There are two dreams to record today. Let's begin with the first of this morning-- in the first dream I can see these large wooden bins filled with multi-coloured burning Buddhist offering candles. Apparently, I have been tasked to set up and prepare a site for a Buddhist festival or religious observance. I believe I am at a Buddhist retreat somewhere in North America. Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, perhaps? The abbot is a slender elderly woman. She is wearing a tailored white Nehru jacket with a mandarin collar, a beaded necklace, and has shoulder length white hair. She has come out to inspect all the work that I have done prior to the celebration or ceremony.
I have laid out the wooden bins in a u-shape formation. The bins are filled with candles. I admit, to myself, it all looks rather shabby and not very impressive. In the centre of each bin I have placed a bowl of rice and a burning incense as an offering.
The abbot seems unimpressed with my efforts. In fact, she seems upset or disgusted about something I have done. I suspect, I have committed some grievous error or apostasy in my preparations, and she is clearly not happy with me. The abbot has turned her back on me and will not look me in the eye or speak to me. I humbly reach out to touch her shoulder to ask what offense I have done and this dream ends and the next dream proceeds...
The second dream has me employed in a shipyard. My co-workers and I are enjoying a break from our labours. We are hitting golf balls several hundred yards down range from the dry dock. The balls are rolling past a huge crane and out under a long slender gap beneath a distant wood slat fence. All of a sudden the boss shows up with scores of cops and police cars. We all find out that one of the golf balls, one of us used, was stolen. It was a rare and famous golf ball. The owner was so upset over his lost golf ball that he went on a killing spree! The man was eventually gunned down by the police. He wrote a suicide note which the police showed us.
The shipyard boss calls everyone in, those at work and those at home, into the main office. He is really angry and threatens to fire everyone who is still on the clock. The next thing that happens is everyone present is sent out to beyond the fence to collectively sweep the area to find that cursed stolen golf ball. I manage to steal the folded up suicide letter, when no one is looking, and I stuff it surreptitiously into a co-workers shirt pocket. Ha, ha! I am such a naughty trickster! This dream ends here.
The first dream has me befuddled. I am not sure how to quite interpret it. I was once a much more religious person when I was younger than I am now. Being religious and spiritual have come to be distinctively different and separate concepts to me in my later years. In this dream my heart is just not into the task given to me or the ritual that follows. The Buddhist concept of offering and the burning of candles, and incense goes along the lines of creating good merit for a better next life. The ritual is connected to honoring and emulating The Buddha. The idea is to become ever more mindful about the true nature of reality.
Interesting, I feel a sense of sadness for having disappointed or offended the lady abbot. I seem to want to please her most of all. Female Buddhist abbots are a new and rare phenomenon. There are not very many of them. I am sure this must indicate something about my unconscious/conscious persona that I am wanting to please her and that the abbot is a woman. Is there some sort of divine mother goddess aspect at play here? It is all very curious.
The second dream, concerning the golf ball, has some definite connections with how I subconsciously feel about how I earn my living in the waking world. I am a very serious worker at my job at the supermarket. I do not goof off at work like I did in this dream. There must be a part of my unconscious self that pushes back against all that dreary seriousness and wants to play. There is indeed a trickster archetype buried within me that rarely, if ever, comes out. It's that doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde thing all over again. I do not know if I was the one who stole that golf ball. It could have been me, but whatever the case, I used the incident to have some illicit fun. The trickster has juvenile qualities. He is on a spiritual journey too. He is seeking a break out path and transcendence in his own inimitable way. The unconscious aspects of my psyche have a goal and agenda of their own that my conscious self is not fully awake to. I get clues in my dreams but will never get to see the whole picture.
One last thought about the key symbols here: candles and golf balls. It does suggest a phallus and testes. Old Freud would have fun with that idea! Ha! Ha! I'm not sure I want to go down that road with my dream interpretation.
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