8/18/13 Rev. David McArthur
Cinderella and the Now Moment
Cinderella, in the story, reflects our feeling (a feminine) aspect and shows us our feelings in the unfoldment of our souls. An orphan, Cinderella doesn’t really know who she is, or see herself as loved, as having value. This is one of the great challenges of the soul—we see the world “out there” as having value, but not ourselves.
The invitation to the ball, to step into something wonderful, comes from the King (a God symbol). But she feels she can’t go until everyone else is served first. Do you seek your identity by constantly serving every one else? Finally she puts on the beautiful gown she had made for herself but her step mother and step sisters tear it to shreds. How we let our lack of self worth tear our dreams to shreds! She goes to the garden, an ancient symbol of the heart. She finds the Fairy Godmother (the feminine aspect of God), and finds love and acceptance.
The horses (the ability to move through space and time to the fulfillment of self) take Cinderella to abundance, to the banquet with the King. This experience illustrates the “now moment” , when we are able to experience both the feminine and masculine aspects of God (the Fairy Godmother and the King), and it ends for Cinderella at the last stroke of midnight. So too does our experience of the now moment have an end. But we still have the beauty, the knowledge, that we are magnificent spiritual beings. Affirm, “I am a magnificent spiritual being!” “I am a magnificent spiritual being!” “I am a magnificent spiritual being!”
Pat Grabow, in The Immortal Now, says, “The transcendence is in the now. It is always occurring in the now.” You can’t get there “someday”. And you can’t stay in the now. It’s not about staying but entering in, about accepting the magnificence as the real and beautiful knowledge of self, and more: of an illumination of the moment.
The Prince (the male, the thought, the mind), knows his identity, but cannot feel it. The now moment is not found in the head, but has to be entered through the heart and the feelings (Cinderella). The glass slipper (the understanding of who we are, feeling and thought, embracing and experiencing) lets Cinderella return to the palace, to her abundance.
You are the child of a loving God, a magnificent spiritual being. And when you know it you can return to your abundance, you can go to the ball!