Issue 49, September 2002
The Longest Shortest Journey
©Jane Teresa Anderson, September 2002
It is said that all roads lead to Rome, but which would you rather take, the longest or the shortest road?
Rome is Home, enlightenment, the spiritual blessing at the end of a lesson. Many years ago I dreamed of two paths. One, to my left, was short, steep and beset with broken glass and prickly thistles. The other, to my right, was lush, green, long and winding. I knew in the dream that each road led to the same beautiful place. But which to take?
More recently I dreamed I was on the deck of small cruise boat sailing into a catacomb. In the dream the word catacomb was fitting but there were no tombs. This underground place was a natural formation of white buildings, a city standing in a lake and basking in a light of its own. The silence felt deeply spiritual.
My heart leapt when I saw the Arc de Triomphe standing in the lake. I couldn't believe we were going to sail so close to it. Maybe I could touch it. We drew silently closer. I saw the arc was made, not of stone, but of bone or coral. My heart beat so fast it paused as we sailed through the arch and I reached out and touched the warm bone coral. I knew this was unique. This Arc de Triomphe was the real thing. The one in Paris was a copy. This one, this living bone, this living coral, this natural formation, was the original sacred arch. The template for all others. The archetypal triumph.
Next we stopped off at the Presidential Palace in Washington, also in the underground catacomb. Like the archetypal triumph this palace was constructed of living bone or coral right down to the sofa in the President's lounge room. The President and his Palace in Washington were mere copies of this underground original unique, sacred model. The precedent for the president perhaps.
So, what was this dream about? Had I touched on some kind of triumph or victory? Was this some kind of Homecoming, a prodigal daughter returning after a long journey to the sacred palace, the castle ... the crown?
Before this dream I had been discussing how all life's roads lead to Rome - how each road might present different challenges but how the lessons available for learning are all the same. And yet, is it even about the choice of road? Isn't it more about the traveller? Isn't it about how you travel your chosen road and how you deal with what you encounter that determines the moment you arrive in Rome?
I was struck in my dream by the fact that the buildings were made of bone or coral. Both of these materials appear non-living at first glance, but each are created by tiny living cells. Bone and coral grow oh so slowly over many years, their shape and size determined by the forces they encounter. Each grows to best suit their conditions. Each is a work of living art reflecting a lifetime - a work-in-progress.
Bone, in dreams, often represents your core spiritual beliefs, the basic structure upon which your life is built, just as all the soft parts of your body are built onto the basic structure of your skeleton. In my dream I felt that the underground Arc de Triomphe was the original, the one upon which the Parisian one was modelled, and the Presidential Palace was also the original, the one upon which the Washington one was modelled. In my dream I felt as if I had taken a journey into my inner world, deeply touching the bones of my core beliefs, the beliefs upon which everything I see in the outer world are modelled.
In my waking world I could jump on a plane to Paris, check out the Arc de Triomphe, ponder on its history and symbolism, then fly on to Washington and gaze at the Presidential abode, meeting people and circumstances along my way. A long and perhaps lovely journey. In my dreaming world I went one better - in one short journey I visited the sacred templates, the real, living Arc and Palace and was reminded that my beliefs form the template of all that I experience in my waking world.
Thinking further about my dream I noted that the Arc de Triomphe has a Roman architectural style and then remembered that the Parisian one stands at the centre of a star of avenues: twelve roads lead to the Arc de Triomphe. All roads lead to Rome. I soon learned, on the Internet, that the Arc de Triomphe is a typical Triumphant Arch of the type originally conceived and built in Ancient Rome. Victorious Roman Generals led their armies home through such triumphal arches decorated with homecoming trophies.
The historical twist led one deeper. In my dream the white bone coral buildings arose from a light-filled lake. Or pool. My word-bending mind quipped Arc de Triomphe all too rapidly into Archetypal Triumph. Was I visiting Carl Jung's pool of the collective unconscious where the archetypes reside? (In Jungian terms the sum of all thought throughout time remains in the collective unconscious, a kind of group memory available to us all. The archetypes are like ancient templates we tune into, generation after generation. For example, there is a mother archetype, a king archetype, a wise elder archetype, a wicked witch archetype and so on.)
In my dream I was reminded that the ancient archetypes are not fixed in history but are also living, growing, bone coral works-in-progress and we each are the masters of their sculpting. By our thoughts and beliefs we contribute to and change the collective unconscious itself.
To change the world take the shortest route and start work on your inner templates. It may be the longest journey you ever take but you will arrive in Rome all the sooner.
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