The conscious mind reasons, worries, rationalizes and speculates.  It fears and desires.  The subconscious, on the other hand, is connected to something deeper than ego and personality.  It might actually have a clue.  I don’t think my subconscious was speaking up about coming earth changes in these dreams.  I see something else at work. 

Here are some thoughts on the three dreams, in reverse order:

Third Dream

I had this dream right before the Fourth of July.  I had been reading about North Korea’s plan to fire test missiles in Hawaii’s direction on America’s ‘big day.’  Clearly this dream picked up and dramatized those conscious concerns.  The beach = Hawaii.  A tailgating atmosphere and mindless cheering = Fourth of July.  The unacknowledged shadow crossing us = the crisis of global capitalism while the mainstream is still looking for signs of “recovery.”  

To me the most interesting detail is looking in the mirror and seeing another person as my reflection.  You could say that I saw myself as an Asian woman as a loose connection to the North Korean situation.  Maybe that’s all there is to it.  But as far as I can remember, this is a new phenomenon in my dreams – looking into a mirror and seeing someone else – a stranger – looking back at me and matching my every move. 

Another interesting detail is having too many bags.  The bags are attachments.  They slow me down and make me less nimble in a crisis, represented by the fiery wound in the sky.

Second Dream

A pale blue mountain turns molten red.  A volcano eruption, right?  Maybe, but I see that dream mountain as standing for something other than an actual mountain.   As I mentioned in Book of Tokens, I have been meditating upon the Tarot Keys every day.  The craggy mountain is right out of the Tarot. 

Free associating, I connect Atlantis with lost civilizations and thus with lost wisdom and ultimately with ancient Ageless Wisdom.  Therefore, “Atlantis rising in a surprising location” represents attaining higher consciousness within the mundane world.  So then it is not surprising I painted a long ridge leading up a craggy mountain.  The long ridge is the Path and the mountain is the Great Work.

First Dream

This dream is the least rooted in my conscious mind.  I can’t say that I’ve ever dreamed of beetles before or thought much about them, metaphorically or literally. They have not been a meaningful part of my experience or symbolic vocabulary to this point.  But they are indeed most important in ancient Egyptian iconography.  In that system, they are associated with resurrection or rebirth. 

And since colors are emphasized in these dreams, I will take it a step further: blue is related to Memory in the Tarot.  Memory beyond the boundaries of the current personality.  In my dream, however, the blue beetle has something in its eyes, like a spider web.  It is trying to wipe it away, presumably so it could see   So I wonder — maybe the blue beetle represents Memory of lives beyond this one – Memory that for me is currently obscured by the veil across my eyes.   I sort of helped shoo the veil from the beetle’s eyes, just like I sort of want to Remember.  But when the beetle came at me blinking, I screamed. 

Ultimately, Memory is blocked by my own fear of seeing.

 “What are you looking for?”

 It was not so much an offer of help.  More like a curt request: Tell me what you want.

I didn’t know what to say.  Honestly, I was there to browse.  I was a seeker just starting to seek – and I was embarrassed about it, especially with my Marxist boyfriend standing there.  But I had been experimenting with the Tarot for around two years by then.  I had a Rider-Waite deck, a pop interpretation book, a feminist explication book and a desire to learn more.  So I told her I was looking for a book on the Tarot.  She disappeared without a word.  Relieved that she was gone, I went back to browsing while trying to explain myself (quietly) to my inner materialist critic, whom I was projecting outward on my Marxist boyfriend.  I was ambivalence in action.

Suddenly she appeared again looking severe as before.  She didn’t say anything – she just held out a little book.  I took it from her and she hurried off.  I was at a loss.  I wanted to explore and pick out something on my own.  I didn’t want her help to begin with.  And looking over the little book, I could see right away that it was something I would not have selected.  It was strange.  It seemed she had brought it out of the back room where it had been absorbing incense smoke for years, judging from its heavy scent.  I thought about ditching it on the shelves I was browsing – I had my eye on another book – something bigger and glossy, but then I saw the glossy book from her perspective and knew it was cheesy.  I suspected that Wednesday Adams was issuing me a challenge to move beyond fluff in my seeking.

So I bought the strange little Tarot book.  I took it home with me and tried to find my way in.  The heavy scent intrigued me.  But no, it just wasn’t what I wanted.  There wasn’t any direct instruction.  It consisted mainly of short poems and illustrations of cards that were slightly different from the ones I was used to.   There was Biblical-sounding verse and “O Israel” exhortations.  It seemed way too much like prayer and religion for me, half-Marxist that I was. 

I stopped experimenting with the cards and put the strange little book aside.  But I did not get rid of it.  It survived numerous painful book purges when I moved from apartment to apartment and eventually to my own house. 

The book was The Book of Tokens, by Paul Foster Case.  In more recent years, it came in handy when I was reading essays that referred Major Arcana images as they appear in the BOTA deck.  It wasn’t until last year that I read Paul Foster Case’s more directly instructional The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages and finally understood the point of the strange little book I’ve had sitting on my shelf for the last fifteen years.

Of course, the Tarot cannot be explicated in mere prose.  The cards are to be meditated upon for their symbolism speaks fluently to the subconscious mind.  And through the subconscious they can help bring us into conscious communication with superconsciousness. 

So after all those years of sitting mostly unused on my shelf, the strange little book is now picked up and pored over every day.  I was taking it for granted that it was always there waiting for me until I was ready.  Lately, though, I’ve been musing on the odd way it ‘fell into my hands.’  Why did Wednesday Adams thrust this particular book on me?  If she was bent on directing me to something by Paul Foster Case, why not hand me the more accessible A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages? 

Whatever her reason, I appreciate the result.  So thank you, dear Wednesday.  The metaphysical shop in Belleville is long gone, but its incense-laden scent lingers in the pages of my strange little Tarot book.