When an individual has succeeded in freeing himself from his traditional alliances in a responsible fashion, he will then be able to choose the direction of his life, which will ensure his own autonomy and the right to govern himself according to his own reason. I now turn to the next phase of my story, leaving the past behind to begin the process of governing myself according to the reasons of my own soul.
Mythology, fairy tales, religious traditions, world literature, and modern movies are strewn with stories of a man’s journey to overcome some obstacle in his search for selfhood and his desire to fulfill a longing of the soul. Whether it is Perseus who rescued his future bride, Andromeda, from a monster; Prince Phillip who freed the maiden, lifeless Aurora, in Sleeping Beauty from the clutches of the witch; the biblical character Joseph who eventually reunited his family and saved a nation from starvation; King Arthur’s quest to find the Holy Grail; or Luke in Star Wars who redeemed his father’s darkness—they all ventured forth from the world as they knew it into unknown areas and uncharted paths where they encountered forces they had to overcome or endure in order to get the treasure they sought. Transformed by the process, they returned home to share their gift with their community or the world. In this process, a man must overcome multiple obstacles. If successful he frees this Other—the treasure hard to find—that lies hidden in his soul, and a new consciousness is born. I dream
I am living at home with my parents and my brothers. My father has established a lot of rules that don’t allow us to do hardly anything. Everything I want to do, my father won’t let me. According to him, these things are wrong, even evil. My brothers agree with him. Finally I confront my father and mother about these rules. I tell them it is their own fear of life that has made these rules. My mother just enforces the rules of my father.
The scene changes and now I am with a group of people from a church. There are three spots, circles, on the bath- room wall. According to the people from the church, this is a sign that what I want to do is evil, a sign from the devil that confirms that what I want to do, even my confronting them, is evil. I tell them that those three spots are their own projections onto the wall, the projections of their own evil onto the wall and not the devil.
The scene changes again and I meet Hilda. She tells me that I must leave home. (Journal, 1-19-88)
This dream captured the masculine-feminine experience of the parsonage and the relationship of my own masculine-feminine energies. My father represented the fundamental Judeo-Christian patriarchal consciousness of the parsonage in which I was raised. My mother simply obeyed this masculine point of view. I was now confronting these voices in me. This dream also pointed out that we project what is unconscious in us outside—onto others and onto our environment. In the end I meet once again the feminine figure Hilda and she tells me I must leave home.
As mentioned earlier, Hilda has been a consistent figure in my dreams through the years, representing aspects of my anima and inner wisdom. Overall, she was a trusted inner figure and guide. This voice in me in this dream told me that I must leave home. I must leave the parental images and all their projections. I could no longer live under the rules of the masculine as represented by my father and as obeyed by my mother. Nine nights later I dream
I meet the minister of the church that I attend. He asks me about my plans to buy a new house. I tell him that I am “going for broke,” meaning that I am going to put all my assets on the line to build this house. He responds in a way to show the seriousness of such a decision. I know that he is thinking that I can borrow the money from my parents, but I know that my parents don’t have that kind of money. He tells me to investigate all possibilities.
I talk to a man named Mr. Butler. He tells me that he got money he needed from his brother. I now see the minister walking down the street. He has lost a lot of weight and is very trim, appearing in good physical condition. I particularly notice that his shape has changed, especially how his legs and hips are attached causing a different shape from the buttocks and waist down, causing a different shaped butt. His butt is raised up higher and protruding. (Journal, 1-28-88)
This dream indicated that I was putting everything that I had into building a new house, into building a new consciousness, a new psychic structure. The dream also said that I couldn’t get the energy (money) that I needed for this new consciousness from the point of view of my parents. They didn’t have what I needed. I must get it somewhere else, from Mr. Butler’s brother. The end of this dream suggested the possible meaning of the dream’s reference to Mr. Butler’s brother. In this dream the minister’s buttocks had changed shape. This dream showed the change in my own inner masculine minister-father image.
The body reveals the way a person is in the world, demonstrating a relationship between various parts of the body and a person’s emotions and attitudes, even his consciousness.284 Ron Kurtz in his book The Body Reveals points out that the pelvis assumes the position that expresses a person’s set attitude toward living. For example, when the pelvis is tucked under, the tight buttocks allow for only a dribbling out of emotion and feeling. In this situation the person can’t allow the pelvis to swing back and gather strength for the forward thrust associated with full emotional discharge. Emotions can, at best, only be squeezed out. In the opposite extreme where the pelvis is retracted, or held back, the individual is unable to release. In this situation a great charge has been gathered in the pelvic region but is unable to swing forward. Individuals with such a pelvic situation often have a fear of letting go.285
In general, a tight, contracted, and small pelvis is associated with immaturity and a lack of development of feelings of sexuality and instinctual drive or with a strong containment of these instinctual feelings.286 The pelvis is the place where we carry our sexuality and phallic energy. The buttocks are also a symbol for the shadow, for what is “behind” us, unseen, out of view. We call a person an “ass-hole” or a “butt-hole” when he acts in ways that are offensive or in ways that we would not. Thus the buttocks become the carrier for all that we reject and disdain, in my case, my rejected masculinity and sexuality. The buttocks are also connected to the symbolism of anality. Basically, anal- ity represents self-assertion; assertion of existence, power, and control over mother, objects, and people as well as over oneself. It expresses the holding and wielding of might and power.287 The dream showed that the minister-father masculine image in me had changed the way it held this energy. This suggested that the energy for this new psychic structure lay in how I held and carried my shadow energy and what I did with it. Currently held in its high, protracted position suggested that I was in the position of discharge and letting go.
I dream
I am reading a book on the sacredness of sexuality. I read a section on the sacredness of my homosexual needs and on the sacredness of watching pornography and masturbating. The book says these—homosexuality, watching pornography, and masturbating—are manifestations of the sacred experience of my anima. (Journal, 1-27-88)
Why would I have such a dream? What was the unconscious trying to tell me? The word sacred means (1) dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity, such as a tree sacred to the gods, (2) devoted exclusively to one service or one use as to a person or purpose, such as a fund sacred to charity, (3) worthy of religious veneration, holy, and (4) entitled to reverence and respect. Using these definitions, homosexuality, watching pornography, and masturbation are dedicated and set apart for the service of the anima, dedicated exclusively to her use in ways that are worthy of religious veneration or great respect and reverence, not to be profaned, violated, or made common. These expressions belong to the experience of the anima.
I have pointed out elsewhere that the anima is an archetype. As an archetype she is a powerful force in the unconscious, pulling us under her spell with a god-like fascination. Without knowing it we worship her. Mircea Eliade in his book Image and Symbols points out that sexuality has everywhere and always been a manifestation of the holy.288 According to Eliade, the purpose of sexuality is to reveal to human beings that which is beyond ego, or in religious terms, that which is divine.289
Sexuality as symbol will broaden and deepen humanity’s under- standing of itself and of the enormous forces that live in the unconscious, which if not made conscious, will live out in harmful and destructive ways. If sexuality is to reveal that which is beyond ego, that which is transcendent or divine, then understanding its symbolic and sacred meaning becomes a means of self-knowledge about what our sexual compulsions are really about. Sexuality or to use the dream’s references—homosexuality, watching pornography, and masturbating—hold within their very manifestations revelations of the archetypal and sacred character of the unconscious. To miss their meaning is to live them out unconsciously and remain stuck in the repetition of compulsive sex while missing what the soul is longing to bring into consciousness, its connection to the transcendent or the divine in us.
I dream
I see a man reading a book. He tells me that he read something in the margin of a page that explains the problem that he and his wife are having. He shows this to me. It is a French word for woman, le femme. It is defined as “yes and no.” The man smiles and laughs for now he understands his wife’s dilemma, the reason she is acting like she is. (Journal, 2-01-88)
At the time of this dream the man in the dream and his wife were friends of mine. They were having marital problems and both were in counseling. His wife had decided that she had been “too good” all of her life and now wanted to “be bad.” She found herself attracted to another man, had become intrigued with another religion, and had decided to go back to school. She said that she had played a role all her life and now she wanted to live her life.
While this actually referred to what was happening in the life of these friends of mine, it also mirrored what was happening in my own life. Often the world around us will mirror to us our own conflicts if we are but willing to listen. My anima was tired of the role that I’d played all my life. She was attracted to another man, other masculine energy (my same-sex attractions), and another religion, and another sacred expression (the inner divine image), and wanted to go back to school and find another expression (my longing to leave teaching).
The dream mirrored my ambivalence not only about my sexuality but also about whether to leave home or not. This is my Hamlet’s “To be or not to be,” to choose life, my life, or not, which would be a kind of death—a suicide—much like Hamlet contemplated. The dream also emphasized the challenge of the anima; she was both “yes” and “no.” She had no definite point of view, and she had all points of view. That was the dilemma of the anima and thus the dilemma of the ego that had fallen under her spell. She was both “yes” and “no”—thus must consciousness decide.
But we can only decide if we have some hint as to what she is up to, for she will pull us into life and just as quickly destroy that life. Just as, over the past several years, I had struggled with the “yes and no” conflict about whether to leave church music or not, whether to leave the church or not, whether to leave my marriage or not, whether to embrace homosexuality or not, once again I was caught in this “yes and no” dilemma. This time it centered on whether to leave teaching or not, whether to stay put or move to another city and pursue my desire to become a psychotherapist.
My dreams continued to both show my dilemma and provide hints for the journey. I dream
I am sitting at a table with several others, both male and female. A woman named Regina is sitting at the table. She says that she had a dream. She sings the dream. She sings it in a beautiful, clear, very pleasing melodious, high soprano voice. It is simply beautiful. The last line of the dream that she sings is “And here I am at this place in my life again.”
When she finishes I turn to her and say “And that is exactly where you are in your life, at midlife where once again you must choose what you will do with your life just like you did at the beginning.” I then say “No matter how this turns out (meaning the interpretation of her dream) with that beautiful voice, you must be singing someplace every week.” (Journal, 2-17-88)
This dream was clear about where I was in my life and what I must do. I was reminded of the previous references to “singing my song.” This reference had marked my journey from its very beginning, starting when I lay in bed that morning listening to the singing of the birds and thinking I just want to sing my song. Later it manifested in the dream where I climbed the ladder to get “my music.” The feminine in me had a dream to sing. As I reflected on this dream, the association that jumped out at me was that Regina means “queen.” She is the feminine side of the king/queen syzygy that Jung speaks of in his book Mysterium Coniunctionis.
I opened this book to the last section on the king and queen, Rex and Regina, and my eyes fell on the last paragraph. It says
The Queen of Sheba, Wisdom, the royal art, and the “ daughter of the philosophers” are all so interfused that the underlying psychologem (archetypal psychic structure) clearly emerges: the art is queen of the alchemist’s heart, she is at once his mother, his daughter, and his beloved, and in his art and its allegories the drama of his own soul, his individuation process, is played out.290
Its message is clear to me. My work with my dreams and my work to understand the meaning of my same-sex attractions—my archetypal psychic structure—was where the drama of my own soul and my individuation was being played out.
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