1) I was in the kitchen feeding the cat, an orange cat, and discovered that a bag of cat food had been infested by mice. Chewed right through the top of the bag, and there were clumps of white fluffy things puffing out of it when I was just about to reach in, like cotton stuffing from a futon. I freaked and ran downstairs into the basement where a couple of groups of young people were gathered. I went to the first group in one room but they were too busy to give me attention. I went to the second group and said to the girl closest to the entrance, softly but urgently, “I have an emergency!” But she just turned back to the group and ignored me. I became angry because this was my house they were in, how dare they ignore me!
Then I saw on the floor a mouse running by, which I announced to a girl beside me, but the mouse was not running but lying on its back and propelling itself with its long tail spinning fast, like a windmill, or the propeller of a boat. There was a fraction of an inch of water on the floor.
2) I was in a drugstore shopping. The final item I was looking for was natural toothpaste. I couldn’t find any so I asked a store clerk for help. She was a young East Indian with long black hair parted in the middle. She pointed to the display in front of the checkout, but there were people in the line-up obscuring it. I got in there and looked, but there was nothing left. I went to checkout but there was no one at the station, so I sat down in front of the cash register and tried to do it myself. I scanned the items from my bag, but not thoroughly, some may have been missed. I intended it that way, as a way of compensating myself for not getting what I wanted. I hit ‘subtotal’ at the end and saw that the screen said ‘small circle’ and ‘large circle’ in Chinese (the same character can also mean ‘coin’), as if they were options. I didn’t understand but continued to slide my credit card in the slot. Then the cashier came and asked if I was finished, I told her I was just paying. She said “Oh no, you don’t have to pay because we have inconvenienced you. You are to go to the back. We have something for you.”
My sister, who was also there, came and escorted me to the back room where it was full of small stalls, like a public washroom but without the toilets. More like change rooms but without doors. The small space was full of people, women I think, chatting, hanging out. It was like a lounge but crowded and shabby because the décor was outdated. But everyone seemed content and relaxed, happily engaged in conversation. In the centre was a grouping of chairs, and those were mostly occupied too, but on one chair I saw a nicely wrapped package, like a gift. I thought that was what I was getting, but my sister led me to a stall nearby, and it was decorated with party ware. Shiny streamers, bows, balloon, with a larger gift package sitting on a chair.
DREAMWORK:
In both dreams the light was not full, as if it was incandescently lit… subconscious stuff…
1) Feeding my personal drive and ambition (cat, orange) but the ‘food’ has been infested by fear (mice). This fear has seriously undermined me, beaten the stuffing out of me, literally. I ran to my unconscious (basement) for help but the two groups of people in the two rooms were too preoccupied to spare me any attention. They each seemed to be having a serious discussion of some kind. There was an intensity in the rooms, and everyone was very focused.
My knee-jerk reaction to fear is still one of avoidance, of stuffing it down or pushing it away. I don’t always have the presence of mind to own it, embrace it, stay with it until something else happens. Especially this fear of going back out into the world, of vulnerability. This fear that comes of not being rooted in my Self, and overly invested in personal ego, that shows up as lack of self confidence and assertiveness, as self-consciousness.
Yet when I did get up the nerve to look at my fear (the mouse), it was doing the most unlikely thing! Totally hilarious once I got over the shock. The fear is capable of navigating emotional water, shallow as it is, really nothing to worry about, and seems to be quite self sufficient (self propelling!) and resourceful. It appeared to be enjoying itself. This certainly took out most of the terror-induced adrenaline explosion for me.
Embrace my vulnerability? Admit I have thin skin and high sensitivity to anything abrasive? I’ve tried so hard for so long to appear the very opposite, jaded and tough old girl that I am. I, who have always disdained the showing of weakness and fragility, have to face my own share of them underneath the stuffing and the shirt… Do I even know how? I don’t feel that I do. It occurs to me suddenly that this fear, this vulnerability, has something to tell me. Being so open to all things external is a gift. It preserves innocence because it experiences everything anew, it sees with new eyes, feels with new skin, exclaims with wonder, is moved and cleansed by pain and joy, and finds a new perspective, each time, time after time. It is not so much an act of courage but an inability to close itself off.
Hold gently this vulnerability, and cherish it like a gem, for it is from this place of rawness and tenderness that I can best express the depth and authenticity of my Self.
2) Another dream on the self-help or self-serve theme… Searching for natural ‘cleaning product’ for my teeth, keeping them in good condition until the time when I can sink them into something worthwhile. But now I am prompted to ask some basic questions, such as: What does shopping mean to me? What does a store mean? What does a checkout?
These are recurrent symbols in my dreams, and very commonplace in waking life, but why are they so significant for me? I’ve always related it to my core personality of the enneatype epicurean, who inclines toward variety, options, thrills, hedonism, excess, pleasure, optimism, insatiability, jack-of-all-trades & master-of-none… A store symbolizes abundance to me, with its seemingly endless display of options and variety, possibilities for stimulation, the pleasure of the hunt and the fulfillment of gathering. This is heaven, where my personality and ego wants to go when it dies. The checkout means the point of gratification, when I claim the objects of my desire, the height of fulfillment. After that point everything’s downhill. Quite often I don’t even need those objects anymore, except in the sense of having something to try and sustain satiety. They may sit in a box in a corner for decades and never get used.
In this dream, it is a drugstore where one goes to get health-related product, so this is about healing. But I couldn’t get what I wanted, toothpaste, even after seeking help from my shadow. No spontaneous fulfillment of desire here. I cannot have control of my health, I cannot cure myself of every ill. I cannot prevent my teeth from falling out of my head if the Great Spirit wills it, no matter how much preventives I use. It’s true I have been actively, sometimes aggressively even, hunting down anything that ails me, digging into wounds, lifting scabs, and directing most of my energy into healing myself. But like everything I’ve ever sought after in life, I get caught up in the thrill of the hunt, and don’t know when to back off, when to stop. Is it time to take a breather, sit down and cast a level eye at where I’m at and what’s around?
In the dream I even tried to check myself out, cheating a little no less, self-indulgence self-served. The option of small coin or large coin in Chinese I didn’t understand while in the dream, but it seems to mean ‘win small or win big’ to me now, or ‘get small or get big’. Which do I go for? Somehow I’ve never dared to ask for the big win, to really dream big, to put all of myself on the line. But the time has come for me to consciously and decidedly make that choice, on the threshold of this momentous time of my life. Dare? Dare! If it be your will, Great Spirit, bring on the big!
I see now what I did not realize in the dream, the small gift on the chair in the back room, then the big gift in the decorated ‘stall’. Back room again too, this is the 4th dream with reference to ‘the back’, I think. This time I was directed to the back room, by my sister, my shadow familiar, who I trust. This is the 2nd dream in which I’ve won a surprise gift – is it a gift in myself that I’ve not recognized? In the previous surprise gift dream, the gift was my vulnerability, as was the message from the first dream I had today (see #1 above). Is the gift, which was wrapped and remained unseen in this particular dream, also vulnerability? Or something else? Perhaps another aspect of it? I don’t know, but the setting suggested a celebration of joy, and although the space was tight and outdated, a humble no-frill kind of place, it was clean and tidy, and full of the warmth of people and harmonious energy. Each group was doing its own thing, relating in its own circle (or stall, a ‘stall’ being a physical separation or division for the purpose of grouping and sharing, not to alienate or segregate), but all are safely held and connected within the whole space as one. It was like a speak-easy in the back of a bar under prohibition. It’s where life really takes place, where we are our true selves, relating to each other authentically. It is in the back because this way of living is still the ‘alternative’ style, not mainstream society where what’s true is often prohibited.
Can’t wait to see what this gift is, and what I will do with it, or, what it will do with me.
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