Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings. Today’s post is about how Sleeping Curses in fairytales can function as Shadow Work! So, most of my regular readers will know that my top two favorite fairytales are Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Both of these fairytales have a Sleeping Curse involved in the plot line, making for a tale where the lead character is asleep during a good amount of the story, especially in the case of Sleeping Beauty.
Now, many people view the fact that these tales include the lead character being asleep for a good length of time to mean that each protagonist is lacking in autonomy and Sovereignty when it comes to her own tale. However, I do not view this to be the case at all! When we look at sleep, it is not just a time of being at rest. The brain is doing a lot of work during our sleeping hours, from dreaming to healing to integrating what we have been trying to learn in our waking life. Beyond the simple fact that our brains are working during sleep and dreams, those of us who do a lot of spiritual work know that while we are sleeping we may also be able to cross the hedge or astral project into other realms!
When we take this idea of being able to astral project during dreams, and even have prophetic dreams, into account, the Cursed Sleep of Aurora and Snow White takes on a new layer. I believe that the Enchanted Sleep of these two fairytale heroines is a time of great learning and alchemizing of trauma in order to transition from childhood to womanhood. Many fairytales and folktales can be looked at as initiatory parables, with one of the most famous in Welsh Celtic lore being the tale of Cerridwen’s Chase, which shows a form of initiation for Taliesin. Of course, that is very different from a tale of Sleeping Curses, since that is an external chase happening. The Sleeping Curse in fairytales is an internal journey, a Heroine’s Journey instead of a Hero’s Journey. The protagonist must travel within her own Psyche, and possibly into the Faery Realm to learn and grow. She is no longer the child she was when she fell asleep, but a woman grown, ready to take her next steps in life, which in Sleeping Beauty and Snow White means getting married to their Princes, but it also means the knowledge that they will be ruling a Kingdom, as both were born Princesses. Furthermore, in spiritual terms, the Enchanted Sleep of Fairytale Sleeping Curses is a time of initiation into the mysteries of Ancient Faery Knowledge! While Aurora was cursed into her Enchanted Slumber by a Faery, Snow White was cursed by a witch, but in much of the old folklore, we see a large connection between witches and Faeries. It is this liminal connection between witches and Faeries that allows many a magickal practitioner to be called either Witch or Fay in the medieval era, and that connection provides the possibility for each fairytale heroine to become a magickal practitioner herself.
While there is nothing in either tale to support the belief that Aurora or Snow White became magickal practitioners, their Enchanted Slumbers are certainly a perfect time to gain the wisdom that would allow them to wield ancient arcane magicks! That is why I love to interpret the Sleeping Curses in fairytales as a time to gain this esoteric information and become initiated into a new way of living your life to the fullest, truly a Spiritual Awakening upon the end of the Enchanted Sleep!
I hope you have enjoyed this analysis of Sleeping Curses as a form of Shadow Work, going on the internal Heroine’s Journey to become a more actualized and Spiritually Awakened version of yourself. What is your favorite thing about fairytale Sleeping Curses? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the painting Sleeping Beauty by John Collier. I found the image on https://fineartamerica.com/featured/2-the-sleeping-beauty-john-collier.html.
Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services! I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon! Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/
Further Reading
- The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood by Charles Perrault
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by the Brothers Grimm
- Spinning Straw into Gold: What Fairy Tales Reveal About Transformations in a Woman’s Life by Joan Gould
- The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies
- The Book of Taliesin
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