A meeting with wealth

 I am at dinner with a man, he has long thick black curly "Italian" hair, like a number of men I have been in relationship with or attracted to.

At the dinner table I know (implicitly) that he has separated from his ex partner and that I am being 'tested' somehow as a suitable future partner. I feel anxious and insecure. He speaks to me but not directly, he speaks through insinuation, hints, implies things but never says them directly, then sees how I respond.

Most of the time he looks young and very very handsome. But there is a moment as the dream goes on that he looks very old, his skin is pale, dry and very wrinkled. He ages fast for a moment before my eyes and I am suddenly not sure what age he is.

He seems to want to know what I want, but it also feels like a test too, one that I am bound to fail. And so I do - feel like I am failing. I feel that he is looking down his nose at me. I finally feel that I have lost him and so - therefore - I have nothing to loose ...

At this point something emerges within me. I feel for the first time like I have a clear and direct sense of self. I am no longer dancing around internally trying to "live up" to whatever it is that he wants in order to "get" or "win" him. I feel myself fully and clearly and no longer 'care'.

I begin speaking and I say ...

"I want a relationship with you, one that is authentic. Simple and direct. One that is not based on game playing. I want us to be kind to one another."

Something changes with these words, I feel it and I wake up feeling it.

The weekend before

I had set up a short relationship constellation with my shamanic group. Someone represented me and someone represented wealth, I wanted to look at my relationship with wealth.

I set the constellation up where I thought the relationship was. I was standing in the centre (nearly) of the room, looking out of the window. Wealth was behind some distance back to the right of me, looking in the same direction.

This represented a relationship where I felt that I had not tended to, or looked at wealth in my life. I asked for the constellation when I realised through conversations that everyone in the group had wealth (property, assets) except for me and suddenly felt a sense of shame. I do feel many kinds of "wealth" in my life, but just not wealth of the financial, savings, investments or property kind. It wasn't something I "looked at or towards" in life, so of course I don't have that! I was busy looking elsewhere.

In the constellation my representative turned towards wealth - and began a dance of slowly trying to connect with and get wealths attention - nut wealth kept backing away. My representative was slowly chasing wealth around the room!

My rep said "I want a relationship with you". Wealth didn't respond, so she gave up in the end and went and stood elsewhere. The "elsewhere" was I noticed more central in the room (standing at the centre of your own circle, a good place to be) and she was no longer so preoccupied with something in the distance out of the window, she seemed more present and to have arrived in the space.

At this point, wealths representative, he felt like coming and standing next to me. At first he had his armed crossed, but cheeks clenched and seemed very closed. He said he felt a bit like a seargant major, or a bank manager maybe. Eventually though he softened and seemed to open a little more to me, he uncrossed his arms. My rep said "this is a good place for now, its not the end, but its a good place for now".

This dream felt like a continuation of this constellation. The man in the dream was "wealth": I wanted a relationship with him, I was chasing that but he was retreating and not really being relational with me. In both dream and constellation, things only change at the point when I have nothing left to loose and "give up" and stop chasing him.

These dream themes continue on another night A meeting with wealth 2.

The Blue Dragon

 I am at sea, there is a giant blue dragon, about the size of a 12 story block of flats.

The dragon has in its hands three people - a woman, a man and a child. They are a family.

The man is black with long dreadlocks, he wears a gold silk dress and trousers. He is quite 'feminine'. The dragon gnaws his head off his shoulders and casts his body aside.

The child is about 6 years old, she has fair skin and blond hair. The dragon throws her along a large arc, her body turns in space until it sploshes into the sea where she drowns.

The woman has dark hair, the dragon holds her in his hands and carries her away. The dragon has killed her family to kidnap her to sing. In the dream I sense it is a tragic situation. The woman has lost her family and there is the sense she will spend an eternity singing for the dragon, that there is no end to her pain and torture.

Followup

(not a dream).

I am in the gym, a new regular visit that I am really enjoying both for getting fitter and as a mediation too. I love also that my local council facility has all ages, genders, ethnicities, body shapes and sizes and I guess, a diversity of economic situations* using the gym. It feels very inclusive and friendly, not how I imagined gyms to be at all which is why I have avoided them till now.

I was on the rowing machine, with the resistance setting turned up to a new high. I noticed at one point an inner voice saying words like "rip it, smash it, kill it ...". I was quite shocked by this voice, inquiring into it I found it to come the "blue dragon" in my nervous system.

I began to be curious as to what would happen if the feminine black man in the couple hadn't been killed, how would I row then? What part of my nervous system did he represent? After a while contemplating this, I settled into a pattern of saying internally "love" or "strength" on each half of one stroke. When I said it would was interchangable, sometimes "love" when I pulled, sometimes "strength".

I can honestly say it was the most exciting, fun, alive, awake, energised and energising 10 minutes that I have ever had on the rowing machine! I felt like I was flying, it was so much fun. It was still hard but also at times I was able to ask inside "what if this were to feel easy?" and intermittently, it would.

Towards the end of my 10 minutes, internally I looked for the blue dragon. I found it behind me, wings open, like a guarding over "love" and "strength". I am not sure if I found the little girl in my contemplation - though maybe she was there in the bubbling joy and feeling of fun.

What I do know though is that as is so often the case - my dream showed me how the trauma in my nervous system was playing out. The dragons "rip, kill, smash it" felt like an old fight response, coming from a more primitive reptilian part of my nervous system, represented by the dragon.

In the unity of "love" and "strength" I found how these qualities can be combined and turned towards achievement driven by care and "power with" - rather than a "power over" relationship within and towards the world.

It was interesting to me that the dragon was there at the end behind the union of these two qualities. In my rowing it felt like a felt sense quality of a larger 'spirit' guiding and protecting.

* As I build my new business and rent a new therapy space, cash is very tight. I started going to the gym predominantly because it was the only exercise facility I can afford right now, because I am now entitled to a 'senior citizen' council funded place, which means each session is just £2.

Because these "pay and play" users have to queue for up to 20 mins to buy a ticket - rather than sweeping through the electronic gates flashing a monthly subscription on a smart phone - you get to see who is cash strapped enough to need to queue. 

Two Shamanic dreams

 I was at a reunion of members of a shamanic lodge I was in for many years. We did a simple process - putting a candle outside with an intention / question for great spirit. Then going to bed holding the image of the candle outside, shining our question to the stars and the sky and seeing what answers came in our dreaming time.

My question was to do with a part of myself I felt I had lost. I used to be much more heavily engaged in shamanic process and practice. But since I gained a trauma lens and understanding, I had come to doubt that part of myself and wonder if it wasn't all just an expression of developmental trauma.

I wanted to find the part of myself who walks in other dimensions, I put a call out to meet my shamanic double (a term from the works of carlos castaneda).

I went to bed and had two dreams:

Dream 1

I was with a man on a skateboard, he was very tall and stout. He was skating around and we had some relationship together, he was 'with' me. I was embarassed and a little shamed by being 'with' him. He skated through some young men, they looked like the might pounce on him.

I worried and thought "they won't know he has special needs". Somehow I knew he had special learning needs, that he was autistic. I thought 'they will just see a big man and think he is as old as he looks, but he is young inside and innocent too. He won't know they are a danger to him. 

I was both afraid for him and ashamed to be with him too. I was plotting and thinking hard how to keep him safe.

Dream 2

I was with a woman in a wheelchair, she looked at me and tried to speak. She had a big warm hat on her head. She couldn't speak but she didn't seem to mind too much. She smiled at me then began to slowly stroke her two hands down her whole body, slowly and rhythmically from the crown of her head to her feet.

With each stroke her body became more vibrant - it pulsed and vibrated - and mine did too in resonance with hers. She became so alive and vibrant even though she was not moving. After a few strokes she smiled at me, a heartul smile.

I was interested I had two dreams about autistic people. I felt that they were coming from parts of my physiology that are in trauma / survival physiology. But they were both magic in their own way - the man like the fool in the tarot deck, skating and having fun without a care for the danger around him. The woman who reveals herself as a healer with her hands, and her heart that shines so brightly.

Someone from the past ...

 I am going to meet a friend Alice and a few things happen on the way.

I have on a coat she has lent to me, I look in the mirror and at first it looks colourful and funky. But the more I look at it the more I dislike it. There is a hood which when I pull it up is structured and boxy - like some kind of "post modern" exploration of a nuns habit! I try to fold it down - this makes it slightly more tolerable but I end up feeling like my head is boxed in by this ridiculous contraption.

The more I look at it, the more it feels like some kind of awful fashion statement, not me at all and I take it off. I head to see Alice, I am walking trying to recall where she lives. Its on the edge of my memory, I am on a street, surely it is this way, it looks so familiar ... 

I take one last turn and head up a road thinking "if I recognise something in the next few minutes I will know I am going the right way. If not this is my last attempt and I will turn around and head home."

I turn a corner, something looks familiar - a shop, a doorway ... - as I am looking I see someone in the door way and then realise - it is ST! ST is a former partner of mine from my 20s, I have lost touch with him and sometimes grieve that. We lived together for 7 years I think - he was probably the closest I came to settling down in a conventional dyad relationship.

I see him in the shop - my heart leaps - I am SO happy to see him and I am also very afraid I will "scare him off". In the waking world I have written to him several times in the past years and he doesn't reply so I have [eventually ...] reluctantly stepped away accepting that he doesn't want contact with me.

He seems to be with a woman and a baby in a pram. I have a tinge of sadness that he has a child with someone else (he is the closest I came to having a partner I would have children with), but delight leaps in me too. I have worried about his silence and whether he is ok (in waking life) - in my dream I am delighted that he is with someone and is a parent and looks ok - as I would be delighted to know he is well in waking life too.

But then things change. The woman sees me and snarls something derogatory about me being "the ex". The baby in the pram on closer inspection turns out to be an old lady being pushed around (the woman's mother). Both are smoking, snarling and mean spirited - I am suddenly deeply concerned for ST. What I see represents my worst fears that he is in harms way and being exploited somehow (when I think about him in waking life these fears sometimes arise).

I fake a smiling hello to the two women - and then a real greeting to ST - the moment of saying hello to him is such a powerful jolt, finally seeing him again and being seen by him too. I am still afraid to "scare him off" and so I say "you know, I would love to speak with you, but only if you want that too. Shall we go for a walk together and chat, would you like that? No pressure of course ..."

Really inside I am hoping and praying he will say yes, but somehow I know I must not push him.

He does say yes, my heart leaps inside and we start walking round the corner together leaving behind the two mean women. I am so relieved to have an opportunity to talk with him alone. I walk behind him and can tell from his body language he is feeling angry and dejected. His body twitches discharging trauma - he walks ahead his fists clenched and shoulders braced not looking at me, he slightly staggers even - I am pained to see all this.

Walking along behind I wonder "how can I reach him ..." - I feel so sad for him and desperately want to help him yet he might not let me in - I walk along silently wondering what is the best thing to say.

I awaken and feel sad all day.

A tarot reading

The dream was so stirring that I did a tarot spread to try to better understand it. I pulled the following cards (Rider Waite major arcana only):

1. The overall true meaning - Hierophant
2. What the dream means - The Fool
3. What the dream doesn't mean - The Magician
4. The direction of events - Justice

Reincarnation dream

 I am a soldier in the desert - I have had dreams like this many times before - and in fact my Paternal Grandfather was a "desert rat" in the North Africa Campaign, WW11.

Back to the dream ... first I meet my Dad (who was also a soldier but at a different time of course). He is in uniform and is dancing an Irish jig style dance. I watch and think "oh so THAT is how you attracted my mom ...." 

Then he is gone - and I am in the desert and a group of us have been captured. At first I talk with the captors and think all will be ok, they will treat us in honourable ways. Then I am led to a grave dug in the sand, climbing in I vividly recall the face of a colleague that expressed in every silent line and twitch "we are done for, this is it". I recall his face so vividly ...

Next thing I know, I am in fact dead ...

Before I continue it is worth saying that my Paternal Grandfather in fact survived a firing squad in the desert. The little I know is that he and his men were captured and betrayed in some way, and executed by firing squad. But as everyone was being buried by local bedouin grave diggers / labour, he was found to be breathing, sneaked out and spent some months with them "missing in action" as he recovered ...

But back to the dream ....

I die and find myself in another realm. I am with a mature woman, warm, competent and friendly like a really good therapist or teacher. She tells me I am going back and I say "what already?". And she says yes I am due for reincarnation straight away.

She is counting out coins and says I have done really well. She gives me 8 coins with metal that is of 'lower value' and more impure first. Then she gives me a handful (5 I think) of higher value purer silver coins. The finally she gives me 3 large high value silver and gold shining coins. These are an extra special reward and I feel humbled.

But still, there is no escaping it, she says I must go back.

I step through a portal acquiescing to my return and just as I do so - she has a cat and it follows me through the portal. I call to the cat "nooooo you are not supposed to come!" - but the mature woman says its ok she is supposed to join me and that she will find us both some time later.

I arrive in the new world and the cat has become a young girl. She is very bouncy and energetic (like Lyla in the TV adaptation of the Phillip Pullman books). I struggle to keep up with her as she explores the new world with excitement and purpose. Its dark, we are near a big old church in a town centre, I can't quite work out the era.

I follow the girl around the back of the church thinking to myself "I am not sure if I am a man or a woman, I must find a mirror to find out what my body looks like ...". I think I am a man again but am not sure ...

We go round the back of the church. As we do so trouble is brewing at the front, it feels like some kind of protest or riot is taking hold. Some flames have appeared and the lick the church building threatening to consume it ...

Inside I have a sinking feeling "oh no, not another difficult one [incarnation] ..."

A side dream

Another dream branched off in which the soldier in the sand grave was in fact my Grandad and he survived - just as he did in real life.

In this dream he returns home to my Grannie and brings with him ornamental snakes from North Africa carved in wood. They are very ornate, stylised and organic - almost like a human nervous system.

He is home and the house is small and domestic - he wonders "how on earth will I fit my snakes into this small house? They just don't fit in."

I think when I awake of how much trauma he returned with, and marvel at how he continued on with his life, eventually running a sweet shop in Totnes. I loved him greatly and in later years would spend alot of time hanging out with him in his mobile home, smoking roll ups, drinking whisky and playing cards.

The Shaman and the Squirrel

 I am with a man - and he is me - I know this clearly.

He is leading the way though so all I can do is follow and communicate an input into our journey as best I can, as he determines where we go.

He is visible to others, I am not, we cannot be separated.

He is telling me about the upcoming journey, what his aim is. We are in a jungle by a river, it is dark and I smell swamp, earth and water. He tells me he has learned two words of the local language, the language is very hard and it has taken him a long time to learn just these two words. He says he will use it to communicate and get us to our destination (I am still not clear yet what that is).

An indigenous man appears, about 25, dressed casually in white linen smock and baggy brown linen trousers. He is friendly - "my" man tries to communicate with him in the two words he has learned. He repeatedly makes two deep guttural sounds, a bit like a seal.

The indigenous man looks confused, then his face lights up and he repeats a few times "ah, Shaman, Shaman, Shaman!" He smiles and laughs, he is pleased he has worked out what "my" man is saying (he never addresses me, I don't know if he can see me).

Through his confusion then his chuckle - and his light high voice completely unlike "my" mans two words - I guess that my man has completely misunderstood something about the culture and language here. I am momentarily embarrassed for him.

My man is lead to a canoe by the indigenous man - it is hand chiselled from a large but buoyant singular piece of wood and is simple, light in colour and elegant - rather like its owner. My man is gestured into the canoe , as he is climbing in I notice he has a backpack on - it is small and completely the wrong size for him - like the kind of day bag a boy would carry to school.

Seeing the backpack causes me to recall something - the squirrel, where is our squirrel! I start to gesture but I have little agency in the scene not being visible. It is moving on and I am in a terrible dilemma - I have to go with the man so must get in the boat - but I also cannot leave without the squirrel.

In a singular moment I can feel two ends of a polarity - I can feel the power of the place of the Shaman deep in the jungle and I know that we must go there. At the same time I can feel that even though she is small and vulnerable - squirrel is also essential to our journey and CANNOT be left behind - I cannot be separated from either of them.

Part Two

This dream was so powerful for me that I went to bed some nights later, holding the intention to get in the boat with the squirrel and all parts of me (me and my man) and see where the boatman takes me. I did this and here is what I dreamt ...

I am in a family constellations workshop. Its confusing as the group is run by ES, the person I saw for many years to constellate my own life. But the workshop is also run by Mrs Smith, my music teacher from secondary school!

I haven't thought about her for years, I recall her as being uninspired and uninspiring. Despite loving piano playing and composition - which I mainly learned from Mr & Mrs Kenney who taught me outside of school from the age of 5 - my lessons with Mrs Smith I recall as deadening.

So strange to have a group run by her and ES who inspired my own soul calling as a family constellator (see my website here if you don't know what this is https://trueselfsystems.com/family-constellations-therapy-2/)

In the workshop someone says "xy has died and I am devastated I will never see them or speak with them again". ES says "oh but you can still meet them, would you like that?" - the participant says yes.

We all sit in silence and something descends into the room, a presence. It moves into some people and then (as I know it will) finally lands in me. I am channelling this dead persons relative and I do my best to step aside and allow them to move through me - which happens in feeling and movement rather than words.

The participant is moved and cries ...

Then a rainbow appears on the workshop room - it is a rather extraordinary moment. The space is large and bright with one whole wall of patio doors and a pale pine wooden floor - and now a rainbow is arching across the space!

We all go up to it and move our hands through a rainbow vapour with awe ...

ES suggests that now is a good time to break for lunch. I am drinking tea and look back at the rainbow wondering "but is it [and the channelling that has just happened] real? Is it all really happening or is it all fake?" In that moment the rainbow 'breaks' into an ugly piece of fabric that has a rainbow projected on to it. The second I believed it to not be real, the magic and awe is gone.

Disappointed I move into the next activity which is to make some "day of the dead" style candles for a ritual, skulls and that kind of thing.

A friend who I shared this dream with later shares this quote with me ...

"My definition of Magic - unbelievable but happening - and the joy when disbelief dissolves ..." ...

The quote comes from this sculptor and his long project to create ice music https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film-showcase/00000159-b8cd-ddda-ad5b-fcfd30670000?fbclid=IwAR0UC152bOS2JAe7O-Ppd2TGidDlSCs6kK4TupLEVtmWbZN4qwop4dpoXwc

Some notes on astrology and my dreams

I am interested in astrology of late (for the first time), in particular I am interested in the "raw data" of astrology and how one experiences that. What I mean by this - at some point someone somewhere must have felt something about the planets and ascribed a meaning to them and astrologers have built around that.

Rather than just reading about astrology I am lightly holding a meditation on the planets in order to try to know (sense and feel) myself this raw data. I used to look at the stars alot as a child - growing up in a small town they were much more visible to me then than they are now living in London. I recall times travelling in my twenties too when I saw some incredible skies (most notably high up in the mountains in China).

Now in London though, I don't have access to this visible sense of being part of a greater universe. So I am looking at scale images of our solar system and also recalling to focus my attention to different planets that I choose (though sometimes the planets 'choose me') as we move around the astrological cycle.

I have felt that some of my dreams cross over with this process. For instance - as the smallest and most feisty planet in the solar system - I feel that the Squirrel in this dream corresponds with Mars. Squirrels in our garden regularly come and eat from our hands and though small they can be very warrior like too - just like Mars!

In the man (who was me too!) I felt the qualities of Mercury. I feel the boatman (and the boat!) was Saturn - both his clothes and the boat were even the sandy beige colours of Saturn. The Shaman we were going to see was Pluto.

Don't ask me how I know all of this - I just do know that these dreams cross over with my daily planetary meditation and a prayer I regularly make to know intimately our solar system!

Some recent dreams ...

This series all feels related, something new in me grows, or perhaps something old that I had forgotten?

A beautiful silky beard

I am looking in the mirror and have a beard. It is not too long, silky and black, I enjoy stroking it. I know that its always been there, but it was blond before so no one could see it. But now the hair has gone black everyone will see it. I worry for a while "people won't like it, this won't be popular".

However I feel such love and pleasure stroking my beard that I conclude I just don't care, people will just have to put up with it.

(its looks a bit like this one https://menshairandbeards.com/maintain-a-short-beard/)

He loves me ...

I am sitting with an old boyfriend, he looks like he did when we first met, lovely long curly Italian hair. His skin is more tanned than usual and he looks beautiful. He is trying to tell me something, I listen closely, intently, and he says ...

"I love you so much, that I am afraid, if I tell you, the ground will fall from beneath my feet."

Later I see him with a blond haired woman on his lap, he is stroking her - and she dominates him - I am sad and can't understand how I lost him.

He loves me 2 ...

I am on a bus, distracted by a myriad things, looking around my attention unable to settle anywhere. I feel someone sit beside me, it is my old family constellations therapist whom I saw over a couple of years and had a bit (not too much) of a crush on.

He sits beside me, my attention settles, I unify - he smiles at me and I feel loved.

I am a soldier

I am in a white navy uniform (USA?). I walk into a school with alot of other military men. I have an extinction rebellion logo on my shoulder, printed onto a scrap of fabric.

Suddenly I am outside of me, and now in a young womans body. She is with an older woman who mocks my wearing of the logo.

The younger woman says "for him, this is huge, its a huge step to wear this. Leave him alone."

Trans man pan

I am with a trans man - he is like pan - I am with him and I am him. We play, he has a huge penis, its very exciting.

Next I am just him and working out on a weight lifting machine. I face forward in it (the wrong way round!) till I work out how to use it and face outwards. I squat down, then up, down, then up lifting the weights. Each squat feels powerful and effortless, I am very aware of my spine and thighs.

However I catch sight of myself in a window and my legs are a bit wonky (almost like bambi) as actually is the case in waking life - I have ankles that roll in so everything upwards from that is a bit crooked.

I wake up aroused for the first time in a while - and all day my legs feel really powerful and I am very aware of my energy connection with the earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_(god)

The most beautiful man ...

I "wake up" to find I have an Ipad of some sort in my hands, it has been given to me second hand. It's screen is slightly cracked and I am unsure if it will turn on, I press the button to see.

It slowly charges into life and starts to call someone, a video call. An image forms, emerging from an inky blackness very slowly. I see a man with sandy red hair (not too long but not short either) and a beard. He is not a man I would typically be attracted to, but in this moment I look at him with a growing sense of "oh you are sooooooo beautiful" as the image slowly forms.

He notices me and says hello. I am a little flustered as I am not sure why I have called him, I mumble something about maybe a wrong number. He smiles and chats anyway. He is wearing khaki jacket and trousers, very casually dressed. The room emerging behind him looks like it is in the countryside, I imagine it has a wood burning stove, maybe I see plants hanging to dry.

He tells me his name, first and second. Sadly on waking I cannot recall it, except that I think it began with A. I feel like I might know him, I find I am searching my memory banks "I am sure that I know you".

We talk easily, I feel such a deep love gently growing, I do not want this moment to end ...

The alarm rings.