The Making of 'Cinderella and One Headlight'

In most fairytales and fables, the characters represent parts of our psyches that we share across the collective unconscious. I think Cinderella as an amazingly spiritual archetype. She embodies the essence of the pure heart...

Cinderella has the essence of the Holy Spirit within her. All of her actions come from a place of love and healing as she has a profound awareness of truth and faith. This is the secret as to how and why miracles come into her life within this story. She is an example of maintaining a closeness with God, with Love, no matter the circumstances.

It’s hard to be a Cinderella “in this world of ugliness and greed,” as the lyrics by Jakob Dylan describe. My interpretation of this beautifully sad and poetic song by The Wallflowers is a metaphoric illustration of what life is like without that closeness with God.

The song starts off at the cemetery. He’s remembering his friend, his Cinderella - a symbol of optimism and love - who died long ago of “a broken heart disease.”

I think the shadow side of the Cinderella archetype believes too much in the physical world, this temporal world, where you can “try a little” and “nothing is forever” and where you always end up somewhere “in the middle” - living a sort of liminal existence that feels comfortable, familiar, orderly, structured, but ultimately unfulfilling. Because to only know this physical world without the spiritual is like driving a car with one headlight. Only half of the road is illuminated. The spiritual path is unseen.

And the true essence of the Cinderella archetype is to feel love and faith against all odds - no matter the ugliness and greed - to let go and completely free fall into the arms of God. Free falling into God doesn’t look rational or logical. It doesn’t conform to the ways of the physical world. It rebels against the constructs in order to build faith. In God’s world of love and healing - the everlasting spiritual side of existence - all things are ever-changing, always surprising, incalculable, and moving in blind faith. So it is the only place where miracles actually happen.

“Do not conform to the patterns of this world. Instead be transformed by the renewing of your mind” - Romans 12:2

Love, Käla

In Jesus’ name. Amen.