Jeane: I wish I could remember more of the details of this next dream. Like the last dream (see Crime and Punishment), this one also feels like I’m living in a different era.
It’s morning and I’m going over some dreams with you when there’s an interruption. You have to go somewhere. I get up and go outside where there’s a barn-like area with a group of women present. The women are sharing dreams, so I’m telling them the dream that I never had a chance to tell you from that morning.
Then you come walking by… I know the dream (within the dream) involves a strawberry. That’s all I can remember. I do know that you come walking by and you start to give me an interpretation, but I have to block you out a bit because you don’t realize that I’m telling a dream that you haven’t heard yet.
Next I go into a room and you are there. I’m holding up something that looks like a little wooden slat with eight holes in it. The slat has a firm back, and crayons and a ballpoint pen have been placed in the holes.
I’m pointing it out to you, with a certain amount of happiness; it’s something one of our children has done. We have one child who apparently has a disability and sometimes all the focus and attention is on him. In this instance though, I’m really excited to show you something one of the other kids has done – just this wonderful, normal act of putting the pen in the slot, something the child has been able to do for the first time.
It’s just normal stuff and it feels great. That’s what I’m reporting to you.
John: To begin with, the thing to notice is that you’re carrying something (represented by both the dream within the dream and the slat) from the inner that’s able to come out and be reflected or reported in the outer (first to the group of women and then to me). It comes from a place that can’t be noted in terms of a flow. It comes from a deeper level, where it has been frozen, or locked.
I start interpreting dreams first in terms of flow, knowing that everything goes back further than that. In this instance, you know that what you’re carrying needs to come out in terms of the group, in terms of the whole.
So, that part is similar to your previous dream, in which there’s a setness – something is frozen – that has a sight inside of it in terms of the way you’re able to feel it begin to move, or begin to transcend its previous state. In other words, where it has been there is no flow, and therefore no time.
You get a sense of it having been frozen, and from a time standpoint it’s probably been so for a long, long time. Then when it becomes a motion, that’s when its aliveness can come out. It can be seen and understood better when it is in a state of fluidity. That is shown when you begin to describe what the child has done.
Jeane: Yes, I’m just pointing out something ordinary that is wonderful, like when a child takes its first step, and how excited one gets.
John: Well, that’s interesting because that’s a type of connection with the heart that goes into the simple. I tend to disregard that sort of thing, which makes me a little bit cool and aloof. But you’re able to take something that has been set in motion, that doesn’t know its way very well, and you’re actually able to see something about it that is coming out – that’s emerging, that’s showing potential, that’s unfolding. And you see and feel that as an incredible thing.
It’s very grounded and nurturing to be able to do that. I don’t generally pay attention to stuff like that. To me that’s something that’s distractive and inhibiting to the flow. So you’re taking something that has come out from a frozen state and that has to learn how to be. In doing so, it has growing pains in terms of coming from a deep, set, inner state.
That’s very interesting and it’s probably why we all have these different elements in us. That’s an example of earth energy, and I’m air energy. I would empathize with it, but I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it and would be inclined to turn away from it. I tend to see things in a quicker motion – I have an acuity to that – so I poke things to try to get them to flash and to flicker – I create agitation, set them in motion, to see what they are.
But that’s not your way, or the way of the feminine. You see something as it’s trying to find itself and you’re able to see it coming out from its state of confusion as it emerges from a slow, dense state. In other words, you don’t lose track of this deep, deep space inside of you.
