I am in a gathering of yogis, and a voice introduces a couple of people to the group, and then me as yogi rajma. The yogis are all mature and seasoned, and very familiar with the vast terrain of the divine human.

As I woke up from this dream, the name was opaque to me and didn't ring any bells. I only thought it sounded vaguely like a (Sanskrit) yogi name.

What struck me the most from the dream was the depth of maturity of everyone there, and also that I - somehow - was not out of place at all. Nobody questioned by presence there, including myself, as it was obvious to all that we were all intimate and familiar with the same terrain. This is quite a contrast to my conscious view of myself which is (a) not at all a yogi (don't practice any conventional forms of yoga), and (b) as not very seasoned or mature in it either. The dream may be telling me that this is yet another identity I use to box myself in with, and it is time to allow it to soften, to open for some other possibilities - at least in the future.

Although all of the yogis are deeply familiar with the same terrain, and are deeply intimate in that way, there is also a wide diversity in appearances, flavors and approaches. I am a wild Milarepa type yogi, or that was at least my background. I didn't know what my flavor would be now or in the future.

I went to our monthly diksha group meeting (we are doing other things right now) and asked a Kundalini Yoga instructor there for help with the name, Rajma. She didn't know either at first. I mentioned that I thought it may be a composite, Raj-ma. She then noted that raj means royal. And ma of course means mother. The Royal Mother. Or the divine feminine.

And this, of course, makes perfect sense. The divine feminine. The fertile darkness. The luminous blackness. Spirit filtered through the belly center. Yin. Feminine. Nurturing. Deep silence. The coolness to balance out the fire of the yang awakening, Spirit filtered through the head center. The nurturing and immanence to balance out the impersonal and transcendent.

Since this shift, there has been a sense of deepening or maturing in a different way - a beginning, with some glimpses of the depth it may lead to.

Right now - I am one led and guided by the divine feminine, the fertile darkness - allowing hangups and knots of this human self to be composted, and the luminous blackness shining from within everything.

Dreams often correct - or balance out, or expand the embrace of - our conscious view. And this dream certainly does so. It is very difficult to think of myself as a yogi, and even to think of myself as one guided, right now, by the divine feminine, is quite a stretch (in spite of everything I have written about here.) So the dream invites me to soften those old identities, and make my conscious embrace a little wider.

It is funny that I was a wild Milarepa type yogi in the dream. That part at least fits how I see it, as an unintentionally slightly wild guy not following any particular traditional path strictly. Although again, that is not what I consciously would have chosen for myself. I would be very happy and comfortable with a particular traditional path, if I only had found one inclusive enough, where I am located, and where the cultural gulf was not too wide... (I was happy at the Zen center, until a sequence of events was set in motion so I ended up - against my deeper wish - moving to another state.) But it is at least open for something else now, and in the future.

Labels: dream, endarkenment, fertile darkness, luminous blackness, yogi