Welcoming her home

“Stick with the Image.” (James Hillman, A Blue Fire)

Last night, Agnes dreamed of giant spiders and woke up shouting and crying. I went to her and gathered her up in my arms, rocking and making soothing sounds and telling her she is loved and safe, then put her in bed between her father and I.

On the way to work, my husband asked me why small children have such awful night terrors. I mumbled something vague about how the mind of a child needs such images to mediate fears and other emotions they are ill-equipped to process in waking life.

In that moment I was thinking about my own childhood nightmares and recognised, with profound gratitude, that every time I hold one of my children and sooth away their fears, the opportunity is there for something inside me to be healed.

I can’t remember a time in my growing up years that anyone held me lovingly. I’ve grieved for that neglected child and done plenty of inner work – gruelling, hard work that left me feeling exhausted – and yet today I find the orphan image as painful and compelling as ever.

It is an archetypal image – although it presents itself in so many forms – and one that is necessary to acknowledge.

Julia Indichova, author of The Fertile Female, teaches us to attend to our orphans:

…it’s become quite clear to me that pain, rage, loneliness, and grief are the fire-breathing dragons that live in every human heart. Sooner or later the only thing left to do is walk right up to them and say, “Open up, I’m coming in.” As soon as we do that we find that inside their dragon suits are abandoned, gentle creatures, little baby dragons hoping for someone to hold them close and shield them from harm…we call these dragons the Seventy-Six Orphans.

The Fertile Female: How the power of longing for a child can save your life and heal the world

Indichova’s orphans are accompanied by what she calls the Ultimate Mom. Her job is to attend to those abandoned inner children:

Sometimes all you need is one person who will see how generous, brave and breathtakingly lovely you are. And many of us have to first find that person within ourselves.

Indichova says that the task of soothing the orphans is never done – that some of our orphans may prefer to stay in hiding. She talks about pain being the way to find an orphan that doesn’t want to be found. Strengthening the Ultimate Mom instinct means learning to trust that which is difficult. And this is difficult work.

The daily practice of attending to our orphans is ‘spending quality time with the child already here, our own body, heart and soul, and discovering what truly nourishes us.’ We ‘go to the orphan playground’, the ‘garden of truth’, and we ‘listen to the howling in our hearts’. Indichova provides a set of imagery exercises and another set of exercises which move emotion through the body – the aim of which is to “give birth to previously unknown parts of our selves”. In doing all of this, our orphans become creative forces.

Doctor Clarissa Pinkola Estés retells the myth of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone in a way that highlights the importance of a healed inner child. In her retelling, Demeter – who is always pregnant – embodies the fulfilment of potential:

Demeter is the mother of the creative potential that will come to fruition… because of her nurturing, all things will come to fruition. This is Demeter’s work and her gift.

The Creative Fire, Myths and Stories on the Cycles of Creativity

Persephone, Demeter’s beautiful, joyful daughter, embodies play. It is this element of play that is central to our creativity and fertility – the ability to play aimlessly – without a goal – as Persephone plays, is essential to creative, fertile, productive life.

Without Persephone – play – Demeter cannot bring anything to fruition: Persephone is the one invested with potential and ideas.

When Persephone, playing in a meadow, is snatched away by Hades, Lord of the Underworld, Demeter becomes frigid, bitter, and infertile in her grief. With her daughter deep below the earth, Demeter causes all of the crops to die.

Now this is a true problem that almost all artists face, whether we’re talking about artistry in song or dance… or in creating life… this problem is about the development of obstacles to the free flow of creative force… the central issue in this story is that suddenly playfulness disappears, leaving not a trace.

The Creative Fire, Myths and Stories on the Cycles of Creativity

Without a playful inner child, an ‘ever youthful self’ we are without a sense of a future self; we are not very alive. The ideas dry up. We become empty.

Demeter is called to journey below – to dark places – and deep into her internal territory. Eventually, exhausted and unravelled, she encounters a deity so ridiculous and lewd and grotesque that she begins to laugh, and in doing so her grief begins to end.

And so it is that we can find ourselves drawn out of a creative dark age through persistent inner work, laughter or divine intervention that eventually leads to restoring a stolen, hidden inner child that embodies our fertile potential.

“Stick with the image”, James Hillman said. Today was a breakthrough – an orphan spoke to me through dark creatures that creep up from the underworld to terrify a small child. In me, a wise, loving internal mother held her tight.