Dear blog friends,

Today, I would like to take up the study of a currently very important topic again, that is, the catastrophic state of the Earth. As for me, I tried to put in the dream's two cents by asking a few questions:

- Does the unconscious, who is often so benevolent, send dreams that would offer solutions to the problem of the planet?

- Which are then the dreams that could enlighten us?

- Could we discover in these dreams one or several constants that might enable us to venture a few consistent deductions, or even to venture a potential solution?

Thus, we have studied two dreams : “Threat of a planetary disaster” and “Saving the planet”; these two dreams have led us to advance the following hypothesis :

Could there be a connection between the outer world and the inner world?

Could the quality of our environment on Earth be related to the quality of our inner, instinctive life, which the alchemists called “our inner earth”, whose other name is the unconscious?

Could our outer Earth be ill because our inner earth is mistreated?

So here comes the third part of this original study. We are going to see a dream which answers the question and gets right to the heart of the matter: “How can I treat my cherry tree?”

Circumstances

Carole, a dynamic psychtherapist in her forties, is well aware of the importance of sexual life. She tells her clients about it, and as for her, she is well conscious of the vigilance that sexual life requires. She has a very sound approach of the needs of her body and lives close to her instinct. Therefore, it is not this aspect of her life which concerns her. What does worry her at the moment is the cherry tree in her garden, which begins to wither away without reason.

She doesn't know how to treat it and decides to confide in her dream, which has so often kindly given her advice and precious help. Before sleep, she asks the question “How can I treat my cherry tree?”

And she receives this dream:

Dream: Raspberries and basil

I am in the garden of my next door neighbour. I am picking raspberries which I put in my wicker basket. The neighbour tells me not to take much of them, because he wants to make raspberry jam.

I go home, I realise that I don't have my key, I am suddenly afraid that I might have lost it, especially as I only have one. Then I go back to the garden and find it under the raspberry bushes. I take it and go back home.

Jean-Luc is standing in the kitchen. He's giving me a surprise by preparing a recipe for lunch. He explains me that for this recipe he needed basil.

Now let us analyse the different symbols.

I pick raspberries which I put in my wicker basket.

Raspberries: with their exquisite flavour, these little red berries immediately remind of the delicious pleasures of the female body.

My basket: the basket is a receptacle that can stand for the lower abdomen or pelvis. But Carole also immediately thinks of the french expression “mettre la main au panier”, “to put the hand to the basket”, which means “to touch somebody's butt/bum”, and deduces that her basket, in her dream, not only represents her pelvis, but also her fundament, the more or less vulgar synonyms of which are the rump, the bottom, the ass.

So the basket is an image to denote the part of her body connected to sexuality.

I put raspberries in my wicker basket.

This wicker basket could also have been made of straw. Why then does the dream choose this material? Listen ... Do you hear? “Wicker”, “Osier” in French, wicker that plays with “Oser y est”, “Dare is there”. It's about daring. With the wicker basket, it is a matter of daring to do something in one's sex life.

The image indicates that our dreamer dares to pick the pleasures of her body. She dares to pleasure herself.

The neighbour tells me not to take much of them:

The neighbour represents a facet of the dreamer, who wishes to restrict the picking and limit the delights of autoeroticism.

He wants to make jam: Carole does not want to touch the berries to keep them for later.

So what does the dream mean with these raspberries, these solitary pleasures that should not be picked, but on the contrary left on the bush, and then with this jam that is to be eaten later on?

I then ask the young woman:

- What does that make you think of in your sex life, solitary pleasures that you dare to put in your basket, while forbidding yourself to pick a lot of them, because you have to save them for later?

Carole answers me right away:

- But that's exactly what is happening, I really want to pleasure myself at the moment, because my friend is away, and I often feel the desire rising in me. But I avoid touching myself alone because I want to save myself for him. I want to save, to keep all my loving energy for him.

Let's see the rest of the dream. What does it show?

I go home, I realise that I don't have my key, I think I lost it, I find it under the raspberry bushes.

When Carole gives up the red berries to save herself for her friend, what happens then? She lost her key under the bushes.

What is this key that opens her door? You immediately understood that this elongated object represents the clitoris, which opens the door to love pleasures.

So what does the dream teach us? When the dreamer refuses to satisfy her sexual desires on her own to keep these pleasures to share them with her friend, she misplaces her key, she weakens her capacity for pleasure. Abstinence and lack of training causes the loss of vitality in this exquisitely sensitive organ.

Ten or twenty years ago the subject of female masturbation was still taboo. We hardly talked about it, but the dreams spoke out loud about it. I often saw it in women's dreams.

Someone also got it right, namely the famous sexologist Dr. Gérard Leleu, who in 2005 in his book The caress of Venus insists and explains: "The clitoris is in a way the "key" to female sexuality".

And he recommends:

Let women practice clitoral self-stimulation regularly, for it is the best preparation for sexual union.

Doctor Leleu also stresses that this self-stimulation must already be done by the little girl.

So the famous sex therapist gives women the same advice as the dream.

As for me, in 2006 appeared my book Love and sex in your dreams (Amour et sexe dans vos rêves), prefaced precisely by Dr Gérard Leleu. I studied the subject there in chapters 4 and 5 in particular and I explained several dreams which underline the benefits of masturbation. (Dreams n° 23, 24, 26, 60, 66)

You will also find on the French blog an "astounding" dream:

http://christiane-riedel.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/11/30/le-reve-therapeute-ch-6.html

Now let's come back to Carole who goes in with her key.

Once at home, the dreamer notices that someone, Jean Luc, has come to cook for her.

Who is Jean Luc? He is a gardener friend, he is the one who takes care of the soil and must know how to take care of the cherry tree.

What is the link between these two images?

Thus, when the dreamer recognizes the need to satisfy her instinctive needs, as her body demands, she has in her hands the key which will reveal to her the delight of the senses. And that's when Jean-Luc appears, the dynamism in her that takes care of the garden of her body and prepares delicious food.

Jean-Luc prepared a recipe for me. And for his recipe he needs basil.

Carole hears the word "basil" with two different meanings.

On the one hand, the word "basil" (French: basilic) applies to a plant with broad leaves, which develops a strong, healthy and delicious taste. Wouldn't that be an image of the feminine intimate area?

But our friend also hears the word "basilica" (French: basilique), which refers to a church, a sacred place where the divine whom we come to meet resides.

What does this connection between basil and basilica mean?

With the basil, the dreamer enjoys her intimacy; the joy of the senses then leads to the inner basilica, where the encounter with the divine within is accomplished. It is because one enters the sanctuary of the divinity that sexual pleasure takes its heavenly intensity. Sensuality and spirituality are blended.

Jean-Luc

It is in this perspective that Jean-Luc's first name also takes on its full meaning. We can indeed wonder why the dream chooses this gardener friend while the dreamer knows several of them. And wouldn't there be a fancy wink of the dream again? Let's see.

Luc (Luke) comes from the Greek "leukos" which means "light"; and everyone in France knows that Luc's anagram is "cul", "ass". That there is in the foundation of the "ass" a source of light, this is what is meant in french erotic slang by the expressions "to shine" ("faire reluire") or "to illuminate" ("illuminer") which mean: "to give an orgasm". The pun on Luc / cul (Luke / ass) therefore takes up the teaching given by basil / basilica again.

And Jean? (John) What does this name give if I play and reverse the syllables? "an/je", that is "ange" ("angel").

So, I will calmly deduce that in the foundation there is a force which brings out the light and connects to the divinity. And why not?

Is this shocking? The sexual and the spiritual are the two instinctive poles of Eros, the two sides of the same soul reality. The soul that expresses itself in love is as much animal as it is spiritual. "The orgasm is the experience in the body of the ecstasy which animates the soul." (1)

We have now arrived at the meaning of the dream:

The inner guide advises our friend to allow herself, in the absence of her friend, to savor the erotic pleasures alone. She is also invited to be well aware that, even alone in this jubilation, there too the divine is present, as when she is in the arms of her friend.

Carole can't believe it! For her, this is a surprise! What an initiation!

A question now arises: what does this have to do with the question Carole asked while falling asleep? "How can I treat my cherry tree?"

The dream comes to show the young woman that in order to treat the cherry tree in her concrete outdoor garden, she must take care of her Earth, her body, her symbolic inner garden, she must dare to pluck even solitary sensual pleasures, knowing that the Earth, like her body, is the temple of the divinity.

So, by recognizing the sacred dimension of her body, by healing her inner Earth, her instinctive Nature, she also heals Nature, the Earth outside of her.

And very humbly this is how she can take care of her cherry tree according to the dream.

Conclusion

I have just presented you three dreams, dreams of women where it is a question of saving the earth, of healing the sick earth, the sick tree.

These three dreams seem to insist on the same point. All three invite the dreamers to change their way of thinking: instead of claiming to control their life with ideas that the dream considers false, tyrannical, even destructive, they would benefit from making more room for instinctive and sexual life, which has nothing to do with intellectual cogitations.

From these three dreams, could we allow ourselves to deduce that this would be a general advice?

Could it then be that by caring for our inner Earth, our instinctive Nature, we are also healing Nature, the Earth outside?

But respecting your instinctive life, it sounds really popular and working-class, it's so prosaic, trivial, even "typically French", isn't it? Frankly, it seems too stupid and too simple.

And you will tell me:

"- Come on Christiane, stop writing poppycock! Saving the planet requires enormous interventions at the planetary level, much more important means on a world scale, and not very small intimate and personal means, at the individual level. Do you realise the nonsense you are talking?

I know. But why wouldn't the dream invite everyone, where they are, to try to find the oldest ecology, the primitive basic ecology?

And why couldn't the right activity of billions of beings influence the planet?

What is better?

- Skip school to demonstrate to save the planet? Or :

- Attend lessons and cultivate one's secret garden, under the smiling gaze of the gods who make the earth flower?

Possible correspondence between these moments, when "in a dark and deep unity" the inner earth and the outer earth "to each other respond"?

Wouldn't this be the ABC of instinctive ecology?

Would the dream seem to invite every environmentalist, who fights for the planet, not to follow his intellect and his calculations, but to first honor his body and the force of sensual love which lies within him/her, because this force is the expression in him/her of the divinity who protects and rules the earth?

You know well that the dream does not come to say things which we already know. He comes to show what we do not see.

Christiane

***

Could this caring for our inner earth also help in case of severe drought? Can we directly influence the climate by changing our inner attitude? Don't miss our next study to get the answer!

In the passion for dreams,

Marianne

Bibliography

(1) This quote is taken from Christiane Riedel's book Amour et sexe dans vos rêves (Love and sex in your dreams), Trajectoire editions, p. 10. It was written by Dr Gérard Leleu in his introduction to my book, to present the perspective of dreams, as I have set them out in the pages of this book.

Illustrations

I thank the artists whose works, paintings and photographs have enabled me to illustrate my blog.

I especially thank the contemporary Russian artist Serge Marschennikov, who paints women with such a splendor and refinement I never get tired of admiring.

ill cherry tree: http://greffer.net/

"Basket, raspberries and roses", painting by the English artist Eloise Harriet Stannart (1829-1915): https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/overturned-basket-with-raspberries-white-currants-and-roses-1028

Young sleeping woman: Serge Marshennikov. This painting is part of a series called "Women in love".

https://widowcranky.com/2017/12/02/women-in-love-serge-marshennikov/

Girl with wheat hair, Serge Marshennikov

Basil: http://123RF.com/

Basilica: Inside of Saint Peter's basilica in Rome, Vatican city.

http://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier

Amore e psiche: Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, by the italian sculptor Antonio Canova, 1757-1822. This piece required 6 years of work, from 1787 to 1793 ; Louvre museum: http://adjine.canalblog.com/

Blossoming cherry tree: booksofdante.wordpress.com

Claude Monnet's garden in Giverny from the French painter Claude Monnet (1840-1926)

This article was first published on the French blog on November 10, 2019:

http://christiane-riedel.blogspirit.com/archive/2019/11/10/comment-soigner-mon-cerisier-3143537.html

 Once again, a coffee ! 

Last time I explained how to interpret an object in a dream. In that example the object in question was a coffee.

Today’s dream concerns the same  symbol : a coffee.

Easy ! We’ve just covered that !  True, but surprise… surprise…

Loretta, who lives on a farm pays great attention to her inner life, she aspires to dwell in the light and love of Christ who appeared in her dreams several times.

She strives to remain sinless in a life of purity and perfection.

Recently she received this dream :

Dream

I am at my mother’s place, sitting in the kitchen.  The priest, father Francisco enters, I go off to the bathroom.  When I come back he’s no longer there.

I ask my mother :

- Did you offer him a coffee ?

- Sorry, I didn’t think about it.

Such an ordinary and simple scenario !

Let’s go on to the interpretation. Proceeding with the interview technique, I ask the usual questions.

Questions 1 and 2 : ( Refer back to lesson 2 : Who is the other ? 04/ 04/ 2011)

What can you tell us about your mother, what is your mother like?

Loretta says :

 - My mother died several years ago, she was a devoted woman who did everything for her seven children.  She was always very busy taking care of her house and family.  She didn’t manifest her affection with cuddles but she puts her heart into everything she did.

I recapitulate :  

Loretta’s mother is devoted to her family but doesn’t express her affection with cuddles.

I establish the link with everyday life

I ask Loretta : inside or outside yourself, who does it remind you of : someone who is devoted to her family, who doesn’t express her affection with cuddles?

The dreamer ponders, answers the question and finds the meaning of this symbol “mother”.

Loretta immediately recognises herself.

So Loretta’s mother symbolizes Loretta’s maternal aspect, putting her heart into her family’s care.

But to be sure of it, we must check that Loretta can apply to herself all that she has said about her mother.

Proceeding with the verifications

Loretta recognizes that such is the case. Each detail of the description suits her as well as her mother.

We now continue examining the next symbol : the kitchen

Questions 1 and 2

What is a kitchen and what is it like ?

In a home, the kitchen is the place “par excellence” where the mother prepares good meals for the family. A kitchen is a warm, welcoming place where people are happy to get together.

This is the setting in which

 The priest, father Francesco arrives

Question 1

- What is a priest ?

Answer :

- He’s a man who helps you with your spiritual life, he guides you towards God.

Question 2

 - And father Francisco, what is he like ?

Answer :

- Hesimply lives the day to day life ; he knows me well.  He’s always telling me that I strain myself uselessly, that I feel guilty about too many things and that my efforts to attain perfection don’t necessarily lead me to God.  He says that I’m fine the way I am, that God loves me the way I am, including my imperfections.

Making the recapitulation and establishing the link, I ask :

- Loretta, inside or outside yourself, someone who helps you in your spiritual life, who knows you well, who tells you that God loves you as you are, who does that remind you of ?

Loretta ponders, answers the question and finds the meaning of the symbol “priest” :

 - On the exterior it’s father Francesco of course… inside, who would it be, in me ?

And within me,… someone who knows me ?… who tells me God loves me as I am…? Oh !… Could it be God ?

God. That is the meaning that Loretta proposes for the image of the priest :

Proceeding with the verifications

OK ! that’s a first interpretation hypothesis. Let’s do the verifications.

I go over all the associations given by the dreamer and ask :

- For you, is God present in your everyday life ?

- Yes, he’s always present in my thoughts and my heart.

- Does he tell you that you worry too much ?

- Well sometimes, as father Francesco says, I have the feeling that complicating things doesn’t necessarily please God.

- Does God consider that you are fine as you are ?

Loretta exclaims :

- Who loves me as I am ? Only God !

We’ve proceeded with the verifications and can conclude that father Francesco is indeed a symbol of the divine Father.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen the divine appearing under a human form.  There are examples of that on my French blog :

- in the dream of an American business man in 1926, God was as a business man ( see 30 / 03 / 2008).

- in  lawyer Ruben’s dream in 1990, God was a Jewish Capitalist (see 06/ 09/ 2009)

- in Michelle’s dream, God appeared as a man offering her a flower. 

To refer to these dreams, you can consult the index of my French blog under the word “Dieu” (God).

Let’s get back to our study :

The priest arrives in the kitchen

This is the very place where the divine father chooses to present himself.

It is important to consider whom he is visiting.

He’s visiting the devoted mother, Loretta in her kitchen, who is expressing her love through repetitive humble daily tasks such as peeling  potatoes, baking  a cake, doing the dishes … again and again every single day. 

And so the divine comes to visit those who serve others with devotion in their humble everyday life.  For the dreams, it’s at this level that one can have and feel the experience of His presence.

I go off to the bathroom.

When father Francesco appears, Loretta, instead of welcoming him, leaves him and goes to the bathroom. She is single minded : she wants to be impeccable, her only thought is to purify herself to be worthy of meeting God.

I ask our dreamer :

- Loretta, what does this behavior remind you of ?

Loretta explains that she performs several rituals to purify herself, in preparation for contact with the divine.

She surrounds herself with candles, practices visualisations while concentrating on the image of Virgin Mary or Christ.

When I come back father Francesco is no longer there

But when she comes back to present herself to God…HE IS GONE, his presence is no longer perceptible.

This part of the dream clearly indicates that the divine comes to see her without waiting for her to be pure ; as the priest told her : “God loves you as you are, with your impurities.”

Then Loretta asks her mother

- Did you offer him a coffee ?

- Sorry I didn’t think about it.

A coffee

Now let’s see

Question 1 :

- What is a coffee ?

- It’s something you offer someone as a greeting, says Loretta.

Question 2

- And what’s it like ?

- It’s good, it’s hot and makes you feel good.

- Is there anything else ?

- No, I can’t think of anything else.

How to recapitulate ? What can I say, having so few indications ?

As for myself, my mind is still full of the previous study "Lesson 3" I just completed on my blog pertaining to the image of coffee, where I demonstrated that it symbolized dream interpretation.

So now what do I do with that ? Why would dream interpretation come up in the dream of this woman, who is asking for an interpretation for the first time. 

I feel uneasy. It’s so pleasant when you already know.  Now I’m searching, I’m on the phone, I must find quickly. 

I go over my notes, I analyse the scenario and search for it’s logical deductions :

Loretta said that a coffee is a way of greeting someone, that it’s hot and good. But what happens in the dream ? Neither Loretta nor her mother offered the priest a coffee.  Neither of them greeted the divine who presented himself in the kitchen, in the ordinary daily life.

Yes, that is the meaning of the image.

The dreamer said it at the offset : a coffee is a way of greeting someone. It would be useless to press on with the interview technique to find out more. 

Now let me make a commentary

This little dream contains two lessons .

One lesson concerning dream interpretation :

Refrain from applying a pre-established meaning on an image. 

Remenber : always start afresh with an empty mind, to avoid searching in a wrong direction.

Refrain from pressing on with the interview to get additional multiple associations.  The first ones are generally sufficient.  Overdoing it only leads to confusion.

This little dream also holds a great spiritual lesson

The fashionable purification rituals, the elevated aspirations to reach a higher level of consciousness in contact with the divine or “ascended” Masters, the efforts, the spiritualization exercises proposed by numerous pathways don’t always lead to a contact with the divine as shown in this dream.

Well no, it’s very simple, too simple, the divine accompanies us in our ordinary everyday life, and that is precisely the one we try to escape from, in our wish to have access to celestial spheres.

However when the divine manifests itself within our everyday life, without anything sensational, without miracles or synchronicities, without vibrations in the body or Kundalini experiences, without images or ecstasies, we forget to greet Him. When he comes telling us :

- I love you, as you are in your darkness and your little everyday life, with your errors, your insufficiencies, your weaknesses, that’s where I’m  with you…

…we don’t even offer him a coffee.

Illustrations

I thank the artists whose paintings and photos allow me to illustrate my blog :

Christ, painted in the church St Hugues en Chartreuse by the French contemporary painter Arcabas.

Purity : artbible.net

Mother in the kitchen : fr.dreamstime.com

In the kitchen : tribugourmande.com

Priest : Father Louis Blondel, assassinated this year in South Africa : archives.fr.novopress.info

Padre Tortilla, Honduras priest : nospetitsfreresetsoeurs.org

Paul Newman

Peeling potatoes : supertoinette.com

Dishes : vieuxdeux.blogspot.com

Candle : everyoneweb.com

Meditation : espaceducalme.canalblog.com

Virgin Mary : rayonaurore.jpg

Mercyful Christ : christroi.overblog.com

Angelus or evening prayer by the French painter Millet, 1857-1859.

Gone : painted in the church St Hugues en Chartreuse by the French contemporary painter Arcabas.