Spring cleaning

When this image evolved, a day or two ago, it seemed to want to be called "the Fairy Tale Trap."   And I can see where that comes from: the face in the mirror reminds me of the evil queen's mirror, reflecting back the fair Snow White; the stairwell has a suggestion of Rapunzel's tower, and the bars somehow suggest that young women can be trapped by fairy-tale expectations... what used to be called the Cinderella Complex.

According to Wikipedia, "This complex is named after the fairy tale character Cinderella. It is based on the idea of women that the story portrays, as being beautiful, graceful and polite but who cannot be strong independent characters themselves... and who must be rescued by an outside force, usually a man (i.e. the Prince)."

But you can tell from the open door and the dusting of leaves on the stairs that this particular tower has been unoccupied for quite some time now.  Oh, but wait -- didn't I just say in yesterday's post that I was full of dust and leaves?  Perhaps I'm still caught there; perhaps I never even noticed the door was open, I've grown so accustomed to the place -- rather like the fleas in the jar, who learn to jump just high enough not to hit the lid (so when you remove the lid they've forgotten how to escape?)

All of which reminds me of one of the meditations I did for The Contemplative Photographer's Alphabet, about Habitual Thinking:

Like a drafty well-used barn,
my brain is littered
with stale food for thought,
no longer nourishing.

I know there’s light and clarity,
somewhere up there,
but it won’t shine through
until I muck out the stalls,
chuck out the chaff;
brush out the bitterness,
sweep away that sense of betrayal.

I can’t really savor this fresh new fruit
til I air out the stench of all those might-have-beens.


Hmm.
Sounds like it may be time for a little internal spring cleaning... there must be something blowing around in there that needs to be swept out.  Now if only we could have a sunny warm day or two, perhaps I'd be more inspired to follow up on that!