It has been a few decades since we entered the Age of Aquarius or the Age of the Feminine. Although one does not hear a great deal about it, it is a fact that is quietly taking hold. As if to give this validity, the world is constantly being inundated with man-made disasters. For those who are spiritually inclined, they can see these natural disasters as warnings.

I imagine the Old Testament was full of such awesome predictions. One might feel we are reliving ancient times and ancient tribulations.

The 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the latest man-made disaster; no one knows how it will end or how much of the Gulf Coast of the United States will ultimately be destroyed. We do not know what this eco-disaster will do to the rest of the country or the world. There are also endless wars where it is becoming clear, to those who are willing to see, that they are also becoming endless disasters and impose endless impoverishment not only on the war-torn countries but on the United States as well. We are voluntarily, with poorly disguised rationalizations, continuing destructive and self-destructive activities. This is almost a duplicate of the end of the Roman era.

It is men, like our insidiously powerful Department of Defense with its multi-armed apparatus, who have engineered the debacle of this civilization, just as the Roman leadership did.

Yes, all the men, and we can be sure that in the end no one will take responsibility.

The downfall of Rome and its aftermath began the Dark Ages, not the Age of the Feminine. I do not believe the current desecration will be followed by another dark age; rather, I think it heralds the Age of the Feminine. By this I mean a time when the Unconscious mind, which contains so many answers, will begin to intrude into the mass sensibility and the mass unconscious will begin to see answers that are true and will see choices that bode well if they are undertaken.

The Age of the Father, the Masculine, the intellect, has given us choices based solely on the limited and selfish interest of the rulers in power. These people in their hubristic fashion will fall, as already portrayed in the famous Greek plays. No one knew hubris and its effect like the Greeks.

First, the problem was that no one really learned the lessons, and second, not until recently has there been a choice, another way to apprehend the truth of the situation—the absolute truth—not a relative value, as some would say. Is there a truth that we can all agree is the truth? My experience says there is.

It is difficult to ascertain when, even in our time, a cataclysmic event begins. By cataclysmic I do not mean an earthquake, a flood, a volcanic eruption or a tsunami. I mean an event that is a turning point in the evolution of mankind. With all of our scientific data can we say that here at this place, at this time, is when Neanderthal man appeared? Or even here is when Neanderthal man utterly disappeared (and by whose hand), or why our next evolutionary step began? In the last hundreds of years scientists of all kinds have burrowed down and clambered up this earth and ocean and this sky and galaxy for information. Yet I do not think any scientific method can take us to the person who brought fire to mankind. When was that? Obviously it changed the face and fate of man. Obviously it was a phenomenon seen by ancient man as thunder and lightning rent the skies causing forests to burn. Clearly we would have to admit that natural events first brought fire to earth, which is a flimsy and clumsy way of saying Source. In all things we copy Source, however vehemently some want to deny it and others want to pervert it.

When exactly did Egypt become a great civilization and when, how, and why did it begin to disintegrate? Likewise with all the ancient cities of Mesopotamia, rising and falling, the question is how, when, and why.

For those people compelled by such questions as stated above, what about our civilization? In one thousand years what and whose chronicle of events of the times will people read? Through whose eyes? We have a few dates and a lot of facts. Today, in the world as we know it, we have a lot of chaos, much intellect but little wisdom. The pity is that the "world intellect" is arrogant and cannot wait to see any answer except its own and looks down on wisdom. It is very much the popular story of the little boy who sticks in his thumb, pulls out a plum and says, "What a smart boy am I." It is very much the story of the tortoise and the hare. The intellect, like the hare, is quick, clever, mercurial. The tortoise, like wisdom, lumbers along slowly in its journey but reaches the end. Wisdom is slow to accumulate but the wiser course to follow. Bet on the tortoise. In our brief existence we are not very good judges of the long haul of an evolutionary spiral and can hardly guess the scope, the dimension of its being.

Man dreamed that change was coming. Mr. Charles Cohen dreamed of it several months ago. After him a number of other patients dreamed the same theme—a paradigm shift is coming. No, it has already come, but not with drums and cymbals. More like the line from Carl Sandburg's poem "Fog", "on little cat feet." Quietly it is coming. Listen to the dream.

DREAM —June 1, 2010

As a student taking a university art class in a crowded city apartment, I dream I’m using elevators and cranes, delivering wounded workers wrapped like mummies to the deck of a ship. On deck one wrapped worker painfully waves to a second one in a row of wrapped workers stood upright like coffins. The second worker is too depressed and weak to even acknowledge the first one’s gesture.

The art class is usually taught by a male professor, but he’s absent. His female substitute spends much of her time in the kitchen. In the dining room I take charge discussing with the other students what we’ll do in our next classes. When I check with the substitute teacher, she doesn’t seem to care what we do. “How many classes do we have left?” I ask her.
“Two.” That’s not much. I’ve got so much to teach about how to make a dream into a work of art—how to access the dream, how to perform, narrate, draw, or sculpt it. It doesn’t matter the medium. How to best convey all this to the class?

ASSOCIATIONS

Dr. B: The wounded workers are wrapped in the mother’s imprint. One of them is so disabled by the imprint he’s unable to wave back to his friend. The substitute teacher is, as you say, your mother. But a conventional person might object that your mother is after all in the kitchen, providing nourishment. What do you say to that?

Patient: The perfect answer is another dream I had—Mother in the kitchen having made steak tartar but frying it, and I only eat raw food.

Dr. B: I guess that would go along with what the female substitute says. She doesn't seem to care what the students or the children do.

The important issue in this dream is to record how he sees the imprint of the mother reflected on her children. Consider the phrase "wrapped like mummies." The person (the child) painfully waves. Another is too damaged to even wave and the telling phrase is "wrapped like mummies," that is, wrapped in their mummies.

DREAM—June 3, 2010

In charge of a ferry boat into the heart of the jungle, the abbess (or is it me, a man?) fires the six or nine monks who are supposed to sail and maneuver the boat out of the jungle to the sea. Everyone wonders why the abbess does that, leaving only herself and a helper to run the ship. It’s a mystery. She explains, “The others weren’t qualified. I didn’t want to jeopardize the ship by having them run it illegally. So I’m doing it myself despite little previous knowledge of the mechanics of a large ship.”

ASSOCIATIONS

Patient: Is this Divine Mother getting rid of those who are incompetent to help her run the world? Is it me getting rid of the dross in my life, daring to steer my own ship with little help?

Dr. B: This dream of the abbess on the boat forcing the six or nine monks off is a dream of extreme importance. It is the first sign that comes from the patient's unconscious that the Great Mother will take over the ship (of state) and all that implies. The monks dress like women but are not. Theoretically they are emasculated. There is no need for pseudo women on this voyage. The helper referred to in the dream represents me, the analyst, for I have been on this mission for a very long time. I, however, am only a helper and that's fine.

DREAM—June 5, 2010

It’s a stop, a barely noticeable gap in the stream of time. It happens along the curve in the road below my friend's house, and in other places around the country. In each place it’s experienced from a different point of view. In a carriage, a speaker stops in the midst of speaking. His listener almost hears the stop but not quite. A third person, an artist, allows the stop to enter his art. No comment is made about it. It’s just a gap, a pause—but everyone feels it. It’s an annunciation.

ASSOCIATIONS

Dr. B: This dream's importance is the first sentence from which I will only quote, "It is a stop, a barely noticeable gap in the stream of time." At the end of that paragraph everyone "feels it. It is an annunciation."

DREAM—June 7, 2010

From my old family home, I speak to my father on the phone before I go to bed. He’s staying somewhere else with his new wife. I mention the Cherry Orchard. He says, “That’s a coincidence as I happen to have here on my bureau a book on the Cherry Orchard. You should take a look at it.”

Next day I’m given a recording machine. Will the few recordings I’d already made about the Cherry Orchard play on this machine as I whiz around the city in my car communicating with my family whizzing around in their cars? My new machine is also an information collector. It’s collected information about the Cherry Orchard. Father: “Yes, I put that book in your room but wouldn’t have told you if you hadn’t brought it up.” I’m learning a lot.

ASSOCIATIONS

Dr. B: The important information that this dream holds is that the Cherry Orchard is fundamentally about change, giving up the old to go on to the new. What is further important about the dream is the father saying, "Yes, I put that book in your room but wouldn't have told you if you hadn't brought that up." The implication is that it is the patient who is looking for the change. The key phrase would be "if you hadn't brought that up."

DREAM—June 18, 2010

Street scene in a Western. Doctorow points a gun at the older man, the father.

Doctorow: Sorry. Don’t like to do this but there’s no choice. Either I kill you or I’m no good anymore.

Son: Till the last moment I didn’t think he’d actually shoot Dad.

Father: I knew it was inevitable. My life was over. I’m glad I did what I did. If this is the consequence, so be it. I’m just glad it’s not me who has to do the killing.

Doctorow: I maneuvered him to just below the curb. His son stopped pleading. Both were silent. I shot into the ground a couple of times, to get them used to the sound. Then I shot him between the eyes, a direct hit. He fell. I wanted to shoot a couple times more but I’d run out of bullets. Guns do that. I refilled my gun. My assistant did too. We refilled several times in the next couple of hours.

Son: I’m back in our big communal house in the country where Mother lives. Pretty ideal situation. We live there in harmony—Doctorow, Mom, me, and our community.

ASSOCIATIONS

Patient: I keep an E.L. Doctorow quote about writing on my desk, but I think in this dream Doctorow (D-O-C-T-O-R ow) is you, Doctor Bail. Why do you kill “the father”?

Dr. B: Killing the father, you know, has to happen. We’re no longer in the Piscean age where God was a man suffering on a cross. We’ve had enough of that. The feminine dominates in the Age of Aquarius. I think Doctorow is me, and I think he probably does represent me as killing the father principle. After all, I have written about this for years in a variety of essays, and my book is all about the mother's hold and what can go wrong and does. I have written about why this happens, the "why" having never been known hitherto.

I think the other shooting in the dream is in addition to killing the father principle, to really kill it—so that the Age of the Feminine can come in, as you've easily represented in your abbess dream.

Patient: Why do you have to refill your gun a couple of times?

Dr. B: In an analysis a patient will offer the same resistance in different forms.

Patient: So you have to shoot it down again and again.

DREAM—August 12, 2010

In a big haunted house, I, the young one, am introduced to the others living there. Apparently everyone sleeps on the floor of the main room. An old man is on a feather-bed next to his wife. “I know you,” he says, as if glad to see me. His wife remarks, “You can’t wait till he lies down, can you?” After the meal people drift off to sleep. There are huge iron pans to be scrubbed and put away in special places inside the big stove. This hard task takes longer than I'd imagined possible. Finally I’m left alone in the house, the wind howling, doors banging. Then the house begins to fill up again. Young people and their parents sit at a table. They work in the city and come home at night to this communal house. A young blond man good-naturedly teases his father. A young male servant asks, “Should I go home?” A couple, not sure, consults another couple. The servant says, “Well, I’ll go in a little while. I’m just trying to save you some money on my wages.” The ghosts in the house make sudden appearances and disappearances.

ASSOCIATIONS

Patient: Feather-bed indicates the past—the house of my life haunted by ghosts of its past. The old man lying on the ground with his wife is probably my grandfather. He seems glad to see me but he’s not really so benevolent.

Dr. B: What does his wife mean by, “You can’t wait till he lies down”?

Patient: Maybe he can’t wait till l die, or he wants me to lie down so he can attack me. Below the surface, my grandfathers weren’t a hundred percent benevolent.

Dr. B: Perhaps you're saying no parents or grandparents are.

Patient: The iron pans to be scrubbed are the analysis. It takes a long time to clean off all that negative stuff. What’s the big iron stove?

Dr. B: Here it’s the maw of the universe where everything is ultimately returned and cleansed by fire. The house filling up again is a good thing. There’s a new breed of young people now. There’s hope.

Patient: I think the young male servant is me.

Dr. B: I agree. What does he say about wages? Why is he trying to save his employers money?

Patient: The wages of sin, the wages of guilt... He’s tired of carrying all that negative baggage. He wants to save himself from it. The couples don’t know if he should go or not—but he’s going.

DREAM—August 17, 2010

Holding a sheaf of papers, I come with friends to the Fifth Avenue entrance of Washington Square Park. To create a mandala, the first step is some of the papers I’m holding have to be sacrificed, burned, to a chant that varies in pitch and pace till the music “all falls down,” like a column that’s gotten too high. This first burning reveals the circle we’re standing in, by the big arch. In the middle of the ceremony, a second burning, not necessarily of papers, reveals the square within the circle. Lastly a third burning reveals the empty space in the center—home.

ASSOCIATIONS

Dr. B: Since this is happening in a public place, this dream is about the world. Fire is a cleanser. I feel that pretty much every institution we have now is so corrupt it will have to be destroyed, the world cleansed of it.

Patient: I’m thinking now it's the first sixteen papers I hold in my hand must be burned. Sixteen in the Tarot is the Tower, isn’t it?

Dr. B: The Tower indicates destruction needed to achieve spiritual renewal.

CONCLUSION

This essay contains a number of dreams that illuminate the sweeping hand of history sounding the coming of the Age of the Feminine Paradigm.

There is little to say except the announcement of the mother principle and the death of the father principle. Here we must remember the dream of the gap, a period in the stream of time hardly noticed. That is how it is coming in, hardly noticed.

Tom Petty sings a song with the words, "What if I could give you a moment of peace?" Listening, your eyes are suddenly wet and your chest is in upheaval. The crowd feels the deep meaning the same as you and roars.

Mankind, for many thousands of years, has not had a moment of peace.

NOTE: It must be understood that when I say the father has to die, I am talking about archetypes. We cannot kill the Great Father or Great Mother. It is strictly a figure of speech. The time of the Father Principle as predominant in one’s life and one’s time has to give way and take a secondary role in the affairs of man.

August 2010