that leap!

[mikey]

hi tony,
as you know the theme in my last couple of posts seem to hover around (no pun intended) making a leap into the unknown,
i am of the mind that if a dream repeats itself it is because the meaning is not yet understood,baring this in mind,
this latest dream is a reflection of this idea,or maybe a sign of progress ,i am not sure.
the dream.
i am aware of many previous battles taking place,there is one more to come,i am aware i am heading towards the  last battle,intuitively i feel it is one i am going to win.
i am running through undergrowth knowing somewhere i am going to reach the edge of a cliff,
breaking through a large bush i make a great leap into fresh air,i have jumped into nothing,i can see the patchwork of fields below me as if i am up in the sky,i think i am probably going to die.
but,i realise in front of me is a huge tall wooden pole ,i land on this hugging it with a grip of life,phew,
i realise i can slide down like a fireman would to the ground,where a huge army dressed in white is waiting for me,this is the last battle,i understand that the battle is with whatever is coming down the pole after me.

no doubt you will see as i did,the resemblance to jack and the beanstalk,i have read quite a few  interpretations from psychological & spiritual sources on the metaphorical meaning of the story.
as always i respect your knowledge of dream content,and would value your thoughts,
rgds Mikey

[mikey]

just thought i would include what i read on the Beanstalk:
sourced from the secrets of spirituality & mythology blog.

Setting out to explore the higher world by courageously climbing the beanstalk, Jack enters into an unknown space. In the tall house he meets his nemesis the monster ogre, a personification of his shadow self which he must conquer before obtaining any treasure, which is a very clever metaphor for self-improvement  by ridding oneself of the negative emotions of greed, hatred, as personified by the monster within. Similarly, Snow White and Cinderella succeed when their evil Stepmother dies a terrible death symbolizing the destruction of the shadow side. All three fairy-tales therefore place emphasis on the internal insight into the true self and  bringing to the light of awareness their own darkness in order to cleanse their mind of negativity.

  The beanstalk is identical with the  tree in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of Hesperides as both are solid vertical plants that grow upward and produce a type of seed or fruit. The beanstalk and tree should be considered a symbol for the human spine and nervous system. This tree appears in the Garden of Eden with the serpent encircling the trunk and offers Eve the apple. An apple that bestows immortality and knowledge of good and evil, just as the beanstalk is guarded by a monster Ogre the tree is guarded by the serpent as the prize of immortality must be won by great effort. Similarly, Hercules eleventh labor involved stealing Heras’ Golden apples of immortality, located in the Garden of Hesperides which was protected by the hundred headed dragon named Ladon, a symbol of Kundalini.  The prize of the golden immortal apples is a parable for the mental gifts which manifest after the transformation, that include long life, creativity, spirtual insughts, magnetic attractiveness, a sense of immortality and the inner golden light.

The beanstalk grew upward into the sky, or heaven in a sense. Jack climbs the Beanstalk (spine) to reach “heaven “and obtain the gold of higher awareness. This first foray into the heaven cannot be sustained. Three trials are often mentioned in fairy-tales, and accordingly, Jack tries to obtain more gold upon each entrance up the beanstalk or spine. in his first attempt he only receives a small set of gold coins; then the goose that lays the golden eggs, in the final escape he obtains the Golden harp. The three golden objects point to the progressive expansion in consciousness, which does not happen all at once, it is a sequential unfoldment building upon previous expansions. The body and brain needs time to physically adjust to any new activity of bio-energy. Nerves are rewired and new hormones are created. This relates to psychology of the mystic who searches desperately for a new experience after once reaching the “kingdom of heaven’’ or the bliss of Samadhi.

[Tony Crisp]

Mikey - Your dreams shows another advance, although you are still frightened of death, which is a fear with its foundations in our sensory impressions - which are true for protecting the body, but are not useful in the inner adventure.

But it is huge demon, monster, dragon, nemesis, death which guards the way to the gold of higher awareness. Some of the interpretations of these meeting are about cutting down the beanstalk or killing the awful thing we meet. But my personal feelings about these stories are that the people writing them have not themselves met and dealt with the giant or nemesis themselves, so are writing about fear reactions. For the monster we meet is no other than our instinctive base self, intent on killing anything that defies it, a basic animal reaction - which is what we feel when we meet it. It is an immense power within us which obviously provokes fear because that is it very nature, and we are meeting it, so we are in fact possessed by it by using its own instinctive reactions. We do not need to kill it, for if we did we would have killed an enormous power source - we need to transform it to become an ally not an enemy.

That is an old worn out Christian idea - kill the Devil, slaughter the awful things of our inner world that haunt us, murder whatever stands in our way. Out of that has come the awful state of modern communities where the powerful make slaves of those who have not.

If you accept that every dream figure is an aspect of Life within you, why kill it? Why cut down the living growth - the beanstalk - to a higher or wider awareness because it opens us to our own fears? They are all dream images - I turned away from the man and saw just to my right a short distance from the bus an animal that was the ‘haunter’. It was a mammal of no particular type - a bit like a mixture of dog, rat and guinea pig. It seemed very ordinary and tame, and stood looking at me. I walked toward it and stretched out my hand. It was a tan colour with short fur and gave a feeling of being okay to approach, so I touched it to stroke. This was okay and I was thinking there was no problem when the creature leapt at my throat in a flash of movement and ripped my throat out. 

This sounds disturbing but I simply observed this and thought to myself that stroking and trying to be friendly was no way of dealing with this thing. It was as if I was in command of the imagery in that I simply formed another body. The only way that felt as if I might deal with the creature was to have the meditative state of holding on to the nothingness that was my centre, and not feeling panic at its attacks. In fact apart from the gory imagery, there was nothing to be frightened of, as the creature was only attacking my dream image of myself. As I wasn’t identified with this, it couldn’t hurt me. That was the end of the dream.

Possibly you are still identified with your dream image of yourself. It is a real test we must pass on the inner journey. Take your time, for usually do not swing from such enormous fears to certainty that we are more than a body quickly.

Tony

[Tony Crisp]

Mikey - I described the dealing with dream images, but I did not mention dealing with the 'haunter'.

I was out to kill me - a killer. But so is the giant at the top of the beanstalk, the dragon and all the other monsters we human think up. But I didn't simple leave it there and think I had dealt with the problem, I explored the image of the haunter.

What I found was at the base of most of our enormous fears - tremendous and murderous anger - anger against, in this case my mother for what I felt was being treated inhumanly. In reliving this anger I tore her apart. I jump on her stomach splitting it until her guts spilt.

I know that sounds awful, but a child's feelings have no outlet because a child knows that its anger must not be directed to its mother otherwise it would be alone in the world. But anger is our instinctive method of protecting yourself and if it is not expressed outwardly turns in upon oneself - tearing ones throat out, chased by a monster. It is such a forbidden thing that we hide it under mysticism, strange symbols and any old thing rather than admit we have been tearing ourselves apart with out own anger.

Of course it is not only anger about what we felt our mother did to us, it can be parents, siblings, the others, the awful things that government does to its individuals. Think of the anger generated when ones whole family turns against you; or the blacks in US who are full of anger and often it spills out in action and smashing whatever they can; or the groups who vent their anger against another country in war, or the youngster who turns against their family and want to join what we call terrorists.

But anger can come from many other causes:

"Defiant shout from my 'other voice' as in fantasy I watched those yellow seeds growing inside me... growing so large I felt that they would burst open my vagina... no no, not my vagina but my bladder ... my bladder was going to burst ... no no no it was my stomach yes my stomach... growing larger and larger until -

I saw an enormous stomach covered with a shapeless brown skirt that fell to the ..... my mother... my mother... very pregnant. ... 'That's my sister in there! I'VE GOT TO HACK MY SISTER OUT OF THERE!' My other voice screamed again as in fantasy I grabbed an axe and hacked away at my sister's foetus in my mother's stomach.

But - blotting out that fantasy - the nightmare of my very fat aunt with only the upper half of her body, her stomach missing. Now I knew. Blindingly. I must have been intensely jealous when my sister was about to be born, and I must have wanted to kill her off; an impulse which I had repressed from consciousness. (From Myself  and I)

Yes - repression of forbidden feelings that we turn into monsters that we run from or want to kill - the same old instinctive impulse - kill it.

Tony

[mikey]

Hi tony,
if I am being persued by anything it has to be my past, we are products of our enviroment, our past after all, I remember the words spoken to me in my last dream, I want you to let it go, let it all go, the love the hate etc, this is a difficult thing to do as I am sure you are aware, I know of no way to speed this process up, so all I can do is let it all unfold naturaly ,
I mentioned the jack & beanstalk story as the dream had a similarity with it, but I was not being persued by a giant, it was more about taking that leap, the final battle.
I leaped in the dream thinking there was going to be nothing , but I was wrong, I feel this is a good old compensation dream, correcting my lop sided thinking, still whatever occurs, it will take a leap of faith, here I go , cowabunga!
Rgds mikey

[Tony Crisp]

Mikey - Well why not explore what holds you back?

Honestly it is not difficult considering the journey you have made. You simply ask yourself, "What is holding me back?" and let it all unfold. See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/using-your-intuition-2/

I was a bit on my high horse the last answers, even so you said something was coming down the pole after you, so what were you afraid of?

Tony

[mikey]

Hi tony sorry for my delay in replying.
The other day i came upon the phrase, "to be up a pole"one of the meanings being , to be slightly mad,
This to me would fit the idea of having to make a leap of faith, as to some it would appear as a crazy thing to do,
I recall someone saying,
we refuse to do many things in life because of the what ifs, but its those what ifs that make it all worth while.
I hope I find or can bring forth that spirit as it holds the key to freedom.
rgds Mikey

[Tony Crisp]

Mikey - There was a comedy program on UK radio called, "Up the Pole" many years ago.

What if is a two sided thing, because you could decide 'no' or 'yes' - it's how we create our future.

Did you see, http://dreamhawk.com/news/how-i-became-a-virgin/ ? What if I said 'no' when I thought of trying it? I could still be living in the attitude, "Nah, that stuff never works and I don't believe in fairy tales."

Anyway, I sense you will make the jump as it is part of your growth.

Tony

[mikey]

tony,
my aerial is switched on and twitching,
i watched a movie last night called,hector and the search for happiness,this is most definatly about making leaps of faith,i would recomend it,the message from the story was, learning that the only obligation you have in life is to be happy about it,
tough lesson to learn in this day and age,with all our to do lists,5yr,10 yr goals etc.
i am reminded yet again ,put down the life you have planned for yourself,and pick up the one thats at your feet.
rgds mikey

[Tony Crisp]

Mikey - Yes I watched the same film a couple of weeks ago and had similar feelings evoked by it.

Keep the aerial sparking to receive and of course give your own signals - for the universe is always learning too.

Tony