Jeane: The final image in this dream series is just a flash image: I can see that around my face I have my normal hair, but then on top of my head I have a black wig. It looks odd because the black wig is perched on top and my hair shows through halfway down.
My niece’s husband is there and he’s a captain at the fire department. He comes along and remarks that it’s not good to have anything taped to my head – it would be a danger in a fire. My response is that that is good information to have.
John: Yes, in the course of your recent dreams I didn’t mention this aspect (for the earlier images in this series, see Forest for the Trees, Finding Our Balance, and The Interval). This flash image is showing you that the proper way for the feminine to carry itself is in its true glory, and a woman’s hair represents her glory. But to carry your self in that true glory, or openness, requires total vulnerability.
Just as in the previous dreams, you’re feeling too vulnerable to the incoming masculine energy. Thus, in this flash image, your “true feminine glory” is hidden under a wig. It’s showing that when there’s something that you’re holding onto, or holding out against, as a protective measure, that’s when you can be disturbed by the fire of the masculine. Yet when you’re really wide open and receptive, your expanse, in that regard, is so complete and whole that you’re protected – as long as you take into account everything.
Creation is really the realm of the feminine, but the feminine is not safe in Creation if she is divided, or made separate, by some mannerism that she has taken on. Then, when the equally great quality of the Divine (which is also totally hidden in the feminine – they’re one and the same), comes through, and the feminine is holding onto something, she’s subject to getting burned.
So the feminine needs to leave her hair down. She needs to stay open and receptive and, in that regard, vulnerable. There are many spiritual schools that try to bring a person closer to this state, but they all have their limitations because they tend to stress one particular quality or trait. The Tantric school stresses the importance of being totally vulnerable and, thereby, capable of realizing something that would otherwise be impossible. If you’re holding out or maintaining a particular mannerism or attitude in your nature, it closes you off from receiving something more.
We see it in the example of a woman we know who teaches women’s studies. She has an aspect to her that cracks and breaks. She hears through her listening center, but then she has this whole other part of her that gets adamant about what she thinks she has caught up with in terms of her understanding of Creation, i.e., the role of the feminine and its singular importance. She doesn’t realize that such a stance is actually a poisoning, or bias. It’s a tendency, or a role, that she adopts.
I think it’s just something that a certain quality of the feminine’s caringness can’t help but take on to some degree before it realizes that it has to be totally receptive to the lion-side nature of life that can consume it. But she is totally secure and safe if she can truly let go and can embrace all of that because she’s complete and whole in and of herself.
If the feminine is off on some particular tangent, holding out in some particular way, dismissing the masculine in some regard, then the consequences won’t be good. There’s going to be collateral damage.
