DREAM: This one came as a bit of a surprise, as I had not thought about these people, nor remembered them in years... and I do not recall a story or a scene in the dream, just the characters and their names. I saw Christine, a senior designer that I worked with at a design firm when I was in my early thirties. I saw the first 3 letters of her name: Ehl, but can’t remember the rest. Then I saw Paul, a freelance production artist who dated her at one time but had stayed friends with her, and his last name was Strand (I don’t know if this is true, or something the dream wanted to tell me). I woke somewhat at this point, because I was so surprised that these people I had forgotten so completely had shown up in a dream. Then I remembered that Paul had stepped in as caretaker when she became ill with lung cancer, until she died a few months later.
DREAMWORK:
Christine was quiet and introverted, though not unfriendly during interaction. But still, there was always an air of superiority about her, in the way she dressed, the way she spoke, the way she held herself slightly but distinctly apart from others. Even with those who were considered her friends at the agency, unless she had something to do or say to them, she was never in the thick of things. She seemed lonely at times to me, though she had no less friends than I did in the company. Although she was said little, she also had a stubborn streak and a stiff backbone when it came to defending her work, and I do remember now the fierceness in her eyes, quietly but clearly delivering the ‘don’t mess with me’ message.
These are the things about her that I see in myself. Paul, on the other hand, seemed to have come out of no where, like an air-dropped gift parcel, like grace. I don’t know if Christine did, but I would never have thought nor expected a man, even a friend or lover, to come to my rescue unconditionally. No less because I’ve always appeared the strong, independent woman who needs nothing from a man.
I can see my dream shaking its finger at me, tsk-tsking, “Still playing the tough chick, heh? Still won’t let the masculine come too close... Well, girl, if you say you want the split to mend, so you could become whole, then ain’t you standin’ in your own way?” I know this to be true, and I am abashed, so why the cold, hard and prickly persona, even if and when I’m ‘dying’ for help?
This is ancestral, according to my body, as many, many generations of women have had to develop a hardboiled exterior to survive patriarchy and the hardship of life. I can see how this was passed on from my mother’s mother to her daughters, and from my mother to me and my sister. And although we have all been armoured for so long that I’m not sure we can even take it off, I have begun to hear the occasional quiet plea in my mother’s physical symptoms and my dad’s protests, that what ails her is a neediness for some garden-variety TLC. Not care in the way of medicine sought for and shoved down her throat with patronizing admonitions and tough love, which is what she gets from my dad. She needs love and nurture in its most basic and simple form, open, honest, and tender.
I see now that I carry still the same affliction, even though I am blessed with a man who has never been stingy with showing me love and affection openly. There’s still a part of me that acts as if I don’t care one way or another, whether he does or not. ‘I don’t need it’, I sneer, pushing his gift away, even knowing now that I have pushed a few men out of my life this way, because they bought the act, the one called ‘I don’t need you.’
The truth, at one time far too painful for me to even consider, is that I do need it, my masculine, to be wholly human, fully creative, and as one with myself and the universe.
How do I heal this wound in my feminine that resists the union? Help me please, my body.
This is not only an ancestral trauma, but also a collective one. Women have been used and abused and abandoned by men throughout human history – I don’t think I can see the bottom of this wound... We’ve come to believe and accept that men cause harm and all things ‘bad’, thus tarring all of masculinity this way. Even when the benign masculine is evident, we reject it outright with mistrust and disdain or simply, fear, for the baby was long gone with the bath water. In our conviction we cannot see the irony, that the wound cannot heal without the masculine.
Is it forgiveness that’s needed? No. Surrendering? Yes. Surrender what? Surrender my fear of the masculine, and the need for control, which is in place as the armour I wear. Is that it? No. What else, my body? Open to the love that’s coming to you, intentionally. Hold fast to your lover’s tender gaze, and hold yourself open to him. That’s what all those amorous dreams were about. Acknowledge and bring that feeling of love and openness into waking consciousness more and more, until shadow is filled by light. But start by acknowledging it, honour it and submit to it, my need and longing for it. Arms open, down on my knees, full surrender, as the feminine who is humbled by the wisdom in her wounding, and has finally learned that she can never be fully her Self without him, all of Him.
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