Symbol Watcher

My red and silver roses journal

On July 3 I had this dream: I have come into an office during off hours to help out. There are six roses. I was supposed to take photos of each or all of them for the not-for-profit I was working at or volunteering for (this part is unclear). The roses are a deep, blood red, like menstrual blood. Two of the six roses were wilted. I had waited too long. I threw them off to my right. I held the remaining four in my hand. One of the four was starting to wilt so I knew I had to take the picture soon. I couldn’t wait any longer. As I again look down at the four roses bunched in my hand, I see that the tips of some of their petals are now silver and none of them are wilted. I don’t understand why this has happened.

So, I had an unconscious image (the blood red roses) come into my consciousness through my dream. About two weeks later that image presented itself in physical reality.

I was shopping and remembered I needed a new dream journal because my last one was full. Usually I buy my journals in a bookstore, but I was in a discount store that has a small stationery section, so I decided to take a look. I was struck to find a journal embossed with roses, in the same blood red color as the roses in my dream. It was the only journal like it on the shelves and I did feel that I was somehow meant to find it and buy it. To pay homage to the transformation my dream roses underwent, I outlined some of the flowers in silver. 

I don’t recall ever before having a dream symbol present itself in my physical world like that. Or maybe it has and I’ve been too unaware to notice. 

Nichols says of Rodin's work, "It seemed to me that the hand, as represented here, made wondrously real the androgynous qualities of the Creator. It expressed the masculine strength and support of the father combined with the womblike shelter and tenderness of the mother."

Author Sallie Nichols, in her book, Jung and Tarot  An Archetypal Journey, writes about searching for a print of Rodin’s sculpture Hand of God that she could purchase. (This was before the days of computer downloads.) She searched high and low for a copy but she wasn’t having any luck. Then one day while she was sitting in a friend’s house she pulled a magazine from the bottom shelf of a table. The magazine fell open to a photograph of the sculpture.  To make matters more incredible, the magazine was 12 years old and out of print.

Nichols said she felt the event, “. . . must hold a special message for me.” Nichols reminds us that we would be wise not to get caught up in the magic of synchronicity and work on figuring out why such a thing would happen to us. “. . . I saw that I, too, had allowed myself to become so enthralled by their magic that I had neglected to use these synchronicities as a bridge to self-understanding. It seemed more practical, then, to . . . turn this energy toward exploring the possible meaning of these events for me.”

I feel the same way about my red roses. I’ll write some more about that tomorrow.

– Writeye

Posted on August 27th, 2009 under Art, Books, Dreams, Jungian Psychology • Tags: dream symbol that became synchronicity, meaning of synchronistic events, Rodin's Hand of God. •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback