Queen of Swords

Last night during my meditation I tried to go deep around the topic of the bindings and limitations I've carried with me from my childhood.

I did my practices, settled into my meditation pose, and went inward -- and a few minutes later realized that I'd slid so fast off that topic and onto something safer I hadn't even realized I was moving. When I tried to focus back in, I got a stomach ache. Tried again, spiraled off onto another topic again.

I'm starting to get growly about this. It is not okay with me that I am having so much trouble grappling with this issue that is of such importance to my life. It is not okay that the sword of my self-awareness not only fails me in this area, it flees.

If there's some kind of fight-or-flight mechanism built up around this stuff, fine: it's time to starting fighting.

Sometime early this morning I dreamed that I was in an apartment with my mother, my sister/daughter (Wolfling and my sister often seem to be a single person in my dreams), and a young woman who was a friend of my sister/daughter. Something in the conversation made me recall and mention that when I was in the 7th grade my best friend and I would sometimes put chocolate syrup on pepperoni pizza (not because we particularly liked it, but because it was a passion of a character we had created). My sister -- she was definitely my sister in that moment -- turned to me and asked if there might be a time when I didn't tell that story again.

I don't remember now what I said in response, but it was brief and bitter and not very nice -- earning me a rebuke from my mother, despite my 40+ years of age.

I lost it. I have never in my life utterly lost my composure with either of my parents, but in this dream I simply could not take any more. I started with an even more bitter pseudo-apology and then went into a litany of everything I've been dealing with for the past several years, starting with LM's death, then three moves, losing my job. . . In my dream it went on and on, and I didn't hold anything back. It was amazingly cathartic.

At the end of my eruption, my mother was contrite, I acknowledged that I had been snarky with my sister but did not retract my anger. I'm not sure now if I brought up the fact that she had been the first one to be unpleasant.

In the past, I've had what I call "screaming dreams" when I've felt like my boundaries were being violated. There's a confrontation and I start shouting so loudly that I wake up gasping, with a sore throat. Those dreams have always been ones of frustration and even fear, of feeling trapped and helpless. This dream was of a different quality. I felt liberated. Even now, the inside of my chest feels less tight.

I've been more consistent with my practice this week, including almost-daily Middle Pillars, and have been adding a breathing practice Thorn Coyle shares in Kissing the Limitless that includes images of unbinding -- something I've been wrestling with for months. Last night I also finally got to Malkuth in a Qabala meditation cycle in John Michael Greer's Paths of Wisdom. I feel pretty confident that last night's dream is a consequence of the confluence of these practices.

It's taken me well over a month to do the first cycle of Spheres in the above-mentioned meditation. I'm supposed to do one Sphere a day -- which means that a cycle should take ten days. I almost went back and started again after a long break, but it felt important to get through one cycle and finish it rather than keep restarting in an effort to be perfect. I now feel a sense of accomplishment, and am ready to start again with Kether tonight. The instructions say to do four complete cycles before moving on to the next stage. I reviewed the basic instructions again last night, and of course I'd lost track of the details. Starting tonight I'll refresh my memory with the instructions before I re-read the description of the Sphere. But still -- I'm not beating myself up over not having done it "right". I'm celebrating that I persisted and finished, and that I have been experiencing definite benefits, even with my imperfections, and feeling jazzed about starting again. And wow is that a difference for me!