DREAM that I was with a group of young people and we were staying in a house or building for a week. It was the last day or night and I was upstairs looking for my clothes to get dressed for a meal downstairs. But I couldn’t find anything of mine. Eventually I gave up and put on some clothes I found that fit me. I told an older woman who was some kind of authority figure. She listened attentively then called over 3 sisters and said I should explain to them. I assumed the clothes I put on belonged to them. The youngest was only a small child, about 6 y.o. I told them that someone must have taken my clothes, clean ones that I’ve laundered, and dirty ones too, that I looked everywhere and in other people’s stuff, wearing only my underwear. I only had those because I always had them on. Finally I chose a sweater, jersey-knit and light grey, with a cowl neck and pouch pocket in the front, and a pair of calf-length pants. They were short of course but I thought it would be okay with my boots.
The sisters listened to me but didn’t appear to pay much attention, as if the clothes weren’t theirs, or they don’t care. They were distracted by what else was happening in the vicinity. I remember looking at the contents of one bag I searched through. Instead of clothes it had loose sheets of pictures of women models, like fashion shots, post-card sized but on magazine paper. All the rooms were full of clutter, things everywhere. Typical young people chaos.
DREAMWORK:
Clothes… my personas… both are of paramount importance when we’re young and/or immature. In our appearance driven culture, you could say it’s a group dilemma or collective affliction. In the dream I am one of those young people, and bound by my conditioning which said that I had to look acceptable (get dressed, upstairs) before I could get the nourishment I need (meals, downstairs) from the collective (society). But I had lost all of my personas (outer garments), all the resolved and unresolved issues that they carry (cleaned and dirty laundry), yet my ego is still wanting to belong, to be accepted by the standards of contemporary society (still looking for clothes to wear). I still want to be somebody, do something ‘useful’ in the eyes of my peers, earn recognition and rewards. My ego wants validation, inflation.
I found a quick fix with ‘borrowed’ stuff, so I could appear in public. The top was really stylized monkish wear, with a modified cowl and flared sleeves, the pouch was a touch of the peasant incorporated, and it was a colourless light grey. It was comfortable and fit me well. The capris were also comfortable though a bit funny looking when seen above socks, but only because I was indoors. It would be okay when I put boots on to go out (into the world). Capris suggest youthful freedom and optimism to me, like holiday adventure wear. These are what I chose, based on my priorities for what I want in life: vitality, freedom, optimism, adventure, joy, as well as spiritual contemplation and solitude, connection with the divine as well as my own humanness, and with the world. So if it takes borrowing a temporary persona to connect all these dots, so be it. I can face up to it and humble myself to ask the Goddess (woman authority figure) for guidance. What then, is this ‘borrowed’ outfit that I need? The top is a contemporized novice monk/mystic shirt, the bottom is the freedom to explore, dance, leap, and move with vigor and flow. Does this make a picture of someone who is spiritually centred in the midst of humanity? Well that’s who I want to be.
The 3 sisters, I feel, are the immature representations of the 3 stages of the feminine: maiden, mother, and crone. They are as yet underdeveloped in me, the maiden is only a small child, and I haven’t connected to them, so they are not paying me full attention. They are still attracted to and distracted by the drama and sensory stimulations pervasive around them. So with each of these stages of life I have work to do, as I well know. What to do, I do not know. I guess I give them (and myself) time, and keep watching for opportunities to further my maturity.
The ‘fashion plates’ I found in that bag, which looked substantial from the outside at first, puffed up and full, was disappointingly insubstantial. No actual clothes in it, only slick pictures. This, and all the details in this dream were almost painstakingly delineated and vivid, as if of great significance, as if this dream wants me to really get all the nuances of the ‘reality’ of my situation. I have been disappointed by the refinements of the world, but this is showing me that even the refinements aren’t real. They are mere images, constructs of appearances that we are led to aspire to. We make mannikins out of ourselves to put on these outer appearances, and tell each other and ourselves how great we look, how we’ve come up in the world, that this is what we want in life, and inwardly miserable because we constantly measure ourselves and others by it…
I’ve lost count how many dreams I’ve had that carried this same message, that I am still a captive of the mothership society I grew up in, still the slavering dog after the pats and treats from my master, still measuring myself against the gold standard of patriarchy. Why can’t I make the shift? Because I have now labelled them ‘them’, and they and I are of divided loyalty, purpose, meaning, and everything else that matters. I have drawn a deep dark line between ‘them’ and me, so as to show that I am not them, I am not like them, and more subversively, I am good and they are bad. So the split in me is one inch ahead and two inches back… In fact, I am still one of ‘them’, and I know now that I am meant to be one of them in this life, as mine is not the path of the renunciate or hermit.
So am I to embrace and accept status quo?!? I feel though, that that is not the question nor the point. The point is not to judge, not to create sides so I could take one and declare the other the antithesis. The point is that I stay grounded in stillness and walk the middle way, observe what goes on around me, and be open to receive what the present is telling me, not be distracted by these essentially illusory and egoic tactcs and hoops I put myself through. I don’t have to cut myself off from involvement of the worldly, just pass through it and let it pass through me. Don’t get caught up in the politics of spiritual pursuit. Don’t make politics.
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