Every year I attend the International Association for the Study of Dreams conference, which holds a Dream Ball on the last night. This year it was held in Berkeley and I waited until the day before I left to solidify my costume for the Dream Ball. Although I had an idea as to what fragmented dreams it would include, I still felt that I needed a specific dream to share when called up to the stage for the costume judging. So I chose a dream that solely focused on a symbol that was shaped like an ice cream cone, that I drew in my journal. Above the dream I wrote “The Hanged Man” from the Tarot since the main aspect of the dream seemed to be related to that card. When I chose the dream I really thought it was from last year, between the annual conferences. Now I see that this dream was actually from two years ago, the day after my wedding anniversary. Below is the dream:

“Inversion” July, 17, 2012

I was in this restaurant and we (my best friend, others and I) were acting for this “reality show”. I was looking at this silver item/symbol that had a lipped edge, and was talking about how I always wished that I had the foundation symbolized in this image/item. I spoke about how it stood for a solid foundation of consistency and stability as a child. Then I went into this long analysis of it (none of which I remembered upon waking). At the end they (those in the room) said that I needed to relook at the symbol, because it was inverted for me. I had all those qualities/things in my life now – I had brought them as one unit/roof under me. The symbol represents all of the family/friends/experiences/etc – the pieces of me that I bring together as one in the memories I have with them. Together they are my roof, my solidified upside-down foundation.

The first day up in Berkeley, I reconnected with a friend of mine that I have not seen in four years. He and I became fast friends over rocks, crystals and deep spiritual conversations. In the course of the last year, he had been creating geometric sacred altars with beautiful stones in response to his higher calling. After seeing pictures of all the altars he made, I drew the symbol from my dream, although incorrectly, down on a scrap of paper to ask him the name/meaning of the shape . In order to ensure that he could see the angles on the shape, I circled them all. He instantly picked up the pen and wrote down “Kabbalah” and “Tree of Life”. Then mentioned that, “the tree has roots in heaven”. Immediately I told him the dream and explained that all of this time I had never realized what the symbol was shaped like.

Over the course of a few days, I began to put the pieces of my costume together. It was a mixture of fragment dreams on cut outs of puzzle pieces and copied images of Tarot and Dream deck cards that I had pulled for myself over the course of the year.  I also included an oversized image of the Wheel of Fortune (Oswald Wirth version) in the center of my body, as it was the Tarot card that I felt most related to the dream costume. I had felt as though I was the creature depicted in the card, as various pieces and parts of creatures that together did not flow as one (lion’s behind, spinx head, giant goddess boobs, angels wings and holding a sword). So I too wore a tail, wings, a crown, exposed cleavage and held a sword, along with the puzzle pieces and Tarot cards to visually show how I felt inside at this time in my life. Unsure as to whether or not I was going to share the “Inversion” dream, since it felt disconnected with the costume, I decided that if I were to share it then I would put the symbol on the back of the oversized Wheel of Fortune.

The next day I was drawn to a workshop that include the word Alchemy in the title, and attended it solely based on that one word. During my second master’s, I took an Alchemy course that focused on the Rosarium Philosophorum reliefs which honed my attention on the Major Arcana of the Tarot in a whole new way. That course, along with my introduction to Tarotpy, was a huge inspiration for my current work. With that said, in the second half of the workshop a large synchronistic moment took place as Dr. Ed Kellogg presented on how the Major Arcana of the Tarot fit into the Kabbalah. Although I have seen something similar to this before, his version made significantly more sense then others that I had seen by dividing the deck in half, instead of cramming all the cards into one tree. He also made reference to the movement of the Tarot going up and down, which connected the part of the dream that stated my foundation was the opposite of what most people have experienced. I mean wow, hard to be ignored – the dream, the costume, my thesis, my life’s work, all coming together in another’s vision. To be honest, I did not spent much time, if any, learning about the Kabbalah in relation to the Tarot. And here I am planning to turn my thesis into a book, getting ready to re-emerge myself into the research to do so, and an amazing avenue of information has opened up right in front of me.

The next day I cut out poster board and glued the dream shape on the back of the Wheel of Fortune card. That evening my roommates and I were running late to the costume contest and had the synchronistic fortune of running into Dr. Kellogg at the elevator. I said to him, “How synchronistic that you and I should run into each other as this costume represents the ‘beast’, as you would call it, in this card”, showing him the Wheel of Fortune image. He simply responded, “How synchronistic”.

For me, the “beast” at the top of the image of the wheel signifies the more surface or non integrated version of ourselves – which has very much been my life over the last year as a mom, a professor, a dreamworker and a Tarotpy practitioner. And in the last second before taking stage, I choose to refrain from sharing the symbol and instead focused on the piecemeal creature that is me.

A few days after I returned home, another synchronistic moment occurred. I blindly broke a piece of chocolate from the bar into the a close resemblance of the shape that I had drawn in my dream journal – again reminding me of the greater connection in life. Perhaps it was meant to influence me to continue on, through this lull in which I have questioned my actual purpose in life. Or perhaps it’s to remind me that there are bigger “plays” happening around me, ones that I am not aware. Whatever the case may be I knew that I had to share the sweetness of this overall synchronicity.