From Lightning to Liquid Gold

I will be giving three presentations at the annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams in Virginia Beach next month. One of them will on "Life Changing Dreams," and I will be presenting alongside Robert Waggoner and Rober Hoss.

My own dream was what I've called my "coming to age dream," which I have recounted in several places, most notably in my book, Healing the Fisher King: A Flyfisher's Grail Quest. In fact, it's the central dream around which the whole story revolves. It is:

 I dream I am in my childhood home in Texas with my parents. It is just before dawn, and I invite them to follow me outside onto the driveway so I can reveal to them my life purpose. I lift my arms in the air, and begin to chant a single note. As I do, powerful energy erupts in my body, and at the same time, I see lightning arcing across the sky. Finally, I lower my arms, and the lightning strikes only a short distance away. I repeat this process, all the while standing outside of myself puzzled by this demonstration, and not knowing what it means. Suddenly, I become aware that my parents, in their fear, have hurled a lance into my back. I fall to the ground, knowing that I am dying. I am not afraid, but I'm disappointed that they didn't understand and accept me. They come up and stand over me, looking frightened and worried. I say, "I was really your son. But I am the son of the unborn son, who is still to come." I know that they must eventually deal with him, even though I am dying.

As one might imagine, this dream played out over the course of many years, in which I struggled in my own zeal to bring spirit into this world, but sometimes in a way that was premature and insensitive to the forces in myself and in my relationships that were disinclined to support such efforts. To put it mildly! Overcoming one's own resistance to higher power, and becoming more humble in one's methods, has been a lifelong quest. (I can still be quite pushy.) I have compared my own journey to that of Parcifal, who, in his unconsciousness brutishness, initially failed in his quest to find the Grail, and then returned later in life as a mature and chastened man and fulfilled the requirements of the quest.

The lucid dream below (in the posting "Who is she, anyway?") intimates the solution that Parcifal finally discovered; that is, coming into right relationship with the feminine spirit, who then offers to "accompany" the self into world, thus fulfilling the incarnation of the whole person. Parsifal committed all sorts of offenses against the feminine and, as a consequence, did not have what it took when he faced the Grail in all of its splensor; that is, he didn't have the presence of heart to offer himself in service to "one it served" -- metaphorically, the Fisher King, or the son of the unborn son. Giving way to the companion in the soul, who is willing to serve rather than to dominate, is a man's ultimate attainment, in my opinion. And it does not come easy. It requires a long struggle, and necessary failures, before the opening of the warrior soul gives way to the attendant feminine companion who finally consents to accompany him in his incarnational quest. 

That is what the dream posted below intimates: that the presence of the feminine spirit transforms the male incarnational thrust from a raw, overwhelming and unsustainable effort (lightning) into a glorious manifestation of refined consciousness that renders everything golden that it touches. While the process is perhaps never complete, consummatory experiences such as the one below at least provide glimpses of what Paul Harvey once referred to as, "the other half of the story," and offer encouragement that the long journey toward meaning will finally bear its golden fruit.