Jeane: In the next dream I work in an office, but the setting is pastoral. There are a lot of us moving around in this pastoral setting; we go to work and live there, too.
A friend comes to see me. She’s sad because her mother has passed away and she needs some support. I take her to my office, near the home she grew up in. (In outer reality she’s a childhood friend.) There are other people in my office and her dad is with her, so I have to either move those people or find another place to meet.
In another glimpse, I’m carrying a plant that can grow in either water or dirt. I’m looking at the pretty flowers that have sprouted from the root base.
I know that other people think about planting it in the ground to grow, but I’m considering the water. It feels like there’s going to be a flood, or there has been a flood, and I realize that I have a different way of thinking about it.
I’m not being as traditional as they are, i.e., putting it in a pot of dirt. I might let it split apart and scatter, i.e., spread itself out. I know that some of the people in the dream don’t understand that because they relate to the plant in a more standard way.
John: The theme that emerges in these images is the integration of two parts of you, and to start they seem distinct and separate.
There’s the part of you that’s identified with the person you remember (the childhood friend) whom you need to support or help in some way. That’s like an ancient memory, and it represents traits and qualities that you’ve carried forward in your life. They’re like set patterns that are grasping for life to come together in a preconceived way – a way that keeps you in a certain comfort zone.
In the second part with the plant, you’ve accessed more of your inner awareness, or consciousness, to the point where you can look at something that you ordinarily wouldn’t be pay much attention to (the plant) in a new way. In this section, the patterns or personal psychologies that needed support (like the old friend) are now shown outside of you in the people who only see the traditional handling of the plant.
So you’ve progressed. You’re more mature. It’s a more advanced side of you and you’re looking at what’s unfolding and trying to grasp what it means in terms of a greater sense of the whole, rather than just your own personal desires.
I keep thinking how this is a masculine use of energy, rather than feminine. There are elements of forgiveness and acceptance needed for this integration to happen. The masculine element is supporting that part that you remember from the past, which is a weaker energy. Therefore you’ve built bridges from that to a sense of strength and consciousness that’s unfolded (your independent attitude with the plant).
So you’re seeing an evolved part of you as well as a part of you from an earlier phase. You’re looking at both with an eye toward integration. However, you’re not inclined to embrace the part that’s older and needs support. You’re inclined instead to dwell upon the part that’s unfolding and awakening inside. These images are a way of reflectively looking at the idea of “as above, so below” in terms of integration, i.e., the inner with the outer.
The “below” would be the aspect of you reflected in the first phase, seeking to be integrated and brought into completeness, or at least intertwined, with the “above” part of you that’s able to do amazing, wonderful things in the process of enfoldment.
Now, in the process of bringing the inner life into the outer life, you have to forgive and accept the weaknesses of your older patterns and psychologies (life’s baggage) to enable them to integrate with the part of you that has this sense of freedom and that tends to be part of the feminine that aspires to the overall.
Somewhere in this there’s both masculine and feminine, but it’s not clear in your dream because these are feminine images, i.e., your friend is a woman and your character is a woman. There’s a sequence of balance that’s going to enable you to embrace the two and pull them together. That might be where the masculine thread comes in – as a type of support that accepts both.
