If I’d followed all the rules,
I’d never have gotten anywhere.
Marilyn Monroe
My daughter dressed herself in pink from head to toe today, so excited to give her handwritten Valentine cards to 18 classmates, a couple of teachers, and a dozen more friends after school. I asked, “And did you make yourself a Valentine, too?” She looked away probably wondering “What for?!”
The tale of Bluebeard in Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ “Women Who Run With the Wolves” tells of a sinister figure who marries a young girl–who else can sinister figures con? 😉 Before going away on a trip, he leaves her the keys to his castle but forbids her from opening a particular door. Of course, she had to get curious. Only clear thinking with some help from her siblings saves her from his wrath and certain death.
Bluebeard is that voice constantly diminishing our creativity and power, insisting we are never enough, making us feel selfish when we choose to do what we want for ourselves. Bluebeard forbids the use of the key to self awareness because it paves the path to personal freedom. Relinquishing our natural instincts in order to appease and please others, laying aside our dreams and desires, settling for less is the carnage that lie behind that forbidden door.
For a Valentine to touch the heart (and ovaries,) answer Clarissa’s four questions about doors we are not supposed to open and rules we are not supposed to question:
1. What stands behind?
2. What is not as it appears?
3. What do I know deep in my ovaries that I wish I did not know?
4. What of me has been killed or lays dying?
Click on “Leave a Comment” (above left) to share forbidden doors you’ve opened or wish you could. xoxox
© Sharon Birke
201 697 1947
PowerfulGoddess@me.com
Glamour Portraits of the Goddess in Every Wife & Mother
xoxox
Powerful Goddess Portraits 
Feb 14, 2013 @ 11:11:17
Beautiful! Happy Valentine’s Day Sharon!
Feb 19, 2013 @ 13:33:57
Thank you kisses, Deb!
xoxox
Feb 17, 2013 @ 15:02:14
Not having ovaries, am I permitted to answer these questions?? I will risk it anyway although they’re dangerous!
Without naming names, I have found the the most amazing love of my life behind a forbidden door. How do I use the heat (love) in my heart to melt the golden key and forever lock that love away for both of us. That is a harder question to find an answer, I keep looking for it. Valentine’s love for her is always in my heart.
Door that I wish I could..I try not to think about it…;)
Mountain
Feb 19, 2013 @ 13:37:02
It’s always enlightening to hear a non-ovarian perspective, Mountain! One thing I know as the corollary of the forbidden is “Be careful what you wish for…” 😉
xoxox