Tag Archives: dreams

Dreaming & Tarot

Synchronicity’s Chocolate

Every year I attend the International Association for the Study of Dreams conference, which holds a Dream Ball on the last night. This year it was held in Berkeley and I waited until the day before I left to solidify my costume for the Dream Ball. Although I had an idea as to what fragmented dreams it would include, I still felt that I needed a specific dream to share when called up to the stage for the costume judging. So I chose a dream that solely focused on a symbol that was shaped like an ice cream cone, that I drew in my journal. Above the dream I wrote “The Hanged Man” from the Tarot since the main aspect of the dream seemed to be related to that card. When I chose the dream I really thought it was from last year, between the annual conferences. Now I see that this dream was actually from two years ago, the day after my wedding anniversary. Below is the dream:

“Inversion” July, 17, 2012

I was in this restaurant and we (my best friend, others and I) were acting for this “reality show”. I was looking at this silver item/symbol that had a lipped edge, and was talking about how I always wished that I had the foundation symbolized in this image/item. I spoke about how it stood for a solid foundation of consistency and stability as a child. Then I went into this long analysis of it (none of which I remembered upon waking). At the end they (those in the room) said that I needed to relook at the symbol, because it was inverted for me. I had all those qualities/things in my life now – I had brought them as one unit/roof under me. The symbol represents all of the family/friends/experiences/etc – the pieces of me that I bring together as one in the memories I have with them. Together they are my roof, my solidified upside-down foundation.

Image from a dream called "Inversion" from July 17, 2012
Image from a dream called “Inversion” from July 17, 2012

The first day up in Berkeley, I reconnected with a friend of mine that I have not seen in four years. He and I became fast friends over rocks, crystals and deep spiritual conversations. In the course of the last year, he had been creating geometric sacred altars with beautiful stones in response to his higher calling. After seeing pictures of all the altars he made, I drew the symbol from my dream, although incorrectly, down on a scrap of paper to ask him the name/meaning of the shape . In order to ensure that he could see the angles on the shape, I circled them all. He instantly picked up the pen and wrote down “Kabbalah” and “Tree of Life”. Then mentioned that, “the tree has roots in heaven”. Immediately I told him the dream and explained that all of this time I had never realized what the symbol was shaped like.

Over the course of a few days, I began to put the pieces of my costume together. It was a mixture of fragment dreams on cut outs of puzzle pieces and copied images of Tarot and Dream deck cards that I had pulled for myself over the course of the year.  I also included an oversized image of the Wheel of Fortune (Oswald Wirth version) in the center of my body, as it was the Tarot card that I felt most related to the dream costume. I had felt as though I was the creature depicted in the card, as various pieces and parts of creatures that together did not flow as one (lion’s behind, spinx head, giant goddess boobs, angels wings and holding a sword). So I too wore a tail, wings, a crown, exposed cleavage and held a sword, along with the puzzle pieces and Tarot cards to visually show how I felt inside at this time in my life. Unsure as to whether or not I was going to share the “Inversion” dream, since it felt disconnected with the costume, I decided that if I were to share it then I would put the symbol on the back of the oversized Wheel of Fortune.

By Oswald Wirth
By Oswald Wirth

The next day I was drawn to a workshop that include the word Alchemy in the title, and attended it solely based on that one word. During my second master’s, I took an Alchemy course that focused on the Rosarium Philosophorum reliefs which honed my attention on the Major Arcana of the Tarot in a whole new way. That course, along with my introduction to Tarotpy, was a huge inspiration for my current work. With that said, in the second half of the workshop a large synchronistic moment took place as Dr. Ed Kellogg presented on how the Major Arcana of the Tarot fit into the Kabbalah. Although I have seen something similar to this before, his version made significantly more sense then others that I had seen by dividing the deck in half, instead of cramming all the cards into one tree. He also made reference to the movement of the Tarot going up and down, which connected the part of the dream that stated my foundation was the opposite of what most people have experienced. I mean wow, hard to be ignored – the dream, the costume, my thesis, my life’s work, all coming together in another’s vision. To be honest, I did not spent much time, if any, learning about the Kabbalah in relation to the Tarot. And here I am planning to turn my thesis into a book, getting ready to re-emerge myself into the research to do so, and an amazing avenue of information has opened up right in front of me.

The next day I cut out poster board and glued the dream shape on the back of the Wheel of Fortune card. That evening my roommates and I were running late to the costume contest and had the synchronistic fortune of running into Dr. Kellogg at the elevator. I said to him, “How synchronistic that you and I should run into each other as this costume represents the ‘beast’, as you would call it, in this card”, showing him the Wheel of Fortune image. He simply responded, “How synchronistic”.

For me, the “beast” at the top of the image of the wheel signifies the more surface or non integrated version of ourselves – which has very much been my life over the last year as a mom, a professor, a dreamworker and a Tarotpy practitioner. And in the last second before taking stage, I choose to refrain from sharing the symbol and instead focused on the piecemeal creature that is me.

Photographed by Richard Wilkerson
Photographed by Richard Wilkerson

A few days after I returned home, another synchronistic moment occurred. I blindly broke a piece of chocolate from the bar into the a close resemblance of the shape that I had drawn in my dream journal – again reminding me of the greater connection in life. Perhaps it was meant to influence me to continue on, through this lull in which I have questioned my actual purpose in life. Or perhaps it’s to remind me that there are bigger “plays” happening around me, ones that I am not aware. Whatever the case may be I knew that I had to share the sweetness of this overall synchronicity.

Dreaming & Tarot

Reflecting on April

As I alluded to last month in “THE TOWER OF SUDDEN CHANGE” (can’t you just hear the dark, creepy voice with booming thunder behind it), the  astrological events of April were looking to be a time of huge change for me. Well it was, but not the way I expected. I was really preparing for some outer event to shake up my life, leading to intense inner work – but that was not the case. Instead, it turned out be an inner realization that is affecting my outer life, requiring me to change much of the way I was doing things in relation to my career.

And even with the inner realization hitting me pretty hard, it was not nearly as bad as the realization in October/November during those crazy astrological influences (read “The Wounded Feminine”). Although April’s enlightenment was a very sudden deep emotional epiphany, I suppose it wasn’t as shocking as it could have been. The idea had been slowly seeping into my mind due to a couple of synchronistic conversations two days prior, allowing for the force of it to not be as dramatic.

Enlightenment
This is so true for the Tower Card.

The realization or ENLIGHTENMENT was thus – I have always worked to make others great, but have not focused on what I need to do to excel myself. Aha! Doesn’t seem that complicated, does it?!  Well when you are in it, you can’t see it, but others usually do. Sometimes the simplest idea, is the most powerful!

My life purpose is to be of service to others, and I have felt that way since I was a child. Over the years, I have dedicated much of my energy to helping others by giving them what they are lacking in their life and raise them up on various levels (emotionally, financially, mentally, physically, etc). Perhaps nothing that I can point out and say that I changed this persons life or became a benefactor for someone on the street, but I have given so much of myself energetically to many people over the years. I have done this in relationships, jobs, for bosses, for friends, for strangers, and for loved ones –  filling in the pieces of what others needed, working to improve their outlook, self, business and life. Some of the giving that I have done in my past has transformed itself into reciprocity towards me over the last few years, which has taught me humility, love and true friendship. Others, people and jobs, were bottomless pits of need, who I gave to until I was exhausted and sick (which are now out of my life or kept at a distance).

Now it is time to invest in the betterment of myself. And the kicker is that by doing this, I will actually be giving to others in an even bigger way then I have ever been able to do before. It is time for me to focus on excelling my career: meaning honoring the work that has come from my second thesis, making it the focus of my business, and  turning the thesis into a book. All of which will require a lot of dedication, research, and time from me. And as things change at home (like my two year old getting harder to go down for naps), I will have to find ways to circumnavigate situations as they arise. As part of this, I will need to modify the Life Guidance and Dream Interpretation readings to incorporate more of the “Mythology of the Major Arcana” – which is really what I do on Blogtalkradio.com (although that has not been made clear).

Perhaps because we are in the sign of Taurus (and that is my rising sign), I am feeling the need to test out some of my ideas with others. So, with that said, the first 6 people who read this and respond to me will get a SPECIAL discounted reading for $30. The session will be an hour reading in which I can test some new methods, and also provide a Tarotpy reading for either dreams or life guidance. Either way you get 60 minutes of looking into your life.

 

Dreaming & Tarot

In the Muck of It


The more that you do dreamwork, the more you start to see connections from other dreams and issues in your life. If you have been following my earlier dreams, you may begin to see connections giving insight more into my interior world. In sharing these dreams on this blog, my hope is that you will gain insight into how you can interpret your own dreams and utilize the tarot to penetrate deeper layers of your dream and psyche. Dreams are quite revealing, which is why I suggest doing dreamwork with a small group of people that you feel safe with to share your personal life details that are reflected in your dreams. 

When recording a dream it is import to jot down all the small details, too. Sometimes those can be clues into various layers of the dream. But be sure not to over do it with to many details, or you may miss out on what is really important. Find the balance, especially when doing dreamwork in groups. Those details could be important to you but throw off the others from following along with your dream. In this blog, you will see that I try to paint a picture so that others reading or listening can visual my dream. There is a lot of details that I could analyze; However, for the sake of writing too much, I focused on the details that stood out to me the most. In group dreamwork, those details may really resonate with someone else who might be able to provide a whole new layer. As you read this, feel free to comment on any detail that resonates with you in regards to my dream. I could always use additional aspects!

 

Dream July 20, 2013:

At first I was in a square room that looked like a old Vegas hotel room. The indigo carpet went about three inches up the side of the wall from the floor, which then turned into an intricate pattern of burgundy and cream. The room was infested with houseflies in their cocoon state before hatching into actual flies. They were everywhere, under everything – the bed, the mattress. I’m trying to vacuum them and sweep them up to get rid of them. Then I started spraying them with my non-toxic cleaner, hoping to kill them before they hatched. They are consolidated into one half of the room, which is the half that I am spraying. The spray has caused them to expand and explode like thin clear balloons. Some of the catepillar (maggots) had turned into the cocoon’s which had three infant flies in it, and as it’s body or casing expanded the younglings were trying to hatch out. I was frantically trying to kill them before they were released, and pop the expanding bodies with the broom so that they were small enough to vacuum up. My husband comes over to me and suggest that we just leave and clean it up later. He then opens the door near the corner that was most infested to walk out the door. I then overhear a group of three college aged men sitting on a couch talking about how the flies had infested their house too. I stopped to converse with these men about the flies, and my husband continued out and closed the door. The guys asked how I was dealing with the infestation. I told them it was important to kill the flies so that they couldn’t lay anymore eggs – stopping and preventing the cycle. This whole time I am completely grossed out by this situation and trying to stop people from seeing what is going on by sending them back out the door from which they came. This door was located on the non-infested side of the room, different door from which my husband left. In the center of the room was a list of people’s names. This one man, reminiscent of my father, was supposed to come to the location. He wanted to attend the gathering being held in the building that adjacent from this one, but he was too concerned about spending money. I was told by another man that every time he goes out he ends up spending $30,000 here and $30,000 there – adding up to $60,000 in one night. So the guy on the list choose not to come, even though I felt he really wanted to be there.

The room then turns into a square pond/pool, and it is located outside. I am in the pond/pool now with a net and broom scooping and sweeping out the bugs and muck. The water on the side of where the infestation was, is now a beautiful sapphire color. The other side that was not infested with flies has now turned into mucky water with brown-orange algae growing, especially in the corner where I had sent people out. I am going in a counter-clockwise direction to clean it. In the dirtiest corner where the algae was mostly setting atop of the water, I was sweeping the algae out of the pool. I continued in the counter-clockwise direction as I cleaned. There was a woman in the pool on the clean sapphire side and I had overheard her daughter telling her that she really wanted a parrot. I saw the woman leave from the corner of my eye and then come back into the water holding a white parrot. She looked so happy to be able to give it to her daughter. As I was cleaning around them, trying not to scare the bird, I remarked to the woman in a joking manner – “you know parrots live forever, right?!” Then I continue in the counter-clockwise manner cleaning the pool, thinking about how dirty it is and how I can make it better.

 

Initial Analysis:

In dreams, be sure to always go with your first instinct or gut feeling on what something means, then build out from there. Start with the things from the dream that stand out to you the most. You will be amazed by how the dream will unfold and lead you into other meaningful tangents.

This dream immediately made me think of the dream “Renewal of Sacred Space”, in which the water was toxic and green, stored up in a deep rectangle-shaped cement hole in the basement of a house. When the water was released it was cleansed and renewed by its flow into a clay round pond – that changed the color to turquoise. However, in this dream the pond had both clean blue water and cloudy algae water in it, and it is clearly a square shape. The square shape represents completion, although in the dream, I do not feel like leaving with my husband (i.e. I don’t feel like its complete). I am bound and determined to clean it up before I leave. I could have left with my husband and walked out the door, but I wanted to end the cycle of the flies. Since this dream took place of the eve of the end of Mercury Retrograde, it seems like to me this is all about ending a past cycle that I refuse to let repeat again. I am the one that has to cleanse the situation. The beginning of Mercury Retrograde brought my ex back into my life – AGAIN – for another round of drama! But this time, I am determined to emotionally un-attach from the rollercoaster that he oh so loves to bring me on. I do not want to continue this cycle of yearly legal battles. While I may not be able to clean up the last loose end, I can let go of the hurt and wounds that he continually rips the healing scabs off of.

Water usually represents emotions, and I need to be in the emotions of this situation – to feel it, to do the physical work, to change it. And clean out the side of the emotions that is full of muck. I did so by removing the algae from the pool on the same side that I turned people back out the door. I feel like that is representative of getting rid of the people and the stagnant water that I don’t need in my life. Although, I was turning away the people because I did not want them to be in the way of my cleaning, and partly because I did not want them to see the grossness of the situation with the flies. This muck is the issues and people that I am dealing with emotionally, still trying to let go of those ties. I have really been working on letting myself process all of the emotions that I feel towards my ex and people around that situation, so that I can finally heal even while possibly being in the middle of another legal proceeding.

The cleaning of the pool in a counter-clockwise manner reminds me of clocks turning back in time, i.e. going back into the past. That is exactly what I have been doing in terms of the emotions that have been coming up with ex. I need to go back into those feelings and completely heal them by actually processing them instead of boxing them away. Prior to the dream (during Mercury Retrograde) I have been doing cathartic physical activities to deal with all of the emotions from the past, just like the dream showed by the sweeping, vacuuming, and sifting. However, I still had a sense that the muckiness in the pond was beyond my control, in that I could only clean it so much. The murkiness on the one side of the pond could not be cleaned with any of the tools that I had on hand. However, in the same pond the other half was crystal clear sapphire blue. The waters did not have anything separating the two, they just were divided yet coexisting in the same space. Perhaps that is alot like me and the emotions that I have separated from my current life. The clear blue side was the same side that my husband exited from. I feel that the clear blue side represents the happiness, clarity and beauty of the life I currently have. Whereas, the cloudy side is the old life that I had and the murky, stagnant, and unhealthy side that I have separated with. One side is not affecting the other, but they both exist emotionally within me.

The mother and father figures also stand out to me in this dream. I relate to the mother wanting to give her daughter what her heart desires, while also relating to the father figure that is so concerned about spending to much money in that he choses to miss out on what his heart really desires. I feel the conflicting thoughts and sides of myself in regards to our current finances. This is reflecting the logical masculine side and the nurturing feminine side that is always trying to find a balance within us. The white parrot in particular makes me recall a dream a few years ago about the cockatoo from my work, that I love so very much, turning into a water bottle. The details about that dream are rather fuzzy, so I went looking through my dream journal and dream stuff for it. Instead I found some remote writings that a psychic wrote on my ex several years ago (here is another example of one direction of thought, searching for a earlier recorded dream, led me to something else relevant for this dream). It discusses him being energetically tied to me and that only a judge could end our karmic tie. A judge could easily end this third round, thereby ending all reasons to attempt to sue me.

On another level, like “Renewal of Sacred Space”, this dream is also referencing what I ate and drank the night before the dream. My celebratory night included unhealthy choices that make my body feel gross and polluted – shown by the mucky water. My subconscious is again making me aware of how those types of nights affect my body.

 

 

Tarot:

This drawing of the tarot cards was different than what I normally do. For this dream, I attempted to just pick one card, but I felt the need for two in a very peculiar way. When gliding my hand over the spread deck, I felt this magnetizing feel as if two cards next to each other were polar opposite and pushing away from each other. So I grabbed them both. As synchronicity would have it, the physical feeling that I got was exactly what the cards revealed.

No subcategories, attempted to select one card but ended up with two

Chosen deck: “The Dreamer’s Journal” by Barbara Moore

Question: What do I do?

"In the Muck of it" spread

 

Tarot Analysis:

Before looking into each individual card, it is always good to try to get an overall understanding of the spread. What do they have in common? How does the spread speak to the question? Normally I do not look at the guidebook for the tarot cards until after I have analyzed the imagery. Since I did not pick sub-categories to the question, I needed a bit of help to get me going in direction to such a vague question as “what do I do”.  Also from the looks of the cards, I was having trouble identifying the mood of each card. 

It seems ironic that the card with the most green and picturesque background (5 of Cups), is a card of sadness and loss, while the card with a more dreary background is about wish fulfillment and happiness (9 of Cups). Talk about quite a contrast, which is exactly what I was feeling when selecting them; it was like two magnets pushing away from each other. These two cards very much represent the two sides that existed in the room and pool in my dream – polar opposites. It is interesting to note that the dirty side switched from one side to the other when the dream shifted from a room to a pond/pool. Much in the same way that these two cards have aspects of their opposite (the backgrounds not really matching the mood of the figure). Also, both cards are cups which are generally about love.

 

5 of Cups

In the 5 of Cups, the girl is reflecting upon a loss. She has her back turned upon the two cups standing upright, and gazes towards the three that have fallen and spilled. The three fallen cups instantly make me connect to the fact that this will be the third time my ex is attempting to sue me. My sadness does come from that direction because it makes me think about how I could have ever chosen a man to be in my life that is so out to hurt me. I have given him an alternative option to going to court that is very fair to both of us, yet instead he seeks to make a mess (spilled cup reference) through legal action. What makes me the most sad is that someone who once truly loved you, as you did them, can continually treat their once beloved in such a way. Its absolutely disgusting to me! AHA, there is the flies portion and feeling such disgust at the situation. And that is a big part of what I need to let go. It has been almost 7 years – this is how he is always going to be to me and I need to freaking accept it! Honestly, this is the last thing that he can try to take to court. It is the third cup emptying on the ground, the other two matters have already been left behind and settled (i.e. the two upright cups). I suppose that in this disgust, there is also some guilt for choosing such a person who would treat me like this. Guilt can be a huge waste of emotion, since you cannot change what you have done. It is what it is. Instead, it should just be turned into a lesson that can be used in the future. However, I am not quite sure what that lesson is at this time.

Once the figure in the card does completely turn her back on the remaining cups, she has such a bright and beautiful journey ahead. I think secretly, I’ve always felt like this BS has been holding me back energetically. I need to energetically cut the ties by letting go of the past emotions, past life connections and current concern over his ensuing need to take me to court. The truth is that everything will be fine, whatever happens, he cannot take away my happiness and beautiful future. Every time we have gone to court, it has ended exactly as I said it would – in a fair way that could have been solved simply between the two of us.

One of the books that I use to give me more insight into the cards, especially minor arcana, states “In Relationships this card indicates a crisis that comes from the mistakes of the past polluting the moments of the present. You should ensure that you are seeing the present moment for what it is rather than basing it on your previous experience (Around the Tarot in 78 Days by Katz & Goodwinn).” Well that fits right along with the mucky water, and the change of one-side being dirty to the other side. My past is muddying up my present view on this situation. Perhaps my ex has a new motive for pushing this forward, like his new family or true desire to have all ties cut between he and I. Let me tell you, there is nothing more that I would love than to severel all our contractual ties, but it is simply out of my control at this point. And as soon as I can change that – I will! What I can do is cut our energetic ties, let go and don’t look back.

9 of Cups

The 9 of Cups represents my new life, whereas the 5 of Cups represents my old life with my ex. This card is called the “wish card” and speaks of feeling as if all of one’s dreams have come true. I really do feel this way. I have a beautiful family, wonderful friends, a promising future with two amazing careers, and feel so incredibly blessed for everything in my life (except for drama with the ex). These last several years have really shown me that things always work out the way it is supposed to and I feel very supported by the Universe – it has always taken care of me. Even in the midst of financial struggles, I have really come to see what is important and only ever wished for happiness. And through it all, happiness is exactly what I found!

On the flip-side of the coin for this card Around the Tarot in 78 Days by Katz & Goodwinn states that “In Spiritual Awareness & Self Development this card indicates a need to connect with one’s emotional past. It often signifies the potential for stagnation which requires a new impetus to break free.” The card is again directly connecting with my dream, by using the word stagnation. Ponds turn mucky due to stagnation, and the water is connected with my emotions in which I am going counter-clockwise (back in to my past) to deal with. Well an impetus is a force or energy that causes something to move. In the dream I am doing the work (moving to clean), which I have also being doing in waking life in order to cleanse the situation. In my dream I felt that I could not completely clean the muckiness in the water, that some aspect of it was beyond my ability. And in regards to this legal situation, there is much that is out of my hands. Perhaps the answer now is to get out of the water/emotions and head through the door that my husband exited through, leaving behind my past so that I can be like the 5 of Cups on her promising journey.

So what is the answer to the question “What do I do?”. Simply stated I need to let go and never look back. Over the past month and a half, I have done a lot of reflection, worked through emotions, worked this dream and even physically removed a tree all the way down to its roots because it was a symbolic wedding gift to my ex and I. In this last layer of letting go the pain, hurt and sadness brought upon by years of legal battles and bullying, I will now turn around and focus on my blessed life of happiness, love and the beautiful journey ahead!