The High Priestess

For the first time in quite some time, I had a dream last night that I'd call a "big dream". I use this term to describe dreams that are numinous or have psychologically significant content. The setting for the dream was the house where I spent my entire childhood and adolescence, apart from the first two years. It's located at 21 Mayneview Street, Milton, Brisbane and it still stands to this day, although now it's been taken over by a computer company. In my dream world, the house serves as a symbol of my psychological foundations and so any dream containing this symbol is invariably significant.

In last night's dream, I had a close encounter with a very powerful and very old female figure. It began with me at the front of the property on which the house stands. I was on the ground writhing slowly and trying to purge myself of some inner emotional content. It felt a bit like throwing up except that I was trying to rid myself of some psychic content rather than stomach content. This seemed to be a necessary preparation for the encounter with the old woman because in the next scene I am the back of the property where she is seated on a raised throne.

I am still prostrate on the ground and I struggle to get to my feet. Eventually I succeed and I draw closer to her at her behest. As I do, her face comes into focus and I can see that she is very, very old. However, she exudes power and authority. Our faces are almost touching and I know that she is going to say something very important to me and she does. With solemn authority, shes tells me to "lose my anger" and thus delivers a very clear and unequivocal message.

Thanks to my sustained meditation, I've had relatively few outbursts of anger recently and they have been relatively minor but even so they are unsettling, often occurring when I'm driving. At other times, I'll become impatient when I'm queueing, even though I may not express my irritation. Lately in my meditation, I've become aware of the need to maintain equilibrium between inner and outer. At brief times, I've even felt the two merging and becoming continuous. At such times, "I" fade out and the inner flows into the outer and vice versa. The antithesis of this state is the emotional state of anger, however mild, because it severely disturbs the equilibrium between inside and outside.

Anger is always ego-driven as when I'm driving and somebody does something that I think he or she shouldn't do. I have an inner expectation of how I think people should behave on the roads and if they don't meet those expectations I'm likely to feel aggrieved. It's stupid really but hard to let go of. However, the old lady on her throne is telling me that I have to. She is reminiscent of the High Priestess in the Tarot deck.