Tonight's Bedtime Story

I've finished my first summer intensive for my master's program at the Barfield School at Sunbridge College, and one of my pieces of homework is to write a paper about imagination. Specifically, "Describe an imaginative event that you have either experienced yourself or seen described." Oh yeah, and be able to tie in what William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Owen Barfield and Rudolf Steiner have to say about imagination as a cognitive faculty. So I've decided that I'm going to write about how I tell bedtime stories to my kids. Sometimes I retell what I can remember of fairytales, sometimes I wimp out and don't tell a story at all, and sometimes I come up with decent stories and now you get to read them!

Once upon a time there was a little boy and a little girl and they had a magic pot. They loved this magic pot very much. On the bottom of the pot was written a magic word. When they would read the magic word, and say it aloud, they could wish for any food or drink and it would appear in the pot. Not only would whatever they wished for appear, but it was always the best food or drink they could imagine. As the boy and the girl grew older, they sometimes argued about what kind of food or drink to wish for and these arguments grew more frequent and heated. They noticed that when they argued about what food to wish for, the pot took a bit longer to work, and the food or drink wasn’t quite as good.

One day, after a particularly bad argument, the pot stopped working. The little boy and little girl were very sad and brought the pot to their friend the elf who lived in the forest. The elf was very knowledgeable regarding magical things.

The elf brought the magic pot into his workshop, set it down on his workbench and looked it over very closely. He turned it over and read the magic word. He peered into the inside of the pot and very carefully cleaned it with a soft cloth.

“Hmm…” the elf said, and he wrote in his notebook. “Have you two been arguing about what to wish for?”

The little boy and the little girl looked at each other sadly and said, “Yes, we have.”

“Well,” the elf said, “I think that may be the problem. You see, the pot works best when you wish out of loving thoughts of your favorite food or drink. If you’re arguing about what to wish for, your thoughts about your favorite food or drink aren’t very loving. In fact, one of you doesn’t even want to have what you’re wishing for. The poor pot gets confused! I think that you’ve been arguing too much and the pot is just worn out from all of the confusion.”

The little boy and little girl were very sad, for they knew that this was exactly what had happened. “Can we help the pot feel better?” asked the little girl.

“What is your most loving thought?” asked the elf. The little girl looked at her brother and thought of all the times he helped her, all of the fun that they had playing together and how much she loved him. “ I love my brother!” she said.

“What is your most loving thought?” the elf asked the little boy. The boy thought immediately of his mother, who was always there to hug him and kiss him when he was sad. She also worked very hard to take care of the little boy and make sure that he always had a clean, safe house to come home to. “I love my mother!” said the little boy.

“Ahh…” said the elf, “These are both very good, strong loving thoughts. You two hold those loving thoughts, and I’ll say the pot’s magic word, but we won’t wish for anything! I think that will help the pot!”

So the little girl thought of how much she loved her brother, and the little boy thought of how much he loved his mother and the elf picked up the pot, read the magic word and then spoke it aloud. He turned the pot over and the little boy and the little girl were amazed to see a faint glow coming from inside the pot! The glow grew stronger, until it was as bright as a candle. The glow grew even stronger, until it was as bright as a fire in the fireplace. The glow grew even stronger, until it was as bright as the full moon. The glow grew even stronger until it was brighter than the noon day sun, but only for a moment, and then it stopped. When the little boy and the little girl looked at the pot now, they both thought that it looked like it was brand new!

“Is the pot better now?” the little boy asked.

“I think so.” the elf replied, “I’m quite thirsty. Should we ask the pot for some water?” The little boy and the little girl nodded quickly as they were quite thirsty as well.

The little boy picked up the pot, turned it over, read the magic word and then said it aloud. He was very happy to see that when he turned over the pot, it was full of water! And what water it was! No one has ever tasted more refreshing water and probably no one ever will.