Balls of wool, stinky cats, and disgruntled corpses: an awakening to chance.
Written by Manny Mac (Mantra Books)
I dreamed that I was carrying a dead lamb under my arm. It was supposed to be taken to the peace ceremony. I was perplexed by this strange dream, but the symbolism of the sacrificial lamb gradually revealed its meaning. A few months later, I was caught up in a major investment scam and feared I would be the scapegoat and face serious legal and financial consequences. At the same time, my daughter was suffering from a life-threatening eating disorder. She was wrestling with her inner demons. A messy ball of yarn, a smelly cat, a disgruntled corpse: things both imagined and real, otherworldly but deeply intertwined with her life. My family was turned upside down. In the midst of emotional turmoil, a series of coincidences occurred in my dreams and in my waking life.
A strong oceanic spiritual experience came to me without warning. I was having trouble staying afloat. I learned how to cultivate resilience and inner peace to help myself and my daughter. A practice I have learned is focusing. It was started by the late Eugene Gendlin, a psychologist and philosopher at the University of Chicago. Focusing is the process of coming into contact with a special type of internal body consciousness called the “felt sense.” It has become a convenient way to help myself and my daughter Constance who is suffering. During the healing process, we had to deal with three terrifying images in her mind.
The first photo was of a sick kitten soaking wet in a dark, smelly sewer. The weakened cat was afraid of light and hid in the darkness. Constance even felt a burning sensation in her heart as a beam of light shone from the ditch.
The second image was of a messy ball of wool on her chest, wet and sticky, with blood oozing from putrid pustules, thick and dark. This image often came to mind when she was in suffocation mode. Foul balls became tangled and sometimes swelled to the point of bursting.
In the third scene, Constance falls from a rocky mountain and lands on a small rock platform, where a corpse lies on a ledge. The corpse grabbed her arm and spoke to her in a squeaky voice. Constance saw and smelled the rotten corpse, rotting to the bone. Despite her intense fear, she did not push him off the ledge. She felt pity for him.
These three scenes have stayed with us forever, reminding us of the hopelessness of being in a dark tunnel with no end in sight. When they appeared at various times over the past few years, the images were accompanied by intense somatic reactions. When the wool ball first appeared, Constance remembers gasping for breath from the heart-wrenching pain. As she recovered, these distressing images lay dormant and no longer plagued her daily life. But they were still there. In this book, I have detailed the cleansing rituals and focusing sessions in which I re-experienced and transformed these images in order to free Constance from her psychological bondage.
Concentration is also a tool for interpreting dreams. For the past few years, I have been attending monthly workshops with a group of Focusing friends to work on my dreams. Dreams are not complete in and of themselves, but a source of energy that pervades, expands, evolves, and propels us forward. After several years of practice, I am now more sensitive to dream symbols and able to incorporate them into my waking life. The sacrificial lamb appeared in one dream and then appeared again and again in other dreams and in my meditations, both as a tangible object and as an inspiration in my spiritual journey. The most important thing is that it becomes a symbol of the duty given to me as a messenger of peace and that I put it into practice in my life.
As a social scientist, I was skeptical about things related to spirituality. Before retiring, I taught qualitative research to doctoral students for over 20 years. This time, I turned my research lens to my own predicament: why strange images were inundating my family. They were elusive, but they had a huge impact on us. I wanted to understand the meaning of these unlikely coincidences that occurred in a short period of time. Among them was a fortune-telling that he gave me using the I Ching, a Chinese classic called the I Ching. A certain scholar gave me that fortune-telling. The fortune telling told me specific things about my situation that she didn’t know about. Gradually what was said in my reading turned out to be true and I wondered why ancient texts were so relevant to me in modern times.
I was focused on new experiences as a researcher. I have found in my experience that an intermediate space is within reach, where the physical world and the liminal world are synchronized and time and space are fluid and flexible. With practice, you can understand and realize the meaning of seemingly random coincidences embedded in this expanded space beyond your physical existence.
This book is a diary of my efforts to understand the coincidences I experienced, accompany my daughter on her long road to recovery, and find a spiritual home for her life on earth. My family has overcome greater challenges than I thought we could handle. we will survive. Peace is firmly established here and now. Kindness is all around me, and its certainty is embedded in Constance’s cheerful smile, my wife Teresa’s gentleness in holding my hand, and the abundance of grace given to me in times of trial.
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Unrelated images such as a messy ball of yarn, a smelly sick cat, and a disgruntled corpse all come together by chance to bring the author’s family to the brink of victory or defeat. He faces legal threats from massive corporate fraud, while his daughter battles a life-threatening eating disorder. We walk with them to the edge of the mysteries of life, where dreams and our lives are serendipitously intertwined. We step into a liminal realm where trauma is healed, suffering is remade, and sacred and profane symbols emerge.
Social scientist and author Manny Mack explores spiritual experiences with an anthropological rigor rarely seen in spiritual books. Written with the sophistication of a seasoned researcher and the earthy sensibilities of a spiritual seeker, this book offers a unique combination of first-hand testimony and rigorous investigation of dreams and meaningful coincidences. Captivating prose and paintings cultivate the reader’s sensibilities in a way that soothes, awakens dreams, and enlightens spiritually.
Balls of wool, stinky cats, and grumpy corpses: Awakening to chance
Written by Manny Mak, available at Mantra Books and wherever books are sold.
Book link: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/mantra-books/our-books/wool-ball-smelly-cat-cranky-corpse
Source: Spiritual Media Blog – www.spiritualmediablog.com
