John: In this dream I’m piling lumber higher and higher. These are just long and thin pieces of wood, you know, all cut up in different sizes, and I’m just piling them up. Even when it gets to the point where the pile gets tippy, I keep adding to the pile.
Then I start another pile next to the first one so that they can support each other. Soon, I have six or seven piles, each piled to a point where they can tip one way or the other. I realize that they are still unstable, which means I’m carrying the energy of trying to get something to be more stable.
So I build another pile to counterbalance it on one side. Well, that may keep it from tipping to that side, but it could still tip the other way, so I then have to go to the other side and put in another pile in the opposite direction.
I just keep going back and forth building piles to stabilize it, yet each time I can imagine conditions in which everything comes tumbling down. I can never get it right. Even when it’s reasonably stable, if it were bumped into it would fall over.
So, I’m wondering how it’s done at a lumber mill, because they stack them high in the air. So I find myself staring at a large stack that’s even higher than what I have done, and I realize that this lumber is already prestacked. In other words, they have it in long pieces and it’s banded and sorted. They take that with a forklift and put it on top of the pile in a way that is much more stable.
Yet as I look at this huge pile, I realize that it could get knocked over if there was an earthquake. So even that pile causes uneasiness in me. The whole idea of constructing a pile is for stability and balance, and every pile has its limitations. But if you’re going to have a pile at least it has to serve a useful purpose – this is what I’m rationalizing inside myself.
Then it shows up as an area out on an open deck at a restaurant where I like to sit. But it feels overly exposed. I realize I can make this spot really cozy if I take a pile of lumber and stack it all the way to the eaves. It will hold itself in place. Then it can serve multiple purposes. It supports the roof a little bit and it’s supported from tipping over because it’s held in place by the roof. It also gives me the privacy I need where I can’t be seen and I can sit out there and be cozy and protected, you know, hidden from view.
What this dream is saying is that, when we carry uneasiness, we are always trying to figure out how to put it into balance, to get it into a flow. So I’m making these piles and doing all this stuff to resolve the uneasiness I feel. I’m trying to feel more secure, which is an aspect of my identity.
In your recent dreams you were trying to maintain balance, but from the feminine perspective. I am doing it from the masculine perspective. I’m trying to take an action that will seemingly fix things, but it doesn’t always work.
The feminine is coming from the opposite direction. It doesn’t need to take an action – it accommodates ripples in the pond (uneasiness or distraction) by holding and honoring the overallness. It makes sense that it would be that way because the feminine carries a completeness in her nature. She is affected when things touch her completeness. Then she’s inclined to try to figure out what needs to be done in order to take responsibility and account for that.
So when an awakening happens inside her, and the spirit energy rises up, she suddenly has a greater sense of things. This greater sense is the masculine quality that awakens. Of course, she still must keep it and hold it in relationship to the overall, which is huge, huge, huge. She has to try to not get caught up in what she perceives, knowing that there is more and somehow honoring and holding that sense of more.
The feminine nature puts up barriers. It’s very interesting how it does that. It determines what it will allow to touch it. It’s a defense mechanism. And that aspect that gives permission to touch, causes something then to awaken and to be revealed. Initially it’s trust that enables that to happen. Then there’s an openness that enables that to happen, and then there is a quickening of one’s nature that enables that to happen.
Over time, it gets to a point where something more is needed. Then the feminine determines again what it will allow to reach it, before something new can approach, or be received. This is the process that creates a feminine doingness. The feminine begins as a completeness, but must awaken the masculine which then enables her to have a doingness, from within her completeness.
The flipside of that is shown in my dream, where my masculine is all about doing this and trying that to fix something. I’m continually trying to figure out how to find a cadence and a balance. But real cadence and balance best come together when there is an acceptance, a more feminine aspect. All the “doing” in the world won’t necessarily calm my uneasiness. That’s what this dream is showing.
