November, 2007 - When I started the Dream Work in January, 1996 I knew a lot. Despite the fact that I was a new mother (Sonya, my first born, was only 6 months old), I knew a lot about raising children – I already had many years of teaching young children under my belt and through my studies as a Waldorf teacher I now knew that there is a 'right way' to raise children.
Fred and I had already been together for 10 years at this point and I knew a lot about being in a committed relationship. We had taught several courses together and some people looked to us a model of a healthy relationship. I knew that it was important to give my husband space and not rely too much on him, as that could create co-dependency.
I worked actively then to try to create community – sharing my home with others, sometimes strangers, and spending many hours in meetings and dialog about how creating community is the answer to many of life's challenges. I was persistent in bringing this concept to others, knowing that it would solve their problems too.
It was painful to write that
and to read it again
I did not know that I was lost-
that I was willfully building bridges in the wrong direction
Aesthetics was my life -
'goodness through lofty idealism'
hovering
creating illusions that I mistook for life
suffering
silently
all along.
What is more painful still, is that I continue to operate this way.
Throughout the last 12 years of practicing the dream work, I have been confronted and continue to be confronted with how my tenacious values and 'knowing the right thing to do' is a barrier to my relationship with God. Dream by dream I have been broken down and continue to be broken down. I am a slow learner. I have been in the NOE training for three and a half years and am the most senior person in the student group. All of the people who I started with have either moved on to apprenticeship and staff or left. Marc calls me “The Last Man Standing”. A new group in the training had to be formed for me and a few others – a group for students who are kept away from the larger vessel of the work - isolated so that we could continue to face into the tragedy of saying “No” to God again and again. I have been an impostor, posing to be sincerely devoted to God's calling and all the while choosing 'My way”.
Dream
I dash outside to check the mail, only wearing a bathrobe. When I get to the mailbox there is only a large electronic device that is turned on and I feel it pulling 'ickiness' out of me – like John Coffee in 'The Green Mile' when he is healing someone– ickiness is being pulled out of me. I am tinglling all over and scared. I go back in the house and there is one of these devices in the house and I turn it off.
Turning off the device that is there to heal me, is how I am belligerent and disobedient to the work that I claim fervently is my path. I carefully construct a shield that protects me, holding me in a confident world that operates out of strong values.
Recently I was engaged in moral belief that I should not fire any of my employees. All the while one employee was engaged in a serious sabotage of my company. She did poor work, lied and tried to over charge customers. She was filled with bravado and could be a very good worker. I was engaged in a mission to turn her into a top employee. I was care taking her and making my self a victim to her needs and whims. I could not fire her because she was me – I was unconsciously aligned with her belligerence and had made myself into a victim as I tried to caretake her.
Seeing the Ickiness
Ickiness is my default mode
vulnerability is over ridden and
Ickiness enters
without Ickiness, I step
in the dark,
off the edge and free fall
dark
not knowing
falling
it is only when I land that I know that I am OK
the earth is soft and smiles with me at the absurdity
of doing anything else
but stepping off
Every day I am stepping off the edge
and fight back, scrambling
while customers scatter
and employees sabotage
and I stand in the shadows,
watching
waiting for the crumble
because crumbling is far safer
than standing and fighting
those demons
loving the ickiness
just because it is all I know
KNOWING IS EVERYTHING
Pause
Feel
Breathe deeply
and I feel you
You are right here and
it is You I fight
I am scared
to be vulnerable me
following You
yet there is no other way
only one way out- to follow you in to the dark,
even when it means falling off the edge.
Many, many times in a day I 'turn off' the heat that is rising and retreat into my default mode – to do what I know is best in the way that I know is best. My default mode is to believe that I know something – to withhold the truth and stand impenetrable – yet appearing sincere, desperately trying to convince the world that I am something.
Only through facing into the fear of loosing my business, watching customers cancel their services, while I procrastinated in taking action, have I begun to wake up.
I have taken harsh action and reduced employees pay if they receive complaints from customers. I have finally written a letter and handout for my customers that will go out in Monday's mail. I am personally calling each one of my customers to let them know that I care about the service that they are receiving and am available to them. I have made clear standards and set clear expectations for employees and am standing behind these expectations. Thankfully, they have resulted in the departure of the above mentioned employee.
What I have now learned and know in the core of my being is that I am nothing.
I have been isolated where love's bounty flows freely and I have stood apart from it. Not trusting it since it is not 'my way' . Brutally strong pathological will is what separates me from moving on in the work, separates me from God. Belligerent, defiant, reluctant, cautious, and terribly arrogant – stubbornly held in a gyroscopy of “I 'know”.
Last night I asked Marc for an extra session to process the following dream:
I pull up to a mailbox and Lisa, Daniel and a young child are there with wild hair-dos. Then I am playing with a bunch of boys and a couple of girls. I am a child and we are playing pirates. The boys tackle me and touch my breast buds. It is OK. They give me a bone – one that is small but heavy and filled with marrow and a little red inside. I carry the bone in my hand an walk into luminescent light singing a song (the tune is humming in me right now)”La La La Hmmm And Now I'm going home” . I am going home to God.
When I woke from this dream I felt washed clean and clear in my new life. I want this new life, home with God. I walked into my day filled with this dream, holding the bone and singing and walking home. As the day waned, I could feel my old patterns – doing things my way. I did not feel attached to them, but they are there, operating me. In my session, we talked about the fact that Marc does not trust that I will change until I really change. My daily life will reveal this. The proof is in the pudding.
For now, my homework is to feel the feelings – holding the bone that is real, tangible, filled with strength and Marc suggested, phallus potency. My homework is feel this place where I am not a victim and to keep showing up, taking action and not procrastinating. This is not my, will. It is His.
Spring/Fall 2007
August
Today I am scared.
Most likely we will close on the purchase of Custom Maid on Thursday.
The stakes are high.
My soul, my home and my family are at stake.
The greatest unknown is my soul.
Can I stand in my vulnerability, feeling His paw on my head, asking to stay in the peaceful land, plummeting over the cliff? Can I stay here and let Him steer this ship? I am so scared. Right down to the core flame inside the flame were I am most still, yet moving, breathing,
Today I am scared.
I am the owner, president of a corporation with 18 employees
And I was lost from my homework today from waking until lunch time.
Broke through after lunch,
Felt the damn dam that I had been holding
Break in the bathroom
Alone for a few moments
To bleed.
Quietly desperate for the step that I must always take – every waking moment
Know when I am in reaction
Fight for Home
Boys accept me when I take this step.No big waves. Ofcousere you belong here.
Been waiting
And know that you will go away again
Til you don’t
Till you stop your fucking antics
Let’s drop down to discern
Did you confuse His presence for Pride today?
I am not sure and await your correction
I will not consider doing first time meetings as a decision of Yours
Until you speak
Or is this the nasty seed of doubt? Not trusting Your
Always keeping me in the confusion?
Here is my scared heart
Awake at 4am in a body too tired for the day
But needing, desperately needing to feel
TO FEEL
Yes. I feel the floodgates open
There is so much feeling
I am so scared
To stay with the flow
There is such potency in these meetings
Anad Yes
Both times He stepped into my words
To rise up and greet the man I was talking to
Men both times
Christopher and Peter
In their homes, being met somehow in the sweetness of home
You up the anty now
Stakes are high – when asshole Gerette runs the show it is just that – show
Nothing behind a big cloud of pride
I must write, I do know what I need to do, must wirte through the stuck places to find my way home.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing,
That I want more
Than tofind my way home to Him
The resisitance that tortures me, that blinds me is very pergvasive – it is a strong pathology, a very strong pathology. I have to fight – and I have not been fighting enough. Although I try really hard to do my homework al lot – and at times I am doing it twice an hour – even so, IT IS NOT ENOUGH. I need to keep my focus onthat place behind my belly button where all my sensuality is locked and aching for open
July
Beginning with the Lion
In the dream, the Lion places his paw on my head and pulls me back, my neck and back arching and I am vulnerable to his power. This dream begs me to stay here, in this place of excruciating fear that is also entwined with something that stirs from deep within me – a kind of excitement, a feeling of heat that rises to meet the heat that I feel coming from the Lion’s body close to mine. In the dream I am aware that his penis is erect. As I do my homework, of being in this moment with the Lion, I know that He is the Animus. Over the years I have had dreams with wild cats – and each dream has awakened a tingling, a whisper of a very specific feeling that is hard for me to articulate. It is a rush of energy, a fast moving cat streaking…that special feline way of being both active and so quietly present. When the Animus comes to me in the dream as the Lion, I go to Him willingly, knowing that it is my turn. I feel His potent presence and as He comes closer and enters me I … I struggle again for the words to speak what stirs so quietly streaking from deep, deep within. I feel seen – met. I feel, perhaps for the first time in my life, or at least my adult life, that I am seen for who I am. It is as if he Lion knows me and comes to me in this form to let me know that He knows me. Marc my therapist says that I am given this dream because I am ready for the alchemy.
When I am with the Lion I am alive.
The following dream awakened the devoted child in me and also revealed some of the many layers of pathology. I will break down the dream into several parts.
I am in a church that is wide, open and simple. I am a little girl, 6-7 years old. I write on a crumpled piece of paper “Gigi loves Jane”. I am happy and feel loved.
Here, I begin in the state of innocence, of unity with the divine. I am in a church – I have always loved the holy quiet of a church. I am a little girl in the place of receiving love and in this place, my love flows and I write “Gigi loves Jane”.
When I was a child, my favorite aunt gave me the nick name ‘Gigi’. No one else called me Gigi, and I felt very special that she gave me this name. A couple years ago, I started a cleaning company and named it “Gigi’s Clean as a Whistle”. From the beginning, this business worked for me – it provided a steady income and a place for me to grow and ‘show up’ in a new way. 10 months ago, I took the leap and hired people to work with me and the business has been growing steadily. One of the first people that I hired was Jane. Jane is a sister to me and in the last 10 months, she and I have bumped up against each other, projected onto each other and wept and laughed and sweat, and worked hard, very hard together. She is my sister like none I have had before. Just before I had this dream, I was presented with the opportunity to buy a larger cleaning company. Through following and staying with the spark of energy that I am beginning to trust as His guidance, I am now preparing to purchase this other company and quadruple my business. This is only possible with Jane by my side as the manager. I was given this dream to affirm what I know I need to do. I am being obedient. I feel the Lion with His paw on my head as I continue, passing to Jane all the daily functions of the business and preparing for the purchase that will occur within the next few weeks.
The road is still rocky however. The following dream fragments reveal the many layers of pathology that seek to tear me from the Lion, from being the girl in the church. This dream goes on to show the many layers of loss - of how I fall from grace, from the sweetness of receiving and feeling love.
There are preparations for an event, a First Holy Communion? A wedding? Laura is there and she tugs playfully on a curtain that she is trying to straighten. There are two water pitchers. Laura wants them used for the ceremony. I think that they are elegant, but when I look closer, there are gaudy. I question Laura, if she really wants to use them and she does. I submit.
As I write this now, I begin to weep – some deep unknown place is stirred by the image of playful tugging of the curtain. For whatever reason, I have left the innocence of my quiet devotion. Something tipped me into unworthiness, ripped me from the quiet love that filled me. And now, when I look at the water pitchers that had once looked elegant, now they are gaudy. At this moment, I am looking with my critical, adult eyes and I doubt that Laura could be serious. Now, I am in the world of good and bad, of pretty and ugly. I do not know if the pitchers are really gaudy or if it is that I am now looking at them through the poisoned eyes of my critical, judging pathology. I have fallen from the grace and am lost in confusion and projection. I have bought the Big Lie – that ugly and elegant are measurable and important. I think “even though I accept that she wants the gaudy pitchers, I know what I think and I know better” Pride. Pride is the ever prevalent pollutant of my psyche. Pride enters and a glass wall separates, isolates me from the love that is my birthright – that is the very essence of who I really am.
When I was a Waldorf teacher, this judging pathology was on high alert all the time. I needed to know the difference between elegant and gaudy and I carefully aligned myself with the Waldorf aesthetic. This became my anchor and orientation – so that I could quickly know where I was at any given moment. I learned to refine my behavior in relationships with others, especially with children. Instead of creative and joyful interactions where I followed their spark of imagination, I applied what I had studied and carefully crafted each moment to get a desired result – children behaving in a ‘Waldorf acceptable’ manner. The loss is painfully clear to me now. The dream goes on.
There is a woman in the church who is small and dark. She is doing a public confession or communion. She is reciting a prayer and I am moved by her apparent innocence and openness.
Here, I project onto the woman the lie that I have accepted. “If you behave in a certain way, you can fool people into believing that you are sincere”. In fact, I fooled myself. This small dark woman is here take me further and further from my core self. Again, my thoughts take me back to being a Waldorf teacher and the pretense that I adopted to look good, to look like a teacher who knew something but was humble and honorable. This was really a sickly ‘holier than thou’ attitude that I mistook for my true self.
I was recently at a family reunion – with my father’s side of the family, who has not been together for over 30 years. My parents divorced when I was 16 years old and after this there was very little contact with these cousins, aunts and uncles. Sitting around the table with them was riveting – this is a fiery bunch. Two of the family members who were not present were blatantly criticized. Both of them have personalities that are riddled with falseness and outrageous pretense. For example, one of them grew up in NY but bears a distinctly European accent. The other lies about her work life – stating to some that she is the owner of her company, when in truth she is an employee. Arrogance and false identity are natural in my family and I have my own version – one that is sneakier since it is couched in ‘new agey’ “I’m an evolved being” smoke screen.
In another dream:
I am at the door of Lisa and Tim’s house. They are inside and they are reading the bible – the Gospel of Luke – I look in and want to be with them.
The ‘wanting’ in this dream is related to the woman in the church who wants to behave a certain way and fit in with a certain structure of behavior. I ‘want’ to fit in. I ‘want’ what I project onto Lisa and Tim that they have. I ‘want’ a certain simple, even, smooth devotional life in which god tells me to do what I want to do and I do it and all is calm and predictable and even keeled. This is what I project onto Tim and Lisa.
My adult life, as a Waldorf teacher and through to the present, is really devoid of spirit. It is devoid of spirit because I believe that I can control it, I believe that I know what it looks like, how it feels and how other feel and look and behave when the spirit lives in them. This ‘aesthetic spirituality’ as Marc calls it is an empty, hell hole. It is a hell hole because it is a manufactured life – all my studies of spirituality and the outer trappings make me pine away for an artificial life.
The first dream shifts and goes on:
I am on a city street and two guys see my diamond ring and I am scared that they will mug me. I go up to a woman who I think is with them and offer her a lounge chair. I am hoping that if I give her this the guys will see that I am generous and they won’t mug me. I try to hide my diamond.
This is exactly the same trick that the woman in the church tried – do something that looks good, appears to be even more than good. Look squeaky clean, humble, generous, above the rest… and hide the diamond heart.
Just yesterday I wrote a note to a customer who needed a simple clarification. A bill had been left for her rather than sent in the mail as was planned. Rather than a simple “oops!” pathology possessed me and I wrote a note demeaning Jane. Thank God I caught it before sending it and made a correction. The sting of the pathology remains – Jane, who Gigi loves with a wide and passionate heart, was slimed in one nasty stroke. It was arrogance that hooked me. Above all else, my pathology seeks to look good. A simple ‘oops!’ became a place to judge and demean Jane and sabotage the vulnerable, open-hearted little girl me.
In a more recent dream,
A man gives me a pair of little girl pants – soft flannel ones with little blue doggies. I accept them and feel tender and happy. Then suddenly I realize “I don’t need these any more!” and condemn myself for wanting them.
When I stay in the sweetness of accepting the pants from the man, I feel a tingling through my body. This tingling is the flow of innocent desire – very different from the ‘wanting to fit in and look good’ in the earlier dreams. When the man hands me the pants, I am delighted, accept and want them. This wanting is pure and tingles my body – awakes the sensuality that is always my door, my friend. Staying with this wanting is related to feeling my fear and staying with the wanting, the heat of the Lion with His paw on my head.
My current dream:
I am with a woman who is hugely pregnant. I place my hand on her belly to feel the baby. She moves my hand and shows me how to feel the EAR of the baby. I do – I feel the baby’s ear and I am in awe, and quietly focused on this tender moment.
“What’s this dream about?” asks Marc. “I don’t know, but I feel warmth, heat”. This dream is about sensuality – again, only this time it is a new and very tender sensuality. I am working my homework, feeling incredible sweetness when the outer world quiets and I am focused, attentive to the baby, Quiet awe and such tenderness well up – a deep well inside pulses and surges in a strong yet quiet way. I have no idea what this new sensation is about or where it will take me. I am only committed to staying with it, doing my homework and staying open for the next step.