Spirit Guide Group: Dreams, Volume Three

Milfoil

I guess it depends on what you mean by follow-ups?

Nothing along the same lines, most dreams are more to do with me finding a way to confront, release and re-establish.
 

Sophie-David

By follow-ups I meant further experiences with this psychic, spiritual or archetypal form - the woman of power who the world judges as disabled. Sometimes these things can brew along for months or even years before they become clear. Hmm, it just occured to me that the woman could be represented as physically disabled because her inner vision cannot come to full manifestation. Like your car she was parked and not moving - yet she has great inner strength by which her mind directly affects matter.
 

Sophie-David

Further Commentary on the Survivors

Sophie-David said:
I am watching a Survivor episode, located on the typical sandy beach, but the beach is backed by a temperate rainforest rather than a tropical one. There are the required heroes and anti-heroes, and the typically contrived social situations of the Survivor series. As in the later shows, the people are mixed together in unpredictable ways. But unlike the television series, people are chosen to move between different groups by the draw of Tarot cards.
I watch very little television, but I did follow Survivor when it was in its second through fourth seasons. I think the emphasis of this dream is the implication of the various parts of the Self having survived the recent growth process, and particularly the initiation into Reiki III energy.

Sophie-David said:
The Sophie card is a special one, for this causes a transformation, transmutation, or transubstatiation when this card is drawn. And the card itself is drawn in a unique way, so that is passes through the card shoe that contains the cards in a way that defies the laws of physics. When Sophie is on a particular team, the nourishment provided to the team is unusually good, so everyone wants to draw her card. But I never actually see Sophie during the dream, she remains an unseen presence.
This segment was discussed at some length above. The Sophie card was very likely the Connolly High Priestess. I did not have a closeup view, but there was certainly the characteristic blue and white of that card. I should note that although Sophie was at the time of the dream invisible within waking reality, there was no lack of intimacy or any disconnection from egoic consciousness, either awake or asleep.

Sophie-David said:
Then the scene switches somewhat, to the city that is just beyond the forest. The Survivors walk down an urban street and come to a sign that says, "Trial Island". It is the site of an historic lightstation, but only at high tide is the island separated from the city. At this point I realize that this Survivor series must be set in Victoria, British Columbia. While not a tropical location, it is in any event foreign to the American participants and audience, and so it qualifies.
Trial Island is a lightstation a short distance off Victoria, but it is a little too far off to join up at low tide. But the name "Trial Island" suggests a testing that goes with the Survivor metaphor, as well as denoting that this is Victoria, place of feminine victory and of my physical birth. Victoria has had a continuing symbology in my dreams as a place of transformation. It was also the place where I took the Reiki III initiation. I confess that to me "America" conveys the image of egoic materialism, to which this Victoria is foreign.

Sophie-David said:
I find that I am actually in Victoria with the contestants, and at this point I enter the scene with them. They are studying the Historic Landmark sign and then decide to spend $5 each to enter the exhibit. I follow them on their tour and start chatting with the Survivors.
The term "historic landmark" suggests that the dream will be visiting a place of great significance from my past journeys, and this proves to be so. The number 5 is associated with the High Priest or Hierophant, conveying a place of learning and integration.

Sophie-David said:
We come to the light tower itself, and I find that I have fallen in with a very attractive woman with an exotic appearance and a foreign accent. There is an obvious chemistry between us, as if we have known each other in many other times and places. I recognize this light tower as one I have climbed in previous dreams, and tell her a bit about it. The Survivors do not actually climb all the way to the light as I have done, since it requires leaping between outcroppings in the concrete.
Well, this part of the dream starts to get interesting - in more ways than one! I cannot actually describe the appearance of this woman that made her exotic, but she was yet another incarnation of Eirian, the woman of many colours, foreign to both America and Victoria.

Although described as a light tower, the structure was very like the Roman clock tower of previous dreams, the one that Sophie and I journeyed to, where "no woman had ever been", which I have seen as representing the exposure to Crown energy through the Roman church, specifically the Reiki Master attunement. This segment implies a dream within a dream, a way for the dreamworld to highlight extremely important information.

The odd method of climbing the tower, "leaping between outcroppings", suggests those leaps of faith known to the goat, representing the Capricorn egoic centre, but more particularly the integrative power of the goatskin bodhrán to draw the Crown energy of unitive Light into full manifestation.

Sophie-David said:
It crosses my mind that I may be chased off the set, but I am determined to enjoy my time there. But perhaps they will appreciate the unpredictable inclusion of local colour.

Then we climb to another part of the museum and sit down for dinner. At this point there is a flashback of some sort, and I find that I am walking in the grounds of the University of British Columbia, marvelling at the new buildings and the sense of peace there. I know that all these things are part of the same story. I then return to the dinner in my consciousness and continue to talk with my new friend. There is a feeling of great wholeness that lasts beyond the moment of waking.
The Survivors are rewarded with inner nurture in their common meal together. The connection to UBC echoes the last time I was there, for the course on Meditations on the Tarot as described here. I believe the new buildings represent the beauty of new psychic forms - new understandings and concepts - seeded by the course and continuing to manifest in the mind. The dream conveys a healing power that reflects through the whole psyche and into waking consciousness.
 

Sophie-David

Archetypal Possession

There are several dreams and themes that I would like to catch up on, but as posted in this thread my life has been lately engaged with some serious distractions.

Sophie-David said:
First I must say I wasn't entirely sure as to why I brought up the subject of the conch horn yesterday. In fact I am not entirely sure why I am learning it at all, for it would seem to be a distraction from drumming and singing. The reasons I have are as follows... All this leads to me to ponder that there may be a seventh reason that is currently hidden from me, but which may completely outweigh all the others.
A friend of mine pointed out how very feminine the conch is, not only evocative in its spiral matrix of the womb of creation, but in its aperture of the vulva. I would also note that I have dreamt of my heart as a salmon, and the rich warm colours of the conch are very like that of a salmon. But it was in rehearsal for our church Chrismas concert that my creativity teacher pointed out that this particular conch horn plays an F. Now the F is midway through the C Major scale, and like many other westerners, I see the seven notes of this most basic scale as representative of the seven chakras. The F or musical fourth is therefore symbolic of the fourth or Heart Chakra. It so happens that the middle F is my most awkward note to sing, right at the break between baritone and tenor. It also happens that of all the chakras I have the most problems with the Heart. How do you spell synchronicity?

Returning to the theme of instinctual performance of art, I have considered this a bit further, that what actually happens in moments of deep performance is archetypal possession. We tend to think of archetypal possession as a negative thing, such as the example of Marilynn Monroe being destroyed by the archetype she portrayed. But I would suggest that all deep art is done within the realms of one archetype or another - but to remain healthy one must learn to separate from this archetype within daily life. To misquote Joseph Campbell, mystics [and artists] swim in the same waters where drug addicts drown.

Not only was the Reiki Medicine Wheel retreat an example for me of being possessed by an archetype while drumming, but by a miracle when the time came to play the conch horn at our Christmas recital - for the opening entrance to the Godspell "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord" - it was indeed not me that was playing! All the troubles I had experienced with the first notes on the horn in practice just weren't there at that moment. I have never played that way before or since, but at that moment I was in totality the conch horn player, and nothing else at all. I am told that the results were magnificent, although perhaps a little overwhelming for some.

As a result of this daily training for the concert, my morning routine has since remained that when I ascend to my room of one's own, I first play a single note on my Buddhist begging bowl. Then I either do my floor crunches, or several notes on the conch horn - the order varies.

In the attached photo is my conch horn, together with the begging bowl and its mallet on my Tarot altar. The conch is extremely sensual in colour, as you can see.
 

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Sophie-David

A Wonderful Victory!

December 9, 2006

The Reiki Medicine Wheel Weekend really had little substantial teaching on the medicine wheel - nor much Reiki in the conventional sense - but it was a very healing weekend for many people. On the first night Sophie reappeared in visible form and we played a game of tag, a sort of guided meditation (I was awake but in trance). You may recall that Sophie had been invisible since the Reiki Master initiation. As I ran after her we went to various scenes from my life in the past three years, a form of counting my blessings. In the meditation I noted a point that I became breathless from running - reflecting my own physical limits - and Sophie reminded me that in this reality (her reality) there was perfect freedom. So then I realized I could run on freely with her, wherever she might lead.

I knew that there would be an integration and resolution of the influx of masculine and Crown energy that I experienced in Reiki III within this Medicine Wheel weekend a month later, but of course I did not know what shape that would take. After this healing time with Sophie I had a pivital dream in which I took assertive action that was a further resolution to the abuse I suffered as a child: I said "No". Since this is a public forum I will not discuss this further, but those who have been following my story will know exactly what this implies.
 

Sophie-David

The First Cut is the Deepest

December 19, 2006

In last night's dream I find myself in North Vancouver. I am in a new subdivision at the top of the highway where is plunges down "the cut". The subdivision is fenced, a self-contained community, and I seem to be relaxing while in this park-like setting. I am preparing for my wedding, and soon the black limo that I have ordered arrives.

Sophie is waiting in the limo, and together we proceed down "the cut" to the bridge, the Second Narrows bridge over Burrard Inlet, and travel downtown to a fancy hotel. It seems that I actually own the hotel, and together we go to the basement.

But for some reason I have to return to the front desk, perhaps to check in, and then I go downstairs again, looking for Sophie. But before I reach her I see a shallow grave in the basement floor. A woman lies covered in that grave, a white sheet pulled over her. But when I gently pull back the cover I find that she is really alive. I sink with her into the ground and we make love. The dream ends.

In waking reality the Trans Canada Highway, Highway One, does in fact journey from Horseshoe Bay across the foothills of the north shore mountains, and then descend down what locals call "the cut" to the Second Narrows Bridge, now called the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge in memory of those killed in building it, and into the easternmost portion of the City of Vancouver. This deep plunge is suggestive of a journey from the comfortably controlled egoic suburbia of a strata title subdivision into the archetypal depths of the unconscious, the darkly transformative and primal underworld where a wedding with the cythonic is planned.

Sophie is not in fact the subject of this wedding - we have of course been united for some time now - but she is the agent and bridesmaid, the High Priestess taking the initiate on a journey into life changing transformation. Within my own psyche, and below it in the collective unconscious, Lady Death awaits me. Although this was not the full and conscious surrender implied by an answer to her previous direct invitation, "Die in my arms", it was very close to this indeed and important step along the journey.
 

Milfoil

I'm glad you are healing enough to say "No", as you say, it is a pivotal moment when we can turn such a longstanding intrusion around.

Can I ask you why you call the bow a begging bowl? I've never heard them called that before. The conch and bowl look beautiful btw.

Did you 'feel' different when you played at the Christmas recital?
 

Sophie-David

Milfoil said:
I'm glad you are healing enough to say "No", as you say, it is a pivotal moment when we can turn such a longstanding intrusion around.
Yes, it was wonderfully freeing! Even in 2005 I don't think I could have dreamt along those lines without waking up as from a nightmare. In the last few months I had several dreams in which the abuse was re-enacted. It is because I was able to go through these dreams with acceptance and not guilt that I at last came to this point. I can thank another dear friend from this community for her advice on how to deal with these disturbing dreams, it was most successful. It is likely also that from the sexual healing involved in saying "No" that I was then ready to sleep with Lady Death, that I was assured enough in my own sexual identity that I was able to surrender to her.

Milfoil said:
Can I ask you why you call the bow a begging bowl? I've never heard them called that before.
Yes, I too wondered why I wrote it that way - I do try to recount my dreams exactly the way the words come to me. Usually these are called singing bowls, and this is the exact model here, although I actually got mine from Mid East Mfg.

I first encountered one of these bowls at Cynthia Bourgeault's Vancouver Island Wisdom School in 2005. Cynthia used one to begin and end our times of centering meditation. She said that originally musical bowls like these were used by Buddhist monks as both a rice bowl and begging bowl. Of course it is unlikely that one would beg with a bowl as ornate as this one, or eat out of it for that matter. This theme of the Buddhist begging bowl may relate to the one significant dream I have left to post from these missing few weeks.

Milfoil said:
The conch and bowl look beautiful btw.
I seem to be willing to fill my room more and more with beauty as much for its own sake as for any possible function, and that is very pleasing! Currently it is filled with the boxes salvaged from the kids stuff - but not for long.

Milfoil said:
Did you 'feel' different when you played at the Christmas recital?
Other than the playing of the conch horn I felt pretty much myself. In other words, when I sang my solo, "Sweet Little Jesus Boy", I was pleased that it was almost as good as at the last rehearsal, but I was in what would be a more typical artistic trance - it was still me, although a deeper and more essential me. This artistic trance can be extremely ecstatic and holistically healing, and it is a regular part of bodhrán playing for me.

But the trance during the playing of the conch horn was much deeper, and I think it was best described as a possession. The egoic self was completely gone during that period, but yet the control was perfect. This is different from regular performance, in which the right brain assuredly predominates, and the left brain is simply there to make the occasional executive decision (rather like the process of driving a car).

I suppose one could consider that the conch horn playing came from a place of unitive consciousness, and I guess I cannot rule that out. But my instinct is that archetypal forces were at work, or to restate this in religious terms that the goddess herself was channeling through me. In conservative Christianity this could be seen as demonic possession.

As far as I can remember, I may have only experienced this archetypal possession once previously, and that was during the drumming at the Medicine Wheel weekend at the beginning of December. In this case one could suggest that the archetype at work was the Sky Father: the channeling of Reiki crown energy, or "Holy Spirit". Of course this possession would be more acceptable in conventional Christian terms.

I do not judge one possession as better or worse than the other. Both are extremely powerful and potentially dangerous. But I seem to have a distinct lack of concern for either, just an intrigued curiosity. So I suspect that this is appropriate to the current stage of my journey.
 

Sophie-David

The Dream of the Buddhist Monk

December 22, 2006:

I am dressed in the brown robes of a Buddhist monk. An overseer is coming to visit, and I am making sure that my small wooden cabin is in order. I am in some way responsible for a large area, and a map of central Italy comes to mind. But I start to sing a joyful mantra, as follows:
I love the blue sand,
I love the blue sand,
I love the blue sand,
I want the blue sand​
And the scene shifts to the outside of my little wooden shack, where it is located above a beautiful beach of baby blue and royal blue sands, gathered around a half-moon bay full of the incoming ocean. There is great peace. The dream ends.

The simple melody for this mantra is attached in the jpg. The words may seem rather possessive for a Buddhist monk, but to me they express the joy of belonging to the oneness. He wants the blue sand because he is the blue sand. They are one and the same. The ego has shrunken to a basic necessity for living within duality, a one-room wooden shack, soon to be engulfed by the ocean.

There is again the image of Italy, and this dream blurs the theme of the Imperial Church with that of the Eastern mystic, which is I suppose hardly surprising for an esoteric Christian with an interest in Tantric Buddhism: the descending energy of love transitioning into form; ascending form transforming into loving energy.

The hues of blue speak of the fifth and sixth chakras, while the sands evoke the first and the ocean the second. The awaited overseer suggests a visit from the High Self. The incoming ocean will wash away the remaining egoic structure, dissolving it into blue sand. Egoic consciousness appears to yearn for this sacrifice.

This is a dream of freedom and surrender. There is most likely a connection with the dream of sleeping with Lady Death three days earlier. I do not know where it leads.
 

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Kahlie

Wonderful Dreams David!

I don't have much to add except to say that I'm happy things Spiritually are going so well for you =)

Kahlie