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dream interpretation
SEWING: Stitching a Life Together

SEWING: Stitching a Life Together

What we sew has a limited lifespan, as do we. Stitching our inner and outer lives together day by day, we can create raiment for the soul.

Zombies: a call to consciousness

Zombies: a call to consciousness

Zombies have recently risen from mythological depths to menace modern-day culture. Zombies image the horror of vulnerability to dehumanized existence. They exist in a meaningless void marked only by insatiable appetite; they are our collective’s pathological shadow. The undead alarm us–and can also awaken us. We are summoned to contend with dark and deadening powers through vigilance, consciousness, and action. Jung says, “If you will contemplate your lack of…inspiration and inner aliveness, which you feel as sheer stagnation and a barren wilderness, and impregnate it with the interest born of alarm at your inner death, then something can take shape in you, for your inner emptiness conceals just as great a fullness if only you will allow it to penetrate into you. If you prove receptive to this ‘call of the wild,’ the longing for fulfillment will quicken the sterile wilderness of your soul as rain quickens the dry earth.”

The Problem with Problems: solve or avoid?

The Problem with Problems: solve or avoid?

Problems can pester, persist and plague. They range from short-lived to chronic, bothersome to heart-wrenching, resolvable to unalterable. Problems cause what Jungian analyst and author James Hollis refers to as the three As: ambiguity, ambivalence, and anxiety. Ambiguity arises when a problem is complex and confusing, demanding action without certainty. Ambivalence is a state of conflicted feelings, often related to immediate versus long-term gratification. Anxiety is worry and doubt about whether we can meet a challenge or achieve a desired outcome.

OCD: The Distress of Repression

OCD: The Distress of Repression

Obsessions are unwanted, intrusive thoughts; compulsions are unwarranted, involuntary behaviors. Though different, they often go together, for compulsions pose as protection from the imagined bad consequences of obsessions.

VOLCANO: archetype of creation and destruction

VOLCANO: archetype of creation and destruction

Volcanoes appear in our myths, movies, and dreams. Their awesome destructive power fascinates us and serves as a reminder that we are not in control of nature’s primordial forces. Offering access to the earth’s molten core, volcanoes have been believed to be the entryway to the underworld or Hell. The Greeks believed that the fiery bursts from volcanoes were the sparks flying from Hephaestus’ forge, thus underscoring the creative aspect of volcanoes – Hephaestus created items of incredible beauty and power in his underground workshop. Volcanoes create new rocks and new land mass. Their mineral-rich output fertilizes the surrounding soil, producing abundant and delicious crops. The volcano serves as a potent image of the unconscious – unpredictable, sometimes explosive, powered from the depths – but also capable of bestowing its fructifying blessing upon us.

Snakes in Cages

Snakes in Cages

Dream from Episode 229 -- Hatred: A Way to Hide our...

Eating the Lion

Eating the Lion

Animals appear in all kinds of guises in dreams. When we...

My Parents, the Sea Monsters

My Parents, the Sea Monsters

From around the cliff, two sea monsters appear swimming, nearing my house on the water. I wasn’t afraid of them, but watched them calmly. As they approach, they begin to rock the walls of the house, and I continue to watch powerlessly as they wrest it from its dock and tear it out to sea.

Dreams of God

Dreams of God

Dream from Episode 221 Religious themes are common in...

The Wedding and the Rabbi

The Wedding and the Rabbi

Dreams that feature images of weddings are common. They allude to the potential for the joining of opposites — what the alchemists referred to as the coniunctio oppositorum. Therefore, they whisper to us of our capacity for wholeness.