Winter's Dark

Silently moving into winter's dark I am drawn to the power of story.  Shorter daylight, a fire in the fireplace, the cold weather, and the silence of falling snow sends me toward reclaiming and living through my story.  There is a special quality in this season of darkness when we await the rebirth of the sun.  

The early and longer darkness moves me inward to home and hearth and into the cave of my own psyche.  This is the time of year that I plumb my depth of self understanding and self awareness.  It is from this that my self stories arise. My personal myth and legend come forth from the time spent in psyche's cave.
This is the time for dreams and dreaming; a time to reclaim lost parts of self, and what better way than through story.  

I dreamed a lost part of me returned.  A young male part that I had pushed away early in my marriage to accommodate and not compete with my young husband's energy.  Roger's energy compensated for this young male energy that I had shelved in favor of our marriage.  It wasn't until after Roger passed away that I experienced missing this part of me, and begin to want it to become a more conscious part of myself. 

This young male part begin to appear in my dream-time a year after Roger's death.  This energy assumed various roles and faces as it teased me to wake up to an integration of this back into my conscious psyche.  This energy danced in my dream space and through the faces of several famous young men.  Men that in my dreams I danced with and related to, and in a dream I even married one of these young men.  

Then several years after Roger's death I dreamed of a strapping young man, clad only in a breech cloth, standing on a mountain, blowing a Shofar, and I woke up to that primordial sound resonating inside my head.
  

This young male energy part of me was coming much closer to my waking life. 

A few nights ago the face of the symbol for this energy popped up in my dream-time.  He had changed; older, wiser, and a more balanced energy.  I did not recognize him at first.  His wife, a woman with long red hair, brought him to me; she offered this energy to me.  She said this energy had been created through the two of us, it was a sacred energy, and was something I needed, and must accept, at this place and time in my life journey.  I then recognized this energy as the face that had danced through my dreaming space years earlier.  We spoke, the first time since I had ask that he no longer be a dream symbol to me, and in this new conversation a healing and an integration began.

A reclamation of a lost part of me is occurring as a result of this dream.  A dream that is important to the process.  The brash, young male energy; the energy that could not fit into my marriage has matured and returns with a greater awareness and understanding of both of our energies.  He arrived via his red haired wife, through whom I recognized him, and began to assimilate his energy with my own.  This has taken time as I have been maturing toward this energy since Roger's death.  

          
   
This recent dream has awakened me to the thought/idea and the experience/feeling of this energy integrated into my conscious self.  It is an energy that can easily throw off my balance so it has gently and subtly reintroduced itself into my waking awareness.  This energy's feminine side  introduced me to this new and matured part of my younger male energy.  Her presence made me aware of the scared and gentle nature of this energy.  No longer brash, no longer the strapping male blowing the shofar, no longer the young men of fantasy, this energy is stable, steady, solid, and can be relied upon.  This is an integral and trusted part of me as I come to accept and utilize it within my energetic space.  

Some years ago, on the longest night of the year, I awoke in the morning to the primitive sound of the shofar.  It brought me wide awake into the new day.  A few days ago I awoke from a dream of integration with this part of me that had been awakened by that sound.  This young male energy has matured, mellowed, and has gently, quietly, and comfortably become a part of me.  So as we enter this time of winter's dark I find myself moving easily into another integration with me.  It is good.