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Wednesday, September 29, 2004 |
Aha. Solved the mystery of why people get gum disease. This came to me from a dream I had last night. Well, to cut to the chase: gum disease comes from trying to avoid the pain of decisions. I'm not sure whether it's the pain associated with a current decision, or accumulated pain from past decisions. I bet it's both combined.
So the cure? It's to allow ourselves to feel the pain and let it flow through us. Simple. One good resource to help with this is the Heart On Fire site.
For those interested in dream interpretation. Here's how I got the message. In my dream I suddenly felt some of my teeth as hurting me. They were too sharp. They hurt my tongue. Then my whole mouth started to shiver - the kind of shivering that comes with the flu. Then I felt some of my teeth as loose. I decided something was really wrong with me; I was getting very sick. I yelled for help but my partner was already in a car with other people, driving away. I felt abandoned and hopeless.
When I woke this morning, I recorded the dream but didn't get anything much in the way of interpretation. My feelings were caught up in the sense of abandonment.
Later though, writing about something else entirely, the "teeth part" came into focus and I saw the meaning clearly. The "abandonment part" just meant that this was something I couldn't get help with from my usual sources of help. That makes perfect sense now. No one else can really do this for us. It's up to us - feel our pain and let it go? Or not?
2:05:15 PM 
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Saturday, May 01, 2004 |
This is really just a fragment remembered from last night's dream. People keep dying. My friend says she deals with this by POUNCING on life. When I hear this I feel despair. I feel totally unable to pounce on life.
Commentary:
This does seem like what my dream is telling me I need to do - to be aggressive in seizing hold of my life. Grab hold. Pounce on my studio time and keep it in my grip.
How to muster up the energy to pounce? Cats seem able to relax completely from moment to moment. They nap most of the time. Resting seems to be the answer to my despair.
Didn't get enough sleep last night. Or the night before. Rest is the obvious answer. Rest. Then pounce.
11:12:38 AM
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Tuesday, December 30, 2003 |
This is really a dream fragment from the night before last. Remembering it still this morning makes it seem significant. In the dream, I realize that I could drink water between meals instead of eating snacks. This seems like a brilliant idea, healthy and satisfying at the same time.
Interpretation: Yesterday I interpreted it literally. "My body is asking for more water and less food." This morning I realize that it could also be metaphoric. In dreams, water is often a symbol for the flow of feelings. So maybe this dream fragment is telling me that I'm snacking to escape my feelings. Why not just feel them?
This isn't a new idea of course. But the dream makes it feel more personal. "Cathy, this is an idea for you personally, and for now." It will be interesting to see what happens if I remember this as I drink a glass of water - imagining that I'm actually drinking feelings.
9:05:29 AM
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Sunday, December 28, 2003 |
Dream: I'm in some kind of class or workshop. We meet outdoors, sitting at long conference tables.
A lot of my energy and thought goes into remembering exactly how that 9 dot exercise goes. I remember the first step of the solution, but not the entire problem. How many straight lines are you supposed to use? How do they go after that first one that goes outside the box?
At some point I think "I don't have to figure this out before I wake up. I have the book, The Art of Possibility, and the solution is in that." (So either I had already wakened in the night, or this was a semi-lucid dream.)
Finally though I do remember how it goes. I work it in my mind, not out on paper.
Interpretation:
Waking and washing my face this morning, the thoughts that came were things like "Why have I been reading all these books for guidance? What makes me think that these authors know more than I do about how to live my life? Why don't I just make my bowls and see what happens?"
Also, I thought "if I knew for sure that I'd succeed at whatever I set out to do, then what would I do now?" This struck me as a good free writing exercise for this morning. Let the pen go and see what it tells me.
It's as if "other people's ideas" can be a kind of 9-dot box for me. Maybe my full aliveness is outside this box. The dream seems to be telling me, too, that knowing the first step out of the box is enough. I keep thinking I have to know it all, have it all planned, have the full solution before I can wake up (and live.) Not so.
It's funny that I'd have this dream the night before celebrating finding and buying the land here - celebrating the power of visualizing. Together, the dream and the anniversary could be telling me to visualize outside the realm of what I now believe is possible. Why not?
10:19:00 AM
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Wednesday, December 24, 2003 |
This is really a dream fragment, one that needs little or no interpretation.
Dream: I'm standing in a brightly lit room. It may be a bathroom. I think there's some glitter around, as if it's a glamourous place. I think "What would bring me the most joy to do today?" Then I catch myself starting to argue with myself right away, as if this isn't a valid question for me to ask. I'm amused that I did this, and pleased that I caught it. I decide to go ahead with my question.
Interpretation: I take this at face value. At some deeper level of consciousness, I'm deciding (or have decided) to go for joy. Part of me tries to argue that this is wrong or not good enough, but I decide not to listen to that.
Last night at bedtime I did some journaling in a book I just bought, The Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting Playbook, by Lynn Grabhorn. I'm not sure yet that I recommend the book, since I've just started it. Last night I wondered if plunging into problems and beliefs was a good idea. It might just get my mind into a negative groove. But it does seem likely that the book stimulated a very positive dream.
I do recommend for sure, another book by Lynn Grabhorn, Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting. I wrote about it earlier in this journal.
9:03:56 AM
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Sunday, December 21, 2003 |
You know how you wake suddenly in the night when a nightmare just gets too awful? This happened to me last night, but instead of being terrible it was just funny. What jolted me awake? The last scene in the dream was of a web page. Apparently I'd been watching a computer screen in the dream. (Not surprising.) Suddenly the web page appeared onscreen. It had lines of text centered on the page, in italic - hard to read. The pastel background had a fancy pattern. Even harder to read!
Apparently the sight of this poorly designed web page was so terrible that it jolted me awake! What a nightmare. Bad web pages....they'll really get you.
9:19:06 PM
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Saturday, December 20, 2003 |
In last night's dream, I'm living in the enclosed front porch of a house belonging to a man and his son. Maybe there's a wife there too but if so, she doesn't appear. I like the sunlight in this little room, but I feel cramped. Also, I have no privacy because everyone coming in and out of the house passes through my room.
I decide to ask for the spare bedroom in the back of the house, even though it's darker with one small window. But even as I ask, I realize that it's reserved for the man's son. So I start to wonder about moving to my own place. A place of my own looks very appealing.
Interpretation:
Yesterday I was doubting my impulse to reread feminist classics and explore a postpatriarchal way of living. "I've done all that, it's all in the past. Why bother? I've moved on."
But the dream seems to tell me I haven't moved on to my own place - just to an uneasy perch on the edge of a patriarchal way of living. The man in the dream is someone I think of as a nice man - helpful, generous, kind - and at the same time, condescending toward all women. He's the Good Man.
Now I realize why I had such a conflict headache Thursday. The little girl in me still holds onto her dream of Good Daddy - the great Protector and Provider. Yet I don't really want men to be bound by this traditional role. Can I release them from it in my own heartfelt wish? Forgive my father for his lacks in this? (He wasn't perfect, surprise surprise.)
Poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote these famous lines: "What would happen in one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open." Maybe the world would split open, too, if one man told the truth about his life. Maybe the world would split open if women released men from the Good Daddy dream - the Cinderella dream - saying "no need to protect me, provide for me. Not to worry. Go for your full aliveness as I do and as do the children."
Isn't this part of trusting the Universe? Not to depend on any one person for support, but rather, to be open to any way at all that the Universe sends love and support? This kind of trust enables us to open like a flower in full bloom. An inner sun shines on us.
I remember how a sudden full knowing came upon me, back in 1983, that all the love I'd ever wanted had always been there for me - and always would be. I just hadn't been open to it, hadn't felt it, because I concentrated on wanting it from certain people and not others, and in certain ways and not others. Daddy was one of those certain people, and certain ways of protection and providing were locked in my mind.
We didn't have a washer and dryer back then. I was driving to the laundromat ten miles away. It's always struck me as cosmic humor that this life changing experience happened to me while doing such a prosaic chore. Maybe washing clothes is a metaphor like everything else in life.
Back to my little room at the front of a man and boy's house. Yes, it's time to move. Time to think for myself again. And time to release all men from my little girl dream of Good Daddy. Goodbye, Good Daddy.
9:55:09 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Catherine Jo Morgan.
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