Fairy Tales for Real Women

by Jessie Fielden

Overview

In this hope-filled and poignant collection of fictional stories, Jessie Fielden offers readers a fresh interpretation of angelic intervention and assistance in the lives of humanity. As you read the stories, you will find the high-spirited and sometimes serious women are surprised at wisdom from unexpected sources. They discover that angels and nature spirits do exist and show up in their lives in unusual ways, providing maps for adventures of the heart and spirit. By this interaction, their lives are touched and forever altered. As their perception changes, they realize it is basically their own thoughts and actions that create their happiness and success.

Whether you are new to esoteric philosophy or well-seasoned, you will find yourself entertained and identifying with the characters as they experience extraordinary and enlightening life challenges and rediscover the enchantment of everyday life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452558059
Publisher:	Balboa Press
Publication date:	10/16/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	258
File size:	318 KB

Read an Excerpt

Fairy Tales for Real Women

A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES

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By Jessie Fielden

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2012 Jessie Fielden
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-5804-2

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Chapter One

Seaside Angel

I DON'T KNOW exactly what I was looking for that sunny day when I waded into the waves washing up onto the beach. Peace? Maybe. Relief from pain? Certainly. I know I was seeking the solace that only the sea could provide. I was angry. Unreasonably so. And getting into ocean water always seemed to soothe me. Sunshine, salt air, and gentle breezes surely couldn't hurt either. After wading aimlessly for a while, I lay down in the sand to soak up the sun and fell fast asleep. In my angst, I had failed to notice that a storm was brewing. It blew in quickly at high tide. The towering waves became intimidating, almost menacing. They crashed onto the shore with a deafening roar. Prior to the wind and waves, I had heard only the raging sounds in my head.

The fast-moving storm matched my mood and the heart-pounding blood racing through my veins. After all, I had come to soothe my savage soul! I moved back from the shoreline a short distance to avoid being washed away by rip currents. I knew the ocean could be a devious mistress when she decided, and I was already wet from head to toe. I gloried in the feeling of the wind blowing my hair straight back away from my face. The day darkened further with deep, heavy clouds yet I stayed on, anticipating the thunder and lightning with the torrential rains I hoped would follow. Eventually, I moved away from the beach to a nearby cove of rocks for safety. In its frenzy, the storm carried me to deeper despair; nothing eased me. I screamed and yelled with the roar of the howling wind and crashing waves. I was unaware of time. Aware only of the searing, crushing burning in my chest. Once or twice, when lightning flashed, I thought I saw someone standing nearby, a tall woman. It seemed like I stayed there for hours, drenched and shivering with cold, yet burning with the unleashing anger, unaware of anything but the desire for release from that which held me in its sway.

Anger. And grief. I had been betrayed. Rather than seeking retaliation and creating an uproar that would allow others to know how deeply I felt and suffered, I continued to bear it in silence. Never did I use that old axiom, "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", at least not until now when I could not stop screaming. And here, no one would ever know.

He, who had betrayed me, was tucked away in the soft, warm, loving arms of his little "Beauty Queen", the woman he had chosen over me. It irritated unceasingly even after six months.

In the darkened gloom of the thunderous clouds and pelting rain, lightning struck again and crackled across the sky. Once more, I thought I saw someone standing on the rocks beside me. When I looked again, nothing was there. It must have been a trick of the light.

If I had been honest with myself, I would not have been able to say which bothered me more-the betrayal itself, or others' knowledge of it. They were tied in together. I had done all the usual things to mend the hole in my heart but to no avail. Today had been the final straw; it was so much worse. I was telling my long time friend and counselor, Dr. Seymour, how provoked I continue to be about my ex-husband and his girlfriend. And it seemed to me that my co-workers at the hospital were looking at me more strangely than ever and whispering behind my back. Recently, I was forced to work with my husband's lover; she is a nurse and was transferred to the Fifth Floor Nursing Station where I work. I think she requested the move! I could only suppose it was just to show me up even more. She acted so superior. It was humiliating and extremely irritating!

Dr. Seymour responded with, "according to Carl Jung, 'everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.'"

And I answered back, "Carl Jung irritates the hell out of me!"

Dr. Seymour stiffened and stood up. "Yes, well, the way you continue with your blaming and sanctimonious complaining is irritating as well. You continue wallowing in self-pity far beyond what is conventional or healthy. I can be of no further assistance to you. Why don't you get your head out of your derriere and go find another job?" Then he stalked out of the room.

After sitting there a few minutes in astonishment, I paid my bill and left. I thought he was my counselor, but he seemed to think I was the one at fault! So that's when I had headed for the beach.

The storm continued without abatement. The lightning sizzled even more. I saw that someone, indeed, was standing beside me. She was closer than before, a woman in a London Fog raincoat and hat. "What are you doing here?" I asked her, embarrassed. "I wasn't sure I saw you at first. I couldn't see through all the rain." The woman appeared almost ghostly. I thought that if I reached out to touch her, my hand would go right through. Yet she had intense, burning blue eyes, and a kind smile. "I thought I was all alone except during the lightning flashes. Have you been there all along?" I asked her again.

"For as long as you needed me."

"Needed you for what? I was sitting in the rocks until the storm passed, alternately hoping it would wash me out to sea and hoping it wouldn't."

"Ah, yes, we saw that. That is why we came."

"We?"

Homer and me. I am Raylene, one of your guardian angels. Homer is another." She motioned to the seagull beside her that I had failed to notice.

"The seagull is a guardian angel?"

"Yes, he often comes around when you are sad and lonely and trying to make sense of your world."

I could only stare at her. I didn't have any idea of what a guardian angel was supposed to look like. Or if there really was such a thing. Oh, I believed in God, all right, or a Creator of some kind. But these 'angels' looked like a woman in a raincoat and a seagull.

"Why are you here?" She asked.

Her question startled me, and I answered churlishly. "If you are a guardian angel, then you should know, shouldn't you?"

She answered back mildly, "I do know. My question is, do you?"

Well, of course I knew. When I related my story to her, the betrayal, the problem at work, people looking at me in a peculiar manner and talking behind my back, she said, "Is that all?"

"All? Isn't that enough? If you must know, there's a lot more! The whole thing has caused me to develop an eating disorder. I alternately eat too much or nothing at all. And I can't stop gaining weight; my clothes don't fit anymore. My friends don't call me. They all took Marty's side after the divorce! And he and that woman were sleeping together in our bed while I was at work! I've started having anxiety attacks, and sometimes my joints hurt so much I can barely walk. It's beginning to affect my work. And then Marty had the nerve to ask me to sell the house and give him half or buy him out. Or let him buy me out and he would live there with her! She's such a user. If only he could see through her! He's absolutely bewitched by her. Is that enough for you?"

"Why do you need all this punishment?" She asked.

"What? I don't need punishment. If anyone needs it, they do! If you're going to talk about forgiveness, then forget it. I've tried. My counselor, or at least, he's now my former counselor, tried to get me to do that. It didn't work. I'm a nurse, for God's sake. I know it's eating away at me, but forgiving can't stop my feelings." I laughed bitterly then. "I'm a healer, and I can't even heal myself."

"That's a good sign. You understand that you are the one who needs to heal. And forgiveness is the first step. It's also the last step."

"You know, you're a strange kind of guardian angel. About the last thing on my mind is forgiveness. It's not like I'm planning revenge on them. But I certainly wouldn't mind if someone else paid them back! It would serve them right! All I want at this point, is to do my work and be left alone."

"Hmm, we touch upon it at last. You want peace. Have you thought about why you created this situation?"

"I created it?" I asked, astonished.

"Aren't you getting tired of holding up that defensive façade? When we hold onto blame, we are saying that we know better than someone else. Do you need to keep defending your position?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, think about it for a minute. There may be a deeper reason why you brought on a situation where you would be 'betrayed'. Did you set yourself up so that you would have a 'fall' that would force you to get in touch with some other, higher part of you? Is it possible you have been overcompensating and justifying yourself as an irreplaceable person through your hard work and hiding behind that? Justifying your existence rather than doing the real work you came to Earth for? Even perhaps feeling that you were not worthy of that higher purpose? Maybe that's why the doctor said what he did today. Possibly he thought the drama had gone on long enough, that you had carried your burden overlong. You see, every time, you tell your story, you relive it. You keep it in the forefront of your mind, and the drama never ends. You punish yourself every time you tell it, and you feel the pain over and over again. It stops you from going forward and delays introspection which is the very reason for the 'fall'. Just because hard conditions have appeared on your horizon, does that mean you curl up in defeat? Self pity often becomes a habit. What about trying to make a change?"

"But that is exactly what I have been saying. I want a change!"

"How much do you want it? Enough to make a fresh start? Enough to take some risks? Enough to forgive and move on? What about garnering a 'second wind' and trying again? Do you have the courage to forgive yourself?"

"Courage? You mean like, forgive and forget? I thought angels were supposed to help make you feel better, not tell you to get blundered with a club."

"I am helping you. Some of the Self-Help books you have read tell you it only takes twenty-one days to create a habit. What about trying a new habit of forgiveness everyday for a few weeks and see what happens? It could liberate you in a way nothing else can."

Maybe. The subject of forgiveness was getting a little boring.

"One of your well-known spiritual books suggests that you are forgiven as you forgive others."

"I'm not the one who needs forgiving, I'm telling you. I didn't do anything wrong. They did." The storm raged stronger. The woman's hat blew off, and we were both doused anew with bullet-like rain. I cowered down more into the rocks. She did not leave.

"There is only one way for you to be free of this pain," She insisted. "Release it. Not only him and the other woman, but yourself. You are keeping the three of you imprisoned."

"I'm keeping us imprisoned? That's ridiculous. Go away."

"The society we live in makes judgments as to how one should live, and we buy into a belief system without consideration of the possibility of something else being true," she went on ignoring my admonition. "Could it be that these two and this situation have been created by you so that you would plumb the depths of your soul to clear out the clutter and debris that lie there, unwanted, ignored, and yet festering and increasing? Could it be that you created this so you would consider another way to live?"

"Why would I create something so unfair to myself?"

"Why indeed? Is life really unfair? Or do humans play a role for each other, providing an opportunity for growth? Life is gloriously full of challenges that make us better, kinder people. You are being offered an opportunity for a new view of yourself if you dare to look. Is this not an opportunity to clear the old, the past? You are seeing into yourself more deeply than ever before but running from it, scared."

I listened silently thinking that here was one more judgment. And bullsh ... Hogwash.

"You are carrying this burden of hostility because you are suffering from resentment. Stop trying to figure out the problem. Forgiving does not mean you bow and scrape to those you feel have wronged you. It means becoming neutral. When you decide on a conscious level to release this, your subconscious which has been in control, has to follow through. If you dare to practice forgiveness daily, you will create a new momentum. And once you get that going, you will be unstoppable. All the forces of heaven and earth will begin to work for you to help you see a new way of living. This whole thing could have been created by you to get you to see new methods of work and of relating to the world. Perhaps you have become bored with this job and need to change. Perhaps it is mediocre compared with what you can do. Maybe there is another job waiting for you that would more fully use your talents and abilities. There's all kinds of possibilities. Is the Universe trying to tell you that you are ready to expand?"

I'm expanding, all right, I thought, right in my waistline.

"If you stay in your present position, do you see yourself happily expanding or contracting and losing more of your life force energy?"

"I don't know. I think I'm just burned out. I've always thought I would like to be a travel nurse, but with the marriage, I couldn't."

"Now, you can. Perhaps you have the desire for something else because you have abilities that want to express through you and that you are capable of that are not being satisfied. Otherwise, do you think you would have the desire to do something more? You are free now to move forward. Is it necessary to keep your husband and his friend trapped with your anger? Turn the tables around. If you were the hurtful one, how would it feel to have someone never forgive you? It would bear down on you, and you would feel their energy on some level every day. Would you want that for yourself? To remain a hostage to their feelings?"

I began to be suspicious. "Did Dr. Seymour send you after me? Are you really a psychiatrist instead of an angel?"

Raylene laughed. "You are a stubborn one! No, I truly am your guardian angel, and you keep me plenty busy! How long do you plan to keep your life on hold for those two? You do great work, you know. You are such a giver, always helping and giving to others, even to your detriment. It's one of the hazards of your profession."

"I know I work way too many hours. Someone's always calling in sick. What're you gonna do?"

"And did you do that before your husband found someone else to play with? Were you gone too often or too tired to play?"

That hurt. I sat on it for a while. Was it too close to the truth? "Well, say I was willing to try forgiveness. Doesn't that let them off the hook? I mean, I forgive and they're home free. It doesn't seem fair. "

"This is about you, not them. Life will take care of them as it does all of us. They have their own lessons to learn, different from yours. What about the pain in your joints that slows you down? You no longer have the ability to run or even walk much beyond your work hours. Could that be related to your feeling stuck? Also, your heart is carrying a heavy burden. How long until you move from joint pain to circulatory problems because of your refusal to flow with life rather than fight against it? I saw you reading an article in a medical journal about the connection between joint pain and holding resentment in your feelings. As a nurse, what do you think of the possibilities of self-healing with releasing and forgiving those in life whom you feel have harmed you in some manner? A lot of research is being conducted on the link between different kinds of pain and resentment and anger. It may be something for you to consider."

Dear God, I guess she is an angel. "I don't know if forgiveness works; it hasn't so far. It's probably just some 'New Age' idea to fool people into thinking they are creating their own stiff and painful joints."

"You are not that unaware of Energy Medicine and other methods of Alternative Medicine. Have you tried any of those methods?"

"No."

Silence.

"I don't know how to begin."

"Give something away."

"I just gave away a husband."

"No, he chose to leave. That is a different energy."

"How is giving something away going to help my joints? And give what? More time? I already work too many hours. Four to five days a week at twelve hours a day is all I can humanly stand, literally."

"When you give," Raylene went on as though I had not spoken, "you start the universal cycle of receiving and giving. Perhaps you can start with giving away things, like the clothes that don't fit anymore. And plan to add new ones later. That will give you a feeling of release and you might be surprised at how your life begins to change. It makes room for you to start receiving if you allow it. It is universally known that when you give, you receive. The Universe always rushes to fill a vacuum created by release."

"I'm going to lose weight. I may fit back into my clothes. Anyway, since the storm hasn't drowned me, I can go on a diet and fit into them again. I'm not very hungry these days."

Raylene persisted. "If you gave away some of the clothes you no longer wear, it might make it easier to lose the weight. You wouldn't have the 'weight' of the clothes in your closet. That would be a form of 'losing' that could put you on the road to releasing people from your resentment. I know it's metaphorical, but it may help lead to the next step of weight management and produce less stress on your joints and fewer anxiety attacks. Giving is a way to gain some control over your life. You are making the decision to let something go. Simple, but effective."

I had spent a lot of money on my clothes. There were some stylish ones I didn't want to give up. Raylene didn't miss my mulish face.

"What about giving something else away? Old appliances, money, anything that no longer serves you. It doesn't matter whether you need it anymore or not. It is the releasing that changes the vibrational level in your heart and opens you up to life and loving yourself again. Because the person you are really angry with is you. You must begin to face this with dauntless courage and daring. Try. Start by giving something, anything, away. An old shoe, a stack of old magazines you are never going to read, a recipe, a smile. It doesn't matter. Just begin. Persevere until you get a second wind. You will find more and more things to clear the clutter in your life that you were unaware of."

I guess I still didn't understand her point. "I don't have a lot of clutter. My house is fairly clean and straight."

"What are you trying to hold onto that keeps you from healing? Are you afraid of success? Don't curl up in defeat and anger. It is not serving you. Fight for some air-breathe and release."

It sort of made me laugh when she mentioned giving away an old shoe. I collect shoes. I have some I wore when I was fifteen. I hate to get rid of them. They're so pretty. And I have good memories from wearing them. She was some kind of kick-ass angel.

"A laugh at last. Laughing is another great way to release blocks in your body. Watch some comedy movies. Read a book on forgiveness techniques. Take a yoga or dance class just for the fun of it. Change your furniture around-it starts energy moving instead of remaining stagnant and stuck. And one last thing. Forgiveness is a process, not an act. Let this be the last time you tell your story. You have felt your feelings and expressed them. It does hurt. Accept that your husband and his girlfriend did this to you. Stop the self-pitying game. It's over. Focus on what you want in your life rather than what others have done to you. Create a new story, one of your own making." She smiled gently at me.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Fairy Tales for Real Women by Jessie Fielden Copyright © 2012 by Jessie Fielden. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

A Note from the Author....................ix
Seaside Angel....................1
The Girl Most Likely....................12
The Horse Named Betsy And The Boy Named Bertie....................16
Rosa And The Ramshackle House....................35
Summer Storm....................54
Once Upon A Time....................70
Onatah....................82
Dear Reader....................90
Rocky Of Stony Glen....................91
Erinn And The Angels....................109
Gracie And Gloria....................149
Writer's Block....................163
The Woman In The Moon....................173