Journey with us in this well known tale that reaches back over many centuries to teach us about Tradition and Change. We watch Ella navigate the difficulty of becoming and then being a woman as an individual, in a complicated family situation, and as a member of the community while society is in flux. Do we have something to learn from her while also being entertained by her story? The story of Cinderella helps us understand how to deal with times of transition and change. We have tender feelings for and deeply held memories of the past, but the present is very real and can often be abrupt. It is NOW. If we honor and bring forward what is best from the traditions of the past, the memories we cherish can operate as a sort of magical solution to help ease the rude intrusion of change and the unfamiliar nature of the present newness, blending what is good from both past and present to create our best future. Ella is an exemplary example as she longs for and even mourns her past, but also faces her very real present, however unpleasant, with poise and ingenuity, forging a bright future.

When our lovely heroine is born so breathtakingly beautiful, her father, the King, is amazed by her astounding beauty, so he names her Fairer-than-a-Fairy. This one act signals an ancient enemy and sets in motion a series of dire events for the little princess, for the Dark Faerie World takes the baby's naming as a challenge. Fairer-than-a-Fairy will face kidnaping and imprisonment, a perilous journey, seemingly impossible tasks, an Ogre, a voyage across the sea, hidden dangers and tests of courage and will. She will also make alliances, find opportunities for true happiness, explore the meaning of friendship and justice, and contemplate the True Love. Fairer-than-a-Fairy is a True Hero Princess from centuries' worth of story, brought to us over time as a girl-become-woman, purposefully choosing her Path.Fairer-than-a-Fairy comes to us most recently through Andrew Lang's series of Fairy Books of Many Colors: twelve books containing 437 stories. “Fairer-than-a-Fairy” appeared in the Yellow Fairy Book published in 1894. Like other 19th century fairy tales, Andrew Lang's version of the story was greatly reduced from the original version, retaining only the most basic elements, leaving behind many of the most powerful pieces of the Heroine's Journey. The Fairy Tale Project at Wonder Tales for Today's Woman has traced the story through the centuries to discover the missing pieces, working through story cuts and mapping the elements of the story geographically to its origins in the Wonder Tales of Ancient Greece more than 800 years ago. The result is this marvelous Fairy Tale, relevant still, as the universal nature of a story about life and growing up, that lasts over time and space.

No specific words or phrases exist to describe the grieving process. It is individual, mighty, quiet, complicated, and part of life. Somehow within the exploration of how memories fit into the making of a relationship, the idea that I (we) can fashion an Imagined Future beyond the many facets of what grief and sorrow is harnessing these processes to shape our Future Self and Journey. I do not claim to have “the” answer. What I know is that I lived it, and because of that, I have a deeper understanding now, of what it means to truly grieve: to plunge into the abyss and plumb the depths of sorrow. I wrote from my heart and I offer my experience as one that is very human and filled with questions. My goal has been to provide an authentic rendering of the course, with the hope that my experience resonates with you as you either recall your own struggle with grief, or as you face this same journey. Perhaps my journey will be one that parallels your own, and we can share the path.

This thesis is an application of the theory and method of the comparative world-systems approach to West Polynesia. This study examines the interactions between the archipelagos of Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa during the period between 1770 and 1870, that include the exchange in prestige valuables, military/political interactions, and marriages. Using the nested interaction net model of Chase-Dunn and Hall, this thesis analyzes the interactions in order to determine whether the interactions display systemic properties, that is to say whether the interactions are important in the social reproduction in each of the particular societal units of the region. The archival evidence shows that the region was an indigenous world-system, whereby interactions served tomaintain the stability of the system, which then as a result of European involvement in the region resulted in an increase of Tongan political domination, before the entire system was broken up and governed by different colonial powers.