The late morning walk into our garden about six weeks ago, was to be just another walk to visit some plants and feel greeted by them. But the sights of a pond Heron, dew drops still staying on the leaves and the pink orchid swinging in the gentle breeze, converged on me to arouse some unusual feelings. One feeling that grew within me was a question about my well being!
I had a disturbed nights with dreams, one of which had been repeated a few times in one month. When I saw the well composed Heron resting on fragile leaves, new shoots appearing in the rose bush and the orchid looking elegant and colourful, I felt that I did not carry such a sense of aliveness within me for a while.
After I retired in June, 2023, in a week I returned to a regular rhythm of attending to my writing schedule, editing and resuming my travels. It was almost like a continuation of a full day work as before, excepting for not having to welcome children and families for consultation.
Following an outstation visit of two weeks, I returned physically tired and emotionally disturbed. It was from then the nights also became more interrupted with dreams. One dream that occurred a few times was a pan of milk boiling in the fire, but not overflowing.
I exercised to interpret the dream with the seven questions that I am used to asking, while approaching to find the message, encouragement and warning from a dream. As one dream recurred, in spite of my initial attempt to get into the heart of the dream, I knew there was more to it than I got out of it.
When I returned after the walk and sat at my table, I felt a question within me, 'How well am I'!
That question was the key to open a closed inner space, where I had contained several thoughts associated with the experiences that I had not revisited actively for a while. Some events had a history of six years. I had a difficult time while associating with an organisation, ending up with broken relationships. At my work place, there was resistance to allow the child development service to develop in a way that was envisioned. There were instances of strained relationships. I felt used and let down.
Following the retirement, it would have been natural to take time to process these experiences and turn them to be a learning curve for soulful living. For fear of having to feel the pain of the hurts and wounds, I pushed them aside and carried on with my schedule.
I knew therefore that the question, 'How well am I' was a pointer to take time to attend to the inner events and attend to them rather than make them appear as dreams by default!
The pan of boiling milk became a metaphor of my soul, which was churning within with mixed events and memories. Milk is nourishing and upbuilding for the body. The unresolved questions around the past events, disappointments associated with some losses, grief about strained relationships and a sense of distance from people whom I knew well, were in the melting pot of my soul.
The imagery of the alchemy practiced about 400 years ago, came upon me to lead me further into this exploration of the mystery, hidden in my inward being. When the raw materials, prima materia were put into the boiling glass jar, the alchemists experienced change of colour, texture, aroma, with some materials forming into a mass to settle at the bottom to become a refined material. More than the physical and chemical discoveries the alchemists made through this prolonged process of watching the changes in the elixir for several days, it was an opportunity for the alchemists to dwell on the events in their lives and draw out meaning and message from them. This process was a way of finding the aqua permanens, the eternal water, to nourish their troubled soul.
The recurring dream of a pan of milk boiling helped me to pursue my alchemic exercise. For the last one month, I took time to watch the milk boiling, before I made the morning coffee and symbolically put my disturbed thoughts, hurting feelings and reactive attitudes into the pan of milk. It was that milk that was used to make coffee. With all those hurting experiences resident in my inner being, having been poured out into the pot of milk symbolically each morning, and using the boiled milk that absorbed my inner world of pain to give nourishment through the coffee I drank, I was recovering incrementally through this alchemic process. I felt in the recent weeks that the dreams were only occasional. The inner ambience within is less cloudy and more forgiving.
It was while I was in this alchemic exercise I revisited the writing of Thomas Moore, in his book, A Life at Work. I read through the underlined portion in the second page of the first chapter on Opus:
'A opus is a lifelong process of getting life together and becoming a real person, and it is no coincidence that the same word is also used for musical composition or an artist's total production. You are also a work of art- alchemists usually referred to the opus as the Work, but they also called it the Art. You are the artistic designer of your own life, and it is the most important work you will ever do. You will produce things that will make you proud- happy children, a good home, a well-functioning society, and may be even some decent art. You will become a unique person. Nothing is more beautiful or more valuable. But if that potential goes unrealised, you may despair about life in general'.
Apart from the above passage, one another passage that helped me to be at work at a deeper level of consciousness to journey further into forgiving and experiencing healing was this: 'The point is not merely to succeed but to become deeper, more complex, more mature person though your struggle. You allow the alchemy of your challenging journey to etch itself into your character, making you into a rich personality. Then whatever work you do will have the quality of your experience and your capacity to be ripened by it'(p10).
I feel lighter for having been able to take a month in this process of identifying the messy ambience in my soul, find the strands of thoughts and feelings which constrained my wellness. Life ferries us to new levels of maturity, when we can pay attention to the fractured experiences we go through.
In the encounter experience that Jesus of Nazareth had with Zaccheus, the turning point was when Jesus looked up to the tree which Zaccheus climbed to see Jesus, who was passing by (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus called him by his name and offered to go with him to his home. Zaccheus being a tax collector, had a baggage of confessions to make about his acts of commission and omission. He lived twisted and torn inside and was waiting for freedom and a new beginning. That was what Jesus offered to him by pronouncing His blessing upon him and his family. That was the beginning of bringing coherence and composure to his troubled soul, which made him feel disgraced and humiliated in public.
It was the quiet and composed posture of the Heron, perched on the fragile leaves, that moved me to go on a searching journey on renewing my inner experience. The Heron rested lightly on those leaves. Our relationships are usually fragile and tentative. To loose them is a loss more than we can afford for our own wellness.
To see some good in any relationship and be comfortable to receive them in the way they are offered, is what would make a person an alchemist. The alchemic processes, integrates and receives the aqua permanens, that a relationship can offer. So we live receiving what is offered and stay content. It is not our expectation that is the bench mark, but our openers to be gracious and not demanding!
I now know that I needed a break from the routine, for a month to process some events which settled into my subconscious level, because I did not care enough to attend to them. So they had to interrupt my sleep and speak to me through the dreams. Dreams are timely messengers from our soul. The care of our soul begins with getting familiar with the voice, signals and symptoms of soul sickness!
Our readiness to befriend the deeper level of our being, evolves through regular attentiveness to the language and mood of our soul.
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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