Our cat Bella is a spirit-animal, a healer who gravitates to
the person in the family most in need. Last night I dreamed that she climbed
into a space between a ceiling and some acoustic tiles, and then fell through
and hit the floor, injuring herself. Nancy and I watched impotently as she then
dashed frantically about the room, desperately and unsuccessfully seeking
relief.
I take this as a comment upon our son Jason’s having been recently
diagnosed with MS. Whatever serenity we may have felt, whatever fragile sense
of control we had been maintaining, has been shattered by the impact of this
undeniable reality. Bella is the one with the habitual aura of dominance and
control. She lords it over the other animals, and picks which humans she will
grace with her favors. Now, in the dream, we behold her wounded, lost, and
terrified, just like us.
In this respect Bella is like Christ, the one “in whom all
things hold together,” as the Letter to the Colossians says, and “making peace
by the blood of his cross.” But as yet there is no peace, no reconciliation, no resurrection. There is
only the impact, the harsh truth, the loss of equilibrium, and the fear.
It is as if we were with Christ at a time of confusion,
agony, and self-doubt. We have no choice but to embrace the confusion, and the
dread. We dash back and forth between the various emotions, and also the
shocked numbness which is no-emotion, the forerunner of what could become a
soul-killing depression, and despair.
It is that last condition from which this dream offers hope
of healing. In the dream, Bella serves as prophet to “heed her warning, and
forsake our sins.” For now, it is imperative that we, I in particular (because
of my aptitude for detachment/intellectualization/spiritualization/etc.), feel the
impact, express the emotions, live in the confusion, face the fear.
Whatever healing we are to know will proceed from there, as
will whatever resurrection Christ has to share with us. And Bella, as usual, is
napping on the cable-box.
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