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Riddle The Self – Reveal The Self

Archive for February, 2012

Chaos Theory

Posted by Amanda Gray on February 25, 2012

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It follows that after my dream about Fragments, I would continue to explore the theme of order/chaos. It’s manifested, most noticeably, in an issue with dirty dishes.

Last year, for a short time, I had a job in a hospital.  I performed in a food service capacity in which washing dishes was a significant part of the work. I did three training shifts with a partner, which went well, then I worked one shift on my own. Suddenly, I hated the job, and I immediately sent an email to my boss to say that the position wasn’t suited to me and to ask if there was an alternative. Kindly, the boss scheduled me to work at the nursing home instead, in, pretty much, the same capacity. Again, I worked with a partner for three training shifts, and then I worked two shifts on my own.  Although I couldn’t understand the problem, I again felt like I didn’t want the job.  Fortunately, it was a casual position and after turning down two subsequent shifts, they stopped calling me to work.

As much as I tried to come up with a justification for rejecting the job, nothing really explained the foreboding feeling that arose whenever I considered it.  What was that terrible feeling?  It wasn’t a horrible job.  I was entirely capable of handling the work. Yet, I just couldn’t motivate myself to do it.

Many months later, I picked up some extra shifts with my current employer, as a waitress. Again, I had to handle dirty dishes, and, again, the same strange, dark feelings arose. When I finished my schedule, I immediately turned down all further waitressing shifts.

Now, for the past several weeks, I’ve been having conflicts with my mom over the dishes at home. The other day, I totally flipped out about it, and I was so angry, I had to lie down to calm myself.  I could see that the anger was, specifically, about the mess I thought mom made in the kitchen when she cooked and I accused her of using too many dishes to accomplish the meal. “It’s not that I don’t want to DO the dishes,” I told her later, when I felt more conciliatory, “it’s the MESS that I can’t stand. It makes me NUTS!”

So, there it was. Over the past year, I could deny the issue by avoiding jobs with dirty dishes, but now it was hovering over me like a beast in my home, and I had to face it. Still, how was I perceiving the dirty dishes as some kind of threat?

Yesterday, as I drove through town, I noticed a number of people breaking traffic laws. Then, at a town dinner, a weird guy budded in front of me in the buffet line. What was the common theme in all this? Breaking the rules? Disorder?

This morning, the order/chaos lesson brought all the situations together:

  • Order, harmony, rules, clean, peace.
  • Disorder, conflict, chaos, mess, dirty, war. 

I had been believing that I had to control all exterior disorder to feel safe in the world. If a situation became too messy or chaotic, I would feel helpless and out of control. Help was often offered – at the hospital, nurses and were willing and available; at the restaurant, my boss and the cook helped me; and, at home, my mom helped – but I didn’t WANT their help. The help just made me feel worse!  It was like I wanted to HIDE the mess, and if I accepted help, it meant that: a) I was unsuccessful at hiding the mess, and, b) that I was too weak to fix the mess by myself. Going a step deeper, I realized that I was experiencing this exterior chaos because I felt chaotic/conflicted within. I wouldn’t be trying to fix a ‘problem’ of disorder in the world if I didn’t think I had an intrinsic LACK of order in myself. Can chaos be real? Was I created as a chaotic mess? Is there a war within me? No, these ideas can’t be real. The universe is friendly, harmonious, peaceful, orderly. How could I be different?  I have it on good authority that “I am still as God created me” (A Course in Miracles)… so how is it logical that God created chaos here?

I had been using ‘order’ as an ‘idol’.  An ‘idol’ is something I believe will make me ‘complete’ instead of simply accepting natural completion as I am in spirit. It’s a way of enforcing an illusory ’gap’, a separation of subject/object, in what is already perfectly unified. I denied true completion and true unification and, instead, played a game of “I’m not good enough so I need to fix the mess in the world”. The ‘world’ – which is merely a projection – the deeper truth of which is the belief that I need to fix MYSELF.  That I need to, somehow, restore order in myself.  That I need to reconcile the warring parties in my mind.  Can it be done? No, because I’ve never been out-of-order! There are no warring parties.  There is NO conflict in my mind. It’s total nonsense! I had believed in a phantom.

And, *poof*, it’s gone… because it never was.

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Fragments

Posted by Amanda Gray on February 14, 2012

Watercolor/Pastel.Title:Rahway

I had this dream a couple of days ago:

- I’m in a workshop of sorts, inside a big warehouse.  There is clay, moulded into flat squares on a table.  There are boxes of other materials too, metal and plastic shapes.  As I look at these materials I start to think about using them to make something.  I start to look for specific kinds of materials in specific shapes.  Then I think that the materials belong to my dad.

Interpretation:

Upon awakening, I realized how silly it was to take all those random materials and apply meaning to them, in rather random ways.  Does the mere presence of these materials indicate that I must do something with them?  Why do I think I need to create something out of them?  None of the materials resembled anything that ever belonged to my dad, so where would that random idea come from?  Perhaps it’s like what the mind does with random fragments in the world too, applying meaning, or doing, or ownership where there, truly, is none.  The materials are also neatly sorted into boxes, indicative of the minds’ tendency to keep things separate, organized and controlled.  What would happen if I dumped all of the pieces together in a big, chaotic mash-up?  Hmmm….

I had another dream this morning that was also full of fragments.  These fragments were, supposedly, from my theatrical past – old scripts, sheet music, photos, and other ornamental memorabilia.  I looked through this stuff to find the lyrics of a song because there was contention throughout the material and in my ‘memory’ about the last verse.  After I awoke, I could see that nothing in the dream was representative of my ‘real’ past in any way.  It was all totally random and imaginary, yet my dream character accepted it as ‘real’ and made up stories about it to further attest to its ‘reality’.

Can I apply these dream messages to my waking life?  To perhaps see that even what I consider a ‘real’ past is also made up of random, imaginary fragments that only continue to seem real because I continue to make up stories to validate it?

In A Course in Miracles, text page 602, it says:

"It is not they [the senses] that hear and see, but you, who put together every jagged piece, each senseless scrap and shred of evidence, and make a witness to the world you want.  Let not the body’s ears and eyes perceive these countless fragments seen within the gap that you imagined, and let them persuade their maker his imaginings are real."

Far out, man.  Deep.

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When the Devil Knocks

Posted by Amanda Gray on February 8, 2012

I watched a show called “When the Devil Knocks” last night.  It was about a woman, named Hilary, who suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder and it included a little of her therapy to re-integrate her various personalities.  It helped me to decode a dream I had early that morning:

- I’m in the kitchen of an open space apartment.  I’m across a red coloured bar/counter from a man.  I know that this man is a murder suspect and I’m the investigator on the case.  The murder happened in the apartment.  The man explains that he got angry and then forgot what happened.  I reply, “It’s what they call a ‘blind rage’, Mike.”

- I realize that we’re not alone in the room and I turn to see an old woman at the dining room table.  She’s in a wheelchair and she holds a lit cigarette.  “Where did you come from?” I ask as I approach her.  “I’m usually kept in that room,” she indicates a closed bedroom door.  I understand, “Oh, you’re the room-mate.”  She says, “I’m entirely under the direction of God.”  I reply, “Oh, I love people who’re under the direction of God.”  I touch her hand gently, then explain that I’m conducting an investigation in the kitchen, “At least that’s what they call it anyway,” I add flippantly.

- As I return to Mike, I see that he’s got a small steak knife stuck to the rim of his ball cap.  He boldly walks past me and out of the apartment.  I follow and call to him, “Mike!  Mike!  Please, don’t. Give me the knife.”  Mike gets into a large freight elevator.  Another man walks in front of me and hands him a small paring knife across the elevator door, “Here, I stole this one for you.”  The ‘friend’ walks quickly away.

- Mike takes both knives in his hands and abruptly exits the elevator toward me.  He puts both knife points under my chin, intending to stab me up through the face/neck.  I sweep with my right arm to block his attack, but I know it’s futile – or too late.

- I jump awake.

So, the hour program about the woman with multiple personalities, Hilary, helped me interpret this dream-riddle: 

- One of Hilary’s personalities was named Tim.  They explained that the Tim personality was the ‘friend’ of her abuser and the one that hated the original personality, Hilary, the most.  I realized that my ‘Tim’ was ‘Mike’.  Although my childhood abuse wasn’t enough to form complete personality separation, it was enough to create a fracture where I could store my murderous anger and rage – then repress and deny it.  This is also known as the core of the ego. 

- Clearly, ‘Mike’ wants to murder ‘me’.

- The elevator is how Mike will try to retreat back into lower consciousness, if I let him.

- The red counter in the kitchen relates to blood.  First, from the abuse, then later, from my period.  Also as a symbol of murder, passion and hatred.

- Two boys, Mike and his ‘friend’, because there were two abusers involved.  Knives, because my abusers used a knife.  Also, everything showing up in pairs indicates a split, or dualistic, pattern of thought.

- I’m playing the ‘investigator’ character.  The authority figure or judge.

- The old woman represents the ‘wise old woman’ archetype, higher wisdom or the Holy Spirit.  Mostly, she’s been kept ‘locked away’ in the bedroom.  She’s now free to make an appearance, but she’s still in a ‘handicapped’ state in the wheelchair.   I’m not allowing her to be fully helpful, or surrendering completely to guidance and direction from God.

- The cigarette? Perhaps a symbol of a spiritual fire/torch that burns and cannot entirely be extinguished, no matter how much I might ever have wished it?

Then, of course, my A Course in Miracles reading was right on target. On Text page 582 about the “avengers knife in his own hand, pointed to himself.”  And on page 584 for the “murderer who stalks you in the night and plots your death…” etc.  The main point of the reading was that I DO THIS TO MYSELF.  I AM the attacker – no matter how much or in what ways I try to project it out on the world or on my body, or in what form it takes.  MIKE is ME.  He’s probably the ‘invisible force’ from the dream in my last entry as well (Embracing the Feminine).  At least now I got a good look at him.

I also intuited this picture – I call it, GETTING OFF THE SEE-SAW:

Duality See-Saw

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Embracing the Feminine

Posted by Amanda Gray on February 1, 2012

A dream:

- A friend is telling me about a wild, black cat he’s been feeding.  He also tells me a story about a similar cat, how it was lifted off its feet by an invisible force and when it landed after several feet onto it’s back, *poof*, it disappeared.

- I’m walking down a sidewalk.  It’s a pleasant summer day.  I observe the wild, black cat, and notice another, a twin, slink past as well.  I notice that the second cat has a collar around its neck.

- I hear bells ringing… and look down to notice a collar of bells around my right ankle.  Suddenly, a powerful force grabs the middle of my back, and pulls me off my feet.  As I fly through the air, I struggle, and hoarsely scream "NO!"

- I snap awake, terrified.

Interpretation:

A cat (feline) is related to the feminine.  It’s black, which represents shadow aspects.  There are two cats, which represent duality.  An animal often indicates unconscious material that’s ready to come up into consciousness.  The more ‘friendly’ the animal, the closer the information is to conscious recognition.  The collar indicates ownership.  On my ankle, the collar tells me that I’m like the cats – and that I need to pay attention to balancing masculine (right side of the body) and feminine (feline) aspects in myself.  Bells indicate spiritual growth.  The powerful force is behind me, so I can’t see it, and I don’t want to see it.  It’s a power within me that I’ve denied, pushed to the back of my consciousness, and am now terrified of facing.  I’m afraid to land and *poof* – disappear.  It’s this power that ‘owns’ me, as long as I keep trying to repress it.

I got my monthly ‘friend’ the other day (my period).  I always feel the same about it – disgusted, annoyed, dirty and ashamed.  It reminds me of abuse in my childhood.  It reminds me of how much I hate having been born a ‘powerless’ woman.  That’s right, I have very little appreciation for my feminine side.  I think it might be the ‘power’ that I’ve repressed and that’s showing up in my dream.

I also caught myself the other day, whining to someone (a man I barely know) about how horrible it was to get a period.  He, being a vet, suggested that I get pregnant.  EWWWWW!!!  GROSS!!!   An even more horrible idea!  My A Course in Miracles lesson this morning (Text pages 560-564) talked about ‘unfairness’ and how it’s always linked to attack.  So if I think it’s ‘unfair’ that I’m a woman and have to tolerate having a period once a month, then I’m bound to attack myself.  The lesson also mentioned blood a few times:  "The blood of hatred" and "The bloodied earth".  Ok, Ok, Jesus, I get it!  I have to pay attention to this.

I was also thinking last night about love.  I wonder if I’m afraid of love because I confuse love with sex?  I reject sex for many of the same reasons I reject my curse… I mean, my period.  For me, sex equals guilt.  In the past, I’ve tried to minimize the sex-guilt conundrum by choosing partners that I saw as somehow ‘innocent’.  Like blond men.  Or younger men.  In the past seven years that I’ve been single and celibate, I’ve only been attracted to men who are guaranteed not to be sexually attracted to me: gay men, celibate monks, eunuchs (Ok, I don’t actually know any eunuchs, but if I did, I’d be attracted to them too).   Anyway, my point here is that, if I reject sex, perhaps I also reject love with a man because I believe that kind of relationship must include obligatory (yuck!) sex.  Perhaps, and what concerns me more, is if the belief system extends to rejecting love from Source (God) as well.

Do I imagine that the innocence I ‘lost’ in my childhood can be recovered through the innocence of another? Do I think I can ‘steal’ it back from them?  The Course would say that I never lost my innocence at all. It’s still here, I just denied it. Perhaps it’s Innocence (with a capital I) that’s the ‘power’ that abducts me in my dream. In my upside-down mind, I’m afraid of this innocence that I threw away because accepting it means that the guilt-self concept of myself must then *poof* – disappear.

This makes me think of the movie, "Henry & June".  Anais says sex makes her feel "so innocent".  Why do I think sex has to equal losing innocence?  Like Anais, I could decide that it increases innocence.  Which doesn’t mean I have to get out there and start getting it on with people, it just means I can start seeing it differently.  In truth, whatever ideas people project upon it, sex is, just as much as the body is, ultimately, meaningless.  It’s a basic confusion of the body with the Self.

And that’s where it stands at this point.  I’m praying about it and surrendering it to spirit for correction.  See, and that’s where I’d really like to acknowledge and embrace the feminine – for its gifts of surrender, acceptance, and receiving.

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