Wonderful post! I feel inspired by your framing of emotional eruptions! Thanks for sharing the wisdom of your dream, I love that these feelings come from the core. The image of the contents suspended in mid air made me think about how my emotions are full of information about myself and what’s important to me. The image conjures a pause for reflection, what’s coming up - rather than blind expression and regret and missing the message?? Thank you!!
Thanks for your comment, Cindy. The feelings are coming from the core, as you say. And when they burn so hot and intensely, it can be easy to miss the message. I think that's typical of a lot of inner work. The same pattern erupts over and over, cause we lose so much of the nuance in trying to ignore, suppress, or cope. I do think the image invites a pause and reflection. It's only when I was able to do that (thanks to the dream!) that the eruptions began to slow down.
What a fun and fascinating post. I’ll share some thoughts, perspectives.
I may have the opposite orientation — rather than feel put off by destructive explosions, I am drawn to them. I chase the “death drive” dragon. (Currently I am learning how to tame and ride the dragon, use its destructive power more carefully and intentionally.)
By contrast, I dated a girl who I knew had a hard time accepting destructive energy. I once asked her to yell as loud and monster-like as she could, like a singer in a hardcore band. She couldn’t bring herself to do it because it would be “too out of character”.
That’s funny isn’t it, how we come to identify with these constructed narrative characters? They can be comforting, stabilizing, orienting. Childhood family dynamics probably play the biggest role in how we tend to relate to our narrative character — almost like the bedroom we grew up in. Was it a fun space or a prison? Safe or dangerous? Clean or dirty? Bare-walled or decorated to taste? To what extent are we still living in that bedroom?
When I went to Costa Rica and participated in two medicine ceremonies, a spirit guide appeared in the first ceremony and told me: ‘Your house has no foundation. The best thing to do is burn it down and build it again from the ground up.’ The second ceremony was a nonstop eruption. Crying, laughing, terror, surrender. But I suppose when the soul wants to grow, it sometimes require a bigger stronger house to live in. But it is, finally, devastating to say goodbye to the old house, no matter how terrible it may have been.
I believe we cry to dissolve the old and accept the new, to facilitate change, whether that’s the sorrow of a final goodbye or the joy of a long-desired hello.
In the I Ching, hexagram 14 consists of the fire trigram within the heaven trigram, perhaps an analog of your dream vision. The fortune for that hexagram is simple and positive: “Great wealth. Highest blessing.” And it also indicates mid-day in the winter season, which also matches your dream imagery.
It strikes me that your dream image is not unlike a giant fiery halo.
The halo indicates connection to god, and fire represents creative destruction.
Allowing myself to speculate intuitively, I wonder if it could represent a calling to a very deep individuation, where one is not merely being reborn, but learning to be reborn in every moment.
I recall the famous scripture: “Not my will, but thine, be done.”
It’s about letting go of the boundary between self and god, right?
Jung: “I cannot define for you what God is. I can only say that my work has proved empirically that the pattern of God exists in every man, and that this pattern has at its disposal the greatest of all his energies for transformation and transfiguration of his natural being.”
Just for fun, here’s my translation of hexagram 14:
14 - Wealth
You followed your heart and it led you to El Dorado.
Line 1: Don’t roll dice with the bandits and you’ll keep a good name. Stick to the high road, no matter the dust and thorns.
Line 2: You’ve got a wagon, you’ve got a map, and you’ve got nothing to worry over.
Line 3: The child benefits from the family wealth, away from the influence of scoundrels.
Line 4: False humility won’t serve you.
Line 5: Your inclination is to rub elbows and show off a little. That’s a good thing.
Line 6: The heavens themselves are watching over you — the opportunities are endless.
(FYI, the lines typically map to the body energy system, almost like chakras. 1: feet, 2: legs, 3: belly, 4: heart, 5: head, 6: fate)
I’ll wrap up with inquiries that have surfaced: When does our concern (or belief) shift from “I am good” to “it’s all good” … when do we make peace with the fact that life will always be chaotic … when can we relax into the depth of self that survives even our most dramatic and terrifying transformations (and what identifications must we part with as we relax so deeply)?
This was a longer comment than I anticipated, but fun to write, so thanks for the invitation
We all have our interesting relationships with destruction, don’t we? Has it been allowed? Has it been contained? Has it been connected to cycles of creation or let loose chaotically? I keep finding myself learning this lesson over and over the last year: to be in life is to know death, to create is to destroy.
The narrative character seems like the well-constructed illusions of the ego. Necessary, for the structures are what create relative stability in the personality. But spiritual and psychological growth require flexibility, reworking, breaking the character down, evolving it. And that is death, loss, destruction. We fight so hard against it! The ego wants to hold on to the very thing making it sick.
I find the image and guidance of the house during your ceremony quite interesting. The house is a typical dream image that represents the psyche. No foundation…perhaps there was a lack of grounding? Burning it down in transformative fire is no easy task. How has it gone since then?
Thanks for sharing on the I Ching. I’m not well versed in it, so I didn’t make the connections, but I find your translations (and accompanying reflections) really fitting. The eruptions echo a time years past when individuation came calling in a most terrifying and painful way. Now, although a bit more tempered, I sense the same kind of impulse.
Interestingly, what was feeling intolerable and overwhelming just weeks ago, now feels quite different! Those identifications seem to be changing, the grip loosening. It’s like I’m inviting the destruction and dancing in it rather than running away. I dunno, it’s all quite dynamic and mysterious, but the dream images really do provide an anchoring.
I had a wild dream vision while on meditation retreat in Dharamshala India. I was on a spaceship, alone, with a tattoo down my inner forearm: U R A Ss
I knew it to mean "You Are A Shiva" in the dream.
Of course I then had to do a research deep dive on Shiva, having been illiterate about Hindu mythology at that point. And only recently, 8 years later, have I noticed how my own life/psyche reflects the creative-destroyer role of Shiva, and that dream message has helped me come to some peace with my unique role/gifts.
As for "burning down my house" (cue Talking Heads music) - I wouldn't say that has happened yet. The experience with medicine was more like being chased out of my house so I could finally get some perspective on it, and let my soul taste freedom. That evacuation was an extremely difficult process, and I was lucky to have some amazing facilitators, real saints, to help with that.
By comparison - and sticking with the metaphor - I don't think burning down my house will be so hard. What's tricky is how to exist without a house. Most would be very vulnerable without that architecture of the psyche. Perhaps unable to function in modern life very well. My intuition tells me I shouldn't take a chance on just burning it down.
The hard work I've been doing is building a foundation that can support a new, rather large house. You could say I'm building the new house around the old one, and once its finished enough to provide some stability, the old one can be demolished. Hmm... I like this framing. Thanks for asking.
Of course there's also the question of what to do with the ashes of the old house, once burned :)
f course, you've got to do something commemorative with the ashes of the old house! (Like write a book).
Sounds like the creative/destroyer mythic structure is quite constellated in your life, a guiding myth, perhaps? Have you felt drawn to other mythic/fictional characters with similar qualities?
Ideally the house rebuilding process is done piece by piece. It is, as you say, a very vulnerable position to be in (a dangerous road that leads straight to psychosis for many). In that sense, your intuition seems correct. Although I do wonder, viewing it from a more alchemical lens, if a burning process can happen that doesn't completely destroy the internal psychic structures, but does burn down what needs evolution.
The fire operation, calcinatio, is often used very early in the transformational work, incinerating the material to a uniform ash. Those ashes usually contain the essence which longed to be released. Now it is accessible, freed from the shackles that confined it. What comes next? Usually stages of cleansing, renewal, reconstitution, etc. Perhaps, with the foundation work you're doing, it will seem appropriate to bring in transformative fire when the time is right?
I like the idea of doing something with the ashes too! Write a book, find a keepsake to represent it, plant a tree in its memory or some other tangible thing. That's a great way to embody the alchemical blend of spirit and matter.
You’ve given me some interesting things to research!
I recommend the book Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde if you haven’t already read it. It’s a wonderful anthropological exploration of the trickster archetype and the need to break rules and taboos (transgression generally) in order to fix problems and keep a culture healthy.
This dream image really spoke to me. I am intolerant of anything that even resembles an eruption, in myself and at times in others too. Losing control is the enemy. But it's a natural occurrence as you say, can it be respected as such? I find myself able to hold and witness great eruptions from others when I can see they're going through it, and I protect the reality that this energy needs to come out for them to be okay. Why do I reject it so furiously in myself, only ever seeing it as a failure to cope? I expect myself to be inhuman and am inhumane towards myself when I don't meet the standard. This dream image is such a useful shorthand and container for this recursive energy. You have such mastery of your written voice which helps to me to understand and relate. It is fear of being out of control in these energies that scares me so much about the prospect of motherhood - it's fascinating to hear about your journey with it. Thanks for your wisdom always Alyssa.
Thanks for your personal reflections and kind words, Gazel. I think we all have these different ways of coping, learned adaptations to the chaos and intensity of life. The sense of losing control as the enemy is very interesting...and I wonder if perhaps your own dreams speak to this?
When we are unsure of how to approach bottled up psychic energy, our inner images are usually showing the way. For me, it was the reframe of the eruptions via the volcano. Since I had the dream, there's been a major shift! It's fascinating what can happen we attune to these dynamics within.
Motherhood has been a confrontation of these dynamics too, a series of lessons of what it means to be humbled by forces outside of one's control. It begins with pregnancy, through the childbirth experience, and of course continues as one adjusts to the new stage of life. It is scary, in a way, so much falling apart and being broken down. But it has also been deeply empowering, like a new center of the personality emerging amidst the destruction. It's really been wild. I'd like to write more about it.
Wonderful post! I feel inspired by your framing of emotional eruptions! Thanks for sharing the wisdom of your dream, I love that these feelings come from the core. The image of the contents suspended in mid air made me think about how my emotions are full of information about myself and what’s important to me. The image conjures a pause for reflection, what’s coming up - rather than blind expression and regret and missing the message?? Thank you!!
Thanks for your comment, Cindy. The feelings are coming from the core, as you say. And when they burn so hot and intensely, it can be easy to miss the message. I think that's typical of a lot of inner work. The same pattern erupts over and over, cause we lose so much of the nuance in trying to ignore, suppress, or cope. I do think the image invites a pause and reflection. It's only when I was able to do that (thanks to the dream!) that the eruptions began to slow down.
What a fun and fascinating post. I’ll share some thoughts, perspectives.
I may have the opposite orientation — rather than feel put off by destructive explosions, I am drawn to them. I chase the “death drive” dragon. (Currently I am learning how to tame and ride the dragon, use its destructive power more carefully and intentionally.)
By contrast, I dated a girl who I knew had a hard time accepting destructive energy. I once asked her to yell as loud and monster-like as she could, like a singer in a hardcore band. She couldn’t bring herself to do it because it would be “too out of character”.
That’s funny isn’t it, how we come to identify with these constructed narrative characters? They can be comforting, stabilizing, orienting. Childhood family dynamics probably play the biggest role in how we tend to relate to our narrative character — almost like the bedroom we grew up in. Was it a fun space or a prison? Safe or dangerous? Clean or dirty? Bare-walled or decorated to taste? To what extent are we still living in that bedroom?
When I went to Costa Rica and participated in two medicine ceremonies, a spirit guide appeared in the first ceremony and told me: ‘Your house has no foundation. The best thing to do is burn it down and build it again from the ground up.’ The second ceremony was a nonstop eruption. Crying, laughing, terror, surrender. But I suppose when the soul wants to grow, it sometimes require a bigger stronger house to live in. But it is, finally, devastating to say goodbye to the old house, no matter how terrible it may have been.
I believe we cry to dissolve the old and accept the new, to facilitate change, whether that’s the sorrow of a final goodbye or the joy of a long-desired hello.
In the I Ching, hexagram 14 consists of the fire trigram within the heaven trigram, perhaps an analog of your dream vision. The fortune for that hexagram is simple and positive: “Great wealth. Highest blessing.” And it also indicates mid-day in the winter season, which also matches your dream imagery.
It strikes me that your dream image is not unlike a giant fiery halo.
The halo indicates connection to god, and fire represents creative destruction.
Allowing myself to speculate intuitively, I wonder if it could represent a calling to a very deep individuation, where one is not merely being reborn, but learning to be reborn in every moment.
I recall the famous scripture: “Not my will, but thine, be done.”
It’s about letting go of the boundary between self and god, right?
Jung: “I cannot define for you what God is. I can only say that my work has proved empirically that the pattern of God exists in every man, and that this pattern has at its disposal the greatest of all his energies for transformation and transfiguration of his natural being.”
Just for fun, here’s my translation of hexagram 14:
14 - Wealth
You followed your heart and it led you to El Dorado.
Line 1: Don’t roll dice with the bandits and you’ll keep a good name. Stick to the high road, no matter the dust and thorns.
Line 2: You’ve got a wagon, you’ve got a map, and you’ve got nothing to worry over.
Line 3: The child benefits from the family wealth, away from the influence of scoundrels.
Line 4: False humility won’t serve you.
Line 5: Your inclination is to rub elbows and show off a little. That’s a good thing.
Line 6: The heavens themselves are watching over you — the opportunities are endless.
(FYI, the lines typically map to the body energy system, almost like chakras. 1: feet, 2: legs, 3: belly, 4: heart, 5: head, 6: fate)
I’ll wrap up with inquiries that have surfaced: When does our concern (or belief) shift from “I am good” to “it’s all good” … when do we make peace with the fact that life will always be chaotic … when can we relax into the depth of self that survives even our most dramatic and terrifying transformations (and what identifications must we part with as we relax so deeply)?
This was a longer comment than I anticipated, but fun to write, so thanks for the invitation
We all have our interesting relationships with destruction, don’t we? Has it been allowed? Has it been contained? Has it been connected to cycles of creation or let loose chaotically? I keep finding myself learning this lesson over and over the last year: to be in life is to know death, to create is to destroy.
The narrative character seems like the well-constructed illusions of the ego. Necessary, for the structures are what create relative stability in the personality. But spiritual and psychological growth require flexibility, reworking, breaking the character down, evolving it. And that is death, loss, destruction. We fight so hard against it! The ego wants to hold on to the very thing making it sick.
I find the image and guidance of the house during your ceremony quite interesting. The house is a typical dream image that represents the psyche. No foundation…perhaps there was a lack of grounding? Burning it down in transformative fire is no easy task. How has it gone since then?
Thanks for sharing on the I Ching. I’m not well versed in it, so I didn’t make the connections, but I find your translations (and accompanying reflections) really fitting. The eruptions echo a time years past when individuation came calling in a most terrifying and painful way. Now, although a bit more tempered, I sense the same kind of impulse.
Interestingly, what was feeling intolerable and overwhelming just weeks ago, now feels quite different! Those identifications seem to be changing, the grip loosening. It’s like I’m inviting the destruction and dancing in it rather than running away. I dunno, it’s all quite dynamic and mysterious, but the dream images really do provide an anchoring.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Christian :)
I had a wild dream vision while on meditation retreat in Dharamshala India. I was on a spaceship, alone, with a tattoo down my inner forearm: U R A Ss
I knew it to mean "You Are A Shiva" in the dream.
Of course I then had to do a research deep dive on Shiva, having been illiterate about Hindu mythology at that point. And only recently, 8 years later, have I noticed how my own life/psyche reflects the creative-destroyer role of Shiva, and that dream message has helped me come to some peace with my unique role/gifts.
As for "burning down my house" (cue Talking Heads music) - I wouldn't say that has happened yet. The experience with medicine was more like being chased out of my house so I could finally get some perspective on it, and let my soul taste freedom. That evacuation was an extremely difficult process, and I was lucky to have some amazing facilitators, real saints, to help with that.
By comparison - and sticking with the metaphor - I don't think burning down my house will be so hard. What's tricky is how to exist without a house. Most would be very vulnerable without that architecture of the psyche. Perhaps unable to function in modern life very well. My intuition tells me I shouldn't take a chance on just burning it down.
The hard work I've been doing is building a foundation that can support a new, rather large house. You could say I'm building the new house around the old one, and once its finished enough to provide some stability, the old one can be demolished. Hmm... I like this framing. Thanks for asking.
Of course there's also the question of what to do with the ashes of the old house, once burned :)
f course, you've got to do something commemorative with the ashes of the old house! (Like write a book).
Sounds like the creative/destroyer mythic structure is quite constellated in your life, a guiding myth, perhaps? Have you felt drawn to other mythic/fictional characters with similar qualities?
Ideally the house rebuilding process is done piece by piece. It is, as you say, a very vulnerable position to be in (a dangerous road that leads straight to psychosis for many). In that sense, your intuition seems correct. Although I do wonder, viewing it from a more alchemical lens, if a burning process can happen that doesn't completely destroy the internal psychic structures, but does burn down what needs evolution.
The fire operation, calcinatio, is often used very early in the transformational work, incinerating the material to a uniform ash. Those ashes usually contain the essence which longed to be released. Now it is accessible, freed from the shackles that confined it. What comes next? Usually stages of cleansing, renewal, reconstitution, etc. Perhaps, with the foundation work you're doing, it will seem appropriate to bring in transformative fire when the time is right?
I like the idea of doing something with the ashes too! Write a book, find a keepsake to represent it, plant a tree in its memory or some other tangible thing. That's a great way to embody the alchemical blend of spirit and matter.
You’ve given me some interesting things to research!
I recommend the book Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde if you haven’t already read it. It’s a wonderful anthropological exploration of the trickster archetype and the need to break rules and taboos (transgression generally) in order to fix problems and keep a culture healthy.
I have not read it! Thanks for the recommendation :) Sounds great. You might enjoy reading up on Mercurius if you go down the alchemy rabbit hole.
This dream image really spoke to me. I am intolerant of anything that even resembles an eruption, in myself and at times in others too. Losing control is the enemy. But it's a natural occurrence as you say, can it be respected as such? I find myself able to hold and witness great eruptions from others when I can see they're going through it, and I protect the reality that this energy needs to come out for them to be okay. Why do I reject it so furiously in myself, only ever seeing it as a failure to cope? I expect myself to be inhuman and am inhumane towards myself when I don't meet the standard. This dream image is such a useful shorthand and container for this recursive energy. You have such mastery of your written voice which helps to me to understand and relate. It is fear of being out of control in these energies that scares me so much about the prospect of motherhood - it's fascinating to hear about your journey with it. Thanks for your wisdom always Alyssa.
Thanks for your personal reflections and kind words, Gazel. I think we all have these different ways of coping, learned adaptations to the chaos and intensity of life. The sense of losing control as the enemy is very interesting...and I wonder if perhaps your own dreams speak to this?
When we are unsure of how to approach bottled up psychic energy, our inner images are usually showing the way. For me, it was the reframe of the eruptions via the volcano. Since I had the dream, there's been a major shift! It's fascinating what can happen we attune to these dynamics within.
Motherhood has been a confrontation of these dynamics too, a series of lessons of what it means to be humbled by forces outside of one's control. It begins with pregnancy, through the childbirth experience, and of course continues as one adjusts to the new stage of life. It is scary, in a way, so much falling apart and being broken down. But it has also been deeply empowering, like a new center of the personality emerging amidst the destruction. It's really been wild. I'd like to write more about it.