BECOMING LOVE
The Beloved of the Soul is a potent dream image that has shown up a lot lately. This figure is associated with romantic partnership and invites the dreamer to transform through the power of love.
The second potent dream figure last month was what my mentor,Steven Aizenstat, calls the Beloved of the Soul. This figure, who sparks feelings of romantic love for the dreamer, show up as an old flame, the one that got away, someone the dreamer is attracted to in their current waking life, a gorgeous celebrity or as an amalgamation of several people the dreamer has been in love with during their lifetime.
In recent dreams the Beloved has been inviting the dreamer into a romantic union of some kind, from slow-dancing, to love-making to proposing marriage. They have had a clear, purposeful message for the dreamer: “I love you. We’re meant to be together.” An offering of uncensored love that is magnificent to behold.
The twist to this beautiful dream narrative is that in the waking world this figure (or rather their waking-world counterpart) is often tragically unavailable to the dreamer for some reason: Geographical distance, they’re already spoken for or the dreamer already had a relationship with them and it didn’t work out. Sometimes, the Beloved is just a dream figure with no earthly counterpart which can feel equally painful for the dreamer. And yet, the call is to love, to open their heart fully to this figure. This is not a cruel joke played on the dreamer by Psyche. Rather, it is an invitation to become the embodiment of Love.
Society likes to tell us we should look for fulfillment, even completion in a romantic partnership. So when a dream comes with such an invitation to LOVE, perhaps in the form of an attractive person in the dreamer’s waking life, it becomes muddled very fast. It is so easy to forget that the dream isn’t actually about a real-life person, but that it is ‘borrowing’ their image to get our attention. It’s hard not to wonder if the dream isn’t really trying to tell us this real-life person is supposed to be our soulmate.
Really, though, dreams about The Beloved of the Soul invites the dreamer into an inner union where they are loved, nourished and supported from the center of their being and the source of the cosmos. And once the dreamer takes ownership of this inner love, a remarkable unfolding of love occurs that extends so far beyond the object of devotion in the dream.
When working over time to internalize this image, so many dreamers go from disappointment, feeling short-changed by love (why isn’t this person available to me?) to realizing that the love and light they feel in the presence of the Beloved of the Soul is who they are, and that the work, simply, is to allow that love to grow and move as far as possible into all aspects of their lives - not just the area of romance.
Ultimately, the Beloved of the Soul facilitates a profound shift from being the kind of person who asks: “what can I get?” to being the kind of person who asks: “What can I give?” A shift from: “how can I find someone to love me?” to: “I am love, and nothing else really matters.”
Personally, through cultivating that ongoing relationship with my Inner Beloved over the years, I have experienced extraordinary miracles and healing - of myself and others. More and more of us, I think, are beginning to understand that healing and quantum leaps occur through this power of absolute love. This month, by tending the Beloved of the Soul, I have witnessed dreamers fall back in love with themselves, with the world and with humanity. What could possibly be more needed now?
In the kid’s movie Frozen (which is really a new myth for the world - kids and adults) we learn that only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart. The twist to this story is that the True Love is not the love-interest, but the two sisters who have selflessly loved each other since they were children.
I think we have allowed our collective heart to become frozen. It takes about 30 seconds of news-watching these days for me to confirm that theory. But the dreams tell us that some of the most important work we can undertake now is to love. Even, and perhaps especially, if it feels like a risky and non-sensical thing to do. Perhaps only love has the power to break the spell of horror we have fallen under in recent years. It doesn’t mean ignoring the horrors and it is never, ever easy to pry open our hearts. But thees dreams have been coming in so strongly of late and the ongoing discovery for the dreamer has had so much to do with letting go of judgment and expectations and simply becoming the love the world needs. This shift has had profound ripple effects in the dreamer’s immediate environment. I feel sure it has also had an effect on the world.
As Hafiz says: “Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth: ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that. It lights up the whole sky.’
IN CONCLUSION
Owl - an image of wisdom and intuition - and the Beloved of the Soul - the embodiment of Love - are powerful symbols of collective transformation. Both, in their own ways, are asking the dreamers to open their minds and hearts and to connect to the powers of love and intuition - the powers of the heart. This awakening of the human heart seems pertinent now. Once again, it is a strikingly profound, yet incredibly obvious answer to the predicament we’re in at this time. This is not happening sometime in the future. The dream images are asking us to release the illusions of fear, separation and dependency now. They are asking us to step into what TS Eliot called: “a condition of complete simplicity costing no less than everything.” It is a release of what we think we know, and a risk to embrace a still very uncertain future. I think, though, that when we do - and keep doing it - the world around us can become not only just bearable. It can become magical and luminous.
