Black Pearl: Ghost Ship

An interesting case of synchronicity occurred last night when "Pirates of Caribbean:  Black Pearl" was shown on television.  Many of you have probably already seen this film, but I had not.  Last night I was fascinated because this is a ghost ship that is invested in returning gold coins to their original owners who were Aztec.  Anyway I saw some evil/good meanings in the film.  So at least Hollywood is on the same track as my understanding of the dream:  that black pearl implies some coming together of good and bad:  one of the first opposites we face when we separate from our parents.  Actually the ratio of good to bad is what helps us develop a healthy ego to go into the world.  If there is too much bad, we seem destined to a life of difficulty and suffering.  However, again, some people find their way through that challenge and achieve some integration and sometimes greatness.

Aside:  Jung believes that psychologically we should be looking forward rather than backward in our life journey, and I am comforted by this belief.  Our dreams help us to stay on the forward-looking path.  More later.  

Black Pearl: Alchemy

I have been researching black and pearl for two days now, and I feel like I am just beginning to scratch the surface.  Certainly my search has directed me back to alchemy, and the stages of the process of individuation which include black, white, and red.  Since black and white are included in the image of the black pearl, I am looking into the first two stages of the individuation process.  The first stage, as I mentioned the other day, involves the very beginning of our development, when we are one with the whole of all.  We are one with our mothers, etc.  Then the next stage happens when we begin to separate into "I" and face the multitude of opposites:  good/bad; hot/cold; etc.  The final stage would bring the opposites together, and this stage is red because the blood of life, the reality of living in the world and expressing ourselves as individuals involves action and vitality to our understanding.  

I am fascinated by all this, and want to continue to explore the meaning of the "black pearl" image as it translates into my individual life.

More to come.

Black Pearl

I posted a picture of me today to further my awkwardness and I feel shy.  I am trying to upgrade my site to become more available to whatever audience I have.  I am also trying to include some links to other sites you might find interesting.  I am still doing research on the black pearl.  Most of what I am reading energizes my interest in what this dream is all about.  What I have discovered so far is that a black pearl really does exist.   They come from Tahiti, and they do not really look black to me:  they look more iridescent to me.  

Black refers to the beginning of existence where everything is chaos and there is no one individual.  So black refers to the initial phase of development, psychologically.  Pearl might refer to the stone hidden in the blackness.  For Jung, the stone is the goal of development when we have developed a solid center from which to live.

Anyway, so far so good, and more to come.  In this dream of the black pearl, I was on a sail boat outside of Vancouver, and there were ten black pearls in a bowl which was floating along side the boat.

Holding the tension of the opposites

This morning, I am thinking of opposites such as black pearl which was a symbol which came up in a recent dream of mine.  I have been researching the various references to pearl in Jung's many volumes, and next I want to see how black fits in.  One of the challenges that Jung proposes is that our job as human beings to hold the tension of the opposites:  that means for me right now to hold the tension of black with the beauty and purity of the pearl.  I am open to comments from you readers about what you think.  However let me hint that black refers to the feminine and earth and mystery and the unconscious so I have to find the pearl hidden in the earth, the feminine, and how to understand the mystery of the "black pearl".  

Today I feel a deeper commitment to my dreams: instead of just taking them at face value, I want to elaborate the richness of the symbols that appear in them.  So research is in order, and right now I feel excited about doing just that.  It feels like the next step in taking my dream life seriously, and it also feels like the beginning of finding links between dreams.

It has been a challenge to move from an outer-directed person to an inner-directed person, and today it feels like it fits me more than usual.

Honor my mother

If my mother was still alive, she would be 105 today.  Whenever it is near her birthday or her death day, I feel her presence acutely.  Today is like that.  I have many regrets about our relationship because she was a very important person in my life, and we always seemed to be a odds with one another.  I know that is not unusual in mother-daughter relationships, and I find very comfort in knowing that.  I was so full of myself, and she was insecure and troubled.  She had many talents, and she didn't realize that.  She was a perfectionist as were so many women in that time of history.  I just want to honor her today and wish her a happy birthday.

Fate

Long ago when I was married to a paranoid schizophrenic, my father told me that if I weren't such an emotional stick, he (my husband) would be alright.  How is that for taking responsibility!?  So you can see why having a concept and now an experience of fate has been so important to me.  Jung has said that God is anything that crosses your path and changes your life substantially.  That has happened for me many times:  marrying a schizophrenic, losing my first son, and breast cancer to name just a few of the major events of my life.  

Also good things have happened such as getting hired at the University, having two more children.  There were times in my life when it seemed like everything I touched turned to gold.  I never felt that I had orchestrated those events.  My experience told me that these opportunities came my way, but I had no understanding of fate.

What if there is a blueprint of our lives that we come into the world with, and then our job is to actualize that blueprint?  Based on my life experiences, I know this to be true.

Responsibility

While I have been growing up, I have felt like it is my responsibility to take for all those happenings in my life.  And there have been some tragic ones which then left me with heavy guilt. In 2004, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and this "taking responsibility" for everything that happened to me was challenged.  I began to look for the meaning in my cancer rather than brooding over how I had caused it.  A whole new world opened up for me, and eventually led me to Jung.   Shortly before my diagnosis, I had a dream of being a shark in a zoo.  I was sitting with other sea "people" and we were discussing how the electric fences that kept us enclosed probably were not charged anymore.  I said I was willing to test the waters and I did.  I found that I could swim out into the sea, and there was no charge to keep me from doing so.  I called back to my friends and told them we were free, and they wouldn't come join me.  The question that kept coming to my mind was the relationship between freedom and cancer.

Jung believes and now so do I that each event in our lives has both a cure and a injury attached.  I did have to go through a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and now arimendex to keep the cancer under control.  But also I was given insights about my life and the direction I needed to take form this point forward.  

Fate has a role in our lives:  not just each self struggling with the lessons.