There are many ways to wrap up the old year and bring in the new. Personally, I don’t see the point of New Year’s resolutions. Like daydreams, they’re rarely based on reality; like good intentions, they never make any difference; and like drugs, they only provide fleeting comfort.
It is holiday season in many parts of the planet, and God and Goddess are sitting on their lawn thrones observing the many rituals their children on Earth have created to celebrate their Mystery. There are preparations: lists drawn up, duties assigned, purchases made, rehearsals attended. Spaces are beautified.
Psychologists look for meaning in dream, myth, and fairy tale symbols because, as products of the unconscious, they compensate for the narrow visions of our egos and show us what we need to know to grow and thrive. Reflecting on the metaphorical meaning of our stories educates, encourages, and empowers us.
If the entire psyche were to be compared to a mystery story, complete with plot, characters, and events, the ego would be the detective who can never know all the facts because s/he cannot inhabit the minds of the other characters or be everywhere at once to see all that happens behind the scenes.
The killing fields of Cambodia are worse than I imagined. You pull into a parking lot. You walk under a stucco arch identifying this as a site of genocide. You get it. In your mind. But you are utterly unprepared for the impact it makes on your emotions.
Wedding dreams mark transitions between outworn stages of growth and more mature ones. Essentially, they are metaphors about the dreamer’s readiness for greater internal unity and the birth of new psycho-spiritual life.
We’re in Bangkok on the first leg of our trip. Twelve of us are traveling with a guide, a native Thailander from a village near the river Kwai. He tells us it’s winter, but it’s hot, in the upper 80’s. Luckily, the little bus we travel in is air-conditioned.
If you are reading this post on the day of its publication, two days before Thanksgiving, I am on a plane headed for Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia, sites of some of the most horrendous killing fields on the planet where vast numbers of human beings suffered and died in ways I cannot imagine or bear to think about. What was left for them to be grateful for in their last moments?
Recurring dreams can be especially effective teachers. They describe important inner truths that require your attention. Once you recognize these aspects of your unknown self and can see their impact on your waking life, recurring dreams lose their value and disappear.
The dream “Nude Descending Stairs” demonstrated how full of myself I was feeling for having bared a “naked” truth. That same night I had a second dream depicting the other side of the tightrope. Prepare yourself. It’s kind of gross.
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