Mothers & Others; Reflections on a Nightmare

Last night I had a disturbing nightmare, which is not all that unusual. What stood out though is the continued echo of this dream in my mind all morning. The sense that part of it was for me to work with personally, but some of it was to be shared with others.

But I didn’t know how to do this. The last thing I want is to contribute to the fear, misery and despair so many of us are already feeling. I had to sit with this for a while. And have a slight tantrum with Spirit, that went something like this:

Angela: Why do you bother to show me this S**t that I can’t do anything about? WTF? Oh, nice! Fear and Despair first thing in the morning! Yep, I’m really going to be able to get anything done today! Not winning bigly Spirit! Not. Winning. Bigly!

Spirit:__________________________-

They usually don’t rant back. I think it is because they are classier.

In time I came to understand that there is something of this dream to share with others, if not all of the details, and that it is a reminder for myself and anyone who wishes to listen.

So here it is…..

I am out in a city with many people around. ICE agents swarm in and start arresting people. They arrest my mother and take her away somewhere to be deported. I am terrified for her but then I think ‘maybe I can just move to Italy and be with her’ and then realize I will not be able to afford this and am overcome with fear and grief. I am told my mother did not complete some kind of form having nothing to do with citizenship but as a result she is being deported.

The scene changes, people are trying to hide now from ICE, and I see a dear friend, a man who voted for Trump. Two agents grab him and arrest him.

“What the (expletive) are you doing? He is one of you guys! What the (expletive) is wrong with everybody?” I yell at them, identifying him as a Trump supporter, not an ICE agent. It doesn’t matter, they carry him away.

Then I am in a subway. A woman in a lab coat holds a rat. She is there to test the rat’s blood for something in the name of ‘sanitation and security’ and instead of simply drawing blood with a needle, she kills the rat and sprays the blood on her hands to gather her sample, then discards his body. There is a group of people standing by. They are unconcerned. One of them makes a joke and several laugh.

In waking life there is little chance my biological mother will actually face deportation or even arrest. But that is not the point. The dream is reminding me that someone’s mother, someone’s father, someone’s family, is facing this. The dream is a reminder that the label of “other” is an illusion being used to foster divisiveness and exploit those who are truly our family. The illusion of separation, ‘otherness’ is being used to alienate, scapegoat, exploit and treat those who are part of our human- and nonhuman (the rat) family as disposable commodities.

If we are all one, if we are connected on a soul level, if we are all energy, that means my mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, are being torn from their families.

It means that the ideological divide- another increasingly popular form of creating ‘otherness’ is also an illusion and that the promise of safety at play when we identify with the aggressor in social situations, to protect ourselves and our social privilege, will not save us.

There may not truly be an ‘other’ but there is a machine. Also represented in the dream, ideology and bureaucracy are represented by the woman in the lab coat and the ICE agents, who represent the dangers inherent in placing tasks and following orders above conscience and the our sense of humanity and spiritual/energetic connection to others.

They represent the framework of the machine that is self serving and cultivated to devour anything and everyone standing in it’s way.

Hence the arrest of my friend in spite of his ideological connection to the agents (bureaucracy).

The blood on the hands of the woman in the lab coat, and those who stand by watching represents our potential response Antipathy, seeing where there is blood on all of our hands (because there is no ‘other’) and becoming numb to it, or seeking amusement to hide from the pain and fear.

There is another option as well.

We could finally wake up.