Tag: Demeter

Jung and the Mysteries of Wordless Transmission

Niān huá wéi xiào – pick up flower, subtle smile

Vernal Equinox March 20, 2020 

As I lay in bed, immersed in some dream I can’t recall, my cat stirred me from my dream, while shaking his head intensely, ringing the bell on his collar. The sound and shaking effect, shuffled my dreams like a deck of cards. Each card flipping by was a thin reality of other dreams. I landed in a dream in black and white, where an old man wearing speckles held out a colorful bright pink origami lotus flower in his palm, while looking at me directly and smiling. – Dream ending.

A  lot of energy was held in that small bright pink lotus. I paused to feel the heightened crisp energy in the dream space between black and white, past and present, and the colorful seed of awakening I was being offered.

It was held in the hand of Carl Jung. I felt he was offering a symbol from the collective unconsciousness about spiritual unfoldment, synchronicity, dreams, and multidimensional reality. I woke up immediately to record my dream in a dream journaling app on my phone. But instead of writing my dream down immediately, as I would normally, I found myself scrolling through previous dream reports.

I landed on a previous dream I had recorded about Carl Jung and Synchronicity. There’s that dream shuffle again. I was amazed when I found it, because it was as if I was looking for it unconsciously. I could feel the energy of the lotus from my dream, now surrounding me in my physical space, in the form of synchronicity.  I knew I was being sent an important message.

Dream Lecture and Synchronicity News – March 8, 2020

I pull out a newspaper from the trash can, and it has a long article about synchronicity on the front page. The headline is in large bold letters, but very long sentences. I take the paper over to a group of women meeting in a building of a co-working space. I have a book on dreams by Carl Jung in one hand, and a newspaper article on synchronicity in the other. I join their meeting and begin talking about the topic of dreams and synchronicity. I do so by example of finding this newspaper article on synchronicity in the bathroom trash, right before coming to give this lecture on dreams. – Dream ending.

In the potent energy held in the Archetype, Jung reaches across time and space to send me messages in dreams and synchronicity. This is a fascinating study in consciousness. The Pink Lotus itself is an archetype associated with the Buddha and nirvana. In some Buddhist traditions paper lotus flowers are created and burned as ancestral offerings or for those who have crossed over, or as a kind of spiritual currency, offering appreciation for blessings, and invoking good fortune of prosperity and health (Shih-Mou).

Zen Buddhism is rooted in the wordless transmission of the Flower Sermon, where the Buddha holds up a Lotus Flower with a smile, and is received by a smile from Mahakashyapa, who then becomes his entrusted successor (Dumoulin, pg. 9).

Jung writes, “One day the Buddha silently held up a flower before the assembled throng of his disciples. This was the famous “Flower Sermon.” Formally speaking, much the same thing happened in Eleusis when a mown ear of grain was silently shown. Even if our interpretation of this symbol is erroneous, the fact remains that a mown ear was shown in the course of the mysteries and that this kind of “wordless sermon” was the sole form of instruction in Eleusis which we may assume with certainty” (Jung, Kereny, pg. 179).

Now this connection comes with the arrival of my dream on the Vernal Equinox, a time when the Elysian Lesser Mysteries took place, in preparation for the Greater Mysteries in the Fall, as referenced by Jung in the image of harvested grain. As the fates would have it, I did take part in journeying into the Lesser Elysian Mysteries, weeks after having this dream, when I participated in an online class series by Robert Moss on Shamanic Dreaming with the Goddess.

In my journey, it is revealed that as Demeter the Mother, I enter the underworld in search for Kore. I present her with a white flower.

Dreams are a path of direct experience, and wordless transmission, through the potency of archetypal energies. Synchronicity is the transmission of messages from the world behind the world, which may include written words, or words of speech overhead, or a song that comes on the radio, or a dream image showing up in waking life, accompanied by a larger energy of recognition that may feel other worldly. The mysteries of the collective unconscious are a place we frequent in dreams. In my dream, Carl Jung presented this to me as a pink paper lotus and a smile.

Written by Valley Reed©2020

Sources

  1.  Dumoulin, Heinrich (2005). Zen Buddhism: a history. p. 9. 
  2.  Jung, C. G. & Kerényi, C. (2005). Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis. Routledge; 2 edition.  Routledge, p. 179.
  3. Shih-Mou Kou, Shu-Chi Chao, Chi-Hsiung Tseng, “The Construct and the Symbolic Meanings of Paper Lotus in Taiwan” Department of Visual Communication Design National Yunlin University of Science & Technology.

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jssd/60/0/60_67/_pdf/-char/ja

Persephone and Opening the Pomegranate

  In a dream from just the other night, I encountered the Goddess Persephone. She offered me a Pomegranate which she held in her hands and told me.  “If you never open the Pomegranate you can not plant the seed and the tree will never grow.” She then took a single seed from the open Pomegranate and planted it from which a beautiful tree grew tall, full and strong like magic. EOD

This dream is rich with meaning and nourishment as is the Pomegranate. In this time of the year as we edge toward the winter solstice and the turning of the wheel from the harvest of Autumn to the cold dark days of Winter, it is the season when Persephone makes her journey into the darkness of the underworld. She will make her ascent and return during the season of spring when all things come to life and begin to grow once again.

During the season of Winter and the descent into the darkness of the underworld, there are opportunities for growth to come from within.  This call from Persephone to break open the hard shell which surrounds the deep juicy fruits inside is a kind of death of the protective hard shell and an opening of the heart and soul.    The seeds planted will grow to provide more fruits and opportunities for growth, as well as a path to travel in dreams toward the upper realms.

The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton

In the Myth of Persephone’s abduction by Hade’s into the underworld her Mother Demeter, Goddess of the  Harvest, is devastated by the loss of her maiden daughter. She searches the earth for her daughter and becomes forlorn by her loss and refuses to bring the sun to grow anything upon the earth. Finally, her father Zeus is persuaded to bring his daughter back from the depths of the underworld where she sits as queen alongside Hades over the souls of the dead.

Zeus sends Hermes to go and bring her back but before he is able to do so Persephone eats the seeds of the pomegranate and is destined by the fates to stay in the underworld.  Hermes manages to negotiate a time settlement where she is able to serve part of her time on earth but must return for a portion of the time to reign as queen of the underworld alongside Hades. It is agreed, and Hermes returns her to her awaiting mother goddess Demeter, bringing the return of spring and the end of winter.

“Eclipsed Moon” photo credit Martin Pugh

The Winter Solstice honors the descent into the longest  night of the year and celebrates the hope of renewal and the return of the Sun as is portrayed in the myth of Persephone.  This year the Winter Solstice will shine under the light of the full moon and also be brought in with a lunar eclipse that will at its apex appear like a giant pomegranate in the sky.  In the spirit of Persephone, I honor this time of year with remembering loved ones who have passed into the realm of  the underworld where Persephone sits as Queen.  I will celebrate the hope of the return of the light, just as Hermes served as guide to Persephone to help her return to bring about the season of planting seeds.  Before the return though, the winter season of breaking open is upon us , an opening to bring about change and transformation and growth.  May your Winter Solstice be juicy and heartfelt!

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