Showing posts with label hopes and fears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hopes and fears. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

In the Presence of Gods and Goddesses

"People can get so over-involved with searching for mythic connections that they forget they also have personal associations to the symbols." Robert Johnson

Many times we dream of events from our past waking day, a sort of summation or re-hashing of events, or their parts. The mind in its curious method dissects, injects and reintroduces the subject in a way that is different from the events of our waking world. It's as if the mind sees with its own eyes, for its own purposes. Humanity has for eternity taken note of dreams. They perplex, confuse and inform in equal proportion. The bible as well as many other ancient texts serve as oracles to the perplexing nature of the dream state. Dreams and spirituality have always had a connection.

It is within our deepest self that we dream. In the silence of our nights images come to us; energies and feelings are portrayed as if on a movie screen while we slumber; watching the show which at times is so vivid and realistic filled with our emotions, hopes or fears that upon awakening we're not entirely sure if it "was real or just a dream." Often time the memory of the dream is deep; we ponder it, catching what little we can deduce and turning it outward concretely looking at others. But outward is not the solution, nor is it a resolution because the dream is the dreamer and the images are personal. No more is it true that dream symbols are standard than it is to assume that the loves one plays out at night are interchangeable!

If it were true that the loves, the gods and goddesses of our dreams were interchangeable, would not their value be so much less? What would we learn, and what could they teach us about our feelings, our beliefs and our own energies? Often dreams record and reflect changes a person has made, or is soon to make in their waking life; dreams then represent a reflection of their engagement with their own values and beliefs. In our spiritual journeys towards greater wholeness, dreams play an important role in representing to us what we most deeply think and feel.

We try on roles, we solve issues, paradoxes are presented and solutions, or part solutions, rendered. Feelings are deeply considered; the feelings that may have been squelched in our waking day, now are guides to what matters to us. Even if the images presented in the dream are borrowed, as in for example, your mother, your neighbor, the man in the store, an animal or a place, those images symbolize something that is going on. "You use that image to refer to something inside of you," writes Robert Johnson. With careful consideration, dreams can and often impart wisdom to the dreamer.