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July, 2007

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7/2/07 - In the DG meeting yesterday afternoon, we discussed my "Dark Killings, a 'Mental Defective'... Mermaid, and Her Gift" (6/23/07) dream. Highlights:

  • Some of the themes included killing off unhealthy aspects of my psyche or self, a helpful new anima, problems with being nurturing or relating to nurturers, still dealing with sticky or gooey "Mama's boy" issues from childhood (if only in reaction to that background), seeking a better identity, questions about mental function after the "death" (or change) of aspects of my ego, becoming more integrated with my feminine, and being guided to watch for a grand new, less defective picture, focus, or view.

  • Everyone in the dream group, an unusually well attended meeting, said she or he also still has problems with an overemphasis on an internal Mama's opinion. One does not need, they indicated, to have been a proverbial "Mama's boy" to have this difficulty.

  • The tall things (which I've also dreamed about before) with multiple complex circuitry, communications centers, and cramped parallel aisles seem metaphorical for the rational, predictable, organized (typically masculine or yang outlook) part of the brain.

  • The ego perceives danger and complexity outside the rational (in the yin or typically feminine), in feelings, intuitions, or the less predictable, more unconscious aspects of self.

  • Now that a major issue is "getting in touch with my feminine," as if in resonance with this my masculine, "doing" energetic, "good right arm" has become relatively disabled, and I am thus needing to depend more on my less dominant, left, or feminine side for most activities. Since I cannot do it without added tendon injury, my wife is now even mowing the yard, previously always a bastion activity in which I took male pride in accomplishment.

  • Mom is an "old bag" (of sticky residual goo), still hanging around, even after I had metaphorically killed her off numerous times since a neurotic relationship she had with me in my childhood. But a chrysalis can also be an old bag of sticky goo, and it is transformed into a butterfly.

  • Once there is a better way of relating to the inner feminine, perhaps through transformation and intimacy with a fresh, attractive, genuine, healing anima - represented by my physical therapist, Marilyn - or maybe through an elegant new watch, focus, way of looking, view, or outlook, I shall be better able to provide positive feminine intuition or understanding, being with, and nurturance for both myself and others in my life. My Marilyn anima wishes to give me a (way to) watch, to see and receive the gift of a right new identity and energy (wallet, with ID cards and plastic- or paper-money), replacing what has become worn, old, or defective.

  • Might the mental lapses, most noticeable after the ego has been undergoing changes, be reflective of the confusion or disorientation that goes with acquiring a new identity?

  • Or could they be a way of being more likeable? Or of defusing or deflecting blame? As in: See, how could I be responsible when I am so easily overwhelmed by the minor multi-tasking of trying to think of the right things to say? And, if anyone is to blame for these parts of self, especially Mama, that are being killed off, it must be the "mental defective." It certainly could not be me!

  • But the Christine anima, who can often see clearly and always shoots straight and from the hip (or heart), does not accept any cop-outs. She feels they are most inappropriate, my still having ("Mama's boy") worries about what Mama thinks (about my healthy and genuine aggression) and my not wanting her to find out I am the "serial (cereal) killer" or murderer of the goddess Ceres, the provider of vital grains or nurturance, represented in most every family by the Mama who prepared and put food on our table and who had nurtured us in so many ways, sometimes at first with her own breasts, even after she created and bore us out of her very own physical self.

  • It is natural that one would worry about killing such a "goddess." Now, after doing all this killing, I am prepared to let my mentally lapsing self take the blame, but Christine feels, instead, this is a way of being both passive-aggressive and phony. Her firm anima would rather have me proud of what I have done, owning up to it, taking full responsibility for eliminating a more dysfunctional part of myself, this "Mama's boy" creating influence, still hanging about after all these years. The killing needed to be done! (And lest I be overly concerned about still having traces of "Mama's boy" in my makeup, it is important to remember that all of us, however proper and saintly some may appear, also have residuals of ancient reptile brains. It does not make us monsters. I have as well, in addition to great shadow self aspects, these healthy anima qualities represented: genuine, strong, attractive, a healer, a facilitator, intuitive, etc. Of course, there is indication too that I am "under extreme physical and mental stress," in my case likely from insufficient sleep.)

  • Perhaps "inner workings problems" refers, besides to (or instead of) a watch or mind, to problems with ways of being, knowing, or watching on the inner realm, as in the meditation sphere, through which one may "go within."

7/4/07 - Title: "Independence Day Gifts to Honor the Manhood Gods"

There are five gifts being given, one for each of five men. In the background, it is sunrise in a hot, dry, exotic land. In the foreground, five dark obalisks (obelisks - four-sided rock towers rising to a pyramidal point - the term incorrectly used here, for these look more like huge versions of the black [obsidian] spearheads of prehistoric peoples of the Pacific Northwest) are arrayed in a horizontal row. Their flatter, wider sides face to the front and back. They tower over everything else in a flat plain and are symmetrically distributed, so one is in the middle, its location corresponding to the rising sun, and there are two each, evenly spaced, to the left and right of it. The towers of stone have no features. They are massive and each much taller than a man. They are all set upright, firmly in the ground. Following frenetic communal dancing and other fertility rites, in an orgiastic public ceremony the tribe's selection of its five most attractive young women offer themselves to and are taken by the five men, after which all the other still sexually active men and women copulate as well.

[Fairly obviously, the themes here are of male sexual energy and its expression, both perhaps related to the Pacific Northwest, toward which, not coincidentally, I'll be heading soon. Is there also significance to the dream occurring on July 4th? And what of the number five? In my past, within the Lifestream Way tradition, I have been involved with a system that reveres a hierarchy of five inner spiritual levels, leading to and including the highest possible Heaven, each of the five having its own manifestation of the deity, the most supreme of which presides over the ultimate spiritual region, which includes of course all the others and their lesser representative divinities. Here we have five carnal or manhood gods instead. In the I Ching the 5th hexagram is: Hsu. The interpretation is that with firmness and correctness there will be great success. There is an emphasis here on waiting, not on bold or impulsive action, after which there may be extremely good fortune. It also seems reasonable to assume the dream is favorable for further integration between the masculine and feminine aspects of self.]

Please note that after today I shall not be adding new entries here till I have returned from my summer trip, due to commence early on 7/6, toward the Pacific Northwest. I shall return early if having major wrist or back problems, but otherwise hope to remain on vacation for several weeks, perhaps not getting back till about 8/13 or so.

7/10/07 - Title: "Tension Between To Follow All the Rules vs. to Finish My Investigations - My Shirt's Too Fraid (Frayed)"

I am a detective and having difficulty managing to do things in the officially directed way, with a detailed log being kept of my procedures. My shirt also has become so frayed and threadbare one can see right through it. I've been away from work a lot, but for an acceptably excused reason. Now that I've returned, I find that these bureaucratic, officious procedures have multiplied in my absence. I go on doing things in my own more independent way, but am called on the carpet mildly by my immediate supervisor, an understanding, patient man who nonetheless must try to tow (toe) the official line on how things are to be done. It is as though, if I would just make all my entries in a nit-picky, compulsive way, the fact that my absences have been interfering with production would be excused by the top brass. I resist, knowing that if I were to fill out my log book as the higher-ups want, there would be no time left for getting anything of importance done, and I'm way behind already. You either cut corners and do the job, or you comply with all the rules and never accomplish much of anything but covering your or your boss' ass. Some people choose to be ass coverers and others to get things done. I'd rather be among the latter group, if I can avoid getting fired long enough to manage it. The job involves a lot of driving. If I can get back out on the road more, instead of staying in the office complying with a lot of paperwork rules, there (is) hope for getting some investigations completed, which (completing investigations), after all, is (are) the real reason we are here, not to be paper pushers.

[The being away or absences may be mental lapses or difficulties focusing on or remembering each of multiple concerns when tired or distracted, more noticeable in recent months and especially so on this trip. It is hard to know if these "senior moments" are normal for my age or represent something more alarming. Such lapses, viewed as objectively as I can, have not in fact been noticed as significantly more numerous or severe than when I went on my last long solo driving trip, to, through, and from Yellowstone National Park, in 2004. The frayed ('fraid? afraid?) and thin shirt may be my ego, persona, or identity, that is no longer as substantial as before beginning dream work last year. This exposes me both to fear (feeling vulnerable) and to others easily seeing through to my truer, more underlying nature.

On this trip, I'm doing a lot of driving. In a sense, too, the vacation alone may be seen as a way of exploring tired old vs. new identity issues. And I've been considering whether to follow a dry, joyless list of rules for living, as actually characterized much of my life up till recently, vs. primarily doing my (meaning of life?) investigations, and then simply following a bare minimum of rules, as a secondary concern, once already assuring completion of my main work first. Yet this latter approach seems to leave me feeling quite vulnerable (and afraid).

Meanwhile, I have a supervisory shadow self that is concerned with my at least giving the appearance of following the rules, to successfully get by, but he is patient and understanding. He will probably cut me some slack if I am accomplishing the investigative work (i.e. dream work, meditation, or related?). This reminds me of a Lifestream Way maxim: just do your daily meditation, and create around you a meditative atmosphere. Then everything else will take care of itself.]

7/13/07 - Title: "Farewell to a Really Cool, Unique Anima"

Christine is about to leave on a long trip. There is a sense that she won't be returning. Someone else will be (needs to be) taking over her duties and roll (role) in DG. But there is nobody to (who can) replace her.

7/15/07 - Title: "A Secret Knowledge of Seamanship Revealed"

I am a younger self and possess knowledge and skills (that I don't have in reality). I am aware of a looming (imminent) time that calls for real skill and leadership. My immediate supervisor in matters nautical is not really that skilled about seamonship (seamanship? semen-ship?). So, he gives us in the crew shit tasks to do, while the boat remains unready for the sea. Somehow I know, better than he, things that we ought to be doing. But, because he is my supervisor, anytime I ever look like I have a different idea from what he advises me and the rest of the crew, he gets defensive. But now it seems crucial that we prepare to get underweigh (underway) (prepare to weigh anchor), and so I do suggest, in a reticent manner, a couple things. He objects, not just at the info, but also the protocol of my recommendation (telling, or even hinting to, him what to do). Indeed, he is pissed but also confused, for he is trying to maintain proper supervisory control, yet in this is overwhelmed, not up to the task, if he will not quickly learn how to lead. And for some reason he never really learned how to make a craft seaworthy, much less actually take one to sea. So this time, when he objects, almost ready to bellow at me in shock, anger, and anxiety that I have the gall to try to tell him anything, I say, "But sir, it says right here in the manual...," pointing with my left hand at the reference I want in his manual, that gives the authority (for my humbly and privately made suggestion). Now he really glares at me and says "So help me, I'll have you in the brig for this, stealing my copy of the manual to look at it behind my back!" To which I mildly reply that, no, I had just studied my own copy of the manual. He insists we go confirm I have a copy too, but then looks at me with a new respect when I confirm having studied my own. "Well," he says, " (with wry amusement) since you know so gaul-derned much, you'd best not be wasting your time up here on the bridge," and he orders me to start, on my own, to make the craft [a small ship, maybe as big a boat as an ocean-going yacht] more seaworthy, which I am glad to do, beginning by oiling a number of the rusty tools and getting the engine room cleaned up and its tools and machines in working order, telling others in the crew I'd been ordered to it (these tasks) by the captain. A young woman [whose roll (role) here on the boat or craft is unclear, but who seems to belong, as though she is the craft's first mate (Frances? - except in the dream she is not someone I know... ). She is, in her own right, at least a skilled sea woman, a mermaid.] privately has a word with me, confirming what the captain had said and that I am to use my own initiative but regard it as the captain's orders that I do so. She said it had been almost infinitely patient and brilliant of me to wait for just the right moment, the way I had done, to reveal how much I know, but that now is the time to make use of that knowledge.

7/21/07 - Title: "Of Being or Become Saints, Flooded Places or Waterways, Preacher Background Relatives, and Our Sunday Best"

[Some business about] two very large people, one would be St. Paul or Paula and the other is me (though, of course, in reality I'm not very large, just have a few inches extra paunch). There's a now vague sense that this is a blending of two dreams. The large people are so big they are essentially spherical. [It's as though they are supposed to be that way, so, unlike regular folks, it's not a gross health factor.] One of them might be this St. Paul or Paula and the other might be (or be becoming) St. Phillip (me, except clearly I'm no saint). There's an image of a St. Paula (Paul) bridge shining and arcing in the son (sun) far above the city. St. Paul is in flood far below from a swollen Mississippi River, that flows by or through it there.). (And in the dream the St. Phillip is apparently also a major waterway.) Another image of a crowded hall or church full of people all in their Sunday best (suits or sports coats, nice shirts and trousers, and ties, fine dresses, etc.) [Paula was my maternal grandmother's first name. Phillip was my paternal grandmother's maiden name. My dad knew the Phillip family. Mama Rose, my paternal grandmother, was somewhat large, which (while) Mama Paula was petite and thin. Dad said I had been named after the Phillip family and Mama Rose's father, Great Grandpa Phillip, whom I never knew. He had been a church minister or preacher whom Dad respected. His own dad had been a preacher too, but he (Dad) rebelled, and they did not get along that well.]

7/25/07 - Title: "Contemplating a Spiritual Vista, But Still On the Fence"

I'm at a vantage point behind and above a tall wooden (privacy or palisade type) fence, or am on the fence itself, so that I can easily see over it, into an incredibly beautiful vista of shorter, younger blossoming dogwood trees (actually, they were blossoming rhododendrons) in the foreground and a thick forest of giant coast redwood trees in the background, many of which rise hundreds of feet into the sky, their canopies almost unbelievably gorgeous as they capture and filter the sunlight far aloft, with shafts of light coming through, here and there diffused by cool moisture-laden fog. There is a path going through that one could use if inside the fence.

[Am on the fence between the usual, everyday reality with which I am most familiar and comfortable, outside, and a spiritual path, within. It would require some effort and daring to go on over the fence and make the path inside my own. Outside, there are the illusions of companionship and of a common sense reality. Inside, it feels as though I would be alone, always facing the unknown, and in some danger. There are certainly hazards outside as well, including death, but they are ordinary ones I am used to. Those inside are unpredictable. The inner realms possibly are unreal or of only subjective reality, whereas I have the illusion that the familiar outer realm is true and reliable. Once inside, I am also not sure I could return.]

7/31/07 - Titles: "Fran Insists on Still More Independence;" and "Stress May Increase My Cancer"

1. Fran, in my absence, has decided to be much more independent. She finds she likes it that way and no longer needs or wants to consult me about a lot of things, thank you very much! She has, for instance, bought a new clothes washer while I was away and installed it or had it installed. It works fine, and she did not need or want to get my opinion about it first. Also, there is now a big stack of books in one part of the house, books I had brought in but that she is not interesting (interested) in reading or owning, so they are instead in this great stack, hundreds of them, waiting for me to get rid of, for she feels they are just taking up room better left as free space or used for something else. She says I have been too long treating her like a child, expecting us to coordinate, or that she must talk about things before going ahead and doing what she feels ought to be done, but that those times are over. I can kiss them goodbye, for now she'll just be her own woman! I think that she had already been far more independent (tending to make unilateral, and firm decisions about both of us without asking me) than I had been in our relationship, and I don't see how it could be much of a marriage if she were to be still much more independent. She says that is my problem, not hers, that she is just going to be true to herself, and if I can't handle it, too bad for me and our marriage, that she has no interest in a marriage in which she is expected to consult or talk with me frequently about things she knows perfectly well how to handle without me.

2. I am seeing my doctor (not my actual doctor), though it is not an official visit. I just happen to see him in the evening after he has finished his day of seeing patients. I seem to be living, or at least staying, in a transitory rooming facility (like a motel?), and for some reason he is there as well as others. It is as though for him it is his usual place, but for me it is a temporary abode. He asks out of politeness, as one does, how I am, and I say that I'm not bad, except my wife is now so independent I don't know if we can stay married. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that he says. He does not say, but I can tell he's thinking, that this will not be good for my cancer (I have, in reality, a sort of low-risk skin cancer, for which I've had several surgeries, such as 3 times deep on/in my nose.), as it tends to get worse in times of stress.

[Does this mean a threat of more "can, sir!" if changes on the home front increase stress? And I'm sure it's about more independence, but whose: Fran's, mine, my anima's, all the above, or none of the above? Independence = end dependence?]

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