Chapter 38. Not staying down

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, 

for this thing we call ‘failure'

is not the falling down, 

but the staying down. 

-Mary Pickford

DREAM, Oct 5, 1999 

As I stand in the hallway of the back work/office space of the Bookstore where I am employed, I encounter a smallish gray wolf, crouched near the shipping table. 

The ugly gray wolf is mangy looking, with matted fur, and quietly growling; certainly menacing. 

I know it means to harm me, and I try to coax it to the room just behind me (my boss'es and coworkers’ and my office space).  

I think I have gotten it into the room and close the door, but immediately it is in front of me again.  

I somehow coax the wolf into a heavy cloth bag and step on the neck of the bag to confine the wolf. 

I am standing in the opening to the work area of the back looking into the main bookstore area which also seems to be my church sanctuary, keeping my foot on the covered head of the wolf. 

The wolf is struggling to get out and inching its way further out of the bag; I am seeing more and more of its head. 

I feel that my kids - who I know are in the aisles of the bookstore/church - are in danger, and I call for them to come to me immediately, to get to the other side of the wolf before he gets out and goes on a rampage. In fact, the wolf’s head is almost completely out of the bag and it seems that at any moment he will turn and bite me and go on to cause other damage to me and anyone else in its path.

That part of the dream ends. 

I am then aware of a struggle between my pastor and a wild cat in the church/bookstore floor area. I can’t see colors or markings on the wild cat, but its identity comes into my thinking; it is a cougar. 

I close the door (which has no window in it) and wonder how my pastor is doing with the cougar, and think I better go see if he’s okay (by going around to the front glass doors and looking in), but I don’t have the energy to do it immediately.

I have the sense that there is some danger in the encounter, but not like my pastor will be greatly harmed.

A couple of days after the dream I am led to some verses that help illuminate understanding of what the wolf might symbolize.

Psalm 22:20 “Deliver my soul from the sword, My only life from the power of the dog...”

Phil 3:2 “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision” (i.e., those who put confidence in the flesh, inferred in v. 3). 

Within a week of the dream, during therapy with Maureen, we talk about it, and conjecture that the wolf represents all that is of the flesh in me, and my confidence in my own power (I’ve always “tried hard”). 

But striving has often resulted in undesirable outcomes and has brought me to feeling inadequate and shameful. That wild dog-like striving power within is something I’ve tried to keep contained – put it behind closed doors, bag it, step on it – lest it harm me.

During our session: 

As I ask God to continue to illuminate, He causes an intense ray of light, a consuming fire to burn/purify the wolf.  

From the ashes rises a girl who almost instantaneously grows to a queen. 

The Dee that was watching the transformation of wolf to queen walks over to the queen and steps into her true self, becomes one with her queenly self.  It is death to the wolf, so that new regal life can be realized. 

God, You transform:

 - from inadequacy to absolute adequacy, as a result of my place/position in You, I have a Kingdom to partake in, even reign in because I am seated with You in the heavenlies;

 - from mangy and gray to beautiful and colorful (dressed in scarlet/purple robe);

 - from despicable to desirous;

 - under the curse to totally free from the curse;

 - corrupted to pure;

 - insecure to confident and majestic;

 - mean and menacing to smiling, sweet, warm and winsome.

About the cougar, I determine that the wild cat in the dream represents that part in me that is unconscious/instinctual/spirit, and the pastor character represents the part of me that needs to get it right or be right, to think I have the answers, to be authoritative or masculine (like Gary in his position as pastor), to be like God.

While visualizing an interpretation during the session:

I see the cougar and authoritative me (represented by my pastor) wrestle and roll around, I look worse for the wear; the cougar is unaffected. 

I understand the cougar to be a spirit entity (like Jacob wrestling with the angel/God) and even though I know the cougar to be unequivocally the winner, I request blessing - for him to breathe into me more of himself (like Aslan thawing the statutes...my cold rational mind that has revealed a hard heart needs transformation to a warm soft heart full of SPIRIT).

I want to learn from the cougar.

I picture the queen me playing, riding on, and frolicking with the cougar.

Since the cougar is a mountain lion, we are able to go to ‘high places’ easily.