I went to bed early last night because the night before I had insomnia. Then I had a dream that has led me to write the gist of it down. It was rather like “A Christmas Carol.” Only the voices speaking to me were my mother and my husband, both dead.
This was not an inspiring dream, not at all. They, each in their turn, accused me of being emotionally absent. Because of this, they had had it with me. I was an outcast in this dream.
My husband was leaving me for another woman. He had many things to say against me and he simply would not be stopped. I listened and listened and listened. Then I told my mother he was leaving and she said it would be good for him.
When I woke up from the dream, I felt all they said was true. How could it be otherwise? I have turned away from life in hopes of finding another paradise. I have listened to teachers and done my inner work faithfully. But the voices in the dream were not satisfied with that. Not at all.
If I do not listen to this dream, I will be a fool and a fake. I do not know why it came to me at this point in time. But it is not too late to heed its warning.
I can see how I have abandoned human love because it simply hurt too bad to endure it. Some of you are reading this and nodding your heads. We are all the same. This is not just my dream. It is everyone’s dream.
I am sick of running from the pain. It has me when I run. My writing is not enough. My isolation is not enough. That is what they were saying, in a way. They thought it was time for me to listen to them.
What comes next but remorse? I don’t know. I really don’t. What if you see me as they saw me in the dream. What would you say to me? I don’t know what to say to me. I just feel bad. I stand accused before people that used to love me. Where did that love go?
Vicki Woodyard
P.S.
I just read this on www.cohencentric.com. It seems appropriate to post it here.
“What goes through your mind [during the hours of silent meditation at Mt Baldy Zen Center?”
Leonard Cohen: “You run through just about everything. You become familiar – and often depressingly so – with the general scenarios you maintain in your life. And after a while you become very tired … weary of them. You realize that the person you think you are is an elaborate scenario you expend most of your energy maintaining. Upon closer examination you find it’s a personality you generally dislike. And the reason you don’t like this person is because it’s not who you really are. Then, if you become sufficiently bored and appalled by this personality, you spontaneously allow it to dissolve. And then, if you’re lucky, you may experience yourself without the distortion of this personality. And that, in essence, is the process of zazen – Roshi’s philosophy. That’s what the training is for. It’s not to create monks.”
Leonard Cohen
Sounds like a good dream in that it has a lot to say. I’d say it describes you well, from what I know of your writing and videos. I must add that it also applies to me. So, as you said, we’re all in this and guilty, more or less. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, I feel we are all lacking in one way or another in our relationships. And there is a subconscious witness that does not let us rest easy about our so-called progress.
I don’t “think” one…forget that…let me make it personal…I don’t feel I can ever really truly love until I have faced down, all the way, all the way, all the way…the very real possibility that I don’t. What’s the Source of love?
It is a shock when you have a dream like that, for sure. I felt quite forsaken, but by who?