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HOW THE MAGIC OF THE NUTCRACKER
CAPTURED MY HEARTBY
Nanna Aida Svendsen ©
Its that time of year. The magic of the Nutcracker ballet is about to reach
out and capture my heart yet again. I first saw the ballet at the Royal
Festival Hall in London with my mother and my little sister. They sat with a
rapt faces mirroring mine totally taken by the music, the dancing, the
scenery and the story. My small sister held my hand tightly as we were
transported to another land where Christmas was as we dreamed it to be, a
snow covered wonder - world outside and a warm enchanted celebration within.
A land where wishes come true and where love wins through in the end,
Now so many years later, I can still feel the wonder of the Nutcracker, wrap
itself round me as the music begins and curtain rises yet again on a bustling
snow covered street scene. Only now the ballet speaks to me beyond the magic
of the scenery, the music and the dancing. I now see the story to contain
lots of little clues as to the inner life. And I wonder if this may in part
be why the ballet is still so compelling, and has become a perennial?
It stirs the child inside me of course. Wakens me at least for a while to her
innocence and magic. And then if I choose to view the characters as metaphors
for various aspects of me, I see a whole new tale unfold. One that speaks of
the female characters as representatives of the inner feminine, the feeling,
intuitive, being part of me, and the male characters as representatives of my
inner masculine, the thinking, acting, doing part of me. Then the story of
Clara and her nutcracker becomes a story to do with the need to have a sound
inner feminine united with a sound inner masculine and how I might achieve
this. Or to put it another way the story comes to be about having a sound
feeling and intuitive system unite with a sound thinking and acting aspect.
It is Christmas Eve. A big celebration is underway. The tree stands tall and
sparkling in the drawing room. Clara and Fritz' godfather has brought many
wonderful presents, he has made himself, including a wooden nutcracker in the
form of a small man for Clara. Clara delighted hugs the nutcracker to her,
and Fritz her brother, jealous, pulls it from Clara and forcing a large nut
in the nutcrackers mouth slams it to a close. In so doing the nutcracker
loses several of his teeth. Clara is upset. Somehow she loves that funny
nutcracker, and so her godfather does his best to mend him placing the
nutcracker safely in the toy chest for the night, when he is done.
Later when everyone is sleeping and the clock strikes midnight, Clara returns
to the tree to look for her nutcracker. But when she does something
extraordinary happens. The tree begins to grow and grow. As Clara looks on
amazed she hears the patter of many feet and is surprised suddenly to find
herself surrounded by a life sized army of mice. The mouse king, a monstrous
mouse with seven heads, demands of Clara that she tell him where the
Nutcracker is hiding. Clara does not reply but the toy chest is flung open,
and led by a now life sized nutcracker, toys, the same size as Clara, go to
war with the mice.
The mouse king having grabbed the Nutcracker's sword is about to slay him
when all of a sudden Clara sends her shoe flying towards him. The moment it
hits the king he and all the mice disappear. And right before Clara's eyes
the nutcracker turns into a handsome young prince. The Prince as a thank-you
to Clara for saving his life takes her through the Christmas wood to his
magic kingdom the land of sweets. Here he and Clara are royally entertained
by a series of dancing candies from all over the world, before setting off in
a magic sled to live happily ever after…
…Yes, I know that Nutcracker place in me., what it feels like to be him. When
I am all dressed up and working hard being of service, being good even, and
yet feeling somehow wooden or numb inside, disconnected in some way from my
self and what I love. I know that feeling of somehow having become
mechanical, being moved or driven by the demands of others rather than being
sourced in my heart. Oh, I know the knocks that can come to me when I am like
this. I know them as a feeling of subtly being beaten or abused, as the
nutcracker is by Fritz, mirroring perhaps a way I am abusing myself or
letting others use me in ways that don't sit well.. That my heart is not
happy I know, even though I may not always know why.
But somehow it seems another part of me does know what is wrong and what is
needed. The godfather in me, the part of me that takes action sourced in
intuition knows that another part of me is ailing. This higher self knows
that the part of me that is doing things so mechanically needs to be
recognized and brought back to life. So he makes me a nutcracker, creates
some situation with a colleague, or has me or see a movie perhaps, something
- anything that can reflect my nutcrackerness back to me and remind in some
sense of what I have become.
Oh there is a love for this nutcracker that arises when I see it, for the
part of me that is doing the best that it can, probably in an attempt to keep
me safe, but there is also sadness. It somehow seems so stilted. Something
is missing. Clara loves the nutcracker as soon as she sees him, knows there
is something special about him, but her love at this moment is not enough to
bring him to life.
However, a journey of the heart has begun, with that first look of love.
When the clock strikes midnight, heralding the time between worlds when the
old day is dying and the new day is just beginning and magic can happen,
Clara enters another world. This is not the world of everyday. This is the
timeless realm of fairy tale, myth and imagination where inner worlds shift
and change. And this is the world I must enter if I want to bring life to the
nutcracker inside me.
It is not surprising that it is a child who must do this, and a girl child at
that. Somehow the innocent responsiveness of the child must be regained for
me to find the aliveness in me. And so must my connection to my feelings and
bodily sensations. So of course symbolically, the nutcracker must be brought
to life by a girl, he alone cannot do it.
But first there is a monster to be met. Yes is this not so? Must I not first
come to see the monster, the seven headed king of mice, who once claimed the
innocent in me, to get it back? Will he not raise his horrid heads and try
yet again to devour the part of me that is waking up and wants to be alive
and free? Will he not come, in the words of another who does not want me to
grow and become ever more myself, someone who feels threatened perhaps by
this evolution? Or might he not come in the form of a shaming voice inside,
saying things like "who do you think you to are?? Don't be ridiculous. A
nutcracker does not want more out of life. He wants to remain wooden and
useful and the same.
And so, if the nutcracker is to find and connect with what's missing, If I am
to come to life, and be ever more present, must I not meet the part of me
that acts yes, but whose action is not sourced in a sound feeling system but
rather in a wounded one? And so my actions like those of the many headed
mouse have become untrustworthy and unsound, and like the nutcracker, somehow
mechanical. Must I not remember the way I was hurt, the choices I made then
in an attempt to keep myself safe? Must I not say "no" to that old way of
acting a way that has meaning? Sometimes by choosing no longer to be defined
by the mouse, but often really by recognizing the wound that he is and being
willing release the distress associated with it, to dispel that king of mice
and transform the nutcracker into a prince?
Is this not what Clara does when she gives the Mouse king the boot, or in
this case the shoe? The mouse king disappears and the nutcracker becomes
real, rather than a parody of himself. He becomes a marvelous Prince and he
and Clara go off together to travel the path with heart and savour life's
unfolding. And is this not after all what living happily ever after is about?
Not that I necessarily have literally to be married, but more that my
thoughts and actions need to be sourced in a sound feeling system, they need
to have heart. What I do needs to be married to what I feel and these two
aspects need to be living happily together so that I can be taken like Clara
to the land of sweets, where its possible to experience the riches of
everyday life, and where I can feel I am living my own and right life.
This then is what the story of the Nutcracker has come to mean to me. When
the curtain rises yet again this Christmas I will not only be transported to
the realm of music, movement, memory and magic - that space between worlds
where transformation can and does happen - but I will also be reminded to
look for and see the places in me where I might still be wooden like that
nutcracker. Have I somehow become mechanical and disconnected from my heart
and from what I love? Are there places where I need to find and reconnect
with the magic and innocence of the child, as well as the wisdom of my
feelings? And if there are I may need to remember not be afraid of
encountering that seven headed mouse but rather to welcome him so that I can
give him shoe, should he rear his awful faces and try to stop me yet again.
Copyright © Nanna Aida Svendsen 2002