The idea of cleaning up loose ends in a dream is a potent symbolism for our journey. In John’s dream, the urge to put things away is a good one, but his methodology is suspect. Some aspects of our inner lives aren’t put to rest by dissecting them (chopping them to bits), but rather the best way to handle them is to let them go totally – in a way that prevents their return. The image of burning them in a furnace shows the transformative nature of the process required. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
John: And then in another image, I’m looking to clean up a project that has some loose ends left. To begin with I think that I am to chop up what remains; just going to take an ax and chop it into little pieces and deal with it that way. It doesn’t really quite get rid of it, but it chops it up.
As I stare at what remains I realize it is not something that you can chop up. I actually think I take an ax and I come down on it once and I realize, oh, this is not going to work. This is the wrong tool for the thing, because what I’m seeing is all of these pots, there are a bunch of pots and they’re all different sizes and they’re made out of aluminum. I mean you use an ax to chop wood, but you don’t take an ax and hit metal with it and expect to chop it into pieces; these pots are made out of pure aluminum.
So I’m situated in a place where there are others around. It could be like kind of a catalytic area, or something like a kitchen or something where you deal with things there, so I turn to others who are in the area and say, “Because this is pure aluminum, I think I will take it out of this area and into a much larger area in which there is a furnace and throw these pots back into the furnace and melt them down.”
That’s how you get rid of them. And the very idea is exhilarating to me having come up with the solution that resolves the issue. It is too much strain trying to chop them up and deal with them. Just haul them out there.
So the only thing that’s left up in the air is, I’m very familiar with this furnace area – do I throw them in the furnace myself, or do I go to the furnace man and let him work them into the furnace as he deems necessary? That part I don’t sort out, but I know that that’s how you deal with it.
And the meaning of the dream is that a stigma exists over that which is still affecting me as unfinished business. This tears away at my psyche. So I have to put the effect upon me away or, as shown, melt the aluminum containers by throwing them into a furnace so that everything about their existence goes away.
Can’t chop it up, can’t keep fumbling with it, can’t keep moving and shifting things around. That doesn’t work. The reason is because one has got to clear the slate because something is about to happen – and whatever it is that you’re doing is a slippery slope.
To download this file, Right Click (for PCs) or Control Click (for Macs) and Save: Melting Away
