Violence

I went on a silent retreat. I was surrounded by stillness, quiet, and peace.  I felt very calm. On the fifth night I had a dream.  A close friend of mine is in the dream. She’s in her early seventies.  In the dream she has a small dog.  She irritates teenagers in the neighborhood when she walks the dog.  So they killed the dog.  She complains to them about the dog.  They killed her too.  The dream consists mostly of me talking to this group of teenagers.  They are telling me what they’ve done.  No remorse, just cold, hard, no emotion. “She’s just an old lady.  What’s she to us?  She got in our way.“ One less old lady hobbling down the street. That’s it. That’s the dream.

I awake, shaking and distraught. It was just a dream, yet it was as real to me as if it had actually happened. “She’s just an old lady so kill her, murder her”?

I’m on retreat. Why am I having dreams like this? My impulse is to just push it aside and go back to stillness, quiet and peace. Yet something draws me to do more than push away the unpleasant and grasp for the pleasant.

I choose to enter the dream by working with all parts as if they are parts of myself.

First, I notice myself in the dream. I’m oddly passive. I seem to be disturbed at listening to the teenagers but not overly upset.

Next, the puppy, young, alive, energy, creativity, has its own mind, enthusiasm, youthful.

My friend is an older part of myself, cantankerous.  I don’t like that part so much.  I don’t like watching myself grow older.

And the “gang”.  My gang rubs out, murders, with complete, cold, hardness and no recognition of what they do.  How can it be?  Do I really do that to myself?

I let go into feelings from the dream.  It rips my insides out.  The loss, the anger.  Just the look of utter disdain in their eyes, their words, their manner.

Do I, at times, really murder my contribution to life and my aliveness as my dream suggests? I surrender to the process of deep mourning.

I move into the energy of the puppy. I experience a moment of deep appreciation for that part of me that is so alive, vibrant and creative.

To look deeply into how violence manifests in my own soul is, I believe,  essential if I am ever to fully approach violence and conflict in the world.

Through this encounter I find a deep faith in the unfolding of the process. There seems to be some force in this world, when I trust it, that brings me ever closer to really living my deepest values. Life is about more than an endless struggle to push away the unpleasant and grasp for the pleasant.