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.

Paradox as Religious Experience

"Every human experience can be expressed in terms of paradox." Owning Your Own Shadow by R. Johnson

Writing about the all too human experience of strong and contrary emotions appearing simultaneously, Robert Johnson, Jungian analyst and author, writes in his book, Owning Your Own Shadow, that when "we approach the shadow, we examine a very powerful aspect of our personality, almost universally shunned and avoided. And in this way we enter into the realm of paradox."

As many have repeated over millena with a biblical reference, 'What good could have possibly come from Nazareth?' What value is there in the 'same old, same old' of our everyday lives? Johnson gives his answer, "strangely, the best." Yet he notes that most persons go to great and extended lengths to avoid contact with the shadow, or its paradox. "Contradictions [often] bring a crushing burden of meaningless-ness." Humankind can and often does endure vast amounts of suffering, injustice and misery, often perpetrated by their fellows; when it has some meaning, most can endure. But when it does not, it is initially at least, crushing, meaningless, unbearable.

That I suffered, suffered greatly and unjustly because of some others is bearable because of love, because of a search for justice, because of a friend, because of my own moral beliefs, all are some reasons to go beyond the empty destructiveness of contradiction. And while contradiction may be scarcely tolerable, paradox is ultimately wondrous and creative. "All religious experience in the historical [dimension] is expressed in paradox... Paradox makes room for mystery and grace." Johnson gives further examples of creative paradoxes: masculinity has relevance in contrast to femininity; north is possible only because of south, and 'no' exists because of 'yes.' Polar opposites, or the other side of the very same coin? All paradoxes.