In episode 4 we examine our woodcutter's dubious financials and quirky career choice 

Welcome to Episode 4 of the Hansel and Gretel Code...

in the last episode we found our woodcutter’s forest to be a majestic — even a holy or sacred — place...

a cathedral without walls...

and as a proper compliment to it’s Majesty, we found our woodcutter to be humble and sincere in the face of it...

which is, after all, the essence of religion and a religious attitude — a fundamental theme we’re going to find running throughout the entire fairytale...

today, we’re going to take a closer look at our woodcutter’s financials and his career choices...

although, before we pull out any spreadsheets and go through his resumé, remember we mentioned that the forest is such an obvious symbol of the Unconscious, we might be overlooking something if we just kinda took it for granted...

as far as that goes, there’s no need for us to go down the rabbit hole of the various psychological theories of the Unconscious...

there’s just one important takeaway: as long as our woodcutter is living in front of the Unconscious — or right on the edge of it — he becomes a stand in for Consciousness itself...

which includes the Consciousness of any reader (male or female) who is somehow fascinated by this tale...

and that’s because we just naturally identify with the characters in any story that interests us...

in fact, each of the characters in this story, are eventually going to tell us something important about ourselves...

right now, whether or not you can see any part of yourself in our woodcutter, consider this: he’s just a perfectly average guy whose Consciousness is perfectly average and appropriate to his Zeitgeist...

in other words, he’s a man of his Time...

and that’s what makes him most like all of US...

he’s no genius who’s way ahead of his time, and he’s no saint (okay, so maybe he really IS St. Boniface...? — who knows)

he’s not some quirky nut-case, and, for sure, unlike our ginger-bread witch, he’s no psychopath...

he’s what we might call “well-adjusted” (which just means that he doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb)

now what’s extraordinary about him is something else entirely, SOMETHING that marks him as a much more idealized version of ourselves...

and that is: his Consciousness isn’t just appropriate to the Zeitgeist — the world he lived in — it’s appropriate to the Unconscious... which means he’s someone living in harmony with it...

so what exactly does that mean...?

well, one way to put it is that our woodcutter was not only at peace with his neighbors, he was at peace with himself...

and he wasn’t just at peace with all forms of CIVIL authority, he was at peace with his God or gods...

so what this harmony of Consciousness with the Unconscious amounts to is a total contentment of the soul...

now whether or not any of us can recognize ourselves in such an enviable picture of inner and outer tranquility — the very idea of it sets us up for the disruption, disharmony and drama that’s sure to follow...

because that’s not only the way of all good stories, it’s the way life itself normally unfolds...

so maybe you’re wondering exactly what’s so special about all this...

well, if we move in for a closer inspection of the symbolism, we’re going to find a few more telling details that just aren’t very apparent from this distance — details that will help us understand why our woodcutter chose his profession — and why that matters to US...

first, we can easily see that this story is about Germans and Germany — both historical and contemporary.

The forest is a brilliant metaphor for Germany...!

and so, characterizing Germans as woodcutters, or woodsmen, means that they quite obviously belong to such a place — or at least have properly adapted themselves to their native soil, and learned to live in harmony with it.

Looking even closer, we notice there’s an emphasis on the simple and unspoiled nature of our woodcutter’s medieval consciousness — as he humbly and un-self-consciously works with and worships the sublime, the holy or the numinous out in Mother Nature...

and this is extremely important because it’s consistent with a very particular take on Germanic (and European) history — one that idealized a more primal or natural way of life...

and what I’m talking about is a certain nostalgic perspective specific to the Grimm’s zeitgeist, known as Romanticism...

and so here’s where we start making out some disturbing details, because any such beatific vision of European history is something of a glorified, romantic fiction.

It’s fairly well known that the pre-industrialized zeitgeist of the Grimm’s, when machinery had yet to take over and ruin the landscape and the wholesome, rustic simplicity of life, was anything but ideal...

going even further back in time, the pre-christianized zeitgeist may have been less complicated and unspoiled — especially by intrigues and interference from that meddlesome land south of the Alps...

Hieronymus Bosch to the contrary, there’s just no evidence it was an idyllic garden of earthly delights...

however fictional and idealized the Romantic version of our woodcutter might be, that is, indeed, what our fairytale author chose to emphasize...

in fact, we know this for certain because there’s one detail hiding in plain sight: a very common, true-to-life detail that many of us suffer from at various points in our lives a detail that is only apparent by virtue of its absence...

In other words, while we DO have an appropriate and complementary pairing of Consciousness with the Unconscious, what we DON'T have is an INAPPROPRIATE pairing!

Imagine what this story would be like if we had a fisherman living next to our Great Forest...

or how about if we found our woodcutter living next to the sea (which is another obvious symbol of the Unconscious)...

now you might be thinking, so what...? that’s just common sense... what’s so important about it...?

well... this is OUR story...

this woodcutter represents OUR Consciousness...

how many of us, unlike our woodcutter, have ever found ourselves trapped in the wrong job or profession...? temporarily or even permanently...

think about it...

how many of us are fishermen living far from the sea — and working in salt mines...?

how many of us are farmers who live in cities and work in factories...?

how many of us are woodcutters forced (whether by circumstance or ambition) to live by the sea — and catch fish for a living...?

or maybe worst of all, how many of us farmers and fishermen, professors and poets, are all sitting in some windowless office somewhere making cold calls, or working for a collection agency...?

so is the story telling us that we’re bound to be poor if we choose a profession that’s harmonious with our Unconscious...?

Henry David Thoreau wrote:

I went to the woods, because I wished to live deliberately... and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life....

In light of Thoreau we have to say that our woodcutter is the Consciousness of someone who has found his / her calling.

Someone doing the work they were meant to d — as dictated by numinous, natural forces — and therefore living in harmony with the Unconscious...

that is, living a deliberately authentic life.

For sure this is a story for all of us who care about living a deliberately authentic life...

It’s also stunningly relevant to those of us who know beyond the shadow of any doubt that we're in the right field — or forest — BUT are just getting by, doing what we know we were born to do, and doing our level best to trust in that.

Not necessarily barely making ends meet...

just living and working within our means, yet, without any great surplus, savings or safety net...

And this tends to be the life of art.

Art, of course, being much more than just the Fine Arts...

now there’s a sort of apocryphal quote attributed to St. Francis, that regardless of who said or wrote it, still fits here:

He who works with his hands is a laborer.

He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.

He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.

A romantic, naive notion...?

Perhaps.

But at some point, we all know...

we know where we belong...

we know what our calling is — our vocation — what calls us.

Just like our woodcutter, we hear that still small voice of the heart telling us what our art is....

And whenever we become conscious of a disturbing disparity between that calling and our current career, we’re forced to choose...

Not, as we might imagine, i.e. between head and heart — but between heart and no heart!

So while Thoreau's woods may have been literal, applying his concept to our story at this particular juncture is crucial.

Imagine that our poor woodcutter WAS living deliberately...

and by extension, we who do so know that we're going to, as Thoreau said "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life..."

and if this life lived properly is to be "...sublime, to know it by experience...."

By sublime, of course, Thoreau meant what we know of as Numinous.

He wasn't talking about wealth, or ease, or fortune or fame...

he was talking about the pleasure and serenity derived from living and working in harmony with our own Nature (and not just Mother Nature).

Unfortunately, there are ENORMOUS risks inherent in following that still small voice within,,,

otherwise we would all be there, just like our woodcutter, living face to face and right on the edge of our very own great forest — doing what only that voice of the heart can tell us is right for us.

In fact, choosing to follow that still, small voice can be so risky for some of us, it can be like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel — almost literally...

of course, even metaphorically, the risks most of us face have nothing to do with life and death or broken bones...

not all of us are Evel Knievel...

Among the more rational and realistically terrifying risks of following our calling — or listening to that still small voice — is the coldly mundane matter of our woodcutter's chronic cashflow problem.

Ouch!

While poverty is a universal problem of mankind — and something most rational beings seek to avoid or remedy — at least our woodcutter's poverty is not that of a typical wage slave: someone getting underpaid to perform a personally meaningless task solely for the sake of a paycheck.

Now even though his poverty is of the type that is largely endemic to the culture of Henri Muger's Bohemia / La Bohème and a practice of the Fine Arts, he is, apparently, very strictly following his calling.

there’s no mention of him moonlighting to make ends meet...

And that makes him something of a “starving artist”

Here’s what Vincent van Gogh — perhaps the most famous starving artist of all time — had to say about poverty and people like our woodcutter:

...whosoever continues to hold fast to poverty for himself, and embraces it, possesses a great treasure and will always hear the voice of his conscience speaking clearly. Whosoever hears and follows the voice in his innermost being, which is God’s best gift, ultimately finds therein a friend and is never alone.

Well, just like van Gogh, our fairytale has plenty to say about poverty, so let’s talk turkey here:

Conservative opinion has it that poverty is, at worst, a case of lazy irresponsibility and lack of talent — and, at best, the stubborn lunacy and fanatical suffering of a van Gogh...

either way, poverty is something to be avoided AT ALL COSTS.

Liberal opinion may be less suspicious and less critical of both artists and the poor in general, however, it too sees poverty as something to be eliminated AT ALL COSTS.

Unfortunately, the price to be paid is problematic in both instances.

And I’m not talking about the inherent necessity of money and the difficulties involved in earning, accumulating, or even distributing it...

both sides are well aware of these problems and have their own ideas and strategies for dealing with them...

there’s is however, one specific problem concerning money that both sides are barely aware of — which makes it a shared, problematic blind spot — a blind spot that our fairytale is going to practically rub our noses in...

And that is the attitude that makes money the measure of success and satisfaction in life.

Even as the great majority of us may consciously understand this to be a suspect or even abhorrent notion, it is an unspoken cultural norm we are all forced to reckon with.

And it’s our unconscious attachment to this commonly held, culturally inculcated attitude that powerfully undermines any heartfelt resolve to be like our woodcutter and follow our calling.

Consciously or not, we tend to see following our calling as a romantic, but flawed and impractical, notion...

in fact, it’s something that a great majority of practical minded people across the globe don't just deprecate, but consistently ridicule.

The pervasiveness of this attitude in our culture and our zeitgeist constitutes a serious unconscious impediment to our natural desire to be at peace with ourselves — to live in harmony with ourselves...

and now here we come to the crux of the matter for the entire fairytale — a clue that we need to decode and interpret, because it constitutes one of the foundational truths this fairytale wants us to find:

If we can just patiently meditate on the background of this cultural blindspot concerning money, we’re going to see that our fairy tale poverty, instead of being solely about a literal, meagre cashflow, is a potent metaphor for the very modest amount of some SOMETHING WE TRULY REQUIRE for success and satisfaction in life.

Something that following our calling, alone, may or may not be enough to provide...

Naturally, if we're invested in CashFlow as the measure of our success and satisfaction, then cash would seem to be that required something.

However, if we can understand that mysterious, necessary Something as having to do with the numinous itself, then this kind of poverty might mean that even small doses of it are more than enough for us to get by on...

and as far as I’m concerned, that would be an extraordinarily hopeful message.

In any case, Hansel and Gretel is a fairy tale to specifically identify that precious commodity — and the proper method for obtaining it.

at this point in the story though, there’s no way for us to know with any certainty what that commodity might be...

there’s still so much more fairytale material to go through — including that whole gingerbread and breadcrumb ordeal — and so we’ll have to intuit our way through the whole thing before it’ll become clear...

and naturally, that’s going to take us quite a few episodes...

just don’t worry...

before we’re through, we’re definitely going to find a mother lode of the real deal...

In our next episode, we spend a good amount of time in the library and discover a treasure trove of rather irreverent comedy material — all of it related to real, honest-to-god poverty...

and while that might sound like no laughing matter, the author of our fairytale hid quite a few jewels and Easter eggs of meaning in poverty, and we’ll need to gather a bunch of them if we hope to get at the whole Truth: The Truth that guarantees our own success and satisfaction in life.

so, until next time, give a think to what that commodity might be... and to what our woodcutter is really hoping to earn with his art... and let’s ask ourselves why, in God’s name, is the guy still so poor...?

what’s up with that...?

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remember that you can find transcripts for each episode at the website: betweenthelines.xyz

I hope to see you there...

alrighty then...

Ciao a tutti...!

Music credits:

Beethoven - Sonata No. 21, Op. 53 in C Major Waldstein - I. Allegro Con Brio Sonata (and) - III. Rondo - Allegretto Moderato, Prestissimo performed by Paul Pitman and courtesy of musopen.org

Episode 3 - Lumberjacks / Episode 5 - Honest to God Poverty (Gasp!)