Passage

A way of making a change, or the restrictions you accept to arrive somewhere. The difficulties you face in growing or changing. The passage, like a tunnel, can sometimes depict what you met in being born. It can also be associated with the rectum – the back passage, and the vagina – the front passage.

A sense of being ‘in-between’ regarding work, love or life; change as in a ‘rite of passage’ – so the movement between stages or phases of life; the back passage – rectum, or front passage – vagina and so the birth passage. See: corridor.

If this is a passage in a house it might be showing something about the way you connect with the different facets/rooms of your character. But it is also a buffer zone where a person might be let in to your life but kept away from fuller intimacy.

But a passage can be a passage of music, or passage on a boat or train – thus a passenger – the passage of time, the passage of energy, a bridge is a way of allowing passage, the sage passage, perhaps even a passage through the dilemmas we face.

Example: One man, Hyone and I worked with, dreamt he was in the dim entrance passageway of a house. It was not a welcoming place. When he let himself experience the feelings involved in the dream, he realised the corridor described how he had unconsciously felt about himself. He had held back from sharing himself with other people because he felt dull and uninteresting – like the passage. The positive side of the dream was that although he had not developed a fascinating exterior life, he/the corridor had great depth. This encouraged him to take the risk of allowing more people into his life. The passageway, leading as it did from the front door to the house interior, was an excellent symbol of the part of his own character which connected his own inner feelings and qualities with the people he met.

The ritual, whether it is found in tribal groups or in more complex societies, invariably insists upon this rite of death and rebirth, which provides the novice with a “rite of passage” from one stage of life to the next, whether it is from early childhood or from early to late adolescence and from then to maturity. Every new phase of development throughout an individual’s life is accompanied by a repetition of the original conflict between the claims of the Self and the claims of the ego. Quoted from Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung. See Individuation

The long passage: It suggest a time of searching or looking. It can represent memories of birth and the passage leading to birth.

The dark passage: This may be an initiation into the mystery of death. It is not an entrance into endings, but of release from the limitations she or he has been bound by previously.

The passage of energy: Some people experience vibrating energy passing through or in them. Sometimes they pass the energy on to others for healing.

Allowing passage: Allowing someone to have room to pass you, or offering someone passage on a boat or bus. It depicts a giving of oneself or thinking of other parts of you that need to be moved.

The sage passage: This suggests a move or decision that is wise and allows further opportunity or personal growth. See growth

Idioms: Work ones passage.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I recognise any of the ‘passages’ describe above?

What was the setting of my own passage?

Was I lost or trapped in it or was it a way to somewhere else?

See Collective Unconscious – Settings in Dreams – Being the Person or Thing – Initiation