What's Resonating This Week: #2
On dreams, guilt, and transformation...
Howdy, folx. Welcome to another edition of What’s Resonating This Week!
It all started with a dream.
I don't often recall dreams. However, I recall experiencing this dream vividly, as if I were physically there.
I'm myself, but high school/college age... I'm with two friends, Jeff (my best man at my first wedding) and another person I don't remember, but I can only assume it was Tim because Jeff and Tim always came together.
They have me driving my green Jeep Cherokee, and we are going to a very specific shopping center in my hometown to SET OFF A BOMB and blow up a car parked in the parking lot.
So this proceeds to play out, and for whatever reason, I have hopped into the passenger seat while they are off planting the bomb, which explodes seconds after they jump into the car shouting GOOOOO!
On the way out, they crash into a gold-ish-colored sports car in our path, and it flips over like it would in a movie or video game scene. The rest of the dream is quite vague. All I can remember is worrying about how I would keep my Dad from finding out and whether there were cameras in the shopping center.
An interpretation…
While I’ve yet to dive into Carl Jung’s deep portfolio of work on dreams, their interpretation, and their significance, I keep company with those who have. I decided to post my dream to the Jungian Life Coach Training forum, and I received this response from Dr. Rob Maldonado, the co-founder of CreativeMind and one of our instructors:
Car dreams for someone undergoing individuation are about the will. Note that you were initially driving and then took the passenger's seat. The main event is the bomb going off, and the primary emotion is guilt. The unconscious points to guilt as something you will encounter in the unconscious mind, and this will involve a breakthrough (bomb) regarding who is controlling your will. Individuation will ultimately restore you to the driver's seat.
Wow.
This resonates.
And it also sheds light on a very troubling tarot pull that happened the morning after the car bomb dream.
Death and the Tower Enter the Chat…
The first thing that happened as I flipped these two cards was 😬.
Then I laughed and wrote, “Well if this isn’t the most ominous pull ever.”
Death has turned her back on the stormy Tower, but she’s keeping her eye on it. The lightning striking the Tower appears to be emanating from the Moon. As I’m writing this, it’s been roughly four hours since the Moon and the Sun met up in Leo.
Note that the Tower is not collapsing in this card. The energy flows through the Tower into the ground. I imagine a powerful witch standing at the top of that Tower, calling down the power of the Moon.
It’s a Tower moment. But not one that’s happening to you. You’re happening to it.
At the time, I wrote this:
Whatever is going to be the Tower moment, it’s not going to kill me. I’m grounded—connected to the Earth. I can ground that energy and send it back to Source.
Death is saying—not yet. But I’m watching. So don’t get cocky about it.
And that’s where I left it until Hana O’Neill entered the chat and said, “Your dream sounds like your card pull.”
At the time, my only response was, “Hmmm…ok.”
When Dr. Maldonado’s interpretation appeared, my mind started making connections.
The Tower moment is the breakthrough regarding who is controlling my will. When did it happen? Listening to a guided meditation this morning, I identified the “guilty party” deep within my Shadow.
Death is here to help me to release my guilt and associated fear of rejection. She is here to remove those blocking influences from the driver’s seat of my life, allowing me to retake control of my will.
And so, when I asked the cards, “What’s on for this weekend?” they proved again that they never lie.
Astrological Musings
It’s looking to be a bit of a roller coaster week for my Lunar Astrology.
I get my Lunar Return this week, so it’s time again to forecast my emotional energies and self-care needs for the next month. Every month, I look at the themes associated with the house and ascendant sign at the time of my return, and I use their Tarot correspondences to guide a six-card reading that gives me additional depth of insight. I sell these readings in my shop, so if you’d like to align your life with your innermost needs, why not try one?
Your Lunar Return correlates with feeling good, having higher energy, and feeling more like yourself. So that’s the forecast through early Thursday morning when the Moon shifts into Libra, which tends to be a very low energy time for me. I’m headed to a Lainey Wilson concert on Friday night, so I’m guessing I will need some extra caffeine to survive that one.
I expect the concert hangover to be short, as the Moon will shift into Scorpio on Saturday evening. While the moon power days formula I learned from Tenae Stewart points to the Moon in Scorpio as “too close to call” energy-wise, I’ve found that the Moon in Scorpio tends to be one of my most creative and witchy times of the month. I can’t wait.
Beyond Lunar Astrology, by the time you read this, Venus will have shifted into Virgo, which signals a time of being practical with your love, service-oriented in your relationships, and functional in your aesthetics. And something else is up with Mercury. Read on to find out.
Let’s Pull Some Cards
With themes of death and transformation running throughout this letter, I thought it appropriate to draw a spread from Roses, Dust & Ashes: An Oracle Featuring Cemetery Symbols by my friend and neighbor Stacey Williams-Ng.
This deck borrows the symbology common to Victorian-era cemeteries to communicate the depth of powerful emotions associated with grief, sorrow, and death. It is inspired by the famous Elmwood Cemetry in Memphis, Tennessee.
I’ve pulled a four-card spread for myself and my readers, with the four cards representing the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual themes we’ll experience during the coming week.
Physical: Resilience
We may experience some physical challenges this week. The tree trunk marker on this card symbolizes the inner strength and resilience we associate with the oak tree. Left unharvested, it can live for up to one thousand years despite being called to withstand a lifetime of tumultuous storms. You possess this same resilience at the core of your Soul and will emerge victorious over the challenges coming your way.
Mental: Peace
This card just feels lovely, doesn’t it? In the Tarot, The Sun is my “things are going to be OK” card, and the first thing that catches my eye is the beautiful sun at the back of the peaceful dove descending to land on the marker. The Universe has blessed us with a peaceful state of mind this week. Even amidst our need to engage our physical resilience, our minds will remain calm and still.
Emotional: Connection
While the Universe has sent us an unconditional blessing of mental peace, our emotional peace requires a helping hand. It’s a week to reach out, touch your friends and family, and strengthen the ties that bind. If you can, schedule a three-dimensional, face-to-face connection (i.e. not on Zoom!) with someone close to you. Shake their hand. Give them a warm hug. Your heart will thank you.
Spiritual: Untold Story
Just as the pictured scroll has not been completely unrolled, your spiritual story is incomplete. Do you have some unfinished business hidden deep within your Soul? Are you yearning for a deeper connection to Source but keep pushing your desire aside to focus on the mundane and practical? Now is the time to start writing your next spiritual chapter. Set aside time this week to connect with yourself and your higher purposes.
And Now For Something Completely Different
By the time you read this, Mercury will be about a day into his retrograde in Virgo, but at the time I’m writing it, that trickster has already been fucking with me in the shadow period. Best of luck as you double-check your communications and plans and curse your technology in the coming days.
That’s all for this edition of What’s Resonating This Week! Catch you next Tuesday!
This was an intense one! But then again, talk of dreams, guilt, and transformation is always going to summon me to the yard, so to speak. These are things I ponder often. Great pull from the Roses deck, I'm so glad you're finding it insightful.