This essay is part of my book What She Knows – Volume I: Story Threads from Myth, Folklore, and Fairytales. To learn more about the book and order, please visit its official page here.
~ Magic only comes from within ~
Intuitively it felt so right for me, because I’ve always felt her to be so strong in her true self that only a woman who nurtures her wild within and has strong spiritual core can do that. To me personally, Cinderella has always been about a girl who stays true to herself despite any circumstance, which in itself is very empowering.
The tale of Cinderella is perhaps one of the most misunderstood ones. Rags to riches, waiting for a prince to save her? That’s not the tale. Her story holds worlds of wisdom and beauty, and her voice needs to honoured. Not because of a fur shoe, nor glass slipper, but because of who she truly is.
Cinderella is a story about the importance of staying true to ourselves despite our external circumstances; about not allowing anything external change our inner purest essence.
Even in the ashes, she does not lose her essence. She is the same in stillness as she is in light—kind, graceful, and quietly devoted to her heart. While others try to become something they are not, shaping themselves into sparkling roles and appearances that do not belong to them, she remains unchanged in what matters most.
Illustration of Charles Perrault’s Cinderella from an old book of mine
Cinderella reminds us that we can have the life we desire as long as we don’t betray our deepest true heart’s wishes.
And yet, something tender lives beneath this. It is not only about staying true to ourselves, but also about the environments we are placed in. Sometimes what is true within us is not given space to be seen. And then it retreats, like something precious hidden away, waiting for the right moment to emerge but it gets tiring each day. Hope is the through-line of each narrative, but it’s a difficult creature to nourish in our inner wildlands.
What’s profoundly sad about this tale is that she is mistreated by the women around her who are supposed to be her home. For generations our ancestors have taught us to support one another as women, to hold each other, lift each other, raise each other up, but doesn’t always happen in our societies. When women hurt one another it can leave deep marks, and this story reminds us that unfortunately sometimes the biggest hurt may come from those who were meant to hold us.
A woman’s touch can be healing, but it can also not be. Within the palm we hold the grace – grace with which we may touch someone’s life, and may we use it for love, not harm.
The story reminds us that we do not become who we are in ease, but in how we meet what is unkind, limiting, or unloving. It is there, in those moments, that our true nature quietly reveals itself.
And perhaps this is Cinderella’s deeper knowing—that no matter what surrounds us, we still choose who we become.
The Supportive Environment and Unhiding Our Beauty
The godmother doesn’t make Cinderella anything other than what she already is. The clothes she gives her neither conceal not disguise her – they just show her as she really is.
To feel truly supported we need to have the space held for us to be ourselves. When such space is missing, something within us retreats. Many of us may hide our beauty and don’t dance our talents for others, because we live in a world rarely supportive of authenticity. Judgment, entitlement, envy, ridicule. So many things can make us retreat in an envious world.
Authenticity has a price, and it’s a high one; and when we walk this path we know how difficult it is. We know our devotion and dedication and true heart may not be seen, and it can feel demotivating or discouraging to keep going sometimes. But in these times remember Cinderella. She too walks this path. But despite the ashes and despite the envy and bullying around her from others, she remains as she is – even when unseen. She keeps her inner wildland pure and clean.
Not all hearts may know how to recognize what is true. It’s become increasingly difficult for people to discern the genuine from false. Some may even try to reshape others into what they themselves understand, unable to meet what truly is. And so sometimes it is not that we lose ourselves, but we are just not being met as we are.
To be seen, to be truly seen, we need a certain openness of heart. A space holding where we may be our true selves and dance in our own unique way. And where such openness isn’t present, even the most genuine beauty may remain hidden for a time. But what matters, always, is to keep your inner flame untouched. Let it burn, let it warm you, let it remind you that nothing that belongs to you will be blown away even by the strongest winds. Such is the power of our inner flame.
The fairy godmother shows full unconditional support to Cinderella – in a kind of parenting style where she may stand strong in who she is. She lovingly and gently supports the girl’s desires, pleasures and wishes. She gives her a sense of freedom. She gives her the opportunity to express herself safely. The Godmother doesn’t actually gift her anything new – she only sets the stage for the girl’s inner beauty to express itself to the outside world.
The godmother sees Cinderella for who she truly is and accepts her for who she truly is. She doesn’t try to change her – she only helps her reveal herself in a safe supportive environment. She teaches her that she too has the right to see herself as desirous and worthy to get what she wants – and so Cinderella goes after her desires.
On the other hand, the stepmother doesn’t accept her daughters as they are. She keeps trying to change them, to mold them into something that would fit her own understanding. She keeps trying to make them into something else and basically perpetuates the idea that they are not worthy of what they want and that they are not enough as they are. She is constantly critical and wants everyone to fit into her own idea of what’s good, valuable and beautiful.
In a way, we can even say that Cinderella’s biggest fear wasn’t the satisfaction of her own desires, but perhaps the envy from others if her desires were satisfied. And so, she just kept herself hidden in the ashes. Not because she didn’t know who she was – but because she was perfectly aware of her environment and the possible reactions if she shined.
Yet quietly, in the solace of her space, Cinderella never rejected who she was despite everything. That was how she persevered and protected the purity of her heart. And it’s not that she didn’t try to express herself or reveal herself. In many retellings of the tale, she is quite often outspoken and even witty. It’s just that every time she showed her true self, she was then again made to feel hidden with ash.
Her immeasurable beauty is that she found a way to stay true and keep her inner spark despite it all. In a world that’s become increasingly artificial and superficial, and quite often inhumane, keeping our kindness, humanity and humaneness is a true gift and the real treasure.
What is true never disappears. It may hide, but you cannot lose it. You cannot lose your within, it belongs to you. And it waits. And it returns, sometimes in the most unexpected ways.
Cinderella’s Fur Shoes
Some of the old retellings of the tale describe Cinderella wearing slippers not of glass but rather made of fur. There is something quietly beautiful and powerful in this. Fur belongs to the wild, and Cinderella embraces her wild nature, her inner essence, the unmistakable fragrance of who we truly are.
The wild often times represents our soul – it is the unnamed, untamed part of us that lives within our unique physical wildlands. The wild is instinctual, intuitive, something ancient within us. It defies societal expectations and man made limitations; it seeks and sees and lives in non-linearity and belongs to the worlds beyond formality.
Cinderella, covered in ash and smoke and earth, feels closer to this world than to the polished halls she even enters. Something within her has never perhaps even been tamed. And even in confinement, she remains connected to that inner wilderness.
She is not a naive little girl – she just knows really well how to survive in harsh environment; she knows how to adjust, adapt and move through various landscapes. She is one who knows how to find water in the desert, and how to make fire of sticks. She speaks the languages of poetry, of those mystical and unknown things, knowing how to understand the animals who meet her. She is a wild thing, who while imprisoned keeps her native home within.
Her prince is a wild thing also. Some stories portray him as the Green Prince of the Forest – a great strong spirit that came seeking his love, a holy woman, who had disappeared from him and his forest kingdom. He roamed and searched for long, bringing along the fur shoe from the wilderness.
This wild shoe of fur has connections to the animals and nature, both of which are a big part of the solace of Cinderella – which has become her home. Her wild long hair is the reminder of her wild kingdom from which she came from once upon a time, and no matter the environment she is put in, no matter how restrictive and foreign, she cannot be tamed – and she will always be beloved by her wild prince.
But it is important to remember, that no matter how much we think we may be lost or forgotten our way back, our wild holy essence is always with us – it is never lost – and the wild one, our true one, will always seek to return and return us our wild shoe.
Shoes carry a great symbolism too, representing standing strong in who we are, being supported for who we truly are, so that we are not hurt or cut or made unable to walk in tricky terrains while we pave our own path.
Whether the shoe is of fur or a glass slipper doesn’t change who she is in her essence. The glass slipper is meant to show her inner purity – her inner brightness and her pure heart, which nothing can ever taint. Not all can wear such shoe, because not all have the heart for it.
She walks the beauty way, because she walks with kindness and respect; she treats animals with kindness, she keeps her inner world clean and her heart pure; and stays loyal to her heart, because she never lets anything or anyone else taint her inner lands and make her something she isn’t.
This comes with love.
The greatest secret of magic is this – magic only comes from within. We can never get something which is not within us already. What the Godmother gives Cinderella is something she already possesses inside of herself – she just reveals her beauty and purity of heart – which is more majestic than all the diamonds in the world.
She marries the prince because only a true prince is worthy of her. No amount of changing who we are on the outside can ever keep true love if we don’t already have that true love, that inner beauty within us. No amount of expensive adornments can mask the ugliness inside people.
The prince was not attracted to her clothes – but to her grace, kindness and gentleness. This is why he fell in love with her. And this is what made her the right one to become Queen.
This is common in other tales as well. In Sleeping Beauty, Charles Perrault writes that the prince was charmed because of the manner in which Sleeping Beauty spoke to him; he fell in love with her because of the kindness with which she spoke to him.
Cinderella always treated everyone with kindness – her stepmother, stepsisters, the animals – big or small never mattered – she selflessly wanted to make others feel good about themselves and treated everyone with respect despite how they treated her. She even helped a lost scared mouse find some new clothes.
She carried herself with grace. Grace is the rare quality that makes a Queen. Despite rags and ashes, despite being harmed and screamed at, she showed her true character in the way she reacted in these situations – which is when we ourselves see our own true character and what we’re made of.
It was not that she never stood up for herself – but she came to understand that not every battle needs to be fought. There is a quiet strength in recognizing what is worth your energy and what isn’t, and knowing when to step back while still keeping in faith with what lives within. Perhaps she always understood the cycles of the land, and of life – that we would not be denied what we are meant to experience; that we would not be denied our wishes.
What Cinderella knows is that we must stay loyal to our heart. We must remain unmistakably true to ourselves; and that we can preserve that beautiful spark inside of us despite our circumstances.
But she also reminds us of the importance of support; to surround ourselves only with those that truly allow us the space to reveal ourselves freely and safely; to dance freely and safely dusting off the old ashes because we all deserve and are worthy of having our needs and desires met. All of us.
So dance reader, dance.
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Cover art by Maxime Simoncelli.
In-text art features fairy tales illustrations from my books by Benvenuti & Sulamith Wülfing.
All rights reserved by the artists.
