Dying to Dreams. What then? by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD
Death comes in many
forms. We live and we die. All organics things do. We lose loved ones, human,
animal and even plants. This is life. We also lose dreams, hopes and
expectations. This, also, is part of life, but what do we do then, when we,
still very much alive lose things we’d pinned our hopes on that just don’t come to pass? Sometimes life
can be not merely a disappointment, but a desert of despair. What then?
Desire to die through
suicide is very common these days, and much of this desire comes from this
empty landscape of despair. Where do I belong, who am I, where is my place?
These are some the questions asked. If I do not die, what then? What happens afterwards?
The old crone rides a crow
in a charnel yard and then, inexplicitly, goes up in smoke. She personifies
disappointment, loss, and despair, and around her is frenetic activity,
anxiety, and a desire to get away as far as possible from what is feared: a horrific implosion of nothingness. The Hindus give her the name, the
Goddess Dhumavati. She is shunned, denounced, avoided, like the widows and
other outcasts of India and here in our own streets: here in the faces of the
mad, the alcoholic and drug
addicted, here is the torment of those in extreme pain. This is the face of damage; this is literally
the deathscape of cosmic collapse.
What then? Here is the
extremely uncomforting call to consciousness. Here is the real reason ours is a
call to conscious awareness. Dhumavati has within her transformative powers to
unleash awareness that cannot be attained in gentler ways. Here is awareness
that many spiritual ideas and practices do not touch.
I am very moved by
Dhumavati and her crow and sometimes evoke and explore what she means with certain
clients because she illustrates so profoundly what most of us are terrified of
and will avoid at all costs. I have a crow figurine that I use as a symbolic
bird to explore grief, loss, and the death of dreams. Together we journey into
the Shadow realm to bring consciousness to what we do not yet understand.
Riding on the back of the bird we symbolically fly to the very edge of
existence itself. I sometimes do this
work using the magic of clinical hypnotherapy, a modality of focussed
relaxation and a bringer of profound insight. My clients are well supported by
me in this journey. It is work we undertake together.
Without attempting to
go to this silent heart centre we
are too readily whipped around by the high winds of elation and despair, too
ready to pin our hopes on the promises and whims of other people who are just
as confused as ourselves, too willing to seek comfort from unsafe sex,
obsessive hoarding, indulgence in excessive food, alcohol and drugs, and then,
of course, there is the attraction of suicide, annihilation and obliteration,
but what then? The call to the silent centre is a hard one to obey. It requires
staring into the black eyes of this old crone who carries our dreams in bags on
her back, requires noticing how these dreams dissolve into nothingness like
tracing our fingers in ash, and requires staying present with despair, until
that too disappears.
