That flickering lamp across the sea...
Sophie-David said:
PS. Actually I won't be describing it shortly, because the dream log is at home, and I won't be home for about nine days - whoops!
Here is the "missing" dream and commentary...
In last night's dream, the morning of May 23, 2006, I am at a workplace in the desert. I find that some female workers had broken in to some off-limits metal trailers to take their breaks out of the sun. It is hard to believe that these abandoned and unfurnished buildings could give them much rest. At least if they were buried in the ground they would be a little cooler. I point out to their leader that these places were never meant for human habitation, and indeed for all they knew radioactive barrels of green waste could be stored here, as you might see in the Simpsons.
So I lead them to a technical worksite, like one of our remote sites, give them keys and show them around. At this point the operations manager appears - the technical shop seemed to be attached to a kind of school - and as manager of the school he also wants access. So I also give him keys and show him around. Then both the women, the techs and the operations people gather in the technical area and it is rather like a pub. We began to sing a song which had formerly just been for the technical group, but now the women in particular take ownership of it too:
"That flickering lamp across the sea
Ere was it ever meant for me."
The dream ends.
Well this dream was certainly a puzzle. At first I thought it might be about bring my internal feminine to work in my Coast Guard job. But in all honesty I think that I do, and in shower analysis this didn't feel that it was at all the right answer. Instead I think there is link back to the dream of yesterday, where I was married to a different woman and we lived deep in the ground, in a sterile and dry as dust technological research centre. There is a sense that both light and water could be brought to the dry and dark earthen workplace.
But I think the key is that there needs to be a nurturing of the creative self in the dark places that Scorpio goes. For Sophie this week I watched Dvorak's
Rusalka, and for me I saw the
Dark City DVD last night. Eirian too needs that nurture. I recall that it was her who was most afraid of the Wheel of Fortune buried deep below the psyche, and like most fears this comes from lack of understanding. I need the feminine vision of darkness, not the vision of the moon, but that of the twilight stars. This is the perfect question to ask my creativity teacher with her Scorpio stellium, and it just happens that I have a voice lesson with her today. I am seeking a creative work, perhaps in film, literature, art or music, that expresses the feminine dark vision - not the emotive one but the creative, like a Biblical prophecy made from a woman's terms.
I then posted the thread
How to Nurture the Deep Feminine, and found that the answer at this time was a return to reading
Women Who Run with the Wolves.
Then on May 23 and 24 I did some Tarot readings to expand on this dream, using the
Victoria Regina.
Who were the women working in the desert? My creativity mentor pointed out that since they were poorly defined, they may represent either newly arising feminine energies, and/or those that has been repressed.
Woman One (the Leader who broke into the metal sheds): King of Wands - represented in this deck by Benjamin Disraeli, policitician and novelist, looks somewhat feminine, exotic, flambuoyant and showy. Ambitious, passionate, creative, stylish, inventive, may lack tolerance. My impression is that this character is not unlike the Empress operating in less than ideal conditions.
What does she need? Five of Wands Rx - the end of conflict and game playing
Woman Two: Temperance Reversed - the female alchemist, but delayed, will follow after Death [I wrote this before knowing that I would soon pull the Death card and encounter Lady Death], out of balance
What does she need? Eight of Wands Rx - going slow, rebalancing
Woman Three: Seven of Swords Rx - stealth, Scorpio energy, but blocked
What does she need? Two of Cups Rx - work in the shadow to resolve incompatiblity
What did the Sun in the dream of the women in the desert represent? King of Wands Rx - misused authority, arrogance, overbearing fire. This relates back to the dream of leaving the Heartland with the hart: the cultivated fields were reflected in the Sun Rx: overbearing egoic energy and repression.
How would it be best to nurture the women? Four of Coins Rx - their nurture requires risk, release and change, a letting go of control.
Elaborate on that (explain)? Seven of Cups - you need to make a choice guided by your emotions, but seeing through illusion and distraction
What do the women need? Ace of Coins Rx - detachment, taking things more lightly
What work were the women doing? Nine of Wands - defending themselves, even as they were being entrapped.
What work is appropriate for them? Queen of Coins Rx - that which makes them worthy instead of being debased
My creativity mentor pointed out that inviting them to the pub was not nurturing them, but was in fact the typical patriarchal ploy of forcing the feminine to fit into the system by joining the old boys club. I agree with this analysis.
The verse itself, "The flickering lamp across the sea, Ere was it ever meant for me", in combination with the pub setting, seems to imply a surrender of transcendent dreams in favour of distant and weakened illusion: the negative aspects of immersion in Neptune's Cups. There are also possible word plays, such as Ere meaning "Err" for error, or "Ere was it ever" as a corruption of Eirian's name. On face value, there is a clear astrological reference to natal Venus trine with Neptune in Scorpio, conjunct with the fire of Vesta in Libra - but unfortunately expressed as a flickering and faint hope rather than a transforming fire.
So having spent quite a bit of time on processing this dream, I realized that immediate action was necessary, and particularly that the ego needed putting in his place. The prescription proved to be
Women Who Run With the Wolves which led to the transforming and egoically frightening encounter with Lady Death, an encounter that the ego did his best to deny had happened at all, and then tried to forget. The ego's fears were well founded, as the emancipation of these women proved very threatening to continuing existence on his terms. Even though he avoided dying in Lady Death's arms, he is now on the run, and she will inevitably overtake him.
