And the blog continues....

...at a new location. Visit me at http://alchemicallife.me/ for further adventures....

What the heck is an archetype, and why do I need to know about that stuff anyway?

This post may not seem to have anything at all to do with horses, but if you read through it, it may make it a bit easier to understand the way I make sense of my work with horses, and life in general.

I’m trained as a depth psychologist, and that means that I pay a lot of attention to the symbolic and, yes, “archetypal” nature of the world and my life as I experience it. Dreams are important as sources of information, and so are events in my waking world. I watch for patterns, and for “synchronicities” that show up and practically beg me to look for their meaning.

My worldview has been greatly influenced by Carl Jung's ideas, and in this post, I'd like to give you an overview of some concepts found in Jungian psychology that I've found useful. I promise to keep it short and sweet.

First, there’s what Jung called the collective unconscious, the ground out of which consciousness arises. Jung believed that the experiences of humankind, from the beginning of consciousness, all exist in a kind of psychic field that he called the collective unconscious. The contents of the collective unconscious are not concrete, specific images. Rather, they’re what he called archetypes: patterns of experience and behavior that are common to all humans. I’ll say more about archetypes in a minute.

Within the limitless unconscious, there are centers of consciousness that correspond to individual human beings. Each of these centers is an ego, which in Jung's view is an association of experiences and images that begin to coalesce around a physical body in infancy to form a personality. Some of the experiences that a person has remain conscious; others are forgotten or (as in Freud) repressed into what Jung calls the personal unconscious.

In Jung's view, before an infant becomes aware of her surroundings, she is completely subsumed by the collective unconscious. Life experiences bring about the development of the ego, as the baby’s consciousness differentiates from her surroundings.

Then there’s the persona. In order to live together, people have to form a society or culture with rules and norms for behavior. Any society has shared ideas of morality, aesthetics, and behavior to which we must adapt. These rules, learned consciously or picked up without awareness, are internalized. Each person has a social role, and in response to our need to “fit in,” our ego chooses bits from the collective unconscious that fit our particular social role, and calls these bits its own. This is what Jung calls the persona (from the Latin, meaning a mask, false face, or character in a drama): “a more or less arbitrary segment of the collective psyche” that our ego assembles as an ideal image of itself that it shows to the world.

Often, we identify with the role we play. “I’m a psychologist,” or “I’m a wife and mother,” or “I’m successful”: this is often how we really identify ourselves, even to ourselves. You can see this identification and its power when, for instance, a person loses their job or when their spouse leaves them, and they go into a complete depression. “Who am I if I’m not (a successful IT professional/mother/wife/husband/provider)?”

We’re often (or usually!) completely unaware that the persona is in fact a mask that overlies a huge repository of repressed material. This repressed material gives rise to dreams, fantasies, and neuroses. Images that appear in dreams and fantasies take characteristic forms that remain more or less constant across individuals and even across cultures. These images come from the collective unconscious, and group themselves into patterns or archetypes.

Archetypes themselves can never be fully understood. They exist as overarching patterns that can only be represented symbolically as images in dreams, fantasies, and neuroses, and can be experienced by each of us as particular events in our lives. For example, every human has a mother. Each person’s experience of “mother” is unique, and taken all together, humanity’s experience of mothers and mothering takes its form from, and contributes to, the archetypal pattern “Mother.”

Another term: our complexes. During the development of our psyche from infancy onward, bits of the unconscious coalesce around an archetypal pattern and function as though they themselves were conscious. Jung called these autonomous groups of contents complexes. We've all heard “mother complex,” for instance. It’s not important right now to fully understand what Jung meant by this concept. We just need to know that our complexes are initially unconscious. We notice a complex when it suddenly “takes over,” often at inopportune moments. We may suddenly say or do something wildly inappropriate and wonder, “Where the heck did that come from?” The answer: from our unconscious. Our complex made us do it.

In a more or less normal person these complexes lose their control over our lives as we become more aware of what’s going on with them. In other individuals, the complexes prove stronger than the ego and overwhelm it, resulting in neurosis or psychosis.

Here’s the really important thing to understand about our complexes: As long as they’re unconscious—as long as we aren't aware when they’re taking us over and why they do it—their actions and effects on us seem mysterious, and we tend to experience them as events or persons in the outside world.

This is the idea of projection. Our complexes get “personified” and appear to us as independent entities or personalities. These can be people or things in the outer world, or images in dreams and fantasies. Either way, they don’t seem to belong to us, and we don’t control them. Rather, they function as autonomous “beings” that seem to make decisions for us.

How do you become more aware of your complexes? Notice the next time someone makes you really, unreasonably angry, for instance. Feel into that. At the core of that irrational anger is a complex. That person may remind you of your father, or maybe he reminds you of something in yourself that you really don’t like. That’s where the complex lies. Incredibly valuable information!

Finally, there’s the concept of individuation. For Jung, the goal of life is increasing self-knowledge: becoming conscious of our wholeness while at the same time developing our uniquely individual nature (as opposed to the “herd mentality” or blind acceptance of the dictates of our culture). We accomplish this through integrating our unconscious complexes into our consciousness. Jung calls this process individuation.

According to Jung, the process of individuation leads to the person expressing more of her unique qualities even as she becomes more conscious of the collective elements in her psyche. Individuation is the process of becoming aware of the totality of our being.

Individuation involves hard, sometimes psychologically dangerous work. Looking at the material in our personal unconscious is particularly difficult and uncomfortable—that’s why it was repressed in the first place! It takes a lot of courage. But Jung believed, and so do I, that doing our own internal work, no matter how difficult the task, benefits the world at large. It’s worth the effort.

(Cross-posted on The Alchemical Horse)

Proof of Heaven?

The other day a friend recommended Proof of Heaven, by neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, MD. I ordered it via Kindle (LOVE my Kindle!) and just finished it a few minutes ago.

It’s a fascinating read, detailing his “near-death experience” while he was in a coma brought about by bacterial meningitis. The disease, in effect, killed the outer layers of his brain, and no one expected him to survive. All of the data about his disease, his body functions during the week he was in a coma, and his treatment were recorded in detail, and nothing in the scientific literature can explain his experience or, for that matter, his survival.

Furthermore, his scientific knowledge and training as a surgeon grants his account more credibility, in my opinion, because of the rigor with which he explores both his experiences and the possible explanations for them. I would highly recommend the book to anyone with an open mind. As he says, he himself would have dismissed an account like this as fantasy—until it happened to him.

So I finished reading the book. It rings true, based on my admittedly limited experience of that other world in visions and meetings with folks who have already crossed over. The similarities and points of agreement are striking. Of course, I’ve not been there myself in the state of consciousness that he had—and I’m heartily glad of that! Even though I have had some encounters with the Other Side, I’m still pretty well shielded by my own resistance.

The part of his experience that most resonates with my own is the feeling of absolute, unconditional love. We are loved for ourselves, no matter what. That’s what I’ve felt from the Ladies, from my Guides. There is no judgement, and nothing we do will change the love in which we are held, no experience will separate us from the One, the Divine, and this immeasurable love and compassion.

It’s interesting—the question is, of course, what am I going to do with this?

I feel encouraged by the book. It feels like corroboration from an outside source. The author is not only a scientific guy, a neurosurgeon, but he’s also a lifelong skeptic. So for him to come back after this impossible physical damage that he suffered, for him to come back totally healed with this kind of message—that, I needed to hear.

Why is this book so much more encouraging than the other accounts that are out there, or (for pete's sake!) my own experiences? Because, truth be told, all my Pacifica friends and colleagues, and all the New Age folks who are saying the same thing, somehow are a little suspect, because of what I’ve called the malleable nature of the Imaginal. It’s so easy, if you don’t watch yourself in the imaginal world, to see just exactly what you want to see. And that’s not the same as experiencing the true nature of reality, which is what he’s talking about in the book.

Right now I need to figure out what to do with this encouragement. How am I going to proceed with my work? I’m especially interested and curious about how this can affect my work with Galahad and the other horses. It’s so easy to slip back into my head, which is where I spend most of my time, and stay here and write about it or talk about it, but I need to get out in the living world that we call reality and see what happens there.

I know that it’s “only” a matter of opening to something that is already there, that I know is there, that I’ve already experienced.

But if I’m lazy in any particular way, it would be this: I was going to say “intellectually lazy,” but it’s not intellectual—it’s spiritually lazy. I want it to come easily. I want to just flip a switch and there everything and everybody is. I don’t want to sit and do meditation.

On the other hand, maybe that type of meditation isn’t the one for me, simply because of who I am. I have never been any good at sitting meditation. Even in the way I wrote the dissertation: Almost none of it, or very little, anyway, was from sitting meditations, from active imagination per se. Most of the insights came from my day-to-day work in the world; from being open to other types of communication, other realms, at the same time I was “in the world.” That’s hard to do, but I can do it. I have done it before, and I think that’s what I’d like to try.

That means I have to get up off my duff and get moving, even if it’s only 34 degrees outside….

 

Dragonfly

This afternoon, after posting the previous entry about “bzzzzz-yness,” I walked out to get the mail. On the way, I stopped to take a breath and look at the clouds from a thundershower that’s missing us to the north.

As I looked up, something buzzed past me—a dragonfly, which landed on the ball-topped antenna of my car just above eye level. There it stayed for the longest time—minutes!—surveying the surrounding area for prey. It saw me; I saw it tilt its head to look as I shifted position. It took off and circled a few times, always coming back to rest on the antenna tip. It even thought about landing on my outstretched finger once, but decided the antenna was a better perch.

What an amazing experience! It was no more than three or four inches away—close enough that even my nearsighted eyes could see its tiny antennae and the veins in its wings. I had time to fill myself with seeing it—that’s so rare with any wild thing, much less with something so swift and wary as a dragonfly.

The spell was broken when I sneezed. But it was magic, indeed! I’m kind of glad I didn’t have my camera (this photo is from Wikimedia commons), so that I could see it without anything in between—no lens, just my perception and my sense of wonder. Grateful to have slowed down enough to experience that.

Buzzzzz-yness

Interesting thing today: I woke once again from rapidly vanishing dreams that left the impression of frantic busyness. That’s been a theme lately—nothing that I can remember except being “in charge” of too much to do. Not a good feeling.

Yesterday afternoon, after visiting the horses at the barn, I was wiped out from the heat and took a nap for an hour or so. When I woke up, I didn’t want to get out of bed—not because I was depressed or unhappy in any way, but just because it felt so good lying there doing nothing. Same thing this morning, when I allowed myself my one day a week to sleep in. It felt so good to do nothing at all, and I didn’t want to get out of bed.

Then, on facebook, I saw an article someone shared about why, in order to “save our sanity,” we as a country and culture need to go back to the 40-hour work week. It made so much sense, and talked about things I’ve been feeling for a long time. A couple of hours later, an editorial in the New York Times came through my email—this article was about our self-inflicted too-busyness. 

In between reading those two articles, I allowed myself ten minutes to watch yellowjackets drinking from the bottom of the now-defunct waterfall, where I’ve been keeping a little container filled with water. I just squatted there and watched them, enjoying the quiet and the reverie.

OK. I get the message, though it’s almost to the “we’re gonna hit you upside the head if you don’t listen” stage. My Guides often have a really hard time getting through to me. It’s time to get back to the quieter, more contemplative part of my life. It’s summer, and my appointments are limited because of the heat.

It’s so hard, though, to remember that quiet and reverie are vital to the work I do. Surrounded as we all are by a culture that values only measurable “output,” and raised as I was by a father who believed that even sitting down to read a book was inexcusable idleness, it’s especially tough. Tough—but necessary.

This has helped make sense of my late-night obsession with Spider Solitaire (and possibly my insomnia, as well): mentally exhausted, physically tired, but unable to just shut down, I often spend an hour or more playing that all-but-mindless, addicting game until I force myself to shut off the computer, take a couple of Benadryl tablets, and try to sleep.

OK. Time for some major changes. Can I do it? Dunno…. Stay tuned.

On Corsets and Hoops

The following is a bit from my dissertation (which will account for the scholarly tone—my apologies) that I’m posting in response to the image that a friend posted on facebook this morning. The painting depicts a group of obviously wealthy men and women “enjoying” a day at the beach, ca. 1860. The women are all wearing fashionable hoop skirts. This prompted a discussion of this “beach wear,” and I promised to post these few paragraphs.

I've made and worn corsets from a number of different eras, and this piece is based on my personal experience. My re-enactor friends will find a few things to disagree with here, and I have deliberately cited difficulties that are increased at the tighter end of the "lacing scale." Nevertheless, see what you think:

Corsets and Morality in the Victorian Era

Every woman, perhaps especially those youngsters growing up now who seem to have so little idea of what “women’s liberation” is all about, should spend a day wearing the undergarments that our foremothers had to endure. The myth of the Victorian lady helpless to retrieve her dropped handkerchief is no myth. Victorian corsetry was designed to mold and contain the female form, which (like woman herself) was by cultural definition naturally weak and unable to support itself. Feminine weakness was both physical and moral; her tight lacing kept her upright, contained, and virtuous. The term “loose woman” originally referred to the woman who did not lace her corsets tightly and was therefore (again by cultural definition) morally lax as well.

Women policed each other carefully; it is the real triumph of the patriarchy that we women are complicit in our own enslavement, thereby rendering it even more difficult to see the patriarchal origins of the restrictions. As Morgan (1999) notes, the patriarchy is not a “transhistorical, monolithic spectre for women.” Rather, there is a “diverse dynamics of the reality of female subordination,” in which women “were never merely passive victims of patriarchy, but often crucial to its perpetration” (p. 93).

A corset is an odd garment to wear. Although a properly fitting corset is not painful if tight lacing is avoided, it does not allow for freedom of movement. A corset is difficult to put on without help, at least the first time before one gets the lacing adjusted, or if one is dressing to fit into a ball gown that requires, as mine does, a smaller waist than one’s day dress. Pulling the laces tight often results in a lightheaded feeling that, fortunately, quickly passes. Once in place, the corset alters one’s breathing: One’s chest expands not outwards but upwards, pushing one’s bosom toward one’s chin with every breath. A good corset does wonders for the posture, without one needing to make any effort whatsoever. One can slump within the corset without changing one’s posture outwardly. No inward strength is required. Clothing can be as elaborate and delicate around the midsection as desired, since one does not disarrange the waistline by either bending (impossible), breathing (redirected), or overeating (painful and definitely not recommended).

A corset generally does not hurt when first donned, but only as the day goes on. Pressure from any folds or creases in the undergarments begin to wear on the skin; the lower end of the ribcage begins to bruise from pressure against the steels. The underarms are sometimes rubbed raw by the pressure of the bones through their casings, especially if the corset is a tiny bit too long, or if one has begun slumping from the pain of having one’s spine held in a fixed position for hours on end. Then, just when bedtime comes and one expects sweet relief at last, one discovers the corset’s final misery: It hurts even more when one takes it off than it did when it was on. The reason for this eludes my understanding, but it is true nevertheless. For the first few minutes that the corset is off, one nearly wishes to put it back on again.

Corsets functioned to both create and maintain many of the Victorian myths about the frailty of woman (Steele, 2001). The effect of the corset on the female body is remarkable. Muscles that nature intended to support the body are not used, and the woman becomes, over time, quite literally weak and unable comfortably to hold herself upright for long periods. The displacement and deformation of the ribs and internal organs of the wearer are legendary, as are the tales (possibly apocryphal) of those who had ribs removed in order to achieve a slimmer waist. Breathing is restricted and a woman is far more likely to faint because of it. One can only with difficulty tie one’s own shoes or retrieve a dropped hankie; one becomes literally helpless. Women who had to work for a living, or those who kept their own houses because they could not afford servants, could not wear their corsets laced fashionably tight and still function; they were literally, if not morally, “looser” than their wealthier sisters.

Then there is that other fashion innovation of the mid-19th century, the cage crinoline. The crinoline, or hoop skirt as we now know it, consists of a variable number of steel bands encased in cloth. It was hailed as an invention that freed women from the close confines of numerous heavy petticoats catching about their ankles. True enough. The crinoline, which in its heyday around 1860 might be twelve feet or more in circumference at the lower edge, left plenty of space around the ankles.

Plenty of space, that is, for drafts to reach one’s private parts (the long drawers of that day were made of two separate legs connected only at the waistband), plenty of area out of sight under one’s skirt so that one could trip on almost anything, plenty of skirt volume to swing, sway, knock things over, and hinder one’s passage through doorways and up stairs. More than one woman was burned to death when her dress brushed into an open fireplace or a bonfire on the street. And, in the context of undergarments and morality, one attribute of the hoop skirt should be noted: It is difficult to reach one’s nether parts, either for hygiene or self-defense, while wearing a large hoop. How curious that a garment designed to “free” women from restrictions functioned, in fact, to decrease their mobility and increase both their sexualization and their vulnerability.

Aside from a very few gentlemen who, out of vanity and an expanding midsection, wore corsets for dress occasions (Steele, 2001), what man would for an instant put up with the constant daily restriction on function that the Victorian woman lived with? The patriarchal and paternalistic beliefs about and restrictions upon women were both fostered and supported by women’s dress. Best of all for the patriarchy, the men almost never had to say a word; women themselves did the enforcing!

References

Morgan, S. (1999). Redressing the balance, transforming the art: New theoretical approaches in religion and gender history. In D. F. Sawyer & D. M. Collier (Eds.), Is there a future for feminist theology? (pp. 84-98). Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press.

 Steele, V. (2001). The corset: A cultural history. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

“RED,” Revisited: Be Careful What You Ask For

The other day, a bright red car reminded me of this post, “Red,” about an incident back in 2004. In it, I reported how an alchemical encounter with the color red, in many different guises, seemed to have brought about a profound change in my psyche and my outer life.

I posted the link on my facebook page, with the disclaimer, “Be careful what you wish for!” and noted that the entry always makes me a little nervous. Yup. Rightly so: “red,” apparently, is a signpost along my life journey. When I notice, and I mean really become aware of it, like the other day—look out for changes!

Two days later, with “RED” still in my mind, I started getting serious about putting together a brochure and an elevator speech for my business, which has not exactly been thriving. Elevator speech composed, I contacted a potential client for my business. She was delighted, excited, raring to go! “Well—that’s different!” I thought. So we set up a time to get together, and I gave her some preparatory assignments.

Then I headed off to the barn, to meet with a friend to talk about a dream she had been wondering about. On the drive out, I pondered the reason behind my lack of success in getting clients.

Interestingly, I discovered that working my business has felt a lot like riding my horse: I know instinctively how to do it, and I can feel myself being very, very good at it. However, my brain registers fear, and shuts down my intuition and my confidence. The result: I don’t ride as much as I want to, and my business doesn’t thrive.

Well. That was a revelation. Everyone who knows me is probably saying, “Well, duh!” But we all have to come to stuff on our own, and in our own time, or it’s meaningless.

I found myself getting excited about the client I’d just talked with, and planning activities and inquiries that will be useful in helping her on her journey. Exhilarating!

At the barn, my friend and I talked for well over an hour about her dream and how it might relate to her psychic and spiritual journey. I followed my intuition and my hunches, and drew on the years of education, training, and experience I’ve had. She talked about how she’d noticed the power that comes from focused intention, and how she was working on being more conscious of that. It was an enjoyable and, according to my friend, productive session.

As she got up to leave, she said, “And I’d like to pay you for this.”

“Nah,” I said, “We’re just talking.”

“Nope. You taught me this: You have to know your worth and be willing to charge for it.”

Well. That was a shock. It had not occurred to me, quite literally. But I knew she was right.

Wow. I needed that reminder! She has my sincerest thanks for reminding me of my own worth…and of the power of focus and intention.

RED….

This morning, another potential client, a referral from a therapist friend of mine, called me to set up an appointment for this coming week.

RED….

Looks like my business is going to thrive after all. I’m surrounding myself with RED again.

What a blessing.

A Glancing Blow from Gurdjieff, Part One

Gurdjieff, philosopher, spiritual leader, mystic, is and remains for me a mystery. I have read some of his works, some of what others have said about him, and I am pretty much as confused as when I started. However, some of it may have been seeping into my pores without my realizing it. As with many other things in life, I’m just going to see where my own experience guides me. 

This post and the following one concern a journal entry I recently stumbled across that is astonishingly pertinent right now, as I move toward a different level of understanding about my life and my relationship with horses. The journal entry I’m talking about is from many years ago—how slowly we stumble along the path toward wisdom!—at a time when I was struggling with a deeply disturbing relationship.

I was also reading works by and about Gurdjieff. No, I’m not going to say anything about that man and his philosophy—greater minds than I have attempted it. Nevertheless, I was reading and feeling into his teachings.

In a waking dream a month or two before the encounter described below, I experienced a “visitation”:

An intense little Russian (?) man wants me to understand that “the process can’t really be controlled”—we just provide the circumstances, which evidently I have done or am doing, and then the development moves forward on its own. I assume that he’s referring to the process of “waking up” that Gurdjieff talks about. This fellow was VERY intense and didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor about this stuff.

Some months later, my Guide and I talked one night about the relationship I was embroiled in. I told her I had begun to be able to see patterns in almost everything in my life. She suggested that I practice using my eyes (metaphorically as well as literally) and my brain at the same time, in order to understand more clearly. She said, “The training wheels have come off.” I didn’t know what that meant. Here are my notes about that encounter:

I’m trying to understand my feeling—or, more accurately, the reasons for those feelings, the reasons for the intensity. I am so aware of the game, and that I play it in spite of what I might actually feel, deep inside—I think maybe, even in this case, it’s against what I feel at some level. It’s certainly against the best interests of everyone concerned.

My Guide talked about “ripples”—the effects of my actions, for good or ill, on others. She says I have been trying to ignore them, to not see them, though I know they’re there. Her words were so uncomfortable to me that finally I just couldn’t take it, and broke the connection.

I’m still as stuck as ever, and the only way I can see out of this is to change the way I think and feel—to really look at the ugly old patterns in my psyche that keep me tied to those behaviors. Only if those patterns, those games, start looking hideous enough that they lose their appeal can I hope to break loose. As things stand, no matter my Guide’s dire—and very real—warnings, no matter the consequences to anyone, or even to my self-respect, I doubt I’ll be able to do more than I’m currently doing. I risk losing EVERYTHING. And still I persist.

But I want to change that. I want to move forward. I want to change the way I think about things, the way I feel about things, and I suspect that the way to do that is by examining the games and the beliefs that underlie them.

In the end, before I left the “conversation,” my Guide proposed that I give myself a test—to look at the “ripples” and give this relationship up because of them. That’s a test that I know I will fail, at this point, unless I can manage to learn to see and feel differently. As things stand, with the resources I have at hand in this moment, I don’t have either the strength or the will to quit.

I have to find another way, because no amount of badgering from the Guides is going to help here. I need to figure this out somehow, and probably on my own.

At the time that incident took place, I was reading Ladies of the Rope, a book describing a group of women studying with Gurdjieff in the early part of the 20th century. I read this passage the very next morning:

Jane told Georgette that by attempting to put her life into words [as Gurdjieff insisted], she had objectified what had heretofore been unexamined. What had been said was no longer buried, could no longer be dismissed. By her truthfulness she had made the past—her past—come alive. She had brought it into the present, made it active and real. With it came a vulnerability, a certain chaos, a feeling of being adrift at sea, alone and unprotected—what she had been avoiding all along because of the suffering it caused. And so her psychological structure, with all its defenses and buffers, had been shaken and had begun to break down. She no longer could calm herself with the idea that she knew. Now, she could be spoken to. (pp. 12-13)

Jane explains that love doesn’t exist as a thing indivisible, but rather, according to Gurdjieff, as a function of one or more of the physical, emotional, and conscious centers.

Usually, one is instinctively in love, emotionally in love, or mentally in love. This love is fragmented, personal, and subjective. It is the “love” of one center, not the love of three centers. Hence, it is not whole, impersonal, objective. (pp. 12-13)

The fragmented nature of “being in love” that she describes rings true. I knew, even at the time, that the relationship in which I was entangled appealed to, supported, and nourished only a part of me—and that part wasn’t who I really am.

Later in the book, Gurdjieff is quoted as talking about “Idiots” (Greek root meaning “I make my own”) of various levels.

[O]nly in the recognition of one’s nothingness could there be the development toward consciousness and conscience. Otherwise, all forward movement was certain to be stopped by a “wrong crystallization”: that is, a fusion of a particular level of consciousness on the basis of false personality. If such a crystallization is not dissolved before a given Idiot is reached, it may become insurmountable. This is because this very defect, or defects, was a definite factor in the original ascent. Interestingly, the limitation of a wrong crystallization is not realized until the results that such a crystallization produces have been observed.

Only through work on oneself—the correct remembering and observing of oneself—does one automatically descend to Ordinary Idiot. Once the level of Ordinary Idiot has been recognized and reached, the ascension is also automatic. Every two or three years a new Idiot is reached. . . . (p. 52)

The part about the Idiots also makes sense. This is what I was trying to do—to get back to the me who existed—and exists, in the timeless realm—before the “wrong crystallization” happened. And—here’s another thing that gave  me chills—what my Guide had insisted on in our conversation was right there on these pages that I read the very next morning: only by observing the results that the wrong crystallization produces can the damage be undone. Wow. This was pretty spooky, even for me.

The journal entry continues:

Things are indeed shifting under my feet. This is surely the “vulnerability, a certain chaos, a feeling of being adrift at sea, alone and unprotected—what [I had] been avoiding all along because of the suffering” it causes. So it’s no wonder I feel like my “psychological structure, with all its defenses and buffers, [has] been shaken and [has] begun to break down”. Like Georgette here, I can no longer sustain myself by thinking that I know and understand what’s going on. Nothing is that certain any more—only that I don’t know.

But one thing about me, I do have courage. And I will look at things. In one way I was right: I can change nothing at all about my behavior until I change the way I view it, or maybe better put, change the angle from which I view it. It has to look and feel different to me in a fundamental way before I can act in any way other than the way the old patterns, the wrong crystallizations, demand. What I didn’t realize at the time was why my Guide kept insisting that I needed to look at the effects, at the ripples. Wow.

I can only hope that I have begun the process that the little Russian man told me about….

[Part Two,  when I've figured it out, will be linked here.]

In the crucible

It’s so difficult to articulate just what it is that I’m after in this lifetime.

The best way I can explain it is that I want to live my life alchemically. I want the miraculous, that third thing that only emerges if and when one is willing to sit in the torment and agony of not-knowing; to just sit in that unbearable tension between things that pull hard in opposite directions, or in many directions at once.

Everyone has times like that, and most of us—including me, in the past—are provoked by the pain into choosing one or the other of the alternatives.

But what if we are willing to sit in the misery, feeling everything, being aware of everything, hiding from nothing, until something unforeseen emerges? What if we somehow have the courage to sit in that, and refuse to make a choice, until the miraculous shows up? This is how we transform ourselves, or are transformed; this is how we change ourselves and the world in ways we could never have imagined.

This path isn’t for the faint of heart, nor is it for those who lack the courage to endure agony—and I mean agony! It’s not for those who would avoid looking at the ugly things about themselves and others—like I wanted to do, and still wish I could do—because the key is to feel all of it, be aware of all of it. That’s the fire: the feeling, the awareness, the consciousness that we bring to the engagement with the world and with our choices. That’s what transforms us!

If we just sit there in misery and let "whatever" happen, thinking we’re doing our soul work, something will indeed happen—but then it’s because we chose not to make a decision, not because we consciously placed ourselves in the crucible. Does that make any sense?

Anyway. It’s interesting. I am so passionate about that—but it would be irresponsible to go out and urge everyone to try it. If there’s anything about me that’s at all special or different from most folks, it’s the fact that I am willing to endure the agony, to welcome it, as the agent of change that allows me to walk my soul’s path with open eyes.

For the love of costume

I’ve always loved costume!

Some of my earliest memories are of designing costumes for faerie princesses: gowns with silver spider-web bodices and hollyhock-petal skirts, bejeweled with the finest of dewdrops.

A young girl's dreams became a woman's passion: I began to create, in real-world fabrics, the gowns of my youthful imagination. Here are a few of my favorite projects.

Clothing the Body of Memory: Ellen E. Janney (1822-1887)

The "For the Love of Costume" post above this one gives you some background on my love of “fancy dress.” In this post, I’ll share a costume journey of a different sort, a journey that formed part of the process of my dissertation, whose abstract you can read here. In the dissertation, I explored from a very personal perspective the importance of women’s work and women’s voices.

My companions on this journey were a group of women I call the Ladies, all of whom have long since passed from this world but who remain interested in the goings-on in our plane of existence. They have stories to share, wisdom to pass on, and terrific sewing skills to teach!

Tarot and Quantum Physics

The beginnings of a thought that’s been puzzling in me for a while:

When you shuffle the tarot deck, you can think about the resulting order of the cards in at least two different ways. First, you can say that the order is predictable, because if you track the position of each card as you shuffle, you could tell where every card in the deck would end up. That’s real-world physics, where the outcome is measurable.

The second way you can look at it, though, is through the lens of quantum physics, where the state of a thing is unknown and actually does not exist until and unless someone observes it. In that way, the top card of the shuffled deck can literally be anything at all.

The tarot version of Schrödinger’s cat, IMO, is what allows the tarot to be so incredibly useful as a tool for guidance.

And yes, of course, there’s the matter of subjective interpretation and all that—but for the moment, all I’m puzzling over is the way the cards end up in the stack. I consciously and deliberately invoke quantum physics when I shuffle.

So, says the skeptic, you’re saying that as soon as you turn the cards face down they could be anything at all on the other side, right? Well, yes and no. I think that our minds, depending as they do on our “real”-world experience of linearity and causality, can’t accept that. But I do believe that the more we practice this other view, the easier it becomes to turn off our measuring devices when we want to.

Anyway. Just rambling on a Sunday morning.

Seeking Balance

The last few years, I’ve been more aware of the lunar cycle in my life. It started when I began to notice major events clustering around the New Moon or the Full Moon. Now, I use those times consciously, as a moment to step back and assess. The New Moon is a time to consider what’s being “seeded” or “planted,” to grow and develop over the next two weeks until the Full Moon. When the Full Moon comes around, I stop to see whether I like what’s going on, and evaluate my course of action.

Last week was the New Moon. What has been manifesting itself in my life lately is chaos. Craziness—renovation at the house; a new program at the Ranch starting up and needing to be organized, tended, nurtured, guided; a horse with not one but two abscessed front feet needing to be treated daily with duct-tape “boots” or hoof casts.

Chaos and busy-ness. I’ve felt stressed and strung out, racing (driving, actually) from one must-do to another. Getting home after dark, exhausted, with no energy to cook or dance or do anything more than barely keep my head above the water. Doing, doing, doing.

So finding balance seemed to be what I most needed to focus on. My intention was to plant the seeds of a more balanced life for myself: a better awareness of my own, legitimate needs, and a balancing of those with my “work” (volunteer) requirements and the needs of others.

Re-reading my journal entries this morning, I was struck once again by the level of “guidance,” if you will, that shows up even in the midst of the craziness:

That New-Moon morning was spent doing some writing, including this entry on my blog (though I didn't post it at the time). In the afternoon, I sat down with my tarot and Horse Wisdom decks. My question was “What comment do you, my Guides, have on my New-Moon intention: more balance in my life?”

The opening card (in my readings, the one that “sets the stage”) from Linda Kohanov’s The Way of the Horse deck: Kairos.  “Horse time,” waiting for the perfect moment. Learning to recognize the perfect moment for anything, and being able to act appropriately in that moment. Knowing that things take exactly as long as they take: no more, no less. Now, what was that “lesson” I was just writing down? Something about Horse Time?

The King of Wands, reversed, came up as the Situation, expressing my frustration, uncertainty, and self-doubt. Challenges/Opportunities brought the Queen of Swords. She is mistress of balanced thought, of understanding, of writing and communication. What had I spent the morning doing? Writing….

Advice was The Tower, reversed. This scary card always announces a sudden, unavoidable change of some kind, usually not a welcome one, in the moment, at least. Reversed, it often means “the same, only less intense.” Or it can mean fighting change, despite the fact that it’s already happened. In any case, it’s a STRONG statement, and one that I have to heed. I asked for clarification and received the Four of Wands: “the soul of fire,” according to Rachel Pollack in Tarot Wisdom.

My interpretation, in retrospect, is that I MUST change the way I’m going about my life, or it will be done for me. The old two-by-four upside the head. Nah…I’ll fix it myself. Really, I will….

Recent Past/Daily Lesson: The Moon. Powerful emotions and feelings stirred up, the influence of the unconscious, a difficult time in one’s life, and/or something cyclical. All of those seem to apply in the current situation. Not only that, but this was a reading concerning the lunar cycle in my life.

Near Future: The Chariot, reversed. “The will fails,” says Pollack. “It may be painful, especially if that Tower appears….” Um, yes…. She suggests that “this card, reversed, can indicate a situation where a person has tried as hard as she can, and no longer has the will to continue.” Do I have the strength to make the hard choices and changes? Do I have the strength or will NOT to make those changes?

The closing card, also from the Way of the Horse deck: Bonfire. A sudden shift (The Tower, anyone?), clearing and releasing, fuel for transformation.

Anyway. Here’s some of what Linda Kohanov talks about in the write-up for this card: “It is no small task to stay present during intense outbursts of power—whether human, equine, or divinely inspired. Be ready to face areas of resistance that have grown into a volatile source of fuel for the fire.” Wow—and I can feel just how strong my resistance is to so much of this.

One thing that comes to mind is the tremendous effort I’ve put into the new program at the Rescue Ranch in its development, and now in its infancy. Can I sustain that level of intensity? It has completely taken over my life in recent weeks. Without me, it wouldn’t exist; but is that same level of involvement necessary to its continued development?

As I thought about this reading, I could feel tears welling up. Balance: what would that feel like? I can’t even imagine it any longer. What do I have to give up now? What now? I've already nearly given up dance. The Ranch? My horses?

My practice? What about that? That pathetic, thin, sickly little attempt to make a difference in people’s lives through my psychological knowledge and ability, and my knowledge of horses. That just refuses to thrive. Do I move on from that, too?

But even if I say, “Yes, I can move on,” then what? I have no idea what else there is for me to do. That is terrifying….

The first step is always awareness. So maybe that’s my immediate task: Awareness of the need to change. That is certainly tough enough.

So I went back Kohanov. Quoting Andrew Harvey, who’s quoting Rumi, she says on p. 195:

Rumi encourages us to “follow that desperation right to its home which is in Divine initiation, Divine transformation.” He asks “desperation to ‘take a torch and burn down’ all our concepts, limitations, fantasies, and banal solutions.”

And again, on p. 197, she says, “‘Light the incense!’ Rumi advises. ‘You have to burn to be fragrant, to scent the whole house, you have to burn to the ground.’” OMG…. What does that mean, here, now?

Oh my…. Conflagration!? Burn it all?!

By this point, I was getting really scared. I had all but talked myself into chucking everything and starting over, whatever that meant. But I decided to try one more thing, to ask for one more piece of guidance.

My Pacifica dinner-and-conversation group, meeting this coming weekend, will be talking about what it means to be an Elder—a wise, older man. I had awakened that morning from a dream about talking with an older, male mentor—that sense was all that remained of the dream.

So I decided to see if Professor Jung had anything to add to the “conversation.” My copy of the Red Book was on the desk. At random, I opened it to page 203, the first column, about halfway down. There, Shamdasani (the translator) describes Jung's work on the Liber Novus:

After completing the handwritten Draft, Jung had it typed and edited it…. It appears he gave it to someone…to read, who then commented on Jung's editing, indicating that some sections which he had intended to cut should be retained.

Well, if that wasn’t a “comment,” I’ll eat my hat. Thank you, Professor. So it seems we’re not talking about a complete break here, or a total re-write of my agenda. What a relief! Just some editing.

Sheesh. But at least I’m not without guidance! Thank you, Everyone!

Crossing the River

Last week I drove into north-central Illinois to attend the memorial service for my Aunt Doe, my father’s younger sister. My brother and I used to spend a couple of weeks or more with her, and with my grandmother and grandfather and aunts and uncles and cousins from various generations, pretty much every summer when we were youngsters. Since my nuclear family moved around often, the little town where they lived was the only stable place for us kids. If you ask either of us now, as adults half a century later, where “home” is, we’ll both give you the name of that little town.

The five-hour drive was fairly easy except the bit between Springfield and Bloomington, where I got sleepy. But the turn to the north onto I-39 always feels so good, as I get to see all those familiar place names—Minonk, Wenona, Lacon, Streator…. As I drove, I had the painful realization that I might never again have a reason to visit those places: Aunt Doe was the only one left of that generation, and now she’s gone.

Our ancestors on that side of the family have been there for well over a century and a half; they were mostly Quakers who migrated there from Pennsylvania. Many of them are buried in a little Quaker cemetery near the old homestead, and the Meeting House is still the site of Annual Meetings for the region. Since I was a child, I’ve felt the presence of those old folks, especially when I’d visit Friends Cemetery or the little stretch of wooded land they used to call Wolf Hollow, along the Illinois River.

That day last week, as I drove across Illinois on I-39, I felt the familiar tug toward Quaker Lane—almost a physical pain, as though I have, somehow, a compass needle attached to my heart that points home.

Then, as I crossed the Illinois River north and east of there on I-39, I had an even stranger sensation: it was one of “recognition,” but not a recognition of the way the river appears now. In fact, I’m not even sure I noticed how it appears in waking life, at that moment.

Rather, what I experienced was more like a remembrance: a sudden sensation of the wildness of the place—the majesty, the density of the woods on either side, the strangeness of the lush, forested landscape two centuries or so ago, before “civilization” arrived.

I don’t know who it was who visited me. There was definitely more than one presence—ancestors, I expect, or close friends, who came in the early years of the nineteenth century. I wonder if the river crossing struck those Old Ones so strongly because of the vast prairies they’d have come across on their way. Or maybe, after those unfamiliar prairie landscapes, the riverine forest reminded them of their own home. I don’t know. But it was definitely not my own emotion that I experienced.

How do I know I wasn't just imagining it? Well, of course, you can explain it that way. But as always, I look for that element of surprise that often characterizes a visit from the imaginal world. I wasn't even thinking about the river at that point; I was more focused on how I was going to find the hotel in Peru once I got there. But then, suddenly, there was the river....

Somehow it made me feel closer to those who departed this life so many years ago but whose presence is invoked (Latin invocare, to call, by name) by place and an open and receptive heart. I feel connected to them and, still and forever, to Aunt Doe.

A New View of "Reality"

Wow. I haven’t posted anything here in six months! All that moving of “furniture” didn’t leave much energy for writing, and it’s still going on. But it’s cool and rainy today after a blistering-hot summer, and it’s past time to update the blogs.

So, what has changed during this time?

First of all, both my skill level and my confidence in my own abilities with the horses have increased dramatically. Now, when I have a horse on a lead line and she challenges me, I laugh and just keep making the request. People repeatedly tell me how “graceful” and “effortless” it looks when I’m working with a horse on the ground—and I feel it, too. The horses respond better and quicker, and after the work they relax with me, heads down, snuffling my arm or my rib cage.

I notice that I’m no longer afraid to go work with a volunteer or a potential adoptive owner when they need a little guidance. I’ve grown into my title: “Lead Intern.” I still know my limitations, but what I know and do well, I’m happy to share.

But the change is not quite that all-encompassing. This became evident yesterday, when my trainer friend “Jay” and I were discussing an volunteer award application that a fellow intern had submitted to his company. To me, it seemed to be a self-congratulatory piece of fluff, with miniscule grains of truth spun like cotton candy. I was offended; even though those grains were real, how dare he submit such a thing?

Jay had quite a different take on it. Though he recognized the fluff, Jay felt like the entire document was well written and perfectly acceptable. We argued back and forth for an hour or so, as we worked with the horses. I got upset to the point where I had to walk away for a bit. When I came back, he had me read some of the offending parts aloud, with my own inflection.

He waited patiently until I was finished, and I commented, “For his next trick, he’ll walk on water!” Jay laughed out loud and said, “But it’s all true!” I just stood there for a minute with my mouth hanging open. Then two things happened.

First, I started to cry. Fortunately, Jay knows me well enough (and our relationship is good enough) to take tears in stride and not try to fix anything. Second, I realized that the reason for the tears was the realization that in fact, it was all true, and true of me, too. It is true—and yet I would never have considered saying it, much less putting it into writing.

Parabola Magazine posted a quote on their facebook status yesterday. Here’s part of it:

When we see, the world enters us. And, contrary to what we may assume, it does not flow from eyes to brain as a stream of purely objective data. We build the gates that receive the world… (Trebbe Johnson in "Where's the Temple?: Seeing Behind the Foreground," PARABOLA, Fall, 2011).

Just the day before, I opened Greg Mogenson’s Greeting the Angels: An Imaginal View of the Mourning Process, and read this:

Living out each day as if it were the eternal recurrence of some yesterday we could not grieve, our fundamental adaptation to life gradually becomes more and more antiquated until, at least, we ourselves become outmoded (p. 9).

The premise here is that what we experience, and particularly (according to Mogenson) what we ardently desire but cannot have, or that we lose, determines—not just influences—how we perceive the world. It takes a huge effort even to make a crack in the blinders, the filter, that creates our version of reality.

Realizing this, it’s easier to understand why I initially saw my fellow intern’s material as “spun” to the point of falsehood, and perceived it as malicious or even threatening:  because I would never allow myself to toot my own horn in that way. No matter that it was true; I was unable to see it. To do so would violate my perception of reality, based on my long-ago experiences.

As a child, I developed the conviction that no matter what I did, I was never going to be good enough to satisfy my parents, much less the world at large. That filter, that gate, has been so effective that only now, in my seventh decade, can I even begin to question my conditioned version of reality. That someone else, doing largely the same things as I do every day, would interpret his own importance so differently was a huge challenge to me.

Well, there’s something to be said for a shock to the ego—and this shock was a positive one. I’m going to have to challenge my own worldview here, starting right now.

Moving My Psychic Furniture

I’ve been trying to figure out why my internship with the horses at the Rescue Ranch has been so psychically and emotionally difficult and so exhausting, despite how much I love it.

I think it’s the rearrangement of my psychic furniture—things that have been in place for fifty or sixty years kind of get stuck where they are, and it takes tremendous energy to move them around, much less to contemplate getting rid of them.

I’m finding that a lot of things make sense these days that didn’t before. Some of this understanding started with the seminar on Jungian typology that psychologist Mary Ryan gave last month to our local Jung Society. Afterwards, I realized several things:

First, it’s no wonder that my Dad and I were at loggerheads all the time. Growing up, I was an INFJ; Dad was ESTJ. Not much in common, there! Mary explained that the “J” types meet the world with their rational function—the T or the F, Thinking or Feeling—and that becomes their dominant function. So Dad and I saw the world differently, and had totally opposite ways of making decisions. No wonder we had problems!

She also explained that the Auxiliary functions—for Dad and me, Intuition and Sensing—are both accessible to the individual, but one may be favored more than the other. Dad was a Sensation type—if you can’t see, feel, taste, smell, and touch it, it ain’t real. Intuition, which one supposes he had, was certainly downplayed. I had/have intuition in spades, but because of my Dad’s example (not to mention his demands), I learned to pretty much hide or ignore—and distrust—my intuitive knowing.

I already knew the what of all of this, but Mary Ryan helped explain the why. And now I can understand why my otherworldly Coaching Staff actually had to use a physical means of contacting me the first time: If I hadn’t heard their initial messages with my physical ears, I wouldn’t have/couldn’t have believed it, because I’ve shut down the intuitive part of my psyche over the years. It also explains why I have such a hard time cultivating my intuitive side—I’m still battling my internalized father figure, who doesn’t believe in such nonsense.

So. Back to the Ranch. The horses are challenging me to open up again to the non-verbal, non-rational side of things, and that’s the very part that I’ve spent nearly sixty years suppressing. There are times out there when I feel just raw—not with emotion so much as feeling—I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s still below conscious level, but it’s there, and becoming stronger. Sometimes I can feel what the horse is feeling before he reacts in a way that expresses it.

That happened the other day when we had Duffy out in the arena—we tried to get him into the trailer first, and when he was balky (though he got his front feet in without any resistance at all), Jay took him back over and through the “trailer tarp” system. As he came back through the second time, I said to Jay, “Oh, look—he says, ‘I remember this now!’ He just got the image.” Just as I said that, the horse dropped his head and snorted, obviously relaxing all of a sudden. So Jay could see it, too.

Anyway. There are days when I come home just shaking with fatigue. Yesterday I had to go back to bed, and once there, I slept for four hours without even moving.

This reminds me so much of the Pacifica experience—another time when my psychic furniture got radically rearranged. Well, onwards and upwards, I guess….

A Blessing

Wow. How’s this for synchronicity:

I just re-posted to my facebook page a link to a piece on my Alchemical Horse blog from last September. The article was on Mia, a little rescued filly who touched my heart. You can read that post here.

One friend responded right away, saying that it had left her in tears, and asking how Mia is doing now. (Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to that.)

I had just finished posting a piece on that blog about how I’m glad to be able to contribute a little to world peace by doing a week’s worth of writing for and about the Rescue Ranch where I volunteer, because we’re getting the word out about our work with relational horsemanship—a way of working with horses that’s based on relationship, not on dominance.

As soon as I returned to my email, that very instant, a email was delivered from the Red Cross (to whom I have not donated this year, alas…):

Dear Kay,
Today, many hearts are happier and lives are better because you chose to put compassion into action. This Valentine's Day, may your heart be filled with joy by stories of lives changed and hope restored from around the world. From my heart to yours, thank you for making these stories possible.

Tears in my own eyes, now….

"Synchronicity"?

This life is a funny place. Saturday I took one of horses for a walk on the trails near the barn. The temperature was in the 40s, and for the most part there wasn't much snow left, just a little slush and lots of mud.

Horses, especially those wearing shoes, tend to get snow packed up into their hooves in the winter. These ice balls can be uncomfortable and dangerous--it's kind of like the horse is walking on hard, lumpy baseballs--so you have to stop frequently and chip them out.

The first time I took old Midnight out in the snow and he got ice balls on his feet, it took me quite a while to figure out what was wrong--why was he fighting me and stumbling on flat ground? I hopped off and saw that three of his four hooves were off the ground by a couple of inches. The packed ice was so hard that a stick wouldn't budge it. Instead, I had to search for a pointed rock and bash the ice out. You can imagine how much Midnight enjoyed that!

The tool of choice is a hoof pick, and most of us (including me, now) carry them in our pockets when we're on the trails. Saturday I thought about taking one, but decided there wasn't enough snow left to be a problem.

All was fine until we turned off the main trail and onto one that leads through a flat, open stretch between patches of trees. The sun doesn't reach that part of the path, and yes, it was still snow-covered and perfect for forming ice balls under a horse's hooves.

I started cussing myself out for not bringing the proper tool, and began to look for a suitable rock. But wait--what's that? Oh my goodness: a blue hoof pick, right there next to the trail, within easy reach.

I just stood there with my mouth open for a bit, thanked the Guides, or Providence, or Whoever placed it there for me, then picked it up and chipped the ice out of Midnight's hooves.

Yup. Life's a funny place.

[Cross-posted on The Alchemical Horse.]

The Thin Time

A few weeks ago I woke from a dream:

An old boyfriend is getting ready to move into an apartment—he is going back to school. He calls me to meet him at a friend’s house, where there are several other people whom we know. I assume he is going to ask me to move in with him. In the bedroom he tells me that he doesn’t really love me as much as he let on, and that he’s sorry he led me on, but that he just didn’t know how to tell me. I am so angry—how dare he do that to me? It turns out that everyone in the house knew about this except me.

He is very surprised that I’m angry. He offers to make love to me but I don’t want him anywhere near me. I don’t want anyone touching me. Then I tell another friend that I need to go home now, because I have an early morning with the horses.

This seemed like such a strange dream to me. The sense of betrayal and disappointment didn’t fit with anything I was experiencing in my waking life, and I couldn’t make it fit with what I know of my psychic state; nothing resonated.

That morning, still puzzling over the dream, I went out to the barn where I had recently moved my horse Galahad. I had been unusually busy the week before and hadn’t been to see him in quite a while. In the meantime, I had let a couple of other people ride him, to give him some company.

Galahad’s new home seems perfect to me: fresh grass, a flowing creek, woods, plenty of space to run in, and all the hay he can eat, 24 hours a day. He’s in a herd of six in a pasture, instead of a small dry lot and 20 horses at the place he had been living.

Idyllic as the situation seemed to me, I knew that Galahad wasn’t settling in contentedly. He wasn’t his usual playful, happy, carefree self, and he always seemed distracted. Physically, he was doing fine; it was his emotional state that had me worried. There’s always an adjustment period, but even after two months, he hadn’t settled in well.

That day Galahad seemed especially listless and sulky, and I couldn’t get him interested in anything. When I took him back out to the pasture and turned him loose, he wandered dully off toward the round bale. I watched him for a long time.

The dream kept coming back to me, so I decided to work with it again, this time trying to break it down to its basic, archetypal elements:

There is someone to whom the dream ego has given its heart and its trust. This someone has another agenda of which the dream ego is not aware, and which runs counter to what the dream ego expects. The person keeps this other agenda hidden, then unexpectedly expresses it. The dream ego is shocked and disappointed, and feels betrayed and used.

Disappointment and betrayal—and abandonment, too. Hmm…. Is there humiliation, as well? Since apparently everyone but the dream ego knew about it? No, in the dream that’s not a factor. It’s all focused on the broken “promise.”

Since nothing in that resonates for me personally, is this even my dream? Is it maybe a dream sent to me by the horses? Or is this Galahad’s dream?

I decided to do some journeying, some active imagination, and ask the Horse Ancestors for help. Sitting on a log near the stream, I closed my eyes and waited for a vision:

My Guide, the Cloud-colored Horse, comes to me in the pasture. I climb on his back. He takes me to a vast meadow. Although it’s dark and I can’t see anything much, I can hear the whuffles and snorts of the horse herd. I jump down off the Cloud-colored Horse and stand there, waiting. Dimly, I can make out another light-colored horse in front of me. This horse gets closer, and though I can’t make out much, I realize he is painfully thin. He grazes hungrily on what little grass there seems to be. Then he moves closer and closer to me until I can reach out and touch his thin body. Without lifting his head all the way, he nuzzles me and presses close. Is this Galahad? It doesn’t look like him, but I can’t be sure. Everything is dim—it must be night.

So that’s it, I think. Galahad is a rescued horse: He was so thin when the Humane Society picked him up that they nearly euthanized him on the spot. This new living situation reminds my boy of the “thin time,” especially the nighttime hours now, as it gets colder and as the grass gets thinner and thinner. He misses me. He misses his stall and lots of grain, even though he gets grain in the mornings and has hay to eat whenever he wants it.

Add the dream to the picture, and it seems to spell out the fact that he feels betrayed and abandoned, and is terrified that we will leave him and let him starve again. After all, I hadn’t been coming, and other people had been riding him. Maybe I would just vanish, after all!

Poor Galahad! I took him back to the barn via a patch of green grass where he grazed for a few minutes. Then I put him in his stall, hung out with him while he ate some hay, and fed him a beet pulp mash—nice and warm. He ate with gusto while I brushed him again and talked to him. I tried to reassure him that we will never, ever let that happen to him again.

I don’t know how much he actually understood, but he seemed to get some of his sparkle back. When the time came to leave, I led him directly to the round bale and took his halter off there. Hope it helped….

(Cross-posted on The Alchemical Horse.)

Money....

Why, oh why is it so very hard to ask to be paid what your time is worth? Ouch, ouch, ouch. I just got paid for a very time-intensive workshop, and received less than half what I wanted for it. Why? Because I didn't ask for it. In fact, I asked for exactly what I got.

And I even had warning that this was likely. This morning's Horse Wisdom card was "The False Self," the card that speaks of all those old tapes that say, "I'm not worth that much," or "I didn't do all that much," or "I don't deserve to be paid much," and the like. Sheesh. Did the warning do me any good? Nope. Here's how it went down (my pay, that is):

My first mistake, when this whole thing was first talked about, was not to specify a price for my services. That's a whole 'nother story, but water under the bridge. So this morning I walked in to the office to talk to the manager. I wanted $XXX dollars, and I had told myself that over and over again. It was a fair price, or probably a bit lower than fair, but it's what I wanted.

I proceeded to tell the manager how I had ended up doing all the contact and up-front work, because my partner had been out with a death in the family and a family vacation and hadn't been in town. I was setting the stage, just as I had planned. Then, somehow, someone else took over my mouth and said, "...so just pay me what you paid her."

Where the heck did that come from? I was so shocked that I couldn't imagine a way to get out of it--and then my mouth froze up entirely. So the manager says, "We paid her $XX an hour for the six hours." Whoever it was took charge again and said, "That sounds fine."

Wow....

I got to the car and laughed and cried at the same time, all the way home. I knew exactly what had happened, and there was absolutely no one to blame but that False Self of mine, the one who, underneath it all and despite all my education, experience, and talent, still believes she doesn't deserve anything much at all.

I learned a valuable lesson this morning, or at least I hope I've learned it, and I'm trying hard not to beat myself up over it. But I sure could have used that extra money.