(Sunday, June 9, 2013) My upcoming beach vacation must be seeping into my dreams:
I am at the Santa Barbara beach with Trish (my friend since junior high). The sky is very dark. There is a pool under the waves made of concrete blocks. She is walking along the edge, facing out toward the ocean and beckons me to follow. “I can’t,” I say, “I’ve had vertigo.”
She laughs and continues to coax me, and I continue to protest, even though the Observer Me knows that my balance is nearly completely restored.
I realize I am naked; my body is young and vital and beautiful, so I have no shame about being uncovered. But people in my party retrieve my bathing suit and ask me to put it on.
In the second dream, I am swimming alone in the pool where my sister Jo and I learned to swim, at the junior high school (now called a middle school). Again I am naked. When the others in my party show up to swim, I am at the midpoint of the pool. They ask me to put on my suit. It’s a long, sleeveless dress with a beautifully complex blue/green pattern woven into the fabric. People wonder how I can swim in such a costume. It’s effortless for me: I swish my legs like a mermaid.
I’m swimming in the deep end of the pool when I notice that the other half, the shallow end, has completely frozen over. I see my sister Jo below the ice. She is struggling to the surface, wearing ice skates. I worry: how can she swim with those blades on her feet? But she breaks the surface of the ice and takes a deep breath.
Day notes:
In my morning Tarot meditation I drew the seven of cups. The Julie Cuchia-Watts deck shows a naked young woman seated at the edge of a bathing pool, looking at her reflection in the water. Seven urns are scattered at the bottom of the pool. (Image below is by the painter Waterhouse.)
(Friday, June 14, 2013) Trish and Jo are both Cancers (a water sign): Trish was born on June 28 and Jo on June 25.
When Trish and I were at the Santa Barbara boardwalk, we watched a sea lion swimming in an enclosed area of the pier. I felt an immediate connection to her and I understood how human-like her skeleton was beneath her skin. Her legs were hidden, but perceivable. I could also see why sailors once mistook sea lions for mermaids: in the flesh they look very different from any nature video I have seen on TV. You realize when you see a bear standing on its hind legs that bears are brethren. Same with sea lions.
Bathing suit: Card suit (hearts/cups, diamonds/wands, spades/pentacles, clubs/swords). Suit of armor. Suitor. It suits me, it fits me. Business suit. Legal suit.
Pool: collective unconscious
Balancing on (concrete) blocks, breaking through the ice. Those images have similar meanings for me. Skates require balancing on a thin metal blade. Both actions rely on coordinated movement of my feet. Feat. To state the obvious, breaking through an emotional/spiritual block using my flippers/feet.
I was born with two webbed toes on each foot.
Great Dreams. I am partial to swimming dreams! The pool under the ocean reminds me of a place in Australia. The small town is named Eden. They have a “pool” down by the ocean built on the side of a cliff where the ocean water comes into it. I think of the beach as the transition between conscious and unconscious. A part of me from the time in my life when I was going through the transition from child to adult is with me. The sky being dark brings to mind a storm coming/a big change. That part of me is coaxing me to go deeper into my unconscious or to let go of my ego more. I give the excuse of vertigo, not having balance, but I know that is not correct. I am naked-authentic, but this makes parts of me uncomfortable.
In the second dream there is reference again to the junior high age (now it is the school where I went to junior high). I am in a pool. I think of a pool as something “man made”, more “contained” than the ocean. I learned how to swim (how to be with this part of myself) starting back then when I first became aware of myself as separate from my family, etc. Mid point of the pool? Middle of the transition? Again, parts of myself ask me to cover up my nakedness (authenticity). It doesn’t bother me. I make the dress apart of me. The beautiful dress does not hold me back from moving easily in the unconscious. Blue/green. I think of the ocean. There is a part of me that is at the shallow end struggling with “frozen feelings? and has skates on (challenges). However, that part breaks through and is fine.
To me the dream has to do with transition and going deeper-more connected with my inner self as opposed to my ego.
Thanks for sharing your dream. It is beautiful as well as the picture.