DREAM that I was in a multi-level building, and connecting one floor to the next is a gradually inclining ramp that ran from one end to the other end of the floor. There were shops and businesses along these zigzags all the way up, all seemed to be thriving. I was sitting at a table with some people, chatting, and did not realize until I got up to leave that someone had stolen one of my bags. Somehow I knew the thief was this young Chinese guy, along with his buddy, so I tried to find them. I was anxious because there was something important in that bag, but I thought to myself, at least I still have my wallet in my purse. I don’t think I ever caught up to them, but somehow he relented and left my bag for me to find. I looked through the contents and didn’t see anything missing, although my wallet was in there, so I was mistaken, but if he took money he also left me enough…
In another dream a group of us was moving. I think it was more than moving home, it felt more like a whole organization or community, the whole ‘group’, whatever the group was. At one point my mother (didn’t look like my real mother) handed me a necklace with a blue heart-shaped pendant and told me to hang on to it for her for now. I stuffed it in my pocket while she told me to hang it up somewhere. I said over my shoulder because I was in a rush to get moving, that my room wasn’t set up yet…
DREAMWORK:
I tried to talk to myself about this restless, anxiousness I feel these days, then I tried to go back to doing my gratitude practice which slipped off the map some time back, but the second I got quiet enough a feeling floated up in me that said, “I am living on borrowed time.” Then the voice of my inner critic followed right on its heel, brandishing his whip: “You’ve had your break, now you’re just slacking, now get up and get going!” But I know even that is just one of the two armies at war inside of me, the other side carries the blue flag of peace, and declares: “I am content and happy, as I’ve not been for a long time, living and doing as I am. I don’t want to give any of it up.” And that’s the point of conflict.
Being more aware now that nothing is as black and white as we would have ourselves believe, I see that both sides are not entirely ‘right’, nor entirely ‘wrong’. There is in me a part that is still maturing, still not quite ready to go back out into the world to fully claim my place in it; and there is too, a fear that still needs healing, of feeling insufficient in myself, of wanting to hide from the world. These are peas in the same pod of my shadow, beginning now to come to light as I look upon them, though I’m not sure what to do… Perhaps my dreams will show me…
The multi-level building, an old, familiar motif in my dreams, is still the symbol of my ‘self’, this time interconnected with the zigzag of ramps. I see that as an improvement. Businesses thriving is also a good sign, not so much the busy-ness, but more the sense of harmonious flow, of things running smoothly, without gaps or obstructions. I can match the feeling up with my writing work lately, being able to express and flow from the inside onto my ‘tablet’ fairly easily and adequately, at least to myself.
The thief is, of course, a part of myself. Although he played the villain, he is in fact my Animus, my ally. But how? I suppose he stole my bag so I would snap out of my complacency and set out to chase him. Why, though? Why, to get my attention of course, to tell me that the help I need is from the masculine and from my lineage. But why not an old man? It is a young man because my animus is as yet immature and flighty, he does not have the full confidence and trust in himself to act with total honesty and integrity. He does not have the courage to be fully himself, though he does not mean any harm.
Do I feel inferior because I am Chinese? If I’ve ever asked this question of myself I don’t think I’ve ever answered it in earnesty. I would have to admit that I do, that for the most part I’m not particularly proud of being Chinese. My disapproval, with its underlying shame and inferiority, far outweighs my appreciation of what it means to be Chinese. Yet I know there are wonderful treasures in our lineage and tradition, but I’ve never felt connected to them. I don’t know what it’s like to be a fully Chinese woman, much less a Chinese man, fully immersed in their own culture. I suppose I could say that that part of my heritage was stolen from me, or that I had let it go because I was busy being assimilated by the new culture I was suddenly dropped into. But it was never really gone from me, was it? I was born with it in my blood, in the racial memory that I carry, it only needs to be awakened. How?
It is the god of war, Mars (which I just finished reading about yesterday), that I shall invoke now, to show me how to fullly manifest the power of my masculine, how to compete and survive in the world – from marketplace to battlefield, with the wisdom and integrity of my traditions and cultures – both inherited and acquired, and speak, walk, and act with poise, balance, strength, and vision.
An idea just came to me, to read a book written by a Chinese man that will show me the ethos and pathos of being a contemporary, as well as an ancient Chinese man, in and beyond time. Mars, please guide me to find this book.
Just realized something: I did not give thanks for the revelations of my dreams yesterday. It was a beautiful gift of wisdom and insight, healing to my fretting spirit, but I took it without thanks. I give thanks now to Source and my dreams, and all the spirits that touched me with love and kindness, from every part of my being. Thank you.
In the second dream I am reminded by my ‘mother’ – the great feminine – to keep the heart of compassion in sight during this transition and transformation we are going through as a generation, but in my headlong rush to keep moving I brushed off her instruction, reasonsing that I should get my life in ‘order’ first. She did not want me to neglect my emotional needs for the sake of getting ahead in the world. I have forgotten my priority to my inner life.
I remember now that this dream took place just outside the door of a room, one of those sub-basement level rooms that is sheltered behind a wall but you only have to walk up a few steps to street level. I had just stepped out the door and my mother was still inside the room. So perhaps she is telling me this on the threshold of my stepping out into the world, my mind had already left and my body soon to follow. Remember to be compassionate with yourself, she says, remember to stay true to yourself.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Jeff and Lori, 2 Parts of Me
DREAM that I was going down some stone steps outside, large roughly hewn slabs, and one of the steps was cracked so I felt the looseness when I stepped on it. The piece broke off or I took it off, and a swarm of big whitish oval beetle-looking creatures poured out of the hole. The marking on their bodies was again, the one horizontal line with several shorter verticals through it, like the dream where the bottom of the shopping bag was divided in 6, and the dream of the paper folded into 12 squares. These bug bodies were more like 12. I was very shocked.
In another dream Jeff, a guy from the Fire, was there. He was lining people up for a group photo, just one line. I happened to be there so he just pulled me up to one end of the line. An old friend of mine, Lori, from my art college days showed up, so I drew her into the line. Because she was taller than me, I gave her my space and stayed on the end.
There were times in the night when I woke up slightly and felt disturbed and fearful by the dreams I was having, as if something bad happened in them, but I can’t remember any of it now… felt like it was from a very deep place…
DREAMWORK:
The descent was not a steep or difficult one, true of the descent into my own inner world that I am making. The steps are carved out of the stone that’s already there, part of the landscape, although they were not elegant little steps that a child could climb. They were a bit larger than life scale. Also this was outdoors. So it is pointing to a path larger than a personal one. There were other people on the same path behind me, I remember now.
But that means I will soon find a faulty step, one that is full of surprise. I don’t recognize the insects but they looked like creatures who normally lived in the dark, almost albino in appearance. They remind me of grubs, which I just found out online, are larvae of scarab beetles! In my dream, they looked like fat beetles with many legs. Scarab beetles, apparently, symbolize Spontaneous Generation, New Life, Hope and Resurrection, as they emerge from the ground out of dung balls from eggs laid a year ago. Scarabs are also the symbol for the Egyptian sun god, therefore solar. So this rebirth is something that has been hidden but will be brought to the light of day for the first time, and it will be vital and abundant. But I must be careful not to force them out into the light too early, causing damage from premature rebirth… Okay! I get it: Stop pushing!
I keep noticing these arrangements of 2 rows and either 3 or 6 columns, making either 6 or 12 spaces, with equal number of spaces above and below the ‘horizon’ line. As above, so below… The rebirth that’s happening below now, will emerge above in 3 months (?) in the microcosm (my perosnal level), and in 6 months in the macrocosm (global level). 3 months will be in the new year… hmmm… still doubtful…
Onto the second dream, or second part of the same dream…
When I think of Jeff I think of responsibility and humility, honesty and integrity, spiritual longing and connection, I think of a no-frill, down-to-earth, still waters that run deep kind of guy. He is simple human goodness, but a seeker. You can trust and rely on him for the things that really matter in life. Yet often he seems to be full of sadness, and he carries his burden of responsibility, as a breadwinner and head of the family, heavily. It is as if he’s trying too hard and wearing himself out, this pillar of strength for everyone else.
There is a part of me that is like that, feeling the weight of being responsible in my various roles, and the guilt that is never too far away.
In the dream, Jeff, my hyper-responsible self, was lining up all the roles I play in my life. Lori, who was a single-mother on wellfare and juggling full-time school, did not have the family and community support (aside from wellfare) that Jeff has. And most of all, she did not have spiritual support. How does she fit into the picture then, literally, in the dream? She relied on her own resources and network of relationships, and she was not without wit and charm. She has had to learn as she went, but she knew how to survive with what she had, and seemed to strike a good balance in equanimity and optimism. She shared what she could with me, and never complained about her life, even though at times she was stretched pretty thin.
I need to bring the part of me that’s like her into the ‘group’ picture of my life, the resourceful and responsible provider who takes everything in stride, as well as the Jeff-part of me that has a lot of solid support from all around, but ditch the weary, though saintly, under-the-heavy-yoke-24/7 persona. My actual load is at its all time low these days, so the weight I feel is what I choose to feel, and I can choose not to feel this way as well.
Where my sense of responsibility is concerned, and this is always a problem area for me, and one that’s causing most of my anxieties these days (that I wake up in the night with), I need to marry Jeff and Lori in order to transform it for good.
In another dream Jeff, a guy from the Fire, was there. He was lining people up for a group photo, just one line. I happened to be there so he just pulled me up to one end of the line. An old friend of mine, Lori, from my art college days showed up, so I drew her into the line. Because she was taller than me, I gave her my space and stayed on the end.
There were times in the night when I woke up slightly and felt disturbed and fearful by the dreams I was having, as if something bad happened in them, but I can’t remember any of it now… felt like it was from a very deep place…
DREAMWORK:
The descent was not a steep or difficult one, true of the descent into my own inner world that I am making. The steps are carved out of the stone that’s already there, part of the landscape, although they were not elegant little steps that a child could climb. They were a bit larger than life scale. Also this was outdoors. So it is pointing to a path larger than a personal one. There were other people on the same path behind me, I remember now.
But that means I will soon find a faulty step, one that is full of surprise. I don’t recognize the insects but they looked like creatures who normally lived in the dark, almost albino in appearance. They remind me of grubs, which I just found out online, are larvae of scarab beetles! In my dream, they looked like fat beetles with many legs. Scarab beetles, apparently, symbolize Spontaneous Generation, New Life, Hope and Resurrection, as they emerge from the ground out of dung balls from eggs laid a year ago. Scarabs are also the symbol for the Egyptian sun god, therefore solar. So this rebirth is something that has been hidden but will be brought to the light of day for the first time, and it will be vital and abundant. But I must be careful not to force them out into the light too early, causing damage from premature rebirth… Okay! I get it: Stop pushing!
I keep noticing these arrangements of 2 rows and either 3 or 6 columns, making either 6 or 12 spaces, with equal number of spaces above and below the ‘horizon’ line. As above, so below… The rebirth that’s happening below now, will emerge above in 3 months (?) in the microcosm (my perosnal level), and in 6 months in the macrocosm (global level). 3 months will be in the new year… hmmm… still doubtful…
Onto the second dream, or second part of the same dream…
When I think of Jeff I think of responsibility and humility, honesty and integrity, spiritual longing and connection, I think of a no-frill, down-to-earth, still waters that run deep kind of guy. He is simple human goodness, but a seeker. You can trust and rely on him for the things that really matter in life. Yet often he seems to be full of sadness, and he carries his burden of responsibility, as a breadwinner and head of the family, heavily. It is as if he’s trying too hard and wearing himself out, this pillar of strength for everyone else.
There is a part of me that is like that, feeling the weight of being responsible in my various roles, and the guilt that is never too far away.
In the dream, Jeff, my hyper-responsible self, was lining up all the roles I play in my life. Lori, who was a single-mother on wellfare and juggling full-time school, did not have the family and community support (aside from wellfare) that Jeff has. And most of all, she did not have spiritual support. How does she fit into the picture then, literally, in the dream? She relied on her own resources and network of relationships, and she was not without wit and charm. She has had to learn as she went, but she knew how to survive with what she had, and seemed to strike a good balance in equanimity and optimism. She shared what she could with me, and never complained about her life, even though at times she was stretched pretty thin.
I need to bring the part of me that’s like her into the ‘group’ picture of my life, the resourceful and responsible provider who takes everything in stride, as well as the Jeff-part of me that has a lot of solid support from all around, but ditch the weary, though saintly, under-the-heavy-yoke-24/7 persona. My actual load is at its all time low these days, so the weight I feel is what I choose to feel, and I can choose not to feel this way as well.
Where my sense of responsibility is concerned, and this is always a problem area for me, and one that’s causing most of my anxieties these days (that I wake up in the night with), I need to marry Jeff and Lori in order to transform it for good.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Healing Mars
DREAM that G. and I were husband and wife, but we were not intimate. He was morose and closed to me, and when I tried to do things for him, he ignored or rejected it. We were always near each other but never touched.
In another dream I saw a young oriental woman running a business. She had 3 or 4 younger people working for her. She was showing them how to do things and I saw her pull out a stack of cash and looking up pointedly into the camera, as if I was on the other side of the lens watching. I had a flash of Vivi’s face then. A young man was put in charge of a certain daily task and he reported by writing on a small chalkboard. But the writing was in Chinese and I couldn’t understand most of it. He seemed to sign off at the bottom with 3 characters that mean “together we shine”.
DREAMWORK:
This is a familiar dance of melancholia that I have had in dreams as well as waking life. The “I rather be alone than stick my neck out to be hurt again” choreography. There is wounded pride, resentment, revenge, vulnerability, and a lot of longing inside that false wall of aloof aversion. Where did it come from?
It is my masculine that has suffered the wound of rejection and unrequited love. I remember suddenly that I had ask Mars (part of my special project to learn astrology from reading Caroline Casey’s “Making the Gods Work for You”) to send me a dream before sleep last night, and I can see now he did. Remembering this also helped me to remember something else, that G. is the puer eternus to me, Peter Pan who never wants to grow up. In me, he is the boy child who was hurt very young, and never grew up from that point on. He is sulking still.
Had I made or do something I was proud of and some adult ignored or rejected it? I don’t have memory of any but it seems quite likely. Even ‘kind’ criticism can feel like rejection, and children are not fooled by the sugarcoating. The message is: I am not good enough the way I am. And just like that, the Mars’ fire of enthusiasm is doused, his internal temperature went from hot to cold in seconds. He has been left out in the cold ever since.
But it wasn’t just his enthusiasm that was snuffed, that flame was also the fragile budding of his, my, self-confidence, self-assertion, self-worth, my Fool’s desire to go out into the big, wide world that was my oyster. I’ve struggled with this lack all of my life.
I know too, from my dreams and life, that behind the rejection is the withholding of unconditional love. How to heal all this then, to retrieve this lost part of myself? I sense that learning more about Mars will give me the answer…
Sign: Aries; Scorpio (interesting yesterday was the first day of Scorpio)
Key words: Desire, energy, eros… Desire as incentive for growth… All desires are pure if we distill them back to their original intention…
Festivals: Vernal equinox (when the magnolia tree flowers… I think spring is coming for me very soon!), Halloween (which is in a few days)
Way of honoring: by answering the question, “What do we desire?” By working with desire, we begin to understand the interrelatedness of all things…
Shadow, when not honored: Anger; violence; heartless sex; war. (that’s the hell we’re in!) if we violently suppress our desires or doubts (which are merely counter-desires), we will become externally violent…
Under the title Mars, she had: The Power of Fierce Compassion, then a beautiful quote from J.R.R. Tolkien:
“The rule of no realm is mine, but all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail in my task if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I too am a steward.”
These words went straight into my heart. Compassion, deep and wide, and all-encompassing as it is meant.
So, I need to heal my masculine, my Mars, with feminine healing, from Neptune… back to you, Neptune…
In another dream I saw a young oriental woman running a business. She had 3 or 4 younger people working for her. She was showing them how to do things and I saw her pull out a stack of cash and looking up pointedly into the camera, as if I was on the other side of the lens watching. I had a flash of Vivi’s face then. A young man was put in charge of a certain daily task and he reported by writing on a small chalkboard. But the writing was in Chinese and I couldn’t understand most of it. He seemed to sign off at the bottom with 3 characters that mean “together we shine”.
DREAMWORK:
This is a familiar dance of melancholia that I have had in dreams as well as waking life. The “I rather be alone than stick my neck out to be hurt again” choreography. There is wounded pride, resentment, revenge, vulnerability, and a lot of longing inside that false wall of aloof aversion. Where did it come from?
It is my masculine that has suffered the wound of rejection and unrequited love. I remember suddenly that I had ask Mars (part of my special project to learn astrology from reading Caroline Casey’s “Making the Gods Work for You”) to send me a dream before sleep last night, and I can see now he did. Remembering this also helped me to remember something else, that G. is the puer eternus to me, Peter Pan who never wants to grow up. In me, he is the boy child who was hurt very young, and never grew up from that point on. He is sulking still.
Had I made or do something I was proud of and some adult ignored or rejected it? I don’t have memory of any but it seems quite likely. Even ‘kind’ criticism can feel like rejection, and children are not fooled by the sugarcoating. The message is: I am not good enough the way I am. And just like that, the Mars’ fire of enthusiasm is doused, his internal temperature went from hot to cold in seconds. He has been left out in the cold ever since.
But it wasn’t just his enthusiasm that was snuffed, that flame was also the fragile budding of his, my, self-confidence, self-assertion, self-worth, my Fool’s desire to go out into the big, wide world that was my oyster. I’ve struggled with this lack all of my life.
I know too, from my dreams and life, that behind the rejection is the withholding of unconditional love. How to heal all this then, to retrieve this lost part of myself? I sense that learning more about Mars will give me the answer…
Sign: Aries; Scorpio (interesting yesterday was the first day of Scorpio)
Key words: Desire, energy, eros… Desire as incentive for growth… All desires are pure if we distill them back to their original intention…
Festivals: Vernal equinox (when the magnolia tree flowers… I think spring is coming for me very soon!), Halloween (which is in a few days)
Way of honoring: by answering the question, “What do we desire?” By working with desire, we begin to understand the interrelatedness of all things…
Shadow, when not honored: Anger; violence; heartless sex; war. (that’s the hell we’re in!) if we violently suppress our desires or doubts (which are merely counter-desires), we will become externally violent…
Under the title Mars, she had: The Power of Fierce Compassion, then a beautiful quote from J.R.R. Tolkien:
“The rule of no realm is mine, but all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail in my task if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I too am a steward.”
These words went straight into my heart. Compassion, deep and wide, and all-encompassing as it is meant.
So, I need to heal my masculine, my Mars, with feminine healing, from Neptune… back to you, Neptune…
Friday, October 22, 2010
My Deep South
DREAM that I was watching 2 women in a room, as if they were in a movie and I was a viewer. The room was big but dim overall, and I had the sense that it was full of clutter. It had a dated feeling to it, not quite ancient, but at least a few generations old. The women were around 30, although I could only see one of them from the front in the first ‘scene’, the other one was sitting with her back to the ‘audience’. The standing one appeared to be the caretaker of the other, giving her advice. I remember hearing the word ‘magnolia’, and had the sense that that’s where they lived.
Then the scene changed and they were in a public place, like the town hall, crowded with people socializing. The seating was arranged like pews or lecture-style, and the 2 women were sitting with a young man they knew. I think he had red hair. The previously sitting woman was standing on the other side of the room telling someone that her friend, the caretaking woman had told her to leave and do something involving some kind of risk, then come back and try and get Dean back. I wasn’t sure whether she said ‘git’ or ‘give’. Dean was the red-head.
It was only after I woke up that I realized I was only an observer in the dream, and the whole thing was like a movie in a Southern town. Perhaps to do with ‘magnolia’, and all the movie and book associations I have with it.
DREAMWORK:
This dream came from a deeper, dim place in me, a place that I am not familiar and would not call my own, although my heart seems to feel some nostalgia for it, but no where else in my body. As if it’s a romantic notion or memory from time gone by, a bit tarnished now, but still golden under the dust. Life appears to be the norm of the norms, where women always wear dresses and men and women have very distinctive roles. But underneath the sugar pies and toothy smiles, there flows a vein of darkness that’s the blood of the South…
In the first scene the faceless woman was my shadow, being taken care of by my ego self, who was dispensing advice to her, telling her what she should do, with the best intentions of course. The ego was standing over the shadow; but the shadow was the one who ‘under’-‘stands’.
I just realized something all of a sudden: the 2 women have the same face, they are actually one woman in 2 bodies! That’s why I was a little confused while writing down the part about the one standing talking to someone in the hall, because at first I thought she was the caretaker from the first scene. I can see that this encompasses the perspective of them being my ego and my shadow, both are me.
Maybe that’s also why I was unsure about whether she said ‘git’ Dean back, or ‘give’ Dean back…
Are the people in our life always parts of our self, ego and shadow, the light and the dark?
The South is the direction of growth on the medicine wheel, Michael just informed me, and my impression of the American South is a place rife with fecund fertility and a steamy miasma of fierce attachments and tangled roots, societies built on top of the domain of the Black Goddess, a place of hidden mysteries and treasures, where you are constantly and acutelly aware of the unseen and how it overtakes you.
Perhaps the woman is schizophrenic, and this dream/drama is a portrayal of her interior life – reminding me of the book “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” – a necessary projection of her ego self when the shadow self has taken over. When you are living out mainly your shadow life, do you dream of your ego life? Was that what the woman was struggling with, which life to live out of?? Perhaps she has had a past typically seen as Southern (and tragic): riddled with alcoholism, abuse, family secrets and dramas of horrific proportions ricocheting down the generations, not to mention the cavernous rooms of the plantation estates in all of its faded glory. Lives are deeply connected and ancestral, for better or worse. I think of Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers (she’s just popping up like weeds everywhere these days!) Alice Walker, Capote, MLK, Jr. and Oprah Winfrey, the fierce spirits that they are. Like flowers that insist on blooming, no matter how dark the heavens and how wild the storm, because they know they have been anchored by the roots of their tree, for so long that it is inseparable from the land it stands on. They can try, but they can never leave.
I have a glimpse now, of why love and hate run so deep in the people of the South, for the roots that support and feed them are the same ones that bind and keep them. Individuation cannot happen without leaving the clutches of the Devouring Mother.
The South is a cloying, shadowy place, as it is in myself, I am at once fascinated and fearful of it. But I also know it to be full of unmined riches, creativity unseen by the common light of day, and it is deep down in the southern part of myself. The red-head, Dean, is my Prometheus, who has his sight on the future of the collective and there’s a whole townhall-ful, a whole community, waiting for him to bring the fire to light its way forward.
Found this on the web, by James Baldwin:
“The name of the elder of these brothers was Prometheus, or Forethought; for he was always thinking of the future and making things ready for what might happen tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or it may be in a hundred years to come.”
But first I have to be willing to make the sacrifice to the gods and goddesses, the ancestors and our roots, by surrendering all that I own – my sense of self, my beliefs, my identity, my fears, my hopes, my life as I know it – all that I am attached to. That’s the risk I have to take, and what the woman in the dream was telling someone in the town hall. The ‘journey’ she was told by her twin to take, is to go back into the shadowy past of my/our history, and make reparations where necessary. Only when the sins of our forebearers (and ourselves) are atoned will our ancestors be aligned with our future and growth.
I don’t yet have a clear sense of what this means to me and my work – to resolve ancestral debts or iniquities, to give outlet to what’s been suppressed, to make healing possible where needed – as I am not aware of much in the way of ancestral baggage. Perhaps it is more about reconnecting to my lineage, which I have begun to take an interest in through daoism, but really no more than looking at the outside of the box so far. Is there a shadow side to Dao, if everything under the sun has a shadow? What’s in it then? This may be the equivalent of my personal South… I do know that just knowing about Dao in the most superficial sense as I do, I can already feel it in my blood (much like the way the South runs in the blood of her offsprings, I imagine), even though its teachings and ways have been banished in my family for I don’t know how many generations now.
So why were the cast of characters in my dream drama all white, not Chinese? Perhaps because it is a message for the collective, all of humankind, but each of us need to do our own work, through our own lineage.
A dean is an academic administrator or executive, you might say, the one who oversees the smooth running of the whole operation, whose vision includes both the big picture as well as the practical details, and whose priority is always the overall wellbeing of the collective. Prometheus fits the bill, I think, as an avatar for the human race. In my dream though, he was still one of the crowd, not yet called into action. And it’s true that I have not picked up the torch yet, to begin my work in the world. I hope I’m not far, but I really don’t know.
Apart from its obvious association with the South, what does Magnolia signify to me? Magnolia flowers are one of the earliest to appear in our springs, entire trees are covered in huge blooms before any foliage, although seeds are not produced until the fall. As it is a tree dense with branches, you might liken it to the tree of our ancestry, each of us flowers of the same tree, no matter how far apart we might be the further we are from the roots. Simply, the magnolia is a beautiful tree to me, making my heart smile and giving me hope at the end of a long, dark winter, though all is still barren I know spring is here, when I see the wild spectacle of a magnolia in full bloom. Both magnolia and the South are about abundance and growth, but of all things equally, for Nature is without judgment.
Well, in spite of having now written an essay I still have a feeling there’s something I’ve missed…
P.S. as far as I can discern, it was purely coincidental that the movie “Mississippi Burning” was shipped to me with a CD I ordered as a ‘cover’, and that Michael chose to watch it tonight… the South is trying to tell me something…
Then the scene changed and they were in a public place, like the town hall, crowded with people socializing. The seating was arranged like pews or lecture-style, and the 2 women were sitting with a young man they knew. I think he had red hair. The previously sitting woman was standing on the other side of the room telling someone that her friend, the caretaking woman had told her to leave and do something involving some kind of risk, then come back and try and get Dean back. I wasn’t sure whether she said ‘git’ or ‘give’. Dean was the red-head.
It was only after I woke up that I realized I was only an observer in the dream, and the whole thing was like a movie in a Southern town. Perhaps to do with ‘magnolia’, and all the movie and book associations I have with it.
DREAMWORK:
This dream came from a deeper, dim place in me, a place that I am not familiar and would not call my own, although my heart seems to feel some nostalgia for it, but no where else in my body. As if it’s a romantic notion or memory from time gone by, a bit tarnished now, but still golden under the dust. Life appears to be the norm of the norms, where women always wear dresses and men and women have very distinctive roles. But underneath the sugar pies and toothy smiles, there flows a vein of darkness that’s the blood of the South…
In the first scene the faceless woman was my shadow, being taken care of by my ego self, who was dispensing advice to her, telling her what she should do, with the best intentions of course. The ego was standing over the shadow; but the shadow was the one who ‘under’-‘stands’.
I just realized something all of a sudden: the 2 women have the same face, they are actually one woman in 2 bodies! That’s why I was a little confused while writing down the part about the one standing talking to someone in the hall, because at first I thought she was the caretaker from the first scene. I can see that this encompasses the perspective of them being my ego and my shadow, both are me.
Maybe that’s also why I was unsure about whether she said ‘git’ Dean back, or ‘give’ Dean back…
Are the people in our life always parts of our self, ego and shadow, the light and the dark?
The South is the direction of growth on the medicine wheel, Michael just informed me, and my impression of the American South is a place rife with fecund fertility and a steamy miasma of fierce attachments and tangled roots, societies built on top of the domain of the Black Goddess, a place of hidden mysteries and treasures, where you are constantly and acutelly aware of the unseen and how it overtakes you.
Perhaps the woman is schizophrenic, and this dream/drama is a portrayal of her interior life – reminding me of the book “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” – a necessary projection of her ego self when the shadow self has taken over. When you are living out mainly your shadow life, do you dream of your ego life? Was that what the woman was struggling with, which life to live out of?? Perhaps she has had a past typically seen as Southern (and tragic): riddled with alcoholism, abuse, family secrets and dramas of horrific proportions ricocheting down the generations, not to mention the cavernous rooms of the plantation estates in all of its faded glory. Lives are deeply connected and ancestral, for better or worse. I think of Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers (she’s just popping up like weeds everywhere these days!) Alice Walker, Capote, MLK, Jr. and Oprah Winfrey, the fierce spirits that they are. Like flowers that insist on blooming, no matter how dark the heavens and how wild the storm, because they know they have been anchored by the roots of their tree, for so long that it is inseparable from the land it stands on. They can try, but they can never leave.
I have a glimpse now, of why love and hate run so deep in the people of the South, for the roots that support and feed them are the same ones that bind and keep them. Individuation cannot happen without leaving the clutches of the Devouring Mother.
The South is a cloying, shadowy place, as it is in myself, I am at once fascinated and fearful of it. But I also know it to be full of unmined riches, creativity unseen by the common light of day, and it is deep down in the southern part of myself. The red-head, Dean, is my Prometheus, who has his sight on the future of the collective and there’s a whole townhall-ful, a whole community, waiting for him to bring the fire to light its way forward.
Found this on the web, by James Baldwin:
“The name of the elder of these brothers was Prometheus, or Forethought; for he was always thinking of the future and making things ready for what might happen tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or it may be in a hundred years to come.”
But first I have to be willing to make the sacrifice to the gods and goddesses, the ancestors and our roots, by surrendering all that I own – my sense of self, my beliefs, my identity, my fears, my hopes, my life as I know it – all that I am attached to. That’s the risk I have to take, and what the woman in the dream was telling someone in the town hall. The ‘journey’ she was told by her twin to take, is to go back into the shadowy past of my/our history, and make reparations where necessary. Only when the sins of our forebearers (and ourselves) are atoned will our ancestors be aligned with our future and growth.
I don’t yet have a clear sense of what this means to me and my work – to resolve ancestral debts or iniquities, to give outlet to what’s been suppressed, to make healing possible where needed – as I am not aware of much in the way of ancestral baggage. Perhaps it is more about reconnecting to my lineage, which I have begun to take an interest in through daoism, but really no more than looking at the outside of the box so far. Is there a shadow side to Dao, if everything under the sun has a shadow? What’s in it then? This may be the equivalent of my personal South… I do know that just knowing about Dao in the most superficial sense as I do, I can already feel it in my blood (much like the way the South runs in the blood of her offsprings, I imagine), even though its teachings and ways have been banished in my family for I don’t know how many generations now.
So why were the cast of characters in my dream drama all white, not Chinese? Perhaps because it is a message for the collective, all of humankind, but each of us need to do our own work, through our own lineage.
A dean is an academic administrator or executive, you might say, the one who oversees the smooth running of the whole operation, whose vision includes both the big picture as well as the practical details, and whose priority is always the overall wellbeing of the collective. Prometheus fits the bill, I think, as an avatar for the human race. In my dream though, he was still one of the crowd, not yet called into action. And it’s true that I have not picked up the torch yet, to begin my work in the world. I hope I’m not far, but I really don’t know.
Apart from its obvious association with the South, what does Magnolia signify to me? Magnolia flowers are one of the earliest to appear in our springs, entire trees are covered in huge blooms before any foliage, although seeds are not produced until the fall. As it is a tree dense with branches, you might liken it to the tree of our ancestry, each of us flowers of the same tree, no matter how far apart we might be the further we are from the roots. Simply, the magnolia is a beautiful tree to me, making my heart smile and giving me hope at the end of a long, dark winter, though all is still barren I know spring is here, when I see the wild spectacle of a magnolia in full bloom. Both magnolia and the South are about abundance and growth, but of all things equally, for Nature is without judgment.
Well, in spite of having now written an essay I still have a feeling there’s something I’ve missed…
P.S. as far as I can discern, it was purely coincidental that the movie “Mississippi Burning” was shipped to me with a CD I ordered as a ‘cover’, and that Michael chose to watch it tonight… the South is trying to tell me something…
Thursday, October 21, 2010
An Inversion of Value
DREAM that I was buying used slippers for 99¢, not because I really wanted them, but because I have this compulsion that I should buy enough to make it worth the transaction. As if paying 99¢ is too ‘cheap’ of me that I should rack it to at least $3 or something. So I picked up a second pair of slippers and put it into a straw-woven purse or shopping bag with a very ‘holey’ bottom. It looked more like a grill with one criss and three cross lengths of straw strands, making 6 ‘holes’. But it was enough to hold the slippers without them falling out the bottom.
DREAMWORK:
Yet another facet of my insatiability, my compulsive need for more, because ‘more’ is somehow more acceptable, and makes me look and feel better about myself. ‘More’ becomes the desired outcome, not the object that I want more of. Shame is covered up under having more, shame that I feel lacking inside, that I am not enough. Round and round I circle that same leg of the spiral…
The slippers were used, belonged to others, and probably discarded by them. And here I was, ready to ‘slip’ them on, other people’s discarded directions and purposes and motivations. Is it because I do not have a clear sense of my own? At the moment I would have to say that that is how I feel. I was not aware just how easily I can be swayed by this to just assume someone else’s path, that I am so easily ‘sold’. That I can so easily and carelessly sell myself. Twice now I’ve applied for jobs that I do not really care about, and twice my unconscious has shown me that I’ve betrayed my true self. Yet I am still stuck in that fear that I’ve caved into…
What’s with the strangely made bottom of my shopping bag then? Somehow the only ‘interpretation’ that feels right is that the bag is bottom-less, like my appetite for more, but why not completely open then? Why the strands that made 6 sections or holes? It reminds me of the dream I had of the piece of paper folded into 12 (2x6) squares or rectangles, each with a 2-digit number in it. Perhaps it is so mathematical and rational because it is pointing to the masculine domain, and I can see that direction, purpose, and motivation would fit that bill. And somehow those have to do with my personal value system, what I believe something is worth, how I measure and assess according to my standards. How much of my standard of measurement is based on conditioning likely determines when and why I feel ‘enough’ or ‘not enough’ about something.
The message to me then, is to re-examine this belief system I have regarding value (in fact, this is probably just one of all of my belief systems that’s being brought to scrutiny) – how much of it serves my higher purpose and my true self, how much of it is mindless mimic and diminishes who I am, leading me to believe in lack instead of plenitude? Jupiter embodies the spirit of expansion and abundance, of life’s fortune and flow of give and receive – please help me become the true child of Jupiter that I am!
3, 6, 99… 99 is 3x33… 3 being the masculine number… and 2 that separates or divides… is it a measure of the split in my masculine?? That I am still split along the transverse of the solar plexus, the seat of personal power? Knowledge is not wedded to creativity, still the split between masculine and feminine, except now the disconnection is between top and bottom, mind and body, heaven and earth – not left and right, which are at least on the same level – this is heirarchical, masculine being on top of feminine, and us being earth-bound creatures, are subjected to gravity’s pull – always downwards…
I have a sudden image in my mind of The Hanged Man, hanging upside down… perhaps Sandra Thomson’s “Pictures from the Heart: A Tarot Dictionary” will throw a clue my way…
Being upside down, the head/ego is brought down to earth, which is something I am in sore need of. It is also setting free the static way we see masculine and feminine, as male and female, black and white, separate and distinct, the duality which is the legendary wound in the Fisher King’s thigh, the wound that will never heal until he can surrender his ego. And as the masculine descends into the underworld, the feminine, now closer than ever to heaven, awaits the fire that will return with Prometheus, so that she can express her wings of creativity and take flight as a full and wholey human being.
“Certainly the inversion of values is the first step of the mystical journey. In the Alchemical card the man, suspended by a snake, hangs from a gallows. He loses his gold, representing the loss of worldly possessions, self-esteem, and a ‘sense of our role in the world’… emphasize an inversion of commonly held values.” I can definitely relate to all of what she mentioned here…
Incidentally, I noticed that I am feeling much more alert and energized now than I have all day. Perhaps I should have done my dreamwork earlier…!!
DREAMWORK:
Yet another facet of my insatiability, my compulsive need for more, because ‘more’ is somehow more acceptable, and makes me look and feel better about myself. ‘More’ becomes the desired outcome, not the object that I want more of. Shame is covered up under having more, shame that I feel lacking inside, that I am not enough. Round and round I circle that same leg of the spiral…
The slippers were used, belonged to others, and probably discarded by them. And here I was, ready to ‘slip’ them on, other people’s discarded directions and purposes and motivations. Is it because I do not have a clear sense of my own? At the moment I would have to say that that is how I feel. I was not aware just how easily I can be swayed by this to just assume someone else’s path, that I am so easily ‘sold’. That I can so easily and carelessly sell myself. Twice now I’ve applied for jobs that I do not really care about, and twice my unconscious has shown me that I’ve betrayed my true self. Yet I am still stuck in that fear that I’ve caved into…
What’s with the strangely made bottom of my shopping bag then? Somehow the only ‘interpretation’ that feels right is that the bag is bottom-less, like my appetite for more, but why not completely open then? Why the strands that made 6 sections or holes? It reminds me of the dream I had of the piece of paper folded into 12 (2x6) squares or rectangles, each with a 2-digit number in it. Perhaps it is so mathematical and rational because it is pointing to the masculine domain, and I can see that direction, purpose, and motivation would fit that bill. And somehow those have to do with my personal value system, what I believe something is worth, how I measure and assess according to my standards. How much of my standard of measurement is based on conditioning likely determines when and why I feel ‘enough’ or ‘not enough’ about something.
The message to me then, is to re-examine this belief system I have regarding value (in fact, this is probably just one of all of my belief systems that’s being brought to scrutiny) – how much of it serves my higher purpose and my true self, how much of it is mindless mimic and diminishes who I am, leading me to believe in lack instead of plenitude? Jupiter embodies the spirit of expansion and abundance, of life’s fortune and flow of give and receive – please help me become the true child of Jupiter that I am!
3, 6, 99… 99 is 3x33… 3 being the masculine number… and 2 that separates or divides… is it a measure of the split in my masculine?? That I am still split along the transverse of the solar plexus, the seat of personal power? Knowledge is not wedded to creativity, still the split between masculine and feminine, except now the disconnection is between top and bottom, mind and body, heaven and earth – not left and right, which are at least on the same level – this is heirarchical, masculine being on top of feminine, and us being earth-bound creatures, are subjected to gravity’s pull – always downwards…
I have a sudden image in my mind of The Hanged Man, hanging upside down… perhaps Sandra Thomson’s “Pictures from the Heart: A Tarot Dictionary” will throw a clue my way…
Being upside down, the head/ego is brought down to earth, which is something I am in sore need of. It is also setting free the static way we see masculine and feminine, as male and female, black and white, separate and distinct, the duality which is the legendary wound in the Fisher King’s thigh, the wound that will never heal until he can surrender his ego. And as the masculine descends into the underworld, the feminine, now closer than ever to heaven, awaits the fire that will return with Prometheus, so that she can express her wings of creativity and take flight as a full and wholey human being.
“Certainly the inversion of values is the first step of the mystical journey. In the Alchemical card the man, suspended by a snake, hangs from a gallows. He loses his gold, representing the loss of worldly possessions, self-esteem, and a ‘sense of our role in the world’… emphasize an inversion of commonly held values.” I can definitely relate to all of what she mentioned here…
Incidentally, I noticed that I am feeling much more alert and energized now than I have all day. Perhaps I should have done my dreamwork earlier…!!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Husband, Son, & Golden Retriever
DREAM that G. and I were a couple, and I also had a son and a dog, a golden retriever, with me. G. and I were folding and putting away recently washed laundry. We put linens on the bed, which was in the middle of the bedroom. My dog had been confined to his kennel temporarily, except it was like an aquarium, and the dog like a goldfish. The ‘kennel’ was on top of a bureau, and I glanced over at it now and then to check on him, but he seemed fine, just bobbing in the water and looking at us doing our thing. I knew he wanted to be let out, but G. wouldn’t want him out yet. My heart was as usual, aligned with the plight of animals. My son was on the side of the bottom of the bed, though I didn’t really see him do anything. At one point I threw a pair of balled-up socks at G. across the bed, just in play, can’t remember why, but the throw was very wimpy though it did hit him. He looked beefier and more tanned than I remember him.
DREAMWORK:
I was just thinking the other day that after having a couple of dreams in a row with cats in them, there should be one with dogs soon. Well, here it is. I’ve had dreams about golden retrievers before; they are to me the quintessential simple, happy-go-lucky, sunny and playful creature, tirelessly cheerful. They love everyone unconditionally, not just their own. Well, mine is the playful child-like part of me that has been put into his watery kennel – an emotional holding cell – to keep him from potentially causing uncontrolled emotional expression and disorder in my life, while I worked on cleaning my dirty laundry.
The golden retriever, my masculine instinct and drive and sunny confidence, has been denied his emotional expression (I had no idea he was amphibious – at ease in both worlds!) Hmmm… actually, the dog, the son, and the husband were all parts of my animus, there to help me… The dog to free my animal or child-like playful nature; the son was less distinct but appeared to be healthy and mostly ‘white’ or light-coloured: hair, face, clothes – of a pure and simple spirit, who was just standing there, doing nothing; G., the husband, was as I mentioned, helpful and ‘solid’ looking. I think we were bantering while doing our chore, and that’s when I threw the socks at him, lightly, in playfulness…
All 3 of them are telling me to lighten up, be the simple, instinctual, care-free, unrestrained child at play, whether I’m doing chores or healing work — Remember to play, NOW! Not later, not when I ‘retire’, not when I’m older — NOW!!! EVERYDAY! And when it’s time to rest, again, be like a child, just be still and chill, as a good parent would allow the child to do. BE STILL, DO NOTHING, AND SLEEP THE SLEEP OF A CHILD.
I, am the only thing in my own way.
DREAMWORK:
I was just thinking the other day that after having a couple of dreams in a row with cats in them, there should be one with dogs soon. Well, here it is. I’ve had dreams about golden retrievers before; they are to me the quintessential simple, happy-go-lucky, sunny and playful creature, tirelessly cheerful. They love everyone unconditionally, not just their own. Well, mine is the playful child-like part of me that has been put into his watery kennel – an emotional holding cell – to keep him from potentially causing uncontrolled emotional expression and disorder in my life, while I worked on cleaning my dirty laundry.
The golden retriever, my masculine instinct and drive and sunny confidence, has been denied his emotional expression (I had no idea he was amphibious – at ease in both worlds!) Hmmm… actually, the dog, the son, and the husband were all parts of my animus, there to help me… The dog to free my animal or child-like playful nature; the son was less distinct but appeared to be healthy and mostly ‘white’ or light-coloured: hair, face, clothes – of a pure and simple spirit, who was just standing there, doing nothing; G., the husband, was as I mentioned, helpful and ‘solid’ looking. I think we were bantering while doing our chore, and that’s when I threw the socks at him, lightly, in playfulness…
All 3 of them are telling me to lighten up, be the simple, instinctual, care-free, unrestrained child at play, whether I’m doing chores or healing work — Remember to play, NOW! Not later, not when I ‘retire’, not when I’m older — NOW!!! EVERYDAY! And when it’s time to rest, again, be like a child, just be still and chill, as a good parent would allow the child to do. BE STILL, DO NOTHING, AND SLEEP THE SLEEP OF A CHILD.
I, am the only thing in my own way.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Astrology, Individuation, the Middle Way
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
DREAM that I am with a small group of people in a workshop which had to do with horoscopes (that’s the word in the dream, not ‘astrology’). People were sitting around long work tables joined together and there were objects that represented or were related to the astro signs on the table. They varied greatly in size and all of them appeared to be made of the same material, at least the surfaces were all a dark-charcoal grey but not completely covered by the paint or pigment – a kind of ‘distressed’ or faux finish look. I picked one up that was lying face down and it was a lion with a smaller lion in its hollowed-out forehead. It was surprisingly light for its size, as if it was made of styrofoam or plastic. I saw my friend L. sitting on the other side (I was standing) of the table on the right, and I saw objects related to Scorpio in front of her (though I can’t remember what they were now). She is a Scorpio.
In another part I was in a house or ground floor apartment with my sister. The light is slightly dim, as if lit with an incandescent bulb overhead. I was standing just inside the front door in the open common space – to the right and left are bedrooms along hallways – and I was looking at the toilet/sink unit right directly ahead, just out in the open. I said to my sister, we really ought to cover that up, build a room around it or something, besides, it’s in line with the front door and I don’t think that’s good feng-shui.
Upon closer inspection, I saw that there used to be a separate sink and toilet but the sink had been removed and the new combo unit (the sink was where the tank of the toilet was) installed. All the pipes and tubes ran along the wall to the right from it. Then I noticed there were at least 2 more bathrooms or toilets in the place, one in the room where my sister was, immediately to the left of the front door.
DREAMWORK:
Another workshop/seminar dream, this one not about higher learning as I would usually presume, but about how I’m not studying or learning in the best way for me. My first clue? The use of the word ‘horoscopes’ rather than ‘astrology’; I tend to associate the former with the quick and often irrelevant blurbs on sun signs that we pick up like fortune cookies. But seeing how I’ve been reading Caroline Casey’s book on astrology lately and feeling as if I could actually get into learning it, perhaps the dream is pulling me aside to tell me that I am doing it the wrong way, and showing me how I’m doing it the wrong way…
The objects on the tables, supposedly related to the signs, were uniformly finished in dullness and lifelessness, made not to last, nothing of interest until I flipped over the one of the lion, which I assume is Leo. This leo had a brainchild, literally, a miniature twin in its forhead – the small self inside the larger Self. So if I look at Leo as a being like myself, it has a self, which has its centre in ego, and it has also a Self, the whole of what Leo is, which includes the ego. The Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz wrestled with his fear, doubting the power of his Self, believing in what he thought to be true, when all along it was only this belief that stood in his way of seeing his true and opposite nature of the hero. He was courageous, but he couldn’t see it because of his belief. Whereas the Hero knows what he wants, and though he encounters obstacles and feels fear, he does not linger there. He has his sight set on the object of his quest, and he moves on without giving his fear a second thought.
So this Leo is speaking to me after all, for I am the one so often immobilized by fear, trapped in my own head.
Leo is governed by the Sun, seated in the solar plexus, the place of personal will and personal power. That means the little lion in the head needs to be brought down into the centre of the big lion, as part of my individuation (finding and embracing the self). So what is this belief or thinking that I have blocking me from manifesting my radiant, golden and powerful self? It is that out of habit I avoid facing a fear until I absolutely must, and sometimes even getting away with not confronting it at all, though I never get away from the fear either.
How do I break this habit then? It is a matter of replacing this habit with another, through ritual.
What ritual? A ritual with fire, to burn away my fears. I see the fire burning in my mind’s eye now, and I name my fears one by one as I toss them into the fire:
Now I burn away my fear of failure.
Now I burn away my fear of being too small.
Now I burn away my fear of taking up too much space.
Now I burn away my fear of not having enough.
Now I burn away my fear of being out in the world.
Now I burn away my fear of the world being a dangerous place.
Now I burn away my fear of not being good enough as I am.
Now I burn away my fear of pain and suffering.
Now I burn away my fear of being vulnerable.
Now I burn away my fear of being trapped.
Now I burn away my fear of responsibility.
Now I burn away my fear of being my true self.
I burn away all the beliefs I have relating to all these fears,
And I burn away the habit I have of running from my fears.
I see myself surrounded by a ring of fire made of bud-shaped flames, and I am dancing inside the ring, feeling great joy and the wonderful heat from the fire. But there is the sense of something missing, something not done. Something else I need to burn away… the fear of not being in control. I spin out faster suddenly, spinning in circles along the circumference of the ring, and my dress flares out from me just under my breasts like a ring of ribbons, the topside is purple and the underside is saffron. How I love the colours and the pattern, the energy and the dance, the heat and the fire! I feel beautiful and capable, loved and cherished. My feet are a blur of spinning and stamping to the mantra of “Let. Go. Let. Go. Let. Go…” and I feel them fly out along my outflung arms and fingertips, my body lighter and lighter as the fears and beliefs leave me. I drop down to the ground and the dance ends, with my deep gratitude to the heavens and love for the earth spread all around me like the radiating beams of my dress.
The ritual will continue to play out for the next while as I release what is still releasing, but I can already feel my body open all the way down nearly to my navel, the inner sun in my solar plexus beginning to rise and peek out from the darkness it has been kept in for so long. Welcome to the world, my little sun, may you shine big and bright!
And as there is a piece of each astrological sign in all of us, I need to find the piece of each in myself, and see what it has to teach me and heal me. This is how I ought to learn, practice, and teach astrology, should the opportunity arise.
P.S. My friend L., my shadow in the dream, was the embodiment of the unconscious, as symbolized in Scorpio, a sign that embraces both creative and destructive powers, it holds hidden a great depth but is capable of penetrating it to find the wisdom of the mystery. She guides me quietly yet steadily, anchoring my flighty tendencies, not letting me off the hook (pun!) however menacing the dark may appear. (Found an interesting description of Scorpio: http://www.soulindia.com/12signes/scorpio_txt/scorpio_txt.html)
P.P.S. A scorpion cannot sting itself to death as it is immune to its own venom
~~~
Moving along to Part 2 of the dream…
I knew that toilets and bathrooms are symbols of emotional outlets for me, but this dream tells me that inherent in the picture is also the damming of my emotions, out of fear of losing control of my emotions (and my bowels!) in public. My house in the dream, my self, had 3 bathrooms. One to the left where my feminine lives (and also where my shadow sister was), one to the right for the boys, and one right in the middle where the two can meet, a common ground. But I was more concerned about hiding that one, right out in the open and in front of the entrance, even if it had been combined into one unit. It was simply not acceptable to my toilet-trained and socially conditioned ego.
The sink-and-toilet-in-one combo was a streamline of cleansing and detoxing functions, cleaning of outer and inner toxins, really quite ingenious, and complete with the necessary plumbing parts. The streamlining and the ‘completeness’ were the key here, because this is what happens in the Middle Way, where the feminine and the masculine reconnect, and it is calling me to let go of the tight reins I have on my emotions, a safe and state-of-the-art outlet is provided for me there. Uncorked, I will be able to express my creativity and my true self, and allow what the divine wills to come through me.
All of this has triggered the memory of a childhood trauma… I was about 8 or 9 y.o. and standing beside my teacher’s desk doing I can’t remember what now, but it wasn’t anything bad, except I had to go pee. Being the painfully shy introvert that I was, I could not ask the teacher for leave to go to the bathroom. So I just stood there in the same spot, until I couldn’t hold it anymore and I wet myself. Soon I was standing in the middle of the puddle, but my teacher had not noticed, so I thought perhaps she would think someone had spilled tea on the floor and my secret shame will not be revealed. She never said anything to me about it, but the memory stayed with me ‘til this day.
I don’t think it was caused iby some kind of Freudian toilet-training trauma, I was just so lacking in a sense of Self and paradoxically too self-conscious to want to draw attention to myself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-consciousness). This is at the core of my personality, and will only heal and change with individuation.
DREAM that I am with a small group of people in a workshop which had to do with horoscopes (that’s the word in the dream, not ‘astrology’). People were sitting around long work tables joined together and there were objects that represented or were related to the astro signs on the table. They varied greatly in size and all of them appeared to be made of the same material, at least the surfaces were all a dark-charcoal grey but not completely covered by the paint or pigment – a kind of ‘distressed’ or faux finish look. I picked one up that was lying face down and it was a lion with a smaller lion in its hollowed-out forehead. It was surprisingly light for its size, as if it was made of styrofoam or plastic. I saw my friend L. sitting on the other side (I was standing) of the table on the right, and I saw objects related to Scorpio in front of her (though I can’t remember what they were now). She is a Scorpio.
In another part I was in a house or ground floor apartment with my sister. The light is slightly dim, as if lit with an incandescent bulb overhead. I was standing just inside the front door in the open common space – to the right and left are bedrooms along hallways – and I was looking at the toilet/sink unit right directly ahead, just out in the open. I said to my sister, we really ought to cover that up, build a room around it or something, besides, it’s in line with the front door and I don’t think that’s good feng-shui.
Upon closer inspection, I saw that there used to be a separate sink and toilet but the sink had been removed and the new combo unit (the sink was where the tank of the toilet was) installed. All the pipes and tubes ran along the wall to the right from it. Then I noticed there were at least 2 more bathrooms or toilets in the place, one in the room where my sister was, immediately to the left of the front door.
DREAMWORK:
Another workshop/seminar dream, this one not about higher learning as I would usually presume, but about how I’m not studying or learning in the best way for me. My first clue? The use of the word ‘horoscopes’ rather than ‘astrology’; I tend to associate the former with the quick and often irrelevant blurbs on sun signs that we pick up like fortune cookies. But seeing how I’ve been reading Caroline Casey’s book on astrology lately and feeling as if I could actually get into learning it, perhaps the dream is pulling me aside to tell me that I am doing it the wrong way, and showing me how I’m doing it the wrong way…
The objects on the tables, supposedly related to the signs, were uniformly finished in dullness and lifelessness, made not to last, nothing of interest until I flipped over the one of the lion, which I assume is Leo. This leo had a brainchild, literally, a miniature twin in its forhead – the small self inside the larger Self. So if I look at Leo as a being like myself, it has a self, which has its centre in ego, and it has also a Self, the whole of what Leo is, which includes the ego. The Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz wrestled with his fear, doubting the power of his Self, believing in what he thought to be true, when all along it was only this belief that stood in his way of seeing his true and opposite nature of the hero. He was courageous, but he couldn’t see it because of his belief. Whereas the Hero knows what he wants, and though he encounters obstacles and feels fear, he does not linger there. He has his sight set on the object of his quest, and he moves on without giving his fear a second thought.
So this Leo is speaking to me after all, for I am the one so often immobilized by fear, trapped in my own head.
Leo is governed by the Sun, seated in the solar plexus, the place of personal will and personal power. That means the little lion in the head needs to be brought down into the centre of the big lion, as part of my individuation (finding and embracing the self). So what is this belief or thinking that I have blocking me from manifesting my radiant, golden and powerful self? It is that out of habit I avoid facing a fear until I absolutely must, and sometimes even getting away with not confronting it at all, though I never get away from the fear either.
How do I break this habit then? It is a matter of replacing this habit with another, through ritual.
What ritual? A ritual with fire, to burn away my fears. I see the fire burning in my mind’s eye now, and I name my fears one by one as I toss them into the fire:
Now I burn away my fear of failure.
Now I burn away my fear of being too small.
Now I burn away my fear of taking up too much space.
Now I burn away my fear of not having enough.
Now I burn away my fear of being out in the world.
Now I burn away my fear of the world being a dangerous place.
Now I burn away my fear of not being good enough as I am.
Now I burn away my fear of pain and suffering.
Now I burn away my fear of being vulnerable.
Now I burn away my fear of being trapped.
Now I burn away my fear of responsibility.
Now I burn away my fear of being my true self.
I burn away all the beliefs I have relating to all these fears,
And I burn away the habit I have of running from my fears.
I see myself surrounded by a ring of fire made of bud-shaped flames, and I am dancing inside the ring, feeling great joy and the wonderful heat from the fire. But there is the sense of something missing, something not done. Something else I need to burn away… the fear of not being in control. I spin out faster suddenly, spinning in circles along the circumference of the ring, and my dress flares out from me just under my breasts like a ring of ribbons, the topside is purple and the underside is saffron. How I love the colours and the pattern, the energy and the dance, the heat and the fire! I feel beautiful and capable, loved and cherished. My feet are a blur of spinning and stamping to the mantra of “Let. Go. Let. Go. Let. Go…” and I feel them fly out along my outflung arms and fingertips, my body lighter and lighter as the fears and beliefs leave me. I drop down to the ground and the dance ends, with my deep gratitude to the heavens and love for the earth spread all around me like the radiating beams of my dress.
The ritual will continue to play out for the next while as I release what is still releasing, but I can already feel my body open all the way down nearly to my navel, the inner sun in my solar plexus beginning to rise and peek out from the darkness it has been kept in for so long. Welcome to the world, my little sun, may you shine big and bright!
And as there is a piece of each astrological sign in all of us, I need to find the piece of each in myself, and see what it has to teach me and heal me. This is how I ought to learn, practice, and teach astrology, should the opportunity arise.
P.S. My friend L., my shadow in the dream, was the embodiment of the unconscious, as symbolized in Scorpio, a sign that embraces both creative and destructive powers, it holds hidden a great depth but is capable of penetrating it to find the wisdom of the mystery. She guides me quietly yet steadily, anchoring my flighty tendencies, not letting me off the hook (pun!) however menacing the dark may appear. (Found an interesting description of Scorpio: http://www.soulindia.com/12signes/scorpio_txt/scorpio_txt.html)
P.P.S. A scorpion cannot sting itself to death as it is immune to its own venom
~~~
Moving along to Part 2 of the dream…
I knew that toilets and bathrooms are symbols of emotional outlets for me, but this dream tells me that inherent in the picture is also the damming of my emotions, out of fear of losing control of my emotions (and my bowels!) in public. My house in the dream, my self, had 3 bathrooms. One to the left where my feminine lives (and also where my shadow sister was), one to the right for the boys, and one right in the middle where the two can meet, a common ground. But I was more concerned about hiding that one, right out in the open and in front of the entrance, even if it had been combined into one unit. It was simply not acceptable to my toilet-trained and socially conditioned ego.
The sink-and-toilet-in-one combo was a streamline of cleansing and detoxing functions, cleaning of outer and inner toxins, really quite ingenious, and complete with the necessary plumbing parts. The streamlining and the ‘completeness’ were the key here, because this is what happens in the Middle Way, where the feminine and the masculine reconnect, and it is calling me to let go of the tight reins I have on my emotions, a safe and state-of-the-art outlet is provided for me there. Uncorked, I will be able to express my creativity and my true self, and allow what the divine wills to come through me.
All of this has triggered the memory of a childhood trauma… I was about 8 or 9 y.o. and standing beside my teacher’s desk doing I can’t remember what now, but it wasn’t anything bad, except I had to go pee. Being the painfully shy introvert that I was, I could not ask the teacher for leave to go to the bathroom. So I just stood there in the same spot, until I couldn’t hold it anymore and I wet myself. Soon I was standing in the middle of the puddle, but my teacher had not noticed, so I thought perhaps she would think someone had spilled tea on the floor and my secret shame will not be revealed. She never said anything to me about it, but the memory stayed with me ‘til this day.
I don’t think it was caused iby some kind of Freudian toilet-training trauma, I was just so lacking in a sense of Self and paradoxically too self-conscious to want to draw attention to myself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-consciousness). This is at the core of my personality, and will only heal and change with individuation.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Being Mother
DREAM that I am with a large group somewhere… then I am in a kitchen and my ‘man’ and I are holding each other, as if he had just waltzed in right into my arms spontaneously, so I was slightly taken by surprise. He felt very bony and thin in my arms, his upperbody like a big triangular bone with a slight curve in it. I still wasn’t quite sure about the embrace, as if I felt he might not really be into it, but he held on, got even closer so it was a full-body hug. Diane was standing a few paces away, just looking at us…
At another point I was still amongst lots of people, my sister was there too… then I was walking inside a big downtown mall or corporate lobby, polished marble floor and chandelier-lit, suddenly something hit me from behind the knees and I buckled onto the floor. I recovered but still sitting on the floor, and saw 4 cats, my cat Nemo and 3 of my sister’s cats, sprawled around me. They didn’t appear to be hurt, just stretched out and quite relaxed. I was holding Nemo in one arm. Then Tom M., a photographer I knew walked by and I said, what happened? He said, they were smacked on the bum and pushed into you.
DREAMWORK:
What does it mean when I dream of being part of a large group? That it is a transpersonal dream, one that is for the benefit (if we do the work) of the collective to which I belong. In the first part of the dream, the collective is those of us who are working on healing the split between our masculine and feminine.
In the first part, we were in the kitchen, a feminine space of earthly nurture and creativity, abundance and festivity. I am a newbie to this place, still uncertain and not fully trusting my own power in it, so when my masculine came to me, I didn’t entirely believe his sincerity and devotion. There is still a tiny part of me that believed I am not good enough. To my surprise, he hung on and stayed with me.
But he felt so thin, like one big blade of bone! I have not given him enough nourishment to flesh out yet. The triangular bone is the structure the masculine brings, the framework on which I can build my self on. The shape reminds me of the shoulder blade, which carries responsibility, a masculine principle. Diane, the Earth Mother, is standing by to reassure and lend me the strength I need. I had not realized until this moment how much strength she gives me. I ask her and Source now, to help provide the love, care and nurture necessary for the health and wellbeing and growth of my masculine.
The second part is also transpersonal, the collective is the awakened who actively pursue personal growth and transformation. When I step out into the world again I will be suddenly hit from behind and fall onto the ground for a reality check. But it is only the 4 instincts of my feminine that have forced me to a sudden stop. One of them I own/know, the other 3 belong to my shadow familiar. What are the 4 instincts of my feminine? To create (this one I’ve begun to know), to nurture (not so good with this one), to love unconditionally (not at all good with this one), and to ripen and let go (not come close to this one yet).
But why did they hit me from behind? Because if I were to go out into the world now, I will be brought down and humbled yet again, for I have not done the work necessary to heal the feminine in myself, as many women who grew up in a man’s world have yet to do: to love with an open heart, give nurture in the way it’s needed (discernment), thus bear the fruit of our creativity, and finally, being able to let go of outcome, allowing the work to go where it may best serve, according to divine will.
Tom represents the part of my animus that is a straight shooter, whose judgment and integrity I trust, and he is good at finding and implementing solutions to a problem. He gets things done and done well. Maybe he was the one who smacked me on the butt to give me the message to snap me out of my complacency and get my work done.
I need to ground firmly into the earth, fully connect with the feminine, so that my masculine can grow into maturity, and I will finally be ready to do the work I am meant to in the world.
As I have never been a mother in real life, I need to experience the full process of being a good mother, of mothering, and finally letting go of what I have mothered.
At another point I was still amongst lots of people, my sister was there too… then I was walking inside a big downtown mall or corporate lobby, polished marble floor and chandelier-lit, suddenly something hit me from behind the knees and I buckled onto the floor. I recovered but still sitting on the floor, and saw 4 cats, my cat Nemo and 3 of my sister’s cats, sprawled around me. They didn’t appear to be hurt, just stretched out and quite relaxed. I was holding Nemo in one arm. Then Tom M., a photographer I knew walked by and I said, what happened? He said, they were smacked on the bum and pushed into you.
DREAMWORK:
What does it mean when I dream of being part of a large group? That it is a transpersonal dream, one that is for the benefit (if we do the work) of the collective to which I belong. In the first part of the dream, the collective is those of us who are working on healing the split between our masculine and feminine.
In the first part, we were in the kitchen, a feminine space of earthly nurture and creativity, abundance and festivity. I am a newbie to this place, still uncertain and not fully trusting my own power in it, so when my masculine came to me, I didn’t entirely believe his sincerity and devotion. There is still a tiny part of me that believed I am not good enough. To my surprise, he hung on and stayed with me.
But he felt so thin, like one big blade of bone! I have not given him enough nourishment to flesh out yet. The triangular bone is the structure the masculine brings, the framework on which I can build my self on. The shape reminds me of the shoulder blade, which carries responsibility, a masculine principle. Diane, the Earth Mother, is standing by to reassure and lend me the strength I need. I had not realized until this moment how much strength she gives me. I ask her and Source now, to help provide the love, care and nurture necessary for the health and wellbeing and growth of my masculine.
The second part is also transpersonal, the collective is the awakened who actively pursue personal growth and transformation. When I step out into the world again I will be suddenly hit from behind and fall onto the ground for a reality check. But it is only the 4 instincts of my feminine that have forced me to a sudden stop. One of them I own/know, the other 3 belong to my shadow familiar. What are the 4 instincts of my feminine? To create (this one I’ve begun to know), to nurture (not so good with this one), to love unconditionally (not at all good with this one), and to ripen and let go (not come close to this one yet).
But why did they hit me from behind? Because if I were to go out into the world now, I will be brought down and humbled yet again, for I have not done the work necessary to heal the feminine in myself, as many women who grew up in a man’s world have yet to do: to love with an open heart, give nurture in the way it’s needed (discernment), thus bear the fruit of our creativity, and finally, being able to let go of outcome, allowing the work to go where it may best serve, according to divine will.
Tom represents the part of my animus that is a straight shooter, whose judgment and integrity I trust, and he is good at finding and implementing solutions to a problem. He gets things done and done well. Maybe he was the one who smacked me on the butt to give me the message to snap me out of my complacency and get my work done.
I need to ground firmly into the earth, fully connect with the feminine, so that my masculine can grow into maturity, and I will finally be ready to do the work I am meant to in the world.
As I have never been a mother in real life, I need to experience the full process of being a good mother, of mothering, and finally letting go of what I have mothered.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
A Bumper Crop of Dreams
The Night before the New Moon in Libra:
1) In a store a haughty and cold blackwoman took a bag of soap balls that I had in my hand, supposedly to write down the code becz it was the last one. There was another white saleswoman with her, as if serving a superior. They never came back so I charged into a meeting in the backroom yelling. They were sitting in classroom-style and she, the accused party, was sitting in the front row. I was loud, angry and indignant.
2) I went to a large group event with Michael, tons of people. It was some kind of spiritual convention or something to do with ecstatic energy. When we got there I had to go to the bathroom. The men’s room was packed, although it was the size of a closet. There was even a couple of young men in the women’s bathroom, with several pairs of shoes stacked on top of each other. I had to push everyone and everything out of the stall, and asked some women coming in to give me a minute alone, cuz I can’t close the stall door due to the clutter. Eventually I lost my shoes, purse and Michael, but I had on a saffron-coloured short coat. So I went out barefeet with the group. Out on the street a young girl (Marlowe from my ad days) lost her money and I found it in a puddle and gave it to her. It was four $5 American bills. I thought about asking her if I could borrow some and buy a pair of flipflops or something from the dollar store, but I didn’t. I found my shoes and purse in the end but not Michael.
3) I am in a corporate office at Sean’s desk. His colleague, a big beefy and friendly guy, was there to receive me. Sean had died and his stuff was still there. Several electric guitars were hanging on a partition wall behind his desk with other things cluttered around them. Around the corner was a panel display with tarot cards in 3 piles, each inserted into a plexiglas holder made for them. The deck was called Issues, the word was printed on the back of the cards. The man asked me if I will pick up his stuff, I said if no one closer to him will then I will, thinking that I don’t even know when he died. Sean was a young man married to my sister and had bright red hair.
DREAMWORK:
1) My shadow, my arrogance and superiority, is abusing her authority, though I do not yet know how it manifests in my life, for she is still ‘black’ and obscured to me. How am I arrogant and superior? When I am made to feel powerless, when my pride is hurt – for example, when an injustice is done to me – my anger is triggered and demands an outlet immediately. The anger masks the fear underneath, a worse admission, that I am indeed powerless, not in control, and cannot always get what I expect – even when I believe it is rightfully mine. It is my knee-jerk reaction to being made to feel small. The small person’s big anger.
In those volatile situations I cannot maintain objectivity, never mind being empty.
I know this is something I’ve inherited from my mother, but I did not see that this is why I’ve always had the impression she is bigger than life. So much of it is empty posturing, hot, puffed up air, creating an illusion of dominance. At the moment I cannot see my mother as being anything but that in-your-face, taking-up-all-available-space presence, throwing her fractious energy like daggers around her like a shield. But I can feel it is imperative that I see her as her real self, the vulnerable girl-child inside, before she learned how to armour herself… I will drop my mother into my body…
She wanted more than anything else to learn, to go on to higher education, but was denied and abused for her desire, for over-reaching her station in life. She accepted her fate but it made her feel lowly, inferior, and powerless inside. It didn’t help when my dad would call her ignorant and uneducated when they argued. So she became louder and shriller than everyone else to be heard, to be respected, and to stay ‘on top’. And it’s true, many people are intimidated by her fireworks. As a child, I was in awe, and completely powerless.
As an adult, I see the tenderness and soreness inside of her, and inside of myself. We are women who did not have fathers who taught us how to choose our battles, that we don’t have to wear armour into every situation, and not everything that shoots at us is an arrow. The Art of War for Life does not call for over-reactions.
So I bring my mother and myself to the Great Masculine now, the Wise Father, for some lessons on strategy and play in the war and battles in the world. We will heal our wounds together, shed our armour for a change, and let our true selves show their shining faces to the world.
2) So far Michael and I have been traveling the same spiritual path together, along with countless other people, and a huge amount of energy is fulminating. But I still have personal work to do before I can join the collective. I have more emotional release and detoxing to take care of. I see that many more men are in need of this work, and have overflowed into the women’s territory. I got rid of them but there is still things blocking my way: the many pairs of shoes neatly stacked vertically are the heirarchy that have spilled into the feminine domain from patriarchy. And at the moment I had to find a way around them. So I asked everyone to leave, carving out some space and time for myself, my own needs.
But in the process of joining this spiritual revival (I see that this is what the energy was about), I had to lose my shoes (my personal standing and sense of direction), my purse (my identity: my most personal belonging), and Michael (the other half of my strength, my comfort). The only thing I still had was the short, saffron, padded jacket, similar to winter jackets Tibetan and Chinese children in the north wore, but this one was beautifully made with embroidery and shone with the glory of a royal origin. This speaks to me of my roots, my heritage, of Buddhism and Daoism, the only thing I will need, the only thing I’m left with, on this journey.
So I went out into the world with bare feet, and in my naïve effort to be practical, thought I could just grab a quick pair of footwear to get me through. That is not to be; there is to be no quick fixes on this path. Marlowe was a innocent young woman with a cloud of beautiful blonde hair, a virgin goddess personified, but new in the world (she had just graduated from college). I think she was actually 20 y.o. when I met her. She is that innocent, young part of myself, unruffled yet and full of open goodwill. But she/I lost her sense of self-worth along the way, her most valuable currency for dealing with the world, and I rescued it and returned it to her, myself. I see this as a sequel to the soul retrieval from 2 days ago, where I got a new skin for my selfhood. Marlowe is my selfhood, now restored, but still young and tender, though not without her own quiet balance and strength.
There may have been more that happened at this point in the dream, but I don’t recall it now. All I know is that eventually I found my shoes and my purse, but not Michael, perhaps I will not need him as my strength and comfort by that time.
3) Sean (shone?) is my masculine ambitious, passionate and worldly self which had died when I resolved to leave the corporate world and its trappings. But he is still my sister, my feminine familiar, and we are still related. His colleague, my animus, is kindly showing me what’s left behind, what still needs attention. The electric guitars, which I see as a favoured creative expression for the young masculine, but not my cup of tea because of its raucous, raw and forceful way of expression, was nevertheless a legacy left to me, and what I need to reconcile as my own. How to love something that feels so foreign and abrasive to me?
I think it is a likely match for that angry, volatile and loudly venting persona from my first dream, as a female. Playing music on an electric guitar is a better outlet for that kind of powerful emotion. It is certainly what a lot of young men and boys take up at that stage of development. I will need 2 or 3 guitars according to the dream, I have that much emotion to let out! The guitars looked a bit on the small side, so I guess it is childhood stuff I am facing.
Somewhat less obvious but not entirely hidden are the 3 groups of issues I need to address, past, present, and future, already grouped and set up for me to work on. It will be through the language of symbols, such as Tarot, specifically, and dreams generally.
I thought I was more or less done with healing my masculine for the time being, but clearly there is more work coming up, now that I have asked for healing of my selfhood. It will require the participation of a healthy masculine. I need to revive Sean, as a new being, a new and improved part of me, and let him shine forth into the world together with my feminine, in a more wholesome union.
1) In a store a haughty and cold blackwoman took a bag of soap balls that I had in my hand, supposedly to write down the code becz it was the last one. There was another white saleswoman with her, as if serving a superior. They never came back so I charged into a meeting in the backroom yelling. They were sitting in classroom-style and she, the accused party, was sitting in the front row. I was loud, angry and indignant.
2) I went to a large group event with Michael, tons of people. It was some kind of spiritual convention or something to do with ecstatic energy. When we got there I had to go to the bathroom. The men’s room was packed, although it was the size of a closet. There was even a couple of young men in the women’s bathroom, with several pairs of shoes stacked on top of each other. I had to push everyone and everything out of the stall, and asked some women coming in to give me a minute alone, cuz I can’t close the stall door due to the clutter. Eventually I lost my shoes, purse and Michael, but I had on a saffron-coloured short coat. So I went out barefeet with the group. Out on the street a young girl (Marlowe from my ad days) lost her money and I found it in a puddle and gave it to her. It was four $5 American bills. I thought about asking her if I could borrow some and buy a pair of flipflops or something from the dollar store, but I didn’t. I found my shoes and purse in the end but not Michael.
3) I am in a corporate office at Sean’s desk. His colleague, a big beefy and friendly guy, was there to receive me. Sean had died and his stuff was still there. Several electric guitars were hanging on a partition wall behind his desk with other things cluttered around them. Around the corner was a panel display with tarot cards in 3 piles, each inserted into a plexiglas holder made for them. The deck was called Issues, the word was printed on the back of the cards. The man asked me if I will pick up his stuff, I said if no one closer to him will then I will, thinking that I don’t even know when he died. Sean was a young man married to my sister and had bright red hair.
DREAMWORK:
1) My shadow, my arrogance and superiority, is abusing her authority, though I do not yet know how it manifests in my life, for she is still ‘black’ and obscured to me. How am I arrogant and superior? When I am made to feel powerless, when my pride is hurt – for example, when an injustice is done to me – my anger is triggered and demands an outlet immediately. The anger masks the fear underneath, a worse admission, that I am indeed powerless, not in control, and cannot always get what I expect – even when I believe it is rightfully mine. It is my knee-jerk reaction to being made to feel small. The small person’s big anger.
In those volatile situations I cannot maintain objectivity, never mind being empty.
I know this is something I’ve inherited from my mother, but I did not see that this is why I’ve always had the impression she is bigger than life. So much of it is empty posturing, hot, puffed up air, creating an illusion of dominance. At the moment I cannot see my mother as being anything but that in-your-face, taking-up-all-available-space presence, throwing her fractious energy like daggers around her like a shield. But I can feel it is imperative that I see her as her real self, the vulnerable girl-child inside, before she learned how to armour herself… I will drop my mother into my body…
She wanted more than anything else to learn, to go on to higher education, but was denied and abused for her desire, for over-reaching her station in life. She accepted her fate but it made her feel lowly, inferior, and powerless inside. It didn’t help when my dad would call her ignorant and uneducated when they argued. So she became louder and shriller than everyone else to be heard, to be respected, and to stay ‘on top’. And it’s true, many people are intimidated by her fireworks. As a child, I was in awe, and completely powerless.
As an adult, I see the tenderness and soreness inside of her, and inside of myself. We are women who did not have fathers who taught us how to choose our battles, that we don’t have to wear armour into every situation, and not everything that shoots at us is an arrow. The Art of War for Life does not call for over-reactions.
So I bring my mother and myself to the Great Masculine now, the Wise Father, for some lessons on strategy and play in the war and battles in the world. We will heal our wounds together, shed our armour for a change, and let our true selves show their shining faces to the world.
2) So far Michael and I have been traveling the same spiritual path together, along with countless other people, and a huge amount of energy is fulminating. But I still have personal work to do before I can join the collective. I have more emotional release and detoxing to take care of. I see that many more men are in need of this work, and have overflowed into the women’s territory. I got rid of them but there is still things blocking my way: the many pairs of shoes neatly stacked vertically are the heirarchy that have spilled into the feminine domain from patriarchy. And at the moment I had to find a way around them. So I asked everyone to leave, carving out some space and time for myself, my own needs.
But in the process of joining this spiritual revival (I see that this is what the energy was about), I had to lose my shoes (my personal standing and sense of direction), my purse (my identity: my most personal belonging), and Michael (the other half of my strength, my comfort). The only thing I still had was the short, saffron, padded jacket, similar to winter jackets Tibetan and Chinese children in the north wore, but this one was beautifully made with embroidery and shone with the glory of a royal origin. This speaks to me of my roots, my heritage, of Buddhism and Daoism, the only thing I will need, the only thing I’m left with, on this journey.
So I went out into the world with bare feet, and in my naïve effort to be practical, thought I could just grab a quick pair of footwear to get me through. That is not to be; there is to be no quick fixes on this path. Marlowe was a innocent young woman with a cloud of beautiful blonde hair, a virgin goddess personified, but new in the world (she had just graduated from college). I think she was actually 20 y.o. when I met her. She is that innocent, young part of myself, unruffled yet and full of open goodwill. But she/I lost her sense of self-worth along the way, her most valuable currency for dealing with the world, and I rescued it and returned it to her, myself. I see this as a sequel to the soul retrieval from 2 days ago, where I got a new skin for my selfhood. Marlowe is my selfhood, now restored, but still young and tender, though not without her own quiet balance and strength.
There may have been more that happened at this point in the dream, but I don’t recall it now. All I know is that eventually I found my shoes and my purse, but not Michael, perhaps I will not need him as my strength and comfort by that time.
3) Sean (shone?) is my masculine ambitious, passionate and worldly self which had died when I resolved to leave the corporate world and its trappings. But he is still my sister, my feminine familiar, and we are still related. His colleague, my animus, is kindly showing me what’s left behind, what still needs attention. The electric guitars, which I see as a favoured creative expression for the young masculine, but not my cup of tea because of its raucous, raw and forceful way of expression, was nevertheless a legacy left to me, and what I need to reconcile as my own. How to love something that feels so foreign and abrasive to me?
I think it is a likely match for that angry, volatile and loudly venting persona from my first dream, as a female. Playing music on an electric guitar is a better outlet for that kind of powerful emotion. It is certainly what a lot of young men and boys take up at that stage of development. I will need 2 or 3 guitars according to the dream, I have that much emotion to let out! The guitars looked a bit on the small side, so I guess it is childhood stuff I am facing.
Somewhat less obvious but not entirely hidden are the 3 groups of issues I need to address, past, present, and future, already grouped and set up for me to work on. It will be through the language of symbols, such as Tarot, specifically, and dreams generally.
I thought I was more or less done with healing my masculine for the time being, but clearly there is more work coming up, now that I have asked for healing of my selfhood. It will require the participation of a healthy masculine. I need to revive Sean, as a new being, a new and improved part of me, and let him shine forth into the world together with my feminine, in a more wholesome union.
Monday, October 4, 2010
The Call of the Bamboo
DREAMBITS:
I was straightening and putting a long row of stuffed animals into some kind of visually pleasing order. They were all different sizes and colours and types. I was moving quickly because my brother was covering them with a long scarf or cloth right on my heel, so to speak. The stuffed animals were lined up along the top of 3 tall book shelves, which reminded me of the ones we have here at home. The height of the shelves was not perfectly even, and there was a small gap between 2 of them.
My grandmother was there somewhere…
Somehow I was on a bamboo swing with my brother and he wanted to swing harder and harder. I was thinking the 2 of us must weigh at least 300 lbs. and the bamboo crossbeam doesn’t look that thick. We were swing along the same axis as the crossbeam, unlike a conventional swing. I was getting more and more scared as my brother pushed the swing to go higher and higher but I couldn’t do anything about it…
DREAMWORK:
My brother is the part of my masculine I have already claimed and do not have to ‘attract’ or bring back to myself, as with the masculine parts in my amorous dreams. Stuffed animals are childhood or childish desires, drives, and instincts, which I’ve been busy making sense of. But the masculine in me is chomping at the bit to be done with that, for they have now become superficial. The books on the shelves are ones I’ve accumulated over the years but mostly unread. I don’t need them anymore either. Books have been a source of knowledge that makes up a big chunk of my foundation in this life, and though my foundation is a bit uneven and gappy, not perfect, and will likely never be perfected by my own doing, it is enough to go on.
For what I must do, my grandmother, the Wise Feminine, is there to support me.
As this dream involves my real brother, grandmother and a symbol of my Chinese heritage – the bamboo – family and lineage must be of significance…
First, the swing, is yet another reference to childhood play, but outdoors, active, and high energy, compared to playing with stuffed animals, which is more out of our feminine nature. But this is the stage I’m at: still a child, but with more command of body, mind, and spirit than a toddler. There’s more courage and capability for risk-taking – the yang energy is rising and it is so ambitious as to be almost aggressive, even though I, the ego, is forever assessing the situation and fretting with fear.
But the bamboo is stronger than it looks, one of the most resilient material in nature, and symbolizes the renown yet understated resilience of the Chinese. It is humble and common, fast growing and easy to propagate, light-weight and mostly hollow, yet able to bear weight beyond its proportion because of its uniquely tensile strength – because it gives. It embodies the wisdom of the Middle Way, the Dao.
Most interesting is that we were swinging along the crossbeam, the main support of the swing set, which is made of a whole, long piece of bamboo. This means that we can only go as high as the beam, and not higher. So whatever ambition and drive I and my masculine have, will be capped by this limit. It is not unlimited vertical growth, the kind we worship and aspire to in the west like a false god.
I see that the swing is also my own process to find the Middle Way, coming in from the outer swings of extremes to gradually find more and more balance, to hopefully circling the centre of stillness in the middle. But there is a rushing sense of freedom and joy in riding a swing to its limit, in a very simple, childlike way, like a practice of stretching your wings before taking real flight. This is what I will engage in imminently, my novice test flights with training wheels (and wings), a period of finding and working with my latent and inherited gifts and strengths, and experience of pure, simple childhood growth and enjoyment.
I wonder now if this dream was brought about at least in part from my connecting with my original culture through the story of the Taiwanese Buddhist Nun Master Cheng Yen yesterday (http://thehealingspiral.blogspot.com/), and my recent desire to know the stories of my forebearers and where I came from. As I look back now I see that the call to return to our roots has been there for quite some time now, but I am just beginning to hear it…
I was straightening and putting a long row of stuffed animals into some kind of visually pleasing order. They were all different sizes and colours and types. I was moving quickly because my brother was covering them with a long scarf or cloth right on my heel, so to speak. The stuffed animals were lined up along the top of 3 tall book shelves, which reminded me of the ones we have here at home. The height of the shelves was not perfectly even, and there was a small gap between 2 of them.
My grandmother was there somewhere…
Somehow I was on a bamboo swing with my brother and he wanted to swing harder and harder. I was thinking the 2 of us must weigh at least 300 lbs. and the bamboo crossbeam doesn’t look that thick. We were swing along the same axis as the crossbeam, unlike a conventional swing. I was getting more and more scared as my brother pushed the swing to go higher and higher but I couldn’t do anything about it…
DREAMWORK:
My brother is the part of my masculine I have already claimed and do not have to ‘attract’ or bring back to myself, as with the masculine parts in my amorous dreams. Stuffed animals are childhood or childish desires, drives, and instincts, which I’ve been busy making sense of. But the masculine in me is chomping at the bit to be done with that, for they have now become superficial. The books on the shelves are ones I’ve accumulated over the years but mostly unread. I don’t need them anymore either. Books have been a source of knowledge that makes up a big chunk of my foundation in this life, and though my foundation is a bit uneven and gappy, not perfect, and will likely never be perfected by my own doing, it is enough to go on.
For what I must do, my grandmother, the Wise Feminine, is there to support me.
As this dream involves my real brother, grandmother and a symbol of my Chinese heritage – the bamboo – family and lineage must be of significance…
First, the swing, is yet another reference to childhood play, but outdoors, active, and high energy, compared to playing with stuffed animals, which is more out of our feminine nature. But this is the stage I’m at: still a child, but with more command of body, mind, and spirit than a toddler. There’s more courage and capability for risk-taking – the yang energy is rising and it is so ambitious as to be almost aggressive, even though I, the ego, is forever assessing the situation and fretting with fear.
But the bamboo is stronger than it looks, one of the most resilient material in nature, and symbolizes the renown yet understated resilience of the Chinese. It is humble and common, fast growing and easy to propagate, light-weight and mostly hollow, yet able to bear weight beyond its proportion because of its uniquely tensile strength – because it gives. It embodies the wisdom of the Middle Way, the Dao.
Most interesting is that we were swinging along the crossbeam, the main support of the swing set, which is made of a whole, long piece of bamboo. This means that we can only go as high as the beam, and not higher. So whatever ambition and drive I and my masculine have, will be capped by this limit. It is not unlimited vertical growth, the kind we worship and aspire to in the west like a false god.
I see that the swing is also my own process to find the Middle Way, coming in from the outer swings of extremes to gradually find more and more balance, to hopefully circling the centre of stillness in the middle. But there is a rushing sense of freedom and joy in riding a swing to its limit, in a very simple, childlike way, like a practice of stretching your wings before taking real flight. This is what I will engage in imminently, my novice test flights with training wheels (and wings), a period of finding and working with my latent and inherited gifts and strengths, and experience of pure, simple childhood growth and enjoyment.
I wonder now if this dream was brought about at least in part from my connecting with my original culture through the story of the Taiwanese Buddhist Nun Master Cheng Yen yesterday (http://thehealingspiral.blogspot.com/), and my recent desire to know the stories of my forebearers and where I came from. As I look back now I see that the call to return to our roots has been there for quite some time now, but I am just beginning to hear it…
Sunday, October 3, 2010
A Seminar Abroad
DREAM: I was with a large group of adults somewhere abroad for a workshop or seminar... can’t recall a lot of the details now because there was a lot happening, but there were scenes of chaos and disorder such as pile-ups of big boulders and broken concrete slabs that I had to climb over, although it wasn’t difficult... Vivi was there but not in sight, and someone said something about her daughter (who was not there), the gist of which was some message that needed to be communicated to Vivi from her... then a person beside me told me about an upcoming workshop because this one is about to end, but she said it will be in September, I said, September? That’s next year! She said, yes. I took out a little notebook and wrote down the date: September 11: Constellation (as in family constellation)...
DREAMWORK:
There is still that ball of scratchy steel wool inside my chest made of anxiety, about the unknown future and uncertainties in my life, and lately it seems to chafe more and more... this is the same two-feet-up-in-the-air feeling in the dream...
This is about higher learning for me but also for the global collective. This feeling of restlessness is being experienced by all of us who seek greater maturity, but we have not yet come together for the purpose of this cause, because in the dream there was a feeling of a big divide, even though we were supposedly a group. And Vivi was on the other side of the divide from me. That means to me that I have not yet crossed over what separates me from society, for Vivi is the keeper of all things sociable to me, the spirit of hospitality. I know, of course, that this is true, but the dream is telling me this is an obstacle requiring immediate attention, at the same time it is not insurmountable. It looks more daunting than it really is. In fact, I am making a mountain out of a small rockpile about the whole thing. All of this worrying and fretting is a small pebble casting a huge shadow on the wall because I haven’t got the right perspective. I’m too close up, need some distance.
What should I do then, my body? Read Marion Woodman’s “Dancing in the Flame”. I think it’s about dreamwork and healing for 3 of her patients. I will take it to read on my walk.
I sense though, this fractious energy has also to do with the scrambling (or descrambling) that’s going on inside of me, even if I don’t know what it’s for.
The last part of the dream seems prophetic: an upcoming family crisis or event that will be locally devastating but not as big a deal as we make it out to be in the big picture. The order of love in my family, physical and otherwise, will undergo a complete shake down and all of the old structure will collapse down to the foundation. Will this really happen in less than a year’s time? Maybe I should consult astrogrrl on celestial constellations for next September?? Hmmm...
DREAMWORK:
There is still that ball of scratchy steel wool inside my chest made of anxiety, about the unknown future and uncertainties in my life, and lately it seems to chafe more and more... this is the same two-feet-up-in-the-air feeling in the dream...
This is about higher learning for me but also for the global collective. This feeling of restlessness is being experienced by all of us who seek greater maturity, but we have not yet come together for the purpose of this cause, because in the dream there was a feeling of a big divide, even though we were supposedly a group. And Vivi was on the other side of the divide from me. That means to me that I have not yet crossed over what separates me from society, for Vivi is the keeper of all things sociable to me, the spirit of hospitality. I know, of course, that this is true, but the dream is telling me this is an obstacle requiring immediate attention, at the same time it is not insurmountable. It looks more daunting than it really is. In fact, I am making a mountain out of a small rockpile about the whole thing. All of this worrying and fretting is a small pebble casting a huge shadow on the wall because I haven’t got the right perspective. I’m too close up, need some distance.
What should I do then, my body? Read Marion Woodman’s “Dancing in the Flame”. I think it’s about dreamwork and healing for 3 of her patients. I will take it to read on my walk.
I sense though, this fractious energy has also to do with the scrambling (or descrambling) that’s going on inside of me, even if I don’t know what it’s for.
The last part of the dream seems prophetic: an upcoming family crisis or event that will be locally devastating but not as big a deal as we make it out to be in the big picture. The order of love in my family, physical and otherwise, will undergo a complete shake down and all of the old structure will collapse down to the foundation. Will this really happen in less than a year’s time? Maybe I should consult astrogrrl on celestial constellations for next September?? Hmmm...
Saturday, October 2, 2010
My Man in Helmet
DREAM that I was holding hands with a guy wearing a white safety helmet. He was an engineer...
DREAMWORK:
I felt at peace with him, my beloved who was more or less the same size as me. We weren’t cuddling or joined-at-the-hip intimate, just holding each other by the hand in ease and familiarity, strolling along. He was wearing a helmet to protect his head, my ego, out of vulnerability, because it knows that its control-by-engineering days are coming to an end. But I love him still, ego, fears and all...
DREAMWORK:
I felt at peace with him, my beloved who was more or less the same size as me. We weren’t cuddling or joined-at-the-hip intimate, just holding each other by the hand in ease and familiarity, strolling along. He was wearing a helmet to protect his head, my ego, out of vulnerability, because it knows that its control-by-engineering days are coming to an end. But I love him still, ego, fears and all...
Friday, October 1, 2010
Healing by Grandma
DREAM: I discovered a lump on my back, in the middle just left of the spine. Everyone agreed that I should go see Grandma. I knew she was busy but when I got there she saw me right away, and even before I started to stammer out the words she knew. Her hand went under my shirt straight to the lump. She prescribed “R & R”, by which I knew she meant “Rest & Recreation”. (not relaxation) A man in his 50s or 60s with white hair was hovering to the side, watchful and neutral. There was also an image of a frog, and the words “frogs and amphibians” came to me, as if they were part of the prescription...
DREAMWORK:
I am seeking help from the Great Feminine in the form of The Crone – Grandma – and even though I felt intimidated and shy, she attended to me right away, as if we were equals. In fact, she didn’t look that old, maybe in her 60s, short black hair, body straight and slim. She exuded quiet confidence and poise, and was obviously deeply intuitive. She got straight to the point without wasting a single word or gesture. I revere her and aspire to be like her.
Rest & Recreation (but not relaxation)... my first thought was that I’ve already done lots of that, and that’s what the last 3, 4 months were about. When I told Michael the dream he said he thought recreation meant re-creating. I could feel the truth in that.
When I dropped the word “Rest” into my body I sensed a great and deep trust around it, as if in order for me to truly rest I need to be enveloped by that much trust. Like a baby in its mother’s arms, it carries nothing and cares for nothing, it is not even responsible for itself. It is pure being. In that sense I have not fully rested. In fact, my lower back is achy and stiff for the last few days... from carrying and caring, needlessly, no doubt...
“Recreation”: The act of recreating, or the state of being recreated; refreshment of the strength and spirits after toil... (Webster’s) I think part of the toil includes the work I have been doing on myself. But what does it mean to re-create myself? I have a body-sense image of being taken apart and re-assembled, a kind of rebirth from the pieces of my old self. Like taking apart something made with Lego blocks and making a new one. But in the reconfiguration a new being is created. It is more than re-membering because there is a synergy that comes out of the pieces being in a new relationship to each other, and this new energy presents as a new ‘face’ to the world (refreshed), but the core of my being, my higher Self, my soul, remains the same.
So it is to the ever-available, wise and loving Great Feminine that I can rest in, supported by her consort, the Great Masculine; all I have to do is surrender. I want to just jettison my burden and climb into her lap, but something holds me back... My fear of losing control, of what burdens me, my responsibilities and obligations... what shall I do, my body? Grandma? She says, bring it with you, all of it, my lap is big enough, and just rest, baggage/backache and all. The only thing I ought to jettison is that part of my ego that fears losing control. I give it to Grandfather, the Great Masculine, to hold for me.
As I climb into her lap I think of the hot springs in Costa Rica, a treasure deep in the moist and sunless rainforest is the nurturing and healing warmth of the Mother, dark and fertile. The Great Water and Earth that can hold me like nothing else can; there I found loving rest inside and out. The frog and amphibians are a bridge connecting water and earth. Water moistens the earth and brings forth new life; earth enriches water and nourishes the new life.
Frog as a Totem means Transformation:
The frog is the totem of metamorphosis.
It symbolizes coming into your personal power.
It reminds us not to become bogged down with day-to-day living.
It is the totem of water.
Its voice calls forth the rains.
Emotions are associated with water and
a frog totem may be telling you to get in touch with your feelings.
People with frog medicine give support and energy
where it is needed.
They can cleanse the negativity from an environment.
(from http://www.linsdomain.com/totems/pages/frog.htm)
I am deeply grateful, beyond words...
DREAMWORK:
I am seeking help from the Great Feminine in the form of The Crone – Grandma – and even though I felt intimidated and shy, she attended to me right away, as if we were equals. In fact, she didn’t look that old, maybe in her 60s, short black hair, body straight and slim. She exuded quiet confidence and poise, and was obviously deeply intuitive. She got straight to the point without wasting a single word or gesture. I revere her and aspire to be like her.
Rest & Recreation (but not relaxation)... my first thought was that I’ve already done lots of that, and that’s what the last 3, 4 months were about. When I told Michael the dream he said he thought recreation meant re-creating. I could feel the truth in that.
When I dropped the word “Rest” into my body I sensed a great and deep trust around it, as if in order for me to truly rest I need to be enveloped by that much trust. Like a baby in its mother’s arms, it carries nothing and cares for nothing, it is not even responsible for itself. It is pure being. In that sense I have not fully rested. In fact, my lower back is achy and stiff for the last few days... from carrying and caring, needlessly, no doubt...
“Recreation”: The act of recreating, or the state of being recreated; refreshment of the strength and spirits after toil... (Webster’s) I think part of the toil includes the work I have been doing on myself. But what does it mean to re-create myself? I have a body-sense image of being taken apart and re-assembled, a kind of rebirth from the pieces of my old self. Like taking apart something made with Lego blocks and making a new one. But in the reconfiguration a new being is created. It is more than re-membering because there is a synergy that comes out of the pieces being in a new relationship to each other, and this new energy presents as a new ‘face’ to the world (refreshed), but the core of my being, my higher Self, my soul, remains the same.
So it is to the ever-available, wise and loving Great Feminine that I can rest in, supported by her consort, the Great Masculine; all I have to do is surrender. I want to just jettison my burden and climb into her lap, but something holds me back... My fear of losing control, of what burdens me, my responsibilities and obligations... what shall I do, my body? Grandma? She says, bring it with you, all of it, my lap is big enough, and just rest, baggage/backache and all. The only thing I ought to jettison is that part of my ego that fears losing control. I give it to Grandfather, the Great Masculine, to hold for me.
As I climb into her lap I think of the hot springs in Costa Rica, a treasure deep in the moist and sunless rainforest is the nurturing and healing warmth of the Mother, dark and fertile. The Great Water and Earth that can hold me like nothing else can; there I found loving rest inside and out. The frog and amphibians are a bridge connecting water and earth. Water moistens the earth and brings forth new life; earth enriches water and nourishes the new life.
Frog as a Totem means Transformation:
The frog is the totem of metamorphosis.
It symbolizes coming into your personal power.
It reminds us not to become bogged down with day-to-day living.
It is the totem of water.
Its voice calls forth the rains.
Emotions are associated with water and
a frog totem may be telling you to get in touch with your feelings.
People with frog medicine give support and energy
where it is needed.
They can cleanse the negativity from an environment.
(from http://www.linsdomain.com/totems/pages/frog.htm)
I am deeply grateful, beyond words...
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