String Session—August 2007 Dream: I am waiting for a session and Marc has a t-shirt that he had given to Merrick to mend. Her style of mending irritated his skin. Can I do something different? I tell him that he should recycle the shirt as it looks like a rag to me but he wants to keep it. I tell him about these iron on patches that I can try. He wonders if that would be too expensive? I have to go to the fabric store anyway so I’ll pick some up.
Shift: There is a discussion with some women acquaintances that a mutual friend is not as direct as she appears to be.
A new piece of pathology has been exposed in this dream that has to do with how very subtly I manage a situation so that I can appear to be doing a good thing when in fact I am inwardly judging the other person and also feeling like a martyr. I get to feel the satisfaction that I am going out of my way to mend a shirt that should be thrown out and that by humoring “Marc” by doing this I am gaining a few points in my rise to “sainthood”. The finer mesh of this pathology, which looks like basic caretaking, is that there is an added bonus which gives me a false sense of nobility . Instead of being vulnerable and just saying …”sorry, I don’t mend rags” I get seduced into thinking that if I do this job then I will gain some sense of value in the world. This pathology has been very tricky and I have fallen for it time and time again because of the momentary high that I get from feeling self satisfied and important. After this initial sense of feeling superior, the judgement and resentment always follows which inevitably leads to me feeling separate from the other person. I get to be high up on my pedestal doing this great and noble thing looking down at this hapless soul (who can’t even tell when to throw away a shirt!) with pity and disdain. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.
So my homework from this dream was to “feel and respond”. To be more immediate in expressing my feelings and to risk not doing or saying the right thing. It is scary to have a feeling that might not jive with what someone else wants to hear or wants me to be. I have lived from this place all my life and have carried this false identity of being a “noble victim” as the only skin that I know. What would it feel like to leave that behind? How would it be if good, kind, self-sacrificing Kate would show her true self and not this pathologic adaptation?
The next dream that I had that was worked in my string session was about being with my sister and seeing a red fox outside the barn. This in an exciting sight and then it changes into a wild boar which is pretty scary. The boar runs off and then I see something even more powerful….a black panther followed by three giant striped tigers! In the strings I got right into the middle of all those wild creatures and let my self be taken down and mauled and clawed by them. There was growling and limbs flailing and hair pulling and it felt great! So much power and energy...so much immediacy. This is how it will feel when I can just be in a moment of feeling and respond. How it will feel to be off that pedestal where I am alone and separate and instead be down in the middle of all that wild, passionate energy.
August, 2007
In the spring of 2006 I had a dream where I was with a group of women at an abortion clinic waiting for my turn to come. I was getting impatient that there was such a delay and also found myself frustrated with some of the other women who were crying and carrying on. Then the doctor finally arrives..it is Clive Owen ..dressed in blue jeans and looking handsome and extremely virile. He has two enormous wolfhounds with him and I am immediately enraged that there are dogs in this abortion clinic and that he doesn't look like a real doctor. He then directs all of us to follow him onto this tall sailing ship that has arrived outside and that puts me over the edge. How can we possibly have this procedure on a filthy boat! I run over to him ranting and raving but he just strides forward and directs me up onto the deck. Before I know it the boat has set sail and we are cruising out of the harbor out into the big wide ocean.
When I worked this dream it became apparent that the archetypes were intervening in this pregnancy and there was no way that I, in my resistance and rebelliousness, was going to terminate it. In essence, I was being kidnapped for my own good and being put into a place where I had no choice but to go through this pregnancy with no way of escape. This was the first dream where I really felt for the first time that I was in the hands of something larger. That I was not alone in my misguided attempts to survive and that there was a great love awaiting if I could just let go of my will and surrender to it.
There was a real opening in my heart after doing the homework of this dream but in the past year I was shown time and time again, by one dream after another, how deep this resistance penetrated my very being and how loathe I was to give it up. It has been a painstaking process of taking one piece at a time and allowing each dream and its corresponding homework to shine the light on the pathologic behaviors that I continued to cling to. One dream this past year pointedly had me driving in a car where the road kept getting narrower and narrower.. more and more difficult...steeper and almost impassable. I was almost ready to turn around and go back but I knew that I had to go on. Even though I had only felt a glimmer of what lay at the end of that road, I had put my faith and trust in this work and I kept taking the small baby steps that I knew were necessary to get me there.
And then this summer I had a dream that I am with a group of people being held prisoner in this industrial plant. There are men working there who treat us fairly but one by one someone disappears and there is no explanation. I realize that we are going to be killed and suggest to the three of us left that we try to escape. As it turns out there is no way out and by the time that my turn comes I am filled with fear. Alone in my room I see there is this blue lizard that is searching for me ..trying to kill me with it's electronic eye ...and I jump over it and go to confront the men. They are in a room watching football and eating dinner and I barge in and hit one over the over with a chair as my last act of rebellion. One of the men...a dark, handsome man...takes me gently back to my room and on the way I tell him that I'm not ready to die. I want to be able to see my grand children grow up. He asks if I have children and I say "No". He smiles at my feeble excuse. When we get to the room I ask if he will do one last favor for me...will he make love to me? He agrees and we both undress. I am feeling aroused and am stroking his leg when the door opens and another man is there pointing a gun at my head. He shoots and in the moment of death I thank God for this moment.
And so the feeble excuses that permeate my life and those acts of willful rebellion are finally loosing their hold. I am willing to let the guard shoot the part of me that identified with those pathologies and just be held by the Animus and feel his love pouring into me. When I awoke from this dream I could feel that my whole body was being filled up with something new and I wanted to lay there forever and just take it all in. Perhaps this is part of the pregnancy that Clive Owen, as the doctor, wanted me to experience...this new consciousness that is really me.
November 2005
This fall my inner work took a new turn and I was faced with the hard truth about how I have turned away from receiving love. This was true for both of my marriages and has certainly been true in my relationship to my immediate family and anyone who has ever tried to get close to me.
A month ago I had a dream of a man who was trying to be amourous with me and instead of responding and accepting his attentions I bit off his thumb. In response to this dream...which was another of those hard wake up calls... I started a nightly ritual of writing love letters to the Beloved...who for me, is that place inside that is connected to the Divine. In these writings I tried to explore those vulnerable places of fear and defensiveness and just be completely real about where I was in that moment.
There is a place of independence in me that is strong and firmly entrenched. It is something that I have worked hard to dislodge and break apart but some of the walls seem almost impenetrable. Writing these love poems has been a small but powerful antidote to this independence. I had a dream recently that still showed this pattern but at last gave me a way out. In the dream I am riding my bicycle to the beach and a man comes up next to me on a shiny, red bike with a side car attached. He wants me to join him in the side car but I thank him politely and say that I prefer to ride my own bike. His offer scares me ...he scares me...and I think that I’ll be safer to just do my own thing and go my own way. The homework from this dream was to surrender my will and go with him in the side car. Leave all of my fears, concerns, need to control, etc behind and go wherever he wants to take me in that vulnerable little side car. My god, that was scary…..there was no way out of that side car once I got in and I really had to trust that he wasn’t going to take a corner too fast and we’d both go crashing into a ditch. But then I realized that it wasn’t the fear of crashing into a ditch that made me decline but just the simple old fear of giving up my independent self and trusting to his will. That is the real scary place….letting the course of my life be guided by the Divine...and not having to push or pull or scheme or manipulate to get what I think that I need. I know that the healing of my dysfunctional life is for me to just get into that side car and I want this more then anything I have ever desired.
A few of my poems to the Beloved…..
Dear Beloved….. August 5, 2005
I can’t see your face
Or feel your arms around me holding my hand…
But I know that you are there waiting in the shadows.
Sometimes I confuse your face with another
And pour my blessings of love into that vessel
As if my own cup was full.
I might as well pour water into the sand
for all that I am nourished by this misplaced love.
Will you wait for me a little longer?
Will you keep following close by...
so that when I am ready to reach for your hand
You will grip mine in an instant?
Dear Beloved…. August 9, 2005
Today my steps falter and my feet are stuck in the mire.
I try to take slow baby steps in your direction
but I am down on all fours crawling at a snail’s pace.
The road ahead looks so long and treacherous
and I wonder at my will to survive it.
I know that there is an ocean of crystal, clear water at the end of that road
And that my bruised, sore feet will be bathed by your tears of welcome.
I could cry enough tears at this moment to fill a whole ocean
right here in this desert for such is my longing to join you…
but I still have so far, so very far to go.
Dear Beloved… August 10, 2005
My teeth are bared, the hackles are up.
I am ready to attack because I am so terrified.
Terrified of standing alone…
But terrified of you coming closer.
Terrified of change…
Terrified of not knowing…
Terrified of being inadequate to the task.
Please, oh please…
help me to stand perfectly still and not run from this terror.
Dear Beloved… August 17, 2005
I think that the healing will come in the details…
In the minute expressions of voicing my needs.
Just those few words….
“I feel upset when…
“I am irked by…
“I would rather do…
“I feel this when…
Why is this so scary and why do I shy away from just being
human?
Dear Beloved….. August 21, 2005
I am feeling the sting of being alone….
trying to stay busy so that I can keep those feelings at a distance.
What would happen if I were to just stand still?
Would you creep up silently and join me on the swing…
Or lay down beside me on the cool grass of the meadow.
If I were to just sit and watch the clouds float by or
gaze at the stars in the heavens…
might I feel your sweet presence in those moments of idleness?
Dear Beloved… August 26, 2005
I am tired...so very, very tired.
and when I am tired, I am also cranky…
cranky bordering on angry.
I wonder what it would feel like…
if it would feel any different…
To go through this life with you by my side.
Would you carry some of this heavy load…
or would you help me to steer clear of heavy loads altogether?
I think that might be a fine way to live.
Dear Beloved… September 5, 2005
I am in this place where I feel as if I am being pulled in a hundred directions.
I am holding the reins of ten wild horses and each wants to go their own way.
I am completely at a loss as to which way to go myself or which horse to follow.
I wonder what it would feel like to just let all those horse go free…
to give up the reins to someone else and sit back and enjoy the ride.
Dear Beloved… September 6, 2005
I wake up….show up at work...go through the motions of the day..
Feeling sick, feeling tired, not connected.
Come home...more of the same.
Until this moment.
Why do I wait all day to have this moment...these few precious moments?
What a waste...an awful waste of a life.
What is it going to take for me to break free of this prison...these chains?
My will can be so powerful in keeping up the status quo
in the midst of incredible pain ….
so why can’t I use that will to free me from this bondage?
September, 2005
And so where has my journey taken me since writing that first piece (see below)? I am still working on the tapestry of my life – throwing a shuttle by day and trying to unravel the images of my dreams at night. Being in the work has revealed a rich tapestry inside the dream world full of exotic beasts, fantastical structures and beautiful landscapes. These images are unique to my journey and it has been fascinating to see the symbols that the archetypes use to evoke the feeling blocked inside. The process of the dreamwork is a little bit like the actual weaving of a tapestry. Some parts, like the weaving of the background, can be slow and tedious and seem like no progress is being made at all. There is impatience and longing for the more exciting parts of working on the patterns and designs but the groundwork must be accomplished first and only then can the real work begin. If I could weave one image that has been central to my work these past few years it would be a doorway...a doorway opening up to a hidden world where all my true feelings have been locked inside. The dream of throwing the child down the stairs was a big doorway to feeling the pain of separation from the child. I have now realized that there was a whole corridor of doors that lead to that pain and every door that I had the courage to go through seemed to lead me deeper and deeper to the true feeling of what that pain was really all about. A powerful dream came this past year in that I was in a pool of water and across from me on the other side was a naked woman holding a small child. I envied the closeness that they had together and wanted to be naked myself and go over and join them but I am afraid. Just then I notice a big black bug swimming in the water next to me and I quickly try to kill the bug. The homework for this dream was to go past the shame (the black bug), be aware of the fear of rejection and be naked with the child in the water. What emerged from the homework was a feeling of incredible sadness for how separate and distant I was from that mother, the child and ultimately from the Divine. When I felt the pain of that separation it came as a sob from deep within and with it the words – “I want my mother – I miss my mother”. I missed the connection, safety and support that my child self could only equate with the presence of the mother but now as an adult I knew could only come from the Divine.
Really feeling the pain of that child led me into a new territory where I could now identify with the child who was lost and alone and in subsequent dreams, I beheld and felt that child as my own and could laugh with joy as we took our first steps together. With this newfound connection to the child self the dreams then began to reveal the places where I was still kept in bondage by my pathologic blind spots. I dreamt one night about finding a wounded baby deer who, though still alive, had been slit with a knife from its throat to its belly. The rawness of that wound was a pain almost too much to contemplate let alone feel but when I did venture into that place I was able to uncover a major trauma to my adolescent self where I had been the victim of a cruel and senseless rape. All of my healthy 15 year old sexual energy and the voice with which to cry out at this pain and injustice had been completely and absolutely silenced. The appearance of a good, kind doctor at the end of the dream gave me the needed strength to finally feel and bring to light all of the misery that I had denied for the past 35 years. A real surge of energy and awareness followed this dream and there was a new sense of freedom and excitement by going through this pain and coming to the other side.
The next sequence of dreams started to show me some new doorways that I could venture through and although there was a willingness and longing in these dreams something still held me back and kept me separate.
In one dream I am standing on a high platform wanting so badly to dive into this crystal clear blue water but I am afraid of hitting rocks that aren't even there. In another dream, I am kayaking down a raging river going over a waterfall with no helmet or paddle just going with the flow of the river and all goes well until I decide to then kayak this stretch with my partner and I am so afraid of not having all the right gear that we never get into the water. In the third dream of this sequence, a giant silo shaped rocket ship appears at my doorstep ready to explode with all my passionate energy and I am afraid of that also. Great dreams, all of them, but always the same theme of fear holding me back. I want so badly to dive into that water, go over that waterfall without a paddle and explode with that rocket ship but something still keeps me separate and afraid to trust that the Divine is there with me.
And so I wait and try to be conscious of that fear and continue to look for the doorways in my outer life where I can take some risks, learn to trust and find the courage to enter.
November, 2003
The story of my work begins with my coming to Vermont more then 20 years ago
to study weaving with a Scottish Master Weaver. On that day I walked into a 200
year old barn that served as the weaving studio and my senses were assaulted with the sight of massive wooden barn looms, the smell of linseed oil and wool and the rhythmic sound of cloth being woven in time to the singing of a scottish ballad. I will never forget that day and those sensations and some part of my soul was deeply touched and captivated in that place. Needless to say I became a devoted apprentice to that master and I poured every ounce of my energy into learning the skills of the 19th c. hand dyer, spinner and weaver. I became a fanatic...driven by a will that would allow no rest, no relaxation, no leisure time
for anything that wasn't connected to textiles in one way or the other. In this endless pursuit of perfection I became a master myself.....with a certain amount of success and renown and apprentices were now coming to me to learn these forgotten skills. My fabrics were technically precise and flawless, my knowledge vast but my life had become a barren and joyless wasteland. Two marriages had failed and after 15 years of bodily torture I was besieged by migraine headaches and chronic fatigue on a constant basis.
In this state of disillusionment and despair I had a dream that I was sleeping in my bed and I awoke to the sound of someone in the room with me. I became angry that someone had come in and disturbed my rest and with a determined calmness I took a piece of wood from under the bed and began to beat this "intruder" over the head. When I had rendered the "intruder" unconscious I realized that this "intruder" was actually an 8 year old girl. I was still so enraged by the disturbance though that I dragged the unconscious girl down the stairs, threw her out into the snow and locked the door. This dream was a powerful and painful wake up call about the state of my life and how closed off I had become to this innocent inner child who only wanted a little of my time to laugh and play. Despite the harsh and brutal message of this dream I was still stuck in what seemed like immovable patterns and pathology. Many, many dreams later though I finally began to touch that place inside that had driven me to such a life of misery and toil and in uncovering that wound I began to feel some connection to that sweet lost child.
With that opening up colors and soft fuzzy fibers began to enter into my creative
expressions and my weaving entered a whole new dimension. I dreamt of Florence and big, soft beds of rose colored velvet.... sun and warmth and lushness and opulence. Stone houses in France with big tables full of people drinking wine and eating good food. There is now a baccanalian quality to some of my dreams that I sometimes find quite shocking living here in cold, snowy Vermont. In my pathological days of being the perfect weaver the whole Vermont protestant work ethic, harsh climate and endless winter fit in nicely with my idea of how life should be. It was easy to deny the sun loving extravagant child and chain myself to a loom weaving yard after yard of perfect, dull fabric. Now that child has shown me a new way of working (and living!) and although I still sit and weave in cold, snowy Vermont the fabrics have new life and new colors and there is a house in France to escape to and the sun is starting to warm my heart.