Musing about Jack and the Beanstalk?

I’ve been thinking about the children’s story Jack in the Beanstalk this morning. Not really the whole story to start with, but the beanstalk itself. Well, and all the big broad leaves that branch off of the stem. I have set myself a task that is born of my belief in Addictions Nursing and especially withdrawal management or detox. The importance of all of this is that it involves daily writing from my own experience, it involves paying attention to things both when I am at work and sometimes in the community and it involves research. More specifically reading research. Interesting but extremely labour intensive reading. 

What is the connection between Jack and the Beanstalk and this extremely interesting project which really seems to have a life of it’s own? I feel sometimes like Jack, climbing up the thick stalk grasping stems and standing on the great broad leafs of the storybook beanstalk. And the giant is looming over me threatening to stomp out not just the beanstalk but me.

So I just keep climbing, always knowing that I can turn back at any time. Knowing that I can let this ‘thing’ beat me, yet depending on my intention and intensity about the whole thing. Finding a nugget of information, like a lovely fresh green bean to be savoured, is my reward each day.

"Jack sings 'I fear nothing when I am in the right. 

Whoever pushes me around will find me full of fight'”

An English Fairy Tale