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.
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