Sunday, Aug. 1, 2010
DREAM: Another amorous episode... clearly there’s something I’m not getting yet...
I am on Donlands Ave. near Strathmore Blvd. where I used to live. Near the corner my family (business) has a construction site, excavating. I am just passing by but Roman, an old acquaintance – another honey-blonde, shows up. He offers to carry my bags for me, gentleman that he is. He took the bag closest to him, it’s a lunch bag kind of thing, and I said, this is the heavy one, indicating the laptop bag I have strapped across my body. He took that too.
We continued down the sidewalk to where the house I lived in was directly across the street, and laid down on a quilt or comforter that’s spread between 2 parked cars (there’s no parking on that side of the street in real life). He embraced me and I surrendered myself to the intimacy, though it was not yet sexual. Then it got late and I said I have to go home. I picked up the comforter and my bags and something else – I remember carrying 4 things. The comforter was dragging a bit on the ground so I had to adjust it.
I got to the bus stop – this part is vague now – and somehow went up another level so I could get to the top deck of the bus.
I got off and while walking I took out my cellphone to call my mother – it was my first cellphone, a silver Panasonic – but I heard a couple of messages she left for me instead. The first one was a bit cold and resentful, something about grampa, the second one was quite excited and animated but I can’t remember what about...
DREAMWORK:
While still in the twilight state, another little pebble dropped into the pool of my consciousness, a word: STAGNATION – and I knew that’s what the ‘matter’ is, what’s in the Shadow, and what my weight gain is about, as it had been before the last time I gained this much weight. Don’t know how I could have forgotten. I think my dream brought this to the surface for me because I had just gotten married when we moved to Strathmore, and my ‘descent’ into darkness officially began. This eventually led to a state of stagnation on all levels about 10 years later. I still remember looking at the pictures of a vacation I took with my sister in the Bahamas, and having to admit to myself how ‘big’ I had gotten, and worse, how masculinized I had become. I was totally stuck in life, sucked down into the quagmire of my bitterness, hatred, rage and utter despair. It was there that I began to give up on life, and stagnation began to set in.
The family business was digging for its roots and building something new on Donlands near Strathmore because I, my parents and grampa have all lived there for many years, and this change is starting with us – me, grampa, then my parents. At the moment I still see myself as a distant observer, a passerby, a satellite orbiting my family at a comfortable distance, but inside I sense things have begun shifting without my knowing.
My Animus comes along and gallantly offers to carry my burden for me, lunchbox and laptop, I guess I was coming home from work. We got to where it all began, the stagnation of Sepia, across the street from 97 Strathmore, so there’s a little distance, a bit of objectivity, and healing can begin. For it was there that my marriage began its downward spiral in earnesty, and the split in me got bigger rather quickly. I came to hate men with as pure a passion as I’ve ever felt but it was the masculine in myself that I truly despised – the aggression, the violence, the destructiveness without remorse. Men were the convenient target of my projections. So now my gentle, tender, and melancholic masculine in the form of Roman has come to mend the residual effects of that time, the grief and sadness that would have overwhelmed me if I had allowed it to surface, or so my psyche believed. I am now on a different track (across the street in line with other cars), in sight of where the grief began but not in it anymore.
But I supposed my work is not yet complete, I still had to go home to Mother... and grampa...
Feeling as if I cannot concentrate well enough to do this dreamwork right now... still murky...
_____________
Monday, August 2, 2010 – begin MasterCleanse fast today
DREAM: I am in a work environment beside a large, long table, size of a boardroom table but just plain dark wood, more like a worktable. There are small displays on it, brochure stands, pamphlets and such in neat piles. I am looking for vacation destinations that employees are allowed to choose, as if they are company-sponsored. The first one was Crystal Palace, but I knew this is not the one. Then I came around the table and heard or saw the name ‘Isnae! Isnae!’ and knew that that’s the one. I think Nancie was there too. A business card caught my eye so I picked it up, though I don’t remember now if it was for ‘Isnae! Isnae!’, looked at the design and really liked it. It was a bit shorter than the regular 3.5” long, vertical format with rounded corners and a bronzy colour. A white band of italic type across the middle, like space for a tagline, information in text on the top, and a map on the bottom. Double-sided so there was a picture on the bottom instead of the map. I was very impressed by how the designer managed to make such good use of the space to fit so much information, and with such lovely design sense. I took a card.
DREAMWORK:
Still about work, though this time about taking a break from it, but not actually leaving the employment. I guess that shows improvement on how I feel about work, that I don’t have to sever all ties. It’s a reflection of how much fear I feel about being out in the world. I need to heal this fear.
The dream company is a friendly one, not trying to impress by ostentatiousness, but caring about employees enough to sponsor vacations for them. Crystal Palace I rejected outright, because it gives me the impression of a bingo hall, something pedestrian, a mainstream choice. The kind of place I think Nancie would choose, or at least I like to think so.
_________
I have an image of myself, standing as if on a hilltop, calmly surveying the vista before me. Scattered across the landsacpe before me are countless scenes of my life, each one being reenacted on its own little stage concurrently, all together displaying a gallery of mini-theatrics. What does this image tell me? If I take a step closer, I begin to sense that each scene is a story complete in itself, even as it is a part of a whole – my life. Each is a small gem, sometimes uncut, but always exquisite with details and its own glory. Strung together, I hold a necklace of the rich and meanful moments of my life. The stories are told simply, lightly, and honestly, above a pure and steady white flame, regardless of the gravity of the subject matter. Most of these stories are of my wounds and healing.
___________
BATHTUB INSIGHTS:
Q: What do you feel compelled to do? List.
My work is to heal consciousness, that is, to heal what’s already emerged, not what’s still in the unconscious. Of couse, I have to heal my own consciousness first, to the degree that I am ready to help heal other consciousnesses. I see an image of a lozenge shaped, ivory white stone, flat on top, as if cut with a machine, though there isn’t a sharpe edge anywhere. It is submerged in water, sitting on the bottom of a pool quietly. I pick it up and hold it flat against my left cheek, and I could feel a cool spread of energy coming into me from the stone. I hold it against little Ana’s cheek, and ask Source to heal whatever in her consciousness needs healing. But I know I am not quite ready to do this work yet, my own work is still the focus right now. I will be ready by February next year.
___________
Now I’m lying in bed... My body has something to tell me: Make young art. But I don’t feel that I know how... Make art from a place that’s primitive, exuberant, uninhibited, straight from the gut, without artifice. It is a state of being more so than just physically letting loose and making art. And though my mind does not have a clue how to get to that state, I know that my body knows. So I shall trust and beseech my body to take me there.
Somehow this touches off something that’s lurking in the shadows – the knowing that I have never deepened into anything in my life so far, never persevered into expertise in anything I’ve pursued, art & design, homeopathy, various healing modalities, nutrition, management, and now I’m starting something new again... Is it because I lack the stick-to-it-ness, or that I am simply potentially mediocre, or that I just haven’t found the thing I love doing?? My head insists that the answer is yes to all 3 parts, but my body says it is only the latter.
So it has taken all of my life to find what I love doing, even though I was born with that knowledge... well, hopefully I am just coming full circle to that... more like a spiral, as I keep coming up to the same landmarks over and over, but always with a different self, having gained and lost, grown and diminished, bearing new wounds and scars of healing, thus coming to face another level in myself. This is the phenomenon of the healing spiral.
“Man is free only when he is doing what the deepest self likes, and knowing what the deepest self likes, ah! that takes some diving.” ~ D.H. Lawrence.
It occurs to me that I really am a squirrel (I’ve had several dreams in the past involving squirrels). I collect whatever is my object of desire at the time, as many/much as I can ‘carry’, or more, and I stash it away for some indefinite future when I might dig it out and allow it to serve some of its original purpose, though I would say more often than not, this purpose does not manifest in fulfillment. Either I forget I have it, or I lose interest in it, or I’ve moved on from my need of it. I am but a transient collector; true collectors seek meaning in what they collect. I am a greedy, graspy, wasteful little squirrel, driven to frenetic activity by fear of hunger, afraid that I might have to do without.
The healing: (imagine holding healing stone to my forehead) TRUST in the universe to always provide for me, as it has. DISCERNMENT in knowing ‘what’ I need and ‘how much’ I need, no more, no less. Replenishment comes with the next season, the next opportunity, as it has always. There is also something ancestral in this pattern of mine. I hold the stone to my heart, because I can feel the great many heartbreaks my ancestors have endured, believing they had been forsaken by God and mankind. Then down to my belly, all the powerlessness, hopelessness, and the raging hunger that killed. I can hear the howling rage in my mind that went on and on... So much healing is needed.
I want to have a memorial to my ancestors for what they have suffered for the perpetuation of our lineage, the sacrifices they have made of themselves to sustain life. A dragon carved in black jade as a pendant that I can wear. (Is there such thing as black jade?) Found several online, including Etsy.
___________
Thursday, August 5, 2010
DREAM that a young boy had drowned in his bed/bathtub (it was shaped like a bed but had water in it instead of a mattress. I think he was naked. He was tall and thin and very pale, no more than 10 or 12 y.o. I opened the bedroom door and saw him and freaked out. Another girl was with me. I started to bawl unconsolably from the shock but did not go near the body. I have the feeling that he was related to the other girl, although she did not show any grief even as she went to the body which had to be unfolded, because it was actually folded in half very neatly and flat. I don’t have a sense whether he killed himself or accidentally drowned.
DREAMWORK: (during the drive up to Algonquin)
It was probably around that pre-adolescent age that we started to think aobut what we want to be when we grow up, when it began to have a glimmer of reality. And even though I had been a high-achiever in childhood, I was beginning to fall off my pedestal incrementally as the grades go up, so that by grade 6, which is the grade before ‘middle’ school in Taiwan, I was ranking in the 20s – a far cry from the days when I ranked first or second in class. I think my confidence in myself really took a dive, and worse, there was no one for me to talk to about it. Not that I would have wanted to talk about it, I was too busy trying to hide it. This hiding developed into my greatest survival mechanism – to pretend I am a success at all cost – the big cover-up. But somewhere inside myself I’ve always felt a tiny twinge, like a line of mouse type used in a disclaimer, the words: The Great Pretender. And I know, eventually, when I could face it a few years ago, that this was me.
The cost? Was the growth and development of my Animus – the young boy. Instead, I grew and cultivated the persona of a tough, cold and indifferent bitch-on-wheels, so that I could compete and make my way in the world of patriarchal rule. I cut off my feelings as much as I could, and only allowed anger to show, the rest I considered a sign of weakness, which had no place in a man’s world. So the young, sensitive, growing masculine had to be hidden away like a deformed offspring, starved and stunted from neglect and denial, and finally, drowned in the cold water of my apathy and indifference.
I have worn this façade of indifference for so long that I was not even aware of this death in myself. It is only when my unconscious was brought face to face with it in this dream that I was hit with the shock and grief of what has happened, that I mourned the loss of this essential part of myself.
My shadow, the other girl, is the one who can help me revive this dead part. She has unfolded the body, and healing is now possible. She will bring to him the tender loving care and nurture and sustenance that he needs. As for me, my ego-self, I resolve to surrender that hardened exterior, the Great Pretender, and allow my authentic self, along with all of its feelings to express themselves in the light of day.
I thank you, Source and my dreams, for this great healing.
___________
Friday, August 6, 2010
DREAM that I am sitting on the floor of a second storey with my legs hanging over the edge of the building because there is no wall or railing. I am writing in a notebook with a blue fountain pen. I could look out and see nearby below there were buskers performing. One guy was singing Latin songs, then an oriental man joined in with guitar I think, then someone started playing a drum.
Out of the corner of my vision I see a dog walk by, then a voice said, ‘So you are santa maria’, at the same time I looked up to see R., an ex-boyfriend, in front of me. As soon as I heard the voice I knew who it was. He was dressed all in light blue denim and seemed a bit slighter in build than I remembered him. I glanced up at him but didn’t say anything. My first thought was that I didn’t look particularly good just then, no make-up or hair done. I saw that there were bright blue ink stains on the right side of my pinkish salmon skirt, a skirt I have in real life. I felt slightly agitated then...
DREAMWORK:
I seemed not be afraid to hang over the edge anymore, even if it is only the second storey. I’ve come down to the ground, at least with the more personal and emotional stuff (blue ink), able to be honest enough to express it. I think the way Michael and I have been able to talk about some of our ancient history, things we’ve forgotten about and things we haven’t wanted to even talk to ourselves about, yesterday and today since we started our cleanse as well as this trip to Algonquin, has brought me to this new level of expression and groundedness that’s reflected in this part of the dream. I can now see clearly and distinctly the 3 centres in myself – the 3 musicians – and how they’ve come together: the heart songs joined by the head accompaniment and last but not least important, the body rhythm and pulse that is foundational to my whole being. The 3 are finally performing together, making the beautiful music that is creativity. I sincerely hope that means it will soon manifest in my life.
Santa Maria being Spanish has the colour of romance and passion to me, light blue being the colour of Mary, who is the personification of the Feminine God – Goddess – to me, is also the source of creativity. R. being my Animus in my dream, and who in real life meant the first awakening of love and passion to me, has come to tell me that this is who I am, who I’ve become. The weight of my relationship with him has certainly become lighter as I’ve worked through the many layers. I feel I’m very nearly there in the healing of this particular relationship.
I saw his dog first, though briefly, before I heard his voice, as if to give me a swift warning or clue that this is about love as emotional attachment, because that is what that dog represents. I need Eros in my life because it feeds creativity. I need to be in love with my own masculine, feel the kind of passion and romantic force of energy that overtakes me completely, splits me wide open so that I can do nothing but surrender, and as much as any of us fear the loss of control, I would throw myself over its cliff over and over again. The ecstasy of total abandon, of utter surrender. Fall madly in love with my Self. This to me is an inherent state of Goddess nature, and I long to be there.
But my first reaction was one of shame and unworthiness in the dream, that I’m not desirable enough to attract him, my masculine. This negative body image I have remains a wound in my feminine. The dream is telling me to allow my masculine emotion – anger – to spill, to be expressed – onto my feminine, the bright pink skirt, to blur the line a little between what I believe to be masculine expressions and what I believe to be feminine, that they really come from the same places: the 3 centres creating together, passionately, freely, and ecstatically.
But I became agitated, fearful when I am confronted with the possibility of unleashing raw masculine energy on the feminine, for although I can now discern between masculinity and patriarchy, I have not forgiven what patriarchy has done to the feminine. I need to forgive, and embrace. This is what needs healing now.
Patriarchy is a hurt, angry little boy crying for his mom. I will go to sleep now with this image in my mind.
_____________
Monday, August 9, 2010 – New Moon
Haven’t been able to remember my dreams for the last few days, except for a tiny but persistent feeling that keeps bringing me back to a dream from last week, the one of the death of my young masculine self. When I went into it this morning I realized that my work on it is unfinished, for he is still dead, dead to the world. I have not yet recovered myself from the shock and grief of the discovery to complete the soul retrieval. I know that it is the Goddess, the Great Feminine who can heal this wound of mine, and she has come in the form of the Shadow girl in the dream, the girl who unfolded the body and lifted it out of the water, while I stood rooted to the spot and lost control.
I ask her now to please come to me, I need her too. She comes over and folds me in her arms. I noticed that she has black wavy hair that is tied back. Suddenly I felt her belly sticking into me, I pull back and ask her, are you pregnant?
She smiles, yes.
Is it a boy or girl? I said.
Both, she said.
Twins!
So to speak! mischief in her smile.
Then she leads me by the hand to the body of the young boy. She kneels down on the ground and sits holding him in her lap. I am now reminded of Mary holding the dead body of Jesus after his body was taken down from the cross. I ask, why was his body folded in half? Because you did not want to face him, she replies. Oh.
She pulls me gently down and guides me to hold the body with her, the three of us in a hug. I was a bit afraid to touch him, imagining that it would feel like the skin of an amphibian. In fact it was cool but dry. Then she picks him up as if he weighs nothing, gets up and puts him down on a higher bed, like a massage table covered by a sheet. She folds the sheet around him and I realized that she is making a shroud. When he is completely wrapped she picks up the body again and carries it out of the room. We come into the living room, empty except for a long table in the middle. And there she lays him down, and I knew we are going to have wake for him. Steadily and quietly, people started coming in, all moving slowly. These are all the parts of myself, my selves, my personae, my Shadow selves – my people. One by one they come up to the body, some kiss him, some caress him, some cry over him, all are tender and loving. Then one puts his head down on his chest, and proclaims, I hear a heartbeat! I don’t know whether to believe that, but the crowd was awed.
With that, we hold hands and form circle around circle around circle around the body, and begin to dance and chant in unison, ‘Hoo-hah! Hoo-hah! Hoo-hah!’ I was amazed that there were so many parts of myself that I couldn’t hardly see the end of the crowd, and as I marveled a knowing came to me, ‘We are of thee.’ But why ‘thee’, my mind asks. Because my ancestors are here too, on the outer rings, protecting me. And I realized that the Goddess is there, on the outermost circle, her arms super-stretched half way around the circle, her hands holding the hands of God, her Consort. So He is here too. I am in the presence of the Great Collective of Life. Even when I think I am alone, I am not.
Suddenly the dance stops and in unison we raise our hands in the air and wave: Hooooo! Then point our fingertips toward the body in the centre: Haaah! – reminding me of the Monkey Dance of the Balinese. Wave/point and chant is repeated 10 times, then everything stops. In the stillness I can see the shroud begins to move, the body is trying to push its way out. A low murmur spreads through the crowd. Finally he spreads his arms out of the cloth and emerges. His colour has deepened, all over, his hair is now a honey blonde, before it was a colourless kind of flaxen; his chest had filled out though he is still slender, and his skin is a golden tan. He is the image of golden youth.
The crowd surges forward and envelop him in a group hug, lifting him up under his arms. He hugs and kisses his way through the crowd, and joy of the return, the reprieve, the reunion radiates in all directions. Finally he comes to me and the crowd parts. I stood naked as he, with my eyes tentative and my arms open, until he came into them. We cry and embrace tightly, and though I still feel sorrow and shame for my neglect and desertion of him, I am warmed by the young flame of hope that has sprung up suddenly inside of me, us. I know now what it means to ‘cleave’, and that the pregnant Goddess is inside me, that I am she, and the baby is mine.
Now I have the urge to make a series of Goddess figures, all pregnant, each with a different gesture – hands holding belly, arms up to embrace, hands up waving, hands forward pointing, palms up, tenderly beseeching.
A thought: It is interesting that most of my soul retrieval journeys involve dance.
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