Sophie-David
Further Thoughts on the Squirrel and the Earthy Cave
The dream of the Earthy Cave proved to be very fertile for further exploration at my last creativity session, and I have been meaning to post further insights on it for some time. I'm just going to add further information beyond what was first posted. This was the dream itself:
As I wrote earlier, the key to this ascent is in the squirrel. My colleague in the dream represents an industrious worker acting out of fear for his job, with lack of focus because of these fears, but with a great memory, probably aided by severe suppression of subjective consciousness, and with a doom and gloom anxiety. This in fact seems to be the negative and controlling side of being a squirrel - fearfully tucking away food with neurotically possessive intensity.
But the positive side of the squirrel is his activity and energy, abundant life, cuteness, industriousness, alertness and friendliness. These reflect the energy of the Solar Plexus Chakra. In High School I had many of these aspects of the "squirrelly" squirrel, also including a manic and high-spirited attitude, and prance walking. The positive squirrel gathers energy from the lower chakras, nourishment from among the roots and earthy caves, and stores them further up in the tree. In the dream my regret was that I did not befriend the squirrel, which was part of my instinctive nature.
Then we recalled how the experience of my first true love had been played out in the last year of High School, ending during the critical transition of the summer before university. This deep soul love was broken not by falling out of love, but by the individual victimhoods in our abusive homes, the relationship never really ending but left hanging without resolution. With this broken heart came the suppression of the life and energy of the squirrel self, and I realized that this heart which had been first injured by my abusive parents had suffered a further tear which had never been mended.
And so came my core belief that being a squirrel is the way of madness: surrendering to one's emotions, instincts, spontaneity, unfettered giving and light-hearted joy through the full opening of the heart resulted in a pain that was too much to bear.
So my assignment was to process this dream more fully, as I have done here, and to act out being a squirrel. Over the course of the next two weeks I successfully resisted both of these activities! But early in this week the dream director began with some gentle encouragment, first in the dream of restoring my Salmon heart to the river of nurturing consciousness, and secondly with a dream on Thursday morning this week which I will describe in brief:
I dreamt that I was entering an office building to meet with an important client. But when I reached the elevator I realized that I was going to be accompanied by a secret agent who would help me in this encounter. We pretended not to know each other as she casually got on the elevator after me. She was a white woman who appeared to be Asian. Once we were on the correct floor we visited the client together, and the meeting was successful. At this point the secret agent was wearing black.
The scene changed and the secret agent was reporting to a woman who was her superior. They both agreed that the agent should avoid getting emotionally involved with me, the dream ego. But underlying their words, both knew and confirmed with each other that the exact opposite would happen, in spite of the pretence of professionalism. In the next scene the secret agent had followed me to my room, now wearing white, and it was clear that we were going to have an erotic encounter. The dream ended.
This is a long post, so I will keep the analysis brief. This was in a sense an "attaboy" dream expressing the encouragement of the Creative Beloved who represents the Heart Chakra, for the disciplined work I have been doing in the past two weeks at my vocal practice, centering meditation and chakra based healing. It was also a gentle reminder that further squirrel work was needed before the heart could unfold fully, which would likely be imaged in the dream union with the Creative Beloved. She is a secret agent because her indentity is not fully developed and revealed, but as this occurs her dress changes from black shadow to white revelation.
So at last today I did act out being a squirrel, bringing body knowledge to the ideal that it is alright to fully surrender to the madness of love, opening the Solar Plexus fully so that the Heart can fill with the energy from below.
Incidentally Sue, I used the cover of a children's book from England called Finding Out About Animals as a focal point for entering "squirrel consciousness" - it features the famous but endangered British Red Squirrel. He now remains on my music stand as a reminder, and it is likely that I will move him to my "Tarot altar" later.
The dream of the Earthy Cave proved to be very fertile for further exploration at my last creativity session, and I have been meaning to post further insights on it for some time. I'm just going to add further information beyond what was first posted. This was the dream itself:
The morning before the creativity session, I woke up with an inspiration to do an Ace of Cups using a photo I had made of a rose surrounded by a vulva shaped piece of driftwood, which I worked on and posted here today. This was a key towards interpreting the dream, for not only was this a journeying within imagery of the Root Chakra, but perhaps even more surrounded by images of feminine sexuality and the Sacral Chakra, including the vulvic cave among the roots, the moisture meter indicating healthy sexual arousal, and the fir branch lying like a clitoris by the exit tunnel. The mission for both the squirrel and I was to ascend from this place of grounding and birth into duality up the Chakral tree.Sophie-David said:We were journeying through an underground cave made of black earth, travelling from an opening at the right towards an exit on the left. The cave was full of very healthy roots, the roots of trees. We had just exited, then Mr. Saturn asked me if I had seen a moisture meter that was located up the slope of the cave among the roots. He said it showed that the roots were very healthy.
I went back in through the exit we had just come out of. I saw the meter up the slope and although I didn't climb up close to the meter, I could see that Mr. Saturn was correct. Then a squirrel came down from among the roots. He was carrying a small fresh green branch of fir tree in his teeth. I was somewhat afraid of the squirrel because I thought it might have rabies, although part of me knew that he didn't, so the fear was not a logical one. I thought of getting a stick to drive the squirrel away, or shouting at it, but again part of me thought that this was not the right thing to do. It was also clear that Mr. Saturn was not going to help, I got the impression he thought I had brought the situation on myself.
However, because I could not feel I could go near the squirrel I was in danger of being trapped among the roots. Somehow the exit tunnel had shrunk down to squirrel size, but although this had happened I knew that I could leave through the exit anyway. However, the squirrel started to place the fir branch in the exit tunnel and I felt like I was going to be trapped. Although I wasn't panicing, I seemed to be at an impasse. I woke up.
As I wrote earlier, the key to this ascent is in the squirrel. My colleague in the dream represents an industrious worker acting out of fear for his job, with lack of focus because of these fears, but with a great memory, probably aided by severe suppression of subjective consciousness, and with a doom and gloom anxiety. This in fact seems to be the negative and controlling side of being a squirrel - fearfully tucking away food with neurotically possessive intensity.
But the positive side of the squirrel is his activity and energy, abundant life, cuteness, industriousness, alertness and friendliness. These reflect the energy of the Solar Plexus Chakra. In High School I had many of these aspects of the "squirrelly" squirrel, also including a manic and high-spirited attitude, and prance walking. The positive squirrel gathers energy from the lower chakras, nourishment from among the roots and earthy caves, and stores them further up in the tree. In the dream my regret was that I did not befriend the squirrel, which was part of my instinctive nature.
Then we recalled how the experience of my first true love had been played out in the last year of High School, ending during the critical transition of the summer before university. This deep soul love was broken not by falling out of love, but by the individual victimhoods in our abusive homes, the relationship never really ending but left hanging without resolution. With this broken heart came the suppression of the life and energy of the squirrel self, and I realized that this heart which had been first injured by my abusive parents had suffered a further tear which had never been mended.
And so came my core belief that being a squirrel is the way of madness: surrendering to one's emotions, instincts, spontaneity, unfettered giving and light-hearted joy through the full opening of the heart resulted in a pain that was too much to bear.
So my assignment was to process this dream more fully, as I have done here, and to act out being a squirrel. Over the course of the next two weeks I successfully resisted both of these activities! But early in this week the dream director began with some gentle encouragment, first in the dream of restoring my Salmon heart to the river of nurturing consciousness, and secondly with a dream on Thursday morning this week which I will describe in brief:
I dreamt that I was entering an office building to meet with an important client. But when I reached the elevator I realized that I was going to be accompanied by a secret agent who would help me in this encounter. We pretended not to know each other as she casually got on the elevator after me. She was a white woman who appeared to be Asian. Once we were on the correct floor we visited the client together, and the meeting was successful. At this point the secret agent was wearing black.
The scene changed and the secret agent was reporting to a woman who was her superior. They both agreed that the agent should avoid getting emotionally involved with me, the dream ego. But underlying their words, both knew and confirmed with each other that the exact opposite would happen, in spite of the pretence of professionalism. In the next scene the secret agent had followed me to my room, now wearing white, and it was clear that we were going to have an erotic encounter. The dream ended.
This is a long post, so I will keep the analysis brief. This was in a sense an "attaboy" dream expressing the encouragement of the Creative Beloved who represents the Heart Chakra, for the disciplined work I have been doing in the past two weeks at my vocal practice, centering meditation and chakra based healing. It was also a gentle reminder that further squirrel work was needed before the heart could unfold fully, which would likely be imaged in the dream union with the Creative Beloved. She is a secret agent because her indentity is not fully developed and revealed, but as this occurs her dress changes from black shadow to white revelation.
So at last today I did act out being a squirrel, bringing body knowledge to the ideal that it is alright to fully surrender to the madness of love, opening the Solar Plexus fully so that the Heart can fill with the energy from below.
Incidentally Sue, I used the cover of a children's book from England called Finding Out About Animals as a focal point for entering "squirrel consciousness" - it features the famous but endangered British Red Squirrel. He now remains on my music stand as a reminder, and it is likely that I will move him to my "Tarot altar" later.