I wrote “Three Days and Three Nights” in August 2008, during the Beijing Olympic Games.
It wold be more honest to say that it was born by fire, the fire of despair over the fact that in front of our eyes, in our unconscious presence a certain line was crossed, an unprecedented level of falsehood and hypocrisy was reached. And this feeling, this certainty coming straight from my belly that something very, very bad and irreversible had just happened, the consequences of which we would all have to suffer. When one happens to see with such uncompromising clearness the truth of a situation, it is a completely different experience to reading accounts describing spectacular crisis moments in the history of mankind. The history, in which, luckily, we did not participate. But how to face a truthwhich has to be experienced for real, without “anaesthetic”?
To write about it, I needed to keep a certain distance from my feelings, maybe a touch of auto-irony, to cool down a little that fire which was burning inside me. From a perspective I can see that it was a moment when I lost all remaining hope in our world’s powerful people’s ethics or any rudimentary sense of decency one could rely on. And if not that, then at least the ability to see the long-term consequences of current decisions, which could give a minimal feeling of security. Maybe this is how the queen from the fairy-tale I have evoked in the article felt – once she lost all illusion that anything but gold and power mattered for the king. At that moment she had to face the difficult truth that she could rely only on herself, that all depended on whether she would find enough love and courage to stand by the living creature, no matter what price she would have to pay.
And it makes me realize that my position is much better than hers, because I am not left to my own devices. Because I know other people who make such choice not only mentally but who take action as well. When the illusion is shattered, peace returns, energy which was used to fight with it is reclaimed. I know that when someone makes the choice I am talking about here, they don’t need to feed on cheap illusions. A space opens for us to talk about what is true and important. This is the reason I keep this text on our website, even though time has passed since the last Olympic Games. Priceless time. I suppose we have only “two daysand two nights” left, so the question: “Where are you, Queen?” - is more and more urgent.
Anija Miłuńska
Three Days and Three Nights
After a holiday spent in the Bright Forest Anija recklessly reaches for a newspaper.
To what can one attribute this imprudent behaviour? Shouldn’t she know that if a person who has just returned from the Bright Forest reads the news carefully, with a mind so clear, emptied from all rubbish, then... it can sweep one off one’s feet! If only she owned a TV set, which would cloud her mind with its mindless babble! But alas! She recklessly put it in the rubbish a long time ago, so now she cannot be impressed or alerted while watching the Greatest Olympic Games Opening Ceremony of All Times.
So she picks up a newspaper, regardless of the fact that her mind is clear, her feelings easily accessible and intuition fine-tuned! It comes as no surprise then that she can clearly see that something terrible has happened, something that should never have. The proverbial one step too far, that cannot be retraced. Her intuition suggests that future historians will have a handy orientation point, from which to count the time of the Great Financial Crisis, or whatever name it’ll have. The Olympic Games in Beijing. For which permission was given and which was attended by numerous smiling and politically correct heads of state, accompanied by elegant spouses. Despite all the knowledge these heads possessed: about violence and human rights’ abuse, work camps, enviromental degradation on an appalling scale, plight of Tibet and... what’s the point of going on, this attitude of China – greedy and ruthless in trying to achieve dominance - was no secret to anybody. Once again the strong stood by the stronger’s side, giving him this way justification for violence and lawlessness. All reasonable people know that this is how our world works, so why is Anija so very sad? Has she noticed how the huge, invisible scales tipped dangerously to the ominous side? Have greed and power blinded people so much that they have crossed a point that should have never been crossed? Has something that was never to repeat just repeated?
Because there once were such Olympic Games when a huge, ruthless machine of violence got all present guests’ support – fascinated, seduced by the stamina, the “youthful energy” and power of the Third Reich. She reads and wonders: how is it possible to ignore facts and all knowledge and make the same old mistakes over and over again? But now is no time for wonder, it is the time to see things for what they truly are, without the distortion of wishful thinking, which eliminates everything that doesn’t suit a pre-planned picture. Let’s ask: what’s wrong here? What is absent from this beautifully coloured picture?
Definitely Rumpelstiltskin.
Anyway, he’s never in the front. Absent from photos, doesn’t give interviews, never enters through the front door, always from the back, through a passage known to the chosen few, because secrecy is his method, and the guarantee for his existence. Who is he and what does he do in this world, where all roles were assigned a long time ago? What feeds him? Where does he live? Who does he owe his high, though so thoroughly camouflaged position, to?
It seems that he appeared on this best of worlds together with the ruler for whom only power and gold count. When it happened, not even the oldest of the oldest remember. We won’t find any mention of him in ancient chronicles which enumerate kings’ names, he will not come up in any scientific dissertation, his name, his very presence escapes historians’ notice, who – like rulers – concentrate mostly on the transfer of power and gold. Then how do we know about his existence? In which language will we find reliable information?
There is a very precise language in which our common psyche tells itself true stories – which means stories that it lives and experiences. Everything that the conscious tangles up and obscures, the unconscious will untangle and light up through a symbolic language, in which one can’t lie. One might say that the more something unsuitable for the official, edited picture is, the stronger it will manifest in the fairy-tale – the real, living story, in which we all take part, whether we’re aware of it or not.
We don’t have to look far, it’s enough to open the Grimm Brothers’ stories and we find its trail: number 55 –Rumpelstiltskin! Here’s the fairy-tale which excellently describes our world’s order. The ruler here is mean and greedy, doesn’t care about his subjects, notices them only when they can be of some benefit. The bigger, the better, of course. The narrator of the story calls him a king, though there is nothing in him truly royal, since royalty used to be characterized primarily by magnanimity and generosity. It is in his kingdom that a beautiful and by no means poor, but nevertheless “miserable,” miller’s daughter lives. What was the nature of her misery? She had an ambitious father, who once happened to talk to the king, and, wanting to appear more important, told him: “I have a daughter, who can spin gold from straw!” He uderestimated the king’s greed, who immediately took his daughter away and brought to his castle, where she was presented with an unnegotiable offer: to spin gold from a pile of straw in one night or die.
The situation would have been hopeless if not for a mysterious dwarf living in the king’s castle, who, unlike the poor girl, knew exactly how to satisfy the king. How to do it only he knew but he did spin gold from the pile of straw, and, as a cosequence, the following night the miserable girl received twice as much work to do. And so, three nights in a row the dwarf secretly helped the girl, not for free of course, nothing came free in this kingdom: one paid the highest price for everything. And when she’d traded all her jewels, the girl had to promise him her child, which she would have when she became the queen. Because the king had already figured out that, with her unusual skill, she was perfect wife material.
We can easily predict the rest: when the child is born, the dwarf immediately appears. He has no doubt who this child will belong to: since the ruler cares not about living creatures, someone must look after them! Someone must help them survive in this cruel world, someone must teach them how to deliver more and more gold, how to perform the impossible, how to satisfy every absurd wish. This someone knows perfectly well that in this kingdom all children born from each mother belong to him, and the king’s wife is no exception. Her child is the most precious, so he appears as agreed. But what then? Instead of a wife he confronts a real queen, who doesn’t want to give him her child! Who would have expected such complication, not a long time ago a victim of patriarchal oppression, and suddenly a queen! How did she do it? How has this incredible transformation come about? The narrator doesn’t know, so he can’t explain, we need to find the answer ourselves.
How does a queen differ from a king’s wife?
As we all know, a wife is a companion, a decorative element, a trophy, which may also add a state’s head a charitable, humanitarian dimension, but she makes no decisions. But our queen does, and radical ones, doesn’t ask the king’s permission! Probably because she has had time to know him enough to realize that he won’t lift a finger in defence of the child, or maybe... Maybe there is a tacit agreement between the ruler and the dwarf-helper, based on which the dwarf has a right to all children born in this kingdom? Or maybe it is his very duty to “take care of them,” so that the business runs smoothly?
We don’t know what thoughts crossed the young qeen’s head. One is certain, not only was she determined not to give her child away, she immediately took action. She didn’t know then that there is no force which could take her child away if she herself wouldn’t agree. How could she have known, since she was still learning what it means to be a queen. She didn’t have a queen-mother to teach her, she had to discover every truth by herself. So once again she believed the dwarf’s good intentions, who, apparently moved by her tears, gave her “one more chance:” for three days she could try to guess his true name. If she wasn’t successful – she would have to give the child away.
It is true – as long as a woman doesn’t know what or who this force which wants to take her child away is, so long she will have to make sacrifices. After all, it helped her through the worst so maybe it could help the child too? On the other hand, you have to pay the highest price, it takes away what you love most.
Who is he? What is his true name? “You-Can’t-Manage-Without-Me”? Or maybe “To live, you must give away what’s most precious to you”? Possibly also “If it turns out that you can’t do the impossible, the king will be furious and the punishment horrible.”
The queen can’t sleep. Three days and three nights she asks herself one question: “What force sneaked into my life-kingdom, why does it claim what I give birth to? What I love and without which I cannot live? Who-what is it? I have to discover it now, I have to call it with its true name, one word, I have only three days and three nights, not a moment longer.”
She is the queen. Now we know the difference. For a queen, a living creature is more valuable than gold - the one she gave birth to and the one she keeps alive, breath after breath, moment after moment. Yes, even in herself she can see a living, feeling, free person, incredible but true. Maybe this is the secret of her “royalness”? One thing is certain: she’s ready to unflinchingly give away all the kingdom’s riches for this priceless child which lives in every feeling creature. But the dwarf is no fool: “Oh, no! I prefer the child to all the riches.” In this they agree. Only, he wants to own it and the queen – let it live. Whose will the child be? Three days and three nights, and then the queen utters the name, which, the dwarf thought, will remain secret for ever. And what happens? Rumpelstiltskin – because that is his name in the story – overcome by fury tears himself in two.
A shocking ending. Who would have thought it is that easy? You needn’t fight with this force, it’s enough to discover what it is and then it will destroy itself! We will get our lives back, we and our children. Why don’t we do it then? Why do we continue to tolerate this scheming dwarf? We fret, complain, fight, we utter a million words, we write knowledgable dissertations and viral pamphlets dissecting every move of “the scheming dwarf’s mafia,” we do all these things not to ask ourself this one, true question, the one that must be asked.
The problem is that the dwarf called by its name will tear himself in two, and, thus torn, will become completely useless. So just in case, we don’t say his name, which we know very well, because it might turn out that suddenly we will absolutely need him, how can a person change this pile of rubbish into gold alone! And expectations in this world are rising all the time, everyone knows it! Well, if the world were different, one could afford the luxury of living the truth, but... It is what it is, and won’t change just like that!
It is true, this method of appearing more stupid than one really is, guarantees that the world won’t change, and our dwarf knows it perfectly well.
That’s why he became so insolent, he comes in without an invitation, there’s practically nobody he needs to mind. He has boldened up a great deal since the times the fairy-tale was written, he doesn’t play around anymore, no more secret night visits and such-like. Mothers not only don’t protect their children from him, they work like crazy to afford for them all the courses in which the children will learn about Rumpelstiltskin and his effective survival methods. More effective than the other effective methods that other mothers’ children learn. Well, competition catches up quickly. The dwarf doesn’t need to secretly intice them to cooperate, such partisan times are long gone! Now he hands out diplomas which open the doors to best offices. To satisfy demand, he multiplies, he has hundreds, thousands of faces, though, if you look closely, each the same, cunning and insincere, apparently accommodating but in reality insolent and full of contempt for those he “helps.”
How is it possible that a queen doesn’t recognize who she’s dealing with? Or maybe it’s more convenient to look through his eyes than ones own, when one looks at one’s own risk? Or maybe there is no queen, only miserable miller’s daughters, at the mercy of a gold-obsessed king?
What do you mean “miserable”? They have voting rights and university education, and all kinds of privileges, even the ancient queen couldn’t dream about them, not to mention miller’s daughters! In that case they are lucky, because now they can be as ambitious as their fathers. Or even more, and take part, arm in arm with men, in the worldwide phenomenon of spinning gold from straw (and I don’t mean recycling here!). They can go to the ruler’s court by their own choice, armed with various certificates from Rumpelstiltskin, to offer their skills. No need to force anyone, there are more then enough, rushing in! They force themselves, give their children away unasked, this was the goal! The dwarf and the greedy ruler shake hands: one has gold and the pretence of power, the other has “living creatures” – the real power. How well they look together, how cleverly they arranged it all, submitted the world! Did they clone themselves or what? Because they weren’t born, and still more and more appear, true globalists, I swear.
It was not supposed to be like that! Different conclusions were to be drawn from this fairy-tale, positive ones, uplifting – it was supposed to be a prophetic story, waiting for our times, for the queen, with a clear message for her, a Rumpelstiltskin manual! Clear instructions, foolproof, only the queen still not to be seen, that’s the whole trouble.
Where are you, Queen?
You, who are the mistress of your life, knowing your kingdom, all creatures and powers that live in it, ready to defend them from agressors trying to enslave and abuse them for ther own ends. Because a living creature exists not to serve anything or anyone, it lives for its own happiness, for joy and fulfilment, with its own life belonging to it and nobody else. You know queen perfectly well, you don’t need me to tell you, how to protect your child, the joy of your life, the apple of your eye, the heart of your heart. You know what I am talking about. You were born with this knowledge written in your belly, in your heart - with the belly connected, in your head - from heart not-separated. In unity is your power and wisdom. In being one with yourself, as you are right now, not different. You don’t have to strive for it or prove your value – not to yourself, not to those who based this world on violence. The apparent one – like the king’s or the hidden one – like Rumpelstiltskin’s. Not from violence your power flows, you know it, oh so well, so I only ask of you to honestly enquire, to your best knowledge, what is really important to you in this life, more important than “all the riches of the world”.
You needn’t start a revolution, fight or kill anyone, it’s enough if you won’t betray this question, won’t put it off till later – which means never, but will follow it as far as it will lead you. Because it will undoubtedly lead you to action, it itself is action, as we can see from the young queen’s story – the noblest, the most radical and effective action that ever appeared in this kingdom. It is enough if you stay aware of how little time is left: three days and three nights, no more.
