I have recalled no dreams for over a week now (which is not unusual for me these days), but an image from a dream last year has been haunting me, so I intended to do Active Imagination (AI) with it, and let myself sink as I could into my unconscious. Instead of 're-entering that dream, however, a different image fills my mind, this underwater woman who I have seen before, and I feel that she wants to speak with me.
I ask what she wants to tell me, and sit with her. There is a strong impression of being deep underwater and sinking. I do not need air, but I am afraid that if I sink too far, I will not make it back to the surface. So I ask this creature, whose eyes glitter when she raises them, and who feels physically so cold, what is deep down there for me. She spends a long time observing her fish. She thinks to me, 'Fish are the honey bees of the sea,' I am immediately reminded of my dream with bees that I had intended to work with. After a while, she thinks to me (she does not speak), "Wretchedness." Not at all what I expect to hear.
Before my inner eyes flash images from early childhood. My God, I am feeling the awful twisting in my belly that I did then and through much of my life, not in my belly but at my solar plexus. That is notable, since I have had serious medical issues right there, including a long surgical incision that would not close for over a year, which terrified me.
She has turned partly away from me, and raises her long tail, ready to swim, her serious eyes more than any gesture suggesting that I follow. I want to refuse, and the sea woman does not urge me, but I follow her, a little distance behind, she turning her head slightly now and then as if to check that I am still there. She doesn't seem to like me much. With one hand, she gestures ahead of her at the sea floor, which is bare, skeleton white, dead beneath us. I can see from her face her disgust at what we humans have done to the ocean, and want to weep with shame and sorrow.
I stop, wanting to turn back, but she points ahead, and following her hand, I see in the far distance as though at the end of a tunnel movement, colour, life, the sea as it once was.
This can be, I understand; nature will be able recover if we stop harming her now. It is not a promise but a possibility. I understand, and despite the grimness of her face, I am deeply relieved.
I title this AI Silver Fishes
Associations: I used to imagine myself as an underwater creature, not human. I loved going underwater and could stay under comfortably for quite some time. When I was small, my grandfather taught me to swim by throwing me out of a boat and waiting as I floundered in terror till I swam, but eventually I came to feel safe in the sea, able to be totally myself, and had wonderful fantastical underwater experiences.
I do not initially see the woman's legs or tail, which makes me think of the French fairy Melusine, who wrought such havoc on her husband's lands when he spied on her and saw her tail. One breaks the protocol of faerie and mermaids at one's great risk.
Though I think of mermaids as magical but rather simple-minded, like the Celtic seal maidens or Anderson' innocent Little Mermaid, I know they are also potentially dangerous with a cold reptilian dangerousness.
Deep water used to figure often in my dreams, tidal waves etc that I survived through surrender and trust.
My grandfather's family were fishermen. My mother grew up in Crimea and told me of dolphins that rescued people.
Mythic associations: Ancient Greek sirens and Russian rusalki who dragged men underwater to their death.
Psychological associations: Mother complex - over-protective, clinging, emotionally stuck in childhood, for whom I was the rescuer, though I let her down. Mermaid archetype - mysterious, need to be very careful with her, unable/unwilling to deal with complexities ... it is either/or.
Theme: Resurrection. I don't know why but I feel it is, maybe on the surface a resurrection of my environmental activism. Jung said that the most obvious meaning of a dream is rarely what it means, so there is probably much more it that this, but for now, I just want to record the AI, and put it aside till another time.