What can you learn from a dream fragment? Sometimes they are surprisingly fertile.
The Dream: Yellow ochre.
Interpretation: Yellow is the color of illumination, and ochre is an earth color. The dream expresses what Jung calls a conjuntio, a resolution of opposites: spirit (illumination) and matter (earth).
This post was posted a day after my birthday ( for the record)
ReplyDeleteI recall dreaming at 17 that I was in an ochre room, everything was that color,,,I couldnt run away from it..it was a desperate situation...
I told my uncle who was an active therapist at the time, and it didnt take him a second to respond that it meant I had an identity crisis concerning the color of my skin and society...I knew he was right..it was a troubling time during the late 60s early 70s..a great racial divide in america ..one had to even justified the type of music one listened to..there was black music, white music and puerto rican music...as simple as that..it was a horrible prison for a young man to come of age and it was not simple if ones skin color was not white...of course I got over these things in time..but that said, at 17, such expereince is chaotic...
I also remember the closed tenor of those times. I grew up with a Russian last name--and you'll remember the cold war was in full swing. In the south where I lived I had 3 strikes against me: a Russian name, a religion no one there had ever heard of (and that would include any religion that wasn't Protestant), and--perhaps most damning of all--I was a "Yankee." This no doubt sounds very trivial to people reading it today, but back then there were doctors who refused to treat my little brother, at least one very hostile teacher, and plenty of playground taunts. In the end, it taught me how idiotic prejudices are, and I'm grateful for that. And thank goddess times have changed!
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