Author

Subject: Golden organ

Stephen O

21:46 08/08/2001 

I am walking in my town (not my waking reality town) with my father and daughter, showing Dad around. Our pet Labrador, Ziggy, is with us.

We are walking down a hill past some houses and arrive at a corner where Ziggy has run ahead to where a dog is standing at the corner. I am worried that he will run onto the road and be run over.

The other dog looks like a King Charles Spaniel from a distance, but turns into a magpie as Ziggy approaches and flies away.

Across the road is a church. It is Saturday morning and usually christenings are performed, but today is a drama day (a hand painted sign says so) and a performance is under way on the steps of the side door to the church. Three children are performing, being watched by a handful of family sitting on a bench seat.

The child performers are dressed in elaborate ancient Egyptian costume complete with headdresses. The central figure is dressed in gold and is flanked by one in purple and one in (I think) white. I want to point out the local minister, Father Ray (real person, previous place we lived), to Dad. We have turned left at the intersection and continue walking down the street. It is a wide street, with gravel verges and a bitumen strip. We turn left again and continue down the hill.

The scene has now changed. We have walked down the hill and entered the stone corridors surrounding an old cathedral.

It is the church of my early childhood (not in outer reality). Dad grew up there too, but we left when I was four or five. My daughter has gone missing and I call out for her. She appears moments later and I mildly chastise her for wandering off. She holds up and hands me a golden key that has a glowing ring around it (I may have asked her for it).

We turn right and descend a wide, darkened stairway. At the foot is a very old and beautiful organ. It is intricately detailed, inlaid with gold, and there are stone tablets above it with inscriptions in writing I do not recognise. They are below the image of a man’s head carved in the stone. We are accompanied, as we descend the stairs, by a young priest in his early 20’s and a physically handicapped boy in his early teenage years.

The young priest is the guardian of the organ, but does not know its secrets. He is dressed in a sand-coloured, hooded robe.

Dad inserts the key in the organ and it is illuminated. He learned its secrets as a young boy or man, growing up in this holy place. He moves closer to the organ and steps back to get a better look, accidentally treading on the handicapped youth, pausing to apologise. Dad says the inscriptions are in ancient Croatian and translates them for us with the ease as if he was reading English.

When he finishes reading, he begins to play with his right hand a small keyboard that is part of the organ, reading music that has appeared on a stone tablet, but says he could never understand the words that accompanied the music. This tune concludes with the words “beautiful boy-oy, beautiful boy-oy”, sung in a holy, loving way that echoes through the dream.

I now am (or remembering being?) a five-year-old boy full of the excitement of soon being shown the secret of playing the organ.

Dream edited for easier reading - JT, 2005

Read the original thread or Jane Teresa's view.

Jane Teresa Anderson

14:04 16/08/2001 

Hi Stephen,

What a beautiful dream!

I'm offering some starting points:

Clearly the dream suggests that you are re-examining your spirituality (the churches, present and past, and the reference to way back in the past: Egyptians).

As the dream opens you see a 'performance' going on outside the church. You also fear for the safety of your dog who is running freely ahead without seeming to be aware of the traffic. This suggests to me a contrast between the 'performance' or drama of religious rituals (and perhaps hierarchies ... the colours, the references to Ancient Egypt and royal colours ...), and the free running of the dog.

(Royal colours and hierarchy also fits in with your feeling that the second dog was a KING Charles spaniel.)

Even though Ziggy is your waking life dog, a dog in a dream can symbolise your natural instincts and/ or loyalty (or whatever instincts you associate with dogs personally). The behaviour of dogs in our dreams often reflects back to us our own instincts. Your dog/ instinct is to run free and make forward progress ahead, but you meet, in the dream, a fear about this. (Will the dog be run over?).

Are you feeling a free-spirit approach to your spirituality and are you fearful of this feeling getting too far ahead of you? Are you aware of the traditions and rituals of religion and feeling some level of superficiality (the drama - not real)?

Are you seeking a key to spiritual harmony (organ key)?

Think also about Ziggy: what does the dog represent to you? Ziggy Stardust? Free associate from here ...

Why did the KING Charles Spaniel turn into a magpie? If KING is royalty/ hierarchy/ tradition ... what is magpie? What do YOU associate with magpies, Stephen?

The magpie flies away as Ziggy approaches. What instinct or feeling does the magpie represent within you? Why would royalty/ hierarchy transform into 'magpie' and fly away?

The turning point of your dream comes after your wish to point out the local minister to your dad. This minister is from your past: which year? It seems the dream is pointing YOU to this year to find your turning point.

From here you entered the stone-ancient, reinforced by the feeling that this was your father's church: again tradition...

What happned in your life when you were 4 or 5?

You felt your daughter was missing. Your daughter (girl) is likely to represent your inner world/ spirituality/ creative/ intuitive self. You call for her and she arrives with the key. This suggests that you are, in waking life, calling to your inner spiritual self for a deeper key (deeper than superficial performance?). Indeed, with the key you descend deeper in the dream.

The priest in his 20's probably represents your spipritual nature in your 20's or you that number of years AGO. The physically handicapped teenager probably represents an EMOTIONAL handicap you FELT you had when you were a teenager, or an awareness, looking back, that you were handicapped in some way related to your spirituality. He may also represent a feeling, in your waking life now, that you are not exercising your full power in some way.

Ah - the secret communication and power of music to express what is so difficult to encapsulate in words...

What are your feelings about this so far, Stephen?

I have left plenty untouched ... everyone else?

Jane Teresa Anderson

Star

15:47 19/08/2001 

Hi Stephen and Jane - I've been wanting to read this dream since you posted it Stephen but have only just gotten around to it and indeed what a beautiful dream!

Everything that jumped out at me as I was reading it Jane Teresa has mentioned although I am getting a feeling that perhaps the magpie is a symbol of spiritual balance occurring as for me birds are messangers from Spirit and the black and white of the magpie suggests the balance of subconsciousness and consciousness - also perhaps the magpie is suggesting that it's time to fly???

Obviously only you know what a magpie means for you - just thought I'd throw my symbolism for one into the pot.

In relation to your Dad stepping on the handicapped youth - did anything he do,say, when you were a youth in relation to your religion/spirituality cause you to feel trodden on, put down etc.

Will be very interested to read your thoughts about this one when you have time to digest all Jane Teresa's great input.

Star

15:49 19/08/2001 

Oh holy mackeral "tingle time" - could the key to whatever the issue is be the need to actually become childlike again - see the world and all it contains with awe and wonder and live only with thought of what is occurring in each moment????

Stephen O

21:16 10/09/2001 

Thanks for the comments.

I actually have a pretty good idea of a lot of the dream content.

I see the golden organ as representing the wonderful resources of my spiritual self that are there for me to draw upon and use -the gold key being the key to spiritual power.

The reference to ancient Croatian inscriptions that only my father can read I think is a metaphor for meditation. MY father gave me a book called "Emissary of Light" that is about a group of people who turn up in world trouble-spots and meditate for peace. The author purports that it is a true story and I have no reason to disbelieve.

Before I elaborate, I should say that I have had a rather estranged relationship with my father. He walked out on us when I was 10 (I'm 38 now). He was an Anglican Minister who left the cloth to study osteopathy in England (and is now a Reiki master as well as osteopath). He had his own major issues to deal with, but for many years we believed he had left under the influence of a religious cult. He is an intensely spiritual man. The image of my father treading on the handicapped teenager is quite apt. I was pretty handicapped emotionally as a teenager (probably still am a bit) and for many years I took out my hostility through a quite passionate disregard for organised religion (and indeed any form of spirituality). I see the protector priest in this dream as a bit of an uninformed guardian who is there protecting the sanctity of something he doesn't understand until someone older and wiser (my father) comes along. The key is provided by me getting in touch with my feminine/intuitive side (as symbolised by my daughte possessing the key). God bless the anima.

I'm at that point in life where I have stopped denying my own spirituality and have begun to explore it, but I am struggling with how to find the balance between all the demands of life - work, family keeping a dream diary, regular exercise, etc. We all know the challenges.

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