What are our lives but a collection of stories.  Like books amongst the shelves of a vast library, they grip us with their tales of excitement, bravery, friendship and happiness.  In some chapters we shed tears of heartache, pain, grief and sorrow, and yet in others we hold our breath in anticipation through acts of betrayal, grand failures and even perilous danger.  The stories we tell ourselves colour our perception of the world and through them we create our identities and a sense of self.  The Amber Owl, by Juliet Marillier is a tale about such stories, and the power they hold to bring hope to the broken, strength to the defeated, and light to the very darkest corners of our world.

This tale centres around a young woman named Staysa, raised by her grandmother on the edge of the mysterious Heartwood Forest, and possessing the rare gift of communication with animals.  Her grandmother, a wise storyteller, mystic and passionate carer of the forest, hands these traits down to her granddaughter.  After her passing, Staysa lives alone on the edge of the village, practicing these gifts and spending her time wandering within and caring for the forest and its inhabitants.  The villagers find her odd, save for the goat herder, Lukas, who is a childhood friend.  Staysa’s most faithful companion, however, is her little dog Flip, who has the secret ability of being able to shape shift into a bird. 

Staysa’s world is turned upside down when a group of outsiders descend upon the village.  Under the orders of the ruler, Queen Elisabeta, they are to attempt to cut a path through the forest in search of treasure rumoured to be hidden in a location known as the Hermit.  When the village folk resist, the Queen’s Commander, a barbaric and power-hungry man, resorts to force and torture.  The villagers are put to work, and slowly the morale and spirit of the village is stripped away.

Staysa comes to the attention of the Commander when she uses her powers to calm one of their distressed horses, and speaks out against him after a fire kills and injures some of the villagers.  The Queen’s senior adviser, a man by the name of Aleksis, quickly whisks Staysa away from the Commander’s grasp and back to the Queen’s holdings at Dragon’s Keep along with Lukas, who has been seriously injured in the fire.  The Queen has heard of Staysa’s curious abilities and seeks her assistance  to recover the treasure by leading a party of her men through the dangers of the forest to the Hermit.  When Staysa refuses to cooperate, the Queen locks her away and threatens to punish those she loves. 

On the evening before Lukas is to be whipped for Staysa’s disobedience, Aleksis breaks both her and Lukas out, and along with the assistance of his loyal men, they flee Dragon’s Keep.  Aleksis has betrayed the Queen and himself seeks to reach the Hermit for reasons unknown to Staysa, but which he ensures her are honourable.  He and his men have been kind to her and Lukas, although they still remain suspicious of his motivations and trustworthiness.  Aleksis asks Staysa to lead him and his men to the Hermit and, unable to return to the village, she reluctantly agrees.  The party boldly set out on a quest to reach the Hermit before the Queen’s men do.

This is the classic story of good versus evil, wrong versus right.  When seen through the lens of A Course in Miracles, it can be seen as the choice between the wrong-mindedness of the ego, and the right-mindedness of the Holy Spirit.  The ego mind in us, represented by the Queen, is the part of our mind that is ever hungry for power, specialness and the idols of the world.  The Holy Spirit, as symbolised by Aleksis, is the other part of our mind – the ‘renegade’ that turns away from all the world tells him is valuable and seeks the light and truth in its place.  Just as Staysa and Aleksis must attempt to safely lead the party on their journey into the forest, so too, are we as students of A Course in Miracles, on our own journey – an inner quest for light and truth, with the Holy Spirit as our guide.

The Holy Spirit takes you gently by the hand, and retraces with you your mad journey outside yourself, leading you gently back to the truth and safety within (T-18.I.8:3).

The treasure the Queen seeks is quite apart from that sought for by Aleksis, just as at the heart of our own quest lie two very different treasures.  The ego seeks only the treasures the world deems worthy – specialness, illusions, and individuality.  The Holy Spirit sees no worth at all in these things, valuing only the inner jewels of peace, unity, and wholeness.  His are not the treasures of the world, but those of Heaven.  Along our path we may sometimes find ourselves following along in the Queen’s party, seeking out the ego’s bounty.  Yet other times we find ourselves walking with Aleksis and Staysa, once again guided by the Holy Spirit.  Which party we ultimately choose to join, is up to us.

Everyone defends his treasure, and will do so automatically. The real questions are, what do you treasure, and how much do you treasure it? (T-2.II.3:4-5).

As the journey progresses, Staysa uses her abilities to guide them further and further into the forest.  Visioning and trusting in inner guidance and intuition are considered black magic in her world, amounting to accusations of witchcraft and risking the penalty of death.  As the extent of her gifts are gradually revealed to her companions, rather than condemning her actions, the others come to appreciate and respect her unique talents, seeing her as a vital and valuable part of the team.  They even accept and admire her little companion, Flip, who now willingly and readily changes between bird and dog in their company. 

Our society, like Staysa’s, predominantly teaches us to seek approval and value from outside of us – in achieving, being and doing in the world, and living up to the standards that it dictates for us.  But as Course students, part of our journey is to learn to turn away from these outer demands and instead place our value where our treasure really lies – within us.   Like Staysa, as we go within, we begin to trust less in the outer world in favour of our inner wisdom.  We learn to lay our own judgements aside and listen increasingly to our inner teacher, gaining humility through accepting that we ourselves do not know.  This isn’t always easy, and the world tries many times to lure us back into its ways and old ego patterns.  As Staysa learns to work as a team, trusting in those she once doubted, we also learn to work with and trust in the Holy Spirit, rather than thinking we need to do it all on our own.  Indeed, one of our very biggest lessons is that it is impossible to do anything on our own, since we never really are alone.

This course is a beginning, not an end. Your Friend goes with you. You are not alone (W-ep.1:1-3).

As the quest continues, the comrades learn more about each other and grow to become friends.  They begin to see their commonalities, while still honouring and respecting each other’s unique quirks and talents.  Staysa frequently tells them stories, winding each of them in as their own character and using these tales to give them heart on their journey.  Aleksis, moved by her powerful stories, is inspired to share his own sad tale in which he was adviser to a great King.  When this King died and the new ruler came in, she brought pain and misery to the lands.  And so, the adviser decides to seek out the true heir to the throne – a childhood friend, son to the King, who was lost in a mysterious forest as a child.  Tales had reached his ears of magical forest folk who had found a boy wandering lost and raised him as their own.  And so began the adviser’s quest.  The treasure?  To bring the true heir home and restore light the darkened Kingdom.

The men are uplifted by the stories, using them as motivation to push through the difficulties and remain fixed on the goal – the light at the end.  The Holy Spirit is our Staysa – our storyteller.  He sees the stories that we tell ourselves – ones made of nightmares, separation and illusion that only lead us further into fantasy.  And so, he tells us different stories – those of happiness, peace and unity.  Stories that lead us away from our illusions, and back to the truth within us.  Like Staysa’s stories uplift the men, so too do the Holy Spirit’s happier dreams encourage us to keep going, to keep continuing to open our eyes to the light, so we too may come one day to the end of our quest.

Rest in the Holy Spirit, and allow His gentle dreams to take the place of those you dreamed in terror and in fear of death.  He brings forgiving dreams, in which the choice is not who is the murderer and who shall be the victim.  In the dreams He brings there is no murder and there is no death.  The dream of guilt is fading from your sight, although your eyes are closed.  A smile has come to lighten up your sleeping face.  The sleep is peaceful now, for these are happy dreams ( T-27.VII.14:3-8).

 In the final stretch of their journey, Aleksis and the party are confronted by the Commander and his men, who have been sent by the Queen to hunt them down.  A fight ensues.  Vastly outnumbered, Staysa calls on the forest wolves to come to their aid, and with the help of the mysterious forest folk who appear in the heat of battle, the Commander and his men are killed.  Their own party has not come out unscathed however, with the deaths of one of their friends, along with the leader of the wolf pack. 

This is how it can feel when we are journeying through our own process of awakening to the stories we have told ourselves and learning to choose for the light within.  It can feel as if we are in an intense battle, that there are two sides raging within us and we are constantly going back and forth between the two, deciding whose side it is we are on.

Your mind is dividing its allegiance between two kingdoms, and you are totally committed to neither (T-7.VI.9:1).   

Sometimes it feels like we suffer casualties.  Often this comes in the form of giving up the things of the world, but by far the biggest death is the relinquishment of the main character in our story – the person that we believe we are.  The ego in us wants to cling to this identity that we have built up so carefully and hold so dearly.  But when we are ready, when our willingness is sufficiently strong and we are determined to succeed in our quest, this is when reinforcements often arrive to guide us on our way.  Like the forest people and the wolves that appear when the need is greatest, so too do we often find that helpers arrive – teachers, companions, friends – giving us heart in the knowledge that we do not bear our burden alone.

Look at the helpers all along the way you travel, happy in the certainty of Heaven and the surety of peace (C-2.7:5).

The forest folk lead Aleksis’ party on to the final part of their journey.  When they arrive at the Hermit, the wise woman, Mother Rowan is waiting, and with her the true King – the lost boy, now a grown man.  The first part of their quest is over, and the treasure has been found.  Now they must rest before they go on with the next part of their task– to bring the King home and restore the Kingdom.  So too, do we need moments of rest on our own inner quest, to gather our strength before we go on again, and to appreciate and integrate how far it is that we have already come.  Our journey is a process with many stages, and we learn to honour each step along the way, having the grace to allow our path to unfold without trying to force it.

The teacher of God needs this period of respite.  He has not yet come as far as he thinks.  Yet when he is ready to go on, he goes with mighty companions beside him.  Now he rests a while, and gathers them before going on.  He will not go on from here alone (M-4.I-A.6:9-13).

Staysa has done what was requested of her and now has a decision to make.  Her inner guidance shows her three paths that lay before her.  The vision doesn’t show her which path to take, rather she has to go within, feel what is right for her, and trust her inner guide to lead the way.  Likewise, we need to do the same with our own paths.  Many roads may be presented for us, and it can be all too easy to choose the ego’s road of material comforts, specialness, and worldly desires.  But if we go within and listen, our inner guide will always point us in the direction that is for our best and highest good.  Whether or not we listen, is up to us.  Sometimes these inner paths may seem to make no sense, and to the world it will seem that we are crazy.  But as our trust grows and we see the results of following that inner guidance, we come to know that our faith in our inner teacher is always justified.

Offer your faith to Me, and I will place it gently in the holy place where it belongs (T-14.II.3:7).

Staysa chooses to go on with Aleksis’ party and work towards the greater goal, rather than taking the easiest and most tempting path.  Lukas decides to return to the village, and so the once dependable friends must now part ways, and a new fork appears in all their lives.  What is there left to do but trust?  So ends the first book in the series.  Like our own stories, it appears that we have not yet reached the end of this tale we find ourselves in, although in reality, the story is already written, and the ending secure – A story is still but a story, after all.

Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, but no one calls them true. Children may believe them, and so, for a while, the tales are true for them. Yet when reality dawns, the fantasies are gone. Reality has not gone in the meanwhile (T-9.IV.11:6-9).