“Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs”
by Rev. Christine Emmerling 7/24/2022
This week we continue with our fairy tale series with Snow White and the seven dwarfs. This is a very old story that had been orally passed down until 1812 when it was in written form by the Brothers Grimm. I shall give an abbreviated account, and then give its spiritual meaning for us today.
Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when the flakes of snow were falling like feathers from the sky, a queen sat at a window sewing. While looking out the window she pricked her finger with the needle. Three drops of blood fell upon the snow, and she thought to herself of having a child as white as snow, cheeks as red as blood, and hair as black as the wood of the window-frame. Soon after she had a daughter, with black hair, red cheeks, and skin as white as snow. They called her Snow-White. The queen died after giving birth.
A year later the king remarried. She was a beautiful woman, but proud and arrogant, and could not bear that anyone else could surpass her in beauty. She had a magical mirror, and would stand in front of it and ask; “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of us all?” The mirror answered, “The queen is fairest of the day.” Then she was pleased, for she knew the mirror spoke truthfully.
One day when Snow-White was seven years old the queen asked the mirror: “Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of us all?” The mirror replied: “You were the fairest yesterday; Snow-White they say is the fairest, now, they say.” The queen became so jealous that she ordered for the child to be taken to the forest and killed, and to bring back proof. The servant took Snow-White to the forest. She begged him not to kill her, his heart melted, and left her in the woods.
The woods are filled with all kinds of animals and dangers. Now alone Snow-White falls in terror to the ground. Out of the woods come all these friendly forest animals. She opens her eyes and happily greets them. She tells them her story, and they guide her to a cottage. They found the cottage in disarray. Snow White and her animal friends cleaned the house. When done the little animals left, and Snow-White fell asleep in one of the beds.
Later that evening the seven dwarfs who mined for gold returned to the cottage. They lit their seven candles and saw that someone had been there. Then they found Snow-White sleeping. In the morning Snow-White told her story to the dwarfs. They offered for her to stay in trade for doing household chores. The dwarfs warned Snow-White to beware of the queen, and let no one in.
Now the queen once again stood before the mirror and to her dismay was informed that Snow-White was the fairest and was protected by the dwarfs in the forest. The Queen decided to take matters in her own hands. She goes to the cabin disguised as an old pedlar-woman. Snow-White lets her in to see the pretty laces. The Queen quickly tied Snow-White up so tight with the laces that she lost her breath and fell to the ground. When the dwarfs came home they quickly revived Snow-White.
Again, the Queen went to the mirror only to find out Snow White was still alive. Next she tricked Snow-White with a poisonous comb for her hair, only to be saved by the dwarfs. When the queen found out Show-White was alive she cried “Snow-White shall die even if it costs me my life.” Finally, the Queen succeeded with a poisonous red apple. This time the dwarfs couldn’t save Snow-White. The dwarfs built a coffin of glass so that she could be seen from all sides. They wrote her name upon it in golden letters and included her being a king’s daughter. They took turns watching her. Three birds came and wept for Snow-White; an owl, a raven, and a dove.
Ten years had gone by and Snow-White did not change, but looked as if she was sleeping. It happened that a king’s son came into the forest and went to the dwarfs' house to spend the night. He saw the coffin with Snow-White. The prince read the letters written in gold. The prince seeing that she was a daughter of a king insisted on having the coffin. The dwarfs took pity and gave him the coffin.
While the servants carried the coffin away, they stumbled over a tree stump, and the poisonous piece of apple which Snow-White had bitten off came out of her mouth. Before long she was once more alive. The king’s son explained how much he loved her, and she willingly went with him to be his wife. They were married in great splendor. Snow-White’s step-mother attended the wedding. Being shocked to see Snow-White she dies. And they lived happily ever after.
We shall now look at the spiritual meaning to Snow-White and the
Seven Dwarfs. This is a story of inner transformation. It all begins with the queen who has a vision: white snow is purity of mind, innocent, divine energy; 3 drops of blood - the 3 represents the stirring action of mind and heart to give life to her desires. It is the trinity of Creator, Creates, Creation or idea, thought, demonstration.
The blood is spiritual life force and courage; black hair is spiritual strength, and power. Her vision gives birth to Snow-White who has all these qualities. Snow-White, a little princess, represents each of us. She is innocent, kind, and beautiful. She is our soul.
The birth mother dying is a sense of loss and abandonment from the safety of our mother’s womb. We are in a strange world where we experience everything as though separation from us. It is an inside out world.
The King remarries to a beautiful but jealous woman. She becomes the cruel step-mother. The king is our ruling thought that has become married to the subconscious belief that the physical world is all powerful and all important. We become hypnotized to the physical world and become enticed believing it gives value to us and can take away.
The cruel step-mother is a negative thought-form we have built up in our subconscious. This is our alter ego that we have acquired, but it isn’t truly part of our soul, it is the lie. This facade, our ego, is jealous of our true divine nature. It is in fear of losing its power and control over our life. For once we awaken from our hypnotic state, it becomes as nothing to us.
The cruel step-mother consults her magic mirror every day, asking for confirmation of her beauty. The mirror reflects back to us the truth. The mirror represents the world. The world is a report card for reflecting back to us our thoughts and feelings as our daily experiences. Our manifestations do not lie.
One day when Snow-White reaches seven years of age, she is beautiful inside and out. Now the mirror tells the wicked queen that Snow-White has replaced her in beauty. The number 7 is a sacred number meaning spiritual perfection as in the seven days of creation - good and very good.
The queen, our ego is losing its hypnotic hold. When the ego’s power is threatened it will fight back. As we become spiritually stronger the ego strikes back becoming this big fearful thing that we must overcome, and dissolve into a nothingness.
This begins Snow-White’s spiritual journey to meet her tests. The queen directs her servant to take Snow-White deep into the forest to kill her. The servant just follows commands; our subconscious mind is the servant that takes our thoughts and manifests them. But then in the presence of a new idea there comes an opening for a new choice to continue as told or to choose again. The servant chose again and let Snow-White live.
Snow-White is now left alone lost in the woods. She lies down not knowing what to do next. Then all kinds of friendly forest animals come to assist. These represent intuition and hunches. Our intuition is always available to guide us. Ask and you shall receive.
We are guided to a cottage. This cottage represents our consciousness, it is our holy temple. Here our inner household of thoughts are cleaned up and are brought into a new order. Then Snow-White goes to sleep. This is going into a quiet state of mind, silent meditation to restore the spirit.
The seven dwarfs return home from mining for gold. The seven dwarfs represent our Chakra system. Gold symbolizes our connection to spirit, our divine nature, spiritual perfection. The seven lit candles are the Chakras ignited with the kundalini energy. They represent the inner light, the spirit within us. Snow-White doing the household chores is about our inner housecleaning of our thoughts and emotions, and then our Chakras will care for and guide us.
We are now faced with our three temptations. The queen finds out Snow-White is alive, and is protected by the seven dwarfs. The ego rises up in jealous anger and becomes sneaky to get around us in a different way. It will dress itself up as something non threatening. In this case an old woman selling laces. These laces are used to squeeze our breath away.
We are hypnotized by the distractions of the world, and allow fear to take over. Fear tightens our chest and restricts our breathing depleting our life force energy. Our dwarfs awaken us to the truth of our spiritual nature. We are reminded to breathe in the breath of God - the true life within us.
Again, the ego devises a disguise and comes selling a beautiful comb for the hair covered in poison. Again, we are enticed to let the ways of the ego in our thoughts. The poisonous comb represents negative thoughts and fearful emotions. The poisonous comb puts us into a deep sleep. Again our dwarfs return in time to reawaken us to our true divine nature.
Now the ego feeling its loss of control, has to come up with something really irresistible. We are tempted once more listening to the ego. This time a beautiful red juicy apple laced with poison. We fall to temptation and take a bite. Biting the poisonous apple are the spoken words of anger and hate. At last, our dwarfs are unable to awaken us. We are now in a deep sleep, and the things of the spirit have become dead to us. We no longer have our spiritual practices. All our attention is on the material side of life. We have become unconscious to the spiritual life. Our ego is in full control. This is as a dark night of the soul when all seems lost, but there is light at the other end of the tunnel.
The 7 dwarfs build a glass coffin with writing in gold to house our soul. This coffin represents the purification process. Spiritual transformation is taking place. Our true nature even when dead to us is still alive and can be reawakened under the right conditions.
The prince arrives on the scene. While looking at Snow-White he falls in love; it takes true love to join the masculine aspect to the feminine aspect of our soul. On the journey to his father’s castle Snow-White was jarred. This expelled the apple from her mouth from which she awakens. The prince symbolizes divine truth, wisdom, knowledge and understanding and marries the princess of love, purity, intuition and compassion. Their marriage is the mystical union that brings forth the Christ consciousness within us. Once this mystical marriage takes place the ego and all its lies dissolve into the nothingness.
We can also see this as the chakra system reawakened and fully ignited with the fire of the kundalini - divine spirit energy that burns off all the dross - the lower vibrations. We are spiritually born again and are now elevated in consciousness truly living heaven on earth.
I am reminded of the Bible story of Adam and Eve and their tasty fruit. First, we are reminded that Adam was put in a deep sleep to bring forth Eve. Adam is never woken up. There is only one tree in the Garden of Eden that is forbidden. That is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; a belief in duality and separation. The serpent is our ego that tempts with lies and will say anything to get us to surrender to its will.
For me it can be 9 o’clock at night, when all of a sudden, my mind will start thinking about that treat in the kitchen. How many times have I succumbed to that voice tempting me? Even when I know better!
Being expelled from the Garden of Eden is about our believing we are separated from God, from our good. This results in our having to suffer and work hard in the material world consciousness. The rest of the Bible is about finding our way to the Tree of Life - our kundalini energy tree that connects us to the truth of our divinity and immortality.
Then we have Christ Jesus who after being crucified was placed in a tomb - his coffin sealed with a large stone. On the morning of the third day the earth shook which rolled the stone away, and Jesus was resurrected to a new level of being fully conscious having a glorified body.
The story of Snow-White and the 7 dwarfs is a story of resurrection in consciousness. It is knowing the true greater beauty is within and everlasting. While the physical world is hypnotic, it is only a temporary state of consciousness. We have our lessons until we awaken to the eternal spiritual world that is our true home as a spiritual being. Truly heaven on earth. And we live happily ever after.
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