I was frantically running beside a moving train. I was trying to board it as it moved along. It was a frightening and daring effort and I was successful. When the train arrived at a train station the emphasis was all on 'the church woman.' (This is the same feminine figure who frequents my dreams or some more collective variation of her.) She was very down dressed in earth tone slacks, flats and long sleeve sweater. Her hair was dark, straight and shoulder length. She had a very barely breaking pleasant confident smile on her face. She was standing with train tickets in hand. People were gathered around her with great admiration and respect. I stayed as a distant observer. Everyone around her had a deep respect for her as if she had proven herself as very unusual by her past actions and behavior. They looked to her as a heroine of great courage and as mortal with consistent integrity. She inspired confidence in them and also in me. She appeared totally unpretentious in spite of the adoring crowd.
REFLECTION: I realize this spiritual dream would strike many as too unorthodox to appreciate. I can only respond that I believe the scripture in deep and subtle ways points to the 'feminine' as being as necessary a part of the image of God as the male. A historical fact that should be kept in mind as we think about the 'god image' is that oldest and most long enduring images of God in human cultures were predominately female. All of the 'approved' cultures in the Bible , and our American culture for most of its history, are patriarchal cultures which have been born of a near total masculine image of God. We are well into at an age when the feminine is gradually taking its place of equality beside the male in both the spiritual and secular realms. The Old Testament Greek Septuagint, the translation all the New Testament writers used, translates directly the feminine nature of God in the O.T. 'wisdom books' as 'Sophia.' God's Wisdom or Sophia is fully feminine and clearly represented as an aspect of God in at least five O.T. books. This dream, and documented dreams across a wide spectrum, is reflecting this great feminine aspect of the Sacred. In the New Testament the Marys around Jesus in both the canonical and other gospels present a somewhat hidden feminine nature of God. The story of the 'Virgin Mary' suggests the feminine can be seen as more than human and thus approaching an aspect of God. Later in church history as unconscious forces helped shape the unfolding dogma of the institutional church came the teachings of the 'immaculate conception ' of Mary and later the 'Assumption of Mary' into heaven. This is a process in history of the feminine taking its rightful place in the Godhead and the Western image of God. The 'Holy Spirit' as presented in the New Testament can accurately be considered as a feminine aspect of God and called 'She' rather than 'He.'
In retrospect how could we have ever expected that God can be any less feminine than male? Yet this is the emphasis and consistent implication of orthodox Christianity and of the Western cultures it generated. This dream joins the strong movement of making conscious that Male and Female are equal in every realm just as Paul exclaimed, “In Christ there is no male or female but all are one.” 
This dream image seems to be one that brings together the image of the goddess and the mortal woman. She is the mortal ' church woman' of previous dreams but also more than that. She is goddess. She is respected and adored beyond what belongs to mortal woman. The picture to the left might be a modern example of the archetype of mortal woman which also hints of her Sacred presence. Here too she is associated with successful travel in otherwise impossible and dangerous situations. There is something in this dream image of woman that is 'numinous', or beyond ordinary mortal daily living. Her radiant smile is similar to the image of Jesus in the story of the transfiguration. It has a mesmerizing quality to it. She is all the Marys of the N.T. in one image. She is the bringer and creator of new and better things to come. She is at once down to earth in her dress and unpretentious, yet she is heavenly in her radiant yet tempered smile that promises everything a human can expect as heavenly. I have no way of separating the mortal from the anima/goddess that this dream presents. I am as worshipful and adoring of her as anyone else is. It seems impossible not to be.
The dream suggests I have managed with much difficulty to catch the last train that is taking me to some nearly final destination. And 'woman' in the most positive ways I have come to image her is somehow the goal and fulfillment of the long journey. She also is a traveler and is headed somewhere with tickets in hand. She is so wholesome, grounded, lovely and wise. I felt that I was coming into her presence now not for just a fading glimpse but to somehow manage to become a co traveler with her. ...that she and I are going the 'same way' at last. This would be , however unorthodox, the image of finding and being in harmony with the 'will of God' for ones life. This dream captures both Conscious and Unconscious, Male and Female, Flesh and Spirit, the Religious and Secular and the Personal and Collective aspects of the reality of my inner world. It is a symbol of unity. It says far more than words can and I sense it means more than I am yet able to comprehend. This is an encouraging dream bringing together so much of what my inner world has been about all of my adult life. My ego is pictured as wholly amazed in the presence of this human/divine figure. I will absorb this as fully as I can and will expect my travels to become even more blessed by the living feminine principle, by 'woman.'
RELATED THOUGHTS: I've come to believe that the 'uniting of opposites', including those listed above, is the driving spiritual/psychological goal and process of all Human/Sacred life. These 'opposites' exist separated in less than peaceful and productive ways internally within all people. They also exist in the outer world and are involved, for good and ill, in all the communication/relationship efforts among us all. The process of these becoming more united is the goal and dynamics of the inner psychological/spiritual process that Jung refers to as Individuation. I think this process is happening within each of us and in our various cultures and in the whole of Human/Sacred development.
A difference in humans is that some adults become more conscious of this process than others. Being more, but never anywhere close to completely, aware of it should help a person be more cooperative with it and to better facilitate the process in inner and outer life. I think the story of individual and human history implies that the Sacred, God, is also participating in this process in a similar way. This means that God and Human are far more interconnected than most theologies are prepared to formulate. The Christian concept of the 'incarnation' of God in the Human should alert us to the idea that God and Human are two aspects of the same foundation of ultimate reality. It is not true that the various god-images we humans now carry have already fully accomplished the 'uniting the of opposites' and thus have already arrived at an unequivocal and perfected moral consciousness. So God does not, is not fully able in the present situation, to reconcile these opposites within Itself and then offer this completion as a free gift of Salvation to Human kind. Rather God through our very lives is always inviting us to consciously participate in this very necessary goal of Sacred/Human development which can be described as nothing less than grace and Salvation.
This process can also be described as the ongoing incarnation of God in every human life. As humans make progress, which we can find much historical evidence of happening in various times and ways, this becomes the human gift to God is an essential for the Sacred's need to continue its process of Conscious Moral development. It may be that just as there can be much that humanity collectively 'forgets' which needs to be brought back to ego consciousness, the state of God is also not in touch with what may have in some time or way been such qualities as omniscience and omnipotence. The reality of the world and its 'splitness' including the Good -Evil split is evidence that no Sacred reality is independently in touch with or is practicing the qualities of omniscience and omnipotence.
It has been my personal experience for a quarter century that it is the psychological/spiritual 'feminine principle', to which this dream refers, that has been the primary avenue offered to me to help in the ongoing and never completed process of individuation, of uniting the opposites. This inner 'feminine principle' which Jung calls the 'anima' serves as a bridge connecting the Collective Unconscious, which for practical matters is the place of origins of what has always been called ' the voice of God', and our human ego consciousness. I can imagine as this process becomes more conscious among humans that the goals and striving of humans will become more in harmony with it. For example adults in their daily living and in all vocations and professions will agree that assisting younger generations to be more conscious that the process of 'uniting the opposites' is the single most important common work for each of us. Jim
 |
| Presentation Of Divine Woman |
REFLECTION: I realize this spiritual dream would strike many as too unorthodox to appreciate. I can only respond that I believe the scripture in deep and subtle ways points to the 'feminine' as being as necessary a part of the image of God as the male. A historical fact that should be kept in mind as we think about the 'god image' is that oldest and most long enduring images of God in human cultures were predominately female. All of the 'approved' cultures in the Bible , and our American culture for most of its history, are patriarchal cultures which have been born of a near total masculine image of God. We are well into at an age when the feminine is gradually taking its place of equality beside the male in both the spiritual and secular realms. The Old Testament Greek Septuagint, the translation all the New Testament writers used, translates directly the feminine nature of God in the O.T. 'wisdom books' as 'Sophia.' God's Wisdom or Sophia is fully feminine and clearly represented as an aspect of God in at least five O.T. books. This dream, and documented dreams across a wide spectrum, is reflecting this great feminine aspect of the Sacred. In the New Testament the Marys around Jesus in both the canonical and other gospels present a somewhat hidden feminine nature of God. The story of the 'Virgin Mary' suggests the feminine can be seen as more than human and thus approaching an aspect of God. Later in church history as unconscious forces helped shape the unfolding dogma of the institutional church came the teachings of the 'immaculate conception ' of Mary and later the 'Assumption of Mary' into heaven. This is a process in history of the feminine taking its rightful place in the Godhead and the Western image of God. The 'Holy Spirit' as presented in the New Testament can accurately be considered as a feminine aspect of God and called 'She' rather than 'He.'
 |
| Sophia, The Greek Goddess Of Wisdom |
This dream image seems to be one that brings together the image of the goddess and the mortal woman. She is the mortal ' church woman' of previous dreams but also more than that. She is goddess. She is respected and adored beyond what belongs to mortal woman. The picture to the left might be a modern example of the archetype of mortal woman which also hints of her Sacred presence. Here too she is associated with successful travel in otherwise impossible and dangerous situations. There is something in this dream image of woman that is 'numinous', or beyond ordinary mortal daily living. Her radiant smile is similar to the image of Jesus in the story of the transfiguration. It has a mesmerizing quality to it. She is all the Marys of the N.T. in one image. She is the bringer and creator of new and better things to come. She is at once down to earth in her dress and unpretentious, yet she is heavenly in her radiant yet tempered smile that promises everything a human can expect as heavenly. I have no way of separating the mortal from the anima/goddess that this dream presents. I am as worshipful and adoring of her as anyone else is. It seems impossible not to be.
The dream suggests I have managed with much difficulty to catch the last train that is taking me to some nearly final destination. And 'woman' in the most positive ways I have come to image her is somehow the goal and fulfillment of the long journey. She also is a traveler and is headed somewhere with tickets in hand. She is so wholesome, grounded, lovely and wise. I felt that I was coming into her presence now not for just a fading glimpse but to somehow manage to become a co traveler with her. ...that she and I are going the 'same way' at last. This would be , however unorthodox, the image of finding and being in harmony with the 'will of God' for ones life. This dream captures both Conscious and Unconscious, Male and Female, Flesh and Spirit, the Religious and Secular and the Personal and Collective aspects of the reality of my inner world. It is a symbol of unity. It says far more than words can and I sense it means more than I am yet able to comprehend. This is an encouraging dream bringing together so much of what my inner world has been about all of my adult life. My ego is pictured as wholly amazed in the presence of this human/divine figure. I will absorb this as fully as I can and will expect my travels to become even more blessed by the living feminine principle, by 'woman.'
RELATED THOUGHTS: I've come to believe that the 'uniting of opposites', including those listed above, is the driving spiritual/psychological goal and process of all Human/Sacred life. These 'opposites' exist separated in less than peaceful and productive ways internally within all people. They also exist in the outer world and are involved, for good and ill, in all the communication/relationship efforts among us all. The process of these becoming more united is the goal and dynamics of the inner psychological/spiritual process that Jung refers to as Individuation. I think this process is happening within each of us and in our various cultures and in the whole of Human/Sacred development.
A difference in humans is that some adults become more conscious of this process than others. Being more, but never anywhere close to completely, aware of it should help a person be more cooperative with it and to better facilitate the process in inner and outer life. I think the story of individual and human history implies that the Sacred, God, is also participating in this process in a similar way. This means that God and Human are far more interconnected than most theologies are prepared to formulate. The Christian concept of the 'incarnation' of God in the Human should alert us to the idea that God and Human are two aspects of the same foundation of ultimate reality. It is not true that the various god-images we humans now carry have already fully accomplished the 'uniting the of opposites' and thus have already arrived at an unequivocal and perfected moral consciousness. So God does not, is not fully able in the present situation, to reconcile these opposites within Itself and then offer this completion as a free gift of Salvation to Human kind. Rather God through our very lives is always inviting us to consciously participate in this very necessary goal of Sacred/Human development which can be described as nothing less than grace and Salvation.
This process can also be described as the ongoing incarnation of God in every human life. As humans make progress, which we can find much historical evidence of happening in various times and ways, this becomes the human gift to God is an essential for the Sacred's need to continue its process of Conscious Moral development. It may be that just as there can be much that humanity collectively 'forgets' which needs to be brought back to ego consciousness, the state of God is also not in touch with what may have in some time or way been such qualities as omniscience and omnipotence. The reality of the world and its 'splitness' including the Good -Evil split is evidence that no Sacred reality is independently in touch with or is practicing the qualities of omniscience and omnipotence.
It has been my personal experience for a quarter century that it is the psychological/spiritual 'feminine principle', to which this dream refers, that has been the primary avenue offered to me to help in the ongoing and never completed process of individuation, of uniting the opposites. This inner 'feminine principle' which Jung calls the 'anima' serves as a bridge connecting the Collective Unconscious, which for practical matters is the place of origins of what has always been called ' the voice of God', and our human ego consciousness. I can imagine as this process becomes more conscious among humans that the goals and striving of humans will become more in harmony with it. For example adults in their daily living and in all vocations and professions will agree that assisting younger generations to be more conscious that the process of 'uniting the opposites' is the single most important common work for each of us. Jim
No comments:
Post a Comment