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A Dream Time Image of Piercing Encapsulated Trauma: Three Crones Receive the Knife

June 18, 2025

(Note this post is a lightly revised post from August of 2019) How can we image the sticky wicket problem of opening to split off complexes, given their/our lifetime of dedicated defenses working to keep them split off? As Donald Kalsched has observed, healing requires the dismantling of the dissociation based defenses which were our survival; one must first cure the (partial) cure. For me this dream provided an orientation to the requirement that the defenses containing an episodic memory based trauma complex must be pierced prior to them allowing direct contact with the split off image and affect charged scene. Here is the dream:

11-29-12 Thursday 4:56: Very vivid, short dream with three of us, all women. I’m one of the them, and I am also myself, observing my woman-self as if standing behind and looking over my crone self’s shoulder. We are standing together in a kitchen and we understand we are dead, or have died, and its not a problem for us. The focus turns to the idea, the recognition of the timing being right, for giving and receiving the knife. This is a ritual process we are in charge of doing periodically. It is somehow vitally important we attend to this for the sake of the community. The woman opposite me pulls out several ancient, long curved bladed knives and with great intention brings one forward towards the belly of the woman on my left, making contact and slowly plunging it into her; the movement is a bit downward; I/we can all feel it going in deeply. Then, slowly withdrawing the blade, she turns to see me, signaling now it will be my turn to receive the knife. I seem to ready myself for this by involuntarily shuddering and leaning first forward, leading with my head/chin pulling up and back, offering my belly, and then, intensely anticipating the knife finding my belly, I can’t help flinching and pulling slightly back. I am struck by how deeply I can feel this wounding, penetrating me to my core, opening me up completely; there is a moment of tremendous surrender and release of pitiful grief as I fully experience receiving the knife. Coming out of this deep practicing of having been pierced, I am silently, through my tears, attentive to what will happen immediately, my turn… I am thinking, yes, this is what we do; this is what it is like, it happens like this to all of us. It is painful. This is the way it is.”

Waking Reflections: At the time I had this dream, my sense was it was a compensatory dream pointing to my ongoing vulnerability to inflation; this offered a radical image of deflation. The intensity and directness of the action suggested I was/am experienced in the giving and receiving of this primary wound. The ritual, anchored by ritual elders, crones in this instance, seemed to be in the service of supporting the community/collective to be continuously aware of the reality of ongoing sacrifices, both conscious, in this case, but also unconscious. A contemporary example of this would be government actions which seem completely removed from the profound impact on the children separated from their parents, without notice.

My analyst at the time, Jerome Bernstein, offered what seemed to me to be a very helpful interpretation. He suggested the crone on my left represented the opening of encapsulated trauma. While I have been able to grasp the conceptual meaning of this dynamic in this regard, the dream provided a direct experience of the relationship between function/purpose of the encapsulation in defending against previously unbearable trauma, in contrast to gaining direct access in the service of healing: this piercing of the encapsulation is necessary for one to access the original wound directly.

From this perspective, this sequence signals progress on the continuum of my personal work to support the deconstruction of my own dissociation enabled defenses. (see Kalsched’s “cure the cure”.)

In order to access our wounds directly for purposes of healing the split one must both suffer and bear witness to an immersion into the original affects. As Donald Kalsched has observed, for this to occur, a deconstruction of the partial cure defenses is required.

One more comment for now: We clearly have problems with inflation at the collective level. At this level, it seems the three crones are keeping the vigil for all who may not be able to choose deflation. At the human, personal and couple work level, how often do we put our partner in the position of delivering a necessarily deflating message? What might be going on here for you?

Categories: Author, Communications from the Dream Time, Complexes and More, Connecting the Dots Series, Dream, Initiation, Learning to Think and Work Symbolically, Soul, Waking Reflections
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Images of Self: Dream Time Encounters with Robert Bly

January 7, 2022

In recognition of Robert’s passing late last year, I will be posting a series of big dreams from my work with Robert and the mytho-poetic gatherings of men he inspired and fed so well. For me, these dreams helped bring me into a more conscious relationship with the Self (see Edinger on the ego-Self axis). In recognition of the Jung’s spirited and courageous engagement with the unconscious through his Black Book journals, I will also be posting some of my active imagination transcripts (AI). This is in alignment with my belief that sharing these dream + AI offerings, straight up without interpretation, has value. I would welcome the opportunity to post some of your Robert Bly dreams here. The most recent of the manifestly (as in Robert shows up as a recognizable figure) Robert Bly dreams came the week before I was to begin a six session series of Embodied Dreaming group sessions conducted by Kimberly Christensen as part of her doctoral work. Here is the dream:

Dream 10.12.19 5:47 AM Timeless Robert Bly & Flying/Arriving

“Lengthy dream sequence ended with me catching up with my wife waiting for me at an outside table at a small restaurant on the ground floor, inner courtyard space of multiple storied, huge, sophisticated department store-like building in New York, or? We had become separated working our way down from the upper floors (4th?) when I took flight, without really giving her notice, literally stepping out into space and slowly flying, exploring, descending in this huge open space, which allowed me to see vast amounts as I dropped down.

Just before, having landed in a different corner of the complex, a black, grey, slightly shadowy corner with a lovely water/nature feature by a descending stairway, I encountered a very old but exceedingly spry, slow moving man, who was walking towards me, having just come down the stairs from a balcony; he was wearing greys and light and deep purples, elegant clothing, sophisticated, timeless, wild hair barely shorn, aristocratic, and, like himself, Robert Bly, with a rock star touch of Rod Stewart; and he looked at me and had this impish smile, and we both slowly passed each other; and I said “not bad!” in a low key, trickster way of acknowledging the impact of his startling presence and his carrying something quite amazing and special. He smiled back at me; we kept walking, and then both slowly turned back for second looks, and I was thinking, ‘No, you/I didn’t need to say “It’s me, Chuck.” We both know who we are. We go way back; how delightful to find him so alive and well, so vital, here, in a cultural/business center.

As I continued up the stairs, a procession of people, all much younger, were slowly coming down the stairs. This seemed to be his group; they were breaking for lunch or something like that; they seemed bright, interested, interesting; men and women; I paused on a short section, against the railing just outside of the opening, and one woman came nearer, stopped; we looked at each other intently, softly; she was very attractive to me; her gaze held me; I sensed she was/would be a very lovely person/lover. Tracking their arrival, coming down the stairs, I put Robert with this group; he, the elder. I had the thought “Oh, this is where Robert has been spending his time; sitting with, being available to this group of next generation creative types; as in, the work goes on, even when unseen; this is where he has been working away, out of the limelight.”

Realizing this corner of the lower level was not where Karyl was, I turned to flying again and negotiated a slow, swooping crossing of the large atrium, dropping down to the ground floor of the atrium, and I spotted her at the restaurant; I walked over to her, coming up behind her, and I could see she seemed a bit upset, and I assumed it was because I had lost track of her, become separated unintentionally, in choosing to glide down/explore. The chair next to her, my place, had a beautiful, circle of large whole tomatoes and vegetable salad plate; her plate, right next to mine, was different but equally elegant; I sensed she was sad, tearful, hurt about me having my disappearance/vanishing?; I said something like “Oh, there/here you are! How lovely, and you ordered for me…as I took my seat. I was aware, and surprised, at my having avoided acknowledging her upset directly.

Before all of that, several other scenes within the same huge interior space, with lots of levels and all kinds of shops, stuff going on; I had been walking along an upper level sidewalk with a man I happened to meet, happily, a patient I felt close to in his interest in bringing his soulful life review to our meetings; we both had experienced psychotic mothers and not helpful enough fathers. We had a bit of a twinship transference going around appreciating each other’s choices in comfortable, classic clothing. His round of work was a meeting with many tears, together, over a number of years.”

I often note any waking reflections (WR) that come to me as I capture/record a dream. I didn’t record any at the time, but I remember immediately connecting with feeling delighted that such a vivid dream would show up at just such a time when I was looking for the dream I would bring to the embodied dream group experience; thinking, this is it; wow.

My next journal entry at 8:57 PM, on the same day, opens with “Time for re-entry and dialogue.” I will post this active imagination experience separate from the dream itself.

And, I must say, it is really difficult to not try to offer some additional information about the dream. In recognition of the category of dream-time-encounters-with-Self, the dream embodiment group process provided a wonderful opportunity to re-enter the moment, in the dream, when Robert and I turned back for second looks. This is the image I want to track through a number of dreams. There is also the compelling experience of how flying works for me in my dreams…

But for now, I want to get more dream material on the table.

Categories: Active Imagination, Author, Communications from the Dream Time, Dream, Images of the Self, Individuation, Initiation, Learning to Think and Work Symbolically, Soul, Waking Reflections
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Waking Reflections on the Great Fish, Loss of Identity, and Meeting the Father of the River Dream

March 23, 2021

Comment: Here are my waking reflections (WR) recorded when I woke up after the dream posted just below (see Close Encounters of the Dream Kind: Battling the Leviathan and Meeting the Father of the River). My practice in recording dreams when I wake up with one is to find a low light space and just begin writing as fast as I can in order to capture as much of the detail, energy and flow as possible. I care about being able to read what I’ve written later(!), but try not to worry about punctuation or spelling at all; I just keep writing and try to record everything that comes into my head, in the timing it comes. I am recalling I believe Jeffrey Raff’s description of Jung recommending this fast writing as a way to support greater access to these communications from the dream time. This is as if a spontaneous active imagination experience, as the ego is involved in sorting and making sense of this somewhat altered state.

Waking Reflections: when I first sat down to write, I was struck with the question of what happened beneath the surface! Popping back up naked and and in a state, in a public place, was uncomfortable, but strangely secondary to the real action. I had a vague sense of apprehensiveness about the possibility this dream be alerting me to the fact the I wasn’t able to land an important fish in my life, and, I lost my identity in the process to boot… and, and, a part of me has been dazed and confused since? Questions about who was the fisher person, in the world versus anima or an inner lover figure drifted through my head. How was it that I was in the position I was in, as if perched on the little craggy island between the channels, and, alert to possibility of diving in after the rod and reel instantaneously? feeling … when it came to describing the scene with the elder who seemed to live on the riverbank, looking after the cache, the name that popped vividly directly into my head was Father of the River, He who has his station of ancient order along the banks of the wildly abundant river, where the fish are mythological Leviathans. The opposites of order and wildness felt very important. Who is this Father of the River in relationship to me, my work. My strong sense being he was/is the deep guide to all my work, the elder, the wise old man, the Father of the River, in psyche, guiding me, Chuck, in relationship to the river of life, emotion, life flow, and all the abundance in psyche, nature, and the work of becoming conscious. He understands being a part of nature and the ways that as humans we cannot control or dominant elemental energies through force.

When recording this dream, Behemoth first came to mind; in researching a bit, it seemed Leviathan would be more appropriate. For now, it seems most accurate to say it was a very large, salmon like fish. In the dream action, I was decidedly pulled under by it and experienced complete amnesia for what happened beneath the surface. *In posting this today, with regards to these initial associations, I would like to do some research about the Leviathan, to see what the spiritual and historical record can contribute; it’s always a question of time and priority.

Before sharing one more vivid association to the last scene, being invited into talk to the keeper of the cache, I want to say my next post here will be my active imagination process in search of answers to the question what happened when I was pulled under?

One more complicated association towards the end of my recording this dream was a dream and the timing of meeting Doug Von Koss while attending a week long men’s mytho-poetic gathering in the Mendocino Woodlands. After waking up about 4:30 AM with a powerful Eye fetish dream, spending an hour outside in the moon light in a round of very powerful waking dream embodiment, I had just finished a pen, ink, and watercolor picture capturing the vividness of the image, when I heard someone singing, slowly working their way down the path leading up to the lodge where I was sitting, alone, with my painting. Doug, on a mission to get a cup of tea, walked right up to me. He took one long look at me, my freshly painted image, and said “something’s happened.” He then invited me to find a time later to tell him all about it. And, to my surprise, suggested if I would like him to paint it on my forehead on the day of the planned major ritual, this was something he could do for me. This was very much like the river elder inviting me into his realm to hear my story. He then also invited me to join his small group of men who would be offering the morning wake up chant for each of the cabins. This ritual became an important part of my waking to world each. How lovely…

Categories: Author, Communications from the Dream Time, Dream, Images of the Self, Initiation, Learning to Think and Work Symbolically, Soul, Waking Reflections

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