The Beastly and the Beautiful Part 5: Les Belles Âmes

Continued from Part 4: The Belle Enfant

Children are often esteemed for their innocence, their tender expressions of love and devotion, their humor and precocious insight. But what they need are adults that are healthy and expressing their needs, finding answers, and inspiring children to want to grow up. As we age, we become acquainted with others and all of their immaturity. We can't remain innocent, and even if we tried to, that would just leave us in bewilderment.

Discovering ourselves and our creativity is a process of experience, which includes a knowledge of good and not good. When Belle and the Beast are confronted with each other as children (regardless of age), they are confronting the parts of themselves they have been refusing to acknowledge up until that point. Both of them are imprisoned, feeling powerless, and act out only in moments of desperation.

To see how things turn around for each of them, recall the pivotal actions in the story, where each are behaving at their worst. The beast has lost control and cast away the very person that he has been hoping and waiting for. Belle is offended and breaks off the agreement to stay. As Belle is prone to do, she leaves the castle in a huff, because the Beast is upset with her. But she hasn't yet met up with the wolves that live in the forest, the ones who care nothing for her except for how good she will taste. The Beast has a need for her, too, but he isn't a predator. It is good that he is moved to anger against the wolves, to protect what is valuable to him, even when it brings him harm.

Although it would be in Belle's best self-interest, and that of her father's, to use her chance to escape, she discovers that she can, in fact, choose what she is about to do. She isn't acting in a crisis this time. She gives herself a moment to collect herself, rather than just jumping ahead, and then she decides calmly. She doesn't yet know she is choosing to tend to herself, but the practice is a good one.

The Beast needs to be healed from the times he moves out of his comfort "realm" to take care of others. But what he needs in order to be healed doesn't come as an analgesic. The medicine carries a sting with its heat. The more he moves to avoid it, the more it hurts. Licking his wounds isn't going to help for long, unless he ends up spending all of his energy doing that. Belle is getting good practice at standing up to someone who wants to be left alone. She is accustomed to being alone and so, identifies correctly that this is not the time for him to be neglected. She is advocating for the child in them, making both of them submit to what is going to heal them.

This is also a choice she has, a purpose, which is how she finds her courage. The Beast has a moral imperative to save the castle from the curse. Belle has a moral imperative to care for her father. But caring for the Beast, by contrast, is neither expected nor requested. When the other servants in the castle see her disheveled and willful, they are encouraged. There is nothing of the Bel Enfant here-- she isn't obedient and dutiful and undemanding-- just as there is nothing of the Enfant Terrible in the Princely Beast who fights off the wolves. They have come to a painful and clumsy truce in this choice to accept the other. 

The rest of the tale is in their delight with having discovered each other, and their creativity flourishes. The Beast emboldens Belle with strength and generosity. Belle gentles but does not tame the Beast as he begins to see how things could be. He stops caring so much about what no longer matters-- his form. They both begin to value what is around them, and how it can be presented to the other with affection and hope. They still have the undeveloped children inside of them, but the children are no longer consuming all of their energy.

When we see their cooperation, we get a better picture of why it is good to have these two in us, and how they foster our creativity, how they let us know when we have neglected ourselves and our creative expression for too long.  They will sound lost and cry "where?". They will roar and yell, "that hurts!". As they begin to pay more loving attention to the aspects of themselves that are listed in Part 3 and Part 4, they will begin to show aspects of La Belle and Le Beau. The Beast will be a true Master because he has committed to mastering himself, and Belle will find that her life as a living being is beautiful regardless of where she lives it. The conditions that each have put upon love for their own lives has been lifted.

"…in his soft and tender way, she could hardly find it in her heart to refuse him. 'Be of good heart, Beauty will soon return.'"

As these conditions are removed the two will: 

Lose self-consciousness and become more aware of who they are as a whole person, and how they stand in relation to others. Belle has made a powerful first step toward this by no longer shying away from the village, but taking her place against its baser instincts to fear and harm. At the resolution she will take her place as a Princess, as one of its leaders. Her mind, creativity and devotion should not be wasted. To discover and carry out her purposes from this new place and position will be her ongoing challenge.

Rise to challenges based on love and not fear. They do this by bringing meaning and honor to themselves and the lives of others, because they have their wits about them and they know the value of their place. The beast has not known his place within his kingdom, which includes the village, but only knows it within his castle, where all are likewise condemned. He has not been able to lead from this isolation, and without the right view of himself, he falls into despond in the garden, "senseless", convinced he is not lovable nor worthy to lead, and that his time has run out. As a prince, he needs to know, and not merely hope, that there is much he has to offer from his unique perspective and powerful position, and not just what there is in his coffers. 

Be at peace with struggle and hardship, because the contention is no longer with the self, but with the effort of defense, recovery, growth and progress. There is less time and energy spent in states of inner conflict and turmoil. More time is spent in strengthening resolve and gathering resources. The doubts of "why bother?" "what's it all for?" "why should I try when no one cares?" still make themselves heard but less often and less vociferously.

Discover that 0thers desire their success and contribute to it. As mature, creative adults, the servants and the villagers will be happy and proud to serve them. It doesn't matter what these grown children look like, or where the castle is. All that matters is the recognition of the needs. As we come into our own creativity, it is heartening and vitalizing to be recipients of generosity from other mature, creative adults. They are happy and proud to help us. They don't need to be under any obligation to do it. They simply want to and choose to.

Be recognized as beautiful souls. They are no longer mistaken for caricatures or striving children. When they begin to relate to and care for the other one, then they are transforming into these beautiful souls, "les Belles Ames"; male or female, that bring joy, delight and honesty into the world as they move through it. When we begin to relate to the parts of us that we have relegated to the "children's table", bring them back to us and give them a place, then we will find ourselves having more to bring to the table in our work. These enfants don't want to engage in contrived activities that dress up work as "fun" so that it's bearable. They want to be engaged with the world, where the fun sometimes shows up as part of playing hard by mastering imagination and skill.

None of the very real moral imperatives, the threats, the obstacles or the catastrophes have magically disappeared. The wolf is always at the door. But these cares are no longer experienced in isolation, and are no longer a waste of time or resources at the expense of everything else.

None of this growth or transformation can be rushed, by denying or refusing the needs of les enfants. Living out tangible joys is not possible year after year without an acceptance that pain will be part of the healing, like a steaming cloth on a wound. Finding the clarity of purpose comes with the realization that all of this is so enormously difficult that we will never stop needing these stories to help us find our way through the woods. That is why they are ageless, and as their wisdom becomes a part of us, we become ageless in turn, regardless of the form we take.