Exhibit Twenty: Acquired by the Dream Gallery 26 November 1999
©1999 Theresa Manzanares
'Blue Cat'
 ~ kindly donated by photographer Theresa Manzanares, aka to members as Libra Lynn. Contact Theresa here (TheresaManzanares@bigfoot.com )
Feeling The Picture
Your feeling reactions to a dream are keys to its interpretation. These are my feelings. If this were a scene in your dream or life, how would you feel about being there?
I feel the intensity and clarity of the blue, not just in the cat's eyes, but throughout the picture as if blue light is the soul essence of his life, spilling out and surrounding him in a jewel-clear aura. I feel as if I know something the cat does not. You see, he lives a life of clear blue light, so wherever he goes, the blue goes too. He knows no different. He is completely unaware of the effect his light brings. He is unaware of his gift, too simply being.
I also feel a sense of his compactness, as if I am looking at his reflection in a convex mirror. His eyes meet his nose meets his mouth meets his whiskers meets his ears. No space is wasted, no fat, no baggage. He gives a feeling of precision and focus, a tiny core of solid being emanating light. His whiskers are sensitively tuned to measure his path, contributing to the feeling of compact purpose. Yet his face - for to me he is surely a he - has packed within the fine contours every suggestion of a big cat: a panther, a jaguar, a puma in blue. So the feeling, for me, is not delicate or fragile, but an immensely strong, powerful precision mixed through with a mystery of knowing yet not knowing. While I am so close that I can touch the intensity of this aura, he makes me feel large, formless and 'pink' by contrast. As he walks on through this dream picture, he leaves behind a strong sense of another time and another place: one who has walked with the gods of ancient Egypt, perhaps.
The Symbols
Symbols in your dreams often relate to your personal memories and associations, so always consider those first. Then let your mind play with other, more general possibilities. They will not all apply! Just open your mind and notice where the symbol seems to fit and make sense of the rest of your dream.
Animals generally symbolise our instincts ('animal instincts'), or aspects of ourselves that we identify with the animal in question. As human beings we frequently act to cover or suppress our instincts, which can re-appear, in animal form, in our dreams or in our lives to remind us of the totality of our being. There are times for bringing our instincts to the fore, and times for being attentive to their existence while deciding on appropriate action. Cats come in all shapes and sizes, states of wildness or domesticity, but they share common traits of independence, stealth, (prowling and hunting), power and highly-tuned sensitivity, just for starters. For many people they symbolise intuition through their success in hunting, their sensitivity and their notoriety as witches' aides and shamans in shape-shifted, future-roaming form.
Cats may symbolise 'catty' attitudes, pampered living or 'cat-and-mouse' games. As with any animal, the quickest way to discover the symbolism is to ask what personality the animal portrays, or to describe the animal's approach to life. Your answers will give you clues about which aspect of yourself, or which issue in your life, is being reflected for consideration.
Unless blue has a personal association for you, it often symbolises healing and communication. It may come up as 'blue for a boy', though, or 'feeling blue' for example.
Coming face-to-face with a person or animal in a dream usually symbolises coming face-to-face with an aspect of yourself or with a situation you have been avoiding. It can mean 'facing up to something'. In dreams you often meet a face up very close when you are close to integrating whatever the face represents into consciousness.
Eyes are windows to the soul and ways of seeing, but can also symbolise 'I': no wonder, then, that we know ourselves more clearly when we are find ourselves meeting 'I to I' both in and out of dreams.
The Questions
Here are some questions the dreamer of such a dream picture might ask to work towards a complete understanding of the dream.
Try these yourself: just give your 'gut reaction' answers to the questions - your answers will surprise you in the insights they deliver. The key thing to remember is, "Don't THINK about your answers - give quick gut reaction replies". Your unconscious will deliver.
If this process can work powerfully for this image, consider how infinitely more powerful the insights are when the image comes from one of your own dreams - direct from your unconscious!
- What is the personality of this cat?
- Where are you in this picture?
- How does the cat make you feel?
- What message do the cat's eyes send you?
- How do you feel about this message?
- What is your reply?
- If you had to be an animal to communicate with this cat, and you weren't permitted to be another cat, which animal form would you choose?
- What is the personality of your chosen animal?
- How do you, as this animal, make the cat feel?
- Feel the interaction of your chosen animal and the cat as they face each other.
- Which situation in your life now does this face-to-face situation remind you of?
- What message do you, as this animal, give the cat?
- Which animal would you rather be: the one you have just chosen for this exercise, or a cat?
- Why?
- What can you learn from the cat?
- What can you learn from your chosen animal?
- How can you blend these two learnings together?
- Can you see an application for this blended learning in your life now?
'Blue Cat' ©1999 Theresa Manzanares
Kindly donated for exhibition at the
Dream Gallery by photographer:
Theresa Manzanares.
Contact Theresa here (TheresaManzanares@bigfoot.com).
|
