Near the end of George MacDonald's The Lost Princess, there's a fascinating chapter where Rosamond is tried in the "chamber of moods." She has shown some soul growth, growth in kindness, love and self-control, and is on her way from being a "mock" princess to a "real" one. But the Wise Woman knows she still needs testing, situations in which she can try her patience.
In the last scene, she discovers a beautiful young girl with a lap full of flowers. When the child throws a flower down on the ground, it magically takes root and blooms. When Rosamond goes to touch or pick the beautiful flowers, however, they wither. She cannot touch the living flowers without killing them, in part because she has a greedy desire to possess them rather than to simply admire their beauty and let them live.
That notion of giving life instead of death is powerfully portrayed in the image of the growing or wilting flowers. Poor Rosamond comes to realize how desperately tired of herself she is, how awful it is to be "a creature at whose touch the flowers wither!" Only when she has lived through that despair, repented of her greed and learned to touch the flowers gently (without plucking them up) do they begin to not shrink from her touch. Indeed, when she touches them with love and gentleness, she is astonished to see that the flowers actually begin to grow. Rosamond becomes speechless with joy in the face of such a transfigured flower, which mirrors her transfigured heart.
I keep thinking about the potency of this simple story image: green and flourishing plants and flowers show life and growth while wilting or drooping plants and flowers show death and barrenness. It's an image that's used to great effect in Shannon, Dean and Nathan Hale's graphic novel Rapunzel's Revenge, which I just finished yesterday.
Rapunzel is a wonderfully funny and fascinating retelling of the old fairy-tale. The Hales have moved the locale to the Old West, where Rapunzel uses her long braids of bright red hair as a whip and a lasso. She's a girl on a rootin-tootin' quest: to free her real mother and revenge the many years stolen from her by evil "Mother Gothel" the woman who took her from her real mother when she was just a little girl, and who eventually imprisoned her in a tall tree when Rapunzel refused to acquiesce to Gothel's plans to turn her into the Gothel of the next generation, a tyrant who reigns over the surrounding peoples by withholding growth from their land if they don't do as she bids.
Yes, the people in "Gothel's Reach" live a miserable existence. The land is becoming dry, barren and cracked. The few patches of vegetation that are left are quickly wilting. Gothel has gotten hold of some serious "growth magic" (it's not her own magic) and while she can use it to grow things, to nourish and provide, more often than not, she uses it to withhold growth. What an evil character! Even in the places where we see she has grown things, she often uses them to stunted purposes, like the tall tree where she imprisons Rapunzel. When Rapunzel fails to submit to her wishes by her sixteenth birthday, Gothel uses her anti-magic to withhold food from Rapunzel. Fruits and vegetables that used to magically appear for her to eat no longer show up, and the tree itself starts to twist closed. Small wonder Rapunzel has to find a way to get down.
I've barely recounted this story -- there's lots more adventure, especially once Rapunzel hooks up with trusty sidekick Jack -- because I hope you'll check it out and read it on your own. Nathan Hale's illustrations are terrific and add so much to the already terrific storytelling by husband and wife team Shannon and Dean. But I did find it fascinating that within a space of just a couple of days, in incredibly different kinds of novels written 133 years apart (The Lost Princess was published in 1875, Rapunzel's Revenge in 2008) I should find the same potent growth imagery used to similar effect.
So much of our soul's growth or stunting shows itself in whether we bestow things that nourish and help life flourish or if we try to grab and cling selfishly and thus end up bestowing death. What sort of person do we want to become? Someone who helps nourish life or thwart it?
More on soul growth and stories soon...this is a topic I find myself stumbling on everywhere right now, and thinking about a lot.
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