Sharon Blackie for Ripening: Why Women Need Fairy Tales Now
Monday 28th September, 7pm
Pilrig St. Paul's / LARCH, Leith Walk, Edinburgh EH6 5AH
6.30pm
7pm
'Ripening shows us how we can move through life with vision and sensitivity. A fascinating, thought-provoking and authoritative read' Katherine May, author of Wintering and Enchantment
DR SHARON BLACKIE is the award-winning and internationally bestselling author of If Women Rose Rooted, and a psychologist with a background in mythology and folklore. Her work is focused on reimagining women's stories, and on the relevance of myths and fairy tales to the personal, cultural and environmental issues we face today.
Sharon is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an Honorary Member of the UK Association of Jungian Analysts, and has taught and lectured at many academic institutions, Jungian organisations, retreat centres and cultural festivals around the world.
Ripening is a life-changing new book on the power and relevance of fairy tales, and their heroines, to help us thrive in these challenging times
'Fairy tales matter because at the heart of every one of them is transformation.'
In a world in which all the old certainties seem to be crumbling, it's hard not to feel we have lost our way. In Ripening, Sharon Blackie insists that fairy tales are precisely the stories we need for such times.
Long before they became bywords for people-pleasing princesses, these old stories - passed down to us through generations by our peasant ancestors - told us everything that women need to learn about the world. They might be set in difficult and dangerous times, but they require their heroines to face the unfaceable and dig deep for previously unimagined inner resources. They teach us to be savvy, inspire us to grow in confidence, show us how to be bold and claim the future we dream of.
More than anything, fairy tales are soul-food. They show us how to take hold of our own personal narratives and transform them into stories that might begin with trauma, but end with empowerment. They offer us images of startling resonance and beauty, while showing us how to recognise and make use of the possibilities that rise to the surface when broken systems are cracked open.