them stories,
You were born with potential.
You were born with goodness and trust.
You were born with ideals and dreams.
You were born with greatness.
You were born with wings.
You are not meant for crawling, so don’t.
You have wings.
Learn to use them and fly! – Rumi.
To often the changeling in us forgets that we are born to make manifest the glory of God (or if you prefer, Love) within us. In a culture where everything becomes homogenised we become wooden and unable to speak the truth of who we are as unique individuals. This truth is not a fixed truth codified in words but a living of life moment to moment that arises from the waters and the wild of our unlived life, and all to often, our unloved life. The fairy element in this poem refers to to a vaster experience than that limited by the five senses and the dimension of time and space. This is the dimension that I refer to in this blog and its related website as the beyond. It is a state of being beyond the limitation of the persona (persona meaning mask). When this beyond is allowed to flow through you it radiates within the personality. The word wild here does not refer to being wildly out of control. It is more akin to the experience invited by the Master Jesus when he gives the advice,
And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Neither is the above an instruction that suggests you regress to becoming a child again. The invitation is to reveal the stolen child within who knows how to be wildly creative, wildly spontaneous and wildly loving. Children know how to do this without doing this. It is natural to the way that Creation moves through them. In this way you go into the realm of the timeless hand in hand with time. All too often there is the wish to transcend the world in order to avoid the weeping than you cannot understand. However, this is your world and the way in which it is seen is in most part is a reflection of the waters of the wild unconscious that are within. When you change the way you think the world will change to reflect that new way of thinking.
The changeling is often depicted as a wooden creature. This is symbolic of a way of thinking that has become inflexible. In its inflexibility thought has stolen the spirit of the child within. The midlife crisis, which is the call to return the stolen child to its place in the family of man, is a difficult time. The story of the changeling involves roasting the changeling on the fire until it cries out and the fairies return and reclaim their own. During the midlife crisis it feels like we are being roasted in the fire of experience. The symbol of fire is the symbol of transformation. It is the element of the firebird, the phoenix that rises from the ashes of the unlived and unloved life.
In the poem you are invited to come away and not run away. I invite you to come away from a culture that keeps you wooden and that keeps what is unspoken within you from being heard and thus being manifested in your life. This world is more full of weeping, more full of suffering, because you are not a revealed one. You are one who has not yet authorised the water and the wild as it is intended to flow wildly through you. To invite the wild and precious life within you, and to get you to come away from a culture whose growth is depression and violence, I offer you practices. These are practices that invite the Wild Old Wicked Man to grow within you or the Dangerous Old Woman to grow within you. These are the people who are potential within you and who will allow you to live from meaning and to act in the world from a connection that goes hand in hand with that dimension called the timeless.
Let me say this. What is true within you and what reflects the glory and the grace of Creation cannot ever be stolen from you. You can lose your hand and hand connection to this source of grace and power and beauty but it is forever available. To the extent that you do not make your life meaningful and commit to a search for meaning, especially in the second half of life, is the degree to which the world will appear to be full of weeping. In the story of the changeling the change comes about when the parents of the stolen child do something that has never been done before. This is a key piece of knowledge that begins the transformation. It is the invitation to radical creativity. It is the invitation to live the new and not live simply tied to the limited idea of persona. It is to invite the revelation of Love that is then radiated through the personality. This is the fullness of personal development and beyond.
I hope that in some little way you can begin to see the potential that is held within the power of poetry and the power of storytelling to help you transition some fairly intense personal development and beyond stages of life. These poems and stories that I invite you to discover at this blog contain images and symbols that have one purpose. This is the purpose of soul revelation that gives human life meaning. Symbols are the language of the soul. They contain the invitation to the deep hearts core. They do not reveal themselves to the consumer mind that would grasp and possess them. They are gifts of the spirit that inspire and are available to those who would serve Loves purpose.
My purpose is to invite you to take a first step toward the waters of the unconscious toward the wild an precious life. I invite you to go hand in hand with that dimension within you that knows (beyond intellectual knowing)that this world is not just a vale of tears and a place full of weeping. This world has within it a revelation that gives a peace beyond understanding. This revelation is a practical process. It needs practice and it needs commitment. It is easy to lose that hand in hand connection to the source within the focus of our day to day lives. To live the wild and precious life of meaning and purpose you have to find the inner voice that brings the changeling within you alive. Within the fire, that is the crisis of the unlived and unloved life, there are wings that will allow you to fly. You aren’t meant to crawl. You have wings. Use them and fly.
Take any of the practices as outlined in our related website and commit to at least one of them. When you commit with intention, and pay attention, then the Universe listens to that commitment and moves in mysterious way to fulfil your true hearts desire. This is not the desire that is promoted by market forces but is the desire that arises from your willingness to live as loves purpose. When you are so willing then, although the world is full of weeping you, will feel empowered to take that weeping and transform it into the waters of the wild and move as Love in action. You will act in this dimension of time and space for the highest good of all.
I ask you to commit to surrounding yourself with words and phrases that speak to your deep heart’s core. Make it a practice to send such words and phrases to friends in need through a practice of prayer or meditation or by sending them a note of appreciation. Combine such words and phrases with some art that has spoken to the deep hearts core throughout history. You then move, hand in hand, with a symbolic power that creates universe. It is in this way that you become truly empowered. You do not sink into a form of apathy and wonder what on earth the meaning of all this weeping in the world is about. Refuse to listen to the changelings who invite fear and anxiety. You have a voice within you that knows a world beyond weeping, beyond financial crisis, beyond fear of terrorism and beyond the idea of the separate sense of self. I say to you, as W B Yeats says to you,
Come away O Human child to the waters and the wild.
Meaning and purpose is found within. Don’t wait until the time when you are so wooden in your ways of viewing the world that you are afraid to move and a time comes when you find that it is not death you are afraid of but the fact that you have lived an unlived life. Simply begin to practice a daily practice. Trust in the process and the way to the waters and the wild will be revealed. Then you will have revealed to you the life you are here to live, to love and to give. I leave you with one of my favourite songs. It is the song by the Waterboy’s and is from their album entitled Fisherman’s Blues. It is their interpretation, and I think it is a wonderful interpretation, of W. B. Yeats poem The Stolen Child which we have been reviewing above. If you have an iPod then you might like to download it
If you do this heartsong practice then it begins to set up an intention within you that puts the Universe on notice. The universal intelligence that creates all things from no thing knows that you are making a clear choice to embody and align yourself with your soul purpose. The Universe will then come into alignment that intention. This is how life is designed and how you are designed as a co-creator with, and as, Love. The quest for meaning in life begins with a real quest and a real question. The degree to which you are aligned with your wild and precious life will be the degree to which you are willing to answer by direct experience those existential questions that will allow that meaning to arise from within you.
Let it be so.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
life transformation
SPIRITUAL THEMES IN YOUNG ADULT BOOKS - Many young adult books can provide the spiritual information young adults need to assuage the loneliness of their passage; some of the possibilities are presented here.
NEW DIMENSIONS - Over the years, a wealth of practical knowledge and perennial wisdom has accumulated in the audio archives of New Dimensions, a virtual treasure trove of timeless wisdom.
TIME OUT FOR TRUTH - This spiritual wisdom podcast and website explores the great truths of the ages, and authors like Vernon Howard, J. Krishnmamurti, Gurdjieff and Anthony de Mello.
