Dreams of The Empress

DREAM of Mrs. Manning, an old boss I had in my twenties. She was the owner and president of the stock brokerage firm on Bay Street where I worked to put myself through art college. A tall, elegant, but frail old woman who had heart. She always dressed and carried herself well. In the dream we were getting food at a buffet table (an old theme of nurture for me), and the woman with me commented that my grandfather had outdone himself with the cooking. I disagreed, maybe even out loud, because from what I could see several of the dishes were broccolli. Mrs. Manning came over and said something to the woman in a language unknown to me, because then she turned to me and said “That’s Manquist”, meaning the language…

DREAMWORK:

This makes the third dream I’ve had around the figure of a queenly feminine lately. There was the woman/me who barfed all over my shadow girl and my husband, and the one where I was loved and adored by 2 brothers. So there is something I’m not getting yet… hmmm…

They all personify the archetype of the Empress (I’ll look her up in Pictures of the Heart later), but aside from the positive qualities, what’s in the shadow of the Empress? In my dreams she was sick and threw up, causing her/my shadow to leave; then she/I was profoundly cherished by 2 brothers, boosting her/my self-worth as a woman; and now a woman who has power, prestige, wealth, and breeding. She spoke Manquist (a combo word from Manning and linguist? ‘qu’ makes a better sounding word than ‘gu’??) to my shadow, and that’s what I didn’t get, what I don’t get still… perhaps also why I couldn’t see what’s good and true of my grandfather’s cooking that others saw, all I could see was broccolli, a nutritious food but common and boring…

I’ve a feeling that it has to do with what’s in the shadow of the Empress, and the men in these dreams, the Emperor figure. What do the husband, the brother lovers, and my grandfather have in common? They all adored and worshipped the woman in their lives, devoted themselves to her wellbeing and cared for her every need, sung her praises as a woman, a mother, and goddess. They put her on a pedestal and made her the queen above all womankind. It is the greatest tribute a woman could have from a man. Their love for her is unconditional – this just occurred to me to know – they love her for who she is, even when she wasn’t a queen. They gave her the support and nurture to become the queen that she was born to be. They are the Benign Masculine, the true consort of the feminine. This is the healing and nurture I need from my masculine, for the yang to flow into the yin and infuse her with confidence, courage, and selfhood, so she can stand up tall and strong and poised as a queen, and wield the power given to her for the good of the world.

The truth is, the Empress is not an empress without the Emperor, and vice versa. She must return his love in kind, so the energy and power between – shared by them – is constantly renewed and flow freely. Creativity is then generated in abundance.