Hold yourself accountable for your own life, the playbook of your journey. For though you may feel pushed and pulled by circumstances, lost at times, and completely at the mercy of those around you, the moment you grasp that everything is in your control, that everything is your own doing, then everything will change. Once you realize that it’s your own life to live, conquer and enjoy, you will understand what it means to be accountable, to take responsibility for your life. Take back your own life, perhaps for the first time ever, by fully owning it, by taking control and by finally living to the fullest, as you wish.
Two very common dream scenarios, related to new life, are encounters with snakes and with children, which I will explore separately.
Snakes molt. They regenerate by letting go of their old skin, literally. To be bitten by a snake or chased by a snake in a dream, or to house a snake beneath the floorboards of one’s dream home all herald the message that it’s time to let go of an attitude, belief, or habit that has been dominating one’s life.
Snakes seek a remote, hidden locale that allows for total exposure to the heat of the sun to facilitate the release of old encasement. Our world is now heating to record levels, forcing humankind to let go of old ways of living.
The sun, our ultimate source of light on Earth, symbolizes the penetrating light of consciousness we apply to discern truth. The truth is the stuff of the new skin that will contain us as we shift into new life.
Arriving at truth is like lying in the sun, relaxing in a fixed posture, allowing the rays of the sun to penetrate our rigidity, as we soften and receive its transformative impetus.
The release of old attitudes and attachments allows the crusted-over energy of our old skin to be revamped and redeployed for new life. Letting go is a breakdown phase that does require the destruction of beliefs that have served in the past but no longer promote new life.
The universal symbol for new life is the child. Whenever children appear in our dreams, some part of our unborn self is seeking to come to life.
Carl Jung was careful to point out that the shadow in the human psyche is both a place of repressed experience but, more fundamentally, is also the home of our unfolding inherent self. There are parts of our core seed self that may not be ready to be born in our human life until we are well into the second half of life.
If your actual child appears in a dream, the dream might refer to your child but more likely it refers to a quality of that child seeking to evolve within your own self. Pregnancy in a dream, however unrealistic to waking life, strongly hints at the coming birth of new life and new potential.
Too often, we are apt to interpret the appearance of our child self in our dreams to mean our actual inner child. This then associates to childhood, with its focus on trauma and unmet needs, that beckons ego, or someone else, to take better care of its neglected inner child. Though of course this might be true, more likely the child might represent a vital potential within one’s core seeking to find its way into life.
The Greek god Kronos was the father of Zeus. Kronos had the habit of eating his newly born children to ensure his safety and continued rule. Kronos operates in all of us through our judgments and attitudes that refuse the change into new life. Eating the children can take the form of entrenched habit that disregards any new possibilities that contradict one’s ruling beliefs.
“The King is dead, long live the King!” This cry expresses the necessity for the ruling, anachronistic attitudes in the psyche to die for the new King to emerge and bring new life to the personality. This is the true fountain of youth.
When we heed the call of the snake to allow for the breakdown and letting go of Kronos, we open the way for the innocence of the child to be born, as we regenerate, renew and become new life.
Remain as attentive to what is going on inside your body as you do to what is going on outside your body, for the body itself is a barometer of the spirit. If you ignore the warnings of the body, both your physical self and your spiritual self will eventually suffer from neglect. There are many subtle things being communicated through your body from spirit constantly. If you begin to pay attention you will begin to notice them. Your body speaks to you all the time, sometimes subtly and sometimes loudly. It would do you good to start paying attention and taking the signs seriously. How your body speaks to you is unique so learn its language in order to know its messages.
Find your balance, your center in body, mind and spirit, that place where you feel calm, collected and stable, the place where your senses, thoughts and feelings are aligned and you feel at peace. From this centered and calm place look at your world, your personal circumstances first and foremost, and decide what needs to change, what needs to go and what needs to become important. From this calm and centered place, know that you have the power to do anything and that everything is possible. In every way, you are your own creator of your own world.
People might not notice the changes taking place inside you even though you may feel them profoundly. Do not be offended but be in aware of the subtleties of change and how though immense in feeling how small in actual fact. There is a vast difference between the inner world and the outer world, between what you feel and what is visibly apparent. You may dream a profoundly moving dream but no one else can experience it. Thus it is with great changes within; you may be the only one to know and experience them. And this is as it should be, for your own progress is ultimately an inner experience and ultimately of the most profound importance.
