A Spiritual Perspective on Alice in Wonderland

Esoteric Value

Please join me in what I feel is great fun; gleaning from fairy tales their esoteric significance.  By esoteric, my intention is to imply hidden meaning, as in the opposite of exoteric, that which is obvious and seen.  Fairy Tales have been recorded since the beginning of time and the genre was classified as fairy tales in the 17th century.  The tales include elements of magic, enchantment, out of the ordinary and out of the box imagery, to name a few. 

Characters are talking animals, trees, plants, etc. and come and go like the wind, neither knowing where they came from or where they are going. Now Isn’t that perfect fodder for our spiritual journeys?

For me, Fairy Tales mirror our explorations and discovery of life’s basic questions,  mirror universal law,  existential questions,  and evoke queries that urge us on to higher states of consciousness.   So,  please join me in the analysis and critiquing of one of my favorite metaphorical vignettes.  Let me know what hidden meanings you interpret from your favorite allegories.

Alice in Wonderland is a wonderland of scholarly interpretations. I have heard many different perspectives from psychedelic trips, Freudian implications, politics, mathematics, to philosophy etc. Lewis Carroll’s wild ride is a treasure of Spirit and humanness.

Mirroring

Many of us have encountered the confusion felt when looking in a mirror and losing the ability to know the left from the right,  where right appears as left or writing is reversed, all the while looking identical to what is reflected
Alice drinks from the “Drink Me” bottle filling the entire room with her whole Being so that there is no space for anything else.  She sighs and states, “Oh, you foolish Alice!’ ‘How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there’s hardly room for you, and no room at all for any lesson-books!”
This is a clear mirror for what happens to us when we are in our victim mode or full of ourselves.
When our attention is so focused on self, there is no room for learning no opportunity for  growth because it is taken over by the separate self.  Her experiences with changing from extreme size, big to very little educates her on the benefits and disadvantages of our ego trips.  This is just one example of Lewis Carroll’s use of opposites.
As we have heard before in posts, the opposites define each other, we would not know sad without happy, cold without hot, good without evil.  How about a birthday necessitating an unbirthday?

Comfort and Trust with Transformation

“Who are you purrs the caterpillar”? to Alice.  ‘I – I hardly know, Sir, just at present I know – at least I know who I was when I got up in this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then. I can’t understand my self, to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”
The caterpillar knows full well who he is and what his transformation will do to and for him.  He does not for one moment doubt or fear this process which at a specific developmental time begins with the change to a chrysalis and then a butterfly.  He is aware that it is normal and expected.  That this state will not change his unique individuality or essence.  We do not lose anything in this change, we are all we were and so much more.. Alice reflects our doubts, fears and concerns of transformation when she declares, “I wonder if I’ve changed in the night? Let me think; was I the same when I got up this morning? But if I am not the same, who in the world am I ?”  How soothing would it be to have full trust and cognizance in our process of transformation, ascension, translation?  How sweet it is, to relax into the natural process of becoming light and love because we realize what we are as the caterpillar is urging.  Who are you, do you know?

The Stressed Out Life – Can we hear the Silence?

I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date
No time to say “Hello”, goodbye!
I’m late!
I’m late!
I’m late!

I run and then I hop hop hop
I wish that I could fly
There’s danger if I dare to stop and here’s the reason why…
A stressed rabbit who wishes he could fly, hmmm does anyone resemble that sentiment?  Ah, so simple, just like Alice blowing up in the room where there is no space for anything else but her.  Alice chases to see where, why and what the white rabbit is late for when he does not even know, portraying the frivolity of our fast paced stressed out life.  How is one to hear the silence?  What is your priority?

The Wise Ones

And then there is the grinning Cheshire Cat of the Duchess who I submit is likened to a Master, one who has overcome, who comes and goes from what seems nowhere and is the only creature that listens and educates Alice. “`Cheshire Puss, Alice chants. “Come, it’s pleased so far, would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
”That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, Cheshire smiles,
”I don’t much care where”
`Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” chides cat
”…so long as I get somewhere,” urges Alice.
”Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'”
“`But I don’t want to go among mad people,” cries Alice.
”Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
The Wise Ones will never tell us what to do, where to go, or how to think.  They simply ask questions emphasizing that all of the answers are within ourselves.
They will not judge, their only intention is to urge us to a closer walk with that still inner voice, our connection with the Divine.
So if the boat does not have a rudder, it will get somewhere but not necessarily where one may have wanted, if they had a plan.  “You cannot discover new oceans if you do not have the courage to lose site of the shore.”  And of course, this ever changing, ever evolving world is our open book and where we go will always teach us, it may just take a bit longer. Yet, isn’t it about having the right tools in making it a joyous ride?  I just renovated a bathroom and the correct tools made oh so much difference!

It’s Your Turn

I perceive the theme of Alice in Wonderland to awaken the process of inquiry within.  The instinct to question  everything, taking the query within to the still small voice and let it work within us to a state of knowing, the state of Grace that is Faith.  Alice taught me that everything that seems to be is not and that which isn’t really is.

Okay, now it is your turn, lets have some fun…

Suzen