Conclusion
The
Tornado Dreams sessions, including several not recorded here, formed a
consistent thread throughout much of the past several years. My sense
is that my resistance to explore them during that time was as much a learning
about Journal writing as it was about dealing with change in my life.
I recently have received
a number of questions about tornado dreams. I wonder: Is it because
more people are suddenly finding this site, or is it that world turmoil
has affected more people and brought these archetypal messengers forward?
Here is an exerpt from an email I recently sent in response to a question
about these dreams in 2003. It seems to me a summary of all I have
learned about them ... so far.
"My tornado dreams have completely
stopped. I haven't had one in at least 2-3 years. But I can tell you
that, now, I rather miss them. As I worked
with them over the years, they became much less frightening and more
symbols of power -- not interpersonal or political power, but something
more like expressions of inner strength and wisdom. And there was a very
clear connection between the tornado and Spirit that I always sensed,
but was suspicious of until I had worked with them over time.
"In these dreams, I experienced
being inside buildings being torn apart, my home and family threatened
– in one I believe I was "killed." In
every case (when I didn't wake up), after the tornado passed, there was
always a sense of relief and ultimate calm sometimes to the point of
total silence. In some cases, I was seemingly transported elsewhere:
to another place, another dimension more highly symbolic than substantial
– like a dream within a dream – and there was shown wonderous things
that Jung would identify as expressions of
the Collective Unconscious and Archetypes.
"My opinion is that these "messengers" come
to us in this particularly frightening form for a number of reasons.
The messages they bring are
very important, for one thing, but they are also lessons about fear,
change and fear of change. If you think about it, every natural "disaster" is
also the beginning of new growth. When the storm passes, the destruction
in its wake is cleared away and rebuilt, usually better than before.
Destruction is part of the cycle of rebirth; not many
things can change before the old structure is torn down. People are the
same.
"It is natural to be terrified
by such encounters with power. Sometimes, in order to accommodate change,
we need to go through the destruction
and our egos – that part of our psychological structure whose job it
is to protect us in and from such encounters – command us to run away,
to "run for our very lives." What is necessary is to recognize
that the ego is limited by its mission. It cannot see beyond the current
situation; it avoids change because one of the key things that has to
be dismantled in order to affect change is itself. In a sense, the ego
has to give up, to surrender – in other words, ego has to die and be
reborn with a new perspective. And that is very hard.
"From
where I am today some 7 years after I first created this site and
decades after
I began following this path, I am absolutely certain that this is at
the heart of most psychological problems we humans face today. As a whole,
we have become rigid and inflexible, and scared to death of change because
we have lost touch with a key fundamental of life: life is change. We
are very connected to all our traumas and addicted to the "safety
and security" that the ego structure provides for us. Our notions
of safety and security are a cage, and fear is the bars of that cage.
"So here is my suggestion
in working with tornado dreams. Seek out the tornado. When you find
it,
don't run away but find a safe
place from which you
can let it play itself out for you. Watch what happens and don't be (too)
afraid. I have died many times in my dreams and awakened in a cold sweat,
but alive. That being said, don't be foolish and throw yourself into
it because you will miss what it has to show you. Then write the experience
in your journal as best you can remember it, as completely as you can.
Some day, you will want to revisit it.
"In one of the last of my
tornado dreams, I was in a house that had a patio or courtyard around
which
the house wrapped so that it was essentially
open in the middle. I went out into the courtyard and suddenly there
was a tornado -- or a really big whirlwild: not so dark and threatening,
but it clearly was powerful. It began to pull me in. I grabbed something
-- a heavy table or some kind of anchor -- and it pulled mightily at
my feet so that I was suspended upward into its vortex. But I was not
afraid. I just didn't want to get sucked in. As I looked into it, I could
see that it was not just one vortex. There were four more whirling inside
it, and I was filled with a wonderous joy and amazement. It was showing
me its "insides." And the number four is very important symbolically.
It represents completeness, unity and has a host of other connections
in many spiritual contexts. As I recognized this, its pull waned until
I was set gently on the ground and the whirlwind dissipated. Then I experienced
a sense of loss. The thrill was gone, but I was left with the excitement
of the experience, as though I had come to the end of a journey and found
something wonderful -- though I could not really say what it was.
"As I sit here, I believe
that was actually the very last tornado dream I had.
"Since then, my life has led
me along many different paths. I could go on and on about my own continuing
journey and would love to do so, but
this is not the time or place. I hope that something I have shared here
is of value to you in your own journey. Trust me when I say that journal
writing, particularly the way I have shared it in this site, can have
a profound affect in your personal development. Don't get in a hurry
and
don't be afraid. Enjoy the journey because THAT is what it's all about."
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