The Wedding Feast
September 23, 2006
Yesterday they gave me some time off for good behaviour (no "big dreams"), so that I had a chance yesterday evening to cast my
Spirit Guide Draw for this past week, as well as to focus on this week's vocal lesson. It was in any case difficult to focus because I was full of my news of ordering the riq, and the significance of this as revealed in this dream cycle. But my teacher has given me some helpful new exercises that - as is typical of her intuitive style - tie in strongly with the rest of the creative work I am doing.
There is still a disconnect between head and body, and although both are growing very healthily separately, it is the heart integration that still needs a lot of work. The detachment of my head is still quite evident in my singing style and posture, and this confirms one of the revelations of this week, that the two sacred marriages have both occurred in the head, one at the Third Eye and one at the Throat. It is obviously not quite as simple as that, for these integrations did not occur in isolation - the whole spirit-soul emotive body had to be involved - but nonetheless that is where the focal points occurred.
When I woke early this morning and I had already had a significant but somewhat vague dream. Then I heard Lady Death say, "Come with me to the gates of death - and hell!" And although I agreed with her in principle, I know that my heart was not in it - again the ego has turned down the invitation to die in her arms! Its bloody frustrating! Yes, I know, a process has to be gone through - just venting a little! Yes, and I know what hell is too, simply the blessed inferno of the Sun, and the Solar Plexus, the sun that burns within - is that so difficult? There is a seemingly simple exercise that I do on the bodhrán that I have dubbed the "infernal reel", and I still have trouble with it - either the left brain gets obsessed with the detail and interferes with the fluidity of the playing, or the right brain goes off and does its own thing! I can see now exactly why I have called it "infernal" - it is all to do with egoic balance.
I also notice that in the "This Place Riqs" dream of my wife, "Geri Halliwell", using the Piscean drum to invoke the descent of air to water, that the ego is interested - entertained - but detached from her work. This is unhealthy egoic detachment, the ego tentative and uncommitted in situations in which involvement is appropriate. In fear of being overbearing and abusive (like my father), the ego only seems to know how to be assertive
as a role, rather than as an extension of his identity.
Consequent to my refusal of Lady Death's invitation she instead took me on another archetypal dream adventure, a repetition of the earlier dream, but in greater detail, as follows:
I see the woman whom I recognize as Kundalini Shakti: she has dark hair and is currently dressed in luxuriant violets. But even though her form is defined and substantial, I find her almost impossible to describe, for her presence is so all encompassing that her features have become impersonal. She is with her consort, her lover. He is somewhat shadowy and insubstantial, even the colour of his clothing is sepia toned and unremarkable, but he has a smooth, beautiful and angelic face, subtly radiant with a light from within, and above.
Together they sit down at the high altar, a table in the sanctuary at the very front of the church, below the stained glass windows. They are surrounded by golds and reds, and they begin their wedding feast - a lavish setting of meats, breads, fruits and milks. They are quite alone. The dream ends.
This was yet another simple yet extraordinarily beautiful and vivid dream, a vision of something very close to heaven. This is of course the marriage feast of Shiva and Shakti, of spirit and soul, held high in the realm of spirit, at the seat of the human crown. It answers a question that I had, "Where is Shiva?", because although I had seen Shakti descending, it was never with her consort. The dream imagery conveys his presence very creatively, as one who through passion for Shakti, is beginning to change and assume form. My feeling at this point is that Shakti bears Shiva within her, not as a pregnancy but as an indwelling presence.
) and suggest that the fire could be viewed as a positive thing, that sometimes people and places need to take light in an abundance of creative energy, that sometimes old forms need to make way for new, that this dynamic masculine archetype of change and destruction balances that of the spider, who is so devoted to maintaining and nurturing the status quo. Thus the fire becomes an agent of Lady Death, so that the creative cycle may be regenerated.