Women's Dreaming Power
In Carlos Castaneda's book, The Second Ring of Power, we meet don Juan's women pupils. Carlos learns things from them that not even
don Juan can give to him - for he works out don Juan's teachings through his
relationship with them, and grows into his power by coming up against
them. La Gorda, that most marvelous of
women warriors, tells him a secret about dreaming,
which is the ability to go consciously into the Nagual, or in Jungian terms,
the collective unconscious.
"The
Nagual [don Juan] told me and the little sisters that during our menstrual
periods DREAMING becomes power. I get a
little crazy for one thing. I become
more daring. And like the Nagual showed
us, a crack opens in front of us during those days. You're not a woman so it can't make any sense
to you, but two days before her period a woman can open that crack and step
through it into another world."
With
her left hand she followed the contour of an invisible line that seemed to run
vertically in front of her at arm's length.
"During
that time a woman, if she wants to, can let go of the images of the
world," la Gorda went on.
"That's the crack between the worlds, and as the Nagual said, it is
right in front of all of us women."
"The
reason the Nagual believes women are better sorcerers than men is because they
always have the crack in front of them, while a man has to make it." 14
This dark Moon power is
this ability to let go of our everyday world and step through it into other
realms. We can go within to see visions, feel feelings, grasp intuitions, then
come back with knowledge. Reflect on
this knowledge; see it through the eyes of love and you will find Wisdom. This is the transformative power that the
knights were searching for in the Grail.
There is a rhythm and a
personal form to every woman's menstrual cycle.
If each of us can become conscious of our own rhythms, we can gain the
knowledge of our sensual and feeling life that will help us reclaim our
personal power as woman-in-herself, and not as daughters of the
patriarchy. Much of our power lies
hidden in the realm of the unconscious.
As we know, the
menstrual cycle is four-fold like the moon's phases. And just as most women's menstrual cycle
averages out to about 28 days, the moon's cycle from new moon to new moon is
29.53 days.15 Even the name
menstrual cycle comes from the Latin MENS/moon and MENSIS/month. The idea of measure is connected to these
words, and the measurement of time by the return of the moon reflects the
measured effects of a woman's monthly cycle on the people around her. In turn, the ebb and flow of feminine
consciousness gives time a qualitative texture, periodic and rhythmic, waxing
and waning, opened or closed. It mixes
fullness and leanness, light and dark, and a woman experiences this "in
the blood tides of her menstrual cycle and its attendant psychological
effects."16
There is a basic rhythm
that is measured by the moon and the menstrual cycle. There is the waxing and waning of the two
crescent phases, the building up (or out) and the drawing down (or in). Then there are the two poles of the full and
new Moon, or in the menstrual cycle, ovulation and menstruation. Ovulation, when the ripe egg is shed into the
fallopian tube, is the more culturally accepted side of the cycle, for literal
fertility and childbearing are honored in a woman of the patriarchy. In the same way, women gladly accept the
possibility of full Moon consciousness in their lives.
At
ovulation, a woman's body is receptive and fertile. She may feel then an emotional expansiveness,
an abundance of sexual energy, a new potency in her creative ideas and
insights. . . .If she is related to what
is happening to her body and psyche, this time of the month can give her
increased confidence and new certainty in her own capacities. Because this sense of herself is rooted in
psychosomatic reality, it does not lead to inflation or a drive for power, but
to stabilization, and a real sense of her own strength. 17
The other end of the
pole, the blood flow itself, is viewed less favorably by society. Menstruation, symbolized by the dark of the
Moon, is the time when the thick, built-up lining of the womb is shed and its
wall becomes thin and exquisitely sensitive, like a wound. This can often be a time of pain and
separation, and some women still view it as a bother. Nevertheless, it is a time to get in touch
with a deeper and more fundamental layer of ourselves, when we touch ground
with our instinctual nature. It is an
in-gathering of psychic energy, a time when the unconscious is especially constellated
and open to us. This makes it a time
"in which the imaginative and interpretive energies are released in body
language and symbolic form."18
This is a time when a
woman can become a shamaness; it is a time when we feel the need to dream and
meditate, to withdraw to the other world, to go deep within. At such a time, we can go through the crack
in the world and re-emerge with new riches for our lives and our world. Many women dream powerful dreams during this
time. Today's women who have PMS often
have terrifying dreams during this time, and yet who is to say that these
dreams do not reflect a negative sense of self which takes on bodily symptoms
during this part of the cycle.
In ancient cultures,
women went away to be by themselves during their menstrual period, for this time
was considered dangerous and powerful. This was true of ancient Semites as well
as Native American women. The women went
off by themselves during their moon-time, and dreamed dreams for the tribe. In some tribes and cultures, they were forced
to go off for fear that they would 'contaminate' the men, the food, the
ceremonies. But in most situations, the
women chose to separate themselves to explore the feminine mysteries and to
bring back to their people the power of their dreams and journeys to the spirit
world. We know that when women live and
work together, their menstrual cycles come into sync. If nothing else, a group of women got away
from the normal life of the tribe for a time each month!
What a better way to
deal with this issue, actually honoring the transformative time of the
cycle. What would happen if we
legislated 'sick' time for our periods and we had the luxury of going within
unhampered by worry or work. The dark
Goddess and the Christian Black Madonna were equally venerated for their
healing powers, especially during this time in a woman's cycle, because it is
this cycle which creates life.
Psychologically, this
cycle which creates the physical possibility of life also symbolizes the
potential for continual change and creative development in our life. Women have the immeasurable advantage of a
monthly rebirth of our ego, a monthly renewal of energy and instinctual power
in the body that helps us meet life in a more immediate, conscious and soul-full
way. Consciously attuning to the moon's
cycles can put us in touch with the great healing and transformative powers of
this Goddess. Each month as the Moon
tracks through its cycle, we can go through the process of Virgin, Mother and
Crone - experiencing, choosing and understanding life. And then rest and get recharged before
another phase begins.
Remember my dream about
the wounded lion and the great wave? All
the elements of the regenerative powers of the Moon are there if we know how to
look for them. The dream suggests that there
is a wound to my instinctual nature that developed during my childhood. It was
a wound of self-confidence and creativity (the Lion). Many people in my generation have experienced
these wounds. It should be noted that
the baby-boomers have the planet Pluto in the sign of Leo, the Lion. Astrologically it means that our task is to
discover the wound to our 'royal' nature and awaken the greater passions of the
heart. Our generation has to discover that our creativity is meant for the
greater good of all, not just ourselves.
It is our task to heal the passion of matter. The lion is regarded as the King of the
Beasts and so came to symbolize our natural passions and desires. The lion is associated with pride, and
emotionality, and healthy, aggressive impulses.
In the most profound sense, kingship/queenship is connected with the
capacity to wrestle with the passions, for no one can govern or serve as an
example to others who has not first governed her/his own impulses. The lion is also very much associated with the
Goddess, who ruled the natural world of instinct, intuition and feeling. This lion's wound symbolizes how my
generation has to grapple with our passionate nature. It is a call to go deeper into life, for only
the wounded healer can heal.
In the dream as in real
life, I am trying to protect my daughter from a similar wound. Knowing my wound, and not wanting to see my
children wounded in the same way, gave me the courage to confront the lion (my
foolhardy friend from college!). At the
time of this dream, I did not fully understand the power and sacredness of my
feminine, instinctual nature. My
spirituality was learned from the Father and so I was cut off from my
body. It was this dream that led me
along the path to feminine wisdom, and helped me become conscious of a more
earthy standpoint and spirituality.
I am always amazed at
how the symbolism in dreams is woven together!
When I had this dream, I was just beginning my study of the ancient
goddesses, and it was not until years later that I finally understood the full
meaning of the images of the dream.
After the dream shows me that I am becoming conscious of this wound to
my instinctual nature, it shows me the next step in the process - how it will
be healed. The triple crossroad, a form
of the world axis, was sacred to the Greek goddess Hecate, the Old Crone or
Wise Woman. As guardian of the
crossroads, where the traveler is faced with three choices, the Wise One offers
the possibility of going beyond dualism, to that third possibility which Jung
calls the transcendent function. By
this, he means that if you can bear the tension of the opposites (hold on to
two opposing ideas, feelings, energies) until a new, third way appears, this
new path will be the perfect, balanced response to the situation.
Hecate's objective eye
sees into the underworld of the dead and repressed, while her magic and Sight
understand what is needed for new life.
Hecate never lived on Mt. Olympus with the other Greek deities, but
chose to live in this world, where she had great power over earth, sea and the
heavens. She had many positive
attributes which were discarded and repressed when we lost our understanding of
the dark side of the Goddess. She has
come down to us through Christianity as the Queen of the Witches and of the
Dead, and we caricature her image every Halloween. She helped Demeter discover that her daughter
Persephone had been ravished away by Hades.
She gives us the gift of intuitive knowing and her symbol is a
torch. She is the one who lights up the
darkness of the Unconscious and reveals its treasures. She is Lady Wisdom.
In the dream, it is
under the protection of this wise energy that I realize I will give birth to a
savior. The Sight comes over me just as
the giant wave does. The savior, in one
sense, is that virginal aspect of myself that is imaged in the waxing moon that
appears after the wave washes over me.
The regeneration, from old waning moon to new crescent, occurs with a
rebirth of feminine consciousness. This
rebirth is occurring on many levels in many people. We are living in a time of great upheaval and
change, and the world as we know it will be vastly different in the
future. Already, people are fighting
injustice and corruption; more people are getting involved and learning how to
stop the illogical and destructive forces that run our society. Like the Swiss people in my dream, it is time
for dreamers to become practical and bring their visions into the world. The rebirth of spirit, of the feminine, and
of our culture can only take hold if we let it root itself in our everyday
lives, and we must cultivate and work with it so the seeds will grow. It is the moon's rhythms, which we can see
nightly, which bring about concrete change and growth.
I had this dream right
before my period, and as you can see, it put me in touch with deep feminine
wisdom. Penelope Shuttle and Peter
Redgrove, who wrote The Wise Wound, feel that this wisdom is recoverable
by any woman who turns to it.
The
strange fact about this moon knowledge . . . is that it is knowledge that is
recoverable from age to age wherever women menstruate and wonder how their own
interior changes are related to the changes of the moon and the tides. It is not like masculine knowledge, that is
built up from painful generation to generation, and which can be lost utterly
if the chain is broken. Women's
knowledge is available to them if they will only look inwards and give
themselves trust, and not be afraid to personify with (for example) goddess'
names, those forces greater than their own selves that move them; and not be
afraid to learn from themselves rather than from men who abuse their
"credulity" which is their openness, and their
"impressionability" which is their ability to take what is happening
and what is communicated to them, even by men, deep within. 19
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