Ancient Stories: One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes

In this episode of the Navigating An Ancient Faith podcast, we continue our Ancient Stories series with the magical tale of "One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes." 👁️👁️👁️ Join us as we explore the deeper symbolism behind this strange fairy tale — from the power of perspective and the pain of exclusion to the wisdom of a mystical goat 🐐 and a mysterious old woman 🧙‍♀️. With mythic insight and modern parallels, we unpack how this story still speaks to the heart today.

-----------------------------

Read 📖 the article, The Wisdom of Ancient Stories

-----------------------------

Visit our website: Navigating An Ancient Faith

Sign up for our Newsletter

Email us at info@navigatinganancientfaith.com

Visit our Fanlist page for questions, comments, or to support the show.

Discuss on our Facebook Group

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Overview
• 16:21 One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes
• 37:12 Family Dynamics and Symbolism of the Eyes
• 45:01 The Significance of the Goat
• 48:15 Wisdom and The Role of the Wise Woman
• 1:15:51 The Goat's Sacrifice and the Wise Woman's Advice
• 1:20:26 The Elusive Golden Apple
• 1:30:30 The Sisters' Downfall and Redemption
• 1:36:20 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Topics

Transcript

One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes

JR: [00:00:00] Yeah. The eye of Saron.

David: Anyway. Hey, there's another one. The eye of Sauron. A single eye.

JR: Yeah. How did we not pick up on that connection? Yeah, it's a single eye of Sauron. That's exactly what that is though. Yeah, that's right. 

David: Yeah, that's that, it's the cyclops. It's the one eye can only see one way viewing the world. Wow. 

Okay, so I gotta ask are you feeling better now? Sounds like it.

JR: Yeah. I 

listened to when we edited the last episode, I was like, man, my voice is low and I wish it were cool. 'cause sometimes you get sick and your voice is kind of, you have the radio voice 'cause it drops in octave. No, mine wasn't even cool. It was just kind of a annoyingly scratchy and low and

David: Yeah. You were a trooper So we recorded last episode Little Red Riding Hood in the same room. And you were sick, you had the flu. We stayed about 8 feet apart, but yeah, you were a trooper. You powered through it. I did notice in the audio and I don't think it came out in the final product, but I did [00:01:00] notice that your voice was giving out. So yeah. Glad you're feeling better.

JR: Yeah. I think we had plans to do a couple episodes and after the first one, you know, my voice is screeching and I was like, yeah, I don't think my voice can hold up for another episode. So, as normal, we have big intentions of knocking out four or five episodes and we got done one.

So, <Yeah, that's right.> but it was a fun one. 

David: It was, yeah. I enjoyed it. And I'm going to enjoy today's fairytale as well. 'cause we are going to look at the fairytale of One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes. That's the name of it.

JR: That's right. Yeah. Pretty self-explanatory, you know, as far as the characters that we're gonna have, it's funny because there's no names, it's literally about three people. One of 'em is called One Eye, one of 'em is called Two Eyes and one's called Three Eyes. So, doesn't leave much of the imagination, but yeah, this is a great one, man. I really enjoyed it.

David: Yeah, I have to say, I really think it's almost one of my favorites the more I read it, and I've read it a couple more times in preparation. [00:02:00] I went from my run this morning, I read the fairytale again and went from my run, hoping for inspiration. But I really do think it's one of my favorite ones, but I'll probably say that on all of them. So, anyway,

JR: Yeah, maybe. No, this is one where the symbolism, it's kind of a good one to start out with. As far as a fairytale that nobody has heard of. Probably most people haven't heard this one, but it's really kind of a what Symbolism 101. It's pretty straightforward. There's a surface level way you can read it , but then you can kind of get into the depth of it.

And also a lot of elements in this fairytale that you see in lots of fairytales. And so of course we'll get into talking about that here in a little bit. But yeah, that kind of simple symbolism, it's a good one to start with.

David: Yeah, it's a good one to start out with because I think the symbolism for a lot of people are gonna be pretty obvious as you listen to the story. But first, let's talk a little bit more about symbolic thinking. Because you and I have kind of immersed ourselves in this over the last couple [00:03:00] of years. But if you haven't been introduced to it, there's probably a tendency to go, man, are these guys just making this stuff up? Like, does just this sound cool to them? And so they're just kind of interjecting their own big picture thoughts into what a kid's story, right? A children's story. And that's not what we're doing here. That's not what we're doing. It really is this idea of symbolic thinking. But we talked a little bit about this last episode before we started Little Red Riding Hood, and I wanna talk just a little bit more about it. Why does symbolic thinking hold true? And the answer is because there are predictable patterns that exist in the world, right? 

If you believe in truth, if you believe that patterns the world around you, in relationships, in nature, then symbolic thinking actually recognizes those patterns and pulls out the deeper meaning, right?

I don't know if that makes sense, but it's kinda like the laws of science.  

I heard someone on a YouTube [00:04:00] video, I dunno, like two months ago I saw this video caught my eye and it said, scientists have actually identified a new pattern. And I thought, oh, well that's interesting. And what they're talking about a pattern in nature is, I think it was in a leaf or something that, you know, we have patterns like circles, squares, triangles, you can piece these things together to make something much larger,right? That's kind of what do in nature. And so they had discovered this new pattern and when you first looked at it, it didn't look like anything that would be a pattern, but they pieced it together and showed that this is a repeatable thing in maybe the structure of a leaf, a certain type of leaf.

I can't exactly remember it. But their conclusion was, no, this is a brand new pattern. And they found it in a couple of different things, and so they added it to their catalog of patterns, I guess. Who knew?

JR: Okay. Yeah, I didn't realize, well, I knew about the golden ratio, what is the nautilus shape that kind of, the, the swirl that [00:05:00] goes in on itself, right? And that's like in everything from galaxies to seashells, it's in all kinds of different things in nature.

But yeah, that predictable pattern that you see play out in seemingly unrelated things, like galaxies , and leaves or shells or something like that. Those don't seem to be connected in any way, but there's this same pattern that emerges in it.

And so kind of this way of understanding symbolic thinking is tapping into the patterns that we kind of all intuitively understand and realize that shape our world. But I just don't think we're used to looking for them like the ancients did. And maybe it's because we're inundated with so much entertainment whether it be books or movies or, you know, social media, whatever.

I don't know if we just have so much that we don't have time to look at the patterns or think about the patterns, but kind of what we're doing is, you take a simple story that appears [00:06:00] one way but then there's these strange elements, like, okay, let's dig into this and figure out what the author, what the story is trying to tell us, and yeah, pull out these patterns and see if they hold true in other stories, right? You know, because that's how we know we're on the right track is because we'll pick out an idea of something and say, well, does this hold true in other stories? And you find out that it does, know, and we'll talk about a couple of those elements today.

David: Yeah, right. And when you find that, so you can conclude that, okay, this is a repeatable pattern. Just like if you were studying, you know, patterns somewhere in nature, it's like, okay, this is repeating so there's an intentionality behind this. This is a predictable thing that's going to happen. And so I was actually reading this other book, I enjoy when all these things come together, but I was reading this other book that the author was giving his own interpretation of the book of Romans. And Romans 1:20 is a verse that probably a lot of people know or would recognize, but [00:07:00] the way the author put his translation, it really jumped out at me.

So I'm just gonna read Romans 1:20 here real quick. "Even though God is invisible, from the time when he created the world, it has shown his character, His immortal power and divinity are shown in the things that he made. So they have no excuse." 

Okay. So this verse is typically used to talk about how God should be obvious to people who even haven't heard the gospel, right? 

JR: Yeah. I've heard this verse used about what? About the tribe on the island that has been unreached, that has never heard the gospel. You know, and this is the verse you go to. It's like, well, there are things in the world that point to God. Now, you may not know the story of Jesus and the specifics, but yeah. The world seems to point to a creator, right? And so this verse is laying that out.

David: The aspect of it that jumped out at me this time, and maybe 'cause we're studying for fairy tales right now, [00:08:00] is the wording that said "from the time when he created the world, the world has shown his character and his power and divinity are shown in the things that he made and created so that they are obvious to people." I thought, man, that's a good description of symbolic thinking right there. That what this is actually saying the respect that we're talking about is there are predictable ways that the world operates, right?

And once you see those predictable ways, that's a pattern, right? And symbols come to represent those patterns, I guess is what I'm saying. So, I don't know, it just helped me to understand a little bit more clearly, like, yes, there's truth, that truth is built into creation, right? There's purpose built into creation. There are patterns built into creation, and therefore when you learn to spot those patterns, you understand, the way I've heard it before is you understand the nature of reality when [00:09:00] you learn spot these patterns, Right. And it's why we talk, you know, like you can't just make up your own reality, 

JR: <Right.> 

David: doesn't work.

JR: Right.

David: I thought that was an interesting verse in light of what we're talking about, of why patterns are obvious and why you can pick them out.

JR: Well, I think, I've read that verse before and I've always sort of thought. Well, okay. It's like you see a rainbow and you're thinking, oh wow, that's so beautiful. There must be a God. Right? But I think, to your point, it's a little bit deeper than that. It's that there are rhythms and patterns that are repeatable and predictable.

And so therefore, there has to be something a creator behind that. There has to be a pattern giver. Life isn't random, you know? The world is not random. And so when you see these patterns everywhere, they are meant to evoke a response in anybody that looks at it and says, I wonder why. I wonder why the Nautilus shape.

I wonder why I see this pattern [00:10:00] everywhere. I wonder why something as simple as the sun rising in the moon, going through its phases. I wonder why there's all these patterns to everything, and that's meant to evoke the idea of a greater something behind it.

David: Yeah. A greater something behind it. Intentionality, repeatability, all those things are built in to symbolism.

JR: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

David: And one more thing I'll say on this, is it's also why things are repeatable in we've talked about myths. We've talked about parables. We talked about stories in the Bible, we're talking about fairytales right now, ancient stories, but it's why things are repeatable, really whether or not the author even intended it to be. Because if the author

JR: Yeah.

David: is landing on truth; if the author is landing on a pattern. 'cause I've heard people also say, are you telling me the author meant that, you know, you're telling me the author meant all of those things when they said that so and so [00:11:00] climbed the mountain. And it's like, no, they don't even have to mean that. But they're picking up on a pattern that has so much more meaning to it. Right?

JR: Right. Yeah. So you take something simple like the hero's journey that you know, that everybody sort of understands in movies. And, and when you have that pattern and then you build a specific story around the pattern of the hero's journey, then the specifics can mean different things to different people, right?

 And so that's when people dive in and, you know, you see this in movie critiques, in message boards about song lyrics, about, you know, lots. You just see it in on TV shows and you see people kind of make these comments and yeah, a lot of 'em are really, really insightful. And you're thinking, man, I wonder if the director meant to do that.

Or sometimes it surprises the director when you have these con conversations, or at least I hear different conversations with directors and the director is almost like, well, I [00:12:00] didn't intend that. But you're right, it's captured in the pattern, right? Because you're tapping into a very, very fundamental reality and predictable rhythm to the world.

And since we're tapping into that that yeah, it just emerges kind of on its own.

David: Yeah, and when you stray from those patterns, say like the Hero's journey, then it doesn't ring real true. It's a note in a song, right? You just go, Yeah, that didn't hit right. I was thinking about this, this morning, if you did a hero's journey where, you know, the hero ran away from challenge and they found him in a cave, and made him king and he ruled his kingdom justly. It's like, man, that doesn't hit right. Right? He didn't do anything 

JR: No, I like how you said that, that it's, it's like hitting a bad note and you hear a singer miss a note and it's just cringey, right? It, you know, it's just like, oh gosh. , they miss that, you know, the what is it, the American [00:13:00] Idol outtakes or, you know, the ones that kicked off the show early.

 That's one of the most watched episodes of American Idol is 'cause everybody wants that cringe that, oh my gosh, this guy thinks he can sing and he's terrible. Right? And, and the same thing is true in movies and shows and things like that. When they miss it, they miss the note, you're like, it's cringey, you know? And just saying, oh, you know, what a miss. Right? Yeah. And it's because you're exactly right. it, I hadn't thought about it like hitting a musical note. That's a good way to think about it and put it. 

David: Yeah, and in American Idol we all wait for Simon go, "Who told you you could sing?" You know?

JR: Right.

David: But when we sit,

JR: Yeah. 

David: We experience the same thing in a TV show or a movie where you know, they get to the end and you just go, ah, who said that was a good way to end that movie? Right?

It just fell flat. And And that's why; that's why. And that's what we're trying tot do here with the Fairy Tale series. 

So thought I'd throw that out there. We'll do a little bit of this before every episode [00:14:00] just so people kind of know where we're coming from and hopefully get people in that mindset as they listen to the fairytales. Right?

JR: Yeah. Okay. So what do we got today then? Is there anything that we wanna point out before we read the fairytale? Because I don't wanna give a lot of stuff away, but at the same time I kind of want to give what hints on things to look for.

David: Yeah, this one I think is good because the moral of the story, without really delving into the deeper meaning that you and I'll delve into here, I think is fairly obvious. And so it's not gonna take a lot of work for people to go, oh, okay. I, I think I understand what the meaning of this fairytale is.

It's also a good one because I would say most people probably have not heard of it. One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes. I don't recall ever hearing this. So as you're listening to this fairytale, I just encourage people to really pause and listen to it. Right? And even stop at the end of it and back it up and listen to it again. Because I think [00:15:00] you'll get more out of it. If we start talking about things and you're like, oh, I was half paying attention. I don't know what they're talking about. You're not gonna get as much out of it. Right?

JR: Right. Yeah. And, like you said, I would just encourage people to listen to it and try to figure out what the story is telling you, right? So right off the bat One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes, so obviously this is gonna be a story about how we perceive or view the world, right? And so you're, you know, we're gonna have these three characters and we're gonna see how they view the world.

And so it sort of starts off simple like that, that, okay, this is how to perceive the world. And then we just sort of take it from there and listen to the story, trying to figure out what they're trying to tell you about the way we view the world.

David: Yeah, and tthe last thing I would say, and then we can jump into it,is we talked about this last time. Immediately you're gonna hear about these three sisters, One Eye, Two Eye, and Three Eyes. And immediately it's going to sound absurd. Well, if it sounds absurd,

JR: Sure.

David: they're doing it on purpose, right? [00:16:00] Because

to tell you something. And so,

JR: Yeah. They want it to be memorable and then also Yes. The absurdity is encouraging you to dig deeper.

David: Yeah, yeah. It tells you right off the bat that they are trying to tell you something deeper than just this person who has one eye.

JR: Right. Right.

David: Alright, so should we play it?

JR: Yeah. Let's go for it.

David: All right.  

Narrator: There once was a woman who had three daughters. The eldest of whom they called one eye because she had only one eye in the middle of her forehead. And the second two eyes, because she had two eyes, like other folks, and the youngest three eyes because she had three eyes, and her third eye was also in the center of her forehead.

However, as two eyes saw, just as other human beings did, her sisters and her mother could not endure her. They said to her, thou, thou two eyes are no better than the common people. Thou does not belong to us. [00:17:00] They pushed her about and threw old clothes at her and gave her nothing to eat, but what they left and did everything that they could to make her unhappy.

It came to pass that two eyes had to go out into the fields and tend the goat, but she was still quite hungry because her sisters had given her so little to eat. So she sat down by a ridge and began to weep, and so bitterly that two streams ran down from her eyes. And once when she looked up in her grief, a woman was standing beside her who said, why are thou weeping?

Little two eyes, two eyes answered. Have I not reasoned to weep when I have two eyes like other people and my sisters and mother hate me for it, and pushed me from one corner to another, throw old clothes at me and give me nothing to eat but the scraps they leave? Today, they have given me so little that I'm still quite hungry.

Then the wise woman said, wipe [00:18:00] away thy tears, two eyes, and I will tell thee something to stop the ever suffering from hunger again. Just say to thy goat, "Bleat, my little goat bleat. Cover the table with something to eat." And then a clean, well spread little table will stand before thee with the most delicious food upon it, of which thou mayst eat as much as thou art inclined for.

And when thou has to had enough and has no more need of the little table, just say, "Bleat, bleat my little goat, I pray. Take the table quite away." And then it will vanish again from thy sight. Hereon, the wise woman departed. But two eyes thought, I must instantly make a trial to see if what she said is true.

For, I'm far too hungry, and she said, "Bleat, my little goat bleat. Cover the table with something to eat." And [00:19:00] scarcely had she spoke at the words, than a little table covered with a white cloth was standing there. And on it was a plate with a knife and fork and a silver spoon and the most delicious food was there.

Also, warm and smoking as if it had just come out of the kitchen. Then two eyes said the shortest prayer she knew, "Lord God be with us always. Amen." And helped herself to some food and enjoyed it. And when she was satisfied, she said, as the wise woman had taught her, "Bleat, bleat, my little goat, I pray. Take the table quite away." And immediately the little table and everything on it was gone again. That is a delightful way of keeping house thought, two eyes and was quite glad and happy.

In the evening when she went home with her goat, she found a small earthenware dish with some food with her sisters [00:20:00] had set ready for her, but she did not touch it. Next day, she again went out with her goat and left the few bits of broken bread, which had been handed her lying untouched.

The first and second time she did this, her sisters did not remark at it at all, but as it happened every time they did observe it and said, there is something wrong about Two Eyes. She always leaves her food untasted and she used to eat up everything that was given her. She must have discovered other ways of getting food.

In order that they might learn the truth, they resolve to send one eye with two eyes when she went to drive her goat to the pasture to observe what two eyes did when she was there, and whether anyone brought her anything to eat or drink. So when two eyes set out the next time, one eye went to her and said, I will go with you to the pasture and see that the goat is well taken care [00:21:00] of and driven where there is food.

But two eyes knew what was in one eye's mind and drove the goat into high grass and said, come One Eye. We will sit down and I'll sing something to you. One eye sat down and was tired with the unaccustomed walk and the heat of the sun and two eyes sang constantly. One eye wakest thou, one eye sleepest thou until one eye shut her one eye and fell asleep. And as soon as two eyes saw that one eye was fast asleep and could discover nothing she said, " Bleat, my little goat bleat. Covered the table with something to eat." And seated herself at her table and ate and drank until she was satisfied and then she cried again, "Bleat, Bleat, my little goat, I pray. Take the table quite away." And in an instant, all [00:22:00] was gone. 

Two eyes now awakened one eye and said, "One Eye, you want to take care of the goat and go to sleep while you are doing it. And in the meantime, the goat might run all over the world. Come let us go home again." So they went home and again, two eyes, let her little dish stand untouched and one eye could not tell her mother why she would not eat it, and two excuse herself said, "I fell asleep when I was out."

The next day, the mother said to Three Eyes, "This time thou shalt go and observe if two eyes eats anything when she is out. And if anyone fetches her food and drink for she must eat and drink in secret." So three eyes went to two eyes and said, I will go with you and see that the goat is taken proper care of and driven where there is food. But two eyes knew what was in three eyes' mind, and drove the goat into high grass and [00:23:00] said, "We will sit down and I will sing something to you, Three Eyes." Three Eyes, sat down and was tired with the walk and with the heat of the sun, and Two Eyes began the same song as before. And saying, three eyes, are you waking? But then instead of singing three eyes, are you sleeping as she ought to have done, she thoughtlessly sang, "two eyes, are you sleeping?" And sang all the time, three eyes. Are you waking? Two eyes are you sleeping? Then two of the eyes, which three eyes had shut and fell asleep, but the third, as it had not been named in the song, did not sleep. It is true that three eyes shut it, but only in her cunning to pretend it was asleep too. But it blinked and could see everything very well.

And when Two eyes thought that [00:24:00] three eyes was fast asleep, she used her little charm, "Bleat, my little goat bleat. Cover the table with something to eat." And ate and drank as much as her heart desired, and then ordered the table to go away again. "Bleat, bleat, my little goat, I pray. Take the table quite away." And three eyes had seen everything.

Then two eyes came to her, waked her and said, have you been asleep, three eyes? You are a good caretaker. Come we will go home. And when they got home, two eyes again did not eat, and three eyes said to the mother, now I know why that high minded thing there does not eat. When she is out, she says to the goat, "Bleat, my little goat bleat, cover the table with something to eat."

And then a little table appears before her covered with the best of food, [00:25:00] much better than any we have here. And when she has eaten all she wants, she says, "Bleat, bleat, my little goat, I pray. Take the table quite away." And all disappears. I watched everything closely. She put two of my eyes to sleep by using a certain form of words, but luckily the one in my forehead kept awake.

Then the envious mother cried, "Does thou want to fare better than we do? The desire shall pass away." And she fetched a butcher's knife and thrusted into the heart of the goat, which fell down dead. When two eyes saw that she went out full of trouble, seated herself on the ridge of grass at the edge of the field and wept bitter tears.

Suddenly the wise woman once more stood by her side and said, "Two Eyes, why are thou weeping?" Have I not reasoned to weep? She answered. The goat, which covered the [00:26:00] table for me every day when I spoke your charm has been killed by my mother, and now I shall again have to bear hunger and want. 

The wise woman said, "Two Eyes, I will give thee a piece of good advice. Ask thy sisters to give thee the entrails of the slaughtered goat and bury them in the ground in front of the house and thy fortune will be made." Then she vanished and two eyes went home and said to her sisters, "Dear sisters, do give me some part of my goat. I don't wish for what is good, but give me the entrails."

Then they laughed and said, if that's all you want, you can have it. So two eyes took the entrails and buried them quietly in the evening in front of the house door as the wise woman had counseled her to do. Next morning when they all awoke and went to the house door, their stood a strangely magnificent tree [00:27:00] with leaves of silver and fruit of gold hanging among them so that in all the wide world, there was nothing more beautiful or precious.

They did not know how the tree could have come there during the night, but two eyes saw that it had grown up out of the entrails of the goat for it was standing on the exact spot where she had buried them. Then the mother said to one eye, climb up my child and gather some of the fruit of the tree for us.

One eye climbed up, but when she was about to get hold of one of the golden apples, the branch escaped from her hands. And that happened each time so that she could not pluck a single apple, let her do what she might. Then said the mother, three eyes do you climb up, you with your three eyes, can look about you better than one eye.

One eye slipped down and three eyes climbed up. Three eyes was not more skillful and might search as she liked, but the golden apples always escaped her. At length, the [00:28:00] mother grew impatient and climbed up herself, but could get hold of the fruit no better than one eye or three eyes for she always clutch empty air.

Then said two eyes, "I will just go up. Perhaps I may succeed better." The sisters cried, "You indeed with your two eyes, what can you do?" But two eyes climbed up. And the golden apples did get out of her way, but came into her hand of their own accord so that she could pluck them one after the other and brought a whole apron full down with her.

The mother took them away from her, and instead of treating poor two eyes any better for this, she and one eye and three eyes were only envious because two eyes alone had been able to get the fruit, and so they treated her still more cruelly.

It so be fell that once when they were all standing together by the tree, a knight came up. "Quick, two eyes," [00:29:00] cried the two sisters. "Creep under this and don't disgrace us." And with all speed they turned an empty barrel, which was standing close by the tree over poor two eyes and they pushed the golden apples, which she had been gathering under it with her. When the night came nearer, he was a handsome Lord who stopped and admired the magnificent gold and silver tree and said to the two sisters, "to whom does this fine tree belong? Anyone who would bestow one branch of it on me might in return ask for whatsoever he desired." Then one eye and three eyes replied that the tree belonged to them and that they would give him a branch. They both took great trouble, but they were not able to do it. For the branches and fruit both moved away from them every time.

Then said the knight, "it's very strange that the tree should belong to you and that you should still not be able to break a piece off." They again asserted that the tree was their [00:30:00] property. Whilst they were saying so, Two eyes rolled out a couple of golden apples from under the barrel to the feet of the knight, for she was vexed with one eye and three eyes for not speaking the truth. When the knight saw the apples, he was astonished and asked where they came from. One eye and three eyes answered that they had another sister who was not allowed to show herself. For she had only two eyes, like any common person. 

The knight, however desired to see her and cried, "two eyes come forth." Then two eyes, quite comforted, came from beneath the barrel and the Knight was surprised at her great beauty and said, "thou two eyes can certainly break off a branch from the tree for me." "Yes," replied two eyes "that I certainly shall be able to do, for the tree belongs to me." As she climbed up and with the greatest ease, broke off a branch with beautiful silver leaves and golden [00:31:00] fruit, and gave it to the knight. Then said the knight, "two eyes, what shall I give thee for it?" "Alas," answered Two Eyes, "I suffer from hunger and thirst, grief and want from early morning till late at night. If you would take me with you and deliver me from these things, I should be happy."

So the knight lifted two eyes onto his horse and took her home with him to his father's castle. And there he gave her beautiful clothes and meat and drink to her heart's content. And as he loved her so much, he married her. And the wedding was solemnized with great rejoicing. 

When two Eyes was thus carried away by the handsome knight, her two sisters grudged her good fortune in downright earnest. The wonderful tree, however, still remains with us, thought they, and even if we can gather no fruit from it still everyone will stand still and look at [00:32:00] it and come to us and admire it. Who knows what good things may be in store for us. But the next morning, the tree had vanished and all their hopes were at an end. And when two eyes looked out of the window of her own little room, to her great delight, it was standing in front of it, and so it had followed her. 

Two eyes lived a long time in happiness. Once two poor women came to her castle and begged for alms. She looked in their faces and recognized her sisters, one eye and three eyes who had fallen into such poverty that they had to wander about and beg their bread from door to door. Two eyes, however, made them welcome and was kind to them and took care of them so that they both, with all their hearts repented the evil that they had done to their sister and their youth. 

David: Okay, [00:33:00] so. Yeah, hopefully you enjoyed that. Hopefully it's got your mind going different directions. I would also encourage you maybe to even hit pause right now and just think about what are the big elements that jumped out at you. We'll talk about all these, but before we identify some of the symbolic elements we need to talk about, maybe the listener too, just maybe hit pause and go, okay, what are the things that jumped out that I'd like to know more about?

Or, I think this might mean that, so if you need to do that, go ahead and do that as well.

JR: Right. Okay, so what did you see in this? What popped out to you?

David: Ok, I'll state the obvious; I'll be Captain Obvious here because most obvious one is the three daughters, one that has one eye, one that has two eyes, and one that has three eyes. That's the absurd element that we kind of talked about at the opening, that this obviously means something. And you already talked about this idea of the eyes represent how they view the world, right?

JR: Yeah. And it's [00:34:00] just a matter of trying to kind of untangle what the One Eye, Two Eye and Three Eyes represent. And then there's the interesting kind of twist that the daughter with two eyes, which you and I would call normal. She's the outcast. 

David: Yeah, so that throws a little bit of a wrench the story, right?

JR: Right. 

David: The normal one is the outcast in this story.

JR: That's right. And the two extremes kind of give you an idea, at least to me it pops out as okay. Three eyes, in some respects, you're like, well, three eyes would be better than two, which is better than one, but that doesn't matter in this family the two eyes, which is normal, she's the outcast.

And the two extremes on either end of her are the ones that the mother loves the most. And so you kind of get this feeling right off the bat that we're gonna be talking about extremes in the way you view the world, you know? And so on one extreme, you have one eye, and on the other extreme, you have three.

And so, kind of digging into what [00:35:00] that represents. And one thing I'll say is, is, I think I mentioned this on a couple episodes ago anytime you have a story about a family, right, it's gonna speak to one of two things. The first thing is, it's either gonna talk about, you know, the dynamic within a family, right?

How our family shapes who we become and things like that. You can think of in mythology, the devouring mother versus the tyrannical father. And so that it can be this dynamic within the family. But the other way that you can view a family in fairytales and in myth is the dynamic within a community, right?

How do we treat our brothers and sisters, so to speak, in the broader culture, right? And so, yeah, and this particular one is a commentary on the latter, right? This is supposed to be the family represents community. And so one of the things you're supposed to immediately ask is, you know, why would a family operate like this? 

Why treat a daughter like an outsider? And the response should be. You know, well, why indeed? Right? Why do we send our kids off to fight wars? Why do [00:36:00] we ostracize people that look different than us? 

JR: It's supposed to evoke those types of feelings. And so this story is meant to make us kind of rethink the way we treat and interact with others that are different than us. Yeah. So it's a broader commentary on society.

David: Yeah, and just as you were say that, it occurred to me that a lot of these fairytales, of course, take place within a kingdom. Right? A mythical kingdom with a king and a queen. And, so the fairy itself I think you're right, is more of a broader commentary of that society, right, of that kingdom.

Because things are different one kingdom over, right? And if you read a fairytale you get the idea that, well, everyone had their own kingdom almost. But, but that's the point of it, right? It's like this is how things are operating right now within this kingdom or within this society. Yeah, I think that's right.

JR: Yeah. Okay. So that's the thing that jumps right out is when you have a family, that should be something that pops in your head: what does this family represent? Does it represent the family dynamic or does it represent the community dynamic and how our culture treats [00:37:00] each other? And so when you have that in mind, listening to this story, that should be what kind of you draw out of it.

So, yeah, let's go back to the eyes. What does the one eye, two eye, three eye, what do you think that represents?

David: Okay, well first of all I believe it actually says she was called One Eye because she had only one eye and it was in the middle of her forehead. Well, to me, that evokes an image of a cyclops. 

JR: Right, sure. 

David: In Greek mythology, they would call that a cyclops, right? 'cause have a big eye in the middle of their forehead. And so I think it means the same thing as what a cyclops would mean in Greek mythology. It means they are almost singularly focused to their own detriment. A cyclops in Greek mythology is not the brightest crayon in the box, right?

JR: Yeah. 

David: They're singularly focused like, where is my next meal, they're almost like big oafs, right?

JR: Right, right.

David: Like, and it's why they stumble around and it's why they eat everything. And, I forget which Greek hero gets trapped in the Cyclops. And you [00:38:00] know, he starts eating his men. 'cause he's just singularly focused, Right.

Where is food coming from? And so, I think to me, one eye, we might say this a more in modern terminology, is one eye I think is, it's almost like a tunnel vision. You only see the world one way to go back to our idea of how you see the world, and to me, we'll get into this probably at the end, but to me this is almost, I would say it's almost the ideologue.

right? The ideologue 

JR: I was gonna say.

David: Sees the world one way. And they can't see anything else, right?

JR: Yeah. It's a very un nuanced view of the world. And yeah, they believe they're virtuous because they're solely focused on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. But that very thing is what makes you ideological, right? You know, and as an outsider, you, well, I don't wanna say you see them as the big dumb oafs, but you do, you kinda see this, you see someone who's singularly focused on something, and it's almost like, [00:39:00] man, come on.

There's lots of different people in this society, right? There's different ways to view things. And so yeah. And when you're singularly focused on something, you're excluding everything else. And so it doesn't create a strong family to go back to this family slash community dynamic.

It doesn't create a strong community when you are inundated with a bunch of idea ideologues, right? Because they see things their own way and they're not open to other ways of viewing something.

David: Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. I think that fits. And again, like you said, not the big dumb oaf, but it's almost like unsophisticated thinking. The inability to hold a dialogue with someone who's different from you. It would be something like that, you know?

So, I think that's one eye. So, we have the two eyes, who is normal. That's the normal daughter, right?

JR: Right. 

David: And then we have the three eyes. So what do you think, I think I had a little more difficult time with the three eyes, but what do you think is going on there?

JR: I mean, if the one eye is the [00:40:00] ideologue, then the three eyes has to represent sort of the fringe, the person that wants to see everything and consequently can't hold on to anything. Maybe you could call it the extreme skeptic. I don't know. There's probably a better word for it, but that's the way I see it as somebody who's skeptical that, that if the ideologue believes they're virtuous because they're focused on one thing to the exclusion of everything else, then the skeptic believes they're virtuous because they can see through everyone's what deceptive motives, right? They think they can see everything, yeah, the skeptic, right. You know, they see everything and Yeah. Go ahead.

David: Well, maybe even a better way to say is they see the holes in everything, right?

JR: Yes. Yeah. There, that's what I'm trying to say.

David: So they don't actually stand for anything. They just see the holes.

JR: Right. Yeah. The cynical person that just sets back and criticizes everything. That is kind of the way I see three eyes. And it's interesting that when we [00:41:00] get further on in the story, when we get to the tree that they're trying to grasp on the apples from the tree is that neither of them can do it, right?

 They view the world in such a way that they're unable to focus and grab onto anything. And that really does kind of represent pretty well the ideologue and the skeptic or the cynic, you know? And so, yeah, that's kinda the way I see three eyes.

David: Yeah, that makes sense. When you were talking about the skeptic or the cynic, I was thinking of the philosophers in Athens that we've talked about before where Paul goes to Athens and he tries to have this conversation with them. And I think the verse says that all they wanted to do was talk about ideas, and Paul eventually is just like, golly, I'm not getting anywhere at these guys, right? And literally some of the philosophies were skepticism and cynicism. Right?

JR: Mm-hmm.

David: are Greek philosophies. So I think it fits that these are almost people that can't focus. They like to sit around, they talk, they like to poke holes in different ideas, but they never get anywhere. And it's that third [00:42:00] eye - I like what you said that, you know, you'd think three eyes is better than two. But, you know how vision works. It's like, no, it just makes everything unfocused, right?

JR: Right. Yeah. It's like you're trying to go too many different directions at the same time.

David: Yeah, that's right. 

JR: And so, yeah, you can't hold onto it. And so then obviously you'd have two eyes, which is remember the balance between the two extreme views, right? And so the two eyes would be somebody who wants to integrate both of those views into society, something like that, right?

Because there is a value in the ideologue. There is a value in the skeptic. Yeah. So it's sort of like this idea of putting software out there maybe before it's ready, and then you just let a massive group of people download it and poke holes in it, right? To find the weaknesses, to find the bugs. And that's actually helpful.

But when you're talking about too much of this in society, you can have too many idea ideologues, and it kind of what it, it messes up the balance of society if [00:43:00] you have too many ideologues or too many skeptics. And so the two eyes is the balance between those two views. But I think what two eyes represents is it's trying to integrate both those ideas into the family, in this case, into the community and the culture. 

David: Yeah. I think that's right. And as the story progresses, we won't spend a lot more time on this. We'll hit more as we kind of progress through the story, but as the story progresses, I think you'll see that actually play out in a pretty insightful manner of what happens when one eye or three eyes run things, right? What happens when one eye, the skeptic, 

JR: Right 

David: And the ideologue actually end up running society? Well, it's not good, right? It's not good. So the last thing I would say about two eyes is one quote I it reminded me. 'cause two eyes in this story, like we said, is the oddball. And there's a quote by Saint Anthony the Great who said, "A time is coming when men will go mad. And when they see [00:44:00] someone who's not mad, and they will attack him saying, you are mad, you are not like us." And I thought, man, that's what's going on here. Right? It's a perfect example.

You're not like us. So you're the weird one.

JR: Yeah. And you kind of see this in politics, this tribal nature of politics of are you on the left or are you on the right? And neither side wants to give any credit to the person in the middle, you know what I mean? And the middle is actually kind of the balanced way to view something.

 But it is funny how it's rejected by both extremes. That the moderate is, what is seen as somebody who can't make a decision, who, you know, we want you to join our side, but you're playing the middle. And so there is kind of this idea of the normal two eyed daughter being rejected by the two extremes. And you see that in society. You see that play out, right?

David: Yeah, yeah. Alright, we spent some time talking about One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes, because that's gonna be important as the story unfolds. But let's jump in. Let's move on. What's another [00:45:00] element that jumped out at you?

JR: Man, there's, we talked about family. You know, I don't know, the goat was a strange one.

David: Yeah.

JR: It took me a while to kind of wrap my head around exactly what the goat represented, and I guess the best I could come up with is that the goat can kind of be seen as a symbol of provision, right?

Initially he provides two eyes with food directly, right? But then, the sister kills him and he becomes this restorative stand in, you know, the scapegoat, right? It's what an alternative sacrifice type thing. If that makes sense.

Anytime someone dies in a fairytale, we heard this on Red Riding Hood last week. Anytime somebody dies or gets eaten or something like that, right, it's usually not a literal death. It's a rebirth or a renewal into a higher reality, you know? So when somebody dies in a fairytale, it's like, oh no, it's, you know, he's gone, right? That's usually not the way it's intended. It's not just a death, it's a rebirth or renewal. Think of [00:46:00] Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Do you remember watching Fellowship of the Ring and at the end of it Gandalf dies, right? He gets pulled into the pit by that monster, right? How upset were you? Yeah. How upset were you when you thought that he died at the end of the first movie and you're like, man, we got three movies and this is one of my favorite characters.

David: Right, and he's already gone. 

JR: Right. I remember being upset. And then of course, the second movie, he comes back, right. Because death is usually not a literal death, it's a rebirth. And of course he comes back as Gandalf the White as opposed to Gandalf the Grey. So it's kind of like a renewal into a higher reality, you know?

So the death of the goat. Yeah. So the death of the goat well, go ahead. Yeah. Comment on that. 

David: Yeah, the goat, it took me a couple of times reading and thinking about it to understand what the goat represents. But yeah, its basic level, it represents food and provision for the society, right? But I also think the goat represents, it also represents potential. And I think what you're saying is you see that when the goat [00:47:00] gets sacrificed and the entrails are what become the next, I guess, symbolic element.

We'll just jump in there. The golden apple tree, right?

JR: Right. 

David: It took the sacrifice of the goat to get to the golden apple tree. Which to me, I think is Okay. So I get what you're saying then because it's almost like the golden apple tree is the higher manifestation of the goat, Which provides food. But a golden apple tree provides, what, like food of the gods, right. Or something like that.

JR: Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And it just is repetitive. It continues to feed you. Right. And so the goat's gonna die, right? Right. Yeah. Right. And so, so yeah, the goat feeds two eyes directly, but then he becomes the, obviously they bury the, entrails and it becomes this tree that is now kind of this replenishing food, this replenishing source of feeding, right? It, it's a higher level of it, a higher understanding. And of course the golden part of it [00:48:00] is, you're exactly right. It's like the food of the gods. Whereas initially she had to go to the goat directly and, you know, say her little rhyme and he would prepare lunch, right? Yeah. So, yeah, I think that's probably the way to see it.

David: Yeah. The last piece of symbolism really upfront, and then we'll jump into the story, is the wise woman and the wise woman is common in a lot of these fairytales. And it's interesting because the elderly woman is either the wise woman that I think represents what we might call divine wisdom. Like wisdom from beyond or above, right?

JR: Yeah. 

David: The elderly woman can also be the witch, which if you think about it, it's kind of the opposite of wisdom. It's malevolence, Right.

It looks like it might have wisdom about it, but then it ultimately deceives you and wants to eat you or something like that.

JR: Yeah. Right.

David: And so we have this interesting character of the wise woman, who just appears out of nowhere. Which again, I had to think about this for a while, [00:49:00] but I think it makes total sense.

JR: Well, yeah. And when you have the wise woman, again, this is one of these things that happens in several fairytales. It'll be in several that we talk about. But the wise woman, yes, exactly that, that it's sort of this heavenly wisdom you might look at as generational wisdom handed down. You could look at it a couple different ways, but yeah, it's a common trope in fairytales.

And so yeah, this is not just a single event. You'll see this through lots of them. One of the thing I wanted to point out is the wedding, because that's another thing. It's repetitive. You see it in lots of fairytales, and I may be wrong about this and tell me if you disagree, but weddings kind of across the board in fairytales, they're a common image.

And I think they represent a materialization of a new reality, right? Like a, it's a new way of looking or acting in the world. And so they're always typically at the end of the story, they're followed by and they lived happily ever after, right? Implying that someone's vision was set right in this [00:50:00]particular one.

And that what that moving forward, the corrected mindset seems to work well for everyone involved, right? So when you have a wedding, it's this transformation into a new reality.

David: Yeah, transformation, I like that. A wedding is transformation. It's something new that's happening. Right, and its usually the reward for having what? traversed the path well, learning your lessons, doing the right thing. You end up with the wedding and I, yeah, that makes sense. I didn't really think about the wedding part of it, but yeah, that makes sense. It's almost like the transformation of society, right? Because it's usually a royal wedding, which usually means that there is new what? There's new leadership in charge of this kingdom. 

JR: Yeah. new way of thinking moving forward. <Yeah, that's right.> And the happily ever after means that this new mindset works well for everybody. So again, it's like, you can look at the wedding, it's like, oh, well, you know, the prince ended up with the princess. But again, the wedding is a [00:51:00] lot more than that.

It's a transformation. It's a new reality. And so at the end of this, and the end of many fairytales, when there's the wedding, you recognize that as, oh, whatever this way of thinking that we're gonna talk about it was corrected and two eyes correctly navigated and adjusted the way she viewed the world, and all of society benefits.

The kingdom now benefits from that. And so that's that again, you know, it's like, it's repetitive and it's in lots of fairytales.

David: Yeah, exactly, Alright, so you want to start talking about this one? Now that we're 30 minutes into it? 

JR: Yeah, I know. Well, I'm trying to think of other little just elements, but yeah, it's probably just best to just jump in. 

David: We'll, we'll hit them as we go along. But let's talk about this story. I'm just gonna hit some of the things that I've highlighted through the story. So again the story starts out, we're introduced to this woman who has three daughters, One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes. And from the outset, it's clear that Two Eyes is treated as the outsider or the fringe.

JR: Mm-hmm.

David: [00:52:00] They even say to her, the sister say to her, Thou with thy two eyes are no better than the common people. You do not belong to us. Right? I love that. I love that phrase. Like, you're no better than the common person. Right? And so that's kind of how they see her. And to your point, maybe like, she's the, to put it in political terms, it's like she's the moderate and they're like, oh, you're just a commoner. You're not like us.

JR: The detestable moderate. Right?

David: Yeah, that's right.

JR: You clearly haven't thought about this issue enough or else you would be at one extreme or the other. Right? That's the giving the mere bread scraps right, to the person that tries to navigate the middle ground, you know? 'cause all they did was feed her scraps, right? You know,

David: That's right.

JR: And so I don't know. It's so emblematic of the modern political conversations that we have or that you see on tv. If you're a moderate, if you look at something in a nuanced and moderate way, nobody wants to hear, you're not going on Fox News or M-S-N-B-C, right? You know, they don't wanna hear from you. It's like, [00:53:00] we want the extremes, you know, we wanna set up this cat versus dog thinking and fighting, you know, and that's what gets ratings. So, yeah. Right. The bread scraps to the person that navigates the middle ground. I like that idea. 

David: I started off this year, this calendar year, I was reading a couple books, watching some videos, and one of 'em was talking about stoic ideas to help you navigate the new year. And one of the things I wrote down is it said, choose to not have opinions on things. Which is very stoic idea, you know, but it's that idea of you don't have to have a strong opinion on everything. So, you know, when the water cooler talk, or when your buddy says, well, what do you think of this? Did you see that in the news? I'm trying to actually more cultivate that idea that if I don't really have a lot of knowledge about it, I don't have to have an opinion. And the world's gonna continue on, right? But when you don't have an opinion, it's like you're no better than the common people. Like both sides look at you and go, what's wrong with you? You know, you don't get angry and upset about this? [00:54:00] Where's your rant, right? 

JR: Right.

David: I don't know. That's just what occurred to me. 

JR: And no, that's a good way of thinking because you know, if you're a Republican and the Republican president does something stupid, there's a knee jerk reaction to defend it. Like, well, that's not what he meant, you know what I mean? And obviously this works both ways. If you're a Democrat and the Democratic president does something boneheaded, that there's a tendency to want to defend the tribe, right?

And I like that idea about not having an opinion on something. Just look at it in a little bit more of a moderate way and say, well, yeah, people make mistakes and not use every misstep as a club to beat the other side with, you know, I think that's kind of what we always want to do, right?

David: Yeah. Ok, so there's this family dynamic then where , it's so fascinating 'cause two eyes is the oddball, oddly enough, and it's also interesting that we're told that apparently the mom, I would say we're using the normal, but [00:55:00] again, we're talking about a fairytale here. This isn't a story about children with birth defects or anything.

Okay. So apparently the mom is also kind of normal, but she actually resents the normal daughter, which I think is this fascinating dynamic as well. I don't know, what do you think is going on with that? Why would the mom do that?

JR: Well, again, it goes to community. And so that should be the question you ask. Yeah. Why would a mother treat a daughter like this, right? And I really haven't thought much about the mother, like what she represents. If it is this cultural, societal thing that the family represents, what would the mother, what would the mother embody, what? The current, traditional way of thinking is that what it is?

David: Yeah. I would say the old generation, maybe. Kind of the same way as the mother in what Little Red Riding Hood. It's kind of like, this is the way things are. I'm preparing the next generation to go out and engage in society. And so, yeah, I just think it's interesting. I, she doesn't play a [00:56:00] large role. 

JR: No, I think that's it. Yeah. No, I think you're right. It's the old way of thinking, because again, if you're gonna look at this as the ideologue versus the skeptic, it's almost like there's an aspect of this story that feels like it represents something like new truth, right?

Like maybe a truth that doesn't fit neatly into an existing category, right? This is the golden apples, by the way. And I don't mean to jump ahead, but I think the golden apples represent some kind of truth. And maybe in this context it's a new truth. You know, we're constantly discovering new truths, but what we do with those truths depend on if we're willing to fit them in our current understanding of the world, right? You, know, and so the person that sees with both eyes has the ability to adjust to a new truth. Think about, okay, think about this. Think about whether the earth is round or flat, right? The flat earthers, right? That's a common, that's a,

you know, right? Whether the earth is round or flat. A thousand years ago, it didn't matter, right? It [00:57:00] didn't matter if the earth was round or flat. You only went so far as you could walk. And so believing that the earth was flat was probably actually a more practical way to view things.

In fact, if you didn't understand like whatever the gravitational effect of the planet and then considering that the earth was round only brought about more questions than it answered, right? Wouldn't you eventually slide off or what about the people on the underside is just nobody on that side of the planet 'cause they would fly off, right?

You know, and so whether or not the earth is round only mattered once, man was able to navigate long distances over the oceans, right? And once that became a real possibility, then what you believed about the shape of the planet was hugely consequential to moving forward in this new reality, right?

And The mother represents the old way of seeing something, you know, sort of the The old truth. Yes. Yeah. Right.

David: No, I, again, I like the idea of like, it was adequate for the time, but something new is coming, right? That's why this fairytale [00:58:00] ends in a wedding that <right> society is about to be transformed, and it's going to require a new way to view the world.

I mean actually, that is the overview of this story in a nutshell right there, right? 

JR: Yeah. Yeah. So, and I thought about that, you know, when I got to the apples, because the apples, I think the golden apples represent something like truth. But then I got to thinking about, well, if you got these two extreme ways of viewing the world with one eye or with three eyes, it's interesting that they can't grasp the apples.

It's almost like they can't grasp the new paradigm. They can't grasp the new truth. And again, civilization goes through this all the time. So just to repeat it, a thousand years ago, if the earth was flat, that's fine. You can believe that doesn't affect anything. But if you're gonna move forward with technology and travel and things like that, you better be able to accept the new paradigm or else it's going to mess up all your calculations.

David: Yeah. 

JR: That's kind of the way I see basically this whole story. So not to jump too much [00:59:00] ahead, but when you brought up the mother I wasn't sure what to make of her, think that's what, that represents the old way of thinking.

David: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

Okay. 

we have the family dynamic then where two eyes is the weirdo, she's the outcast, right? And the mother and the two sisters are in unison about this. And it says, they don't give her new clothes, she has old clothes, they don't give her anything to eat. I think you mentioned the scraps that are left over. That's all they kind of pass onto her because she's kind of not worthy of their way of viewing the world. 

David: And it comes to pass then that they out into the fields to tend the goat. And this is kind of weird but I think there's a lot going on here. So in the field, when she's tending the goat, she runs into an old woman, right in her grief, it says A woman was standing behind her. A couple sentences later we're told it was a wise woman. So again, that idea of what truth from above, she's starting to encounter truth from above. And [01:00:00] the woman says, why are you weeping?

She's like, I have nothing to eat. I'm an outcast. And the woman gives her kind of an odd thing at first, but she says, repeat this phrase, Bleat my little goat bleat. Cover the table with something to eat. And then a clean, well spread little table will stand before you. It's got all this food on it, and you can have all the food you want. And when you're done, say to the little table, Bleat, bleat, my little goat. I pray and take the table quite away. So, all of weird, right? And so that's what she does.

JR: Sure.

David: She does it, this table appears to her, she eats to her heart's content, and then the table goes away, right? 

JR: Right.

David: we could, I was sitting there thinking, I'm like, we could spend like 30 minutes just talking about this goat and the table, right?

But it when you first read it, you go, Oh, that's so strange. What the heck are they trying to say with all this? I don't know. So I'll throw it out there to you.

JR: Wow. I really didn't dig into what I thought about the specifics of the [01:01:00] little rhyme. Yeah. The way I see the goat is again, that it's a symbol of provision. And so it's like he's spoonfeeding two eyes, the daughter truth, right? It's sort of like the Red Riding Hood idea is that at first, it took the Huntsman to help Red Riding Hood and grandma, right?

He had to say, and then in the second story, the second act, they were able to what defend themselves. So it's something like the goat is kind of spoonfeeding, Two Eyes truth, but then the goat ends up sacrificing himself and turning into the tree. And now two eyes is able to feed herself and not just feed herself, feed the community, right? And so it's something like that.

David: Yeah, so you might say then that the wise woman actually points out to Two Eyes what's actually right in front of her. You tell me you're starving, but there's a goat right there. It's almost like all you have to do is figure out how to transform that goat into provision on the table, right?

JR: Right, right.

David: [01:02:00] So as you were saying that, it occurred to me, I'm like ok, this is what the wise woman is doing. She's pointing out to Two Eyes, what's right in front of her. 'cause Two Eyes goes out there, you could almost say she feels sorry for herself. She's sitting there crying and the wise woman comes up and it's like, ok, you're hungry. Look, there's a goat right here. And you know, look practically, it's like goat's milk, goat cheese. Goat cheese is delicious. Right? You know.

So it's like you have food in front of you, you just have to figure out how to transform it. I think it's something like that. The goat somehow, what allows the table to appear or become manifest or something like that. I don't know.

JR: Yeah, no, I think that's right. And I think the other thing is when you have these sort of magic words, and this is obviously another recurring thing in lots of fairytales, when you have a magical saying that transforms something like the genie or something like that, what that represents, I think is a, again, a new way of viewing something, you know, and when somebody puts something [01:03:00]together for you, like, let's go back to the flat earth, the round earth. Once somebody explains to you that the earth is round and gravity and, when all that comes together, it's almost like magic words have been spoken, and now you understand how the solar system works, right?

Why the moon does what it does, why the sun does what it does. So in a fairytale, when you see these kind of repetitive rhyming, you know, say this and this will happen. That's kind of what that represents. New knowledge. New knowledge that makes the light bulb go off in somebody's mind that actually pulls lots of disparate ideas back together.

David: Yeah, I think that makes sense actually. Well you experience this sometimes where you have this jumble of thoughts in your head, you're trying to form what you really think, and then you hear, you listen to a podcast or read a book or something like that, and there's a statement that just jumps out at you, right?

I dunno if this has ever happened to you, but it's like, you'll read a statement or hear a statement and you go, that's it right there. It's [01:04:00] almost like that's the magic phrase I was waiting for. Right? 

JR: Yes, exactly. 

David: And So 

JR: Every, once in a while you hear an idea of somebody who's really good communicator, and he pulls together these ideas, and you're just like, it's almost like your mind is going, I knew that there was something to it. I just couldn't put it together in that way. I couldn't phrase it like this person did. And so that's, that's what I see. 

David: Yeah, no, that makes sense. So the wise woman gives her a phrase. And look, I, I think we're saying is, it's more than a magic phrase, but it's actually a phrase that is the key to unlock what the goat actually represents to her. 

JR: Yes, there you go. Well said.

David: Okay. Yeah.

So I think that makes sense. So, there's one more thing actually that I want to point out that I almost missed the first couple of times. The first time Two Eyes does this it says, "then two eyes said the shortest prayer she knew and she says, 'Lord God, be with us always. Amen.'" 

Now again, that's not an accident. It's interesting to me that Two [01:05:00] Eyes prays and thanks the Lord God for now, the provision in front of her. So what it shows, I think is that Two Eyes is properly oriented to the divine. This is what actually enables her to receive divine wisdom. Right? 

JR: Oh, that's good. 

David: And so think it's any mistake or just a mindless detail, that she stops and she prays before this first meal. It shows that she's properly oriented to the world. 

JR: That's a good catch. 'cause no, I, flew right past that as just, well, yeah, she's praying for a meal. But you're right. I think that's exactly what that is. The proper orientation to the wisdom that was given. 

David: Yes, that's right. She recognized that it's not just her. This has come from above and the wise woman represents that. And she's giving thanks to God for the meal. Yeah, no small detail.

JR: No, that's good. Right. Okay. I like that. Okay. So then the goat obviously feeds two eyes, and the sisters are skeptical. They're wanting to know how in the world is she getting fed? She's not eating their bread scraps anymore, right? [01:06:00] And so she's obviously getting nourished somewhere else. And so they go out there, they keep an eye on her.

And then there's this kind of interesting dynamic where one eye falls asleep and so doesn't see her get the goat, and then three eyes comes out there, fakes falling to sleep, right? Closes two of her eyes. And Three Eyes is the one who catches her. And so if One Eye is the ideologue and Three Eyes is the skeptic, what is the significance of One Eye falling asleep and missing what was happening with the goat and three eyes being the one who catches her?

Did you tie anything together there?

David: Not real solid. I'm gonna be honest. Not real solid. But there is something about, I was trying to think about what is it about the singing that lulls both of them to sleep? Right? And I don't know, it's something like in some ways, I'll justhrow this out there, may be completely off, but it's something like art or beauty or music for a moment is actually able to transcend [01:07:00] the idealogue.

JR: Yeah, that's a good idea. <You know?> I like that. Yeah. I think, I think you may be right. 

David: Song, right? There's something about the song, because when it comes to Three Eyes specifically, it actually points out that she said the wrong thing in the song. Right? She said,

JR: Oh 

David: three eyes go to sleep. I think it's something like, Three eyes, go to sleep. Two Eyes, wake Up or something like that.

JR: And it actually says she misspoke. And so there's something about the song itself that almost like, I don't know, the song represents something other than just arguments or ideas that is able to transcend the skeptic and the ideologue. 

Yeah, do you think that she misspoke or do you think she was offering a fig leaf, so to speak, to the skeptic? To some degree there is no arguing with an ideologue, right? You're just not gonna get anywhere. And so , to your point, she sang her song and put her to sleep, but with her other sister, it's almost like she had a shred of hope that yeah, you're a [01:08:00] skeptic, you're a cynic.

JR: But I kind of took it that possibly she intentionally allowed one of her three eyes to remain open. It was almost like a gesture of goodwill to see if Three Eyes would double cross her, which she obviously did. Or would she be open to this new knowledge, to this new provision that the goat's providing.

Did you look at it that way at all? 

David: Yeah, well, in rereading the story, it says she thoughtlessly sang, and miss sang. And then it said, but the third had not been named in the song, so the third I did not go to sleep. So yeah, there's this kind of, this idea of she maybe did it thoughtlessly, but then maybe there's some intentionality behind it. Boy, there's a lot there and I don't know that we can unpack it.

We'll throw it out to the listeners. If you have any ideas, enlighten us. 

JR: Right. 

David: is one that it

JR: I have thoughts on it, but we just don't have time to go down that road. 

David: Okay, so anyway, yeah, it's Three Eyes, tongue twister here, Three Eyes, third eye doesn't go to sleep. [01:09:00] And that's how they catch the sister. It's kind of like Act I, where the sister figures out that the goat means provision for her, but Three Eyes figures that out. Right.

JR: Mm-hmm.

David: And goes and tells mom. Alright. And that kind of leads us to Act two. But I do want to talk about one more thing. And this is gonna be a rabbit trail, but I think it's interesting. I do wanna talk about where she meets divine wisdom and what the field represents. 'cause I think there's actually, I went running, I said I went running this morning and I. So,

JR: Yeah. There you go. 'cause I didn't think anything of the field, so, yeah. What's your thought on it? 

David: So, at first I wanted her to go up a mountain, because that's where you meet divine wisdom, right?

You ascend a mountain. 

JR: right.

David: But she doesn't, she goes out into a field. But there are a couple little detail that said she was like an edge of the field, or she went to, I think at one point it even said she led One Eye further through the fields to the tall grass and it kind of wore One Eye out, right?

And so I think the [01:10:00] field represents the wilderness, which is place you can receive divine wisdom. 

JR: Ok, yeah, sure. 

David: So the field represents wilderness, and I was thinking about this. This is all very important for what Two Eyes is going to become, right? Through marrying the prince, the wedding, and all that. Because that represents her time in the wilderness. Now, I put all this together, because you and I started watching an Amazon Prime series called The House of David. I don't know if you kept up with it. 

JR: Yeah. No, I haven't, finished it, but uh, yes, I'm keeping up with it.

David: Ok, yeah. I don't think it's even finished yet. But I am keeping up with it and I have to say there are some people are gonna watch it and they're gonna take it the wrong way. They're gonna get bent outta shape. I mean, that's fine. It's not for everyone, but I actually, am really enjoying it. And so, I'm also learning that some of the aspects of that series, The House of David, which is, it's basically the life of King David, right? 

A lot of the aspects that some [01:11:00] people are getting upset about are actually based on certain traditions, so they're not just pulling it out of nowhere. So for instance, the whole idea of Goliath being a descendant of the Nephilim or a new manifestation of the Nephilim, right? 

We talked about that. The thing I'm at is in the series, David is portrayed as kind of a bastard child, right?

JR: Yeah, that's right. That which is not biblical, right?

David: Right, right. But it is based on I just realized I was reading something the other day. It is based on actually certain Jewish traditions that there is a strain of thought, that holds that David, and they pick out some other verses in the Old Testament that what David's mother is not the wife of Jesse.

So Anyway, here's how I'm tying all this together. This is not just a series review. This is a point about what's going on here, right? I do think it's interesting that in the series, one of things that shapes [01:12:00] David and prepares him for the throne is by being an outcast, relegated to the field, watching the sheep, right? And that is very much part of the story of David, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: He encounters the lion in the wilderness, right? And he kills him. He encounters the bear. He protects the flock. And so it's very much this idea that because David is an outcast out in, we would say the wilderness, he's actually being prepared for the greater thing that lies ahead of him. 

JR: That's right.

Yeah. The whole time he's upset that he's not on the front lines fighting the battle with his brothers. He's in, he's stuck tending the sheep, right? Yeah. That is a recurring pattern with this fairytale, is that she's kind of outcast.

She's already an outcast within the family, just like David was. But then, yes, she kind of is called out to this field, which is, to your point, the wilderness which prepares you for the mountaintop experience, the wilderness experience prepares you to receive [01:13:00] wisdom.

David: Yeah, so, ok, I think this is important then. So she's outcast into the field, but the field is the wilderness that prepares her for what she's about to undertake, right? The wilderness ... 

JR: The journey across.

David: Yeah. The wilderness is where she encounters divine wisdom, right? That's in the wilderness.

The wilderness, and through divine wisdom, and because she's properly oriented to God, right? That's where she learns to see the goat as more than just a goat, as something that can actually provide for her. And I'll throw this out there as well, because when you read this, you think, well, you know, there was the potential at least for her to say, Hey, I've learned that this goat can provide for all of us, but her sisters don't want to see that. Right?

And so that's where she the potential of the goat, that it has the potential to provide for her entire family. I don't know. I think as you, let's say this as we wrap up, act one, I think that image really helped me understand the [01:14:00] whole imagery of her tending the goat out in the field, feeling like an outcast.

JR: No, that is helpful. And that's why I kind of had that idea, and I could be wrong about it, that idea that she was almost wanting Three Eyes to see that the goat is providing and could therefore provide for the entire family. You know, that's, that's, you know. When you said that, that the potential of feeding the entire family, it's almost like she wanted Three Eyes to see that. But again, she didn't because she's a skeptic, a cynic, and so she runs right back to mom, basically, and tells everything she knows. Right? But yeah, that's kind of where that came from. 

 And again, I could be wrong about it 'cause I think you're right. I do, I like that idea of the wilderness being the field and having to go across the field and being worn out. You know? 'cause that's the same thing that kind of wore out her sisters too. It's like her sisters weren't prepared for the journey.

And so not just the singing, but the, you know, just the journey itself. They crashed. They couldn't handle it.

David: Ok, so this just occurred to [01:15:00] me. The singing is the same thing as David's playing the harp.

JR: Oh yeah. Okay man. Yeah. This is kind of crazy. These narrative elements that are repeating. That's kind of interesting.

David: Yeah, yeah. So if the singing kind of transcends their limited worldview, what does David playing the harp do? It stills the mind of Saul, right. Saul's kind of

JR: Yeah. Sure.

David: possessed person, but David plays the harp, and it calms him. Right? It's like, for a moment, it what? It gives Saul something to rise above his own limited one eye worldview, you might say.

JR: Yeah.

David: something like that.

JR: Yeah. I like that. Wow. No, I haven't even tied that together. That's really good. That's insightful. 

David: Okay, well so that's cool. Alright.

Marker

David: Okay, so moving on. There's so much we can talk about here, but obviously we gotta move So, Three Eyes tattles her sister. The mom's response is to say, you think you're better than us, and she kills the goat. 

JR: Right.

David: Extreme measures here, but [01:16:00] again, we're about a fairytale. There's a lot of meaning here. She takes the butcher's knife, kills the goat. She sends the daughter Two Eyes back out to the field. And again, we talked about this whole idea of the wilderness where she encounters the wise woman again. And again, she's crying. she even says, repeats this phrase, Have I not reason to weep, right? The goat has been killed. And so the wise woman said, let me give you a piece of advice. And her advice is odd, right? She says, go get the entrails of the slaughtered goat and bury them in the ground in front of the house and your fortune will be made. Okay? 

JR: Right.

David: So that's what she does. She goes back to the house, she asks for the entrails. The sisters basically say, what do you want with entrails you know? Here. And she going plants them outside. So there's a lot now in this imagery of what just happened to the goat, and I think you brought it up earlier, this idea that what, what we're actually seeing here is a sacrifice, right?

JR: Right,

Well again, it's [01:17:00] not just that something dies, it's something is, being reborn. You, you know what I mean? It's not that they just, they didn't just merely murder the goat. They killed an idea basically. They hated the idea. They killed it. So the wise woman gives Two Eyes advice and says, take the entrails you know, the entrails can be seen as like what the innermost. Like the sacred part of a being, right? The heart of something. And so it's almost like, yeah, it's almost like take the heart of that goat, the heart of the idea and plant it. Right? It says bury it, but, you know, you can look at it like being planted like a seed. Right? 

And so the entrails actually become a seed and bring about this new potential that couldn't have been realized beforehand, right? That's why the woman had to direct her to do it.

David: Yeah, as you were saying that, I was thinking of that idea of a seed. The entrails are almost a seed that have to be planted. But I think there is this idea of sacrifice though, because, there is this idea that I really like, which is, in order for a new idea to [01:18:00] emerge, something old has to die, right?

If you're going to embrace a new way of viewing the world, it involves the death of something else. So I think at a 

JR: old worldview has to die.

David: So I think in some ways, the goat, was yes, kind of a temporary provision, but, again, divine wisdom steps in and basically says, look, I'm gonna give you something where your fortune can really be made. But she's almost saying, but you have to realize the goat had to die, but in the goat's death, it becomes a seed for something better.

JR: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

JR: Yeah. So the goat is something like the sacrificed idea that becomes the seed to something new.

David: Yeah. You could almost think of it like as a good idea, but not a great one. But the good idea contains the seed of something more. And so you have to let the good idea die.

JR: Yeah. What, so what was the book 

David: yeah, I was 

JR: years back that Good is the Enemy of Great. Is that right?

David: Yeah, James Collins. Good to Great.

JR: Right. Yeah, Good to Great. And that [01:19:00] you're right. That the enemy of a great idea is a good idea because you're satisfied with the good idea. You're like, okay, this is good enough. Well, that actually keeps you from being great, right?

Putting it all on the line.

David: No, that makes total sense what's going on here then? Yeah 

JR: Right, the, so, goat so that, yeah. So that it wasn't great.

David: And so the goat had <Yeah.> the goat had to die. It's like the sisters and the mother meant it to harm two eyes. But then divine wisdom steps in and says, no, there's something better for you again, if you stay properly aligned. I think that's important. 

And so she buries the entrails.

JR: Right. And then it creates the tree, right? That, that we've talked about the tree in other episodes. That's the connection between heaven and earth. So that's how the tree is born. <Yes.> This idea that actually connects to heaven and bears the golden apples.

David: It's one of those things too, we'll keep saying it sounds absurd. It's like, well, how do you bury the guts of goats and a tree emerges out.

JR: Yeah. Yeah.

David: But you have to see it as a seed of [01:20:00] something greater. And so, yeah, they go out the next day and there is a, I wonder how it describes it here. Yeah. There is a tree, a magnificent tree with leaves of silver and fruit of gold handing among them. And so of course the first thing they do is the sisters go, well, this is great, right? We've hit the jackpot. But then there's this really weird thing that happens where the mother says, "go get the fruit." But when One Eye goes up and then Three Eyes, the same thing. They go up and it's this really beautiful picture actually, or interesting picture of they go to grasp the fruit and the fruit moves away from them.

JR: Right, right. Well, again, okay, so if the golden apples represents truth, it's not going to fall into the hands. The truth is gonna be elusive to people who have what I guess it's elusive to both, ahead.

David: A distorted view of the world, which covers both, right? They both have a distorted view of the world, <Right.> and they both act out of resentment toward, well, quote the [01:21:00] normies. And look, that phrase is thrown around today, right?

JR: Yeah, sure.

David: That's a really cool idea, this idea: they have a distorted view of the world. And I think you're right, the fruit represents some kind of seed of truth or potential that eludes people who have a distorted view of the world. Yeah.

JR: Yeah, I think that's right, and that makes perfect sense. But no, I love that image of the apples moved away from them. You know, because again, the truth is elusive if you don't see the world in the proper way. You know, and look, we know people like this. There are people that you meet or that you've heard of that just continue to go down the same wrong path every time.

 Well, why is that? Why do they continue to, you could be simplistic about it and say, well, they just keep making bad decisions, but the heart of the matter is that they don't see the world properly. And so they continue to act in a way that they think they're gonna get some kind of truth or some kind of benefit out of life. [01:22:00] But it's just the same old it, it's just the truth keeps pulling itself away from them and they end up going down the same dead end road over and over. 

David: Yeah. Because they can't expand their worldview. They can't embrace things that fall out side of their kind of tunnel vision or scattered vision. And so yeah, you're right, it's like success or truth or you know, some kind of provision for family, prosperity, however you wanna say it. It just always alludes them.

JR: Yeah. And so here's this point again, that all they have to do is ask their sister. Say, Hey, look, we've got all the food we can stand, you know, why don't you get it for us? Right? But instead they hide her. They hide her under the bucket. The knight shows up. Right. And of course it's a little bit of the Cinderella story where let's hide the beautiful daughter and let's push out the ugly stepsisters. Let's push them out. So let's hide the beautiful daughter. 

Oh, that brings up one thing I wanted to say. I could have said this earlier, [01:23:00] but the idea of something beautiful, it, it described her as the most beautiful, right? Anytime a person in a fairytale or a thing, is described as the most beautiful, it can kind of be typically understood of one of two ways. One is that, they simply are physically beautiful, right? And this creates a conflict of who controls or who marries or who owns this most beautiful object, right?

It's like a metaphor of scarcity. So you can think of like Helen of Troy fell in this category of understanding. She was the most beautiful. And so it wasn't merely that hey, here's this beautiful woman, so let's all look at her beauty. It was who's gonna have her hand in marriage, right? And so it's a representation of, it's something like a representation of scarcity. In any case, that's one way you can see beauty. And the other one, and I think this is the case in our fairytale beauty, is also an embodiment of the ideal, right? And so.

Yeah. And so the ideal, we've said this before, [01:24:00] the ideal is a judge, and so there's a rejection of this beautiful thing since it's a constant reminder of our own shortcomings, right? It's like a metaphor of judgment or something. And so Cinderella again is in that category, and so is Two Eyes.

David: Yeah, that makes sense. Like we could say it serves as a simplistic picture of the ideal. And you know, we all know that there's more to a person than just their physical looks. We all know that there are people who are beautiful, maybe, who beautiful in different ways, right?

But beauty is a simplistic way of serving as the ideal. And you're right, Two Eyes is constantly put down because she almost, without trying to do so, acts as a judge of her sisters, a constant reminder of You're not normal like me.

JR: Yes. 

David: Okay.

JR: That's right. She's a picture of the ideal. 

David: So Two Eyes is actually able to grasp the fruit. But again, she's dismissed she's marginalized. The mother takes the apple from her, but then a prince, so we talked [01:25:00] sometime later, a prince comes by, like you said, and they immediately hide two eyes.

JR: Mm-hmm.

David: Right? Because the two sisters are now vying for the prince. The prince sees the tree and the prince

JR: Was it a prince or a knight?

David: Well, I guess. It says it's a knight, then he

JR: He ends up being the prince.

David: in the castle. Yeah. So, it's basically he's a knight, but he's also a prince. You might say that, but yeah, it's a knight. Okay.

JR: Right.

David: Yeah, so when the knight came near, he said, "who does this fine tree belong to?" And of course, the two sisters they've already hidden Two Eyes and they start saying, you know, it belongs to me. It belongs to me. And the same thing happens. He says, if I could only have a branch of that tree right?

JR: Right.

David: They go through this same kind of absurd exercise. They climb the tree and no one can actually grasp it. And the knight you know, he's clued in on what's going on here. He says, this tree doesn't belong to either one of you. 'cause neither of you can actually grasp what's going on. Neither of you can grasp the fruit, right?

JR: Right. 

I think it's interesting that he asked for a [01:26:00] branch and not an apple. It's like he recognizes the value of the tree, and it's almost like he's saying, I want a piece of the tree. I don't want the fruit of the tree. I want a piece of the tree.

JR: In theory to go back and plant it in his own vineyard Right. Or his, his own yard, right? So it's almost like I want the seed of truth to grow in my own yard.

David: Yeah, yeah. The idea is almost if you go back to that time, it's almost like if I can break off a branch, I can graft it into a tree at home and I'll be able to benefit from this. Yeah. A branch is another idea of a seed. You know, I'll take the seed and take it back to my castle and have this same tree.

JR: But again, it goes back to this idea of a new idea, a new paradigm shift. Right? And so yeah, he wants to graph that into his current worldview. That's what the knight, the knight somehow, I guess, could be understood as like something like the arrival of order. So maybe it's a paradigm shift that the rest of the family tries to embrace, but they can't, since it doesn't [01:27:00] fit neatly into their dated worldview, right?

David: Yeah. Ok.

JR: I mean that's kinda the way I view that because you know, every new technology leaves a wake of unadopters, right, in its past. The Luddites, right? The Luddites that can't adapt. Yeah. Yeah. But at the same time, there's new opportunities for those who are willing to adjust their worldview.

So the Knight yeah, the Knight somehow represents a new order. Coming and recognizing the value of the tree and saying, I want to graft this into my worldview as well. And the knight also being the prince, obviously. So it's almost like I want to adopt this as a, what? A policy of our people moving forward.

It's, it's something like that. Yeah.

David: I see the potential in this. I see the potential to feed the people in my kingdom. Yeah. I think you're right. He represents order and the willingness to embrace a new idea. The other thing that I think is really interesting about this is the knight is able to see through this, is he quickly sees through [01:28:00] the idea of these two sisters who claim this tree as their own. 

And man, if that's not a picture of unearned wisdom. Right? Like put wisdom in the hand of fools and watch them just fumble around with it and it's like, you didn't earn this. You know, it's like you're just virtue signaling. And he quickly picks up on the virtue signaling. In this case, you might say. 

JR: No, that's, that is a great way to look at it. Yes. The virtue signaling of, of course, this is my tree. Would you like an apple? And then they can't grasp it. They can't do anything with it. And the knight, again recognizes right away, okay, this is not your tree. This is not your idea. You know, you stole this idea from somebody else and you're just parroting somebody else's wisdom because you can't expand on it any more than you're doing, right? 

David: That's right. This really I, you know, this could have been written as a parody of modern culture. I really do think that.

JR: No, it can, yeah. I think you're right. It feels that way. The more I understand it, it feels like modern politics, modern culture, right?

David: Yeah, exactly. Ok, so [01:29:00] that's the knight. And what happens then is Two Eyes is finally revealed, right? And she's able to grasp the fruit, and the knight says, surely this is the owner of the tree. And to kind of wrap this up, he says, you know, what is it that you want? What can I do for you? And she says, basically, take me away from this loony bin. Right?

JR: Right. Get me out of this family, 

David: Give, Just rescue me; get me out of here.

JR: Right.

David: And to kind of wrap the story up quickly and then we can talk about a couple of these elements here Okay, so there's two things that happen at once the sisters watch Two Eyes go away with the knight and they say, well, at least we have the tree. 

JR: Right.

David: It's this idea of wisdom in the hand of fools, because they wake up the next morning and the tree's gone. The tree's dead.

JR: Yeah.

David: The tree though reappears next to the palace, or the castle.

JR: Mm-hmm.

David: Like you said, the wedding takes place. The tree blossoms. So the tree has all the provisions in the world. You know, they have the golden apples, the fruit from [01:30:00] heaven, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except there's one little postscript. Okay.

JR: Yeah. Right.

David: And this is really important, I think. This is really important, because it would be so easy just to end here, but it doesn't.

JR: Yeah. Sisters got what they deserved. Two Eyes got what she deserved happily ever after, right? 

David: Right, right. But here's how it ends. Sometime later after Two Eyes was enjoying happiness, married to the Prince, they now have this kingdom. Sometime later it said she saw two women begging. I love this part right here. She looked in their faces and recognized her sisters, One Eye and Three Eyes, who had fallen into such poverty that they had to wander about and beg for bread. Two Eyes, however, made them welcome. She was kind to them and took care of them, and basically now they live happily ever after. What a wonderful ending to this story, right?

JR: Yeah, and it's one of those things that can be on the surface. You can look at it and say, [01:31:00]okay, well, it's water under the bridge. Let's forgive. Let's reach out to family. Let's provide for family, however you wanna look at it. But again, that deeper idea behind it is that good ideas benefit everybody, right?

 A well structured society, benefits even the criminals, even the wicked people, right? We all benefit from a well-structured society. And so in some ways to go along with this theme of the golden apples being truth and a paradigm shift and new ideas and everything we've been talking about, at the end, it has to benefit the sisters, right?

Because that's the way the world works. That's the way a good functioning society works. Uh, What is it? A rising tide lifts all boats.

David: Yeah. Or another way to say it is, the sisters actually treated Two Eyes as this fringe outsider, but it's actually the sisters who are the fringe. But in a well ordered society, there's room for the fringe is another way to say [01:32:00] that. The fringe ...

JR: Yes. No, that's well 

David: but the lesson is, one of the lessons here is you cannot place what is of value in the hands of the fringe? In the hands of the narrow, you know, you can't place it in the hand of the ideologue or the scattered vision. Because again, it's that unearned wisdom. They don't know what to do with it.

JR: Yeah. When you make the ideologue or the skeptic, the ideal, the tree withers, it all dies. It all collapses. But if you keep the ideal, the ideal, then it makes room for both the ideologue and the skeptic. And again, I kinda go back to this idea that there's value in the skeptic, there's value to some degree in the ideologue.

It's just that it can't be the majority. You can end up having toxic levels of ideology and toxic levels of skepticism in your society. But if you have the balance right, then it makes room for both.

David: Yeah, right. Yeah. If there's a structure in place that is able to incorporate all these, then everyone will flourish. [01:33:00] Right? But you can't hand the kingdom over to the skeptic who only is against everything, right?

Or the ideologue who says, it's my way and everyone else is out. Like, it's never gonna work. And I think it's captured in this idea of that the tree follows, Two Eyes to the castle. And it's something like, well, actually it's something like wisdom gravitates to those who know how to handle it well. 

But I think it's also this biblical idea where, you know, the parable of the talents. It's like those who have will be given more and those who are given a little and they don't know what to do with it, even what they have will be taken away from them. It's that same

biblical idea, right?

JR: Yes, yes. You're exactly right. Because at first you'd think you read that parable and you're thinking, well, that doesn't seem fair. You know, the guy with 10 talents gets 40 talents or whatever it is. And yeah, somebody has only one talent. You know, it's almost the opposite of Jesus's other teachings or it seems to go against Jesus's other teaching of [01:34:00] the last will be first; the meek will inherit the earth, right? And then this parable comes along and it's like, this parable sounds like you're saying the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, right? But when it comes to wisdom, it's not about talents, meaning money the amount of money you have. It's about that idea that a person that sees the world properly just continue to have the world respond in a way that benefits them because they understand it. 

David: Yeah. And I think when you, yeah, and what's also interesting is when you take some of the parables of Jesus, they do seem to contradict each other sometimes. But when you start to pull them together It's not almost contradictory to say like, well, what is the proper way to handle wisdom? What's the proper outlook? Well, it is meekness and humility, right? And so those things aren't contradictory. 

And I think you're right. It's much more than money. So it is this idea that those who are meek and humble and understand how to handle what wisdom from above, they will [01:35:00] actually flourish, right? Opportunities will gravitate toward them. Now again, we're not gonna go down the road of prosperity here, but you know, like the world will make sense to them. They will understand how to navigate the world, and therefore it's like more and more will be given to them. Like it almost, you know how when, like when you have your life properly ordered, things are going well, it's almost like opportunities just start falling in your lap, right? 

JR: Right. Yeah.

David: It's something like that.

JR: And it's easy. Yeah. It's easy to be cynical and to say, well, just all good things happen to Dave and nothing good happens to me. But when you understand how the world works, it's, you don't wanna say it's, it's not luck. It's not just dumb luck that good things happen to happen to certain people and not others.

 There's a certain element of that. But again, if you know how the world works and you know how to operate in it, if you know how to operate in your society, if you know how to operate in your family, if you know how to operate in your community, [01:36:00] good things will happen to you. You know what I mean?

If you invest in other people, they're willing to invest in you. And so, if you're the type of person that is there for your neighbor when he's sick, when you get sick, your neighbors will be there for you. And it's just sort of that reciprocal understanding of how community works and how the world works in general.

David: Yeah, I think that's right Yeah. Alright, we kind of rushed through the end 'cause we're running out of time. Is there anything else in the end that you would point out?

JR: Well, I'll tell you one thing I thought about when I was reading this is I thought about Paul's comments in first Corinthians, you know, his view on eating meat, it's a good example of seeing with two eyes, right? Paul's teachings were motivated by love for Christ and his people, and he believed that Christians should put others before themselves and not cause others to stumble, right? 

And so he said, don't eat meat in the presence of somebody offended by it. Right? And it's almost like that idea of embrace the ideologue. Don't antagonize 'em, don't eat meat just because it offends them, right? Embrace the ideologue. [01:37:00]

But then he also says, feel free to eat the meat offered by the disbeliever, right? Don't push away the skeptic either. <Yeah.> And so there's this, yeah, there's kind of that theme this fairytale theme kind of made me think of that. You know, this weak brother or sister for whom Christ died.

So at the end, Paul says, in verse 11, chapter eight, he says, "so this weak brother or sister for whom Christ died is destroyed by your knowledge." Right? He's talking about the ideologue there, don't eat meat because it offends the ideologue.

But it's interesting that in verse 11, he calls them the weak brother or sister. It's almost like he's saying

David: I've noticed that before, yeah. 

JR: One eye, Hey, don't offend one eye, you know? They've got their place, don't destroy them by your knowledge. Which is again, at the end of the fairy tale.

Don't destroy your family by your knowledge, right? And bring them in. Invite them in. You've got the tree. Let bygones be bygones. [01:38:00] Recognize that they have their place in society and actually invite them in. That's how you have a functional, healthy community.

Whether it's what Paul was talking about about eating meat sacrifice to idols or whether that's modern day political ideologues. There's a place for them in our society, but it has to be the fringes. It can't be the central idea. It can't be the ideal.

David: Yeah, and you're right, I didn't think about that. But in church circles or in religious terminology, you might say that the ideologue is the one who just wants the rules. Look, have this meat. Tell me, is it right or wrong? You know? And it's like, look, that's a very low resolution way to view this. But

when those people are in your community, I think that's a good point. It's like, bring them around, understand where they're at. They have a place in this community, right? But you actually don't want those people leading the community. Because then it's 

JR: Right. There's a place,

David: rule-based community, right?

JR: Yeah, there's a place for the Pharisee, [01:39:00] but when the Pharisees are in charge, they create a burden that can't be carried by the common man. 

David: Yeah, yeah, that's right. 

JR: Yeah. No, this was such a good fairy tale. Did you have any other thoughts, anything that didn't really fit into the conversation, but that you noticed or wanted to say?

David: Well, there is one more thing, and it probably lends itself to a rant, so I'll keep it short. But the, 

JR: Everything we do lends itself to a rant.

David: Yeah, yeah that's right. But it's such a great picture that Two Eyes discovers the potential of this goat, right? And then the tree, and the response from One Eye and Three Eyes is to destroy it. And I think that's such like I can't not see it in our society today. And here's the rant.

JR: Oh yeah.

David: When you see people burning Teslas, okay, let's take a very modern example, when you see people burning Teslas. When you see people torching buildings under the idea of like, protest. in fact, I found myself [01:40:00] saying, well, there's a bunch of one eyes, right? 

JR: Yeah.

David: That's the response. When you're an ideologue, when you only see the world one way. Then this fairytale captures that idea of what do you want to do? Well, you just wanna destroy everything you don't understand, but you're actually destroying the very thing that supports society. And I mean, that's the thing that jumps out at me. It's like, man, everything was there to feed the family, but the sisters kept destroying it. Because They see past their narrow worldview. And, look, when I see again, and I'll end with this. When I see people burning Teslas, when I see people toppling statues, when I see people torching buildings, that's gonna be my new vocabulary. Like there's a bunch of one- eyes right there.

JR: Yeah. There you go. Well, and in fairness, you could also insert bomb abortion clinics or just the idea of destroying things that I disagree with or don't understand. You're right. That's a singular that is an ideologically driven [01:41:00] person that is never really gonna capture and understand truth.

It's gonna elude 'em their whole lives. And you're right. That's what we see in our society. And, there's a fear that that type of thinking can actually, we can have too much of it and it can destroy what we've created. What is the CS Lewis quote? It may be GK Chesterton about fences, about tearing fences down?

David: Oh, yeah, I think it's, CS Lewis. I could be wrong, but yes. It's like when you come into a fence in a field, is that what you're talking about?

JR: Yeah. Yeah.

David: Yeah. And I forget exactly what it is, but 

JR: Before you tear down the fence, find out why somebody put it there in the first place.

David: That's 

JR: point.

It's something like that. Yeah.

David: One person has a tendency to say, What's this fencing doing in the middle of the field? And they want to tear it down.

JR: Yeah. This isn't serving any purpose. Let's get rid of it. 

David: Yes, the point of that whole analogy is that understand why the fence is there before you tear it down. ' cause maybe it's there for a reason. 

JR: Yeah, there's sort of a immature [01:42:00] part of our brains that says, let's just tear down what we don't understand. Let's just burn it to the ground. And yeah, as opposed to if there's problems with the system, the whole system must be wrong. Instead of taking a nuanced approach and say, well, let's try to correct the system, you know, there's that group out there that sort of says, no, let's just burn it all to the ground.

You know, it's the same, voices out there that say, the world would be better if we didn't have any religion at all. You know, because look at the Salem witch trials. Look at the Crusades. You've point out some bad things about religion and therefore it justifies doing away with it altogether.

And you're right, that's a myopic. That is a ideological view all the way down.

David: Yeah, yeah. I think I'm going to incorporate that into my vocabulary. I'm gonna say there's a one eye.

JR: Yeah. And then everybody's gonna look at you like, what are you talking about? What is that supposed to mean?

David: Read the fairytale. 

JR: And then just point 'em. Yeah, yeah. Send 'em to this podcast. They'll get it. Alright, so what are we doing next week?

David: I'm [01:43:00] not sure what we've landed on. I'm kind of thinking Snow White is what's hot in the news right now.

JR: Yeah. I'm not touching that one.

David: Should we we wade that one or not?

JR: That would be a fun one to wade into, but I'll tell you what, that is an interesting one because exactly what we're talking about when you mess with the fundamentals of a story to be, the word politically correct is a little bit overused, but I'll use it here.

When you mess with the fundamentals of a story to be politically correct, you actually mess up the foundations of the symbols that are used in the story. And therefore the story doesn't make sense and doesn't resonate with anybody, and we don't really know why, or it's not something that's obvious to see.  

And I, man, I think we may be seeing that with the Snow White. I heard it bombed.

David: Ok, so we'll talk about that next episode, but we're not gonna do Snow White. We'll do another one.

JR: Okay. But we'll lead with that.

David: We'll lead talking about it because it's in the news right now. You know?

JR: Yeah. Yeah. That'll work.

David: [01:44:00] Fairytales suddenly , hot topic, right? 

JR: Yeah. Who would've known? 

David: Disney. 

JR: Leave it to Disney to mess something up?

I was about to say they destroyed Star Wars. Why not destroy Snow White too? 

David: Talk about one eye, right? 

JR: Holy cow. 

David: Disney is the giant one-eye right now. 

They're destroying everything around them.

JR: There we go. Okay, so I'd love to have this conversation more on Facebook or our message boards, just because I know that our listeners have got more insight. Once you start down the road, you start to pick up so many little things, and again, we never covered it all.

So let's keep the conversation going on Facebook. We would love to have that conversation.

David: That's right. And I'm also going to throw an article on the website and would also encourage you to leave comments on the article as well. You can do that on the website as well

JR: Yeah, we want your ideas. 

David: Yeah, there's also an email address in the show notes. And hey, shout out to Matt from Florida who was the first to actually use that.

I just threw it up there a little bit ago and I was so [01:45:00] excited to get an email with the new email address. So shout out to Matt from Florida. So love to hear from you that way.

Alright. They lived happily ever after.

JR: Alright Well, at least two eyes did. Right. We'll see you next week. Right. We'll see you.