Cornelia Brunner, Anima as Fate
Dream Sixty-Seven: The Oversized Farmer
“On the edge of a freshly plowed and harrowed field with good, black soil stands a healthy, good-looking, and oversized farmer. As I look at him, I think that more men like him are needed to till the field. In that instant my wish is granted, and several oversized men appear on the field. I realize that there are too many now. The first one could have managed the field alone.”
DREAM SIXTY – EIGHT• 25 1
The farmer belongs to the same race of giants as the woman in the preceding dream. He is an archetypal man.
One is sufficient; more would be superfluous.
He is a superman, but not because he feels superior or takes himself too seriously.
His large size is not expressed in ambition but in the tilling and tending of an earthly field, that is, in the fulfillment of the simplest duties of life.
Significantly, the dreamer no longer identifies with inner figures but conceives of them as the larger ones within himself.
Equally important, someone knows how to till the field in this dream.
The seed is no longer left to the hazards of nature as it was in the dream of the field on the mountain slope (Dream Thirty-Nine).
The sower of the field is not the ego but one who is larger than the ego. and who tends to the simple work of this world so that the field of life will not remain unused.
One worker can till the entire field. Individual responsibility is required, not spectacular achievement.
In an alchemistic treatise titled “Secrets of the Nature of the Large and of the Small Farmer,” the farmer himself is a symbol of the alchemical process. 253
He is aware of the union of the white and red lily.
Dream Sixty-Eight: The Oversized Couple
“From the stony bank of a wild river, an oversized, beautiful, blond man and woman [the farmer had had dark hair] board two small boats made of bark. Instead of using paddles, they give themselves up to the current. Full of joy and happiness, they shoot down the river through whirlpools and rapids. They stand, jump, and even squat, but they maintain their balance and master the wildest currents.”
The oversized, beautiful couple are remm1scent of the two human beings who, after the fall of the Nordic gods, became the parents of a new human race.
From the fire of the world holocaust arises a new generation who surpass their predecessors in size, selfassurance, force and beauty.
The couple succeeds the old gods and heroes.
They symbolize the reality of spirit and soul in the life of the ordinary human being and the encounter between superhuman and human nature.
The two happily balance themselves as they ride on the light boats through the river’s whirlpools.
They are unencumbered, and the boats have neither paddle nor rudder.
They give themselves up to destiny and necessity.
They let themselves be carried by the river of life.
The stony bank and whirlpools, representing life’s difficulties, test their strength and skill. In previous unrecorded dreams, the dreamer was able to abandon his boat just before reaching the rapids where he would have been shipwrecked and drowned.
However, after this dream he is able to cope with approaching difficulties and to pass the tests.
He no longer needs to be afraid of problems that had seemed insurmountable.
The dream’s optimism gives him courage.
In conclusion we add a last dream that deals with the dreamer’s religious concerns.
Dream Sixty-Nine: The Chapel in the Vatican
“During a trip, I lodged inside the Vatican. Before my departure, I began looking for my baggage. Through a hallway I reached a fairly large room, resembling a chapel, where a woman knelt, praying. In front, near an altar, a bright light was burning. The woman faced the light. The entire room was filled with magnificent,
white marble statues of Greek and Roman gods which were turned with their backs towards the entrance. I did not find it disturbing that pagan gods were placed in a Christian room of worship.”
The dreamer has recognized ancient gods in the forces of nature.
Now this last dream reveals a synthesis of the pagan sense of nature and the Christian spirit.
The Anima’s worship includes both Christianity’s spiritual revelation and an experience of the powers within the natural soul.
The dreamer had experienced those powers as both dangerous and helpful.
Now he knows that he must respect and accept them.
If he tries to avoid them, they will avenge themselves through illnesses and psychological failure.
However, once he has become aware of himself and his requirements, and once nature and spirit, consciousness and the unconscious, masculinity and femininity, and present and past are integrated, he finds a new inner peace, a deep understanding of Christian virtues, a live piety, and true, warm human concern.
By our accepting and including the natural soul, the barbarian within us is allied with spiritual consciousness, and both are thereby transformed.
The poacher became the good-looking, strong farmer who tills his field.
The heath-cock became the troll who was transformed into the beautiful, oversized woman with the lovely child.
These dream-figures remind one of the ancient gods who were also oversized human beings.
Since the beginning-when first vermin, then rats, then whores dressed in red appeared to him menacingly in his dreams-there has been a progressive
transformation in the dreamer.
With the appearance of these large, luminous figures, a new path into the future has
opened up.
Concluding Remarks to the Series of Dreams
We have followed the dreamer on the long, intertwined paths of inner clarification.
Through his dreams, we have discussed everything that has affected him: profession, environment, family, ancestors, his own nature, women, the war, his religious education, God. Naturally, many people deal with such problems.
They pose questions concerning God and the meaning of life and draw conclusions in accordance with their world views.
However, only a few appreciate the importance of consulting their dreams in these
endeavors.
The dreamer began his inward path by assessing and clarifying his present difficulties and inadequacies.
He then had an intuitive presentiment of a new goal: the search for the royal couple.
Insight into his ties to his mother and sister was followed by an experience of his own feminine side.
While he explored the light and dark inner figures, he experienced the Anima’s ambivalent aspects.
Only by differentiating himself from the shadow and the Anima’s changing demands and negative moods can a man gain full possession of his masculinity.
On the other hand, he reaches the wholeness of his Self only by allowing the Anima to speak and by giving proper consideration to his feelings.
True spiritual masculinity develops through conscious questioning of accepted world views.
At first the dreamer felt that his relationship with the Anima should not be mixed with religious questions.
He felt the two were different, even opposite topics, but his dreams allowed no such
separation.
At one time the Anima dressed in dark soul-material was hidden in the tabernacle. At another time, to the dreamer’s distaste, a woman officiated as priestess in the church.
The queen was acclaimed as heavenly queen thereafter.
Mary was discussed as a simple worker.
Another dream reveals the Mother Church as the Magna Mater, the great mother of the country and the Christian Anima of the world.
Only towards the end did the dreamer recognize the interdependence and interconnectedness between the dreams relating to his religious attitude and those dealing with his exploration of and dialogue with the Anima.
The Anima mediates the inner images.
What arises from the unconscious is represented by or through her first, and assimilated by male consciousness later.
The dreams go beyond the dreamer’s conscious intentions.
In fact, they frequently act in contrast to his wishes and will (for example, Dream Twenty-Eight, “The Church Collapses,” and Twenty-Eight A, “The Bomb”).
They also anticipate insights which he has not consciously attained (for example, Dreams Thirty-Four, “The Tabernacle”; Forty-Eight, “Four Speeches”; and
Sixty-Three, “End of the World”).
Many pose riddles which are solved only by subsequent dreams ( for example, Dreams ThirtySix, “Brandy”; Thirty-Seven, “The Transition”; and Fifty-Nine,
“The Flying Hart”).
The dreams lead towards a widening of consciousness (for example, Dreams Eleven, “The Heath-Cock”; Twelve, “The Bathing-Suit”; and Thirty, “The Eagle”).
They demand a radical reorientation of consciousness ( for example, Dreams Twenty, “The Woman-Commander”; Twenty-Five, “The Runner”; and Fifty-Three, “Imprisonment in the Rocky Cliff”).
A few aim at restricting the unconscious ( for example, Dreams Eighteen, “The Anima Warns Against the Eleven Crows”; Nineteen, “The White Bull”; and Fifty-Four, “The Taming of the Anima”).
They also aim at the differentiation of consciousness and at a genuine Christian attitude which can only be attained through slow, patient growth (for example, Dreams Thirty-Four, “The Tabernacle”; Forty-Six, “The Convent with the Throne Room”; and Sixty-Three, “End of the World”).
Finally, they offer the foundation for a new spiritual orientation ( for example, Dreams Thirty-Three, “The New Church”; Thirty-Four, “The Tabernacle”;
Forty-Seven, “The Round Church”; Sixty-One, “The Church of the Magna Mater and the Mother’s Home”; and Sixty-Nine, “The Chapel in the Vatican”).
C O N C L U D IN G R E M,A R K S • 255
The dreams brought about profound discussions of the darkest, as well as the highest and holiest, contents of the soul. Gaining insight and knowledge is an important part of the journey, but realizing this insight in everyday life is more important and difficult.
One must continually struggle towards this realization.
All .too
often it is at this point that one fails.
Once the symbols of the Self-the circle, the royal couple, or the quaternity-approach, there is a presentiment of an inner consolidation.
Such inner wholeness, however, must prove itself in actual life.
Only through continued effort can one overcome recurring relapses and deficiencies
to actualize this wholeness.
Relapses which follow truly important, inspiring dreams are especially disappointing, but Jung’s comment may serve as consolation:
The proficient person will constantly find, either because of unfavorable circumstances, technical errors, or seemingly demonic in cidents, that the completion of the process is hindered, and that he, therefore, must begin anew.
Whoever attempts to establish his security in the everyday world by following an analogous psychological journey, will have similar experiences.
More than once he will find that what he has achieved falls to pieces in the collision with reality.
However, he must tirelessly examine the inade quacies in his orientation and the blind spots in his psychological visual field. Just as the philosopher’s stone, with its wondrous powers, has never been actually produced, so psychic totality will never be reached empirically.
Consciousness is too narrow to ever comprehend the full inventory of the soul.
We will always have to begin again.
The adept in alchemy always knew that it was ultimately a matter of the “res simplex” [ the simple thing] .
Human beings today will learn by experience that the process will not pros
per without the greatest possible simplicity.
The simple, however, is also the most difficult. ~Cornelia Brunner, Anima as Fate, Page 250-255
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