BROADCASTS.com

b'

Psychotherapy is essentially the work of making shadow conscious\\u2014all that we have not discerned then disowned, or projected onto others. We seldom welcome shadow, for it is marked by emotions and motivations that deflate, disturb, and dethrone ego. From family scuffles to political hostilities and outright war, we most often meet our shadow in others. Its presence is signaled by a strong urge to take action, with feelings ranging from judgment to antagonism, from pity to self-sacrifice, and from obsession to disgust. If we have the courage to face and relate to the inner world of another, we experience and expand our own inner world. Shadow is the dark doorway to renewal and development, creativity and compassion. Jung said, \\u201cOne does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.\\u201d\\xa0

Here\\u2019s the dream we analyze:

\\u201cI am in the backyard of my grandparents\\u2019 house. It\\u2019s night and very dark out, and I can see the lights on in the house. I have a bird feather in my hand that is luminescent with green and purple. I stick it in the ground, and a bird appears\\u2014a dove, I think. It flies away, and I stick the feather in the ground a second time. Another bird appears and flies away. I do it a third time, but this time I take a feather from the bird that appears and replant it in the same spot. When I do this, the ground trembles. Something big is happening, and I\\u2019ve started something I can\\u2019t stop. The third bird flies back to me and tells me to find a swan to make something called svala. Then I\\u2019m at some sort of school party, like a reunion or homecoming. I see an Indian woman I knew and used to be friends with. We haven\\u2019t seen each other in a long time and are no longer close, but I think she might know the meaning of svala and how I am supposed to make it, and what it will do. I keep trying to talk to her, but things keep getting in the way. Finally, she invites me to her room. There is beautiful music playing in the background, and her room is full of soft, golden light. I tell her about the dream with the feather and needing a swan to make svala and that I don\\u2019t know what it\\u2019s about. She laughs and says, \\u201cWhat is a swan but transformation? The hardest part in making svala is finding the swan.\\u201d

\\xa0REFERENCES:

Swamplands of Soul: New Life in Dismal Places by James Hollis. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0919123740/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_GNTQ1XCB9YT354TFFPDS

RESOURCES:

Learn to Analyze your own Dreams:\\xa0 https://thisjungianlife.com/enroll/

Link to Lisa\\u2019s lecture and workshop:\\xa0https://ofj.org/event/another-whom-we-do-not-know-dreams-as-the-voice-of-the-inner-companion/