Clumpity Clump

This dreamwork experience is always full of surprises. It throws you so many curve balls that after a while you stop thinking that you have any possible idea of what to expect. My soul voice is starting to emerge. But I never dreamed (pun intended) it would come in the form of a child singing out,

       Clumpity Clump, Clumpity Clump, Clumpity Clump

The “clumpity” dream starts off with me wanting to take an art class. The class is full, but that doesn’t stop me. I open the next door and a woman welcomes me in. She (the Anima) fills my hands with art supplies until they are overflowing. This place of desire, met with acceptance and abundance is tender place for me. Learning how to live in that place is new. In the dream session, tears start to flow when I read that part out loud. But in the next part of the dream, this creative place of feeling and desire comes to a halt. Instead of digging my hands in and getting started, I sit there and wait. I don’t know what to do. I think that I need someone to show me how to do it. Everything stops. My desire, the tender feelings of acceptance, the knowledge of abundance. All of it stops as I sit there and wait.

The dream is showing my life to me. How I sit and I wait. I have strong desires within me. Desires to create and to sing and so much more. But instead of digging in, I wait. As if there is a right way to create or a right way to sing.

Now, in the dream I see a woman sewing smiles on stuffed monkeys. Rodger helps me to see the painful truth of this. Monkey see, monkey do. A sewn on smile. That is part of who I’ve been. And that is who I am when I sit and wait, thinking that I need to have someone show me how to create or to sing.

But all is not lost. The next part of the dream is full of hope. The dream shows that there is another way to be. There is another part of me that is emerging.

In the dream, I walk over to a man (Animus) and I start to sing a little song, mimicking the rhythm of a cow or horse when it walks or runs. I sing,

      Clumpity Clump, Clumpity Clump, Clumpity Clump

At first when I look at the man, I think he is angry, that he doesn’t like my song. But then all of the sudden he begins to sing with me. We are singing together with loud voices and in a round. It is so much fun.

There is wonderful hope and joy in this part of the dream. There is also a big clue about what holds me back.

At first I think that the man is angry. And if he hadn’t started singing with me right away, I probably would have stopped singing. The truth is that he is anything but angry. He loves me and wants nothing more than to sing a silly song with me. 

This is a theme that has been showing up again and again in my dreams and in my life. This idea that I think people are angry or upset with me. In some cases that may be true, but 95% of the time, it’s just a story. I’ve been living from a place of constant vigilance. I listen for a tone of voice. I see a look on someone’s face and I think – oh, I wonder what I did wrong. I wonder why they are angry with me. I’ve been operating unconsciously in this way for all of my life. The dreams are bringing this to my attention. And the dreams are showing me that it is not true. This unconscious belief and pattern affect my relationships in my life and they are affecting my ability to connect in the divine archetypal realm with the Anima and Animus.

This dream session (and this dream) was a big one for me. It was filled with pain and with joy. I felt despair in the way that I’ve been living my life and the hope of acceptance and abundance in my desire. I felt joy when I had the courage to sing my silly song with the Animus, despite my misguided fear that he was angry. Rodger kept driving home to me the idea that I can break this misguided pattern. And I must break this pattern in order to move forward in all aspects of my inner and outer life. I felt the enormity of that. I still feel it.

My homework was to sing with the Animus, “clumpity clump, clumpity clump” any time that I think that someone is angry or upset with me – by the look on their face, the tone of their voice or anything else.

I was surprised at how often I came upon these “clumpity clump” moments. Just how often I think that people in my life are upset with me for some reason. And the lie of that is starting to break. I am bringing the voice, the rhythm and the vibration of my soul – clumpity clump, clumpity clump -- along with the support of the Animus into these moments.  Who knew that the voice of my soul would take the form of a simple, silly, child’s song? Well, now I know. And I love it.

Voices

There are voices in my head and voices that I speak. Some of them are me and some aren’t. I am not suggesting that I have a clinical psychological disorder. Although as I write this it does make me pause, wondering if what I am getting at here could have a connection to such things.

For most of my life, I’ve lived inside my head. So often there are things that I want to say that somehow get stuck in there. Some unnamed fear holds me back. These voices are me. Finally, they are starting to find their way out of my head. A few years ago, I had a dream. I was with a tiny girl that was just learning to speak. She seemed to be afraid to speak in front of the tall adults nearby. What touched me so deeply in the dream was her courage to speak although it was just a faint whisper. I can still remember the feeling of her soft breath on my ear as she whispered to me.

The girl is me. She is the soul me. At that time, she was just beginning to whisper. That is starting to change.

There’s been another voice in my head.

Dream:

There is a pool and I am about to dive in.  A woman says, “Don’t go in there. It’s not safe.” I ask why and she says there is a chemical in there. I think that maybe it will be safe to go in tomorrow.

I’m excited, ready to dive in! But then I hear a voice. It’s a voice of caution, hesitation, uncertainty. That is another voice that has been living in my head. For years and years, that voice has been much louder than the tiny whisper of my soul girl. It’s the voice that stops me from diving in.

This has been a life long pattern. I become excited, enthusiastic about a project or interest and then – poof! it disappears. It leaves me standing there at the edge of the pool wondering what just happened. I’ve been confused and disheartened by this pattern in my life.

That voice in my head has made its way to my speaking voice as well. In a recent dream session, Rodger detected that voice. When he asked me how I felt about something I said, “I don’t know.” He asked me to say it again. When I repeated it, I could feel and hear the low, drawn out frequency of it.

I   d o n’ t   k n o w

At that moment, the voice was revealed. The voice is not me. It is the voice of the woman by the edge of the pool. It’s the voice of pathology that stops me. It’s a parasite, that has been living inside me, sucking up my energy. But now I know that it is not me.

Since it was revealed, I’ve heard myself using that voice. But now, I am on to it. When I catch myself speaking in that slow, indecisive tone I know it is not me. When I hear a voice inside my head that is full of caution and hesitation, I know I don’t have to listen to it.

When I take my attention away from the “I don’t know" voice, the faint whisper can begin to grow and change into a vibration that will let the truth of my soul voice emerge.

A New ID

Dream:

I walk into a room and a woman wants to show me something. She says that she is giving me a new ID. It is something I will be wearing on a permanent basis. I am not so sure about that idea. She also says, “I am not quite ready to give this to you. I am still working on it but you can take a look at it.” It is a small black case the size of an ID or a credit card. In it is a stack of cards and I pull them out. The one on top is a picture of a boy (about 5) whose legs are sticking straight up and his body is bent completely forward to his legs. It appears that he is being held that way. There are red marks in rows on the backs of his legs. I feel really scared and horrified. It feels like the boy has been tortured. The next picture is of a child (same age – not sure if it’s the same child) who is being held in some type of wooden device. His head is stuck sideways in an awkward position. This is much too scary for me to look at. I quickly put the pictures away and give them back to the woman.

This dream is touching on a deep place within me. Since beginning the dreamwork, the dreams have been pointing to some type of trauma around age 4 or 5. It has been a mystery. I grew up in a typical suburban household, the middle child of three. Although I remember feeling afraid during family arguments (I played the role of mediator), I have no memory of trauma. This dream helps to begin to unlock the mystery. There is a deep memory within me of a young boy being tortured. Perhaps it is from another lifetime. The anima wants to show it to me. By showing me the cards, she is helping the memory surface. She is doing so gently, letting me see as much as I am willing to look at. It is a very scary, painful place. It is part of my true identity. My permanent identity. As I write this, I can feel the energy of fear growing in my body. 

In the session we talk about how I don’t want to face what is being shown to me. I get just a glimpse and that is enough. I want to turn away. I want to put the cards away. Forget about it. Hand them back to the woman.

We talk in a little more detail about what I saw when I looked at the cards. A boy (about 5) being held in an unnatural position, regularly spaced red marks on the backs of his legs. My sense that perhaps the red marks indicated restraint. Perhaps he was tied down, tortured in some way. The next card. Again, a boy being held in a seemingly torturous, unnatural way. This time his head turned to the side, held by a wooden block. I briefly look at the second card before quickly putting it away.

The dream is showing me a glimpse of some deeply held memories. The dream is also showing me my reaction. An automatic response of turning away. There is another dream that we talk about that shows this same pattern.

Dream:

There is a video playing on my iphone. I keep trying to turn it off but it won’t turn off.

The video is a memory that wants to be revealed to me. But I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I want the control to be able to turn it off. Turn away. My automatic reaction is to press the off button. But pressing the off button is not going to work for me any more. Not with this new ID.

These dreams are about trauma. But they are also about how I live my life. How I turn away. Rodger says that by turning away, I am missing the opportunity of feeling deeper in my life. Another recent dream suggests that I turn away from the pain of others as well. In the dream, I am a physical therapist. Joe Biden (animus) walks in with some pain. I do not ask him about the pain. I’m all about bragging that I get to work with Joe Biden. The dream is suggesting that perhaps this turning away pattern shows up in my job as a physical therapist. It is hard to look at this but I know it is true. I remember a time when I worked with a young child in her home. As I stretched her legs, she cried. She was in pain but I ignored it. I was so caught up with doing my job of stretching her that I dismissed her cries. Her Grandmother asked that I not return. At that time, I knew there was something wrong. There was a disconnect within me. It felt like an evil character flaw. But Rodger was quick to say that this is not a character flaw. It is the place that operates in me to keep me from feeling a deeper place.

My homework was to feel the gesture of putting the cards away, feel that turning away place and see where that comes up in my life. There was something satisfying about that gesture in the dream. To just put the cards away. Be done with that. The day after the session we left for a vacation on a sailboat in the Caribbean. It almost felt like the vacation itself was a way to turn away. Go live in this other world of beautiful clear water and colorful fish. It was a great way to escape from the terror that lives underneath my conscisouness. The trip allowed me to put the cards away. Of course though, they are still there. The archetypes want me to see them. They want me to feel into a new ID. I know that with their help I will. It’s the ID of my soul.

Everything’s alright…. or is it?

My voice teacher asked me to practice a song from Jesus Christ Superstar – “Everything’s Alright.” Perfect choice! I love that song. I sang it to my kids when they were small. It fits my life motto that goes something like this:

No matter what happens, everything will turn out ok.

I use that motto to soothe myself when I am feeling anxious or upset. I use it for others when they are having difficulties. I used it quite a bit for my children as they were growing up.

So, over the last few weeks, I’ve been singing:

Try not to get worried

Try not to turn on to

Problems that upset you, oh

Don’t you know everything’s alright

Yes, everything’s fine…..

I sing it in the car, I sing it around the house, I sing it when I’m walking. It’s a beautiful song and it soothes me.

Last week my daughter objected when I sang it. She said that she is tired of hearing it. She admits that she didn’t like hearing it when she was a child either. Hmmm. Here I thought this beautiful song held a special sweet place within her. Her honesty got me thinking.  In a recent dream session, this notion of “Everything’s ok” came up. It’s my default place. It’s the place I turn to when things are feeling “not right” within me or around me. It’s my way of rejecting a true, deep feeling place and replacing it with a kind of band aide, telling myself that everything is fine. There have been times when my daughter did not feel ok and needed me to meet her at that place. Instead I sang the song – “Everything’s alright – Everything’s fine,” brushing aside her feelings.

Dream:

I’m in a car that is going backwards. There is a man seated right next to me (I can feel his body next to mine). The car is headed towards a group of people. They look like people from a third world country (warm climate – not many clothes on). It is a family with small children. I am so afraid that we won’t be able to stop in time! Somehow the man is letting me know that he will take control of the car and he will slow it down in time. But I am so scared I can’t let go of wanting to move my foot around to find the brake. I can’t totally trust him to do it. This family could get killed. I finally seem to find the brake (I think) and the car stops just in time. Thank God! Now I am in an outdoor place where the ground is dried dirt, in line for food. There is rice and beans and I am hungry. I am glad to have this food. Melissa (my daughter – about 4 or 5 in the dream) is with me. She is not sure there will be enough food to eat. I feel sure that we will get what we need.

The dream wants me to feel and I do. I feel intense fear that the family will get hurt. I am frantic, wanting to do something to stop the car. The man (animus) lets me know that he’s got it under control. I feel extreme fear and at the same time I am given the opportunity to trust him while in my fear. I am unable to do it. The reflex to reach around for the brake is too strong. I can’t leave it up to him because I am unsure if he will follow through. The car does stop but it wasn’t me who stopped it. When we go through the dream in the session, I realize that I was sitting on the passenger side. When the dream switches at the end, it shows my default. My life motto. Everything’s alright. Will there be enough food? I don’t really know but I skip to – “we will get what we need.”

The dream sets up a dyad. Intense fear vs. everything’s alright.

My homework is to feel these two extremes. Go from the intense fear of rushing backwards in the car toward the family to my life’s motto – Everything’s alright.

Why would I want to feel intense fear? Why not just stick with – everything’s alright? Something Rodger said a while back helps me to understand it. Finding ways not to feel deeply held fear or pain is certainly one way to live but the fear and pain are still there. Those feelings will stay there until you feel them. Or they will show up in other ways. I don’t understand why I have deep fear. I just know it’s there. The dreams are helping me to feel it.

As I imagine into the dream scene for my homework, I can feel the intensity of the fear. I can feel my body bracing itself for a horrible, gory crash where I am certain this family will be killed. I want so badly to find that brake. I want to control this terrifying situation. It is very hard for me to let go and trust the animus to stop the car. When I go to the other part of the dyad where “everything’s alright,” it feels so different. The contrast is so great. The intense fear can not be quelled with a palliative mantra that says everything’s alright. Sometimes, everything is not ok. Our psyches can keep the memory of something terrifying and painful from this life or perhaps from another lifetime. The dreams allow us to feel these overwhelming feelings in stages, when we are ready for them. The dreams also let us know that we are not alone in this. There is a divine place that we can turn to. As I experience this homework, letting go and trusting this divine place (the animus) while feeling extreme fear is very difficult.

After a few days of feeling this homework, I become very, very tired. I feel almost a physical exhaustion as I keep trying to hit the brake, all the while feeling this frantic fear. Eventually, there is a moment where I just give up. I stop trying and I let him take over. At that point the fear changes. It has a soft feeling around the edge of it. The fear is still there but the frantic feeling is gone. I kind of relax into it and let myself feel it. This is a new place for me. I don’t stay there long. As time goes on, somehow the homework feeling and images begin to fade.  I am not sure why that happens. It is a mystery to me. But I trust that more dreams will come to help me feel the “not alright” feelings that are buried deep and eventually may lead me to a new life motto. Perhaps my new motto will be something like this:  feel and trust.

Deep Wound

Dream:

There is a small black scab on my arm.  I pick at it and it opens up to become large wound underneath. It feels so scary to have the insides of me exposed and open. I can see the muscles in there. I can’t imagine how it will heal. I show it to a man who suggests something about how to heal it. I am not sure what he means.

I pick at the small scab on the outside of my arm and the skin around it falls away, leaving this huge, gaping wound. It is deep. I can see the muscles in there.

The question with dreams is always – what am I feeling, or not feeling?

In the dream session, I go back into the dream and try to access the feeling. Although there is some fear there, I look at the wound more as an observer. I can’t believe it is so big. I wonder how it will ever heal. In a way, I am fascinated by it – looking at the muscles in there.

I show it to a man (animus) who seems to know something about healing it. But I do not really feel connected to him.

If this happened in waking life, there would be tremendous pain, fear and maybe nausea in seeing my own open wound. But I dissociate. I don’t really feel that much. 

I’ve been carrying a wound that comes from trauma in this life or perhaps another. Trauma can result from something that caused tremendous pain or fear. Or it could be a result of getting disconnected from God. We find ways to bury our wound so deeply that we don’t even know we have one. Maybe the only indication of it is a small scab. My scab shows itself to me in the ways that I become analytical, in the ways that I withdraw and dissociate. The dream is suggesting that I go below the dissociation, and face into the feelings of the wound underneath. The dream lets me know that I am not alone in this. The animus is there as witness to this wound. Although I can not feel the connection to him, the promise of the dream is that I don’t have to face this alone.

My homework is to feel the fear as I look at the large, deep wound on my arm with the man standing by me.

Initially, when I imagine into the homework, I am afraid. The wound is so deep and I am afraid of the tremendous pain that is sure to come. Soon, I find myself changing the homework image. I realize that in the dream there was no blood and so I begin to imagine the wound filling with blood. This gory image fills my mind and I forget that the man is standing there with me.

Rodger points out that my homework was about an existing wound that was bigger than I thought it was. It wasn’t about bleeding. I changed the homework. I changed the dream image that comes from the deep underneath place that is trying to lead me. This was my way of trying to take control. I stepped out of the dream image and in doing so, stepped away from an opportunity to feel fear with the animus by my side. 

Oh Simple Thing

A few months ago, I woke up with a tune in my head. It was familiar but I couldn’t place it. I sang it to my daughter and she recognized it as “Somewhere Only We Know” by Keane.

When I listened to the song, there was a feeling that pulled me in. A recognition of something. Longing mixed with hope. The words and the melody stirred something in me. Music does that. It finds its way in to deep places within us. Places we may have forgotten.

The music and lyrics touched me…

I came across a fallen tree

I felt the branches of it looking at me

Is this the place we used to love?

Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?

A few years ago, I felt devastation at my core when I was awakened by a dream in which a man took a chainsaw and cut down a big, beautiful tree in my yard. The devastation I felt from that dream not only woke me up, it got me started on this dreamwork journey.  As I listen to the song, it’s like an extension of that dream. I feel the pain of the fallen tree. I feel the devastation as its branches are looking at me. It’s like the branches are asking me to remember the place that I used to love.

In a recent dream, a man (the animus) drives me into a garage. We get out of the car and he starts singing a tune. He encourages me to try it. I sing and my voice begins to soar. I am amazed by the voice that is coming out of me. It is loud and beautiful!

Dreams reflect ourselves to ourselves. They show us what we are at our core. Our soul. They also show us what we’ve lost. To stand with the animus and sing without holding back is being in my soul. Where do I lose that? When do I stop singing?

I attended a retreat recently where we took time to reflect about ourselves.  We considered these questions: What drives us? What are we truly seeking? One word kept coming up for me.

Expression.

Express is literally – to press out. There is something within me that is pressing out, wanting to be expressed. Sometimes, it is almost like I can feel it in my body, trying to get out. Could expression be the way the soul comes alive in us? Often we think of the body and soul as separate. Maybe expression is what connects the two, making us whole. I once dreamed of a book that seemed to be alive. It turned itself to a page that had one sentence written on it: “There is no limit to what can be expressed.” This is true. Expression can be writing, planting, dancing, imagining, painting, dreaming, crying, playing, laughing, screaming, singing …. the list goes on and on. There is no limit to what can be expressed through us, through our bodies.

I love singing as expression. As a line in a song by Death Cab for Cutie says, “I want to live where soul meets body.” Singing is vibrations of the soul through the body. I’ve always loved to sing but in many ways I’ve held back. In the dreamwork session, Rodger and I discuss my “relationship” to my own voice. In general, I have a harsh view of my singing voice. There are memories that show how I’ve developed this negative view. In one, I was in first grade. I was singing “The hills are alive with the sound of music…..” while in the bathroom adjacent to the classroom. It echoed so beautifully as I sang out. At age 6, I was in awe of my own voice (similar to the feeling I had in the dream). As I stepped out of the bathroom, my face burned with embarrassment. My teacher and the class were all staring at me. The awe I had just felt quickly turned to humiliation as my teacher scolded me for singing.

Rodger helps me see that the harsh view that I have developed about my voice is in opposition to my soul. My soul wants to express itself though song. The dream is a gift because it helps me to remember “the place that I used to love.”  It is such a simple thing.

The lyrics to the Keane song go on to say:

Oh simple thing where have you gone?

When I hear that line, I feel sadness. Maybe for me, and for many of us, the simple thing is expression. Expression of the soul. Expression is limitless. But often we limit ourselves. We cut our own soul trees down. We are left with the branches looking at us. Wanting us to remember. Asking us about the place we used to love. In my dream, the animus stands with me in love. Love of my soul. He loves my soul self and wants me know that place again. It is simple but profound. The amazing gift that he is offering is the opportunity to stand in love with him, connect with my soul and feel the awe again. 

In The Body Experience (ITBE)

Over the years I’ve been intrigued with “out of body” experiences (OOBEs). People report rising up above their bodies during accidents or near death. Others discuss their experiences with “astral projection,” leaving their physical bodies, traveling in the “astral plane.” I find this idea fascinating. I’ve always wondered if it is indeed a “real” thing and if so, what it would be like to experience it.

I had the chance to experience an OOBE in a dream where I died. I rose up from my body and observed my friends down below, looking at my dead body in horror. Having this experience was intense, but it also suggested my tendency to leave my body – stay disconnected. Since then, I’ve become aware that I easily find ways to become disengaged, in a way, living outside of my body – usually in my head.

Once when I was a girl – maybe 8 or 9, I was sitting in the back seat of our family car, waiting to go somewhere. I looked at my hands and it was like they weren’t attached. I had an odd feeling, like I wasn’t connected to my body. At that moment I felt disconnected from the world. I don’t think this counts as an official OOBE but it could have been the start of when I found myself, in a certain way…living outside my body.

Yes, OOBEs are intriguing. But what about “in the body” experiences (ITBEs)? A couple of years ago, just after starting the dreamwork, I had an ITBE. Mark and I had just arrived in Greece. I was sunning myself on a ledge, imagining into my dream homework. I felt a powerful surge of electricity run through my body. It was like my heart had opened up and was filling my body with energy. All my nerves endings were buzzing. For the entire trip, I felt this energy. It was an intense feeling in my body. Words escape me to fully describe it … but it was like this feeling of absolutely loving life – as a felt experience in my body. I desperately wanted the feeling to stay. But after returning from Greece, it slowly faded as I stepped back into my day-to-day life.

Looking back, I can see that this ITBE was like an opening and perhaps a peek at what was yet to come. It was a gift, showing me what was possible. It was felt in the body, giving me the opportunity to experience a new way of being.

Dreamwork is not an intellectual exercise to be played out in the mind. Sure, you can learn about it, write about it (as I love to do) and discuss it, but that is just part of the picture. It needs to be felt. So many of us live our lives in our heads, unaware of what else is possible. Living life that way is like living “half a life.” Once I dreamt of a girl that had her entire left arm and leg amputated. In the dream I was horrified – I remember thinking that she was now “half a person.” But perhaps the dream was reflecting this idea that I’d been living “half a life.”

Night after night, if we are lucky enough to remember them, our dreams are begging us to feel. This intensity and power that we can feel in our dreams can also be felt in our waking life. As we shift from living in our heads to living in our bodies, new feelings can begin to awaken within us. This has been my experience since starting dreamwork over two years ago. There is an energy growing within me. It manifests as fear, love, excitement, grief, joy and even compassion. What feels different is that these feelings are felt as an aliveness in my body. That may seem obvious – just the word “feelings” suggests that you “feel” something in your body. But this is new to me after living a lifetime in my head. 

The Texture of Fear

Dream:

Mom is driving and I am in the back seat. There is a tremendous rumbling noise that is very loud and scary. As I look out the back window I see that the earth is moving back and forth. I am so scared. Now all the sudden it is pitch dark and I am afraid that Mom can’t see to drive. The road is on a high mountain, on some cliffs. I ask Mom if she can see. She says, “No but I’m being guided.” Somehow the car knows where to go. I am in such fear because the car could go off the side of a cliff but all I can do is trust what she is saying and hope that she is right. Now a man is there and he asks me if I have a memory about the place where we are going. I am surprised when a memory does come to me and I have a sense about where we are going. I wake up with a feeling of fear throughout my body that stays with me for a long time.

Before doing dreamwork, I never thought much about fear. It was always with me in the form of anxiety, but even then I didn’t really think of it as fear. I thought of anxiety as something annoying that I just lived with. Something I had to put up with. My normal way of being.

Now I am starting to experience a different type of fear. Archetypal fear. It has a different texture to it than anxiety. In the last post, “Feeling Fear,” I felt it when the Animus was lying on top of me. The feeling was a deep fear. One that felt unbearable but I had no choice but to bear it. I continued to feel it as part of my homework; an extremely difficult feeling to stay with. In this dream I feel it again during an earthquake when I hear the loud rumbling and I see the ground moving. But then the dream switches and so does the type of fear. I go from archetypal fear to anxiety fear. Rodger asks if when the dream switches, the fear has a different texture to it. I had never thought of fear as having a texture. But it did. When the dream switches and it becomes dark, I want to manage the situation. I ask Mom if she can see to drive. She answers me in a reassuring way but I am still in my head – wanting to figure things out. This anxiety fear feels different. In anxiety fear, I am still trying to control things. With archetypal fear, there is no possibility of me controlling anything. Anxiety fear keeps me in my mind. Archetypal fear forces me to let go of control.

The Animus shows up in this dream with a question. “Do you remember the place that we are going?”  Anxiety is gone as I listen to and consider his question. I do remember something, although I can’t quite put my finger on it. Rodger suggests that the place that we are going is to this place of archetypal fear – like the earthquake fear. 

My homework is to feel the fear of the earthquake and feel the trust when I hear the man say, “Do you remember?”.

Feelings that are strong in dreams often fade. As I visualize and try to feel into this dream scene for my homework, I don’t feel that intense feeling anymore. But I do feel it at night. I wake up out of my sleep and I feel it. There is no dream (that I can remember), just a feeling of fear. This is new. It is starting to spill over into my waking life as well. I can feel it now as I write. It is not surface anxiety about a particular issue in my life. Anxiety leads me to my head, signaling me to figure out a solution. This new feeling has a different texture to it. A new deeper feeling that I can feel in my body. Surprisingly, I don’t try to push this feeling away.  Sometimes, its a feeling of fear mixed with energy, almost an electric feeling.

In the dream, the Animus is by my side as I begin to  “remember” these feelings. In waking life, I have a sense of wonder as I allow and experience the texture of these new feelings.

Feeling Fear

Dream:

I am with a man. He is my friend and I like him. But then somehow I am lying face down on a bed and he lies on top of me. He is much bigger than me. At first its ok but then he won’t get up. He is heavy and he is squishing me. I start getting scared. I can’t move. Now I’m getting so scared and claustrophobic. I beg him to please get off of me. I ask him nicely. I say – please can you get off of me? He will not get off. I can’t believe that he won’t. I thought he was my friend. I am so, so scared and panicked. I keep begging and begging.

The fear is huge. To be held down with that much pressure on me is terrifying. This dream confuses me. It feels like this divine archetypal man, the Animus, is torturing me. Why would he do that?

As we talk about the dream, Rodger helps me to see that the Animus is helping me to feel my own feeling of terror that is always with me, underneath the surface. It’s a feeling that has been there for a long time and I need to feel it. We need to feel feelings in order to move through them. It is scary and difficult but the dream is here to help me feel it.

In the dream, I am unable to surrender to him and just feel the fear. I beg him to get off of me. I react more with anger when he doesn’t. I want to be in control of him, tell him what to do. But that very need for control is keeping me from feeling the fear. He forces me into this vulnerable position so that I will feel it.

My homework is to feel the fear and the pressure when he lies on top of me. I am not to go to the place of reaction where I ask him to get off – just stay with the feeling of terror when his body is pressing down, pinning me there.

This dream touches on a place within me that feels helpless. And with that helplessness is fear. To let go of control and feel that is very difficult for me.

In my waking life, I am feeling helpless. Both of my daughters have recently developed medical conditions that are complicated and confusing. I want to be able to control everything about it. I want to be in charge. I want to get the right diagnosis, the right doctors, find the right diet, get the right medications. There is a certain amount that I can do. But there is quite a bit that is beyond my control. I am having trouble trusting anyone – even our family doctor that I’ve trusted forever. This brings up tremendous fear for me. I am like any other parent wanting to do the best I can for my children. That being said, I have an opportunity to understand that I am not in control. There is something much bigger than me controlling this. When I feel the fear of what is going on, it is like I am being pinned, trapped like I felt in the dream. Ultimately, I don’t have control and that is terrifying. Getting to the place of trust, trust of the Animus and knowing that he is in control and not me is a big part of my work right now.

Dream Dyad

Dream:

I am with a woman who has a device that sprays water. She is showing me how she sprays it to clean walls and things in a house. She hands it to me and says I can try it too. There is a dirty area over a door and I begin to spray it. It starts to clean the wall. I realize that once I start spraying, the process will be never ending and so I stop and tell her I don’t want to spray it anymore. Now I am next to some water. There is a little 2 or 3 year old girl on the edge who is getting ready to swim in the water. I think that she is too young to swim. I ask the lady how old the girl is (I assumed it was her daughter) and she says, “I don’t know.”

Dreams offer images, scenes and feelings to help us see how we are living. A dyad in a dream can show us opposing places within is. It is an opportunity to see and feel how we are living our life and how we could be living our life.

My homework that came from this dream dyad is to imagine going between spraying the water to clean the wall and then being the little girl standing on the edge of the water, ready to jump in.

In the dream, the minute I start spraying the water I get this heavy feeling in my gut. It’s a feeling like – oh I can see where this is going… the wall is getting really clean but then there will be another one and another one. There is no end to it. It’s a sinking feeling and it’s a familiar feeling to me. In the dream I tell the woman I don’t want to spray any more. I am feeling that in my life as well.

As I do the homework, I feel that sinking - in my gut feeling which is contrasted with the feeling of excitement of being on the edge, next to the water. The little girl is my soul self, that part of me that is ready to jump in the water. The dreamwork is helping me to recover this girl. Part of helping me to recover her is the process of showing me how I lose her. I lose her when I go this sinking – in the gut feeling.

The Cut:

Dream homework can help us see where certain feelings manifest in our life. As we experience the same feelings in our waking life, it is called “the cut.” I feel the sinking – in my gut feeling when I look at my never ending “to do” lists: my house that needs to be cleaned, laundry that piles up, appointments that need to be made, dinner that needs to be made, bills that need to be paid, and probably the biggest one of all… trying to manage other people’s lives. It can feel so overwhelming. The feeling of spraying the water in the dream matches the feeling I often have in my life. This feeling is the opposite of the excitement of the girl who is ready to jump in the water. In the dream I tell the woman – No. I don’t want to spray the water anymore. The same thing is happening in my life. Of course, the house needs to be cleaned, laundry needs to be done, dinner needs to be made etc. etc. but maybe it doesn’t have to be done perfectly. Maybe I can delegate some of it. Maybe it doesn’t always have to be done at all. And maybe I don’t have to manage everyone else’s lives.

As I let go of spraying the water, the excitement of my soul girl will have a chance to emerge. There are places in my life where I can feel that excitement emerging. In the dream I think the girl is too young to swim. In worrying about her, I can not become her. I think that the woman in the dream is the girl’s mother but I am mistaken. The woman who is busy cleaning and who feels that sinking feeling can’t know this girl. Now when I feel that uneasy sinking feeling in my gut, I know that it is time to stop spraying the water. It is time to stand in the excitement as the girl, ready to jump into the water.

 

Fluidity

Some days feel pointless. I wake up and I wonder what I am doing. I get this hopeless sense that life is meaningless.  When I am in this place, I feel like it is going to stay that way. I feel stuck. It feels like there is nobody or no thing that will ever be able to pull me out of it.

Dream:

I am sitting alone in a broken down old car. There is a hole in the floor of the car where my bare feet are sticking through to the sand underneath.

The dream reflects the truth of that part of me that sometimes feels hopeless and stuck. But there is hope because I also know what it feels like to be in a place that is the opposite of stuck. A place where I can feel a sense of movement or fluidity.

A week after my father died, I was swimming in the ocean. The water was warm and felt like silk on my skin. I stayed in the water for a long, long time. My feelings moved through me as the water flowed around me. I felt sadness melt into wonder as pelicans swooped down low and then delightful surprise as a dolphin swam within an arms length of me.

It is curious to me that a person can live in such different states of being. Being stuck vs. being in a state of fluidity. Dreams like this one can help us see when we are stuck. Dreams can also help us move towards a more fluid way of being.

I experienced this sense of fluidity during my string* at a dreamwork retreat in October. Strings between my dreams connected feelings of fear, pain and joy. With the connection, I was able to move between these feelings seamlessly. There was a feeling of fluidity similar to what I felt in the ocean that day. When I feel that, it feels easy, normal – like that is exactly how it is supposed to feel. The energy flows easily and it feels limitless.

But still, I often feel stuck. The word stagnant comes to mind.

A quick google search gives this:

1. Not moving or flowing; motionless

2. Foul or stale from standing

3. Showing little or no sign of activity or advancement; not developing or progressing; inactive

4. Lacking vitality or briskness; sluggish or dull

Yes, that’s it! Stagnant. That is what I often feel and have felt off an on for years. All of the above. Stagnant is a familiar place for me. I remember times as a young girl, sitting on my bed staring out the window. I felt a tug inside me because I knew I wanted to do more; be more. But so often I’d sit there paralyzed, not knowing what else to do – just as I did in the dream with the broken down old car.

Somewhere along the line I lost the divine connection to my soul self. Dreamwork has opened me up to a taste of what it feels like to have this free flowing energy and fluidity.  I believe that this fluidity is my true default, not stagnation. Stagnation has been a persistent pathology of mine. I’ve had it for many years and apparently it is not going to give up easily.  But there is a deep longing within my soul that won’t give up either. It’s that same tug I had inside of me as a young girl. The force of that tug won’t let up. It comes from a flowing place full of energy where stagnation cannot exist. Stagnant water cannot exist when flowing water moves through it just as darkness can no longer exist when a light is turned on.

Metaphor can bring us to a deeper place of understanding through the imagination. The metaphor of stagnant and flowing water helps me to imagine what might be true about myself. When I am in this pathological stuck place, I am in the stagnant water on the surface. It’s a stale place, lacking vitality. But I can sense that just underneath the surface, the water is flowing with amazing energy. One way for me to start to access the moving water underneath is to drop into my feelings. Dreams are an invitation to feel. Dream homework is our chance to bring the feelings into waking life. When I imagine the dream scene from my homework, I drop into the feeling in my heart to sense it. This is like dipping down below the stagnant water and feeling what is there. It may be a feeling that I am resisting – like pain or sadness. But with the feeling, there is movement. This is fluidity. 

*string

At Archetypal Dreamwork retreats, actual pieces of string are often used to signify the connections between dreams. Because of the use of strings, the acting out of dreams with their connections is referred to as a “string.”  See northofeden.com for more information.

A Poem

Like dreams, poems have a certain mystery to them for me. My Dad loved poems. He felt the mystery of them too. A couple of years ago, I was looking for ways to connect with Dad so I took a poetry class. One day, I invited him along and that opened up something new between us. I loved that connection we had developed. But as my Dad progressed with his illness, I felt more unsure of how to “be” with him. His disease was an awful one (Pulmonary Fibrosis), slowly taking away his ability to breathe and to function. It was very hard to see him suffer. I wanted to let him know I loved him but I didn’t know how. We didn’t have the kind of relationship where we would openly express love for each other.

During this time period, I had a dream.

There is a little holding place across the street from my parents’ house. People are there, waiting to go see Dad. The mood is somber because we all know he will die soon. I realize that it is time for me to face the fact that he really is going to die. We are sitting there in the room and I feel my face contorting as I begin to cry. I realize that the others can see me crying but I don’t go to cover up my face. I just cry there in front of them with the sadness of it.

The dream clearly pointed out my predicament. I was in a “holding place,” feeling deep sadness but unsure of what to do next. Rodger helped me see that it was time to leave the “holding place” and just go be with my Dad. I am grateful for that encouragement because that is what I did. Instead of staying in the “holding place”, waiting for holidays or family get-togethers, I just went to sit and be with my Dad. One day I hugged him good-bye and “I love you” just slipped out. Although in some families, it is normal to exchange these words, it was not something that we did. And so it surprised and delighted me when I said it. It was a tender moment. A new one that had come from a deep place from inside of both of us. From that moment on, I was able to openly tell Dad I loved him and he was able to say it to me as well. It is something I will always be grateful for.

Even so, there was more that I wanted to say to Dad. Last February, he and Mom traveled to Florida. As Valentine’s Day approached I had a sweet memory of how special I felt as a girl when he would make me a home-made valentine; a construction paper heart with a little rhyme written in it. And then it hit me – I would write a Valentine’s poem to Dad and send it to him in Florida.

I am a complete novice when it comes to writing poetry. Even so, somehow I knew that I would be able to do it. As I sat down to write, I felt tears come to my eyes as I thought of how much Dad’s illness had taken from him but I also felt the joy of what he had given to me. As I wrote, the words just seemed to come. They spilled out of me, in the same way that “I love you” had spilled out on that day a few months before.

On Valentines Day

When I was a girl

You'd write me a rhyme

Now that I'm grown

It's my time

What I have to share

Is more than just words

It feels like wonder

Like the singing of birds

Although we've lived years

We are never all grown

Without knowing it

On the way you have shown

There is so much to treasure

So much beauty to seek

Right under our nose

A minnow in the creek

A fox in the wild

A shore bird in flight

Sweet summer corn

Stars in the night

The world is so full

There's much to discover

Books are doors

That help us uncover

Life is a mystery

I know we agree

Its answers go deep

More than we can see

In so many ways

Life can feel like a foe

Still we move through

And we learn how to grow

Life throws us a curve

That we just can't believe

What has been lost

Is something we grieve

Your hurt is my hurt

Though it may not always show

It’s hard to find the words

That, I want you to know

But there is something you have

That can cut through the pain

A Love so deep and wide

Is for us to gain

We are given this Gift

Just for existing

Our only job

Is to stop resisting

So as I sit here

On this Valentine’s Day

I send my love

And to God I do pray

---

I sent the poem to Dad and I waited. We had never shared like this with each other before and I felt vulnerable. What if it was too much? How would he respond?

Mom and Dad returned from Florida in time to celebrate what would be Dad’s last birthday. Over the past year, Dad had initiated a new tradition at family gatherings. Poetry reading. He would bring a poem to read and other family members shared poems as well. It was uncharacteristic for our family to share in this new way, but everyone seemed to embrace and look forward to this new activity. On this day, Dad took out his poem to share. It was the one I had sent him. It touched me to hear him read what I had written for him. Later on he told me how much the poem meant to him and that he would read it over and over again.

Poems still feel mysterious to me, including the one I wrote for Dad. I read it again now and I wonder exactly how it came to be. Like dreams, perhaps poems can be thought of as vehicles to help take us out of that “holding place” and into a place of deeper connection.

Sorrow and Joy

Len "Jiggs" Talley at the 2010 4th of July celebration, Virginia Beach, Va

“The deeper the sorrow, the greater the joy.”

-William Blake

Over the past few weeks I’ve felt deep sorrow and great joy. Deep sorrow and grief were expected but I did not know that I could also feel joy in the wake of the death of my father.

On the day that Dad died, our family gathered to comfort each other and grieve together. We held each other and we cried. My sister and I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning weeping for hours as we drank wine together. The depth of our grief seemed limitless. The next day I was miserable, hungover from grief and wine. The sorrow stayed with me up until the day of the funeral. What happened after the funeral was unexpected. Hundreds of people came to the service and afterwards, members of my family greeted each one. I felt the genuine love of those who loved my father and of those who love me. They looked into my eyes with tears of compassion. They hugged me with warmth and love. We stood there for well over an hour, but time stood still as we took in the overwhelming outpouring of love and compassion. When the last person walked away I noticed an uplifted, joyful feeling in my heart. Family and friends met back at our house to gather once again. I walked in to find the place filled with food, drink and flowers – something that my dear neighbors had set up for us. The mood was light as we talked of the wonderful service, and the outpouring of love and support. My sister-in-law Bette brought some music to share; Lyle Lovett’s song about a funeral, “Since the Last Time.” [click here] She mentioned that Dad couldn’t help but start dancing when she had played it for him one day last year. That was not surprising. Dad loved to dance. We were all listening as the song played. It started off slowly. The lyrics were great. We were laughing. As the tempo sped up, Mike, Meg (my brother and sister) and I started moving. We couldn’t stop ourselves. No doubt, we have inherited Dad’s love of dancing. The three of us moved close to each other as we danced. It was like we were in another world there, just the three of us. We held our hands together and raised them up as we cried together with grief and joy, singing “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Our faces held close as our tears and breath mixed, singing out in gratefulness and in joy for our father’s life and our own lives.

We welcomed the joy we felt in the midst of our grief. And somehow we knew that Dad was there, dancing right along with us that day. My hope is that along with the sadness of missing our Dad here in the physical world, we can continue to dance and to feel the joy of his presence.

9-11

I’m outside on a tour in New York City. The tour guide is talking about remembering the firefighters. I am sitting next to a girl (we are in our 20s or so) and we both burst into tears. We turn our heads toward each other, touching them and cry and cry at the memory of 9-11 and the firefighters who lost their lives. The crying comes unexpectedly but it feels good. I can feel the wet tears coming from my eyes and I realize I am crying real tears. I feel a strong connection to the girl sitting next to me as we hold our heads together and weep.

Do you remember what you were doing when you learned about the horror of  9-11? I do. I was making phone calls, trying to find neighbors to help with our annual block party. I’d heard about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center and had turned on the TV to view those early images as the story unfolded. It is hard to admit this …. but I was more concerned with the block party task than I was about the horrific events that were transpiring. I called my neighbor Jackie to see if she would be in charge of the kids’ games. I’ll never forget that conversation. Clearly shaken by the events in New York City, she was barely able to speak. I am sure that she must have been confused by my phone call. Was I really in the midst of planning the block party at that moment? As I hung up the phone I knew there was something odd about my reaction, or rather my non-reaction to the events that morning. That day I realized that there was something missing in me. Where was my ability to feel?

9-11 changed us as a country. It also changed me personally. It was subtle at first – like knowing there was something “off” about my reaction that morning. As the television coverage continued to sear those terrible images into all of our brains, something began stirring in me. I became extremely restless inside. As the reality of the horror of the events of 9-11 started sinking in, the reality that I was missing a connection to something deeper also sunk in. In my restlessness, over the next few years, I turned to books, spirituality groups, lectures – anything that might lead me to some kind of connection or understanding. I wrote furiously in my personal journal, asking questions, wanting answers. Years went by as I lived with this background of restless unease. One night, a devastating dream woke me out of a deep sleep. The feeling was so incredibly strong that I could not shake it. I can feel it again now as I write. Although the feeling was deep devastation, it felt good in a way. It felt good to feel. It dawned on me at that time that my dreams were desperately trying to get through to me. Finally I was ready to listen and so I began the dreamwork.  Here I am, two years later and the dreams are still finding ways to get me to feel. As the young woman in this dream, I can finally feel the devastation of the events of  9-11. I can feel it more in the dream than I did when it happened. I “practice” feeling in this dream noticing that I am crying “real” tears. The dream shows me the capacity I have for a deeper level of feeling that I can experience in my waking life.

At the top level, this dream is showing me a new, more feeling way to experience the events of  9-11 but the dream has an “underneath” layer as well. Ultimately, this dream is about the deep sadness of my feeling of loss from Him, the Animus, who often comes in dreams as a firefighter. I need to feel the loss and the longing of Him before I can feel His love. God’s love. As I discussed in Completing the Circuit, my longing for God is something I know but often shy away from mentioning. What is my hesitation?  Part of me is judgmental of others that seem to be “too” religious. Those that talk about God “too much” can rub me the wrong way. And so perhaps that is why I hold back, fearing that I might be judged that way as well. It’s like I have an argument inside myself. One side says – go ahead and mention God, it is the truth of what you are feeling. The other side says – don’t talk about God. Bringing God into the dreamwork discussion seems like too much. What will people think? Really? God coming to us in our dreams?

But to be honest, I am tired of worrying about what others will think. I am tired of avoiding mentioning my feelings about God in my dreamwork experiences. It takes more energy to find ways to not include it than to just write the truth of what I feel.