DREAM that I was standing on a 2nd or 3rd story balcony looking down and seeing the back of a slender young woman or girl walking on the street. Apparently I knew her in the dream but I can’t recall who she was now. She had a very long haired wig on. It was bright orange. Then I suddenly realized it was the day of Halloween, that’s why.
Then I was with a few people, mostly or all women, gathering around a long work table (again!) C. appeared to be the leader or chairperson of the meeting. She brought out several folding chairs made of brightly printed canvas, still in their plastic wrap, and covered the whole table with them. For some reason she was talking about jewellery, and I went over to a side table and picked out one and brought it back to the table. I had in mind a pendant but it was a bracelet I was holding. I had this impression she was talking about gems or jewels, perhaps that’s why I thought of a pendant, but the bracelet was just silver metal without adornment.
DREAMWORK:
I must now ask the question, again, what is a work table to me, after having so many dreams with them.
It is a central place for gathering to hold a meeting, to do creative work, as a community. It is a symbol of my vision of the kind of life I want. A community of kindred spirits who come together, on all levels, to work and create (I now use this term with my new understanding of creativity; as a short term for ‘allowing Creativity to come through us’) for the highest good. It is the hub of Life, Creativity, Connection, Exchange, Communion, and Worship. It is the long house in indigenous cultures, sacred ground where we are closest to the eternal source and spring of life force, where we can come to cleanse, recharge, repair, regenerate, renew, recentre ourselves in oneness, and reconnect to the flow of Life so that its beauty and glory comes through each of us in its endlessly unique and wondrous ways. There may be nothing new under the sun, but the soul is delighted by beauty over and over again. Each snowflake is a joy to behold, each imprint on the soul wholesome.
Now that I’ve got that out, let’s go back to the dream from the beginning…
Halloween, hallowed evening, holy night. A night when all beings and spirits are honoured and acknowledged, even those we normally shun. Particularly, it is these denizens who walk the shadowy side of life who are given one night’s reprieve by the light of society, and a place deserving of our respect (however grudgingly) as the counterpart and balance to all that’s light and bright and good. And it was daylight in my dream, the day of the holy night. Bright sunlight on the shocking orange of the girl’s wig. But even though the wig was artificial, it didn’t seem garish to me. In fact, it felt becoming. Something that’s normally perceived as garish and fake suddenly seems ‘natural’, because it was the day of Halloween. Only on this day is the normally dark and scary and reviled and suppressed side of our dualistic world allowed to be ‘normal’. The only day it is publicly recognized and received in its rightful place—alongside the light. Yin beside yang, becomes yang, is yang, and vice versa.
So the day will come, in the foreseeable future I gather, when we will openly and naturally perceive that dualism in its true balance, without judging and fearing and favouring one over the other. But for now, this dream is telling me to dare to be different, dare to wear darkness in the light of day, as if everyday and anyday is Halloween. Be bold with my vision and beliefs and work with the dark mysteries of life, of the unconscious. Walk down the main street of society like a bright orange flame, carrying messages from the other side, until it is no longer ‘the other side’.
Why was I upstairs looking down though? Because I haven’t grounded myself enough yet. Action and manifestation happen on the earthly plane. Okay, so I need to come ‘downstairs’ a couple of floors, from my solar plexus to my root.
In the next part of the dream, C. was the leader of our group. I’ve had dreams of C. before, so it’s worth exploring why and what she has to tell me. As she is a leader in real life, I take it to mean leadership is part of this dream. A woman leader who is successful in the world and one who made her success in the field of healing and spirituality, she has my admiration as well as my envy. Comparing myself to her, even though I know it’s bad for me, I am more or less a failure by the accepted set of standards.
She covers the table with chairs, which are naturally associated with tables. We sit on chairs to rest our bodies, unlike what we do on tables: work. They perform seemingly opposite functions, yet work together as a pair serving the purpose of work for us. In the dream C. puts the chairs, the ‘merchandise’ or goods, on the communal work table, as if to ‘sell’ us on them, or something involving them. I sense that it was a project or an idea she is presenting to us, trying to get everyone on board. The idea has to do with the opposite states and their functions, the complementary nature of the relationship between them, like the table and the chair. Resting serves working.
I am reminded in this moment of a line of poem by Thoreau: “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” Three or more chairs are meant for society, and the idea C. is tabling (pun!) is one she wants to sell to society. Which, incidentally, is what she has been very successful at with her yoga business enterprise, along with many other like-minded entrepreneurs, making it a mainstream choice in the alternative field of health and fitness. Mixing business sense, common sense, and her own vision, she invested in what she believed in: herself, even though as a career path, it was, at that time, a path less trodden. Let that be the lesson to me, whose faith in her own vision still hangs by a thread most days. BELIEVE IN THE VISION THAT YOU SEE IN YOUR OWN HEART. Lately my own work has brought me to this question of my vision again and again. Here it is again.
So why was she talking about gemstones and jewels in the dream? Because they are PRECIOUS. Investing in one’s own vision, faith in oneself, building society, leading with innate purpose and foresight, dare to stand in the light of one’s own individuality with conviction and confidence, staying grounded and centred (with yoga!) through it all—these are what’s precious in the journey of a life’s work. She wants me to know what’s precious, what’s more important here, even more than the success—it is the process. This is the “how-to”, the expanded edition.
The design and make of the chairs in the dream are cheap and cheerful, appealing to the majority. So ‘packaging’ is another piece of the teaching. It needs public appeal if it is meant for public consumption. Translating this for my own learning: Don’t let your arrogance and my need to be different override my objectivity. In other words, get off my high-horse and make the product for the target audience, the masses.
I went over to the side table in the dream… What’s the side table? There was a side table too, in the last dream I had. The side table holds things not central to the issue at hand, but they feed into the issue from the side. They enhance or support the meaning of the main issue, for added value. In this case, there was a discrepancy between what I thought I perceived and what was being presented to me. With my usual arrogance, I believed in my judgment of C. as someone materialistic, greedy, and shallow, whose work promotes and targets people with a superficial image of health and beauty. (Gawd, if I’m not careful getting off my high-horse I might break my neck, it’s so high and mighty!) This, along with envy, makes for a nice case of the sourgrapes.
I got the cheap, fake version of her that I reached for, instead of the authentic and precious, deeper wisdom of her essence and her work.
Heavy teaching for me, but very, very precious.
Something else… a true leader always stands on the same level as her collective… humility. True humility is not in keeping the bigger picture or the vision to myself (and holding it against the others because they don’t know it), but getting down on the ground, showing and explaining it to everyone involved until they have it too. Translation: Don’t use the excuse “they won’t understand” to justify being a lone wolf.
One more thing… misconception is sometimes a subtle shift in perception… what does that mean pertaining to this dream? It is about how I saw C. as a person. When I saw her with my own (judgmental) filter on, I saw what I wanted to see (in order to boost my own ever fragile and frightened ego)—someone I could put down like a piece of cheap jewellery—then I could not see her past that filter. Without that filter (they say dreams are always honest) I could see immediately how I really see her—the (enviable) good leader and successful businesswoman, the teacher, the goddess and wise woman.
Thank you, All, for this deep, deep teaching and healing.
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