I Remember, a Dialogue

The dream wants us to re-member ourselves. We are often fragmented psychically, emotionally, physically. We become comfortable in a state of spiritual obliteration. What was once know becomes forgotten. We often do not even know that we have forgotten. But the forgetting is really a turning away. This is not to say we choose this, or that we should berate ourselves for forgetting. But we compensate, cover, and find all manner of ways to protect ourselves from the devastation of our separation and fragmentation. We feel lost and abandoned. We become self-will run riot.

Re-membering through the felt experience of the dreams helps us to re-integrate, sublimate, and ultimately transform. In the words of Aristotle, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." This is to say, the result is often unexpected. The approach is one of faith, or reliance upon something greater than one's self. Once we establish this connection, we realize that has been a missing energetic force that can bind us back together. Through the dreams, the Archetypes seek to guide us back to our faith, our higher self.

In my dream writer's group, we explore various writing forms and techniques for conveying our experience of the dreams. In my recent class, we explored the dialogue.

In this short piece, the setting is from a current dream I am working with where I enter a beautiful glass house by the sea with my father. I am a girl, 14. I feel vulnerable because it is "Her" house, a woman who I am not quite sure about (an Anima figure), and yet safe because I am with my Father (Animus figure). The dialogue is imaginal, containing content from many of my dreams.

I REMEMBER

I: Father, who is this woman who lives here?

Him: She is your mother.

I: Why do I not know her?

Him: You do know her. You have forgotten her.

I: But why would I forget her? Does she not love me if she is my mother?

Him: Yes, she loves you dearly and will do everything in her power to bring you back to her heart.

I: I feel sad that I have forgotten her.

Him: We all forget. It is a condition of our existence to forget. But then, if we choose, we may remember again.

I: So I remembered her before and then I forgot again. If I remember now, does that mean I will forget again?

Him: Yes, for you could not have remembering without forgetting. Remembering would have no purpose for you without the forgetting.

I: Father, did I forget you too?

Him: Yes. And then you remembered. Do you remember?

I: Yes, I remember finding you in the garden. You picked me up and spun me around and around. It was pure joy. I remember I fell into your arms and you held me like a baby. You are a potter, a woodworker. You took me into your house and I remembered that it was my house too.

Him: Do you know this house we are in now?

I: Yes. I remember this house. It is her house. It is beautiful. I can see the sea. There is so much mist. I can be here now because you are here. Without you, I could not be here now even though it is beautiful. I would not have been able to see the beauty or feel safe coming in here without you.

Him: You speak the truth.  Do you remember when she first came as the Yellow Spinner?

I: Yes, I was frightened. I ran as fast as I could because it seemed she was hurting the boy. Then I saw her planting the field with garlic. I remember being with the Yellow Spinner next to a pond. She was sitting on a rock and I was sitting at her feet, a small girl, frog legged on the ground. She was talking to me and showing me something. She said that I must be careful how I speak of these things. She pulled out a piece of metal that was very old and pitted and black. She said “we are like this piece of metal but we can be like this” and then she wiped her hand across the metal and I saw that it was polished smooth and was made of some rare earth element that gleamed like nickel or titanium. She said that many people will come wanting this knowledge but very few understand the difficulty in attaining it and they become frustrated.

Him: She is wise. It is not easy to remember. There is pain. Do you remember the pain?

I: Yes. I remember the pain. There is much pain and the pain has made me very angry. I have been afraid of the pain and the anger and I never wanted to feel these things. Perhaps this is why I forget.

Him: Yes. Do you remember when she opened your heart?

I: Yes, I was brought to her in the wood. There was a fire and we stood in the fire together. She fed me porridge. I was very afraid, but I did not try to leave. I did not leave even when I saw the knife. The fear was incredible and somehow I stood there with her and she put the knife in my heart and I understood pain as something different than what I thought it was.

Him: Yes, you stayed. This makes you special.

I: I will stay now, in her house with you.

Him: She is here with us now.

I: Yes, I see her by the curtain. She is beautiful and I remember that I love her and that she loves me.

Anima by Red Pool

To find out more about the dream writer's group, visit: http://suescavo.com/classes.html...new meeting dates to be listed soon.!