Saturday, October 9, 2010

Dream Themes: Clothes and Cages

Night after night, dreams of lost clothes, clothes that slip off me and are lost, searches for something to cover my nakedness (despite preferring it) because of a nod to society's demands of the shame of the human body . . . a contradiction as men pump iron and women wheel furiously in front of cable TV in Sports Clubs . . . the perfect body striven for. We absorb both the shame of bodily exposure and the pride of rippled and muscular abdomens, et al. As I think of it now, I've given in to society's strictures to the detriment of revealing my authentic being, this naked Truth. Spiritual growth is blocked in fear of others' reprimands.

And last night, enrolling in a school where I learned nothing . . . fun-loving teens crowding the halls all the time . . . no memory of a single class.
Rooms are filthy with dust, cluttered with trash, disorganized messes of objects, toys perhaps. I spend a good deal of time trying to clean and order one room, but there is just too much to do everywhere to make it a better place.

I want to get out of the crowd, pay the dormitory rent to a strict and stocky principal. She asks for cash. I tell her I have check or credit card. So I'm digging through my overpacked disorganized bag for the credit card, and at first think I've found it, but it's a stack of pictures of my son from childhood to manhood I always carry with me. I find the card, planning to pay the rent, then get on a train and GET OUT. Go. Travel. Let go of all that's holding me from learning, growing. Wander to find the Truth.

As I contemplate last night's dream, the cage of a place where I learn nothing and pay for it, distracted by numerous other chattering beings, the old desire to escape emerges. "Wherever you go, you take yourself with you." The school is the chaos of samsara where precious human lifetime is wasted in play and delusions. Graduation adds no happiness, but the delusion of arrogance of being better than others.
Here, too, I want to run, get away, be alone, grow alone, teach and heal myself.

When I wake, my mind is agitated, overloaded with negative dreams, night after night. I watch my breath for a long time, only the breath, only the breath . . . and decide that running is useless. The Truth is in watching my breath, my hand, feeling this body move . . . Mindfulness.

Authentic being, the Truth is not to be found by escape from the circumstances one is in. Authentic being and Truth is under the crust, the armor of all my delusions. It is everywhere, if I could only see, no matter where I am geographically . . . a work in progress I yam.

4 comments:

  1. Dear Mickey,
    Wow...I have such similar dreams of returning to middle school because I am 12 credits shy of graduating from middle school, even though I've already gone to college. Still...there are classes I'm supposed to go back and make up. And I keep forgetting my locker combination! Is there anything in my locker, anyway?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aha! What IS the key to that which is locked in you? You're on the right path, Dharma sis
    love,
    mickey

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is strange, but I have had some success when I experience dreams like this to consider them when I am awake and then, when a dream of the same sort reconvenes its insecurity as to my identity, I have rehearsed and have occasionally been able to comment in the dream state something to the effect of "what in the world? I have graduated already. I don't need to take any more @#$*# tests!"

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're a tough dame, Kathy . . . always were
    love,
    mickey

    ReplyDelete