With the last post, I invited you to recall and reflect upon dreams in which your DESCENDER part of Self (persona archetype) reveals itself to You. Often such figures show up in lower or deep spaces and they can represent feelings that you have “submerged” or aspects of You that simply feel more comfortable in the shadows or quiet recesses of your Self. When such images show up in memorable dreams, take notice! They may illuminate for you how that “part of You” is feeling with regard to some current situation in your life. They have Deep Messages for You; your DESCENDER can be your Ally in bringing ‘buried’ perspectives and feelings to your attention.
This week, as I have been reflecting on some of my own DESCENDER dreams, one of them—a very dramatic dream experience—makes sense to me now in a different way than I understood before.
The Dream: “I Can’t Believe My Life Has Been about This!”
(Dreamwork Tips: Give a title to a significant dream in your dream journal or when telling it to bring forth its Message to you more clearly. Also, write your dream in first person, present tense so you can be more present in the experience; this can help you better feel its import.)
Background: I experienced this dream while I was traveling in Ireland. I traveled there in part because I had had another significant dream a couple years earlier which had felt like a “past life” dream. In that earlier dream I saw I had endured abuse, but the dream encounter I had while in Ireland, while also appearing to relate to a past life, turned that earlier experience on its head!
I am in a lower level area of some structure; the flooring either is made of or has alot of dirt on it and there is dark wood all around. I am being shown this place by a familiar, masculine Spiritual Guide who is with me. As we walk through the space it feels very familiar to me. I say to my Dream Guide:
“I know this place; I have been here before.”
My Guide says nothing, waiting for me to remember more.
“People died here,” I say slowly. Then it hits me hard: “I had something to do with that; I was responsible for their deaths!”
My Guide remains silent but I feel his support. I know there is a reason I must be here.
Then a group of people come down from a stairway into this semi-darkened, lower level place. It is a group of rural Irish peasant folk. “Salt of the Earth,” I think to myself as they come into the area accompanied by a Priest. The Priest sets up a table and puts a candle on it, so I know he will conduct some sort of ritual. (I sense it is to be a cleansing.) Two of the peasants are a brother and sister; suddenly I know these are people who had lost loved ones because of my action that had resulted in their loved ones’ deaths.
The peasant sister (in her early 30’s or so) and I approach one another intently.
I say to her:
“I am so sorry for your loss.”
She says to me:
“I am so sorry for what you have had to endure because of this.”
Then I wake up, but in the process of awakening I say three times out loud, each time with more force of awareness:
“I can’t believe my life has been about this!”
I called a friend in the U.S. as soon as I was awoke (early AM her time):
“Jan, I’m a murderer! I mean it really, I am a murderer, many times over!”
My friend helped me to realize this had been “a dream.” I knew intuitively though that it was a very real encounter, relating to a deeply buried memory.
Message: This dream event occurred around five or six years ago, yet I remember it as if it were this morning. In processing the meaning of the dream, I have felt it had something to do with the experience of personal loss or separation in this life from relationship partners of various sorts: friends, romantic partners, family, and pet companions. My strongest desire in all my relations has been for permanence and “continuity,” yet some of the closest relations I have shared, I have had to let go of for the sake of that Soul moving on in their lives or journey.
But this week, while reflecting on this poignant DESCENDER Dream, I am understanding the message in a more holistic way. My whole life HAS “been about this.” The personal growth book I have written, a manual for life mapping that will be published in a matter of months now after nearly fifteen years of development (Your Life Path), aims to help readers to COMPLETE their Life Path with a conscious focus of intention to fully Realize their Life Dream! Perhaps after my action in the past life ordeal had prevented some people from fulfilling their dreams, this time I must give back this opportunity.
I don’t know exactly what the memory could have been about. Perhaps I was an officer on a ship taking people to emigrate after the potato famine and for some reason I did not allow lower berth peoples to surface for food or shelter (maybe rations were low and some could not survive, so I chose to only let the more privileged passengers have the rations). Or maybe I was an officer who shut off access to an upper level in a castle against servant class folks while we were being attacked. Either way, “I was responsible for their deaths.”
Whatever the “real life” validity, dreams DO matter; they have a substance and vital meaning all their own. Writing your dream recall in a Dream Journal is very helpful. Especially the most significant dreams will then linger with you, revealing several layers of meaning over time.
Have you had a significant DESCENDER Dream? Have you fathomed its message? Feel free to share, here or with a loved one. Honor your DESCENDER by listening, attending, and ACTING on the Message received.
images are from pixabay.com
I welcome and invite YOUR Comments and Stories!
P.S. to All: HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
Better Endings 