Yet another dream of having a little girl—a daughter—this time she is with me and we are on a bus. I was wearing a frilly, flouncy white shirt, ultra-feminine with a plunging neckline. I had to pull the sides together to keep from exposing too much of my chest. My daughter was in white too. I was standing and holding her hand at first, then I saw an empty seat. We went over to it and I lifted her unto the seat, debating whether I ought to squeeze in beside her or let her sit by herself. Out of my periphery I could see there were more empty seats just beside us, but it did not occur to me to sit there or to have her sit on my lap.
DREAMWORK:
I am still trying to protect my vulnerability, my defenseless little feminine, which I have rejected and over-protected in turn. It’s been a lifetime of love and hate. I am beginning to love and cherish her now, but I feel so much still, for her defenselessness and innocence, which I want desperately to shield from the dangers of the world. I want her to have a chance to grow up, at her own pace, and have the time she needs to mature. Am I using her as an excuse not to go into the world? Somewhat. That’s the fear in me talking. The flipside of the fear is love. My love for her, my young, tender, darling child, my self, who is finally growing up into my Self. I do want her to have the best, as every parent does. I want her to stay on her path, guided by Source.
I know I cannot protect her, that would only get in her way, so I’ll love her all that I can, but let her sit by herself in her own seat, stay with her as we are meant to be, on this bus ride into the world together.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The Unmaking of My Artifice
Saturday, January 29, 2011
I’ve been sitting and marinating in this ‘new’* insight of the artifice in myself, ever since it came into my awareness the other night. Last night gave me a few more glimpses of the constellation this is a part of. That this artifice I have created is my first layer of defense. It has become for me a general, daily wear kind of wall that I put up around myself, in defense of my vulnerability, which is the fear that I am not enough, that I don’t have enough. I dare say that all of my fears and anxieties are rooted in that. Even with the yesterday’s episode of ‘I hate cleaning up after and taking care of someone else”—an ancient re-run of my relationship soap opera, there it is, way down, that fear that I don’t have enough (energy, time, resources, whatever) for myself already, I don’t want to give anymore away, because I won’t have enough left for myself… The poverty consciousness of the Head Types.
But this wall, this artifice, is made of glass, so I can see out into the world from a safe place, and still see what’s going on, so I can continue to live vicariously through it and feel ‘productive’ and ‘useful’. But this transparency also allows others to see me, which, from my lofty (glass tower) vantage point inside the wall gives the illusion that I am somehow superior to those outside, and most important of all, my sincerity and honesty are on display, so as to uphold my holier-than-thou image to others. “Look how smart I am! Look what good work I am doing, working on my own healing and spiritual growth!” Because I am nothing if I am not smart.
But my life of cultivating ‘smart’ seemed to have masterminded this glass screen I am now imprisoned in. The sophisticiation of my intellect created this double-blind that is so cleverly deceptive, I find myself now lost and trapped in the jungle of my own mind. I’ve outsmarted myself, and now I can’t get out.
In my dream of the glass tower, I didn’t or couldn’t leave because I did not have my masculine: the courage and confidence and drive to go out into the world. I flirted with him (all 3 of them!) but did not commit myself to him, so he did not take me with him. Because deep down I don’t really want to leave my glass tower, my false sense of safety, even though there was a revolving door, so I was not even really trapped. The only thing that binds me is my fear of not enough.**
*the quote marks around the new are there because I’ve had inklings of these notions long before they appeared in my consciousness in these particular forms. In these 2 instances, they came as words or labels.
**this is also very true of why I’ve been hitting that wall of artifice in writing poetry, which manifests as the symptom of piling on as many adjectives and metaphors and images and words as I can (as I’ve just done) into every line, for fear that I might miss some crucial embellishment or novel turn-of-phrase that could distinguish me as ‘a cut above’. Even though it is the simple, matter-of-fact, unadorn truth and wisdom that move me the most. I can’t seem to stop myself. It is an obsession, a compulsion, a knee-jerk reflex of fear.
Is there anything to be done with this, on this loop of the spiral? Surrender it to Source. That is all.
_____________
Friday, January 28, 2011
There is a layer of artifice in myself I must penetrate, as thin and transparent as it might be, for that is its disguise. I have been aware of its presence for some time now, but mostly the awareness came and went, until I began to write poetry lately, until I began to strive to be a poet and kept hitting a wall once I get a few lines into it. I think now, that the wall is my artifice. It is the same glass wall that was in my dream a few days ago, of being with 3 love interests in a glass building, then watching them leave through the glass revolving door with other women.
_____________
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Had another DREAM of a small girl child, this time she was with her mom with me looking on, again, full of concern for her welfare, but from a few feet away. Her mom had just set her down to sit, and I thought, I’ve never seen her run around like kids usually do, she’s always just sitting quietly. I had to admit though, she looked healthy, and sweet. Meanwhile, off to the other side, someone (I think it was actually me) was holding and showing a plant and saying, this is what happens when a plant has potato bugs. I saw that there were russet-coloured pudgey wedged-shaped things hanging from the stems of the plant.
DREAMWORK:
I am still keeping a ‘safe’ distance away from my ‘concern’, fretting needless no doubt, but not realizing that my anxiety is caused and fueled by the distance I’ve placed between myself and ‘other’. I am powerless because I’ve removed myself from the position of participation, therefore the right to act. I don’t want the role of a nurturer or caregiver, in effect giving up my right to keep the little girl as my own, even though I know she is mine. Even though I say I want to heal the split in myself, I am holding the sides apart.
The russet-coloured wedges on the plant seemed more like ‘fruits’ than the result of potato-bug infestation to me. Perhaps I believed it to be an infestation—a negative influence—but it’s actually bearing some kind of fruit, or hanging chrysalis. The colour red is one that signifies life to me, though somewhat stagnant in this case because of its darkness. They were full and healthy looking too. I think the potato bugs were my fears, and from my fears I did not expect anything ‘good’ to come, but the dream is telling me otherwise.
Judge less. Wait more.
___________
Unmake Me
In half sleep it came
with an untidy jolt
that before anything else ought to be contemplated
I must unlearn
all that I have
all that I know
all that I have invested
treasured and venerated
in language and words
art and sensibility
sacred and the profane
indeed
how we stand, how
we take our place in
the order and orientation
of all things created
the clay pot that I am
in a long line of vessels
is taken up by an unseen hand
dropped
in a heartbeat
shattered
in front of my own witness
I knew then
the worst
and the best
all the rest
have yet to come.
~~~~~
So I am to be unmade, broken into pieces and reconfigured into a new design for a ‘new’ vessel, as I was once before. Or so I thought… Perhaps this is how it goes, how we are renewed, life after life, life within life. Remembering still the pain of dismemberment the last time, I can only pray that this time, it might mercifully be a process less protracted, IF I can surrender to it with less of a fight, and more stillness.
Ready. Set. Stop.
I’ve been sitting and marinating in this ‘new’* insight of the artifice in myself, ever since it came into my awareness the other night. Last night gave me a few more glimpses of the constellation this is a part of. That this artifice I have created is my first layer of defense. It has become for me a general, daily wear kind of wall that I put up around myself, in defense of my vulnerability, which is the fear that I am not enough, that I don’t have enough. I dare say that all of my fears and anxieties are rooted in that. Even with the yesterday’s episode of ‘I hate cleaning up after and taking care of someone else”—an ancient re-run of my relationship soap opera, there it is, way down, that fear that I don’t have enough (energy, time, resources, whatever) for myself already, I don’t want to give anymore away, because I won’t have enough left for myself… The poverty consciousness of the Head Types.
But this wall, this artifice, is made of glass, so I can see out into the world from a safe place, and still see what’s going on, so I can continue to live vicariously through it and feel ‘productive’ and ‘useful’. But this transparency also allows others to see me, which, from my lofty (glass tower) vantage point inside the wall gives the illusion that I am somehow superior to those outside, and most important of all, my sincerity and honesty are on display, so as to uphold my holier-than-thou image to others. “Look how smart I am! Look what good work I am doing, working on my own healing and spiritual growth!” Because I am nothing if I am not smart.
But my life of cultivating ‘smart’ seemed to have masterminded this glass screen I am now imprisoned in. The sophisticiation of my intellect created this double-blind that is so cleverly deceptive, I find myself now lost and trapped in the jungle of my own mind. I’ve outsmarted myself, and now I can’t get out.
In my dream of the glass tower, I didn’t or couldn’t leave because I did not have my masculine: the courage and confidence and drive to go out into the world. I flirted with him (all 3 of them!) but did not commit myself to him, so he did not take me with him. Because deep down I don’t really want to leave my glass tower, my false sense of safety, even though there was a revolving door, so I was not even really trapped. The only thing that binds me is my fear of not enough.**
*the quote marks around the new are there because I’ve had inklings of these notions long before they appeared in my consciousness in these particular forms. In these 2 instances, they came as words or labels.
**this is also very true of why I’ve been hitting that wall of artifice in writing poetry, which manifests as the symptom of piling on as many adjectives and metaphors and images and words as I can (as I’ve just done) into every line, for fear that I might miss some crucial embellishment or novel turn-of-phrase that could distinguish me as ‘a cut above’. Even though it is the simple, matter-of-fact, unadorn truth and wisdom that move me the most. I can’t seem to stop myself. It is an obsession, a compulsion, a knee-jerk reflex of fear.
Is there anything to be done with this, on this loop of the spiral? Surrender it to Source. That is all.
_____________
Friday, January 28, 2011
There is a layer of artifice in myself I must penetrate, as thin and transparent as it might be, for that is its disguise. I have been aware of its presence for some time now, but mostly the awareness came and went, until I began to write poetry lately, until I began to strive to be a poet and kept hitting a wall once I get a few lines into it. I think now, that the wall is my artifice. It is the same glass wall that was in my dream a few days ago, of being with 3 love interests in a glass building, then watching them leave through the glass revolving door with other women.
_____________
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Had another DREAM of a small girl child, this time she was with her mom with me looking on, again, full of concern for her welfare, but from a few feet away. Her mom had just set her down to sit, and I thought, I’ve never seen her run around like kids usually do, she’s always just sitting quietly. I had to admit though, she looked healthy, and sweet. Meanwhile, off to the other side, someone (I think it was actually me) was holding and showing a plant and saying, this is what happens when a plant has potato bugs. I saw that there were russet-coloured pudgey wedged-shaped things hanging from the stems of the plant.
DREAMWORK:
I am still keeping a ‘safe’ distance away from my ‘concern’, fretting needless no doubt, but not realizing that my anxiety is caused and fueled by the distance I’ve placed between myself and ‘other’. I am powerless because I’ve removed myself from the position of participation, therefore the right to act. I don’t want the role of a nurturer or caregiver, in effect giving up my right to keep the little girl as my own, even though I know she is mine. Even though I say I want to heal the split in myself, I am holding the sides apart.
The russet-coloured wedges on the plant seemed more like ‘fruits’ than the result of potato-bug infestation to me. Perhaps I believed it to be an infestation—a negative influence—but it’s actually bearing some kind of fruit, or hanging chrysalis. The colour red is one that signifies life to me, though somewhat stagnant in this case because of its darkness. They were full and healthy looking too. I think the potato bugs were my fears, and from my fears I did not expect anything ‘good’ to come, but the dream is telling me otherwise.
Judge less. Wait more.
___________
Unmake Me
In half sleep it came
with an untidy jolt
that before anything else ought to be contemplated
I must unlearn
all that I have
all that I know
all that I have invested
treasured and venerated
in language and words
art and sensibility
sacred and the profane
indeed
how we stand, how
we take our place in
the order and orientation
of all things created
the clay pot that I am
in a long line of vessels
is taken up by an unseen hand
dropped
in a heartbeat
shattered
in front of my own witness
I knew then
the worst
and the best
all the rest
have yet to come.
~~~~~
So I am to be unmade, broken into pieces and reconfigured into a new design for a ‘new’ vessel, as I was once before. Or so I thought… Perhaps this is how it goes, how we are renewed, life after life, life within life. Remembering still the pain of dismemberment the last time, I can only pray that this time, it might mercifully be a process less protracted, IF I can surrender to it with less of a fight, and more stillness.
Ready. Set. Stop.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Cat & 2 Dead Mice
DREAM about touching a dead mouse accidentally, because I was trying to reposition food I saw for a cat so that she’ll be sure to see it. I was doing it habitually on the run, in a rush to go somewhere…
DREAMWORK:
I felt disgusted when I realized what I had touched, kept looking at my hand not knowing what to do with it. There were 2 little dead bodies when I looked back, but I swore I didn’t see any before… Mice, are a personification of my deepest fear, my phobia extremis. It’s a sticky, messy ball of irrational terror wrapped around raw vulnerability and powerlessness. I’ve been around to this groove on my healing spiral a few times already, and here I am again.
Well, at least the mice are dead now. They do not have the kind of paralyzing effect on me they used to have. But the memory of the wrenching repulsion is still with me. They don’t set me off into the farthest orbits of sanity anymore, but the aversion is still vivid and visceral. This all takes place in the area of my abdomen, solar plexus down. It’s as if I’ve been entrained into a Pavlovian response to become immobilized by the shock of suddenly finding myself in a trap.
How to break this entrainment, neutralize the charge of this memory? I’ll look for the answer in the dream… The cat from the dream was Moxie, one of my sister’s brood who went to kitty heaven recently due to old age. She was spunky, wiry, highstrung, and a loner. She was very vocal and demanded attention with full-body urgency whenever she was in need, which wasn’t easy to satisfy in an uneasy tribe of 9 cats. As cats go I admired her for her individuality and her assertions of it, even though she wasn’t recognizably sweet or charming. She insisted on her ways, and lived by her own strategy in the constant turf war that was her communal life.
I suppose I identify with her, her personality and her power, particularly on the level of sheer animal survival. She wasn’t at the top or the bottom of the pecking order, she was an outsider that came and went as she willed. It’s what I would like to be, given who and what I am. To ‘belong’ to a tribe, yet still have the freedom to come and go, leave and stay as I feel called to. To always have a home and hearth and temple to return to, fall back on, accepted unconditionally by, to love and commit to in my own way.
I wanted to make sure she has food (in the dream it was something red—passion? liveliness? Creativity?), but I was going at such high speed I barely managed to grab it and put it in the ‘right’ place. The dead mice (there were 2 in the dream, though i only touched one) slowed me down though, made me stop dead in my tracks (literally!) and look back. Unfinished business needing attention. Standing firm in my true self and finding my own roar like Mox, while grounding my roots and home base in my own ‘tribe’ will help me break the spell of this traumatic memory. Well, I haven’t found my tribe yet, not as I can recognize as such, but in the meantime, I can do the ground work, in all the ways it means.
Stay true and rooted in the Self, then nothing can defile or diminish who you really are, because You are rooted in One and All.
This dream is probably in response to the irritating and disturbing feeling of being unmoored I’ve woken up with in the last few days. We may be called to let go of the shores, but we are still emphatically attached and held by the sometimes invisible web of life, in which loneliness and powerlessness are nothing but hallucinations of the mind drunk on fear. Sober up.
DREAMWORK:
I felt disgusted when I realized what I had touched, kept looking at my hand not knowing what to do with it. There were 2 little dead bodies when I looked back, but I swore I didn’t see any before… Mice, are a personification of my deepest fear, my phobia extremis. It’s a sticky, messy ball of irrational terror wrapped around raw vulnerability and powerlessness. I’ve been around to this groove on my healing spiral a few times already, and here I am again.
Well, at least the mice are dead now. They do not have the kind of paralyzing effect on me they used to have. But the memory of the wrenching repulsion is still with me. They don’t set me off into the farthest orbits of sanity anymore, but the aversion is still vivid and visceral. This all takes place in the area of my abdomen, solar plexus down. It’s as if I’ve been entrained into a Pavlovian response to become immobilized by the shock of suddenly finding myself in a trap.
How to break this entrainment, neutralize the charge of this memory? I’ll look for the answer in the dream… The cat from the dream was Moxie, one of my sister’s brood who went to kitty heaven recently due to old age. She was spunky, wiry, highstrung, and a loner. She was very vocal and demanded attention with full-body urgency whenever she was in need, which wasn’t easy to satisfy in an uneasy tribe of 9 cats. As cats go I admired her for her individuality and her assertions of it, even though she wasn’t recognizably sweet or charming. She insisted on her ways, and lived by her own strategy in the constant turf war that was her communal life.
I suppose I identify with her, her personality and her power, particularly on the level of sheer animal survival. She wasn’t at the top or the bottom of the pecking order, she was an outsider that came and went as she willed. It’s what I would like to be, given who and what I am. To ‘belong’ to a tribe, yet still have the freedom to come and go, leave and stay as I feel called to. To always have a home and hearth and temple to return to, fall back on, accepted unconditionally by, to love and commit to in my own way.
I wanted to make sure she has food (in the dream it was something red—passion? liveliness? Creativity?), but I was going at such high speed I barely managed to grab it and put it in the ‘right’ place. The dead mice (there were 2 in the dream, though i only touched one) slowed me down though, made me stop dead in my tracks (literally!) and look back. Unfinished business needing attention. Standing firm in my true self and finding my own roar like Mox, while grounding my roots and home base in my own ‘tribe’ will help me break the spell of this traumatic memory. Well, I haven’t found my tribe yet, not as I can recognize as such, but in the meantime, I can do the ground work, in all the ways it means.
Stay true and rooted in the Self, then nothing can defile or diminish who you really are, because You are rooted in One and All.
This dream is probably in response to the irritating and disturbing feeling of being unmoored I’ve woken up with in the last few days. We may be called to let go of the shores, but we are still emphatically attached and held by the sometimes invisible web of life, in which loneliness and powerlessness are nothing but hallucinations of the mind drunk on fear. Sober up.
Choice & Surrender
Friday, January 21, 2011
DREAM that all 3 of my love interest have just left me, each with another woman. We were in a big modern business building, glass and steel, and I had just spent time laughing, holding hands, and dancing with each of them in turn. Yet when it came time to leave the place, they chose someone else. I was smiling and hurting inside as I saw them go through the revolving door. I remember goofing around with J.P. earlier and ending up on all fours on the floor, and he on all fours as well on top of me, like nestling tables, both of us laughing uproariously. J.D. was there too…
DREAMWORK:
The hurt was palpable even after I woke up. The pain of rejection, confusion, disappointment, crashing shock. Then having to hold myself together with sheer pride. Meals on wheels of hot humiliation and cold grief everyday from now on. These are old, familiar feelings that I haven’t thought about for a while now.
The glass tower was the areana of status quo life I’ve lived most of my adult life. We were all going after the same things, following the same routines, navigating by the same laws, living and dying the same way. This was how we related. This was how we stave off loneliness, how we fit in. This, of course, began in the teenaged years, under crushing peer pressure. At any rate there was safety and security, regularity and normalcy inside this hot house. I could have chosen to stay in it, laugh and love my way into old age, leave and grieve relationships regularly, just like everybody else in there, and die when the black hole gets too big and there isn’t enough of me left to stay on the ground.
But this glass tower was a place for the young. The 3 men were youthful, romantic figures, perfectly preserved as moments in time by my memory. Yet I have not recovered completely from loss of love. These were loves I wanted but stopped myself from reaching all the way for. In the case of both J.P. and J.D., out of fear of defying my conditioning. More than likely, it saved my heart from being broken, but it also eliminated chances to experience love, however imperfect they might have been.
I remember so clearly the playfulness and spontaneity of our bodies tumbling like a litter of puppies, loosened with total abandon into laughter. I have never laughed so loud and hard in all of my life. It was all so innocent. Yet I expected more.
Was it also because I did not take them seriously, did not declare my commitment to love so was taken for a player? Had I played at love like children rough-housing for the afternoon, then had to go home when dinner was called?
~~~~~
For some reason this dream is frustrating me, as if it’s hitting me below the belt and I don’t know why. As I settled into sleep for the night I let it run as it will in my mind, and it came to me that the glass tower shows false freedom, like the fishbowl idea most of the modern business buildings are fashioned on, it is a pretense at being transparent. What is false freedom to me? I’ve a feeling this is the blinders I can not see past. I’ll just let my thoughts run…
I thought I was free, after leaving much of my early conditioning behind, to choose who to love and to love whom I chose. Because I felt I had lost control over that before, I should have it back. I should have control over it. I didn’t know control is very different from choice. Control is procured with fists tightly clenched; choice with hands open. One is hot, the other cool. One is black-or-white, the other a rainbow.
It’s true that in the dream I had no control over the outcome, but I had 3 men to choose from. I ‘explored’ my options but did not make a choice. I waited for them to choose me. I was entirely passive, right up to the end. I swallowed my disappointment and smiled through my heartbreak. I have to choose, when the freedom of choice is presented to me.
It seems such a hairline of difference between manipulation for a desired outcome and making a choice based in surrender. Surrender is not synonymous with passivity. I’ve never felt very clear about this. But if surrender is not just sitting around doing nothing and waiting for fate to knock my door, then what is it? Surrender is looking at the choices I have with hands and heart open, grounded in love and stillness, and letting that love (for myself, for the greater good, for Life) guide me to the best choice for me, accepting and trusting that this is the best choice, even if I can’t see it at the moment.
So what does this mean to me now, with the choices I am facing? I have the choices of going out to get a job for money, or continue to focus on self-healing and honing my skills in writing, or stop trying/doing everything and see what comes, or combinations of the above. Looking at these choices with as much openness and love and stillness as I can, I allow love to guide me now. Love, what will you have me do?
Love says:
"Love yourself. When you love yourself, you stop struggling like a fish caught in a net. The net is the struggle. Ditch the net.
When you love yourself, you wouldn’t beat yourself up. Again, ditch the net.
When you love yourself, you allow the best to come your way, and when it does, you do not turn away from it because it’s not what you expected, because it’s too expensive and you’re on a budget, because it’s too this or that. Ditch the net, the struggle, the fear.
Surround yourself only with love."
Stay loose, spontaneous, playful, and in the moment, as we were in the dream, but stay alert and open to choices. Make the choice of loving myself.
DREAM that all 3 of my love interest have just left me, each with another woman. We were in a big modern business building, glass and steel, and I had just spent time laughing, holding hands, and dancing with each of them in turn. Yet when it came time to leave the place, they chose someone else. I was smiling and hurting inside as I saw them go through the revolving door. I remember goofing around with J.P. earlier and ending up on all fours on the floor, and he on all fours as well on top of me, like nestling tables, both of us laughing uproariously. J.D. was there too…
DREAMWORK:
The hurt was palpable even after I woke up. The pain of rejection, confusion, disappointment, crashing shock. Then having to hold myself together with sheer pride. Meals on wheels of hot humiliation and cold grief everyday from now on. These are old, familiar feelings that I haven’t thought about for a while now.
The glass tower was the areana of status quo life I’ve lived most of my adult life. We were all going after the same things, following the same routines, navigating by the same laws, living and dying the same way. This was how we related. This was how we stave off loneliness, how we fit in. This, of course, began in the teenaged years, under crushing peer pressure. At any rate there was safety and security, regularity and normalcy inside this hot house. I could have chosen to stay in it, laugh and love my way into old age, leave and grieve relationships regularly, just like everybody else in there, and die when the black hole gets too big and there isn’t enough of me left to stay on the ground.
But this glass tower was a place for the young. The 3 men were youthful, romantic figures, perfectly preserved as moments in time by my memory. Yet I have not recovered completely from loss of love. These were loves I wanted but stopped myself from reaching all the way for. In the case of both J.P. and J.D., out of fear of defying my conditioning. More than likely, it saved my heart from being broken, but it also eliminated chances to experience love, however imperfect they might have been.
I remember so clearly the playfulness and spontaneity of our bodies tumbling like a litter of puppies, loosened with total abandon into laughter. I have never laughed so loud and hard in all of my life. It was all so innocent. Yet I expected more.
Was it also because I did not take them seriously, did not declare my commitment to love so was taken for a player? Had I played at love like children rough-housing for the afternoon, then had to go home when dinner was called?
~~~~~
For some reason this dream is frustrating me, as if it’s hitting me below the belt and I don’t know why. As I settled into sleep for the night I let it run as it will in my mind, and it came to me that the glass tower shows false freedom, like the fishbowl idea most of the modern business buildings are fashioned on, it is a pretense at being transparent. What is false freedom to me? I’ve a feeling this is the blinders I can not see past. I’ll just let my thoughts run…
I thought I was free, after leaving much of my early conditioning behind, to choose who to love and to love whom I chose. Because I felt I had lost control over that before, I should have it back. I should have control over it. I didn’t know control is very different from choice. Control is procured with fists tightly clenched; choice with hands open. One is hot, the other cool. One is black-or-white, the other a rainbow.
It’s true that in the dream I had no control over the outcome, but I had 3 men to choose from. I ‘explored’ my options but did not make a choice. I waited for them to choose me. I was entirely passive, right up to the end. I swallowed my disappointment and smiled through my heartbreak. I have to choose, when the freedom of choice is presented to me.
It seems such a hairline of difference between manipulation for a desired outcome and making a choice based in surrender. Surrender is not synonymous with passivity. I’ve never felt very clear about this. But if surrender is not just sitting around doing nothing and waiting for fate to knock my door, then what is it? Surrender is looking at the choices I have with hands and heart open, grounded in love and stillness, and letting that love (for myself, for the greater good, for Life) guide me to the best choice for me, accepting and trusting that this is the best choice, even if I can’t see it at the moment.
So what does this mean to me now, with the choices I am facing? I have the choices of going out to get a job for money, or continue to focus on self-healing and honing my skills in writing, or stop trying/doing everything and see what comes, or combinations of the above. Looking at these choices with as much openness and love and stillness as I can, I allow love to guide me now. Love, what will you have me do?
Love says:
"Love yourself. When you love yourself, you stop struggling like a fish caught in a net. The net is the struggle. Ditch the net.
When you love yourself, you wouldn’t beat yourself up. Again, ditch the net.
When you love yourself, you allow the best to come your way, and when it does, you do not turn away from it because it’s not what you expected, because it’s too expensive and you’re on a budget, because it’s too this or that. Ditch the net, the struggle, the fear.
Surround yourself only with love."
Stay loose, spontaneous, playful, and in the moment, as we were in the dream, but stay alert and open to choices. Make the choice of loving myself.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Loving Girl Blue
DREAMBIT:
I had a little girl, about 2 or 3, who I had just taken back from someone who was taking care of her for me. She was quiet in my arms but moody looking. I felt her skin which was cool and wondered if she was sick, though she seemed healthy. I carried her upstairs to a desk (mine?), then I put her down so I could clean up the desk. I sorted through some books and magazines to decide what to keep. In the end I decided to chuck them all.
DREAMWORK:
Ah, my little baby again, this time a girl… but why is she melancholic? I feel that she wanted to be with me, but perhaps I had been away from her too long? This had made her blue and withdrawn. There is certainly a big part of me that is blue and withdrawn. She’s been there for a long time. And even though I love her I still put her aside for my work. I become preoccupied with learning and forget about her, at least for the moment, even though I ended up throwing out all the books. Perhaps then I could devote myself to her? Perhaps then I could devote myself to connecting, loving, and nurturing myself? Forget the books. I know all I need to know from them.
What I remember most viscerally is the feel of her skin against mine. The velvety baby softness that gives, the temperature lower than mine, as if she has cooled from her former fiery passionate self, like a baby who’s exhausted herself crying and demanding, and is now pliable and limp, given up.
Poor baby, I promise to do better.
I had a little girl, about 2 or 3, who I had just taken back from someone who was taking care of her for me. She was quiet in my arms but moody looking. I felt her skin which was cool and wondered if she was sick, though she seemed healthy. I carried her upstairs to a desk (mine?), then I put her down so I could clean up the desk. I sorted through some books and magazines to decide what to keep. In the end I decided to chuck them all.
DREAMWORK:
Ah, my little baby again, this time a girl… but why is she melancholic? I feel that she wanted to be with me, but perhaps I had been away from her too long? This had made her blue and withdrawn. There is certainly a big part of me that is blue and withdrawn. She’s been there for a long time. And even though I love her I still put her aside for my work. I become preoccupied with learning and forget about her, at least for the moment, even though I ended up throwing out all the books. Perhaps then I could devote myself to her? Perhaps then I could devote myself to connecting, loving, and nurturing myself? Forget the books. I know all I need to know from them.
What I remember most viscerally is the feel of her skin against mine. The velvety baby softness that gives, the temperature lower than mine, as if she has cooled from her former fiery passionate self, like a baby who’s exhausted herself crying and demanding, and is now pliable and limp, given up.
Poor baby, I promise to do better.
Love & Power
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
DREAM that I am with my sister and my mother in a big house full of people, a communal place. But even though I “belonged” there, I didn’t exactly feel at ease. I didn’t have anything to do and I was bored. So I told my mother I was going down to the store to buy myself some tea. Then I was with my sister, practically stuck to her side, kind of wedged against the wall while she was setting up for a group photograph of some group of men, some kind of committee with power. She wanted to leave lots of space around them in the shot, but I told her I wouldn’t bother, they always crop the pictures very tight. I remember seeing Christopher Pett as a grown man, when the men started coming in.
DREAMWORK:
I have known for some time that ‘my place’ is with community, even though I appear reclusive and live like a hermit in the middle of the city. In my dreams and waking life I travel always with the feeling that I don’t fit in, that I don’t belong anywhere. I think I started to get this feeling just before puberty, the age of discernment, of separation, when I started to take life apart. In the dream I also did not have purpose, one of my own and therefore one for being in the group, as if the two are the same, or intertwined. My birth chart tells me the same thing, my sun, Chiron, and Mars all in the 10th house of career and vocation.
What is my purpose then? It seems intrinsically at the core of career and life’s work that I can’t go on without knowing what it is. I’ve known for a long time that it has to do with healing, and I still feel certain of that. But to say that my life’s purpose is to heal and help others heal no longer suffice for me as a purpose. It is like a gushing tonnage of water without a container. There’s no direction, no course, no form, at least not apparent to me. I need that apparency (is that a word?) now, certainly more transparency.
Healing from individuals into community. Bringing the nuclear way of life into the tribal, like a midwife. That’s all I got for now, but I sense more is coming, soon. Back to the dream…
My mother and my sister were both there, so this is my people, this is where I belong, even if my feelings deny it. I told my mother I was leaving for a while, perhaps to go get some ‘wake-up’ and comfort (tea). At any rate, I wanted change. But I don’t remember actually going anywhere. Instead, I was literally stuck to my sister, my shadow familiar, who was preoccupied with the image of patriarchy. (Am I obsessed with the image?) But she is trying to show me something different about this image I have of it, by giving it lots of space around, more space than I thought necessary, as I’ve formed my perception of it already. To see patriarchy with more breathing room, more leniency, more freedom to move, more possibility, will perhaps bring more flow into it too.
Christopher Pett was a boy I went to grade school with, he had just immigrated from England with his family. I hadn’t remembered him until now, but I would say although he was a ‘foreigner’ just like me, he and his background was much less alien than mine. He was an introvert and kept to himself, just like me, but he didn’t stick out either. He appeared to be himself, and fit in. Now he is shown as part of the power collective in the community, so it is saying to me that even someone as reticent as he can be powerful and be comfortable with it. But they are still all men, at least in my image of what’s powerful. So I still associate power with the masculine, but is that ‘wrong’? It is if I believe it’s still ‘a man’s world’ and allow that to hold me back from what I need to do. It is if that power is locked up and segregated within myself so my feminine is left powerless.
Another scab to pick off and jettison, another layer of dead skin to shed. So I can welcome into the spotlight the new girl, pink and fresh with health. I want to love her, this new baby girl, an auspice for a new way of life for me. And I believe I can love her as my own, as much as anything or anyone is my own, as myself. I shall call her Meme** (as in me-me).
It was kind of a strange little scene to see my head tucked into the side of my sister’s neck, and felt the need for that degree of closeness in the dream. I have come to rely on her a great deal, my shadow feminine, and I realize just this moment that I love her too. Now I want the power of my masculine to flow in exchange with the love of my feminine, so power and love are available to both, and become as one.
**Interestingly, meme means “an idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behavior that spreads throughout a culture either vertically by cultural inheritance (as by parents to children) or horizontally by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)”, according to the Urban Dictionary.
DREAM that I am with my sister and my mother in a big house full of people, a communal place. But even though I “belonged” there, I didn’t exactly feel at ease. I didn’t have anything to do and I was bored. So I told my mother I was going down to the store to buy myself some tea. Then I was with my sister, practically stuck to her side, kind of wedged against the wall while she was setting up for a group photograph of some group of men, some kind of committee with power. She wanted to leave lots of space around them in the shot, but I told her I wouldn’t bother, they always crop the pictures very tight. I remember seeing Christopher Pett as a grown man, when the men started coming in.
DREAMWORK:
I have known for some time that ‘my place’ is with community, even though I appear reclusive and live like a hermit in the middle of the city. In my dreams and waking life I travel always with the feeling that I don’t fit in, that I don’t belong anywhere. I think I started to get this feeling just before puberty, the age of discernment, of separation, when I started to take life apart. In the dream I also did not have purpose, one of my own and therefore one for being in the group, as if the two are the same, or intertwined. My birth chart tells me the same thing, my sun, Chiron, and Mars all in the 10th house of career and vocation.
What is my purpose then? It seems intrinsically at the core of career and life’s work that I can’t go on without knowing what it is. I’ve known for a long time that it has to do with healing, and I still feel certain of that. But to say that my life’s purpose is to heal and help others heal no longer suffice for me as a purpose. It is like a gushing tonnage of water without a container. There’s no direction, no course, no form, at least not apparent to me. I need that apparency (is that a word?) now, certainly more transparency.
Healing from individuals into community. Bringing the nuclear way of life into the tribal, like a midwife. That’s all I got for now, but I sense more is coming, soon. Back to the dream…
My mother and my sister were both there, so this is my people, this is where I belong, even if my feelings deny it. I told my mother I was leaving for a while, perhaps to go get some ‘wake-up’ and comfort (tea). At any rate, I wanted change. But I don’t remember actually going anywhere. Instead, I was literally stuck to my sister, my shadow familiar, who was preoccupied with the image of patriarchy. (Am I obsessed with the image?) But she is trying to show me something different about this image I have of it, by giving it lots of space around, more space than I thought necessary, as I’ve formed my perception of it already. To see patriarchy with more breathing room, more leniency, more freedom to move, more possibility, will perhaps bring more flow into it too.
Christopher Pett was a boy I went to grade school with, he had just immigrated from England with his family. I hadn’t remembered him until now, but I would say although he was a ‘foreigner’ just like me, he and his background was much less alien than mine. He was an introvert and kept to himself, just like me, but he didn’t stick out either. He appeared to be himself, and fit in. Now he is shown as part of the power collective in the community, so it is saying to me that even someone as reticent as he can be powerful and be comfortable with it. But they are still all men, at least in my image of what’s powerful. So I still associate power with the masculine, but is that ‘wrong’? It is if I believe it’s still ‘a man’s world’ and allow that to hold me back from what I need to do. It is if that power is locked up and segregated within myself so my feminine is left powerless.
Another scab to pick off and jettison, another layer of dead skin to shed. So I can welcome into the spotlight the new girl, pink and fresh with health. I want to love her, this new baby girl, an auspice for a new way of life for me. And I believe I can love her as my own, as much as anything or anyone is my own, as myself. I shall call her Meme** (as in me-me).
It was kind of a strange little scene to see my head tucked into the side of my sister’s neck, and felt the need for that degree of closeness in the dream. I have come to rely on her a great deal, my shadow feminine, and I realize just this moment that I love her too. Now I want the power of my masculine to flow in exchange with the love of my feminine, so power and love are available to both, and become as one.
**Interestingly, meme means “an idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behavior that spreads throughout a culture either vertically by cultural inheritance (as by parents to children) or horizontally by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)”, according to the Urban Dictionary.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The Charlatan of Self-Deception
Saturday, January 15, 2011
DREAMBITS:
1) Sitting at a table with a teacher who was telling us how great a package of ‘art’ pencils are. He was holding up the pack in his hand and pointing to it as if there was a camera rolling somewhere, a commercial being made. I noticed there was one pencil missing, leaving a gap in the pack, and one of the pencils was like a carpenter’s pencil, flat and wide, but the lead was inky black. A class was about to start, but I did not belong in that class so I began to collect my things and go.
2) I was methodically re-positioning a small clear plastic curtain by moving the 4 suction cups holding it up. The whole background was a big glass wall. There were 2 clear plastic disks already on the glass, but I just stuck the suction cups over them as if they weren’t there. There was something else to the right but I can’t recall what it was now. Some kind of measuring device I think.
DREAMWORK:
1) Am I still wasting my time and energy on the charlatans of the world, even ones selling ways to creativity? I think this is referring to all the books and websites and people I am giving attention to, because they are supposedly artists who have ‘made it’ in the world, whose strategies and recipes for success ought to be my guiding light. I am beginning to find that this is not necessarily so, that perhaps it is time I learn from a greater teacher, Soul.
I don’t need the pack of pencils the teachers of the world are selling, I already have the one I need, that’s why it was missing in the pack. What he had that I didn’t though, was the carpenter’s pencil, they ultra-black, hyper-real, artisan’s tool. I am missing the tool of manifestation, of actually making something real and tangible. I chose not to sign on for that class because it didn’t feel right to me. But I still need to and want to manifest my full and true Self in this world. I need a different path to get there but I have no idea how or what. Perhaps the second dreambit will give me a clue…
2) I can see how this image of the borderless glass wall is a metaphor of my current life. I am separated from the ‘real’ world as I know it, on the outside looking in, and on the inside looking out. But even that isn’t enough for me, I’ve put up a personal-sized curtain on the wall, although it too is transparent, so I’m not sure what purpose it serves. It offers a distorted view of me from the other side at most, so I cannot be seen as I truly am. That’s a kind of disguise I suppose. So if others cannot see the real me, it’s because I’ve ‘hidden’ it. And some of the ‘work’ I’ve been doing has been this fussing with lining up the suction cups—to give myself a sense of purpose? a sense of order? I want to present my image to the world in a certain way, with a bit of a twist. It is based on the real me, but still, it’s not authentic. I’m not being authentic. I’m still trying to hide something of myself. I am pretending to be transparent, but I’m not. I am working towards wholeness (the number 4) but I am also using that work for a cover. I am the charlatan, selling myself. I think it’s wholeness (4) I am showing to the world, but it’s actually still the older split (2) underneath. But the 2 were whole circles, and transparent… They are the personas that I have been, as a designer, and as a healer. Even though they were only personas, they were at least presented as shown. I did not try to present them as something loftier.
But now I am seemingly doing ‘nothing’ with my life, I feel the need to pretend to everyone else as if I am doing something, by telling them I am doing the great and important work of healing myself. Not that that’s not true, but I think this dream is saying it’s not about what’s ‘true’ and what’s not, because that’s subject to opinion therefore an illusion, but that I am using it as self-validation. I am using it to get acceptance and love. But worse, I am telling myself a story I can turn into a belief, a belief I can hold on to. And like everything else, a belief can serve the ego, or it can serve Life.
It wouldn’t be untrue to just say I am doing nothing, because that is what I’m doing. It is the subject of what I am working on, the nothingness of existence. Egads, this is difficult to keep straight… What I’m feeling is caution, that I must keep my eyes peeled and stay alert to what’s inauthentic, not least self-deception, which is as wiley as a fox.
The moral of this dream: Beware of labeling yourself, lest you buy into it. True Self cannot be labeled.
DREAMBITS:
1) Sitting at a table with a teacher who was telling us how great a package of ‘art’ pencils are. He was holding up the pack in his hand and pointing to it as if there was a camera rolling somewhere, a commercial being made. I noticed there was one pencil missing, leaving a gap in the pack, and one of the pencils was like a carpenter’s pencil, flat and wide, but the lead was inky black. A class was about to start, but I did not belong in that class so I began to collect my things and go.
2) I was methodically re-positioning a small clear plastic curtain by moving the 4 suction cups holding it up. The whole background was a big glass wall. There were 2 clear plastic disks already on the glass, but I just stuck the suction cups over them as if they weren’t there. There was something else to the right but I can’t recall what it was now. Some kind of measuring device I think.
DREAMWORK:
1) Am I still wasting my time and energy on the charlatans of the world, even ones selling ways to creativity? I think this is referring to all the books and websites and people I am giving attention to, because they are supposedly artists who have ‘made it’ in the world, whose strategies and recipes for success ought to be my guiding light. I am beginning to find that this is not necessarily so, that perhaps it is time I learn from a greater teacher, Soul.
I don’t need the pack of pencils the teachers of the world are selling, I already have the one I need, that’s why it was missing in the pack. What he had that I didn’t though, was the carpenter’s pencil, they ultra-black, hyper-real, artisan’s tool. I am missing the tool of manifestation, of actually making something real and tangible. I chose not to sign on for that class because it didn’t feel right to me. But I still need to and want to manifest my full and true Self in this world. I need a different path to get there but I have no idea how or what. Perhaps the second dreambit will give me a clue…
2) I can see how this image of the borderless glass wall is a metaphor of my current life. I am separated from the ‘real’ world as I know it, on the outside looking in, and on the inside looking out. But even that isn’t enough for me, I’ve put up a personal-sized curtain on the wall, although it too is transparent, so I’m not sure what purpose it serves. It offers a distorted view of me from the other side at most, so I cannot be seen as I truly am. That’s a kind of disguise I suppose. So if others cannot see the real me, it’s because I’ve ‘hidden’ it. And some of the ‘work’ I’ve been doing has been this fussing with lining up the suction cups—to give myself a sense of purpose? a sense of order? I want to present my image to the world in a certain way, with a bit of a twist. It is based on the real me, but still, it’s not authentic. I’m not being authentic. I’m still trying to hide something of myself. I am pretending to be transparent, but I’m not. I am working towards wholeness (the number 4) but I am also using that work for a cover. I am the charlatan, selling myself. I think it’s wholeness (4) I am showing to the world, but it’s actually still the older split (2) underneath. But the 2 were whole circles, and transparent… They are the personas that I have been, as a designer, and as a healer. Even though they were only personas, they were at least presented as shown. I did not try to present them as something loftier.
But now I am seemingly doing ‘nothing’ with my life, I feel the need to pretend to everyone else as if I am doing something, by telling them I am doing the great and important work of healing myself. Not that that’s not true, but I think this dream is saying it’s not about what’s ‘true’ and what’s not, because that’s subject to opinion therefore an illusion, but that I am using it as self-validation. I am using it to get acceptance and love. But worse, I am telling myself a story I can turn into a belief, a belief I can hold on to. And like everything else, a belief can serve the ego, or it can serve Life.
It wouldn’t be untrue to just say I am doing nothing, because that is what I’m doing. It is the subject of what I am working on, the nothingness of existence. Egads, this is difficult to keep straight… What I’m feeling is caution, that I must keep my eyes peeled and stay alert to what’s inauthentic, not least self-deception, which is as wiley as a fox.
The moral of this dream: Beware of labeling yourself, lest you buy into it. True Self cannot be labeled.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
A 3 a.m. Nugget of Truth
The thought came that because both my parents and I are Pisces, we were as one big pool of water, and to become my own person, I’ve had to fight to separate myself from them. Then immediately the thought continued to say, that’s not true, that’s just an intellectual arrangement and conclusion from what you’ve been fed as ‘facts’. And I could see what it meant then, that I had taken what I knew about Pisces, that we are without boundary, and extrapolated a romantic picture about my relationship with my parents from it. I know I do this quite effortlessly, and often, and all the other times I had done this I went along with these rationalized constructs not only willingly, but smugly, as if they are proof of my mental powess (discreetly of course, wouldn’t want to be blatantly arrogant, would we?)
What kicked me in the gut though, is how often I’ve done this, this reconstruction of notions I have, into a picture to my liking, because I know that it is falsehood. Is this what they mean by ‘building castles in the air’ (with bits of floating material like ideas and concepts), or the ability of the Enneatype 7 in reframing? I think I might be about to construct again… There seems to only be the threadiest hairline between this being a blessing and a curse… We’ll focus on the curse for the moment…
So, if these are stories I made up to tell myself, then I did it for reasons that weren’t immediately apparent but were meant to protect my ego from the pain of knowing the truth. What were the reasons and what were the truths? I’ve a feeling that I ought to begin with the tiny kernel of truth that is within the lie it is wrapped in. Looking at what came up in the night as an example, I could say honestly (perhaps clarity is a better tool of assessment) that what’s true is that I felt I had to fight to get away from my parents, to be my own person. This is a typical part of individuation, common in teenage years, but I’ve taken the fight much further in my own life, largely because my ego was nurtured and accelerated into development—precocity—so early on, with the brain-candy belief of achievement leading to reward, that the desire for individuality came very early and strong. My ego was raging and overgrown for my age, but being emotionally naïve, it knew no bounds. Or at least it liked to believe that. I think that’s why I’ve always believed, with a fervor atypical of me, that sky’s the limit. Sky’s not the limit, more like. I see now why that’s called inflation.
So the painful truth my ego wanted to be protected from was that I actually wanted to be separated and distinct from my parents (and any collective which threatens to swallow me up) not because of an accident (or synchronicity) of birth, such as our birth signs, but because my ego wanted its own space, to expand, to inflate. That’s the ugly little kernel of truth in the middle.
I wanted to end this ‘investigation’ here, but for some reason the image of the fox came unbidden, reminding me of the first time I experienced a ‘journey’ through guided meditation, the fox was the animal that appeared, waiting for me at the entrance into the dark wood. Was she a personification of my ego, the stealthy, subversive, and clever one? Yes. Hmmm. I recall now the house I came upon in the woods, a cozy looking cottage with a light on but no one home. The instructor who led the meditation told me that the fox was about sour grapes (drawing on Aesop’s fable), which did not feel right to me, and smirked at there being no one home in my house (I see now that he was not much more mature than I was, though our egos were always competing for whose was bigger). I think now that that house was where and what I long to be, what I am journeying toward in this life. A warm and glowing sense of belonging and haven of rest, silence and solitude, and that ultimate surrendering of the self, the ego, so there is ‘no one home’, because the Self is, by that point and in that place, more than a being who lives in the house, more than the house, more than the woods even. It is all of that and more. I will know what it’s like when I get there ☺
What I remember vividly too is the quiet gaze of the fox, as she sat perfectly composed, patiently waiting for me. She is also the discerning, assertive, quick-silver mind, capable of synthesizing details and relevances into a cohesive whole. She is ego in its totality, necessary to growth.
I have a flash of the ego being a car, getting us from one place to the next on our life’s journey. I suppose then, once we reach enlightenment, or heaven, or oneness, wherever that destination is, we would have no need of a vehicle, our ego, and it will simply cease to exist, because it will no longer have meaning. But for now, I shall keep in mind that my car is my ego, for better or worse, as I often dream about driving in a car.
Thinking about that time in my life I remember too the great rush of freedom and exhilaration I was in the thralls of most of the time. It was shortly after my separation and a whole new life had begun for me. I was the fish in a bowl put back into the ocean, a bird taking its first flight out of captivity, finally living and loving it, awkwardness and all. Life was moving at a speed previously unknown to me, and I wanted to go even faster (manifesting in a wad of traffic tickets and a car accident). And yes, I was inflating faster and bigger than a hot-air balloon on steroids… Ahhh, the ride continues…
What kicked me in the gut though, is how often I’ve done this, this reconstruction of notions I have, into a picture to my liking, because I know that it is falsehood. Is this what they mean by ‘building castles in the air’ (with bits of floating material like ideas and concepts), or the ability of the Enneatype 7 in reframing? I think I might be about to construct again… There seems to only be the threadiest hairline between this being a blessing and a curse… We’ll focus on the curse for the moment…
So, if these are stories I made up to tell myself, then I did it for reasons that weren’t immediately apparent but were meant to protect my ego from the pain of knowing the truth. What were the reasons and what were the truths? I’ve a feeling that I ought to begin with the tiny kernel of truth that is within the lie it is wrapped in. Looking at what came up in the night as an example, I could say honestly (perhaps clarity is a better tool of assessment) that what’s true is that I felt I had to fight to get away from my parents, to be my own person. This is a typical part of individuation, common in teenage years, but I’ve taken the fight much further in my own life, largely because my ego was nurtured and accelerated into development—precocity—so early on, with the brain-candy belief of achievement leading to reward, that the desire for individuality came very early and strong. My ego was raging and overgrown for my age, but being emotionally naïve, it knew no bounds. Or at least it liked to believe that. I think that’s why I’ve always believed, with a fervor atypical of me, that sky’s the limit. Sky’s not the limit, more like. I see now why that’s called inflation.
So the painful truth my ego wanted to be protected from was that I actually wanted to be separated and distinct from my parents (and any collective which threatens to swallow me up) not because of an accident (or synchronicity) of birth, such as our birth signs, but because my ego wanted its own space, to expand, to inflate. That’s the ugly little kernel of truth in the middle.
I wanted to end this ‘investigation’ here, but for some reason the image of the fox came unbidden, reminding me of the first time I experienced a ‘journey’ through guided meditation, the fox was the animal that appeared, waiting for me at the entrance into the dark wood. Was she a personification of my ego, the stealthy, subversive, and clever one? Yes. Hmmm. I recall now the house I came upon in the woods, a cozy looking cottage with a light on but no one home. The instructor who led the meditation told me that the fox was about sour grapes (drawing on Aesop’s fable), which did not feel right to me, and smirked at there being no one home in my house (I see now that he was not much more mature than I was, though our egos were always competing for whose was bigger). I think now that that house was where and what I long to be, what I am journeying toward in this life. A warm and glowing sense of belonging and haven of rest, silence and solitude, and that ultimate surrendering of the self, the ego, so there is ‘no one home’, because the Self is, by that point and in that place, more than a being who lives in the house, more than the house, more than the woods even. It is all of that and more. I will know what it’s like when I get there ☺
What I remember vividly too is the quiet gaze of the fox, as she sat perfectly composed, patiently waiting for me. She is also the discerning, assertive, quick-silver mind, capable of synthesizing details and relevances into a cohesive whole. She is ego in its totality, necessary to growth. I have a flash of the ego being a car, getting us from one place to the next on our life’s journey. I suppose then, once we reach enlightenment, or heaven, or oneness, wherever that destination is, we would have no need of a vehicle, our ego, and it will simply cease to exist, because it will no longer have meaning. But for now, I shall keep in mind that my car is my ego, for better or worse, as I often dream about driving in a car.
Thinking about that time in my life I remember too the great rush of freedom and exhilaration I was in the thralls of most of the time. It was shortly after my separation and a whole new life had begun for me. I was the fish in a bowl put back into the ocean, a bird taking its first flight out of captivity, finally living and loving it, awkwardness and all. Life was moving at a speed previously unknown to me, and I wanted to go even faster (manifesting in a wad of traffic tickets and a car accident). And yes, I was inflating faster and bigger than a hot-air balloon on steroids… Ahhh, the ride continues…
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Hands on a Green Sheet
An image of many arms and hands gripping a mint/sage green cloth by the edges, which were crumpled a bit so as to give the hands more substance to hold on to, and pulling it as tight as possible. I had the sense the cloth was held aloft.
DREAMWORK:
The cloth is the colour of our bedsheets, so this is something personal. Although I don’t recall seeing the bodies and faces attached to the arms, they didn’t feel like strangers to me, nor did they feel exactly like kin. I think they were ‘my people’, though I have yet to meet them. I’m not sure what they were doing, or for what purpose, but they were doing it together, in one accord. There was a strong feeling of solidarity and strength, as if they were all told to and agreed to grip as tight and as they can, pull as hard as they can to make the sheet as taut as possible in all directions. It almost seemed as if it’s a matter of life and death, as if something or someone’s going to fall on it, although this is at the very edge of the feeling in the dream.
It’s a temporary shelter, my inner knowing tells me, for me, for where I am in my life. The hands of my people (though I haven’t met them they are already there, aligned with me somehow) are hard at work, intent with purpose, in making and giving me shelter. I have an image of a little green shoot, freshly broken ground, shielded by the canopy of mature foliage above it. The coverage is light but sturdy, sunlight and rain can come through, but not so much they sear or crush the young seedling.
Now that I have ‘come out of the closet’ with my vulnerability, standing on the threshold of the nursery and the big wide world, I am that young plant, again, open to this re-entry as a being reborn, having reclaimed more of myself this time.
So I thank these generous and purposeful folks, my people, for paving the way and providing for me. I hope to see you soon some day, and thank you and join you in person.
DREAMWORK:
The cloth is the colour of our bedsheets, so this is something personal. Although I don’t recall seeing the bodies and faces attached to the arms, they didn’t feel like strangers to me, nor did they feel exactly like kin. I think they were ‘my people’, though I have yet to meet them. I’m not sure what they were doing, or for what purpose, but they were doing it together, in one accord. There was a strong feeling of solidarity and strength, as if they were all told to and agreed to grip as tight and as they can, pull as hard as they can to make the sheet as taut as possible in all directions. It almost seemed as if it’s a matter of life and death, as if something or someone’s going to fall on it, although this is at the very edge of the feeling in the dream.
It’s a temporary shelter, my inner knowing tells me, for me, for where I am in my life. The hands of my people (though I haven’t met them they are already there, aligned with me somehow) are hard at work, intent with purpose, in making and giving me shelter. I have an image of a little green shoot, freshly broken ground, shielded by the canopy of mature foliage above it. The coverage is light but sturdy, sunlight and rain can come through, but not so much they sear or crush the young seedling.
Now that I have ‘come out of the closet’ with my vulnerability, standing on the threshold of the nursery and the big wide world, I am that young plant, again, open to this re-entry as a being reborn, having reclaimed more of myself this time.
So I thank these generous and purposeful folks, my people, for paving the way and providing for me. I hope to see you soon some day, and thank you and join you in person.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
From Hiding to Flowing
1) I was standing naked in my bedroom, going through my clothes, getting dressed. Alex was there. I decided on a chartreuse summery sheer dress, but somehow in the end put on a long-sleeve t-shirt and a skirt. When I went out I realized I had forgotten to wear a bra, so I crossed my arms in front of my chest. My body seemed quite thin.
2) I was walking down some steps outdoors, in the country or in a park. Suddenly birds flew out from a small paper bag sticking out of the riser of the step I was just about to step down from. Different kinds of birds but I remember distinctly a pigeon with grey, white, and brown feathers. I was taken by surprise. A man who was crouching by the side of the path saw it all.
3) I had to pee and went into my parents’ quarter of the house. Passed by my dad lounging on a daybed reading in the first room. Then I went into their bedroom and saw through a half open door my mother was already in the ensuite bathroom. I left and went back out to a much larger bathroom adjacent, but found that my mother had filled the sink, the bathtub, and the toilet completely, and left the water running slowly and overflowing. I hesitated for a moment then flushed the toilet to see what would happen. It worked normally so I was relieved. There was a yellowish foamy jelly-like mass at the base of the front of the toilet.
DREAMWORK:
1) Alex, a guy from my most recent participation in the rat race. My animus, watching over me while I choose what to put on to go out into the world with? The dress I decided on was very feminine, cheerful, alluring, vibrant, carefree, pleasing to the eye (and the ego too). I wanted to look good. But somehow I ended up with boring, plain, dowdy, and embarrassing. I want to be myself, show my true self—am I being delusional about what I really look like, or am I frumping myself down when I show myself out there?
I have to admit, when I was at my last workplace (where I worked with Alex) I did not present myself as I truly and wholly am. I was a role being played, a job description being enacted, an unit of productivity being generated according to someone else’s script. Alex probably saw more of my real self than anyone else there, but even that was minimal. We saw each other as the uniform we wore, a hat we put on, one of the many we wear in a lifetime.
The real woman I am is that beautiful chartreuse dress, eager to go out into the world and society with a smile and an open heart, ready for the adventure of the extraordinary and everyday. That, is the only way I want to go out. I don’t ever want to wear a hat (or clothes) that someone else has made and labeled, that obscures who I am and limits me in what I want to be. I don’t want to ever hide myself, make myself invisible or plain, dumb myself down, or show myself as anything less colourful and exotic than I am. Eccentric and unconventional I may be, socially unfit sometimes, uncompromising other times, but I will find that hole where my weird round peg can fit into, somewhere out there.
2) Nature, was the first thing that came to me as I see the dream in my mind now. It has to do with Nature.
The descent was gradual and leisurely, the scene peaceful. Slightly darkened, as if under trees. The steps were well-worn, either just earth or wood inset into earth, and only a person wide. Old, but not ancient. Then, sudden shock, birds as an element of Air, flew out from inside the earth under my feet, through a paper bag tunnel and exit no less. Why paper bag? Why not just a hole they flew out of? Is it akin to ‘letting the cat out of the bag’? This is letting the birds out of the bag?? Birds symbolize freedom to me (didn’t I just have a dream about this a few days ago, except that was a wooden toy bird ?!), freedom manifested and expressed. So unexpectedly, though not unpleasantly, freedom came on my way to deepen into Mother Nature, out of the element least associated with flight—the earth. How lovely is that!?!
Birds also embody creativity, their flight is the movement and expression of creativity to me. Does that mean my creativity, and sense of freedom from its expression, is to come from my deepening connection to Nature? I see that that’s where Mary Oliver writes her poetry from, and I would love to tap into the same source. I suppose all poetry is about Nature, but her subject is so often, Nature herself. (Does Mother Nature, like us women, have masculine qualities and energy innately?? She must, as I am a part of Nature. At any rate, my masculine, my animus, is always nearby, even if only on the sideline.)
A paper bag is quite fragile, humble and commonplace, yet it is a container of a sort, usually for purchases. So perhaps these birds are freedom and creativity that I have paid for, earned with hard work. That’s why the birds were of different ‘feathers’, they are specific forms of creative expression, personal to me. There were about 6 or 8 of them. The pigeon with the brown/grey/white features, I realize just now, was most likely from the cover image of Karen Solie’s book of poetry called “Pigeon”, for which she won the Griffin Award last year. I just read it last week and felt that it took me to a different place I’ve not been before, not somewhere I wanted to go, but now I’m glad she took me there. In a way that’s even more powerful than having been taken to a place where one would willingly go, somewhere one already knows will resonate; but to be ‘forced’ to go to the unfamiliar, possibly unpleasant, and then being persuaded and converted into a fan, well, that’s awesome. I hope I can create something with that kind of transformative power someday. Maybe that’s my pigeon in the dream, taking flight…
3) Funny I was just thinking yesterday that I haven’t had a toilet dream in quite a while, I guess I was either planting the notion in my subconscious or channeling the unconscious…
I wonder if I get these dreams when I have a need to unload emotionally (and also having to, coincidentally, go pee), and if that’s true, what emotion did I need to unload now or yesterday? I haven’t felt much urgency in needing to express my emotions consciously, nor do I feel pent-up about anything. But water could mean so many things to me that perhaps it is not necessarily emotions this dream is featuring…
I have the feeling now that this time it is about flow, in general, of energy, because for me, being of mostly a watery nature in a watery phase of my life, my energy move as water does. In my own writing lately, I’ve used the image of the opening of the floodgates several times, at the same time, I wish for and try to ground in stillness. Hence the quietly and slowly overflowing bathroom fixtures in this dream. There was a pervasive sense of calm and peace to the whole scene, except for my need to pee which was physical and real. The only obstacle, in a way, was that I did not find what I needed from my parents, my masculine and feminine familiars, what I was used to, where I expected to find help and resources. They were quite peaceful too, but I had to find ‘satisfaction’ outside their domain, though still within myself.
It was a large space, lots of room to move around in, and everything was cast in a mellow, golden light or tone. Slightly low lighting, so not entirely in my consciousness. And even though the water was overflowing the containers, there was no flooding on the floor. My first thought was that my mother had done this for a reason unknown to me.
The only thing perplexing me is the yellow stuff at the base of the toilet. I didn’t get the sense it was something dirty or awful, more like it had ‘grown’ there by itself, like honeycomb or plant resin. But why at the base of the toilet? Expectedly, it would be yucky and disgusting stuff that accumulates there. But this dream has an element of the unexpected, the ‘think, see, expect differently’ written all over it. Ambrosia is the word that comes to me now, and we all know that to be nectar of the gods, at least the Greek ones, but did I know that it is also known as “beebread: a mixture of nectar and pollen prepared by worker bees and fed to larvae”? Maybe it was already in my subconscious, maybe it’s from the collective unconsciousness. Doesn’t matter as much as its connection to my earlier sense of it as honeycomb, or rather, honey from honeycomb, the gooey, golden yellow ooze.
Hmmm… If I follow this line of inquiry and connection, it would seem to say to me that instead of expecting to find the usual negativity that I associate with emotional or any kind of overwhelm (overflow), I am finding something surprisingly rich and heavenly delicious and magical, a divine elixir for immortality.
Always, leave room to be surprised.
2) I was walking down some steps outdoors, in the country or in a park. Suddenly birds flew out from a small paper bag sticking out of the riser of the step I was just about to step down from. Different kinds of birds but I remember distinctly a pigeon with grey, white, and brown feathers. I was taken by surprise. A man who was crouching by the side of the path saw it all.
3) I had to pee and went into my parents’ quarter of the house. Passed by my dad lounging on a daybed reading in the first room. Then I went into their bedroom and saw through a half open door my mother was already in the ensuite bathroom. I left and went back out to a much larger bathroom adjacent, but found that my mother had filled the sink, the bathtub, and the toilet completely, and left the water running slowly and overflowing. I hesitated for a moment then flushed the toilet to see what would happen. It worked normally so I was relieved. There was a yellowish foamy jelly-like mass at the base of the front of the toilet.
DREAMWORK:
1) Alex, a guy from my most recent participation in the rat race. My animus, watching over me while I choose what to put on to go out into the world with? The dress I decided on was very feminine, cheerful, alluring, vibrant, carefree, pleasing to the eye (and the ego too). I wanted to look good. But somehow I ended up with boring, plain, dowdy, and embarrassing. I want to be myself, show my true self—am I being delusional about what I really look like, or am I frumping myself down when I show myself out there?
I have to admit, when I was at my last workplace (where I worked with Alex) I did not present myself as I truly and wholly am. I was a role being played, a job description being enacted, an unit of productivity being generated according to someone else’s script. Alex probably saw more of my real self than anyone else there, but even that was minimal. We saw each other as the uniform we wore, a hat we put on, one of the many we wear in a lifetime.
The real woman I am is that beautiful chartreuse dress, eager to go out into the world and society with a smile and an open heart, ready for the adventure of the extraordinary and everyday. That, is the only way I want to go out. I don’t ever want to wear a hat (or clothes) that someone else has made and labeled, that obscures who I am and limits me in what I want to be. I don’t want to ever hide myself, make myself invisible or plain, dumb myself down, or show myself as anything less colourful and exotic than I am. Eccentric and unconventional I may be, socially unfit sometimes, uncompromising other times, but I will find that hole where my weird round peg can fit into, somewhere out there.
2) Nature, was the first thing that came to me as I see the dream in my mind now. It has to do with Nature.
The descent was gradual and leisurely, the scene peaceful. Slightly darkened, as if under trees. The steps were well-worn, either just earth or wood inset into earth, and only a person wide. Old, but not ancient. Then, sudden shock, birds as an element of Air, flew out from inside the earth under my feet, through a paper bag tunnel and exit no less. Why paper bag? Why not just a hole they flew out of? Is it akin to ‘letting the cat out of the bag’? This is letting the birds out of the bag?? Birds symbolize freedom to me (didn’t I just have a dream about this a few days ago, except that was a wooden toy bird ?!), freedom manifested and expressed. So unexpectedly, though not unpleasantly, freedom came on my way to deepen into Mother Nature, out of the element least associated with flight—the earth. How lovely is that!?!
Birds also embody creativity, their flight is the movement and expression of creativity to me. Does that mean my creativity, and sense of freedom from its expression, is to come from my deepening connection to Nature? I see that that’s where Mary Oliver writes her poetry from, and I would love to tap into the same source. I suppose all poetry is about Nature, but her subject is so often, Nature herself. (Does Mother Nature, like us women, have masculine qualities and energy innately?? She must, as I am a part of Nature. At any rate, my masculine, my animus, is always nearby, even if only on the sideline.)
A paper bag is quite fragile, humble and commonplace, yet it is a container of a sort, usually for purchases. So perhaps these birds are freedom and creativity that I have paid for, earned with hard work. That’s why the birds were of different ‘feathers’, they are specific forms of creative expression, personal to me. There were about 6 or 8 of them. The pigeon with the brown/grey/white features, I realize just now, was most likely from the cover image of Karen Solie’s book of poetry called “Pigeon”, for which she won the Griffin Award last year. I just read it last week and felt that it took me to a different place I’ve not been before, not somewhere I wanted to go, but now I’m glad she took me there. In a way that’s even more powerful than having been taken to a place where one would willingly go, somewhere one already knows will resonate; but to be ‘forced’ to go to the unfamiliar, possibly unpleasant, and then being persuaded and converted into a fan, well, that’s awesome. I hope I can create something with that kind of transformative power someday. Maybe that’s my pigeon in the dream, taking flight…3) Funny I was just thinking yesterday that I haven’t had a toilet dream in quite a while, I guess I was either planting the notion in my subconscious or channeling the unconscious…
I wonder if I get these dreams when I have a need to unload emotionally (and also having to, coincidentally, go pee), and if that’s true, what emotion did I need to unload now or yesterday? I haven’t felt much urgency in needing to express my emotions consciously, nor do I feel pent-up about anything. But water could mean so many things to me that perhaps it is not necessarily emotions this dream is featuring…
I have the feeling now that this time it is about flow, in general, of energy, because for me, being of mostly a watery nature in a watery phase of my life, my energy move as water does. In my own writing lately, I’ve used the image of the opening of the floodgates several times, at the same time, I wish for and try to ground in stillness. Hence the quietly and slowly overflowing bathroom fixtures in this dream. There was a pervasive sense of calm and peace to the whole scene, except for my need to pee which was physical and real. The only obstacle, in a way, was that I did not find what I needed from my parents, my masculine and feminine familiars, what I was used to, where I expected to find help and resources. They were quite peaceful too, but I had to find ‘satisfaction’ outside their domain, though still within myself.
It was a large space, lots of room to move around in, and everything was cast in a mellow, golden light or tone. Slightly low lighting, so not entirely in my consciousness. And even though the water was overflowing the containers, there was no flooding on the floor. My first thought was that my mother had done this for a reason unknown to me.
The only thing perplexing me is the yellow stuff at the base of the toilet. I didn’t get the sense it was something dirty or awful, more like it had ‘grown’ there by itself, like honeycomb or plant resin. But why at the base of the toilet? Expectedly, it would be yucky and disgusting stuff that accumulates there. But this dream has an element of the unexpected, the ‘think, see, expect differently’ written all over it. Ambrosia is the word that comes to me now, and we all know that to be nectar of the gods, at least the Greek ones, but did I know that it is also known as “beebread: a mixture of nectar and pollen prepared by worker bees and fed to larvae”? Maybe it was already in my subconscious, maybe it’s from the collective unconsciousness. Doesn’t matter as much as its connection to my earlier sense of it as honeycomb, or rather, honey from honeycomb, the gooey, golden yellow ooze.
Hmmm… If I follow this line of inquiry and connection, it would seem to say to me that instead of expecting to find the usual negativity that I associate with emotional or any kind of overwhelm (overflow), I am finding something surprisingly rich and heavenly delicious and magical, a divine elixir for immortality.
Always, leave room to be surprised.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Boyfriend's Coming!
DREAM that I was in a place with many people, my community. It was a large space with white walls, almost everything was white. Then I got word that my boyfriend was coming, but I just went about my work in the back as usual. I smiled and said to another woman, “My boyfriend is coming and everyone’s all excited.” Many had rushed to the front door already. I felt calm and content. In a corner of the room I found some tubes of homeopathic remedy mixed in with balled-up white paper or cloth.
DREAMWORK:
Is he the biblical bridegroom, or is he still just a boyfriend because I have not claimed him as my own, just as I had to with my baby masculine? Apparently, part of my lesson and healing on my trap/responsibility/giving issue is on claiming these estranged parts of myself, because claiming them means accepting them, accepting the responsibility of having them—caring, nurturing, and loving them with all that I have. Claiming them, as opposed to denying and refusing to have anything to do with them, holding them at arm’s length, dangling them away from me as if they are repulsive as plague—what I’ve done for so long.
I see also something else I had not before; that I am working on healing many of these parts of my masculine at once—the infant, the toddler, the young man, as well as the mother—and each piece I reclaim not only adds to but resonates and impacts the whole, so the effect is at times exponential. How exquisite!
Okay back to the dream… I was happy that my boyfriend was coming, and his presence so well received by my people, but the deep calm and contentment in me remained undisturbed. I went to the backroom (a recurring motif, of my penchant for the unconventional, also my tendency to avoid being in the spotlight due to my self-consciousness and introversion) to do some work (because clearly I still have work to do there!) and found, amidst all the ‘whiteness’ and ‘lightness’ (so this is something I know about already), several tubes of remedies tucked in between wads of padding, the kind you use to cushion fragile items in storage or during moving. I remember the familiar and vivid blue (intensely emotional, but not dark) of the plastic tubes.
Perhaps the deeply rooted calm and poise is what I need to face the highly charged emotional response this dream is imparting to me (I feel the curling edges of panic already), that I am going back to healing work with others, with homeopathy and other modalities I know. Is this true, Great Spirit? Yes… And I am afraid of that, have been afraid of that, but had not the courage to even allow the possibility into my consciousness, until I am forced to now.
What am I afraid of, exactly? The memory of it being a heavy burden that I carried 24/7 because someone could call at any moment of the day for help, the guilt that I ought to help them because I had put it out there, the powerlessness at times when nothing seems to offer the relief they sought, and the ultimate failure I considered my work, myself, to be. As a healer, I was not a success according to mainstream standards. The question that comes now, is why had I tried to go the conventional route (even for a field called ‘alternative’) when I knew that that’s not who I am? Setting up clinic space, soliciting, marketing, appointments, follow-ups… these are all part of the requisite mould that I’ve been told is the tried and true way to success, just as with all conventions in our society. But why did I buy into it, again? Because I did not have enough of myself then to stand true for who and what I am, I did not know enough to ask what my heart’s true desire was. I needed more of me, and I needed more time to ‘find’ me.
So this is the work I’ve been doing, the time I’ve taken off from running that treadmill. Do I have enough of me now to go out and help others heal, in the way that is divinely intended? Yes, though I still feel fear. Hmmm… I am to do this work in spite of fear, even with fear, because it will not overwhelm me this time, because I have surrendered control to the divine, that I am but a vessel for the work. My ego is wringing its sweaty hands already, but it stays on the sideline.
I am stronger and more whole now, and even more so as I reclaim and re-integrate these parts of my Self, so when the time comes I will be able to step up to the front door, in full sight of everyone, everyone that matters to me, everyone in my tribe and community, and carry the light that came to me to be carried, full of the confidence and serenity I radiated in the dream.
Thank you, Great Spirit, my dreams, and Jupiter (currently in Pisces; more and more I am seeing how my life is celestially designed, engineered, and powered)!
DREAMWORK:
Is he the biblical bridegroom, or is he still just a boyfriend because I have not claimed him as my own, just as I had to with my baby masculine? Apparently, part of my lesson and healing on my trap/responsibility/giving issue is on claiming these estranged parts of myself, because claiming them means accepting them, accepting the responsibility of having them—caring, nurturing, and loving them with all that I have. Claiming them, as opposed to denying and refusing to have anything to do with them, holding them at arm’s length, dangling them away from me as if they are repulsive as plague—what I’ve done for so long.
I see also something else I had not before; that I am working on healing many of these parts of my masculine at once—the infant, the toddler, the young man, as well as the mother—and each piece I reclaim not only adds to but resonates and impacts the whole, so the effect is at times exponential. How exquisite!
Okay back to the dream… I was happy that my boyfriend was coming, and his presence so well received by my people, but the deep calm and contentment in me remained undisturbed. I went to the backroom (a recurring motif, of my penchant for the unconventional, also my tendency to avoid being in the spotlight due to my self-consciousness and introversion) to do some work (because clearly I still have work to do there!) and found, amidst all the ‘whiteness’ and ‘lightness’ (so this is something I know about already), several tubes of remedies tucked in between wads of padding, the kind you use to cushion fragile items in storage or during moving. I remember the familiar and vivid blue (intensely emotional, but not dark) of the plastic tubes.
Perhaps the deeply rooted calm and poise is what I need to face the highly charged emotional response this dream is imparting to me (I feel the curling edges of panic already), that I am going back to healing work with others, with homeopathy and other modalities I know. Is this true, Great Spirit? Yes… And I am afraid of that, have been afraid of that, but had not the courage to even allow the possibility into my consciousness, until I am forced to now.
What am I afraid of, exactly? The memory of it being a heavy burden that I carried 24/7 because someone could call at any moment of the day for help, the guilt that I ought to help them because I had put it out there, the powerlessness at times when nothing seems to offer the relief they sought, and the ultimate failure I considered my work, myself, to be. As a healer, I was not a success according to mainstream standards. The question that comes now, is why had I tried to go the conventional route (even for a field called ‘alternative’) when I knew that that’s not who I am? Setting up clinic space, soliciting, marketing, appointments, follow-ups… these are all part of the requisite mould that I’ve been told is the tried and true way to success, just as with all conventions in our society. But why did I buy into it, again? Because I did not have enough of myself then to stand true for who and what I am, I did not know enough to ask what my heart’s true desire was. I needed more of me, and I needed more time to ‘find’ me.
So this is the work I’ve been doing, the time I’ve taken off from running that treadmill. Do I have enough of me now to go out and help others heal, in the way that is divinely intended? Yes, though I still feel fear. Hmmm… I am to do this work in spite of fear, even with fear, because it will not overwhelm me this time, because I have surrendered control to the divine, that I am but a vessel for the work. My ego is wringing its sweaty hands already, but it stays on the sideline.
I am stronger and more whole now, and even more so as I reclaim and re-integrate these parts of my Self, so when the time comes I will be able to step up to the front door, in full sight of everyone, everyone that matters to me, everyone in my tribe and community, and carry the light that came to me to be carried, full of the confidence and serenity I radiated in the dream.
Thank you, Great Spirit, my dreams, and Jupiter (currently in Pisces; more and more I am seeing how my life is celestially designed, engineered, and powered)!
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Oneness, Separateness
DREAM that I was holding Luke as a small child. I was lying on my back and he was half lying on top of me, in my left arm. Tina, his mom, was a few paces away but attentive. Luke was sick with a fever, flushed but lucid. I smiled at him and said that I was the only one who could stand him because I couldn’t smell, as he was practically mouth-breathing into my face. I looked over at Tina to make sure she wasn’t upset by my having her child.
DREAMWORK:
Another dream of holding someone else’s child… this one was an old client and her only child, one that was diligently if not obsessively cared for.
Why am I holding and caring for someone else’s child? Because I have been afraid to claim him as my own. But now that my issue with taking on others as my responsibility is mending, I am given this opportunity to redress this aspect of it. I had never wanted children because it meant to me an unnecessary burden and sacrifice of my own life, and ultimately a loss of personal freedom. Now that whole picture I’ve painted for myself is being re-configured.
This child is literally and fundamentally a part of me, not merely an extension of me. Now I have the feeling this is touching on my personal paradox of boundary/boundary-less, my ‘to be, or not to be’. But I shall stay with the dream for the moment…
I am not afraid to claim him as my own anymore; I want to, in fact. It felt good and right to me to hold him, in both dreams. I am learning to nurture and provide for him as a mother would. In this dream, we were lying heart to heart, and even though he was sick with fever, vulnerable as children are, as I am, I am not turning my nose up at him or away from him anymore (couldn’t smell). I don’t mind that he is weak and helpless, and I know now that this vulnerability can only be held and healed with unconditional love and nurture, and I am the gatekeeper of that ocean of love.
!!!!!!!! A most bizarre thing just happened… I stopped writing at around noon to feed Nemo, and just when I was about to sit back down a few minutes ago (12:25pm) my cellphone pinged. I checked and found a text message from none other than Tina, who was in my dream! I think she sent it to me by mistake, because I’ve disconnected from all of my clients a year ago. The message just said [Jack]Jack, which means nothing to me. Perhaps she meant to write to someone named Jack, but hit my name instead… Nevertheless, there is a meaning to this… Is it a personal ‘message’ to me and me only? No, it involves her as well. Oh oh… Is she sending someone to me? Yes. Ought I to ask anymore about this? No. Okay then. Anyway, Tina was a good mother in my opinion.
I didn’t want to alienate or upset the mothers in my dreams, because I want to stay connected to the embodiment of motherhood, and be the good mother that is in me to be.
Something else I haven’t gotten from this dream yet… Oh yes, that boundary issue of mine… It occurs to me now that the boundary I had held for so long between myself and another, has come under scrutiny due to this recent re-examination and its consequent healing. It was necessary for me to draw a hard line between myself and other, so that I could be ‘safe’ from being responsible for them, this separation also served as a wall between us. It is as if the wall is unforgivingly solid, utterly and indiscriminantly impenetrable. It kept out potential harm and pain, but it also stood between me and love that came my way. But now I’ve found a way to soothe and heal my vulnerability, raw, exposed nerve endings of fearfulness, and slowly, gently, the big old band-aid can come off, so I can feel again, so I can open to experience and connection again.
As one carrying the essence of Sepia, an inverted mollusk as she is seen in homeopathy, I came into this life a Pisces child, naked with vulnerability and victimhood, without the inner resource to protect myself, and became overwhelmed with fear of the dangers of this world. In time, in compensation, I grew a psychic layer of armour with my bitterness, cynicism, and indifference, because that was all I knew to do. This insulated me from the harshness of reality as I perceived it. But as I said, it also cut me off from Life as a whole. Now I know I have the power to choose, I am an adult suddenly it seems, and I don’t need a wall to keep what’s not good for me away. I simply choose to open to only what’s good for me, now I have a better sense too, of what that is.
Osho was right, maturity is having the power to choose.
DREAMWORK:
Another dream of holding someone else’s child… this one was an old client and her only child, one that was diligently if not obsessively cared for.
Why am I holding and caring for someone else’s child? Because I have been afraid to claim him as my own. But now that my issue with taking on others as my responsibility is mending, I am given this opportunity to redress this aspect of it. I had never wanted children because it meant to me an unnecessary burden and sacrifice of my own life, and ultimately a loss of personal freedom. Now that whole picture I’ve painted for myself is being re-configured.
This child is literally and fundamentally a part of me, not merely an extension of me. Now I have the feeling this is touching on my personal paradox of boundary/boundary-less, my ‘to be, or not to be’. But I shall stay with the dream for the moment…
I am not afraid to claim him as my own anymore; I want to, in fact. It felt good and right to me to hold him, in both dreams. I am learning to nurture and provide for him as a mother would. In this dream, we were lying heart to heart, and even though he was sick with fever, vulnerable as children are, as I am, I am not turning my nose up at him or away from him anymore (couldn’t smell). I don’t mind that he is weak and helpless, and I know now that this vulnerability can only be held and healed with unconditional love and nurture, and I am the gatekeeper of that ocean of love.
!!!!!!!! A most bizarre thing just happened… I stopped writing at around noon to feed Nemo, and just when I was about to sit back down a few minutes ago (12:25pm) my cellphone pinged. I checked and found a text message from none other than Tina, who was in my dream! I think she sent it to me by mistake, because I’ve disconnected from all of my clients a year ago. The message just said [Jack]Jack, which means nothing to me. Perhaps she meant to write to someone named Jack, but hit my name instead… Nevertheless, there is a meaning to this… Is it a personal ‘message’ to me and me only? No, it involves her as well. Oh oh… Is she sending someone to me? Yes. Ought I to ask anymore about this? No. Okay then. Anyway, Tina was a good mother in my opinion.
I didn’t want to alienate or upset the mothers in my dreams, because I want to stay connected to the embodiment of motherhood, and be the good mother that is in me to be.
Something else I haven’t gotten from this dream yet… Oh yes, that boundary issue of mine… It occurs to me now that the boundary I had held for so long between myself and another, has come under scrutiny due to this recent re-examination and its consequent healing. It was necessary for me to draw a hard line between myself and other, so that I could be ‘safe’ from being responsible for them, this separation also served as a wall between us. It is as if the wall is unforgivingly solid, utterly and indiscriminantly impenetrable. It kept out potential harm and pain, but it also stood between me and love that came my way. But now I’ve found a way to soothe and heal my vulnerability, raw, exposed nerve endings of fearfulness, and slowly, gently, the big old band-aid can come off, so I can feel again, so I can open to experience and connection again.
As one carrying the essence of Sepia, an inverted mollusk as she is seen in homeopathy, I came into this life a Pisces child, naked with vulnerability and victimhood, without the inner resource to protect myself, and became overwhelmed with fear of the dangers of this world. In time, in compensation, I grew a psychic layer of armour with my bitterness, cynicism, and indifference, because that was all I knew to do. This insulated me from the harshness of reality as I perceived it. But as I said, it also cut me off from Life as a whole. Now I know I have the power to choose, I am an adult suddenly it seems, and I don’t need a wall to keep what’s not good for me away. I simply choose to open to only what’s good for me, now I have a better sense too, of what that is.
Osho was right, maturity is having the power to choose.
Dreambits & More
Thursday, January 6, 2011
1) I was holding a baby or a toddler, his face forward. Everything was fine until I discovered that he had wet himself and my arm that was holding him. He said that he doesn’t do this very often anymore. I took him to his mom and she looked for a diaper for him but found the bag empty, because he doesn’t do this very often anymore she didn’t bother to restock. I decided to wash him and noticed that his body was that of a small dog with white hair, now damp.
2) I watched a small creature fly into view and landed on a tree or bush in front of me, indoors, but saw that it was like a little toy bee or bird, made out of wood, the size and look of a christmas tree ornament. I couldn’t believe my eyes and had to take a closer look…
3) I was on a bus with a girlfriend and we wanted to sit together but there were only single seats available (though they looked wider than normal but still not wide enough for two). In the end we decided to sit side by side on adjacent single seats. They were at a right angle to each other.
DREAMWORK:
1) My very young masculine lost control, emotionally overflowed, though as he said, he doesn’t do this often anymore. The Great Mother concurred. No one seemed alarmed, not even me, not even when I realized that he had a dog’s body. I have accepted his animal nature, my own animal nature, in which aggression, competition, and the use of brute force is a part of, and sometimes necessary for survival. The emotional charge has been discharged?
2) Another ‘animal’ but this one man-made or crafted… Hmmm, I suppose I made it… but why? Birds and bees symbolize freedom in the most natural sense to me, innate and god-given, so this one is freedom ‘handcrafted’ by none other than myself—a little personification of my personal freedom. It’s cute, friendly, and nicely made, and it came home to light on my tree inside. But why did it look chubby and cutesy, more like a toy or ornament than something practical and streamlined, like a real bird or bee?
I think it has to do with my very recent insight about my life-long pursuit and issues with personal freedom. Yesterday I spent nearly the whole day on a kind of review of 2010, after I came across Eric Francis’ forecast (now aftcast) for each of the astrological signs in 2010. Although I was reading it a year late, it served as a retrospective reflection and comparative analysis for me. As it turned out, much of it was accurate, and moreover, several things gave me pause because I had not seen them in the light he had casted on them. My issues with responsibility was one of the things he highlighted, and the direction he pointed me to actually led me to a solution which was of course, elegantly simple and as he said, so obvious I missed it, all these years. But I did not come to this solution until this morning, when I went back and tried to answer the question I ended up with yesterday, following my ‘review’. Most likely then, this dream last night nudged the answer closer to my consciousness so I could get a hold of it this morning.
Back to the dream… the creature appeared like a toy or ornament, something childish or merely decorative, instead of the real thing, because that was the perspective with which I saw my issue with personal freedom/fear of being trapped/aversion to responsibility/etc. – through the eyes of a child. The child who was first ‘traumatized’ by having to assume responsibilities she did not want, but was powerless to protect her rights to be a child. And even though this wound is largely healed now, I had somehow forgotten to let go of the emotional charge, leaving the old button lying around to be pushed.
It still awes me to see how these insights came about, in a back-reaching, serpentine detour, and somehow still brought me to the same point of realization had I worked on this dream before trying to answer yesterday’s question of how to heal the child that I was. This would mean that if I had been able to find the answer yesterday, I wouldn’t have had this dream last night, most probably… All roads lead to Rome, or home… and I am grateful.
Another thing I just twigged to is the disbelief I felt at seeing an impossible feat, like a flying wooden bee/bird, or when Pinocchio came to life. (I may have made it but I did not give it life.) The only explanation acceptable is that it’s magic, divinely willed and manifested. This was how I felt too, yesterday when I was given the gift of insight and healing, and profound relief, with this old issue which stemmed from childhood. The whole process was like a seamless play, every part in place and on cue, that it could only have been directed and produced by Creativity itself.
3) My shadow and I are good friends now, openly so, and we do not want to be apart, particularly going where our society is taking us (bus as public transportation, drive, trend). But the Greater Life does not wish for us to sit side by side, perhaps then we would become too comfortable with each other, and in that complacency become less aware of more important things. Sitting at right angle to each other means one of us, me, is always looking at the other, my shadow, mostly in profile, unless she turns her face towards me. But neither of us is facing the front of the bus, looking into what’s ahead, which is just as well. Our lesson is in the present.
Keep my eyes on where my greatest lesson and growth is. Stay present.
_____________
1) I was holding a baby or a toddler, his face forward. Everything was fine until I discovered that he had wet himself and my arm that was holding him. He said that he doesn’t do this very often anymore. I took him to his mom and she looked for a diaper for him but found the bag empty, because he doesn’t do this very often anymore she didn’t bother to restock. I decided to wash him and noticed that his body was that of a small dog with white hair, now damp.
2) I watched a small creature fly into view and landed on a tree or bush in front of me, indoors, but saw that it was like a little toy bee or bird, made out of wood, the size and look of a christmas tree ornament. I couldn’t believe my eyes and had to take a closer look…
3) I was on a bus with a girlfriend and we wanted to sit together but there were only single seats available (though they looked wider than normal but still not wide enough for two). In the end we decided to sit side by side on adjacent single seats. They were at a right angle to each other.
DREAMWORK:
1) My very young masculine lost control, emotionally overflowed, though as he said, he doesn’t do this often anymore. The Great Mother concurred. No one seemed alarmed, not even me, not even when I realized that he had a dog’s body. I have accepted his animal nature, my own animal nature, in which aggression, competition, and the use of brute force is a part of, and sometimes necessary for survival. The emotional charge has been discharged?
2) Another ‘animal’ but this one man-made or crafted… Hmmm, I suppose I made it… but why? Birds and bees symbolize freedom in the most natural sense to me, innate and god-given, so this one is freedom ‘handcrafted’ by none other than myself—a little personification of my personal freedom. It’s cute, friendly, and nicely made, and it came home to light on my tree inside. But why did it look chubby and cutesy, more like a toy or ornament than something practical and streamlined, like a real bird or bee?
I think it has to do with my very recent insight about my life-long pursuit and issues with personal freedom. Yesterday I spent nearly the whole day on a kind of review of 2010, after I came across Eric Francis’ forecast (now aftcast) for each of the astrological signs in 2010. Although I was reading it a year late, it served as a retrospective reflection and comparative analysis for me. As it turned out, much of it was accurate, and moreover, several things gave me pause because I had not seen them in the light he had casted on them. My issues with responsibility was one of the things he highlighted, and the direction he pointed me to actually led me to a solution which was of course, elegantly simple and as he said, so obvious I missed it, all these years. But I did not come to this solution until this morning, when I went back and tried to answer the question I ended up with yesterday, following my ‘review’. Most likely then, this dream last night nudged the answer closer to my consciousness so I could get a hold of it this morning.
Back to the dream… the creature appeared like a toy or ornament, something childish or merely decorative, instead of the real thing, because that was the perspective with which I saw my issue with personal freedom/fear of being trapped/aversion to responsibility/etc. – through the eyes of a child. The child who was first ‘traumatized’ by having to assume responsibilities she did not want, but was powerless to protect her rights to be a child. And even though this wound is largely healed now, I had somehow forgotten to let go of the emotional charge, leaving the old button lying around to be pushed.
It still awes me to see how these insights came about, in a back-reaching, serpentine detour, and somehow still brought me to the same point of realization had I worked on this dream before trying to answer yesterday’s question of how to heal the child that I was. This would mean that if I had been able to find the answer yesterday, I wouldn’t have had this dream last night, most probably… All roads lead to Rome, or home… and I am grateful.
Another thing I just twigged to is the disbelief I felt at seeing an impossible feat, like a flying wooden bee/bird, or when Pinocchio came to life. (I may have made it but I did not give it life.) The only explanation acceptable is that it’s magic, divinely willed and manifested. This was how I felt too, yesterday when I was given the gift of insight and healing, and profound relief, with this old issue which stemmed from childhood. The whole process was like a seamless play, every part in place and on cue, that it could only have been directed and produced by Creativity itself.
3) My shadow and I are good friends now, openly so, and we do not want to be apart, particularly going where our society is taking us (bus as public transportation, drive, trend). But the Greater Life does not wish for us to sit side by side, perhaps then we would become too comfortable with each other, and in that complacency become less aware of more important things. Sitting at right angle to each other means one of us, me, is always looking at the other, my shadow, mostly in profile, unless she turns her face towards me. But neither of us is facing the front of the bus, looking into what’s ahead, which is just as well. Our lesson is in the present.
Keep my eyes on where my greatest lesson and growth is. Stay present.
_____________
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Mystical Carpet Ride
DREAM (a bit vague now, too much had intruded into my consciousness already) that I was on my way somewhere, trying to be on time. On the way I passed by a pile of abandoned merchandize by the roadside, bags of frozen french fries and such. I could grab one, I thought, but decided not to bother. Next I remember I was to be taken somewhere by a young boy, barely a teen, with tanned looking skin. We were riding by straddling a long rolled up tube, like a carpet, he in the front, me somewhere in the middle. I positioned myself with care as the counterweight, for optimal balance.
DREAMWORK:
Still on the clock, still trying to get somewhere, do something, be someone… alas… although this time I was not distracted by ‘junk food’ (frozen, so one can save it for later even) on the wayside. One small victory for this little spiritual warrior.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the upper reaches of my unconscious (the lightly-dark complexion of my guide, and also the lighting in the dream), my young animus was to lead me where I was supposed to go. He knew the way. I seemed to have no idea, so had to rely on him completely. What’s with the rolled-up carpet though? If it were a magic carpet we would’ve opened it and flown on it, so it wasn’t exactly ‘magic’, and we didn’t fly. I don’t remember how we moved around actually; I think we rode it like a horse (or a broomstick!) so we stayed on land.
It came to me just now that the carpet wasn’t magical, it was mystical. We were on a mystical carpet ride, an earthly one. It’s not as fast or thrilling perhaps as a flying magic carpet ride, but it will get us there. At the moment I for one do not need anything racy, stimulating, or inflating that involves keeping my feet off the ground.
We got on our ‘ride’, but I wanted to make sure I was as close to being the axis of balance as possible—the middle (way), so I wiggled around a bit until I felt I was in the right place, which was actually just off-centre on the roll because the boy was near the end. I am adjusting for and accommodating my masculine, and finding balance. I consider that a bit of maturity ☺. Belated, but never too late.
I had the feeling in the dream that I ‘hired’ the boy like a cab driver, and he was energetic and keen for business. So he wasn’t my personal guide; anyone could hire his help to get to their mystical destination. He belongs to the collective unconscious, like the gods in mythology, and he knows the way of our journey. By physical appearance, he is from the east, Indian or Middle Eastern, so my way is through the Eastern ways. ‘Middle Eastern’… interesting… middle of the eastern world… Perhaps a synthesis of all the eastern teachings and ways of life? Eastern spirituality has become a new focus for me only in the last few months, before that it had been like a big blank wall to me all of my life.
“Life is a delicious mystery full of twists and turns, ups and downs, that’ll have you riveted like a captive butterfly until your last powdery puff of breath.” ~ a reviewer ;D
DREAMWORK:
Still on the clock, still trying to get somewhere, do something, be someone… alas… although this time I was not distracted by ‘junk food’ (frozen, so one can save it for later even) on the wayside. One small victory for this little spiritual warrior.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the upper reaches of my unconscious (the lightly-dark complexion of my guide, and also the lighting in the dream), my young animus was to lead me where I was supposed to go. He knew the way. I seemed to have no idea, so had to rely on him completely. What’s with the rolled-up carpet though? If it were a magic carpet we would’ve opened it and flown on it, so it wasn’t exactly ‘magic’, and we didn’t fly. I don’t remember how we moved around actually; I think we rode it like a horse (or a broomstick!) so we stayed on land.
It came to me just now that the carpet wasn’t magical, it was mystical. We were on a mystical carpet ride, an earthly one. It’s not as fast or thrilling perhaps as a flying magic carpet ride, but it will get us there. At the moment I for one do not need anything racy, stimulating, or inflating that involves keeping my feet off the ground.
We got on our ‘ride’, but I wanted to make sure I was as close to being the axis of balance as possible—the middle (way), so I wiggled around a bit until I felt I was in the right place, which was actually just off-centre on the roll because the boy was near the end. I am adjusting for and accommodating my masculine, and finding balance. I consider that a bit of maturity ☺. Belated, but never too late.
I had the feeling in the dream that I ‘hired’ the boy like a cab driver, and he was energetic and keen for business. So he wasn’t my personal guide; anyone could hire his help to get to their mystical destination. He belongs to the collective unconscious, like the gods in mythology, and he knows the way of our journey. By physical appearance, he is from the east, Indian or Middle Eastern, so my way is through the Eastern ways. ‘Middle Eastern’… interesting… middle of the eastern world… Perhaps a synthesis of all the eastern teachings and ways of life? Eastern spirituality has become a new focus for me only in the last few months, before that it had been like a big blank wall to me all of my life.
“Life is a delicious mystery full of twists and turns, ups and downs, that’ll have you riveted like a captive butterfly until your last powdery puff of breath.” ~ a reviewer ;D
Monday, January 3, 2011
A Race Half Run
Sunday, January 2, 2011
DREAM about someone named Darwin Mekabali… I was part of a race or marathon, with a girlfriend or someone I was following because the run was in the city where there were always crowds of people about, and I relied on seeing my race mates to know where I was going. We were running indoors through buildings and such. Before the halfway mark (how I knew that I don’t know) I changed my mind and decided to turn back, but I’ve lost sight of my friend, a tall angular girl. I turned back on my own anyway, and that was when I met up with Darwin Mekabali, but the details are lost to me now…
DREAMWORK:
According to my jiffy web research, the nearest thing to Mekabali is ‘meka bali’, bali means to come back in Hindi (how interesting that I'd decided to 'come back' in the dream!), or offering; can’t find the meaning of meka, but found ‘meka bali’ as a reference to an offering involving a goat.
The race brings to mind immediately of the rat race I was part of for most of my adult life, although we did not appear as rats in the dream, surprisingly enough. I suppose that speaks to my labelling it strictly as a rat race, even though it gave me financial independence, a sense of purpose for a time, a livelihood. I still hold much resentment against it, as if it cheated me, robbed me of something. It’s as if I was led, or misled, the way I’ve come to see it, with the proverbial carrot, the golden promise on the hook of ambition, only to discover that it tastes like paper when I finally got a bite. I feel deceived, swindled of my youth, and worse, denigrated as a life. I feel used as a pawn by some behind-the-scene powerbroker (was it God? Patriarchy?), one rat amongst billions weaned on the milk of fear, trained to seek rewards in small doses of pleasure.
I feel BETRAYED. (Yikes!) Betrayed by Life, by God, by the power that was supposed to protect me, nurture me, guide me from birth. Not to throw me to the wolves and watch me fight for my life, only to haul me out of the ring when I was dying. I don’t care that pain and suffering is the only way we learn and grow. I don’t care that I am too small to see the Big Picture. I was innocent, too young and unprepared for what was to come. Is it out of unconditional love that parents throw their kids into the water so they might learn to swim? Surely that’s not the only way. What about regularly scheduled swimming lessons, given with gentleness and patience?
But even as I rant and rave for 2 paragraphs now about this (I had no idea it was inside me!), a part of me is admitting that perhaps I was offered that, but I turned it down, as I spurned what’s safe and conventional and opted for the path of the rebel, the contrary, the tragic hero (not a heroine!) I was too proud (still am, at times), too afraid to be weak, and hindered by the armour I had put on, to surrender to anyone or anything, in any way. So if I was betrayed, it was by my self, my ego.
So, I was not exactly the pathetic little rat victimized by the powers-that-be that I’ve always casted myself as… And I did abort the race not so long ago… but who was the girlfriend I was following like a beacon in the sea of humanity? I think she was wearing a red cloth square with her number on it, looking rather professional, but I don’t think I was. So even in the rat race I was a follower, didn’t really know where I was going, and although I could follow along when I was a member, there was no one for me to follow when I wanted to drop out of the race. I was on my own… Certainly this was the way it felt to me. I felt alone in taking the road less travelled, even though I knew others had already gone and some are on the road with me (Michael, for one).
Who is Darwin Mekabali then? Darwin means only the father of the earliest evolution theory to me, a pioneer in our species’ common pursuit to know where we came from, perhaps in order to find out who we are. Although his self-inquiry appeared to have been limited to the scientific and material, I believe he wanted to know it even more so on the spiritual level, but the state of christianity had already strayed far from its original intent and practice that he gave up on his first-chosen studies in theology.
Is my dream Darwin telling me to explore the physical plane? No, but to connect the physical with the spiritual, intellect with innate knowing, earth with heaven—mend the split, is that it? No, not only that, but specifically through self-inquiry for the entire species, for all human kind, just as Darwin had done. His work altered the way we regarded ourselves in the context of the entire world of creation (as necessarily egocentric as it was that our species is the centre of the universe), so perhaps in the same way this new Darwin I met on my way out of the rat race will be the new visionary out of whose mind and spirit a new synthesis of how we see ourselves in the universe, in Life, will come.
Mekabali is still unclear to me, if it is meant to be Hindi—am I to study Hinduism? Yes! Hmmm… this is new… I’ve had no interest in Hinduism so far… Is it something specific in Hinduism? Yes. Sacrifices and offerings are sacraments of a spiritual practice, of which there appear to be many in the Hindu way of life... If I may take a leap with what I've gathered so far, I would surmise that my dream Darwin's last name, family name, the name of his (my) collective is 'rituals with sacrifice and offering'. That is their way of life, and ought to be mine, where I am headed, who knows, perhaps to Bali...:D
DREAM about someone named Darwin Mekabali… I was part of a race or marathon, with a girlfriend or someone I was following because the run was in the city where there were always crowds of people about, and I relied on seeing my race mates to know where I was going. We were running indoors through buildings and such. Before the halfway mark (how I knew that I don’t know) I changed my mind and decided to turn back, but I’ve lost sight of my friend, a tall angular girl. I turned back on my own anyway, and that was when I met up with Darwin Mekabali, but the details are lost to me now…
DREAMWORK:
According to my jiffy web research, the nearest thing to Mekabali is ‘meka bali’, bali means to come back in Hindi (how interesting that I'd decided to 'come back' in the dream!), or offering; can’t find the meaning of meka, but found ‘meka bali’ as a reference to an offering involving a goat.
The race brings to mind immediately of the rat race I was part of for most of my adult life, although we did not appear as rats in the dream, surprisingly enough. I suppose that speaks to my labelling it strictly as a rat race, even though it gave me financial independence, a sense of purpose for a time, a livelihood. I still hold much resentment against it, as if it cheated me, robbed me of something. It’s as if I was led, or misled, the way I’ve come to see it, with the proverbial carrot, the golden promise on the hook of ambition, only to discover that it tastes like paper when I finally got a bite. I feel deceived, swindled of my youth, and worse, denigrated as a life. I feel used as a pawn by some behind-the-scene powerbroker (was it God? Patriarchy?), one rat amongst billions weaned on the milk of fear, trained to seek rewards in small doses of pleasure.
I feel BETRAYED. (Yikes!) Betrayed by Life, by God, by the power that was supposed to protect me, nurture me, guide me from birth. Not to throw me to the wolves and watch me fight for my life, only to haul me out of the ring when I was dying. I don’t care that pain and suffering is the only way we learn and grow. I don’t care that I am too small to see the Big Picture. I was innocent, too young and unprepared for what was to come. Is it out of unconditional love that parents throw their kids into the water so they might learn to swim? Surely that’s not the only way. What about regularly scheduled swimming lessons, given with gentleness and patience?
But even as I rant and rave for 2 paragraphs now about this (I had no idea it was inside me!), a part of me is admitting that perhaps I was offered that, but I turned it down, as I spurned what’s safe and conventional and opted for the path of the rebel, the contrary, the tragic hero (not a heroine!) I was too proud (still am, at times), too afraid to be weak, and hindered by the armour I had put on, to surrender to anyone or anything, in any way. So if I was betrayed, it was by my self, my ego.
So, I was not exactly the pathetic little rat victimized by the powers-that-be that I’ve always casted myself as… And I did abort the race not so long ago… but who was the girlfriend I was following like a beacon in the sea of humanity? I think she was wearing a red cloth square with her number on it, looking rather professional, but I don’t think I was. So even in the rat race I was a follower, didn’t really know where I was going, and although I could follow along when I was a member, there was no one for me to follow when I wanted to drop out of the race. I was on my own… Certainly this was the way it felt to me. I felt alone in taking the road less travelled, even though I knew others had already gone and some are on the road with me (Michael, for one).
Who is Darwin Mekabali then? Darwin means only the father of the earliest evolution theory to me, a pioneer in our species’ common pursuit to know where we came from, perhaps in order to find out who we are. Although his self-inquiry appeared to have been limited to the scientific and material, I believe he wanted to know it even more so on the spiritual level, but the state of christianity had already strayed far from its original intent and practice that he gave up on his first-chosen studies in theology.
Is my dream Darwin telling me to explore the physical plane? No, but to connect the physical with the spiritual, intellect with innate knowing, earth with heaven—mend the split, is that it? No, not only that, but specifically through self-inquiry for the entire species, for all human kind, just as Darwin had done. His work altered the way we regarded ourselves in the context of the entire world of creation (as necessarily egocentric as it was that our species is the centre of the universe), so perhaps in the same way this new Darwin I met on my way out of the rat race will be the new visionary out of whose mind and spirit a new synthesis of how we see ourselves in the universe, in Life, will come.
Mekabali is still unclear to me, if it is meant to be Hindi—am I to study Hinduism? Yes! Hmmm… this is new… I’ve had no interest in Hinduism so far… Is it something specific in Hinduism? Yes. Sacrifices and offerings are sacraments of a spiritual practice, of which there appear to be many in the Hindu way of life... If I may take a leap with what I've gathered so far, I would surmise that my dream Darwin's last name, family name, the name of his (my) collective is 'rituals with sacrifice and offering'. That is their way of life, and ought to be mine, where I am headed, who knows, perhaps to Bali...:D
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Vulnerability, a Sequel...
1) A mean looking guy with shaven head was driving a red muscle car and harassing me and my girlfriend, who were on foot. He did or said something and I challenged him. He started to retaliate by throwing his attitude around, but I kept walking away. He followed us in his car and became more and more vitriolic and threatening. I knew he could be dangerous but stood my ground, so to speak, and didn’t run or freak out.
2) My mother was showing us these shallow crates of little creatures she had. They looked like baby hedgehogs but are furry and soft. They are all in varying degrees of dormancy, some are drowsing, some are deeply asleep, lined up in the boxes. My sister and I held them and looked at them closely, with love and fascination. There was a bit of water in the box, very shallow, but I saw tiny baby mosquitos on the surface. I tried to swat one. Then my mother went to put the boxes away. I thought she was kind of rough with handling the boxes, and there was some loud noise around. I wanted to protect the little creatures and their hibernation.
DREAMWORK:
1) The nasty dude is the aggressive masculine in me, always primed for a fight, anger looking outlet, armoured in a persona of brute force and overblown machismo, his outfit complete with red muscle car and shaven head. His M.O. is ‘offend before I am offended’. Hurt them before they hurt you. And that’s what the angry façade is for, aside from covering up the terrible fear of being hurt that deeply, again. He is the defender of my sense of vulnerability, my cover, the Red Knight of Rage, the masculine counterpart to my passive-aggressive feminine, The Bitch.
In the dream he was provocative, trying to act out, now that I’ve begun to hold my vulnerability differently. He, child of my ego, feels threatened. I have distinguished my true self apart from this persona and I can see clearly now what it does and why. This, I think, is one reason I am able to walk away from it, from him, with equanimity. I felt a little bit of fear at the very bottom of my being, but it was in low tide and did not come anywhere near overwhelm. I see as I wrote this, what the shallow bit of water meant in the next dream as well as one I had recently which also featured this same element. The water is not just fear, but emotional force, which is part of what my vulnerability is prey to, when the force becomes overwhelming, whatever the emotion happens to be.
When I was at my sickest, and felt I just couldn’t take on one more stress or I would burst the dam, I didn’t know that the dam was full to the top because I had held onto most of the feelings I had collected, mine and others’ that came my way, and didn’t let any of it go except through venting it as anger. Those were the few holes in the dam, but they weren’t enough. I was trying so hard to hold it together, to not lose control, to not disintegrate… Surrender was the ultimate demise of the weak, that was my belief.
2) This actually segued into the second dream, though it was definitely not apparent until now. What occurs to me now is also that the water in the dam was stagnant (the baby mosquitos breeding in it), which was actually what brought me to the awareness that I was trapped, stuck, sluggish, indifferent, with everything in me grinding to an imminent halt—the classic symptom of Sepia, The Bitch. This awareness, though only a glimmer then, brought me to homeopathy, to the remedy Sepia, and kickstarted my salvation, my re-entry into life. But, perhaps I ought to go back to the beginning of the dream…
The little baby creatures are the tender creative potentials I have been nurturing in myself, still incubating with the Great Feminine (mother). But there is still some fear (the shallow water) in me that feels vulnerable, that wants to do something to protect them from harm, that does not have full trust in the Great Feminine to care for them. Furthermore, this water is stagnant, it is the old fear of being vulnerable and its compensating anger and aggression that ultimately saps life energy from me (mosquitos as bloodsuckers). This is what my shadow (my sister) was there to show me.
I am in a somewhat fragile though transitory state, pregnant with these new potentials of my Self conceived from divine will and purpose. Still in gestation, functionally dormant for the most part, and sometimes the balance feels precarious. I want the best conditions to bring my babies to term, but I also know fear is not one of them. Trust in divine love is. So in spite of my fear, however residual, I will hold fast to my trust in the Great Spirit, in Life, in the sacred union of the Great Feminine and Masculine, as I continue to work on draining the bottom of the dam, and one day throwing open the floodgates and flow fully and freely.
I thank my dreams and the Greatness of Life deeply for this healing and affirmation.
2) My mother was showing us these shallow crates of little creatures she had. They looked like baby hedgehogs but are furry and soft. They are all in varying degrees of dormancy, some are drowsing, some are deeply asleep, lined up in the boxes. My sister and I held them and looked at them closely, with love and fascination. There was a bit of water in the box, very shallow, but I saw tiny baby mosquitos on the surface. I tried to swat one. Then my mother went to put the boxes away. I thought she was kind of rough with handling the boxes, and there was some loud noise around. I wanted to protect the little creatures and their hibernation.
DREAMWORK:
1) The nasty dude is the aggressive masculine in me, always primed for a fight, anger looking outlet, armoured in a persona of brute force and overblown machismo, his outfit complete with red muscle car and shaven head. His M.O. is ‘offend before I am offended’. Hurt them before they hurt you. And that’s what the angry façade is for, aside from covering up the terrible fear of being hurt that deeply, again. He is the defender of my sense of vulnerability, my cover, the Red Knight of Rage, the masculine counterpart to my passive-aggressive feminine, The Bitch.
In the dream he was provocative, trying to act out, now that I’ve begun to hold my vulnerability differently. He, child of my ego, feels threatened. I have distinguished my true self apart from this persona and I can see clearly now what it does and why. This, I think, is one reason I am able to walk away from it, from him, with equanimity. I felt a little bit of fear at the very bottom of my being, but it was in low tide and did not come anywhere near overwhelm. I see as I wrote this, what the shallow bit of water meant in the next dream as well as one I had recently which also featured this same element. The water is not just fear, but emotional force, which is part of what my vulnerability is prey to, when the force becomes overwhelming, whatever the emotion happens to be.
When I was at my sickest, and felt I just couldn’t take on one more stress or I would burst the dam, I didn’t know that the dam was full to the top because I had held onto most of the feelings I had collected, mine and others’ that came my way, and didn’t let any of it go except through venting it as anger. Those were the few holes in the dam, but they weren’t enough. I was trying so hard to hold it together, to not lose control, to not disintegrate… Surrender was the ultimate demise of the weak, that was my belief.
2) This actually segued into the second dream, though it was definitely not apparent until now. What occurs to me now is also that the water in the dam was stagnant (the baby mosquitos breeding in it), which was actually what brought me to the awareness that I was trapped, stuck, sluggish, indifferent, with everything in me grinding to an imminent halt—the classic symptom of Sepia, The Bitch. This awareness, though only a glimmer then, brought me to homeopathy, to the remedy Sepia, and kickstarted my salvation, my re-entry into life. But, perhaps I ought to go back to the beginning of the dream…
The little baby creatures are the tender creative potentials I have been nurturing in myself, still incubating with the Great Feminine (mother). But there is still some fear (the shallow water) in me that feels vulnerable, that wants to do something to protect them from harm, that does not have full trust in the Great Feminine to care for them. Furthermore, this water is stagnant, it is the old fear of being vulnerable and its compensating anger and aggression that ultimately saps life energy from me (mosquitos as bloodsuckers). This is what my shadow (my sister) was there to show me.
I am in a somewhat fragile though transitory state, pregnant with these new potentials of my Self conceived from divine will and purpose. Still in gestation, functionally dormant for the most part, and sometimes the balance feels precarious. I want the best conditions to bring my babies to term, but I also know fear is not one of them. Trust in divine love is. So in spite of my fear, however residual, I will hold fast to my trust in the Great Spirit, in Life, in the sacred union of the Great Feminine and Masculine, as I continue to work on draining the bottom of the dam, and one day throwing open the floodgates and flow fully and freely.
I thank my dreams and the Greatness of Life deeply for this healing and affirmation.
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