Moira the personification of inevitable fate.
Jung Seminars Children`s Dreams Notes from the Seminar
In this connection, we might refer to a Greek concept that is found in Plato’s Timaeus.
According to it, the Moira, the personification of inevitable fate—the mother—is in the center of Earth.
The iron axis of the world, around which the whole cosmos is revolving, goes through her womb.
In this dream, sticking the staff into the fire also means an act of procreation.
It is interesting that the iron staff as crozier is also the symbol of Osiris, as it is the attribute of the shepherd or of the male deity in general.
So here the image of an animus figure is reduced to a simple symbol of the creative and procreative force, similar to what happened with the mother image.
The dreamer now has to sit for ever, forever on the staff, on a board, that is.
When we look at the drawing made by the girl, we are struck by the similarity with the above-mentioned mandala figure.
Here the tree of life is rendered in the form of a Tau cross.
Although the bird on it is certainly a fertility symbol of phallic meaning, we think we can find a connection in the two drawings, which would point to the hanging on the tree of life, a motif which had already appeared in the previous dream.
Another important symbol is found in a very old Egyptian sign, the “key of life.”
It has the general meaning of stirring up the dead to eternal life, and later becomes the overall sign of the Babylonian goddess Astarte, whose name is translated as “She Who Gives Life.”
Astarte stands in close connection with, and is often identified with, the divine goddess Ishtar, an Asian goddess of love and war.
Her animal is the lion, and she is often depicted as standing or riding on him.
In the previous dream, the lion was interpreted as an unbridled, desirous, and instinctual force.
Ishtar too represents a wild, unbridled instinctual force, uninhibited desire.
She transforms the men she desires into animals; in the Gilgamesh Epic, for example, she unleashes the heavenly bull against whom Gilgamesh has to fight.
The only one she really loves is the young man Tammuz, mentioned earlier.
His death induces her to go on a journey through the underworld.
In doing so, she falls into the hands of Ereshkigal, goddess of the underworld, who wants to keep Tammuz for herself and takes Ishtar prisoner.
Only after she is soothed by a gift from the Earth goddess does she set both of them free by pouring the water of life over them, thus reawakening them. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Pages 95-96.
