I had this dream some time ago, and working with it was one of my first experiences of Carl Jung's Active Imagination approach to dreams and the unconscious. Yet the dream images often come to mind, so I know that the dream is still working in me, and am using active imagination go a little deeper into it at this time.
Black parrots dream
I watch a child climbing a dense tree and notice small oblong hives of bees (ancient Egyptian style), which will hurt him if disturbed. I tell the child (my grandson) to come down though he is unconcerned and I guide him past the bees. I noticed three big black eagle-like parrots watching him. They are between him and me. I am unusually calm (usually anxious in my dreams). The boy is fearless, smiling as he stops to observe the bees on the way down. The birds, however, are fierce-looking, their hooked beaks partly open and hungry-looking. Yet I know that as long as I am watchful and guide the boy safely past the bees, the birds will not harm him. They watch me, waiting for a moment of self-doubt, of hesitation, and I hear the words, Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. I do not falter.
Interpretation
Because of their fierceness and cold bright eyes, I think that the parrots represent my critical ego self waiting for the child/me to be hurt and say, "See, I told you not to trust yourself". I think that I am the higher self watching, guiding, ready to stop the birds if they moved toward the child. So maybe Stupid is directed at my ego, which misunderstood everything, or maybe at the trusting child/inner child who does not recognise the danger. I don't know, and the dream, don't give it any thought.
So I interpreted that dream as telling me that if I am fully present, fully conscious, sensitive to the forces and energies around me, I will be safe. I can trust myself.
Second interpretation
Yet when I used Carl Jung's active imagination approach to ‘speak’ with the birds, I found that the dream had a lot more to say. The birds told me to that I must be “infinitely patient and let things unfold, yet hold a clear purpose.”
When I asked what they represented, they asked, “Don’t you want our fierce will, our determination, our watchfulness?” Yes, I did. I do.
They drew my attention to the bees, which I had taken as representing potential risk or danger, or as gatekeepers to gold (honey, spiritual treasure). “We watch over them,” the birds said, “because they are preoccupied and dreaming. Yet they are life itself; they carry the seeds of procreation.” From this, I understood that the bees represented the creative force that speaks not to waking consciousness but to the dreaming or entranced self.
The birds also represented a part of me that I had considered unacceptable, and often been criticised for, a stern, stubborn, fierce aspect of my being that I had tried to smother with gentleness and compliance.
“Why are you so fierce?” I asked. They replied, “Because you want to be fierce and still, and dangerous.....You don’t feel safe with gentle and loving. You want to feel protected, steely-winged angels at your side....You want to be guarded by fearless ones who love you, cherish you.” “And you do that?” I asked. “Always. As angel, eagle, castle wall, I am with you.”
I cannot tell you how reassuring that was, and how validating to know that I could express those tough, steely qualities with which I had protected myself through a difficult childhood, and accept the fearfulness that lay behind them. My only real protection is to accept and integrate.
"You cannot deny fear," they said. "You must accept it, face it. Until you do, your safety is based on avoiding danger. Instead you must find the courage within you."
"Do you want me to be afraid?" I asked. They replied, "To face it, take it in. Transform it into light, energy, power...or the child will never be allowed to grow. He will forever be held back by what you do not make fully conscious and acceptable." I must say that I was surprised, but it feels true.
Regarding the dream parrots, I had read somewhere Marie Louise von Franz’s discussion on parrots in eastern fairytales. The birds in my dream were eagle-like parrots, with lustrous blue-black feathers and parrot beaks, but the fierce eyes and stillness of eagles. They were also very large and conveyed the quiet power and authority that one associates more with eagles.
Von Franz’s parrots represent the Self, both its destructive and its redemptive power for the soul, and one must be very careful not to arouse the destructive power but to watch for the right moment to catch their redemptive power. I see that in this dream.
The three birds are the Self with a capital S, watching and totally aware, and seeming dangerous. The other watcher, ego self, though confident, is afraid for the child's safety. Stupid might refer to that, the ego as setter of limitations, builder of walls, "the inner critic" that often calls me stupid. It takes courage to ignore ego, which can seem so intelligent, and trust as one's higher Self or Soul pushes me toward the unknown. Yet that is what I must do.
I have found in my own life that the inner guides and the Soul can be very stern with those who lack the courage to leave the ego path. If we do not obey them (for they demand our obedience), they may remain silent, let us suffer the consequences of our choices and learn from them how wrong ego can be . It is very humbling.
Humility is ego’s most efficient teacher, I think, absolutely necessary if ego is to take its rightful place as servant of the soul. Which it must, if we are to become whole, truly conscious beings.
For now, this little poem is enough to express my dreamwork experience with this dream.
I am still working on a little sketch in response to some more recent, and deeper inner work with it. I'll share it in a new post when it's ready.
I climb through tangled branches, leaves,
Curious adventurer into secret wilderness.
I watch from the side
bees silent as breath around their oval nests.
I guide the child past
Slow, alert, trusting.
I watch other watchers,
Curved beaks, fierce eyes, shimmering like opals in the leaves
Still but for their eager breath, waiting.
I am the child... I am the watcher that guides...
...the waiting birds...
I am the tree and the bees unaware.
I am consciousness
And there is no fear.
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