Just managed to salvage a couple of dream bits… first was an image of paintings or coloured photographs on stones, apparently my sister had made them. I was very impressed and thought it a great idea to silk-screen photos onto stones… second was a scene filled with mud, deep, sucking mud everywhere, and a yellow digger was trying to dig or move itself out of the spot it was in. But instead of a scoop it had 2 prongs like a forklift. It moved forward so the fork sunk into the earth, and I thought for sure it’s gonna get stuck, but it managed to push up and out somehow…
DREAMWORK (4 days later):
First. I’ve been fascinated by stones since meeting them on the beach last summer. Something about them awes and expands and delights me. And I’m still not quite sure why. My sister, my shadow familiar, had put these beautifully and meticulously rendered images of people on the stones, perhaps for the sole purpose of wowing me. It is Miss Artifice again… alas, and I fell for that scintillating first impression, again. Then I take that first impression and blow it up into a fantastic possibility, pushing the limit as far as it can go, feeding on the brain candy of the thrill of sky’s-the-limit, getting high on the soaring and the speed and the rapid firing of the synapses in my head. How fortunate I am that my brain can produce the substance I need to supply my addiction. Is there an AA group for this, I wonder?
It’s pathetic really, like baiting fish in a bowl. Something catches my eye’s fancy and I fall hook, line, and sinker. I think possibly I came back to working on this dream after watching a couple of movies last night that were cinematically sophisticated, but not much else (The Illusionist, and Orlando). They were like strings of TV commercials, nice visuals to look at, lovingly birthed from the artistic director’s ego. But the thing is, the thing that my dream wants to remind me is, that I used to, and still do, fall for that skin-deep glam and glitter. In my advertising days, which included my art school days, that was the milk of superficiality we not only grew up on but venerated as a source of genius.
It sickens me a bit now to remember that I thought Orlando was a movie I liked from those days, I couldn’t even watch the whole thing last night. I guess it’s true that I have to find out where the outer limits of something is before I can know where I stand. It is the learning style of the boundary-less.
Second. Mud, is water and earth. The emotional blended with the material. It sounds like a good thing but I am afraid of it, afraid of being mired in it, afraid of the difficulty of moving in it, even though I am a digger in the dream, made for the task. It is sticky and messy, threatens to swallow me whole, and there’s no end of it in sight. What, in my life is like that? My debt. (which I wrote about 6 days later, 4 days before working on this dream) But even though I seemed to be equipped to dig myself out, I was surprised to find that I didn’t have the conventional tool used for the job. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised really, so few of the bones in my body are conventional. The real surprise to me was that the tool I had, which shouldn’t have worked, worked. And it struck me this very moment that my intent in the dream was actually to ‘lift’ myself out of the mud, not to ‘dig’ my way out, as one would assume automatically on perceiving a digger. In fact, digging would have made me sink deeper. So what happened, though unconventional, was the best thing that could have happened. I have the best equipment for the job after all. And I am a forklift, not a digger.
This last discovery bears some contemplation. If the field of mud is my current financial outlook, at least how it presents on the surface, as a quagmire of anxiety and fear and threat to survival, then what does it portent if I am to lift instead of dig? Ah, I see… instead of digging down into my psyche, the way I have been, to get at the ‘source’ of the fear and whatever block there might be, the better way to attain the desired result—freedom—is to lift myself up and move on out of there.
What might that look like in my waking life, to lift myself out of the sucking mud of financial woes? Do I need heavy machinery such as a forklift, some seriously heavy-duty strength to equal the gravity of the job? But I AM the forklift, I have it already in me to do this. But, oh but, I am not the driver/operator, therefore I have to wait for the moment when the juice is turned on and flow begins. So I wait, as the tool, as the vessel that I am.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Lyndon Johnson, JFK, in Oz
Dreamed about a dark-haired young woman named Lyndon Johnson Somebody… there were a couple of other women with her…
Lyndon Johnson succeeded JFK, that’s about all I know about him. So he moved up in position because the beloved head of state was killed at the height of his power and popularity. What is the JFK in me? He was the part of me that loved and cared fearlessly his subjects, especially the underdogs—my lesser nature and qualities, my shadow parts.
Have I the courage to love my shadow ‘subjects’ openly, into the light of day? Or am I embarrassed and ashamed of them still? I do believe it’s easier to accept someone else’s faults than one’s own, but then again, the faults I see in others are the ones in me. Furthermore, does my courage extend to actively and publicly working to find balance of ‘justice’ for the underdogs in me, as JFK did, flying in the face of established mores of the time? Or do I continue to suckle at the teat of public approval and reward?
My god, I just realized that I am all of the characters in the Wizard of Oz (not just the Cowardly Lion, as I thought), each believing himself to be lacking the one thing that prevents him from ultimate happiness and fulfillment. When in fact, brain (intelligence), heart (feeling), gut (courage), and the wisdom and power that Dorothy discovered in herself, therefore in the 3 friends, were always there within. Never missing, never even had to be earned or acquired elsewhere. It was in us all along.
All we have to do now, is take off the green-tinted glasses of pre-conditioning, and believe in the beauty and abundance we see, in ourselves.
Lyndon Johnson succeeded JFK, that’s about all I know about him. So he moved up in position because the beloved head of state was killed at the height of his power and popularity. What is the JFK in me? He was the part of me that loved and cared fearlessly his subjects, especially the underdogs—my lesser nature and qualities, my shadow parts.
Have I the courage to love my shadow ‘subjects’ openly, into the light of day? Or am I embarrassed and ashamed of them still? I do believe it’s easier to accept someone else’s faults than one’s own, but then again, the faults I see in others are the ones in me. Furthermore, does my courage extend to actively and publicly working to find balance of ‘justice’ for the underdogs in me, as JFK did, flying in the face of established mores of the time? Or do I continue to suckle at the teat of public approval and reward?
My god, I just realized that I am all of the characters in the Wizard of Oz (not just the Cowardly Lion, as I thought), each believing himself to be lacking the one thing that prevents him from ultimate happiness and fulfillment. When in fact, brain (intelligence), heart (feeling), gut (courage), and the wisdom and power that Dorothy discovered in herself, therefore in the 3 friends, were always there within. Never missing, never even had to be earned or acquired elsewhere. It was in us all along.
All we have to do now, is take off the green-tinted glasses of pre-conditioning, and believe in the beauty and abundance we see, in ourselves.
Shadow Artifice
Friday, February 4, 2011
Vaguely recall an impression of a dream:
I was working in a huge hive of a place, where people were at their specific tasks in groups like departments. A young woman I knew in the dream (but not in waking life) came running up to me, excited with good news, she said, that she had found someone else to take my place, which happened to be ‘last place’. “Two negatives make a positive,” she beamed with positivity as she said this.
So I am ‘saved’ from being in last place because two negatives make a positive? I don’t get it.
Her piece of news was rather a shock to me, I had thought I was trying for first place. Being in last place was not even in my awareness, obviously. This is a clever way of breaking bad news to someone, I’ll admit, to wait until there’s an improvement on the situation, and deliver the message all at once, kinda like a shit-sandwich.
Being in last place definitely implies failure, but, I notice now that the woman in the dream never said which place I had been ‘promoted’ to. I assumed it meant second last place. There were so many people around, competition would be fierce. Again, I assumed that.
Was she my shadow, but one that I had met before, as she was familiar to me in the dream? She was certainly the epitome of positiveness herself, almost too much so, like a salesperson who congratulates you on winning a prize, when you both knew that the ‘prize’ is just a gimick or a ploy of marketing.
Was she ‘artifice’? And was she showing me how I use artifice to deceive myself? By using cliché and blind logic like ‘two negatives make a positive’, pun on the ‘positive’? The cliché is definitely not always true, in fact I can’t think of any instance where it is true, other than the purely mathematical/logical. Perhaps it’s tellling me that much of what I hold to be true is only ‘true’ on the rational plane. I can feel the truth of that (ha!) and while I am quite capable of intuitive thinking, so often I am kidnapped by self-doubt on the way.
~~~~~~~~~~
I dreamed
the Little Mermaid had stayed
in the Piscean realm
of the ocean of boundlessness,
mutable,
fluid. I wish
I had never been told
that we are separate,
limited,
insignificant,
mortal puddles
of defenseless
tissue. Even though
I now know
that
Paradise Lost is
nothing but a man-made
smoke screen, and the
Garden of Eden is
only
a belief away, I
have yet to
penetrate
to the other
side.
The question
isn’t
whether
I have the power
to bring Heaven
to Earth, but would I
allow
Heaven on Earth to come
to me, into my life.
Heaven
is always
knocking
on our door
—do we
open the door?
Earth is
just there
outside
my door
—do I step out
now?
Vaguely recall an impression of a dream:
I was working in a huge hive of a place, where people were at their specific tasks in groups like departments. A young woman I knew in the dream (but not in waking life) came running up to me, excited with good news, she said, that she had found someone else to take my place, which happened to be ‘last place’. “Two negatives make a positive,” she beamed with positivity as she said this.
So I am ‘saved’ from being in last place because two negatives make a positive? I don’t get it.
Her piece of news was rather a shock to me, I had thought I was trying for first place. Being in last place was not even in my awareness, obviously. This is a clever way of breaking bad news to someone, I’ll admit, to wait until there’s an improvement on the situation, and deliver the message all at once, kinda like a shit-sandwich.
Being in last place definitely implies failure, but, I notice now that the woman in the dream never said which place I had been ‘promoted’ to. I assumed it meant second last place. There were so many people around, competition would be fierce. Again, I assumed that.
Was she my shadow, but one that I had met before, as she was familiar to me in the dream? She was certainly the epitome of positiveness herself, almost too much so, like a salesperson who congratulates you on winning a prize, when you both knew that the ‘prize’ is just a gimick or a ploy of marketing.
Was she ‘artifice’? And was she showing me how I use artifice to deceive myself? By using cliché and blind logic like ‘two negatives make a positive’, pun on the ‘positive’? The cliché is definitely not always true, in fact I can’t think of any instance where it is true, other than the purely mathematical/logical. Perhaps it’s tellling me that much of what I hold to be true is only ‘true’ on the rational plane. I can feel the truth of that (ha!) and while I am quite capable of intuitive thinking, so often I am kidnapped by self-doubt on the way.
~~~~~~~~~~
I dreamed
the Little Mermaid had stayed
in the Piscean realm
of the ocean of boundlessness,
mutable,
fluid. I wish
I had never been told
that we are separate,
limited,
insignificant,
mortal puddles
of defenseless
tissue. Even though
I now know
that
Paradise Lost is
nothing but a man-made
smoke screen, and the
Garden of Eden is
only
a belief away, I
have yet to
penetrate
to the other
side.
The question
isn’t
whether
I have the power
to bring Heaven
to Earth, but would I
allow
Heaven on Earth to come
to me, into my life.
Heaven
is always
knocking
on our door
—do we
open the door?
Earth is
just there
outside
my door
—do I step out
now?
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Healing PTS
Woke up this morning from what felt like a long, extended dream, and my ex-husband was with me the whole time… I wasn’t particularly thrilled about it, but there was some kind of process or objective we had to accomplished, but I just wanted to get it done and over with.
DREAMWORK:
I’ve had dreams about my ex-husband now and then, but the question that remains is a basic one: Why him? I am not aware of unresolved issues where my relationship with him was concerned, yet I know there must be something—that he represents some part of my own psyche that I’ve not come to terms with…
I went into sleep last night with thoughts about what my life would be like without my nemesis, fear of insufficiency, and its underlying cause of The Split, the dualistic view of life. I didn’t know that this fear is so big it blocks any possibility of even imagining my life without it. It is that glass wall again. And I am nose to glass, so close to it that I cannot even see where it ends. Perhaps this dream brings some light to that…
What my ex represents that I reject is the primitive nature of man, particularly of men, the masculine manifestation. It is also the earthiest part of human and animal nature. I can see that by denying and disowning it, I am cutting myself off from the earth, its support and nurturance. Aahhh! It is my vulnerability again, afraid to get dirty, afraid of possible violation and trauma, afraid to be invaded, overpowered, plundered.
The breach of that trauma has penetrated my sense of safety so deeply and violently, I have not been able to get close enough to the open wound, because I’ve been too busy screaming from the pain and anguish, still. I think I’m simply(!) stuck in the impression or image of the events—primary symptom of PTS—and do not have the wherewithal to get myself out. I’ve worked on this every time it came around on the healing spiral, and it has healed to the point that I am conscious of all of this now, which for most of my life has been filed under ‘phobia’ and left like an inoperable tumour. So it’s time to let go of these frozen memories, these stories of my life, at least this layer of it.
I surrender them to the Oneness of Life, from which they came, to which they shall return, and become part of the flow of life again. I wash them from me, into the ever-moving and living water of Dao. I immerse myself in it and let it wash out my wound, calm and soothe it, love and care for it. Dress it with the healing wisdom of plants and minerals, fill it with vital, raw earth. Drench me in showers of prayer and blessing so that I take root in this earthly life, this beautiful and abundant life where fears come and go, but love is always there. Here. In me. With me. In and with everything. In and with the 100 Huskies killed by their employers yesterday. In and with the employers.
Love is like the sun. It rises for everyone.
DREAMWORK:
I’ve had dreams about my ex-husband now and then, but the question that remains is a basic one: Why him? I am not aware of unresolved issues where my relationship with him was concerned, yet I know there must be something—that he represents some part of my own psyche that I’ve not come to terms with…
I went into sleep last night with thoughts about what my life would be like without my nemesis, fear of insufficiency, and its underlying cause of The Split, the dualistic view of life. I didn’t know that this fear is so big it blocks any possibility of even imagining my life without it. It is that glass wall again. And I am nose to glass, so close to it that I cannot even see where it ends. Perhaps this dream brings some light to that…
What my ex represents that I reject is the primitive nature of man, particularly of men, the masculine manifestation. It is also the earthiest part of human and animal nature. I can see that by denying and disowning it, I am cutting myself off from the earth, its support and nurturance. Aahhh! It is my vulnerability again, afraid to get dirty, afraid of possible violation and trauma, afraid to be invaded, overpowered, plundered.
The breach of that trauma has penetrated my sense of safety so deeply and violently, I have not been able to get close enough to the open wound, because I’ve been too busy screaming from the pain and anguish, still. I think I’m simply(!) stuck in the impression or image of the events—primary symptom of PTS—and do not have the wherewithal to get myself out. I’ve worked on this every time it came around on the healing spiral, and it has healed to the point that I am conscious of all of this now, which for most of my life has been filed under ‘phobia’ and left like an inoperable tumour. So it’s time to let go of these frozen memories, these stories of my life, at least this layer of it.
I surrender them to the Oneness of Life, from which they came, to which they shall return, and become part of the flow of life again. I wash them from me, into the ever-moving and living water of Dao. I immerse myself in it and let it wash out my wound, calm and soothe it, love and care for it. Dress it with the healing wisdom of plants and minerals, fill it with vital, raw earth. Drench me in showers of prayer and blessing so that I take root in this earthly life, this beautiful and abundant life where fears come and go, but love is always there. Here. In me. With me. In and with everything. In and with the 100 Huskies killed by their employers yesterday. In and with the employers.
Love is like the sun. It rises for everyone.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Raising Vulnerability
Yet another dream of having a little girl—a daughter—this time she is with me and we are on a bus. I was wearing a frilly, flouncy white shirt, ultra-feminine with a plunging neckline. I had to pull the sides together to keep from exposing too much of my chest. My daughter was in white too. I was standing and holding her hand at first, then I saw an empty seat. We went over to it and I lifted her unto the seat, debating whether I ought to squeeze in beside her or let her sit by herself. Out of my periphery I could see there were more empty seats just beside us, but it did not occur to me to sit there or to have her sit on my lap.
DREAMWORK:
I am still trying to protect my vulnerability, my defenseless little feminine, which I have rejected and over-protected in turn. It’s been a lifetime of love and hate. I am beginning to love and cherish her now, but I feel so much still, for her defenselessness and innocence, which I want desperately to shield from the dangers of the world. I want her to have a chance to grow up, at her own pace, and have the time she needs to mature. Am I using her as an excuse not to go into the world? Somewhat. That’s the fear in me talking. The flipside of the fear is love. My love for her, my young, tender, darling child, my self, who is finally growing up into my Self. I do want her to have the best, as every parent does. I want her to stay on her path, guided by Source.
I know I cannot protect her, that would only get in her way, so I’ll love her all that I can, but let her sit by herself in her own seat, stay with her as we are meant to be, on this bus ride into the world together.
DREAMWORK:
I am still trying to protect my vulnerability, my defenseless little feminine, which I have rejected and over-protected in turn. It’s been a lifetime of love and hate. I am beginning to love and cherish her now, but I feel so much still, for her defenselessness and innocence, which I want desperately to shield from the dangers of the world. I want her to have a chance to grow up, at her own pace, and have the time she needs to mature. Am I using her as an excuse not to go into the world? Somewhat. That’s the fear in me talking. The flipside of the fear is love. My love for her, my young, tender, darling child, my self, who is finally growing up into my Self. I do want her to have the best, as every parent does. I want her to stay on her path, guided by Source.
I know I cannot protect her, that would only get in her way, so I’ll love her all that I can, but let her sit by herself in her own seat, stay with her as we are meant to be, on this bus ride into the world together.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The Unmaking of My Artifice
Saturday, January 29, 2011
I’ve been sitting and marinating in this ‘new’* insight of the artifice in myself, ever since it came into my awareness the other night. Last night gave me a few more glimpses of the constellation this is a part of. That this artifice I have created is my first layer of defense. It has become for me a general, daily wear kind of wall that I put up around myself, in defense of my vulnerability, which is the fear that I am not enough, that I don’t have enough. I dare say that all of my fears and anxieties are rooted in that. Even with the yesterday’s episode of ‘I hate cleaning up after and taking care of someone else”—an ancient re-run of my relationship soap opera, there it is, way down, that fear that I don’t have enough (energy, time, resources, whatever) for myself already, I don’t want to give anymore away, because I won’t have enough left for myself… The poverty consciousness of the Head Types.
But this wall, this artifice, is made of glass, so I can see out into the world from a safe place, and still see what’s going on, so I can continue to live vicariously through it and feel ‘productive’ and ‘useful’. But this transparency also allows others to see me, which, from my lofty (glass tower) vantage point inside the wall gives the illusion that I am somehow superior to those outside, and most important of all, my sincerity and honesty are on display, so as to uphold my holier-than-thou image to others. “Look how smart I am! Look what good work I am doing, working on my own healing and spiritual growth!” Because I am nothing if I am not smart.
But my life of cultivating ‘smart’ seemed to have masterminded this glass screen I am now imprisoned in. The sophisticiation of my intellect created this double-blind that is so cleverly deceptive, I find myself now lost and trapped in the jungle of my own mind. I’ve outsmarted myself, and now I can’t get out.
In my dream of the glass tower, I didn’t or couldn’t leave because I did not have my masculine: the courage and confidence and drive to go out into the world. I flirted with him (all 3 of them!) but did not commit myself to him, so he did not take me with him. Because deep down I don’t really want to leave my glass tower, my false sense of safety, even though there was a revolving door, so I was not even really trapped. The only thing that binds me is my fear of not enough.**
*the quote marks around the new are there because I’ve had inklings of these notions long before they appeared in my consciousness in these particular forms. In these 2 instances, they came as words or labels.
**this is also very true of why I’ve been hitting that wall of artifice in writing poetry, which manifests as the symptom of piling on as many adjectives and metaphors and images and words as I can (as I’ve just done) into every line, for fear that I might miss some crucial embellishment or novel turn-of-phrase that could distinguish me as ‘a cut above’. Even though it is the simple, matter-of-fact, unadorn truth and wisdom that move me the most. I can’t seem to stop myself. It is an obsession, a compulsion, a knee-jerk reflex of fear.
Is there anything to be done with this, on this loop of the spiral? Surrender it to Source. That is all.
_____________
Friday, January 28, 2011
There is a layer of artifice in myself I must penetrate, as thin and transparent as it might be, for that is its disguise. I have been aware of its presence for some time now, but mostly the awareness came and went, until I began to write poetry lately, until I began to strive to be a poet and kept hitting a wall once I get a few lines into it. I think now, that the wall is my artifice. It is the same glass wall that was in my dream a few days ago, of being with 3 love interests in a glass building, then watching them leave through the glass revolving door with other women.
_____________
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Had another DREAM of a small girl child, this time she was with her mom with me looking on, again, full of concern for her welfare, but from a few feet away. Her mom had just set her down to sit, and I thought, I’ve never seen her run around like kids usually do, she’s always just sitting quietly. I had to admit though, she looked healthy, and sweet. Meanwhile, off to the other side, someone (I think it was actually me) was holding and showing a plant and saying, this is what happens when a plant has potato bugs. I saw that there were russet-coloured pudgey wedged-shaped things hanging from the stems of the plant.
DREAMWORK:
I am still keeping a ‘safe’ distance away from my ‘concern’, fretting needless no doubt, but not realizing that my anxiety is caused and fueled by the distance I’ve placed between myself and ‘other’. I am powerless because I’ve removed myself from the position of participation, therefore the right to act. I don’t want the role of a nurturer or caregiver, in effect giving up my right to keep the little girl as my own, even though I know she is mine. Even though I say I want to heal the split in myself, I am holding the sides apart.
The russet-coloured wedges on the plant seemed more like ‘fruits’ than the result of potato-bug infestation to me. Perhaps I believed it to be an infestation—a negative influence—but it’s actually bearing some kind of fruit, or hanging chrysalis. The colour red is one that signifies life to me, though somewhat stagnant in this case because of its darkness. They were full and healthy looking too. I think the potato bugs were my fears, and from my fears I did not expect anything ‘good’ to come, but the dream is telling me otherwise.
Judge less. Wait more.
___________
Unmake Me
In half sleep it came
with an untidy jolt
that before anything else ought to be contemplated
I must unlearn
all that I have
all that I know
all that I have invested
treasured and venerated
in language and words
art and sensibility
sacred and the profane
indeed
how we stand, how
we take our place in
the order and orientation
of all things created
the clay pot that I am
in a long line of vessels
is taken up by an unseen hand
dropped
in a heartbeat
shattered
in front of my own witness
I knew then
the worst
and the best
all the rest
have yet to come.
~~~~~
So I am to be unmade, broken into pieces and reconfigured into a new design for a ‘new’ vessel, as I was once before. Or so I thought… Perhaps this is how it goes, how we are renewed, life after life, life within life. Remembering still the pain of dismemberment the last time, I can only pray that this time, it might mercifully be a process less protracted, IF I can surrender to it with less of a fight, and more stillness.
Ready. Set. Stop.
I’ve been sitting and marinating in this ‘new’* insight of the artifice in myself, ever since it came into my awareness the other night. Last night gave me a few more glimpses of the constellation this is a part of. That this artifice I have created is my first layer of defense. It has become for me a general, daily wear kind of wall that I put up around myself, in defense of my vulnerability, which is the fear that I am not enough, that I don’t have enough. I dare say that all of my fears and anxieties are rooted in that. Even with the yesterday’s episode of ‘I hate cleaning up after and taking care of someone else”—an ancient re-run of my relationship soap opera, there it is, way down, that fear that I don’t have enough (energy, time, resources, whatever) for myself already, I don’t want to give anymore away, because I won’t have enough left for myself… The poverty consciousness of the Head Types.
But this wall, this artifice, is made of glass, so I can see out into the world from a safe place, and still see what’s going on, so I can continue to live vicariously through it and feel ‘productive’ and ‘useful’. But this transparency also allows others to see me, which, from my lofty (glass tower) vantage point inside the wall gives the illusion that I am somehow superior to those outside, and most important of all, my sincerity and honesty are on display, so as to uphold my holier-than-thou image to others. “Look how smart I am! Look what good work I am doing, working on my own healing and spiritual growth!” Because I am nothing if I am not smart.
But my life of cultivating ‘smart’ seemed to have masterminded this glass screen I am now imprisoned in. The sophisticiation of my intellect created this double-blind that is so cleverly deceptive, I find myself now lost and trapped in the jungle of my own mind. I’ve outsmarted myself, and now I can’t get out.
In my dream of the glass tower, I didn’t or couldn’t leave because I did not have my masculine: the courage and confidence and drive to go out into the world. I flirted with him (all 3 of them!) but did not commit myself to him, so he did not take me with him. Because deep down I don’t really want to leave my glass tower, my false sense of safety, even though there was a revolving door, so I was not even really trapped. The only thing that binds me is my fear of not enough.**
*the quote marks around the new are there because I’ve had inklings of these notions long before they appeared in my consciousness in these particular forms. In these 2 instances, they came as words or labels.
**this is also very true of why I’ve been hitting that wall of artifice in writing poetry, which manifests as the symptom of piling on as many adjectives and metaphors and images and words as I can (as I’ve just done) into every line, for fear that I might miss some crucial embellishment or novel turn-of-phrase that could distinguish me as ‘a cut above’. Even though it is the simple, matter-of-fact, unadorn truth and wisdom that move me the most. I can’t seem to stop myself. It is an obsession, a compulsion, a knee-jerk reflex of fear.
Is there anything to be done with this, on this loop of the spiral? Surrender it to Source. That is all.
_____________
Friday, January 28, 2011
There is a layer of artifice in myself I must penetrate, as thin and transparent as it might be, for that is its disguise. I have been aware of its presence for some time now, but mostly the awareness came and went, until I began to write poetry lately, until I began to strive to be a poet and kept hitting a wall once I get a few lines into it. I think now, that the wall is my artifice. It is the same glass wall that was in my dream a few days ago, of being with 3 love interests in a glass building, then watching them leave through the glass revolving door with other women.
_____________
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Had another DREAM of a small girl child, this time she was with her mom with me looking on, again, full of concern for her welfare, but from a few feet away. Her mom had just set her down to sit, and I thought, I’ve never seen her run around like kids usually do, she’s always just sitting quietly. I had to admit though, she looked healthy, and sweet. Meanwhile, off to the other side, someone (I think it was actually me) was holding and showing a plant and saying, this is what happens when a plant has potato bugs. I saw that there were russet-coloured pudgey wedged-shaped things hanging from the stems of the plant.
DREAMWORK:
I am still keeping a ‘safe’ distance away from my ‘concern’, fretting needless no doubt, but not realizing that my anxiety is caused and fueled by the distance I’ve placed between myself and ‘other’. I am powerless because I’ve removed myself from the position of participation, therefore the right to act. I don’t want the role of a nurturer or caregiver, in effect giving up my right to keep the little girl as my own, even though I know she is mine. Even though I say I want to heal the split in myself, I am holding the sides apart.
The russet-coloured wedges on the plant seemed more like ‘fruits’ than the result of potato-bug infestation to me. Perhaps I believed it to be an infestation—a negative influence—but it’s actually bearing some kind of fruit, or hanging chrysalis. The colour red is one that signifies life to me, though somewhat stagnant in this case because of its darkness. They were full and healthy looking too. I think the potato bugs were my fears, and from my fears I did not expect anything ‘good’ to come, but the dream is telling me otherwise.
Judge less. Wait more.
___________
Unmake Me
In half sleep it came
with an untidy jolt
that before anything else ought to be contemplated
I must unlearn
all that I have
all that I know
all that I have invested
treasured and venerated
in language and words
art and sensibility
sacred and the profane
indeed
how we stand, how
we take our place in
the order and orientation
of all things created
the clay pot that I am
in a long line of vessels
is taken up by an unseen hand
dropped
in a heartbeat
shattered
in front of my own witness
I knew then
the worst
and the best
all the rest
have yet to come.
~~~~~
So I am to be unmade, broken into pieces and reconfigured into a new design for a ‘new’ vessel, as I was once before. Or so I thought… Perhaps this is how it goes, how we are renewed, life after life, life within life. Remembering still the pain of dismemberment the last time, I can only pray that this time, it might mercifully be a process less protracted, IF I can surrender to it with less of a fight, and more stillness.
Ready. Set. Stop.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Cat & 2 Dead Mice
DREAM about touching a dead mouse accidentally, because I was trying to reposition food I saw for a cat so that she’ll be sure to see it. I was doing it habitually on the run, in a rush to go somewhere…
DREAMWORK:
I felt disgusted when I realized what I had touched, kept looking at my hand not knowing what to do with it. There were 2 little dead bodies when I looked back, but I swore I didn’t see any before… Mice, are a personification of my deepest fear, my phobia extremis. It’s a sticky, messy ball of irrational terror wrapped around raw vulnerability and powerlessness. I’ve been around to this groove on my healing spiral a few times already, and here I am again.
Well, at least the mice are dead now. They do not have the kind of paralyzing effect on me they used to have. But the memory of the wrenching repulsion is still with me. They don’t set me off into the farthest orbits of sanity anymore, but the aversion is still vivid and visceral. This all takes place in the area of my abdomen, solar plexus down. It’s as if I’ve been entrained into a Pavlovian response to become immobilized by the shock of suddenly finding myself in a trap.
How to break this entrainment, neutralize the charge of this memory? I’ll look for the answer in the dream… The cat from the dream was Moxie, one of my sister’s brood who went to kitty heaven recently due to old age. She was spunky, wiry, highstrung, and a loner. She was very vocal and demanded attention with full-body urgency whenever she was in need, which wasn’t easy to satisfy in an uneasy tribe of 9 cats. As cats go I admired her for her individuality and her assertions of it, even though she wasn’t recognizably sweet or charming. She insisted on her ways, and lived by her own strategy in the constant turf war that was her communal life.
I suppose I identify with her, her personality and her power, particularly on the level of sheer animal survival. She wasn’t at the top or the bottom of the pecking order, she was an outsider that came and went as she willed. It’s what I would like to be, given who and what I am. To ‘belong’ to a tribe, yet still have the freedom to come and go, leave and stay as I feel called to. To always have a home and hearth and temple to return to, fall back on, accepted unconditionally by, to love and commit to in my own way.
I wanted to make sure she has food (in the dream it was something red—passion? liveliness? Creativity?), but I was going at such high speed I barely managed to grab it and put it in the ‘right’ place. The dead mice (there were 2 in the dream, though i only touched one) slowed me down though, made me stop dead in my tracks (literally!) and look back. Unfinished business needing attention. Standing firm in my true self and finding my own roar like Mox, while grounding my roots and home base in my own ‘tribe’ will help me break the spell of this traumatic memory. Well, I haven’t found my tribe yet, not as I can recognize as such, but in the meantime, I can do the ground work, in all the ways it means.
Stay true and rooted in the Self, then nothing can defile or diminish who you really are, because You are rooted in One and All.
This dream is probably in response to the irritating and disturbing feeling of being unmoored I’ve woken up with in the last few days. We may be called to let go of the shores, but we are still emphatically attached and held by the sometimes invisible web of life, in which loneliness and powerlessness are nothing but hallucinations of the mind drunk on fear. Sober up.
DREAMWORK:
I felt disgusted when I realized what I had touched, kept looking at my hand not knowing what to do with it. There were 2 little dead bodies when I looked back, but I swore I didn’t see any before… Mice, are a personification of my deepest fear, my phobia extremis. It’s a sticky, messy ball of irrational terror wrapped around raw vulnerability and powerlessness. I’ve been around to this groove on my healing spiral a few times already, and here I am again.
Well, at least the mice are dead now. They do not have the kind of paralyzing effect on me they used to have. But the memory of the wrenching repulsion is still with me. They don’t set me off into the farthest orbits of sanity anymore, but the aversion is still vivid and visceral. This all takes place in the area of my abdomen, solar plexus down. It’s as if I’ve been entrained into a Pavlovian response to become immobilized by the shock of suddenly finding myself in a trap.
How to break this entrainment, neutralize the charge of this memory? I’ll look for the answer in the dream… The cat from the dream was Moxie, one of my sister’s brood who went to kitty heaven recently due to old age. She was spunky, wiry, highstrung, and a loner. She was very vocal and demanded attention with full-body urgency whenever she was in need, which wasn’t easy to satisfy in an uneasy tribe of 9 cats. As cats go I admired her for her individuality and her assertions of it, even though she wasn’t recognizably sweet or charming. She insisted on her ways, and lived by her own strategy in the constant turf war that was her communal life.
I suppose I identify with her, her personality and her power, particularly on the level of sheer animal survival. She wasn’t at the top or the bottom of the pecking order, she was an outsider that came and went as she willed. It’s what I would like to be, given who and what I am. To ‘belong’ to a tribe, yet still have the freedom to come and go, leave and stay as I feel called to. To always have a home and hearth and temple to return to, fall back on, accepted unconditionally by, to love and commit to in my own way.
I wanted to make sure she has food (in the dream it was something red—passion? liveliness? Creativity?), but I was going at such high speed I barely managed to grab it and put it in the ‘right’ place. The dead mice (there were 2 in the dream, though i only touched one) slowed me down though, made me stop dead in my tracks (literally!) and look back. Unfinished business needing attention. Standing firm in my true self and finding my own roar like Mox, while grounding my roots and home base in my own ‘tribe’ will help me break the spell of this traumatic memory. Well, I haven’t found my tribe yet, not as I can recognize as such, but in the meantime, I can do the ground work, in all the ways it means.
Stay true and rooted in the Self, then nothing can defile or diminish who you really are, because You are rooted in One and All.
This dream is probably in response to the irritating and disturbing feeling of being unmoored I’ve woken up with in the last few days. We may be called to let go of the shores, but we are still emphatically attached and held by the sometimes invisible web of life, in which loneliness and powerlessness are nothing but hallucinations of the mind drunk on fear. Sober up.
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