The Call of the Bamboo

DREAMBITS:

I was straightening and putting a long row of stuffed animals into some kind of visually pleasing order. They were all different sizes and colours and types. I was moving quickly because my brother was covering them with a long scarf or cloth right on my heel, so to speak. The stuffed animals were lined up along the top of 3 tall book shelves, which reminded me of the ones we have here at home. The height of the shelves was not perfectly even, and there was a small gap between 2 of them.

My grandmother was there somewhere…

Somehow I was on a bamboo swing with my brother and he wanted to swing harder and harder. I was thinking the 2 of us must weigh at least 300 lbs. and the bamboo crossbeam doesn’t look that thick. We were swing along the same axis as the crossbeam, unlike a conventional swing. I was getting more and more scared as my brother pushed the swing to go higher and higher but I couldn’t do anything about it…

DREAMWORK:

My brother is the part of my masculine I have already claimed and do not have to ‘attract’ or bring back to myself, as with the masculine parts in my amorous dreams. Stuffed animals are childhood or childish desires, drives, and instincts, which I’ve been busy making sense of. But the masculine in me is chomping at the bit to be done with that, for they have now become superficial. The books on the shelves are ones I’ve accumulated over the years but mostly unread. I don’t need them anymore either. Books have been a source of knowledge that makes up a big chunk of my foundation in this life, and though my foundation is a bit uneven and gappy, not perfect, and will likely never be perfected by my own doing, it is enough to go on.

For what I must do, my grandmother, the Wise Feminine, is there to support me.

As this dream involves my real brother, grandmother and a symbol of my Chinese heritage – the bamboo – family and lineage must be of significance…

First, the swing, is yet another reference to childhood play, but outdoors, active, and high energy, compared to playing with stuffed animals, which is more out of our feminine nature. But this is the stage I’m at: still a child, but with more command of body, mind, and spirit than a toddler. There’s more courage and capability for risk-taking – the yang energy is rising and it is so ambitious as to be almost aggressive, even though I, the ego, is forever assessing the situation and fretting with fear.

But the bamboo is stronger than it looks, one of the most resilient material in nature, and symbolizes the renown yet understated resilience of the Chinese. It is humble and common, fast growing and easy to propagate, light-weight and mostly hollow, yet able to bear weight beyond its proportion because of its uniquely tensile strength – because it gives. It embodies the wisdom of the Middle Way, the Dao.

Most interesting is that we were swinging along the crossbeam, the main support of the swing set, which is made of a whole, long piece of bamboo. This means that we can only go as high as the beam, and not higher. So whatever ambition and drive I and my masculine have, will be capped by this limit. It is not unlimited vertical growth, the kind we worship and aspire to in the west like a false god.

I see that the swing is also my own process to find the Middle Way, coming in from the outer swings of extremes to gradually find more and more balance, to hopefully circling the centre of stillness in the middle. But there is a rushing sense of freedom and joy in riding a swing to its limit, in a very simple, childlike way, like a practice of stretching your wings before taking real flight. This is what I will engage in imminently, my novice test flights with training wheels (and wings), a period of finding and working with my latent and inherited gifts and strengths, and experience of pure, simple childhood growth and enjoyment.

I wonder now if this dream was brought about at least in part from my connecting with my original culture through the story of the Taiwanese Buddhist Nun Master Cheng Yen yesterday (http://thehealingspiral.blogspot.com/), and my recent desire to know the stories of my forebearers and where I came from. As I look back now I see that the call to return to our roots has been there for quite some time now, but I am just beginning to hear it…