“And the truth is that as a person’s true power grows and their knowledge expands, the path before them grows narrower. In the end, they begin to do only and entirely what must be done, without choosing.”
Ursula Le Guin, Earthsea, p. 64
These are the words spoken by the Master Summoner to Ged, the main character of this extraordinary book. For me, they mean a great deal. I interpret them in the same way Abraham Lincoln once responded to an opponent: “Sir, what matters to me is not whether God is on my side; what matters most is that I am on God’s side, because God is always right.”
When we finally choose to stand on the side of Existence and to affirm all the forms in which Spirit manifests, our inner conflicts and dissatisfaction fall away. Then we can move forward, doing what must be done.
The development of personal power and the surrender of that power to the power of Life, wisdom, and the attainment of inner wholeness—along with many other essential themes—are explored in the beautiful book by Ursula Le Guin, Earthsea. Its genre is fantasy, and many people would call it a fairy tale, but for me it is pure archetypal psychology. If you manage to recognize in its stories the symbols of your own inner development, this is a book that can nourish your spiritual needs in a very beautiful way—the way only communion with myth can.
The book speaks of the primordial language spoken only by dragons— from whom humans once came—and also known to magicians, who later learn to discover the true names of things. For some, this may be just another story about dragons, wizards, and humans. But for others, it is a book written in the language of dragons—the most instinctual and innermost part of us, the realm of archetypes. I belong to the latter.
I recommend this book to you—even if you are not a fan of fantasy, but are a lover of the power of myth and the knowledge it carries.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
