I must say, when Jeanne began talking about mirrors again yesterday, in Message #643, I was disappointed, to say the least. To put it bluntly: I am sick and tired of mirrors; totally bored with them. When she replied to Soul Trecker in Message #640 that she did not need mirrors anymore, I thought: Yahoo! No more mirrors! Because no matter who Jeanne is addressing, the message always pertains to me. (I know many of you also feel the same way.) But then I was left with the dilemma of what would replace the mirrors if, in fact, I did not need to keep using them as a means of doing my inner work. So last night, before going to sleep, I sent out a dream intent, asking to be shown what to do now that I am bored with mirrors, projection, and reflection. This is what I got in dreaming:

I am in a room talking with C. G. Jung. I am telling him that I do not want to work with mirrors anymore, that I am bored with them. Suddenly, a large, gray, oval shaped boulder appears between us, hovering in the air a foot or so off the floor. “What?” I say, “A boulder! What is the significance of that?” Jung says: “Man and his Symbols!” referring to his book of the same name. I am clearly disappointed by this enormous and ugly rock and Jung, seeing my disappointment, says: “It may not be what it appears to be!” I reply: “What does that mean?” I peer closely at the stone and in the upper right quadrant I see a tiny white shell embedded in a slight indentation in the boulder. I wake up.

Clearly I am being shown something. At first, I thought of the boulder as a symbol of some insurmountable blockage or issue, or perhaps representative of something that I perceive as ugly or disturbing in my life. Then, I thought that perhaps it represented the archetypes and I found this more to my liking, feeling that I was being given the answer to my dilemma around working with the mirrors theme. Jung was telling me to look into his book for the deeper symbolism and meaning of the stone, but I also thought that he might be suggesting that I now turn to studying my archetypes more deeply. I also thought, as Chuck mentioned when I told him this dream, that perhaps there is a diamond inside the stone, but that remains to be seen.

Fortunately, we have a copy of Man and his Symbols, which is written by Jung and several collaborators. The chapter in which I found the symbolism of the stone discussed is written by Marie-Louise von Franz. The stone, she states, coming from many different sources, can symbolize the SELF, the experience of something eternal at man’s innermost center, something that can never be lost or dissolved, and the psyche of man, among other things. There is the alchemical stone, the Philosopher’s Stone, the Blarney Stone, to name a few, and, personally, I have always been a collector of stones, special stones with special meanings. Basically, in my dream, I was given an undeniably direct answer to my quest for something to work on: The Self! Of course, this is the same thing that Jeanne constantly guides us on as well, and I am always grateful for her guidance, but I have felt a need to shift away from the mirrors, but I wasn’t sure what else I was looking for. Now I know what I have before me.

I can still see Jung chuckling at the sight of the giant boulder he had conjured up, laughing at his cleverness. I know that he didn’t really give me anything new to work on. It’s still the same work, and I know I still have to deal with mirrors, but for a while I can take a closer look at the tiny shell embedded in the stone and I can find out what else the boulder holds. Is there more on the surface to discover, before I chip away at what is possibly inside? Or is it going to be my job to polish the surface of that boulder, until I can see my face reflected there, the self revealed, once again, in a mirror?

It will be interesting to see what Jeanne has to say tomorrow, because I am going to confront her on the mirror thing. In the meantime, I’m going to see what else my dream is trying to tell me.
Until tomorrow!
Jan