Bird in the Hand

The Dream: I'm near a train station in the suburbs when I see something under a chair: it looks like a bird entangled in one of the chair legs. I can't tell if its a real bird or a stuffed toy. In some way the thing is off-putting and part of me wants to leave it where it is—but another part is intrigued.

I touch its soft fluffy feathers and realize it's a small purse in the shape of a bird atop a round bag. I am not sure what to do with this—whether to keep it or try to return it. I look inside and see a collection of children's silverware, little forks and spoons in a pattern very similar to my mother's silver. Suddenly I feel a desire, so strong it's physical, to keep this bag and its contents.

I go through the bag, struggling with myself. As I look at the things inside I realize it's a gift for a new mother. Besides the children's silverware, there's a CD that teaches relaxation techniques. I find a turquoise blue card with a name and address. Now that I have the name of the rightful owner I have a new quandary: clearly I should return these things, but is this the name of the sender or the recipient? If it's the recipient and I call, I will ruin the surprise. Once I decide the name and address most likely belong to the gift giver I attempt to make the call, but then I'm not sure I can make out the phone number.

Interpretation: I'm repulsed and attracted by something that I don't want to look at—but once I do I don't want to let it go. The dream is full of conflict. The object is a bird, an ancient symbol of spirit, yet it is also a purse, something that stores earthly treasure. The treasure it contains is associated with both the mother—it's her silver pattern—and the child (the child-sized utensils). Even the turquoise (blue-green) card points in two ways: blue for sadness, green for new growth. The dream is telling me that I'll achieve some new growth once I face my sadness. The mother / child symbols point to this sadness being connected to my inner child trying to come to terms with the loss of her mother. Having seen inside the bag (gained some knowledge of my inner workings through carefully observing my dreams) I very much want to hold on to what I've learned, and yet I feel anxious about my ability to do so (I can't make the call).

Getting to the Root of Things

The Dream: I look in the mirror and see that my hair is growing in very dark brown. About two-thirds is its current color, a sun-streaked dark blonde, and the third near the roots is a rich and shiny dark brown. I am surprised it isn't gray, although I do notice a few gray hairs—silver and shiny—mixed in. I try to decide if I should color it my customary blonde or let it grow in brown. I like it, but I wonder if a rich brown color will look phony on someone my age. I show it to the rest of the family to get their reaction.

Interpretation: I look at myself and see that something new and rich is pushing out of my head: I have a new way of thinking. It is flecked with experience (gray), but even this is shiny and exciting (silver). It will take a while for this transformation to take place: it's only one-third complete. Should I go forward? Or am I past it (too old for this)? What will my family think?

The Synthesis

Occasionally a dream echoes the structure of a myth, revealing where we are on our life journey. 

The Dream: I find my way to a mountain-top home, a castle-like structure overlooking the surrounding countryside, hilly terrain like the semiarid northern California coastal range. I’m in a turret, with windows on 3 sides. At first there are no other structures to be seen. Later I see what at first appears to be a brilliantly white spire topping some sort of temple rising above the hills. Then I see a very large building that obscures the temple; it looks like the scaffolding of a large office building but has a silvery, glowing quality that makes it difficult for me to figure out exactly what I’m seeing. I soon realize that my confusion was created by a cloud behind the scaffolding. It moves off to the left and the bare bones of a building under construction are revealed.

Back to me in the strange room: I’m in a room to the right of the turret. A crude ladder made of wooden slats, again like a framework or scaffolding, leads to the upper floors. I attempt the climb, initially unafraid, but when I get to a broken slat I recall that I’m afraid of heights, and I find I can’t go on. I back down the ladder.

I see a very gruff Russian man. He is stocky, a little paunchy, and has dark hair surrounding his bald pate. He appears to be a workman; he doesn’t speak. Yet it seems he has alerted the woman in charge, who scampers down the ladder. She is also Russian and approaches me accusingly, suspecting me of espionage. For some reason, when she demands to know my name, I give her the Russian version. Her manner at once changes; she’s gotten the idea that I am of royal lineage. She becomes pleasant, even sycophantic, and no longer wishes to bar me from the ascent. However, my own fear of heights prevents it.  I expect the workman to repair the broken slat, thinking that if here were to do so I could perhaps manage the still scary venture—but he makes no move in that direction.

I see that the gruff, bouncer-type man has a notebook. He has written a story about the woman and illustrated it. I am surprised at the sensitive and beautiful quality of his work; even though he’s left many drawings unfinished his talent is apparent. In some of his drawings the women are headless. “You are very talented,” I tell him. It’s a surprise in someone so apparently brutish. He is no longer mute, but very humble: “You are extremely talented,” he says to me. I wonder how he could possibly know that, since I have none of my work with me. We spend some more time, each of us trying to convince the other of his (her) talent.

Interpretation: My dream group helped me with this one. The dream represents a partial victory in the myth that represents my life, but also tells me I have work to do. My first challenge is getting to this difficult spot. I didn’t record the very earliest sequence of the dream, but it was about the steep path up to the strange castle. What do I see from this outlook? Is it a temple, or is it an office building. Do I pray here or do I work here? What I see from my three-windowed turret symbolizes my state of being, a mental space where work and spirit have melded.

My (spiritual) ascent is stopped by a ladder’s broken rung. The thing in need of repair centers on figures from my youth, the scary Russians who made up my family. My first task is to accept myself; I symbolically do this by owning my Russian identity, and this quickly disarms both of the threshold guardians. The woman changes from a hostile force to a benign one, and I realize the complexity of the man, who until now had seemed only brutish. The man symbolically tells me that the wellspring of creativity isn’t particularly genteel; it’s his earthiness and lack of pretension that gives art its life. The women he depicts are headless; his force is not of the intellect.

Ultimately it’s my own fear that stops me, not the physical limitation of the broken rung. The dream tells me that I mustn’t expect someone else to fix it.

Overcoming the Past

Dreams can deal with painful material from the past, as I think this one does. Even without specifically remembering the event, the dream helps us resolve the issues involved.

The Dream: I’m out driving, trying to avoid a rough-looking neighborhood. I turn into a street with older buildings which look like one-story garages. It’s a poor neighborhood, but bright. I wonder if I’ve arrived in a scary part of town after all, but I see children, smiling and happy-looking, so I don’t feel threatened.  At the end of the street is a low house with a screened-in front porch.

I go in. I chat with the woman who lives here. She is middle-aged and I am younger. She has a tasty-looking dish on a sideboard. I try some and find out it’s made of squirrel. I think using squirrels for food might solve the problem I have with them eating the seed in my bird-feeder, and besides, it is delicious. But I wonder who will skin them.

There is a silver contraption on another sideboard. To my surprise, the woman pulls out a very long, sharp gleaming silver knife. I am uncomfortable with her standing there with this knife in her hand. “This belongs to the children,” she says.

Interpretation: I go into the past (a street with older buildings), where I feel threatened (the rough-looking neighborhood) and meet the woman in charge (the part of me still living with an old wound). She feeds me unusual and unexpected but delicious food. Besides nourishing me, this food might be a way to protect my offerings to my soul or spirit. Birds often represent both; and I want to safeguard my “bird-feeder” from the squirrels. But there is some ambivalence: eating the food, solving the soul problem, requires skinning the animal (exposing my vulnerability?)

The woman surprises me by pulling a knife out of an old wound (silver can represent the past, tarnished and/or precious). At first I find her possession of this knife threatening, but she diffuses its power by saying it belongs to the children. Perhaps she is hinting that children caused the painful event in the past. However, the children in the dream are not threatening, signaling I’ve moved on.