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Issue 12, August 1999A Cast of Thousands©Jane Teresa Anderson, August 1999
It would have made a great cartoon or comic strip. It was Wednesday evening and we were sprawled out on the sofa, just a touch brain-drained after a long day, watching the news on TV. First up, for a change, was some positive news. The camera zoomed in on the last eclipse of the Moon for this Millennium. We stared at the clear picture on the screen, trying to summon up some kind of feeling for the enormity – or otherwise – of this event. Seconds passed as we sat with eyes glued to the television image … while the real eclipse was on show right outside our window! Realising this, we made the supreme effort of getting up and walking all of several paces to the front door to step outside into an instantly changed environment. There above us, glimmering in three-dimensional depth, much larger than the image on our TV, the final, real live-action lunar eclipse of the Millennium was screening against the dark sky just for us. The Earth’s shadow was clearly curved as it spread across the lunar surface, helping me to experience the Moon as a sphere rather than a disc. There is a world (a planet?) of difference between what we know and what we experience. I knew what the picture on the TV was about, but seeing the actual eclipse made it real. I know that the Moon is spherical, but it took Wednesday night for me to experience its fullness. I was so intent on looking at the Moon in front of me that I almost missed the greater experience. The jolt of recognition was electrical: that shadow on the Moon was cast by what was behind me – indeed the shadow included me! Looking skyward I was not seeing the Earth as a physical reality and yet it was revealing itself in all its wholeness, in all its roundness, in all its enormity, through its shadow. Aha! If you’re into dream interpretation you’ll have caught my theme by now! The Moon, being seen most clearly at night, often symbolises our intuition or our dream insight. In the depths of our unconscious night it is too dark to see our deepest selves, or to be aware of those unconscious thoughts and behaviour patterns which rule our life, unseen. In dreams we glimpse little pockets of truth through the darkness, seeing clearly in the moonlight of a dream the gems and treasures we hide so deep within. Our dream mining expeditions help us to unearth our greatest qualities and bring them to shine into and onto our lives. But our most rewarding dream insights frequently come from the darkest and most scary of our dreams. Amongst the wonderful traits and abilities that we keep in the dark for fear of our own blossoming, are also stored what we see as the ‘negative’ aspects of our personalities: the multi-faceted sides of ourselves we don’t want others to know about. These are known, in dream therapy and psychology, as our ‘shadows’. The extremely polite woman keeps her more honest ‘shadow’ side well out of sight to others and to herself – except in dreams. The defensive old man snaps unsmilingly, all the while keeping his vulnerable joyful shadow under wraps for fear of losing control. For every extreme we generally hold a shadow at bay, crouching in the corners of the unconscious but all the time affecting, unseen, our every expression, thought and action. In dreams we come to know our shadow selves and learn to lead the shady side into the light to meet its partner. Through such insight we blend and integrate our opposites to find balance and wholeness. The lunar eclipse reveals the enormity of the Earth through the cast of its shadow, just as our dreams reveal the enormity of our whole self by revealing its cast of shadows. Which parts of yourself are you ready to bring out of eclipse and into the full rounded light of a new Millenium? [For more on the symbolism of the Moon in dreams, see the Dream Gallery – ( Image 15) - , which I wrote on Monday, not knowing that the Moon was preparing for its great media event.] Jane Teresa Anderson
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