In our family from the Swabian side, was told an ancient story about a dark and wicked force called the Erl König who lives in the hollow woods.

The Erl King is a soul stealer, a bloodless, malevolent and claw-handed creature who thieves the minds and hearts of humans so they become hollow like the withered woods… and the Erl King himself.

…. The Erl King makes certain that human beings can no longer think of the world, and can no longer consult with nor hear their rational souls,

but now, can only carry the most deadened and pretend ideas of pleasure, finery and false triumphs… these pursuits bringing all to dead and naught.

Listening to the current President’s ‘State of the Union’ Address last night, and seeing the applauders, was like listening to a naive child’s Wish List… after the Erl King had stolen everyone’s mind;

…The President’s speech Santa-Claused in every sugary, long range miracle imaginable– for the right here and right now. Full funding for all matters of wars. Cures for all economic, social, and physical ills. Laying of ghosts. Asking that old wins, some real, some dubious, be shined up bright, now and forever, in his own name.

And to seal that long scrolled list… the toy-soldier promise of Yahweh-like retribution in vetos… if the gifts he demands do not materialize. Right now.

In developmental psychology, we’d call a long wish list like the President’s… one that insists a perfected world can pretty much be created within the next few weeks ‘if Congress will only cooperate with him,’ … “magical thinking.”

“Magical thinking” is a kind of thought process, that when weighed against reality, makes the ‘thinker’ (when they are adults and no longer children) seem addled rather than insightful.

Many love and are loyal to the current President, and there is no doubt that he carries a certain Wild West kind of charm; there is no doubt he can be moved to tears; that he loves his family; and no doubt that he has had a plan.

All the more reason to be made sad by what ‘hollow woods’ it all has come to.

Those who are prescient say the Presidential election of 2008 is the most important of any, ever.

I’d agree and only add that we cannot afford to squander opportunity to elect a leader who can truly think, instead of mimicking our current leader… who too often appears to offer us what I’d call, ‘thinks he has never thought.’

Is there a new leader riding hard toward us who has successfully passed through the hollow woods? Is there one who managed to hold onto their soul while offered all the fripperies and ceremonial deferences of office, remaining strong, with clear rather than lobbied or lop-sided sight? One who does not gimp to the left, not lame-walk to the right, but one who is still real?

Is there a leader riding hard toward us, one able to mend crucial arteries severed in our brother-sister relationships throughout the world?

Is there a leader riding hard toward us who can and will re-invite all those ‘made invisible and expendable’ by the enchantment of this current regime?

I think it is not only possible but likely that we will soon find ourselves in a psychic stance spoken of so often in metaphoroc terms in folklore…

that is, The Oldest Table of Creation: that place in the mind that is characterized in mythos not as a lollipop-peaceful forest, but as in a real forest, where tread fit and ferocious helpers and monsters both.

In mythos, there, at the ancient table of creation…. the most able artisans, visionaries, thinkers and enacters meet to effect changes …real changes… down to earth changes

In our times, we could say this timeless ‘meeting of the minds’ place, the ancient table, exists in all of us… and once present there again, ‘these actors/ we’ will think and plan and effect change outside the shambles of a cardboard box we’ve been given to ‘eat or die’ with, previously.

In mythos, the ones who meet at ‘the table’ are not a cadre of the self-interested, but the good hearts and stalwart minds that create and unleash changes that are not perfect, but are far advanced of ‘what once was.’

And their/ our ultimate aim is to design and enact what is good for and to the people —

rather than only good for what my elderly cranky father, who was from the Old Country used to call, “the anointed appointed” …meaning he said, “that stingy clawful of pols, and their only pals: trolls, and moles.”

I’m not a believer in fairytale reality; I come from dirt, and what is real is real. And, I study mythos for its insights into the predictable behaviors and outcomes of human nature, particularly those of ‘the gifted human being.’

Thus, I study both the hamarticly tragic, and the transformationally heroic, and all in between… where we—and great leaders— most often are found… somewhere in between the deadened and the god-like.

There’s no doubt in my mind that in the collective unconscious of our Nation, there is profound longing for New Life.

Thus, as a coming collective of people empowered, there is, I believe, A Table of Creation ahead in the USA’s future. A big one. A good one. We need to be careful though, not to elect a fantasy person that meets our own childish wish list, but a ser humano, as we Latinos say, a truly developed human being who meets our greatest and most enduring visions… with our continuous and specific works to back it all up.

New Life, and creating its details, is not only desired, as in a child’s fantasy, it is needed for the USA, necessary in all adult thought. All of creativity’s time-tested customs and fresh visions and endeavors to implement New Life are needed at the reins, no question. Otherwise, it truly is like ‘beating a dead horse.’

Will there be waiting at that table of New Life, a worthy leader who has ridden hard toward us, one who has successfully passed through the hollow woods full alive and alert?

We shall see, indeed we shall.

With love to Rumi, the great Persian poet, I’d write this tiny story about factions’ endless fighting, over what too often only amounts to broken teacups and offal:

Far away from all this trouble,
Of you, no! you!, of It’s his fault!
No, It’s hers!
Far Away from all this trouble
there is a place of calm and kindred thought,
a place where we can think aloud
without shots being heard
and we can bless each other
over what new must now come to pass,
and over what can yet become
despite all old injuries, and un-hearted hearts

Far Away from all this trouble
there is a place
of repair, of New Life…

I’ll meet you there.
_____________
©C.P. Estés, 2008

CODA: I’ll add the complete story of the Erl King, either here or in another post, yet tonight. For its psychological clarity about shadow and evil, giftedness and creative life, it is one of the most cherished stories I learned in my family. The one I will reference in the next segment, is an ancient, likely Teutonic based legend, one that was also put into poetic form in his own way, by Goethe.