I and others were playing backyard touch football. I think we were in the yard of my Alabama childhood home but it seemed like it was my present ego self participating. My team's quarterback was an oriental female. I was out for a 'Hail Mary' long pass. As the ball came nearer it turned into a small piece of chewing gum. In a last moment stretch the gum barely touched the tip of my fingers and astonishingly I was able to momentarily grasp it, as it returned to the form a football, with the other hand for a touchdown reception in the end zone.
REFLECTION: This was a pleasing and exciting dream reflecting teamwork, mutual success, completion and victory at the very last moment. It was a wonderful moment to wonder if I were going to be able to keep control of the ball until it was secure in both hands. (Ironically the dream works as a fulfillment of the strong but unrealized youthful fantasy I had of being a superb football player. That fantasy is shown being realized in my inner imaginal world by this dream. For my present stage of life this shows the very rich sense of humor so characteristic of the source of dreams.) I was completely unsure of the outcome in the dream. It was a moment where confidence and doubt were evenly balanced. And I did finally gain control of the ball( Only with the use of imagination... the ball was as a 'piece of gum.') The dream shows it was only with seeming magical assistance I was able to make the astonishing catch. I will be so presumptuous to believe the dream speaks positively of the efforts I have made to creatively deal with ongoing inner/outer life experiences beginning especially three decades ago. Such congratulations and victory is not even close to any outward realization- and may never be; but the dream I think points toward such possibility. This was actually the first recalled dream I had after starting the blog work. So I think it was requesting that I allow this to become public on my blog. I've been so absorbed inwardly in old dreams and essays for the blog that nothing new has made its way to recalled consciousness. But this one is very clear and full of meaning and living emotion. The dream may be totally about aspects of successful completion of inner development. But I'm enough of an outward looking person to hold that it may also point to eventual outer accomplishments of value to others besides myself.
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| Football In Our Alabama Back Yard |
I think the dream emphasizes three aspects to the 'teamwork' that has been going on that makes such a suggested successful completion possible. These can be well expressed in Jungian terminology. One is my conscious ego, what we all experience as 'me.' Another, as female quarterback, is the inner female anima representing my avenue and connection to the necessary material from the Collective Unconscious(The deep basis of all that is and can be which potentially unites all that is.)
Also the quarterback being oriental is I think an obvious reference to the I Ching(Book Of Changes, from ancient China the oldest written document in the world.) The important role of the I Ching in assisting in the process of guiding and channeling the meaning of my inner experience is the hardest one to acknowledge. This is because it is even more likely than the 'anima' to be seen by my peers as superstitious foolishness. I've always known that my reliance upon such a resource would eventually need to be made more known. But I've always, as I do now, see it the part of this team most likely to be negatively reported and dismissed as 'nothing' important or reliable. The reality is far from that and this will be one of my first attempts to make that more clear.
Also the quarterback being oriental is I think an obvious reference to the I Ching(Book Of Changes, from ancient China the oldest written document in the world.) The important role of the I Ching in assisting in the process of guiding and channeling the meaning of my inner experience is the hardest one to acknowledge. This is because it is even more likely than the 'anima' to be seen by my peers as superstitious foolishness. I've always known that my reliance upon such a resource would eventually need to be made more known. But I've always, as I do now, see it the part of this team most likely to be negatively reported and dismissed as 'nothing' important or reliable. The reality is far from that and this will be one of my first attempts to make that more clear.
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| English I Ching Translation by John Blofeld |
This is not a dream I've yet been willing to share beyond two people. Certainly not to yet post on my blog for these very reasons. I feel somewhat cowardly and unappreciative to the I Ching for not doing so for it has been a steady and meaningful resource for twenty seven years. But I know if there is any good to come from this mutual work the I Ching would want it to succeed as much as either the 'anima' or my personal ego would.
I should say again, as I told my walking friend yesterday, none of this inner work is what most drives my life or is the strongest expression and goal of my living Eros. This is all something that has come indirectly and perhaps as a necessary path to the fulfillment of the goals of my highest Eros imagination. All my inner experience, including 'anima' material and the 'I Ching', has insisted that this project is about love from start to finish; love experienced at a deeper human/sacred level by individuals and as truly the driving value for further spiritual/psychological development of humanity and all of nature. More than I have ever acknowledged the I Ching has been like a personal counselor and 'wise old man' to me since the Spring of 1985. For two years I used the ancient original method of 'throwing yarrow sticks'(pencils) to ascertain the response of the I Ching to my nearly always desperate questions of survival. More than twenty years ago I experimented with a shorter and less ritualistic method of 'coin flipping'. And at least ten years ago I downloaded free computer software for a computer version of I Ching. I've used it quite frequently over the past decade. I have found it to be a friendly non-pushy spiritual/psychological source of extremely practical and moral wisdom. The I Ching, in my case, is able to offer up what always seems as an appropriate attitude(s) to take about any genuine concern, worry or decision making situation. It is able to assemble and present me with appropriate archetypal scenarios on which to reflect much the same way as I do a dream. This is as well as I am presently able to describe how it has worked so faithfully with me in this long project. I make no claim to understand how this works. I've attempted that elsewhere as did Carl Jung. I rests on some kind of psychological/spiritual phenomenon. Jung's concepts of Synchronicity and Collective Unconscious offer some rational for this ancient mystery that seems as alive today as ever.
I cannot conscientiously outright encourage persons in my culture to begin using it. I think I agree with what Carl Jung said in His introduction to the Richard Wilhelm English translation of the I Ching in 1950. He said in effect his ' good wishes are with any person into whose hands fate brings this most unappreciated ancient spiritual/psychological work.' (http://www.iging.com/intro/foreword.htm) To the well developed oriental mind, especially of the ancient variety, likely the I Ching made total intuitive sense but I am a fully Western person and I can only accept this amazing accomplishment as a gift that assisted me in a most friendly and respectful manner, so oriental and strange still to me. The I Ching fell into my hands just days after a dream implied I would be needing to use 'strange resources' to find my way through the situation I faced. As surely as the 'inner anima' and the 'outer I Ching' have made themselves of such real, undeniable, living and practical benefit to me they are likely just as strange and foreign to my questioning Western peers.
I should say again, as I told my walking friend yesterday, none of this inner work is what most drives my life or is the strongest expression and goal of my living Eros. This is all something that has come indirectly and perhaps as a necessary path to the fulfillment of the goals of my highest Eros imagination. All my inner experience, including 'anima' material and the 'I Ching', has insisted that this project is about love from start to finish; love experienced at a deeper human/sacred level by individuals and as truly the driving value for further spiritual/psychological development of humanity and all of nature. More than I have ever acknowledged the I Ching has been like a personal counselor and 'wise old man' to me since the Spring of 1985. For two years I used the ancient original method of 'throwing yarrow sticks'(pencils) to ascertain the response of the I Ching to my nearly always desperate questions of survival. More than twenty years ago I experimented with a shorter and less ritualistic method of 'coin flipping'. And at least ten years ago I downloaded free computer software for a computer version of I Ching. I've used it quite frequently over the past decade. I have found it to be a friendly non-pushy spiritual/psychological source of extremely practical and moral wisdom. The I Ching, in my case, is able to offer up what always seems as an appropriate attitude(s) to take about any genuine concern, worry or decision making situation. It is able to assemble and present me with appropriate archetypal scenarios on which to reflect much the same way as I do a dream. This is as well as I am presently able to describe how it has worked so faithfully with me in this long project. I make no claim to understand how this works. I've attempted that elsewhere as did Carl Jung. I rests on some kind of psychological/spiritual phenomenon. Jung's concepts of Synchronicity and Collective Unconscious offer some rational for this ancient mystery that seems as alive today as ever.
I cannot conscientiously outright encourage persons in my culture to begin using it. I think I agree with what Carl Jung said in His introduction to the Richard Wilhelm English translation of the I Ching in 1950. He said in effect his ' good wishes are with any person into whose hands fate brings this most unappreciated ancient spiritual/psychological work.' (http://www.iging.com/intro/foreword.htm) To the well developed oriental mind, especially of the ancient variety, likely the I Ching made total intuitive sense but I am a fully Western person and I can only accept this amazing accomplishment as a gift that assisted me in a most friendly and respectful manner, so oriental and strange still to me. The I Ching fell into my hands just days after a dream implied I would be needing to use 'strange resources' to find my way through the situation I faced. As surely as the 'inner anima' and the 'outer I Ching' have made themselves of such real, undeniable, living and practical benefit to me they are likely just as strange and foreign to my questioning Western peers.
With this combination of 'oriental female' quarterbacking and 'oriental wise old man' anything good that would ever come from my work with and on my inner life would have been completely and utterly impossible. That is something that I know at my center continually. So I will take the dream as the dream source's effort to state this fact of my life and try to share in its confidence the positive results it portends yet to come. Jim Hibbett
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