A Reluctant Feast

DREAM: that I am in a restaurant with my sister (or someone like a sister), and close to the right of our table there was another table. 2 guys were sitting there, one of them is a young prince who is unwell, and has ordered food that were supposedly good for him. Both tables were covered with disheds so hardly any surface was showing. The light in the place was slightly low, and the tables were small and plain wood, almost shabby.

The seating arrangement from left to right was me, my sister, the prince, his companion. My sister complained about the smell of their food, so I switched place with her. I noticed that the prince’s dishes had little lables on each, propped on the plates, with the name or ingredients of each dish written in Malaysian (English alphabet) with a number on the bottome, like 213.–, as if that was the price. I thought it might be expensive but wasn’t sure what the currency was.

DREAMWORK:

A female pair and a male pair. Hmmm... Me, my shadow (sister), and the 2 men are the specific content of my shadow in this dream, which happened to be some part of my masculine. All of us sitting close together in a row with a narrow space in between, but not directly engaging with each other, not face to face. This is shadow stuff I’m not quite ready to confront, although I’ve an inkling of what it is.

The tables are set for a feast, full of dishes of food, but no one seemed to be in the mood to eat. The mood was a bit sombre, and from the start there seemed to be an undercurrent of hostility or resentment between the 2 pairs, between male and female. As I look at this tableau now, it seems as if this was an arranged meeting forced on the betrothed pair, my sister (shadow) and the prince (masculine). Shadow/Feminine is unwilling to accept the Masculine, so she complained about the smell of his food, to get further away from him. Prince/Masculine is unwell and in need of healing, but he can only heal if Shadow takes him in marriage (union).

So some part of my feminine in shadow is rejecting an ailing part of my masculine. She seems to despise him. But why? Because he is young and slight in stature, not the tough, strong warrior king who has come into his full power, the ideal masculine that she desires. What she is attracted to is power, which is what she secretly (or unconsciously) wants for herself. She does not realize that true empowerment has to come from within herself, and marrying a king in his peak of virility will only give her the illusion of a power that will never be her own.

I need to get her off her high horse (arrogance of ego), and show her that the prince is her soulmate. They are both young, and will grow up together. But first her heart has to be awakened by love, so her eyes can see. I don’t know how this can be done, though I trust I will be guided, as always...

But what of the indeciperable ‘labels’, my body?

I see, the prince and his man are foreigners, from a different culture. Closely related (Malaysian and Chinese are like second cousins, as far cultures go), but not exactly the same. I think this is more or less how I feel about the degree in which I can relate to a man’s life, to masculinity: I can relate to a certain degree, but much of it confounds me. “Why do men do what they do? I don’t get it.” pretty much sums it up. Yet I know that I know the masculine way of being and thinking and feeling, because it is inside me too, in my own masculine. But because I was born a woman I was conditioned by my culture as a woman, which means in my mind I’ve chosen a side, the woman’s side, and the purpose of being on one side is so you can be against another side.

I have been taught to choose a side, although some would say, “Well but of course, you are female!” But I know now that that’s when the split happened, and it doesn’t have to be this way. There doesn’t have to be sides. And this is why the prince/masculine is sickly and underdeveloped. He has been deprived of feminine nurture most of his life.

It is only a way of seeing, a belief put in place by ego out of fear. But there’s something else wrong with the prince, who grew up without sufficient feminine influence, and had formed his belief also courtesy of cultural programming. He has learned to attach a value to everything, and believes what the bottom line tells him. This is the compass by which he navigates life. In the dream he needed proof of what the dishes were made of, as well as the price of each dish. These numbers that he sought are the measure of his worth, for he does not have the confidence of someone who has been kept safe from the harshness of the world before he was ready to step out of the nest.

I see now that he only accepted this marital liaison because he believed it would bring him the power of manhood. He saw his bride-to-be only as chattel, as commodity to be traded or acquired, and used as leverage if need be. This was Shadow’s secret sorrow, and what the bad smell was. Dear God and Goddess, what a state of affairs!

There’s nothing left to do but try to resolve the situation, and I am the only one for the job. I have to go back into the dream and let things take their course as they will, trusting my body to guide me...

I take both of their hands (now that I’m sitting between the two of them) and hold them in my lap. I say to Shadow, “You are smart enough to know that this is your divinely betrothed, he is the one meant for you. But because ‘your side’ has rejected and neglected him, he has not fully grown into the man he is to be. But look at him, he has a good build and beautiful features, all the potential is there for the making of a fine man. All he needs is your love and nurture to come into his full being.” Then I turn to the prince and say, “And she needs you too, to help her become the woman of power she is meant to be. You already know that no amount of money or numbers or tangible proof is going to give you the self-confidence and self-worth you need to be a man, it can’t even buy her affections. But it is this lack of inner strength that’s keeping you down, you are actually depressed.” That’s why the atmosphere in here is so heavy, I think to myself. And the number, 213, is 3 x 71, 71 is a prime number; 3 is the number of masculinity, so this has to do with the masculine prime, as I know now.

I bring their hands together in my own, and I ask the prince’s attendant to join us. He was the prince’s ‘conscience’, his Jiminy Cricket, his guardian, and he was already moved to tears. He comes over and all 4 of us hug. Now we will have a feast to celebrate.