I would like to thank editor/co-writer of this blog, Christian Gerike, M.A
Lidia Adaman-Tremblay is a wise woman, a Crone. The path of life for a woman, is to travel through all the stages of the Goddess: the young and fertile Maiden, the nurturing Mother and the wise Crone. A Crone is a woman who has been through hell and back, and on her travels she has gained secret knowledge.
The Moon is connected with the Goddess. The Moon grows each month, from young maiden into full moon-mother, than diminishes again, to vanish out of the sky, only to be reborn again after a period of complete darkness.
This blog is a Mindfunda Book review of a dream journal.
MY NIGHT LIFE: 2016 Dreams and Meditations
Lidia Adaman-Tremblay
Lulu 2017
This is a very personal book, with notes of Lidia her dreams. I will pick some very interesting dreams to show you the Four Features of dreams of the Crone. Let me know in the comments if you agree with those 4 features of the Crone. Did I miss one?
The Crone and invisibility
Older women are considered to be a nuisance. In the book Aging and Becoming, written by Susan Scott and Susan Schwartz, there is a moving story about the way women, while aging, start to feel like they are invisible.
Of course, we are all emancipated, but we do miss male appreciation once we get older. It is difficult to cope with because, on the one hand, you don’t want to be bothered by the lack of male attention. You are grown up, independent and not interested in flirting any more. You are way beyond that.
But on the other hand, there is this nagging feeling in your heart. You feel like an era has gone. It has slipped through your fingers and you did not even notice that time was of the essence.
This stage of a woman’s life is very well portrayed in this dream of Lidia:
“The Maiden is being initiated into womanhood. The public ceremony proceeds (I remember little of this), and The Maiden is covered with a long white shroud, as though she is being prepared for a funeral.
Throughout the whole procedure, I am starting to feel angry and upset. Part of me stands aside and observes the ritual, which is gentle and beautiful. This part of me recognizes the importance of each element. This part is also observing what is happening within me, the rise of these emotions, and is asking, “Why? Why is this happening?”
People ignore me and a murmur of approval wafts from them. No one seems to even see me or react to me, and that one small part of me which is still objective is shaking its head, asking me what has caused this breakdown (page 119)”.
As the Maiden is being prepared for her grave, she is unveiled. Youth is gone, there is nothing more to hide now.
Ha! You dear reader are going to notice how I just explained the invisibility of the Crone with the unveiling of the Maiden. But that is alchemy!
By disrupting the process, the crowd shows so little respect for the Maiden that the Crone needs to get upset. The Crone needs to help the Maiden. This is one of the initiations a woman has when she enters the kingdom of the Crone.
THE CRONE AND Animal Energy
Coming of age, each woman has to have acknowledged and balanced out her animal side. Here is a dream that clearly shows this balancing process.
“Suddenly, all kinds of animals appear before and around me. Thousands and millions of them. They part around me, and I see them all – rhinos, elephants, every type of bear, dogs, wolves, foxes – they come at me in waves – now the lizards, snakes, scorpions, – more and more of them rumble, slither and fly around me.
I hear a voice from somewhere saying, ‘And thus will balance be restored’, as though it’s an old Cecil B. DeMille spectacular movie with the voice of God ordering Noah or Moses. But this voice is different – it’s neither male nor female, or maybe both. Not thundering, but gentle and caring. After hours or centuries of seeing this rush of animals, the last one I see is a stick-like light beige insect on the hide of an elephant – or perhaps my wall. I recognize that nature, from the trees to all the animals have been given their right to exist, pushing humanity out of its arrogance into the folds of natural existence, pushing us off our self-made pedestals” (page 276).
The animals indicate so many aspects of ourselves. Here I see the enormous number of animals indicating three things:
- within us we have an infinite amount of characteristics that are innate to our being and come to us through the process of having evolved from “lower” stages of animals, characteristics of being animal that are still with us;
- the characteristics within us can all be represented by animal, the power of the lion, the grace of a bird, the agility of the monkey, the cleverness of the fox, animals represent all these and more within us;
- all these aspects of ourselves are also present in the animal world and we are connected through our inner states to those animals in the outer waking world, each animal representing a different characteristic for which they are the archetype for and which have a corresponding symbol within us;
The animals come in waves, to me that is a clear indication that this dream refers to inner energy, what are your thoughts about that? What does a certain kind of animal tell you about your connection to the outer world?
The crone and THE teaching of isis
Isis was the Great Mother Goddess. She was celebrated in Egypt. In their book The Myth of the Goddess, Anne Baring and Jules Cashford write:
“Isis was the greatest goddess in Egypt and was worshiped for over 3,000 years, from pre-dynastic times – before 3000 BC – until the second century AD, when her cult and many of her images passed directly on to the figure of Mary” (page 225).
And Lidia shares a phenomenal dream about Isis. Such dreams tell you that you have embraced the Crone.
“I am with a group of women. We are all dressed in long white gowns, and are in a large open space under the blazing sun. The earth beneath our sandaled feet is parched and dry, but with a deeply etched labyrinth clearly seen. Some of the women are setting up candles and incense at certain points within the Sacred Circle.
Candles glitter like diamonds, the incense smoke curves into a sphere, making me heady with the rich scent. And I take my first steps along the twisting pathway…” (page 26).
Ah, don’t you love that dream? The white gowns of rebirth, the labyrinth of life. We all wish to arrive at that stage of our life that we can see our path as a labyrinth, to know that we are on the right path, a path that leads us unerringly to our Center and then back out.. To walk a labyrinth, you must have intuition, reason and trust. What a gift, the Crone has to give!
Crone and animus
The last Feature of Crone Dreams is the way they embrace animus energy. The animus is the male-part in any woman. I have created a Mindfunda Movie about male and female initiation in our current society. It features two films about male initiation: The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction and two films about female initiation: Girl Interrupted and Pan’s Labyrinth.
This dream of Lidia gives a perfect example of this inner male/female balance.
“I’m with a group of people who are so androgynous I become quickly confused as to who is who here. Their fluid sexuality presents each with equal male and female aspects. One of them approaches me and says that we are to be married. ‘Oh really,’ I think to myself, ‘since when?’ Nevertheless, I know deep inside me that this is true, that somewhere back in time, we two were pledged to one another.
We walk away from the rest of the group. At first this person presents himself as solidly male. Dressed in a white suit with a burgundy shirt, he walks with a gait and speaks as any man would. For a while I don’t ask any of the questions that are crowding in my mind, but then, after a while, I enquire, “Are you truly a man?” (page 195).
That is one of the cool things of getting older. Genderbending is a hobby of many elderly people. We just don’t care so much anymore about being gender specific.
Conclusion:
PRO
- This book is best used as resource of dreams. A dream well that allows you to see what kinds of different dreams there are compare themes to their your dreams;
- The author provides no interpretations to the dreams, this is a chance to try one’s hand at seeing if there is an obvious meaning to the dream itself, in-and-of-itself, without connecting to anything in the waking world. In short, can a dream stand entirely on its own and still have meaning? And, what if these were your dreams? What feelings, thoughts, emotions, body sensations arise as you read through the book? Treat this book as a collection of poems and short stories that, when woven together, are the tale of a year in the life of a dreamer;
- Lidia is an exceptionally gifted dreamer, who often remembers more dreams each night. In that way she is an inspiration and an example to everyone who wants to be inspired by dreams.
CON
- The author provides no context for the dreams, particularly lacking is mention of why the book was written and what the purpose of it might be.
- I missed a prologue to this year-long diary of dreaming would be nice. What is Lidia hoping to accomplish by sharing her dreams?
- I missed a brief discussion at the end of each month about events that transpired, dream connections to people and events during the month, and some mention as to how the dreaming of that month affected the author, reactions she had to the dreams, and how the dreaming interacted with the waking world.
- Because I missed a prologue, I also missed an epilogue to sum up what this year of dreaming meant and felt like, and especially how it felt to put together a year’s worth of dreams in a book, and then present it to the public dreaming audience.
Mindfunda verdict:
6,7/10
Do you like this post? Feel Free to Share
Our Current Courses (Click to find out More)
Sign up for our free e-book: 10 easy ways to instantly improve your dream memory
Hi Susanne, A handbook for Crones written by Crones, now that would be perfection! I would order a copy tomorrow! Thank you for another one of your rich, reflective book reviews, as always. Great dreams! I can’t get enough of the word “Crone” at the moment, as I find myself moving ever closer to this beautiful stage of womanhood. Over a year ago I decided to finally stop colouring my hair … my long-awaited “Croning” years I tell myself have irreversibly begun. Blessings always, Deborah.
Hi Debrah, so nice to hear from you!
It might just be a thought to unite all of the wisdom: Lidia, Susan, you, maybe Elaine Mainsfield and Jean Raffa as well. All those wise word crafting ladies…
Did you know that I stoped dying my hair after Trista Hendren wrote about it in her guest blog about mother Earth: https://mindfunda.com/earth-2/ I had not realised before how much that hurted our earth..
Thank you so much for your generous words, and for the other link Susanne. I’m so pleased I stopped poisoning the earth too. I only follow a handful of blogs, so am glad I discovered yours. I hope the day finds you well. Warm wishes, Deborah.
Thanks Susanne for sharing aspects of this book with us. Context would have been an added useful feature I agree. But I like the idea of reading it as a collection of poems or stories in which we could find resonance which could trigger memories of dreams the reader may have had and forgotten.
Lidia’s dreams are pretty powerful … I like the one’s you picked out to show how fertile the older woman can be, even if she has long passed her child bearing days. And of course, your little cartoons are so spot on!
Hallo Susan,
Thank you for your comment. Having such a good dream memory as Lidia has, one might get lost in the wilderness of dreams. Lidia is a source of inspiration by sharing all those dreams. Wouldn’t it be a fun project if women like you, Lidia and other Cornes could work together, writing the world’s first Handbook for Crones? Filled with initiations, incubations and ways of dream interpretations!