When the whole world is a bully

   The last couple of nights I have had a running series of dreams that all seem to have a common thread. It all started after I had a massage therapist work on the deeper areas of tension in my legs. It seems that the iliotibial band (or IT Band) in my legs is as taut as a bowstring.
   As anyone familiar with bodywork knows the body stores emotions and memories in the musculature, fascia and even the organs. Working on the body can bring unresolved or stored content to the surface. This occurs with the energy body too.
    As to what to do with these unresolved feelings there is no specific answer that holds true universally. Sometimes the feelings simply have to be felt and let go of. But in other situations they can point to patterns of thinking and acting that are so ingrained that letting go without examination and resolution it is like pulling up a weed without getting the roots.
   This is simply going to be a posting to vent my feelings and hopefully come to a resolution which I will be able to impart. I consulted the tarot to help me with this and The Hermit showed me that the answer is to be found within. So I am going within and you are welcome to follow, provided you don't mind me getting into some old crap!
    The first set of dreams occurred on the night immediately following the massage which occurred late at night. I had been wanting to get some clearance on the feelings of powerlessness and frustration that accompanied both the stretching of my legs and my general financial situation. They might seem unconnected, but energetically they are linked and my dreams seem to clarify that. I had actually been looking for answers on the next card I am working on, so when my unconscious delivered up these dreams I understood that this was what I was going to be working on regardless of my other plans!
    The first three dreams I had were all connected thematically. In the first I was excavating some old relics at an archaeological dig site. I was tracking down some talons or teeth from a dinosaur which were buried somewhere in the area. After some digging and searching I discovered that they were located in a small stream bed and were encased in a small block of ice. The dig site is symbolic of the massage digging into old strata and layers of my psyche, the dinosaur teeth are linked to my childhood dreams of dinosaurs (check out Dinosaur dreams for more details) and the ice is about frozen emotions. That they were under an active stream suggests they are buried under a healthy flow of emotions. The teeth in this instance represent power and aggression (baring teeth is a show of power and aggression). Just as I was about to retrieve them a young child of about 5 or 6..possibly older snatched them from the water. He refused to give them back and acted in a generally smug and childish "I found it first" manner. I didn't know how to react or feel in the dream and felt trumped by this impertinent youngster.
     The second dream was similar, in this though the child tried to snatch something from me as I was sat on a train or bus. I grabbed his wrist and took back what was mine, but his mother was horrified and told me that I couldn't do that to a child, which caused me to feel guilty.
    The third brought up a memory of an person I have not thought of in years. His name was Barnaby and he was part of a clique at school. The clique of guys he was part of were pleasant outwardly, but you could tell they sneered and derided everyone who wasn't like them. I didn't know how to deal with them as the the thin veneer of pleasantry didn't adequately cover the corruption within. In this dream he helped me get a new computer, but when I set it up, it was flooded with spam and malware. I knew he was responsible for this, but there was no way I could prove it.
    In writing these dreams down I can clearly see the common thread. It is in dealing with someone who on the surface appears pleasant, but underneath is actually not a good person. I am unsure on how to be around people that are false. The greater my ability to perceive these charlatans of good nature the more I feel insecure in how I should react. Often such people possess a pleasing facade and either an emptiness or dark rot within.
    I grew up feeling that one should be civil and polite to all people, to act as a gentleman to even the most reprehensible and vile people. In some ways this an extension of giving the benefit of the doubt. The links to my childhood are undeniable and there are several instances in my past that cause me to look back with horror and disgust on things that happened in which paralysis was my only response.
      In the dream the night afterwards things got worse. In this dream both Zoe and I were sat in a restaurant having a light meal. I thought I saw a relative sat at another table (possibly my grandfather) though the view was obscured somewhat because of angle and obstructions. I waved them over and it turned out that it was my father. He introduced himself to Zoe, then hugged her in what was an inappropriate fashion which was more like groping. She was clearly uncomfortable and so I pulled him away then punched him in the jaw. The blow was glancing and held little power, but he retreated and looked somewhat shaken. We exchanged some brief words and he left. Again I wasn't sure if I had over-reacted as violence is not a common form of response for me and I have been taught it is never an appropriate reaction.
    Striking one's father is also seen as a large no-no. The final form of the dream though is very telling for me. The antagonist is finally revealed as my father (how typically Freudian!) and it speaks heavily of my relationship with him. My father is not a vile man, nor is he wantonly bad, yet he shares many traits with the antagonists in the previous dreams. He takes joy in malicious jokes and childish power games, yet on the surface he is a popular and charismatic individual. People will forgive a great deal of a charismatic man (or woman). In the dream I took no joy in striking my father, but looking back I feel it was necessary.
   The dreams connect to that childhood anxiety of how to deal with such an individual who is cruel in nature, but hides it behind a mask of civility. I am no longer a child and therefore am not limited to being powerless around such individuals or situations. But I am still finding a level of appropriate response without being left bereft or over-reacting. It as though a part of me is still a child in this, learning how to respond to the great bullying world that puts on a mask of civility.
     This issue strikes a deep cord in me for all those times that I have let those childish power games or malicious jokes go unanswered. I feel it connect to a level of anger. In my own psyche there is either paralysis or over-reaction, my instincts take hold and there is only fight or flight. As a child I could only respond with incomprehension when my father acted in such a fashion, washing between the shores of paralysis or the urge to fight. Of course, as a child one cannot strike your parents and even the thought induces guilty feelings. It creates a feeling of powerlessness against so great a force. I could no more strike out against my parents than I could fly to the moon.
    The dynamic this has created within me has set me up to view the universe through the same lens. When life or circumstance seems like a malicious joke, I am paralysed or feel rage at the circumstances binding me. Of course, lashing out at my new "parents" within my own spirituality holds just as much a taboo as striking out at my real family. It is said that you look upon the Gods as you look upon your parents, using the same filters and the same perceptions. So what does this mean for me? That when life plays a malicious trick, or is cruel, I simply accept it as the will of untouchable deities. That the rage and frustration I feel cannot be expressed or I will suffer greater indignities. It has created a fear of authorities within me, that I cannot speak up or out against their injustices or feel the wrath and punishment that breaking that taboo will bring even if their actions are unjust.
     I guess it is all in being able to handle these situation as an adult and not letting my rage carry or paralyze me. Growing up with this as a child made me feel powerless whenever something unfair or bad happened, I found ways to rationalise it within my self as to why it happened to me and for what purpose. I have let these situations occur in my own life and not stood up against them and answered them. I even doubt there is any way I could offend the universe, it doesn't have human sensibilities and would surely understand my human frustrations. I am sure God has heard it all before and it is quite likely my anger would be the amongst the least colourful things he hears each day. It also seems like if anyone is equipped to deal with anger and frustration and not react badly it should be God.
     It seems like being able to fully give my anger over to God is what I can learn from this, that I don't need to store it as a poison, nor cast it out into the world at people who are suffering just as much in life, or even more so if they are a bad person. If I can release that pain and suffering out into the universe, then it can be transformed. Releasing it into people or situations will only magnify whatever it is that I am suffering through.
   It is late..I have a lot to let go of and maybe once my cup is empty of this poison it can be filled with something better...

Dinosaur Dreams

  Last night I had another set of unusual dreams, most likely set off by stretching very late last night and releasing some old tensions.
   The first of the dreams involved dinosaurs, specifically running from and avoiding dinosaurs. I haven't spent time looking at or considering dinosaurs recently so it not a product of outside influence. Yesterday was a good day so terrified running was unlikely caused by any emotional fallout from life.
    The real source then must be the opening stretches., specifically the ones opening the hips. There is a pose in yoga called fixed firm, which involves kneeling and sitting between your heels, you then stretch out backwards on the ground. This is a difficult pose for me because of the hard floor on my knees and I spend most of the time when I go to class just trying to get my knees comfortable in this pose. Last night I did the pose on the bed (which incidentally is not recommended) and this allowed me to relax further into the pose without my knees protesting. This in turn opened up some areas of the pelvis. The pelvis is where much of early childhood armouring is stored, at least up to the age of 7. We are learning to walk, gaining control of our elimination systems and getting the hang of basically being upright all the time.
    When I was young I had a love of dinosaurs. I would collect the little plastic toys, pose them in fights and place small items in their fixed open mouths and imagine being around in dinosaur times. I was terribly disappointed when I discovered that man did not exist at the same time and that my dream of becoming a dinosaur scientist would only ever involve dusting off bones. I am not quite sure what I envisioned a dinosaur scientist would do, but it certainly seemed more exciting than the duties of a paleontologist. My walls were adorned with posters of fearsome T-rexes, Pteradactyls, Stegosauruses and Diplodoci(?) Most of the posters were pretty gruesome and a few may have had the carnivorous ones devouring the bodies of the less fortune leaf eaters.
    I don't recall the content of the dreams, but I do recall my parents telling me I would have constant nightmares about dinosaurs and they thought that if I took the posters down it might help. I, of course wanted no such thing, nightmares or not. I loved the dinosaurs regardless of whether they terrified me or devoured me in my dreams.
   I periodically have dreams with dinosaurs in them and they usually have the same kind of quality a Jurassic Park style running for survival. The connection to my childhood cannot be overlooked. I cannot access what caused me to have such terrifying nightmares, but as an adult I do not it is not likely it was not the posters. The symbolism of the dreams suggest running for survival from something much bigger, deadlier and fearsome than myself. Something that cannot be reasoned with, nor safely confronted...something beyond my scope to deal with. As a child one could imagine that the world must seem like that at times, as if one is confronted by fearsome forces that threaten our very survival and that as a child there is no way to deal with this without outside help.
    It is possible that there may well have been elements in my life at that time that felt very much like that. It is likely an encroachment from the adult world. I know my parents were young and worked very hard to support my sister and I, and the awareness of the danger of our situation may have imprinted itself on my young mind. As a youngster, my psyche may well have projected these fears onto other elements that appeared fearsome, terrifying and without mercy. An element that I was able to understand...dinosaurs. I know that when life seems merciless I have these dreams again. It provides a background of terror to my normal peaceful life, usually so slight as to be imperceptible. That there are elements to life that are still monstrous to me and they are usually connected to the idea of survival.
    The second part of the dream involved a figure so black that he appeared as a hole in which all light disappeared. Shadow is not strong enough to describe his essence and there was a feeling of foreboding about him. The context was a slideshow of images flashing before my consciousness, usually of houses and families, but I noticed this figure stood in the background, or at a window. It was scary and caused me to wake and there was a sense that his presence still remained. This element I have not fully examined, although it is possible that it is a being of some sort and/or a representation of the blackest part of my own shadow (in the Jungian sense).
    While I speak of dinosaurs and foreboding feelings there was a strange situation I would like to recount. A few years ago when I was living in the southwest of the UK, a friend went for a job interview in Bristol and I accompanied her for morale support. While she was interviewing I went for a walk and ended up at a museum there in the city, I went in primarily to see the Egyptian section. As typical museum style this section was closed for refurbishment and so I ended up looking at the dinosaur bones. The very first exhibit was a skull from a Liopleurodon, this is a massive sea predator was estimated to be over 30 foot in length.

       As I approached the exhibit I began to pick up on the energy of the skull. Usually I only sense energy if I chose to or if the signature is very powerful. There was a palpable sense of malevolence emanating from the skull, an almost malicious glee. I had never considered that these creatures may have been capable of anything but the most rudimentary instincts, but here I could sense this energy coming from the skull. It struck me as unusual that an energy residue would last for such a period of time, but then again I have hardly spent much time around skulls.
      I was intrigued and opened myself up to sensing such things and walked through the rest of the exhibit looking at the other bones. Strangely I felt nothing, all the other bones seemed inert. After I had looked at the rest of the displays I returned and still felt the malevolence from the original skull. With further examination I saw a small plaque by the other displays that stated that all the other "bones" in the displays were plaster replicas and that the only genuine article was the Liopleurodon skull in the display case.
    I am not sure what to think of this, only that these massive beasts may have been the equivalent to mass murdering dolphins and that they may have derived some murderous pleasure from being the greatest hunters of the sea.