My dear friends,

To follow current events and concerns, we have just studied five cases - three dream analyses and two case studies - that dealt with ecology, the health of our planet earth and climate events. We were able to see that there is a correlation between the inner and outer world: the processes of psychic life seem to have a decisive effect on the concrete events of life on earth.

To my delight, a comment on my French blog supported this viewpoint.

Before I begin my study today, I would therefore like to thank Catherine for her valuable observations about the rainmakers and the weathermakers. Catherine brought us the remarkable testimony that a Sufi spiritual master wrote about 950 years ago:

"Sheikh Ali Farmadhi (who died in 1078) already stressed the importance of what the Sufis believe, so he wrote:

- The "invisible world" interpenetrates ordinary reality at all times and in different places. What we regard as inexplicable is actually due to this intervention. People do not recognise the participation of this "world" in ours because they believe they know the real cause of the events.

In fact, they don't know it.

It is only when they manage to keep in mind the possibility that another dimension sometimes affects ordinary experiences, that this dimension can become accessible to them.

We have evolved and we finally accept to perceive what was strange to us, to understand that Everything IS already; this Everything is waiting for our mind to use it because it is attributed to us, consecrated to us."

I thank Catherine for her clear and very welcome contribution.

The last five articles have given us examples of advice and solutions to help us achieve this indispensable balance between the outside world and the world inside.

To the women who sought advice from the dreams, the dream advised them to maintain loving relationships,

to respect the different aspects of unconscious life, to honour and nurture natural spontaneous instinctive forces, whether manifested through the senses or through the spirit, to welcome feelings and intuitions, to trust the mysterious forces that rule the earth, instead of taking for granted that it is the conscious that dominates and directs.

Others, men, did not seek assistance from dreams, but chose a mystical attitude of inner relationship with the divine force. The old rainmaker Chinese went into meditation in order to empty his mind and retune himself to the universal force, the tao. General Patton, on the verge of military defeat, not zen at all, addressed God in a hell of a row, in a prayer that was original to say the least, and very cheeky: he asked the God of Armies to make the rain stop, which did not seem to upset the Creator, since the general was granted a sun beyond his expectations.

Still others, men and women, absorbed themselves in processions, in prayers, told their rosary and all these manifestations of piety undoubtedly helped to establish the desired balance in the environment, made the rain or the good weather return.

Ah well, very well.

Very good.

Yes, and then...

... what do I do now, in my neck of the woods, to help the earth, to balance the external forces around me with the internal forces within me?

And I think of my readers.

Do they do, can they even do anything to change themselves internally, and consequently change the environment?

Tricky questions!

Questions that are starting to annoy me a bit!

Yes, my dear blog friends, I am thinking of you, of your daily life, of all your burdens and constraints: rushing to work, taking care of the children and the spouse, working around the house; and despite these multiple and overwhelming activities, despite the tiredness, would you still have time to take care of your partner, and to make love?

And how do you manage in this exhausting period of pandemic and uncertainties, how do you manage to retreat to calm and "to be in tune with the Tao"... difficult, right?

You can always, like Patton, not zen, bawl out the Lord, it might calm your nerves, despite what people think. But then again...

... And after that ?

Enough is enough, the irritation increases, the anger boils over and, not zen at all, maybe you cry out, and so do I with you:

"- But I've had enough! I don't give a damn about the tao! I don't care about stammering prayers, even in the underground, where I can barely stand on my legs because of the exhaustion, or even sitting in my car stuck in the traffic jams. And afterwards, once at home, at the end of the day, I couldn't care less about meditating when I have to take care of the family and I can't take it anymore! And what am I going to do to harmonize stuff and whatnot? But what the hell do I care ?"

My dear blog friends, if these protests are yours, how I understand you! If not, please read my article anyway, which might teach you something. The messages of dreams are so surprising...

I think of you with all my heart and a dream came to my mind that I had interpreted a long time ago. I found it so simple, so beautiful, so comforting that I have already put it on my blog. Here it is again today, in a slightly different presentation. This dream is in fact for everyone, for those who seek to center themselves as well as for those who don't.

It is Loretta who received this dream. Christ appeared to her several times in her dreams.

And she aspires to experience this inner illumination again, this communion with the divine, or in other words, to become one with the Tao.

She received a dream that marked her and she confided it to me. Here it is:

Dream

I'm at my mother's house, sitting in her kitchen. The priest, Father André Marie, enters. I go to the bathroom. When I come back, he's not there anymore. I ask my mother:

- Did you offer him a coffee?

- I'm sorry, she says, I didn't think about it.

Silly story, prosaic dream. What does it mean?

Who are these different characters? Loretta explains:

My mother has been dead for several years. She was a devoted woman who did everything for her 7 children. She always had a lot of work to take care of her family and her house. She didn't show her affection with tender gestures, but everything she did she did with all of her heart.

Loretta immediately recognizes her own maternal side, which puts all her heart into taking care of her family.

The kitchen

In the home, it is the place par excellence where the mother shows her love by preparing lovely tasty dishes for her children with all the work involved. A kitchen is a warm and welcoming place, says Loretta, and it's a pleasure to gather there.

At that moment

the priest, Father André Marie, enters.

Let's analyse this symbol:

- What is a priest?

Loretta explains to me:

- He is a man who helps in the spiritual life, he guides towards God.

- And Father André Marie, can you tell me what he's like?

- He lives in everyday life, he knows me well, he always tells me that I push myself too hard, that I feel too guilty, that my efforts towards perfection and my desire for fulfilment don't necessarily lead me to God. He tells me that I am fine the way I am, that God loves me the way I am, with my imperfections.

I take up this description and ask:

- Loretta, tell me, someone who helps you in your spiritual life, who knows you well, who tells you that God loves you just the way you are, who does this remind you of outside or inside of you?

- On the outside, of Father André Marie of course...

Inside of me? Who would that be? Inside of me?

Loretta seeks, reflects and continues her monologue:

- In me, ... someone, who knows me? ... who tells me that God loves me as I am ...? But... couldn't it be... God?

God is the meaning that Loretta suggests for the image of the priest.

- Well, I said, we have a first hypothesis of interpretation. We will check it out.

I take up all the associations of the dreamer and ask:

- For you, does God live in everyday life?

- Yes, the dreamer answers, he is always present in my thoughts.

- Does he tell you that you push yourself too hard?

- Well, from time to time, like Father André Marie, something gives me the feeling that I make things too complicated to please God.

- To God, are you fine the way you are?

- Who is the one who won't reproach me, if not God?

We have carried out the checks, so the priest André Marie is indeed a representation of the Divine Force.

This is not the first time we have seen the divine appear in dreams in human form. It is even a common phenomenon. I have given many illustrations of it on my French blog. There is, for example, the dream of the American businessman whom God visits. In that dream, neither the businessman nor anyone else noticed that God was there: only the humble servant saw him, she was the one who announced his presence. (1)

Let's continue our study:

The priest enters the kitchen.

Ah! What does this detail tell us? We learn that it is in the kitchen that God chooses to present Himself. That is to say? The kitchen, Loretta told us, is the place where the mother manifests her love to the family by preparing lovely tasty dishes, it is a warm and welcoming place, it is the heart of the home.

And who does God visit?

Here God presents Himself to the devoted mother. It is to the maternal Loretta in her kitchen, who does nothing to seek God: but she shows her love to others by peeling potatoes, baking cakes, doing the dishes, and repeating these little tasks every day, with love and patience.

Thus the divine comes to accompany those who serve others with love and devotion, in the humble daily reality. The dream invites the dreamer to become aware of this.

But Loretta has only one idea in mind: to be impeccable, without fault, she only thinks of going to the bathroom to purify herself, to present herself pure before God.

The dreamer then explains to me that she practices several rituals to prepare herself, to harmonise with the divine forces and to come into contact with them. To do this, she surrounds herself with candles, practises visualisations, concentrating on the image of the face of the Virgin or of Christ.

And after that, this is what she finds out in the kitchen:

When I come back, Father André Marie is no longer there.

So, when she feels pure, she comes back to spend some time with the priest, to meet God, ... he is no longer there, ... he is gone.

So the divine had come to see her without worrying about her purity. As the priest André Marie said to Loretta: "God loves you as you are, with your impurities".

Loretta then asked her mother:

- Did you offer him a coffee?

- Sorry, I didn't think about it.

Now let's see what is ...

A coffee

- It's something you offer someone as a greeting, Loretta tells me.

- And what's it like?

- It's good, it's warm, it makes you feel good.

- Is there anything else you can tell me?

- No, ... I don't know.

What happens in the dream?

Neither Loretta nor her mother offered the priest a coffee. Neither of them welcomed the divine when he presented himself in the kitchen.

Yes, this is the meaning of the image. The dreamer said it right away: "Coffee is a way of greeting someone".

And the divine who appeared in the kitchen didn't get any coffee...

What a great spiritual lesson this little, seemingly silly dream gives us!

What does it teach us?

The fashionable purification rituals, the high aspirations to enter into a altered state of consciousness, in contact with the divine, or with "ascended" Masters, to empty oneself through meditations, to make efforts of concentration, breathing exercises, as proposed by many current approaches which are meant to be therapeutic, that, according to the dream, does not necessarily lead to a contact with the divine.

No, to get there, it's easy, too easy, very simple, too simple, too silly: as Loretta said, God, alias the priest André Marie, lives in everyday life, he accompanies us here below, every day, in our banal life, in this earthly mediocrity, from which we aspire to escape, to try to reach the magnificence of the divine celestial spheres.

However when the divine manifests itself in us within our everyday life, without brilliance, without miracle, without synchronicity, without anything sensational, without vibrations in the body, without trembling, without visualisations, without dazzling images, without Kundalini rising, without ecstasy, ... we forget to welcome Him where he appears.

When he comes to tell us :

"I love you as you are in your darkness and your modest little simple life, with your mistakes, your inadequacies, your weaknesses, that's where I am with you", we don't even offer him a coffee.

And yet!

What good news, my dear blog friends!

The dream has given us a lesson in the "kitchen tao", so to speak.

Now, what awaits us?

With perseverance we will struggle in our daily lives, busy with a thousand small dreary things; with dedication we will have to deal with the thousand little hassles of everyday life, working patiently, with a smile, welcoming the other with warmth, and there ...

Yes, there, even if we can't believe it, even if we want something else, yes, there, we will know that we are in our right place, we will know that the divine is there too, there he accompanies us and loves us as we are.

The altered states of consciousness? The spiritual awakening? The Tao? Emptying oneself? Following a discipline to meditate? Taking special positions? Doing Lotus Flower Mudra with your fingers? Breathing exercises? Some OM? Trying in some way to harmonise conscious and unconscious to save the planet?

No, the dream doesn't talk about it.

What it offers us is to be aware that our everyday life is sacred: God presents Himself discreetly at every moment in our humble experiences, even if our ego finds no gratification in it. Thus by welcoming the divine, by letting Him take His place in our small, inglorious daily life, our inner earth is cared for and our outer earth blossoms.

The Angelus by French painter Millet.
The Angelus is the prayer to which the bells call, in the morning, at noon and at the end of the day.

Next time, I will tell you the real story of a little boy who met God right in the middle of an everyday life incident.

Christiane

Translated by Marianne

French blog:

(1) the dream of the American businessman:

http://christiane-riedel.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/03/30/il-est-un-reve-etrange-et-debonnaire.html

Its interpretation:

http://christiane-riedel.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/04/22/il-est-un-reve-etrange-et-debonnaire-interpretation.html

Illustrations

I would like to thank the artists whose works allowed me to illustrate my blog.

The proposal: painting by contemporary Scottish artist Jack Vettriano.
http://tillart.co.uk/
https://www.jackvettriano.com/

Gandalf: arwen.undomiel.com

Procession: http://www.surinenglish.com/lifestyle/201803/16/passion-holy-week-andalucia-20180316093204-v.html

Mindfulness meditation: https://www.yogajournalfrance.fr/meditation-de-pleine-conscience-quid-pourquoi-pour-qui/

Overwhelming task:http://express.fr/actualite/societe/la-charge-mentale-le-syndrome-des-femmes-epuisees-d-avoir-a-penser-a-tout_1906874.html

Christ Face: "The transfiguration" of the contemporary French artist Arcabas (Jean-Marie Pirot), one of the greatest artists of contemporary sacred art, internationally recognised. http://www.arcabas.com/oeuvres/index.php

Kitchen: https://www.cuisineaz.com/diaporamas/cuisiner-en-famille-1306/interne/1.aspx

Meditation: espaceducalme.canalblog.com

The Priest André Marie: self-portrait of the painter Arcabas (Jean-Marie Pirot), who died in 2018. https://www.placegrenet.fr/2018/08/23/peintre-arcabas-decede-91-ans/203987

Radiant Christ: http://eucharistiemisericor.free.fr/index.php?page=misericorde_divine

The Angelus, painted from 1857 to 1859 by the French artist Millet (1814-1875), famous for his pastoral paintings. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Angélus

This article was published on the French blog on 10 December 2019: http://christiane-riedel.blogspirit.com/archive/2019/12/10/et-moi-je-fais-quoi-3144790.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.