The Wounded Healer = Bodhisattva

 I had believed that climbing to the top of the mountain was to win, to come out on top, to survive. Before I understood there was a journey, I was simply the survivor of my life. Was this not better than becoming the victim of life? I disdained the victim, believing that to have survived was simply the better position to take. The simple truth of the survivor is that they move through life as a victim too.

And thus a terrible spin is born out of this simple reaction to the traumatic elements of our lives that would have us striving to be on top so as to dominate our fears, or becoming so overwhelmed by our fears that we hide so as not to be seen, never to speak from our hearts.

The survivor/victim are two sides of the same spinning coin. The survivor sees them self as the hero in the mythology of the trial in which they believe they survived. The victim believes that their experience is beyond their control from a place of believing they should have control. Their lot is hopelessness. 

But what is sacrificed at the altar of the hero, is the girl. And, perhaps what is laid at the altar of the victim is the boy. Most of us live either in one of these extremes or embody elements of both depending upon the situation and our trauma identified reaction to it. Either way it amounts to the loss of the soul self. 

The Alchemist's Hand - North Node Promise

This is my version of the Alchemist's Hand. I call it North Node Promise.

The dreams provide us with the imagery, often set in a metaphorical story, to move us into the feelings necessary for alchemy to occur within us. Alchemy, in the psychological sense, implies transformation, integration of opposites, and ultimately the transmutation of our inner conflicts into inner harmony.

"In reference to the divine work of creation and the plan of salvation within it, the alchemistic process was called the 'Great Work'. In it, a mysterious chaotic source material called materia prima, containing opposites still incompatible and in the most violent conflict, is gradually guided towards a redeemed state of perfect harmony, the healing 'Philosophers' Stone' or lapis philosophorum: First we bring together, then we putrefy, we break down what has been putrefied, we purify the divided, we unite the purified and harden it. In this way is One made from man [masculine, yang] and woman [feminine, yin]."

Büchlein vom Stein der Weisen, 1778

The dreams are as rich with archetypal imagery as the great hermetic works of the alchemists and mystics. As an Archetypal Dreamwork Practitioner, I work with clients to explore the images and motifs to help illuminate what they might mean for each dreamer.

The Sonnets

These poems are inspired by the dreams and were written as part of a dream writer's group that I belong to.

To bring this form of creative expression up from the depths of me is exciting and deeply moving. What we cannot convey or teach about this journey through rational discourse can be brought into the body through the creative act of expression in the form of images and words. I have found the poem to be a way to "paint" with words. Words drawn taut to illuminate, to intensify, to lift one up and crash one down into the contrast of light and dark, a chiaroscuro of vibrant images to bring one back to one's essence, to bring pause, to elicit tears and anger, grief and joy, laughter and brightness, angst and inspiration.

For to find myself at five and one standing before a door long closed and now thrown open, is a gift, sacred, not to be questioned or judged, not to be analyzed or chased.

The dream offers me an unwavering entry point into the creative depths of my soul.

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.!

The Girl

This is a story about my Girl as I have experienced her in my dreams over the last four years. It was written as part of an dreamwork writer's group that I belong to.

The Girl

The world was a dark place and the girl was silent. There was really no fear because the darkness was so familiar. Anger was familiar too. It was a writhing deep anger that filled the girl and filled the darkness too. In fact it seethed with a opaque rage that spoke of injustices unfathomable. Truths that couldn't, shouldn't be spoken.

Every now and then a brief flash of light. Hope, but so dazzling the girl was befuddled, confused. It seemed  that there was heat in that light, possibility. In those moments the fear became visceral and rose in a bloom of passion and desire and terror. But there was fire and the girl feared the fired. Somehow the fire of her passion would become the oven of death or perhaps a funeral pyre in which memory and knowing burned blisteringly bright with pain and then subsided back to a stillness, a pulsating in the dark.

One day the girl awoke to a place of waiting. She knew the waiting as a place outside of the anger. Something was happening, there was a stirring. Her whispered prayers finding their way up through cracks in the stone. Someone knew she was here! Not just someone, but The One.

The one who she remembered. And in the remembering, the door opened. Light burned down on her shell-shocked face and she skittered out of the corner and took the light full on. Hands lifted her and carried her up.

There was magic in the forest and wild beasts clamored for her attention.  And then she found herself on a flag-stoned plaza. It was night, yet day. She looked with wonder up at the sky and saw three red planets stacked up in space. The stars were brilliant and there was the sun emerging in furls and explosions of fire from behind the darkened silent moon.