Pleasant Intruders

A few nights ago I had a dream in which I was lying in bed and sensed intruders had come into the house. I waited tensely, not too frightened, and, sure enough, the door swung open and there stood a young African American couple and another black woman, all in their 20s. I learned they were stranded. Their car had broken down. The two women were sisters. Without hesitation I invited them to stay with me.

This simple little dream is packed with information. My first association to the young family was that they seemed Obama-like. In my dream group, we all mused on the sense of hope and new possibility that Barack Obama has already brought into the White House in the ten days since his inauguration. My inner house, too, is infused with this new spirit. Inspite of numbing economic crisis and climate change disasters, I feel more relaxed and open to the possibility that things might go right.

At an even more personal level, the young family represents something emerging into consciousness from the depths of the psyche. I give it a home in me. What is it? I'm not sure yet. These people are strangers; I'll have to get to know them.

Since moving to Fort Collins from our home in Wyoming, I have not known how to describe my work in the world. Once I was a psychotherapist, but I have been moving away from the language and assumptions of psychotherapy for years. I am an artist. That not only defines my work but also my attitudes toward life and the world. I see the world as a place of beauty and mystery, elements of which I am forever seeking to language. I love the liturgy of the Episcopal Church and delight in innovative places, images, and words that help us live even deeper into the meaning of the rituals of my tradition. But I am also a mystic, and have an unshakable belief in the rightness of the many paths to relationship with The Holy expressed in the world's spiritual traditions.

And there is something more, something evolving. It's spiritual in nature, and it is as yet undefined. The young black family of my dream may represent this new thing.

Beyond talking about them, The Way of the Dream urges talking with them in the process Jung called Active Imagination. To do this, I go back into the dream. I dream it on. What happens next? What do the characters have to tell me? Active Imagination relies on my ability to refrain from putting my own thoughts into the mouths of the characters. I have to listen deeply, let them materialize and have their own perspectives. The sign of success is when they say things that utterly surprise me.

I have dreamed the dream onward already in the past day or so. I've learned that I have a large two story home with many rooms. The young family has occupied a few rooms down the hall from me. Their car is an old 50's vehicle with fins -- totally inefficient. They love it but are exasperated by it. It will take awhile to fix.

This morning I slip back into the dream. There is no one in the bedrooms on the 2nd floor of my house. I go downstairs and find everyone in the kitchen. It seems the family has grown; now there are children running about and an old wise woman sitting at the kitchen table. The kitchen is large and overflowing with life and energy. Fabric in bright colors has been hung about the walls. Lots of things are cooking on the stove. I walk around bemused, and the young woman and her sister laugh at me and sit me down at the table where I am out of the way of their activity. They are feeding us all, they tell me. But there is more. I'll find out what it is soon, they say. Meanwhile I must be patient.

I find a young child has crawled into my lap and is looking at me out of liquid brown eyes. She is laughing, and I notice her little square lower front teeth. I hold her on my lap while we watch the bustle about the room.

I can move out of the dream again to analyse its elements. Each has symbolic significance that resonates deeply. I can paint or draw bits of the dream -- the bright fabrics appeal to me, and I'm already wondering how they would work as banners for Easter or Pentecost.

I will both analyse and paint.

The main message, though, seems to be, "wait." Big things are happening in my inner kitchen. Brewing things are finally on the stove. My inner house is full of life, and I need to get to know the people who have come to me to cast their lot with mine.