Soul: here I come

Some days, I am amazed at how intricately our (my) unconscious works to tell us its story.  My dreams which I mentioned yesterday involved some symbols which may be  pointing to my next step in anchoring my relationship to my soul.  What a concept.  I hardly know how to grasp the meaning of that.  Relationship to my soul:  who could ask for anything more.  Isn't that what we are all looking for, and there is the path revealed to me through a series of dreams which I haven't understood at all.  Hint:  in para 402, Jung says:  "Displacement and overlapping of images would be quite impossible if there did not exist between them an essential similarity of substance, a homoousia.  Father, mother, and son are of the same substance, and what is said of one is largely true of the other."  

My dreams have had overlapping images as well as references to grand son, son and therefore mother and grand mother.  More to come.

Dreams

Aha.  At last, I had three dreams last night which I could recall upon waking.  Me and my unconscious have been out of touch lately.  My active life has been very good:  in spite of the economy which leaves something to be desired to say the least.  My partner and I have taken a new lease on life which has been rewarding.  Also our Jung classes started up on Saturday so we are reading with renewed interest.  I have also been knitting again which is always a challenge.  Even though I enjoy doing it, some stitches in my work now I have never heard of so I have had to rip out some projects several times until I can learn how to do it.

My dreams last night were about mending relationships.  Some unknown person was calling couples to the front and renewing their vows.  A second dream involved discussions of what  makes a relationship work.  Amazing.  I am always surprised at the wisdom in our dreams, and now more of my clients are getting interested in dream work.   That too is very satisfying.

Symbolic Life and ritual

Have we (I) lost sight of our spiritual life.?  Do we have rituals that bring us closer to the divine?  I used to have several altars around my home to remind me of the sacred and also a place to be called to worship.  I have only one now although my sacred objects are spread all around our home.  To remind me of a life greater than my own; a culture which honors nature more than I do, and I want to get to the place where my life is a ceremony:  not just a time and place, but each moment in my life.  I guess this would be the symbolic life.  It would be bringing to each step a sense of the greater meaning and value involved in each individual life.  Over the weekend, the father of my children had meaningful conversations with each of them.  It was good.  In some ways it healed the wounds left by his abandonment of them.  As we age, many things that seemed so important before begin to pale in significance as we reach a certain age where our mortality is felt.  Forgiveness happens without any intent.  Each of my children called him and had conversations which had not happened before.  Amazing!

Symbolic Life

In volume 18 of Jung's Collected Works, he clarifies what is meant by living a symbolic life.  I am very moved by what he says.  On page 273, "symbolic has to do with participation in the ritual of life."  page 274, he writes:  "only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul--the daily need of the soul mind you.!"  page 275, he says:  "Life the life that makes sense.   A career, producing of children, are all maya compared with that one thing, that your life is meaningful."  Page 276:  "Your soul has become lonely; it is ...in a state of no-salvation."  page 279: A symbolic life:  fulfill the secret will in yourself:  the unconscious produces the symbols that bring them back into the original symbolic life.

All of these quotes begin to energize my deep feelings of value and trust.  I feel very comforted by these quotes.  When Scott was dying, I believe I was deeply involved in the ritual of his life as it intersected with mine.  This is the symbolic life.  We were both living in a different reality from the ordinary life of others.  Although we did laundry, cooked, watched TV, we were both in tune with one another.  A true blessing under the worst conditions I have ever endured.  It also healed me, my parents, our relationship even in the midst of such horror.

Living a symbolic life

Not much happening in my dream life right now.  It puzzles me how dreams come and go.  I have no idea what determines how much we remember or what we dream about.  I know Jung says that dreams are compensations for daily life.  Perhaps I don't need any compensation right now.  My life is moving along in a way I never thought possible.  There has come an ease and kindness that I have been searching for forever, and here it is.  I don't even know how to account for it:  I just know that it is here.  I welcome these days where the world I live in is friendly, compassionate, sensitive, and welcoming.  Of course there are challenges:  I wouldn't want it any other way.  However the challenges are not overwhelming me or destroying me.  All of these current experiences suggest and validate for me that there is a self-regulating system at work in me that may be conscious at times and unconscious at other times.  Perhaps this is the result of living a symbolic life.

What change does to identity

I realized yesterday that it has taken me six years to move from my professional identity to my human identity.  I also see that being a professional brought me status in my family and in the world.  I remember that after I received my Ph.D. people listened.  I really hadn't changed what I was saying or lecturing about, but students listened and took me much more seriously.  I was amazed that a couple of letters behind my name gave me so much more status and respect.  Inside I was the same person before and after achieving my Ph.D.  When I moved to CT, I had vowed to sat aside my life as a professional and being a more human journey.  I was not prepared for the feelings of valuelessness and worthlessness that flooded my system.  I really had no preparation for what to do with myself if I weren't responsible to someone else.  

During that six years, I had to take time out to heal from breast cancer which took about two years of full time healing work and then some recovery which feels like it is completed now.  I have much more respect for change and the challenges those changes bring.  I expected to feel free, and in truth, I felt jailed by my former life.  I guess six years isn't so bad after all.

Patience and frustration:twins of change

The long time I have been wandering around the tree in my moccasins has finally paid off.  My libido has returned and I am filled with new energy to take my next step.  Patience and enduring long periods of frustration have ended up in being able to "come together" in a new way.  Maybe a further discernment of a new orientation to life.  Interestingly enough as this new way has opened up, my dreams have been many and when I awake, I have no memory of what they are.  This may be a compensation for how full my daily life is now so that all of my fullness doesn't come from my dreams.  I welcome the change.