#94 | Hansel & Gretel | with Collette Davis

Firstly , the where right now I'm sitting in , a little town in the peloponnese of greece called epidaveros , and it's very , very close to the asclepian temple and the ancient theater and the healing chambers and the abbaton and all this really amazing stuff around this part of the world and it's special here .

It's beautiful , you can feel it in the earth around here . You can understand why they might set up a temple here in dedication to the god of dreaming and healing and medicine . The ancestor of the western medicine world actually goes all the way back to sclepius and chiron and who knows where else . It goes down into the earth . So that's one of the where .

And the second pretty amazing thing here is the who I happen to be with Colette Davis , who's agreed to sit down with me today and wax fairytale language , colette , welcome .

Yeah , and it feels like such grounding land and we nearly didn't land here , we nearly ended up going somewhere else , but it's just just the right place to be . And thanks for inviting me in .

Seems like a pretty amazing spot and place and time to talk fairy tale and uh , I was just talking to colette about the third house and we were just talking about it of like what it is and you know , part of it being that time , as far as a time when the sun passes through midnight to 2 am , it passes through this particular house and so it's really the

deep still of night and a place where there's nursery rhymes and rhythms and stories down here and our early childhood experiences and our siblings and our really early friends and those people that are our peers around the same age and what it's like to be around them and what it's like to sort of revisit that mind and feel that mind .

And yeah , when I was first thinking about the third house and the fairy tale , I was thinking about doing something around Echo and it's a beautiful story , echo , and one that actually came up between Colette and I today by chance as well .

But in the end I pivoted away from that idea and I'm moving into Hansel and Gretel today and it's great to do this with you because we have a bit of a twin sibling dance . That we do . You know , colette and I have worn many hats and we're about to teach together . Well , teach or facilitate . We're not really going to teach , are we ?

No , we're not going to teach much . We gonna learn , we're gonna learn , we're gonna take people into this area of learning . This 12 till 2 am kind of place . Uh , and remembering , aren't we ?

And that's what colette calls part of what she does you know in the samovasa community , part of what she does you know in the Samavesa community , part of what she does is the membership and a lot of what you do could be located in this house in a way , the deep remembering , the lunar frequencies that are down here , getting into certain somatic channels , getting

into parts of the body , getting into the cellular memory , right , all of that kind of stuff .

that's there and that support that's there and that co-creation that's there , kind of birthed out of something , um , a sense of being birthed out of , um , a common ground .

You know , that's really so alive in the samavasa community , where it's really those that are the witches and the outliers and the ones that sit on the edge of the forest that find their way there , and many , many of the facilitators in that beautiful circle are guiding people into , yeah , into the depths , and probably could be located in that place between 12 and

2 and into intuition and into the feeling function and everything this world has sort of left behind or forgotten or put as less than .

It's a collective dreaming and you know that this is where we head in order to discover certain things , and the witches that we find in fairy tales are part of that discovery , and there's obviously one here , and most people know the story of Hansel and Gretel at least on some cursory level , so you can already bring to mind what you already know about Hansel

and Gretel , and it'll be a time for us today just to go in there and have a look around , and we're really just going to be with the symbols that are .

We've been gifted these fairy tales by , you know , usually the crones that were out in the German countryside that were sharing these stories with their children and with families and around fires , and it's probably had so many different forms , this story , but it was one that was brought to the Brothers Grimm , who scribed it down , and , uh , we're fortunate enough

to to have those stories , because if it weren't for that project , then maybe they'd be lost or , you know , just whispers in the wind I mean it feels for me it's a very um a story that I really do remember very much from childhood

, one of those that really stands out .

And we're sort of a brother-sister combination with each other and then we have literally I have a sister and Colette has a brother , so we also come from this particular constellation , even though that's obviously not necessary for any listener .

Yet , whatever combination and whatever you're coming from is what you're coming from and you can add this relationship to that .

And most of these stories can be read on like multiple different layers and and certainly we try to invite that inward reflective layer of the , the inward brother sister combination , the inward masculine , feminine , sort of like weaving and and waxing and weaving and waning , and inside and internally and those two functions that are going back and forth of brother

sisterness on the inside .

But it is just an interesting thing to pick up that you know , by chance we happen to be here together and we both happen to come from that combination and I also vividly remember the story of Hansel and Gretel , but it's funny how the memory will hold that you know , and there's certain things that I didn't remember until really going back into the story and

gathering up these symbols and holding those symbols .

And it's just interesting also that what you do remember , before going back and hearing it again or reading it again , like what's alive still , what's imprinted deeply , what was resonant as a child , that then stays with you and , yeah , being curious about what happens when you go back to those quite alive or reanimate those images .

Where are you going ? Um , just give you a moment to just sort of like allow that image to come up , because that's really that's what the third house is too . It's those memories , it's those sense , impressions . Memories are linked to emotion . That's why the moon has its joy here and those emotions that will be around that , and how curious those things are .

They can barely be named to that level of emotionality that exists still in your childhood , but we can feel them still , and often a story or a nursery rhyme or a fairy tale or whatever it might be , has a still a pull on us .

In that way , I'm curious for yourself , colette , what , what , um , if there's any image or just like a , something that's just sort of sitting there for you I mean the breadcrumbs .

Yeah , and yeah , you mentioned stones and I don't remember that , but they're so present in my life these days and then I'm thinking it's the I mean the forest and the house , and then there's a cage and there's an oven Like these are kind of the main yeah , the main shapes and images and something around the kind of delight , the ?

um taboo delight or naughty delight of the what happens with the oven , um , the satisfaction because you know you want , you want them to get away and you want them to be safe or you want them to succeed . Yeah , I'm also thinking of the bone .

In some ways , they want to know that the storyteller will bring them back out , but they also want to go in , you know , they want to enter the dark forest . And it's interesting because , yeah , I remember the breadcrumbs and all these things , and it's only by going back and this was a few years ago I was like , oh , these symbols I don't remember .

I don't remember stones , I don't remember this big body of water or the duck . There's certain things that you just don't , I just I , I personally don't , you don't , and I wonder if , collectively , we have a a bit of a some memory not there , or maybe it's told in shorter hands to kids , where that some things are just left out .

But it is interesting that we have the idea of follow the breadcrumbs , which really doesn't work out so well for Hanson and Gretel , um , as we'll hear , you know .

So it's odd that the follow the breadcrumbs has become , you know , in the vernacular , we understand what it means and yet and I still use it , even though I know I still use that saying , even though I know they cannot follow them .

It's what I've been doing is splitting it up into three phases phase one , phase two , phase three , like act one , act two , act three . And what I've noticed in fairy tales there's often a an alchemical process of the three phases of of alchemy , which is separation , ordeal and then return , and this story works very well , uh , that way .

So we're going to enter um , and we're going to spend a little time in each act , basically , and then we'll wrap and find our way back out at the end , find our way back home , hopefully with some gold and some jewels , and hopefully we haven't been eaten by a witch in the forest . God hope not .

Rumpelstiltskin had a miller and the Handless Maiden had a miller and in fact the miller from Rumpelstiltskin remains a miller . In the second story of the Handless Maiden , the miller can't get anything from the mill , so it goes out into the woods and becomes a woodcutter . So that's like the next level down , in a way , like the mill's not working .

So now you're getting pretty desperate and so this story starts with the woodcutter , no miller . You know , we're already in a pretty desperate and dire situation and there's really a deep poverty in the family and the woodcutter has two children , hansel and gretel , and a wife who's not the kid's mother , so the kids have a stepmother in this story .

And so we start out with a conversation going on between the , the father and his wife , the woodcutter and his wife , and the wife is saying like we can't afford this anymore . Um , there's really nothing that can be done . What we need to do is take these children out into the forest .

We'll make a fire for them , we'll give them some bread and then we'll just leave them there .

And the woodcutter is like there's no way , I'm gonna do that , you know , he's really anti it , and the and the and the stepmother's saying well , you know , then we all die , right , she's like you can't , you gotta understand , this is the only thing that we can do . And she wears on him , wears on him and eventually he agrees that this is what they'll do .

Hansel and gretel well , I think it's hansel , at this point in the story overhears them talking about that and chats about it with with uh gretel , and they have a conversation around it and they're very scared and hansel's like it's okay , I know what to do .

So he goes out into the courtyard and he sees all these stones that are picking up the light of the moon and he picks them all up and he

puts them in his pocket . So the next morning the stepmother comes along and says come on , we're going out , we're heading out into the forest early , we're going to get some really good wood cutting done out there . You know it's exciting times , and uh .

And so they walk out together , the four of them and every now and again and I I like this , the feeling of this scene , right every now and again , hansel stops , turns around and stares back at the house and he drops a stone and the father's like what are you doing ? Come on , let's go . You've forgotten how to walk . What's what's happening here ?

And he said no , I'm just looking at my white , my little white cat . He's sitting on the chimney and the stepmother says that's not your cat , that's the morning sun , it's just the morning sun , let's go . But he keeps moving , looking back wistfully , throwing a stone , keeping on going , moving , looking back , wistfully , throwing a stone , keeping on moving right .

And they get out into the middle of the forest and , uh , and the mother and father , the stepmother and father , light them a fire and everything's kind of cozy by this fire and they say we're gonna go cut some wood now and , uh , just rest by the fire , everything's fine , you know , they have their bread and um , and there's the sound of the woodcutter , but

it's actually just the sound of a . I think it's like a leaf going against a tree sort of thing . It's like shoo , shoo , shoo , shoo and it's quite a lullaby sort of a sound , but it's not actually the woodcutting , because those two have headed back home . So they sleep well into the night .

And maybe we can imagine around midnight , around about the time , the third house is being lit up by the sun and not being lit up at all , really , because the sun's over the other side of the earth . The two of them get up and the full moon is in the sky and it lights the path of the stones perfectly .

So they just follow the stones back and make their way back home and they're like we're home . And then obviously the stepmother's like oh , how did they figure that out ? But anyway , they have to obviously accept them back into the house .

And then a bit of time goes by and the stepmother again says like we can't be having this , we're gonna have to go do it again . And as the story says , once you said a , you must say b .

So the father really can't argue his way out of it , because he's already agreed to it the time before and even though he's regretful and doesn't want to do this , he just has to because he's already agreed to it before . And so again , this is all set up and Hansel and Gretel here overhear this conversation and Hansel's like don't worry about it .

And he goes out to get more stones . But he's been locked out so he can't get to the garden and he can't bring his stones . So the next morning they give the children two bits of bread even less bread than the last time and then Hansel crumbles all the bread up into his pockets . And this is what we do , remember .

He's walking along and he stops and he looks back wistfully at the house and he drops a little bit of bread and keeps moving and then stops , looks back wistfully at the house , drops a little bit of bread and the father's like what are you doing ? Have you forgotten how to walk ? What's going on there ? Come on , let's go .

And he says oh , I'm just looking back at the house because my little pigeon is on the roof on on the chimney , and he's trying to say goodbye to me . And I just want to say goodbye and wave to him , just like the little cat wanted to say goodbye . And the stepmother's like don't be so stupid , let's go , let's get out of here , wasting all of our time .

So he's dropping all these little bits of bread , dropping all these little bits of bread , and the same thing happens and the same basic scenario , you know . But they go deeper into the forest this time because the stepmother's really wanting to get them lost .

They go way deep into the real heart of the forest now and they fall asleep by the fire and when they when they get up , it's like don't worry , we'll be able to follow the bread .

But when they go back , all the birds of the forest have eaten the bread and there's nothing they can do and they can't find their way back , and so they end up having to walk on and they walk further and further into the forest for three days and three nights . They walk until they're getting very hungry and very thirsty and we'll just stop act one there .

And this is the separation , this sort of like first thing that happens to , to separate us from the world that we knew and get out into the dark forest of the world that we don't know .

See , I'm just letting that part of the story rest and resting on you as the audience of what for your hearing so far and what's coming up for you , and I really encourage you if you're really in this story , because it is quite a vivid story , I think . You know , I think a lot of us have it in our childhood .

A lot of us remember this story in a way , but maybe not these little details , you know . I invite you to press pause . Maybe do a little journaling or , as we do out here in Greece on our retreat , a little movement , embodiment , feeling , what you feel .

So I invite you to press pause , but in the meantime , as we continue on , what are you picking up here in this first part ?

Um , and the kind of procrastination and the kind of strong pull of a greater power that's pulling , pulling him , him in into the unknown , but this longing to stay in the safety of home , and interesting that he's . And then there's a playfulness there too of him , you know , making up stories himself he tells a little lie , doesn't he ?

Yeah , that that's some kind of support for him . Maybe , or , or the cat is , you know , the domestic . Perhaps not always . Perhaps the cat is a foreboding of the witch oh yeah and the bird . The bird is a foreboding of perhaps a freedom that's , that's waiting on the other side of the journey .

You know , he's being pulled towards the third , which is the great adventure , and you have to leave some certain things behind .

And this house being about , about communication as well , it is yeah and also what's standing out is that it's very much Hansel's story . At the moment , it feels like it's the masculine inside that is maybe trying to stay in control yeah um and yeah , we don't really know what's going on for gretel not yet , not yet .

It's also the stones . Firstly they're stones and secondly they're lit up by the moon . So it's an interesting combo symbol , and stones can take us to lots of places . I mean , colette and I were yesterday , or the day before or whenever that is , I think , yesterday sitting on a stone at Pluto's cave in Eleusis and just dropping into stone .

We're sort of surrounded by stone as well . We're in a stone house here .

allowing our bodies to be in communion with the land in that way . And so these stones are and the ways in which stones can be such a resource .

And , yeah , I've told you before about my friend , sophie , who's on the faculty in the Samovasian community and she works with the stones and it originally came about when we were she was on the Samovasya training and she just started to play with the stones and it's a way to embody weight and a way to be able to , um , feel grounded and anchored and heavy and

supported , um , and so interesting that that's a resource too in the story yeah hansel for little hansel yeah and not to pause away from stones , but something that was coming through as well was how hansel , taking control , is in relief or contrast to the father that is . You know , the dominant force is this stepmother figure that is out of alignment .

For sure . And of course woodcutter is also out of alignment , but perhaps you know desperate so out of alignment but perhaps you know desperate , so there's a masculine and feminine at play .

not protecting them protecting them and then so the stepmother has come in , but he can still rely on these stones , which have the lunar frequency that can light up the lunar frequency . So there's still something solid . And then he's locked away from that so he can't get that anymore . And now he's got crumbs . He's got the crumbs of bread .

It's like the last thing he can hold on to and the birds just come and eat that . Up right , the birds just come in and take that . This is the last bit that he could hold on to and he can't actually hold on to that . They don't guide him back . They don't guide him anywhere . There's a crumbling there that the stone will not do right .

The solidness of stone is is maybe juxtaposed to the crumbling of the bread , and bread is the only thing they're eating in this , um , in this world just don't have the resources for anything really it's an interesting question of what can we let go without having the resources ? As well .

It's like , yeah , the taking off of everything that's in the second house before it , everything that is our possessions and our resources , and all of that , and having to go into the forest now , which is the big and dark , scary place . You know , certainly to the civilized world the forest represents that terrifying underworld place of the of the unknown .

When we haven't entered , we can project on the forest everything terrifying . But as we were just reading in the little book of symbols , like you know , part of the forest can be the deep mother , can't it ? Um , and if in this story again , there's no , there's no positive mother figure going on ?

and so of course there's a scary mother out here , and we do find one , we do find a devouring mother in act two but they also need to go and meet the dark mother they have to yeah and so we're in between , astrologically we're in between the resources of the second and the house of the mother , which is the fourth , usually the house of father , but sort of

house of ancestry parents , the home , and so it's a little unclear of whether it's father or mother , to be honest . But let's just say it's mother for now .

And so in between , that's the third , and here we are in a way in there we can sort of open out into act two , unless there's anything lingering behind here that you want to pick up before we move out of act one .

You know he can't do it anymore and that map isn't being used anymore . So we're now out in the forest and they walk for three days and nights and then they see a bird ,

uh , who sits on a branch and sings a beautiful song , and then it alights off of the branch and sits on another one . So they follow this bird and follow this bird until it takes them to an opening and in that opening is a house made of candy and breads and deliciousness and you know all of those things . And so they get right to it , start eating .

I think Hansel might eat part of the door and I think Greta , like , pushes out this circular window and just starts getting to work on that . They just start chowing down .

And then out comes the witch , but she's being very friendly and she invites them in and gives them food and everything and gives them a bed to sleep in and they have a very restful night . But actually that was all a bit of a ruse for her .

And the next day she takes Hansel and shoves him into a cage with bars and the plan is she's going to fatten him up because she wants to eat . See , this witch in the forest wants to eat children . That's what she does . And so she wants to fatten Hansel up so he can be nice and fat . And she gets Gretel to do all this work .

So Gretel's set to work , you know , and we get the sense of like something's shifting here , right , like hansel's now in a cage and gretel's put to work . And gretel , she's working . She's like doing all the chores and doing all the housework and everything .

She's really starting to pay attention to this house and really starting to think like how can I get out of this situation ? How can I rescue my brother from this cage ? What can we do ? You know , they start to plot and scheme together , but also individually , to try to figure out how they're going to do this .

And the thing about witches , or the thing about this particular witch , is that she has beady red eyes and can't really see , and so , uh , so she's kind of like , yeah , that's a , that's a flaw in a way . You know she has keen other senses but she can't really see .

And so , as time's going by , she's trying to fatten Hansel up , but Gretel gives Hansel this bone and whenever she asks Hansel to reach out his chubby little finger to see if he's getting fatansel instead reaches out a bone and she can't see that it's a bone . She keeps feeling this bone and it's like , oh , it's not working .

You know , giving him all this food to fatten him up , but nothing's happening and nothing's working , keeps feeling this bone . And four weeks go by , which is an interesting amount of time , it's like a whole lunar cycle goes by and she's like , oh , we'll forget it . If he's going to be this way , I'll just eat him as he is .

And so I asked gretel to start , you know , heating up the water and lighting the oven and everything . It's like we're going to get going here . She needs some bread , and so she's getting ready to put that in the oven because that's going to go along with the hansel dish .

And then , as the the oven is nice and hot , she tells gretel to to look in there and actually go into the oven so that she can see if it's hot enough to cook her brother , essentially . And Gretel says I don't really know how to do that . Is that like , is there a way to get in there ? Or how do you actually go about that ? How does that look ?

And she's like oh , you daft little child , let me just show you .

And she crawls into the oven and then Gretel shoves her and then locks the door behind her and then runs off and she's hearing the howling of this witch who's getting cooked in the oven and she runs back and releases Hansel out of his prison hearing the howling of the witch who's getting cooked in the oven .

And she runs back and releases Hansel out of his prison and they run off , you know , and they run out of the house and run back into the forest . And that is where Act 2 ends .

really predator prey kind of games you know , ultimately of like conceal reveal and you know like there's something dangerous going on or we'll pretend to be monsters , or you see it with adults and kids are often like you know they're zombies or monsters or werewolves or vampires or things right , like there's something about play that does want to play with the

dangerous . You know , and there's this dangerous witch out here , the devouring mother not the benevolent mother , but the devouring . The devouring mother , um , not the benevolent mother , but the devouring one who's , instead of going to feed you and take care of you and nurture you and nourish you , she's gonna eat you , fatten you up and eat you .

And then there's a candy house . You know these kinds of things of like the sweet candy , of all of that , but ultimately there's no real nourishment out there . Is there in all of that candy .

But we have to cross the threshold beyond the sweetness and go into that dark house where there's cages and ovens and the devouring mother yeah right , yeah , and I thought also what was stood out for me when you were like and now gretel gets to work and she starts mapping yeah the interior and it's , it's the , the inner feminine that's now doing the mapping of

the interior , whereas hansel was mapping the exterior interesting yeah and how he has to be caged for her , like demobilized , for her to then animate and to take the lead . Yeah .

it ? And it's a real signature of this story , how it's sort of Hansel's story in Act 1 , and in Act 2 it's very much Gretel's story , because if they're going to survive , it's now Gretel who has to find a way .

Yeah , and some of the work that we've done over the years of you know , like we've helped each other in so many different ways , one of those different hats , like we've helped each other in so many different ways one of those different hats and sort of assisted each other through things that we wouldn't be able to otherwise get through , you know , and just help

with the tools that we have . I think that's what happens between this brother and sister . They really love each other , you know . They really want to , they're in it together .

You know they're the children of some pretty extreme traumatic um events and they're all they've got , you know , and they know that the only way they'll make it through this is to really rely on each other to be a team to be a team , and that means they need to really have each one stepping in with like okay , I got this , you know .

hansel steps like okay , I got this , you know . Hansel steps in at the beginning of like it's okay , you know . And at the beginning that's the scene . He's like it's okay , sister , we're going to be okay , but then he's not going to be okay . You know , in act two he's in a cage .

And in that story there's a wild man in the cage and the little boy has to sort of make some kind of a connection because his golden ball falls into the cage or rolls into the cage , and now he's forced to make a connection with the , the man in the cage , um , and in this case the boy is caged .

You know , it's him that's in there , and if I just feel into that , you know , I mean so so this connection , that that as a boy's right of passage , like the sense that you are caged , or the sense that something is caged . You know , something is having to be really held back here .

That boyishness and that liveliness and everything is now is now locked away and then I'm just sort of entering that cave cage . It's like a cave cage . It's very feels , very dark to me and the bars are there and he's really now this is . There's nothing he can do . You know , his only trickery is to keep putting that bone out . Um , that's just buying time .

And now he's at the whim of these external forces where at the beginning it was all up to him , you know he has to turn towards his sister , though , doesn't he ? he has to .

intuitive .

because that's not a plan she doesn't know that she's going to get that opening . But when she gets the opening which is like oh , this , now I can , now I can , you know , she's waiting for an emergent moment , a moment of weakness which actually gives her that opening to push her in there , right Like she's waiting and intuiting and mapping and sensing .

And then we go in , and we're in the forest , and then we're in the house , and then we're in the witch's realm yeah . And that , yeah , that's when Gretel can step in and animate . Yeah . Anima animate .

It's a fair story in the sense that they save each other , they both get a turn . It's a fair story in that way . And when one doesn't know what to do , the other one does .

I think that's a nice way to look at rational and intuitive processes and just have like oh yeah , sometimes you really do need to just nut it out , be rational about it , and sometimes that's not the way .

And that's third house , because sometimes it's like Hermes this time or that Mercury's time , let's say you know , I just got to figure this out it's a puzzle to be worked out and I'll just work it out . And sometimes it's very lunar . It's like all of your puzzle working out a ring isn't going to get it done .

You're going to have to rely on a different function , and you know we all have . We were talking about inferior functions , which is a very Jungian term . You know which of these functions for the listener is you feel is superior or inferior .

It would be different for different listeners but definitely , culture-wise , in the West the intuitive is the inferior function you know .

So individually , no , that's going to be different from person to person , but culture-wide it tends to be that you get a lot of reward for being in the rational and a little bit of demonization , witching , being in the irrational yeah , a word that sticks out , even when we looked in the book of symbols around witches .

One of the first words was negative and also , like that , not necessarily meaning bad , but yeah like in the kind of um that which is in relief , or yeah that which is opposing , or but yeah , that's the , the demonization of the witch yeah , which we can see and feel here , and it's like how to how to be with that , and also like it's fun to have a you

know a baba yaga and a and a witch figure as well , so kind of like not trying to do that thing of like well , so let's clean it up , or you ?

know like it's great , you know but , it's like witches and zombies and vampires and werewolves and all these creatures that are in the night world are like , yeah , they , they're a bit scary , but then each one of those , if we get in touch with it , we can go to the scary place and then hopefully retrieve something of the inferior function that has been locked

in there , right , which , in a sense , you know . What happens to the witch is that she's put back in the hearth , isn't she ? She goes back into that fire .

You know , even in the interior human system there's the heart there , um , in any house , there used to be the hearth there , um , even in fact , in our galaxy there's the galactic , galactic center , which we can imagine as like the pulsing heartbeat of the galaxy . You know , in the earth there's the core of the earth , is this hot , pulsing fire .

So there's a meeting of the saturn and the sun uh , in our chemical process and that's what I didn't mention in this part is then they find all these jewels and gold and everything and stack their pockets with , uh , with the riches , and that's an alchemical process , right ?

This is what can happen in this deep , dark part of the story when things get most dark and out of control , like the dark night of the soul .

And now all of that comes back around . You know that negative force um , or that , that shadowy force , that shadowy force , that shadowy shade of that energy is being transformed .

And Hansel jumps on the back and says come on , gretel , come on , let's get on . And Gretel says quite wisely , no , it's one at a time .

And so , one at a time , they cross over and when they get to the other side they see the house over the other side and they come back to their own house , and it's just their father there , because , oddly enough , their stepmother has died in the time that they've been out and have now returned .

And the three of them rejoice and they empty their pockets of all the gold and they come back together in wealth and in richness of the soul and spirit , and that's how the story ends .

It's like they they can find that um healing of mother and reclaim . I mean there's loads of my projection , of course , onto this story . Yeah , and so that the forest is the mother , the hearth is the mother , the water is the mother , the water is the mother . The stones , the moon , the bird , all of the guides .

Like no , no , you go first yeah so there's a kind of protective quality that I sense there of her taking care of her brother yeah , I love this part of the story again .

You know , I don't remember a big body of water or a duck from my childhood no me neither um , but to me it feels like an individuation process , and Gretel understands that now that they can't go together now , right , and Hansel does not get that yet , you know , maybe because he didn't do the act right , he didn't have the agency .

So he thinks that they're still in it together in the way that they were before . But something's transformed and changed and and it's like the ferryman um in in many different traditions , but certainly mythically for greece , there's terror

on the ferryman who'll ferry you across , and it's that idea that that's a single um , that single file , you know , and that we have to go . We have to go alone through that one .

And even though these guys have been the best team and it's been so good if they were to go together , then they haven't been , they haven't really had the signification of like they grew up just now , you know , they went through it and they have to go it alone now , which is , they'll still always have the love , but they won't have the same , uh , sibling

reliance , sibling dependence that they did before . They needed to say no . Now I am me and you are you , and Gretel has the knowing of that , and then , once they're ferried across , they can be separate individuals that have .

Now perhaps we can get that sense of like integrated , that like Hansel gets to integrate his Gretel side and Gretel integrates his Hansel side and they can move as more full individuals . And that is the purpose of alchemy . Right is to become oneself and not project one part out and only have the other part .

Now they become whole with that body of water , with the duck's help with that body of water .

It's not necessarily that that means gold and riches in that way it means nourishment it means nourishment and it means the things that you plant down there in the underworld tend to come to fruition in the upper world . You know , um , and they were , they were able to to be separated .

They didn't want to be separated , they didn't want to be separated from their original situation .

But by the time they've come back they have a better situation , right , they have a better home , a better house , a better hearth , a better way to be , and they could only really do that by going deeper and deeper into the dark forest and finding the witch and finding all of that and even getting lured by the candy . And then they make their way out .

And you know , it's interesting because they make their way out into the , into a healthier home in a way , and that's where the I see at the bottom of the chart and the home and the fourth house sort of takes us out of this first three houses and we sort of enter the next three . It's like the first quadrant is complete .

I find it really interesting that the images of the first three fairy tales have been so oddly similar , you know , by chance , where you've got the poverty of the early experience and then some kind of a trial and then the recovery of some kind of gold

or riches , you know , in the second house , in the handless maiden going through that loss and loss of the hands and the feeling function and recovering it .

Yeah , and and this body of water and as you're going into the fourth house with the mother , and yeah , it just feels like a sweet transition transition and a beautiful mapping of the story onto that house if the water leads us into the fourth house and that realm of the mother .

You know everybody that's come before us and some deeper honoring of them yeah , and also you were saying that you weren't sure if the crossing of the river like where hansel and gretel had , they actually died yeah it's just an interesting to play with that , but then that's an interesting thought of then leading us into ancestry and death , and yeah so once we

enter those water houses it's a little bit like oh , this area , yeah , the dead are lurking in here , they're around , and we have to remember how to honor them and their journeys and really be with them again , reenter , make connection , make you know , find the ability to ritualize and bring them into our worlds again yeah , and lean into that . Yeah .

But really the only way to retrieve that gold is to go in there and then that gold becomes part of the house in the everyday world , doesn't it ? The ? house in the everyday world is , um , it's a different house .

The house we left at the beginning of hearts on griddle is definitely a different house than when we returned to yeah , I'm feeling like well , what does it look like when you know dad's there chopping his wood ?

So we also enter the fourth that way , you know , like , okay , so the story had to end there , but it doesn't have to end for our imagination of like what's that conversation like , as you say , you know , like what the fuck dad really ?

Into the land of , uh , asclepius's place in the abaton and the incubation and in deep places of of psyche , the places that don't necessarily come out into the light and make a big song and dance , but they instead take you down into deeply , deeply restful places , um , and that's where the origin of healing is , down there , in that deep parasympathetic nervous

system unwind , relax , restore and hopefully we can send some of that across the airways , because as you listen to this , we'll be somewhere down there yeah , and then you can come join us next time we do come join us next year . Get on the wait list . Wonderful . Thank you , colette .

And uh , thank you for sharing yourself with the audience , who already know your voice , but I'm sure they enjoyed hearing you not just over the computer waves but right here sitting in person and in Greece , no less .