Eye-Opener: Memo

What does it mean?

for the past two days, I've dreamt about birds, what could it mean?....
the first night I dreamt about a black pelican attacking me, and in the second night I dreamt that my old pet bird "angel", who was a pied cockatiel. In my dream, she was mostly yellow with tints of white. She was nestled on top of my head, and her claws were gripping my skull. What does it all mean? So I started a mini research, and I found some interesting stuff.

In alchemy, birds are essential. Dictionary.com defines alchemy:

n.
A medieval chemical philosophy having as its asserted aims the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discovery of the panacea, and the preparation of the elixir of longevity.
A seemingly magical power or process of transmuting: “He wondered by what alchemy it was changed, so that what sickened him one hour, maddened him with hunger the next” (Marjorie K. Rawlings).

According to Crytallinks.com birds are representative of spiritual development since "the soul, aspir[es] upwards, fl[ies] free of the restraints of the earth bound body seeking the heavenly light, only to have to return to the earthly consciousness again after the meditation."

But what is odd or maybe ironic is that the birds in my dream are hybrids of these symbols (they too undergo the alchemic process). Let us look at the symbols and consider the meanings of color and the type of birds. The pelican is black and the cockatiel is mostly yellow with hints of white. In the internet article of "The Birds in Alchemy," the soul undergoes through five stages to inner enlightenment. The five stages are:
1. Black Crow -withdrawal - freeing of the from depend ence on the Physical senses
2. White Swan -experience of the etheric body
3. Peacock-astral body consciousness - inward immersion - point of transformation - outward expression integration - purification - transmutation
4. Pelican - using consciously the forces of the etheric body
5. Phoenix- freeing of the spirit from the bounds of the physical

In my dream the first image is a black pelican. This of course is a blend of the first and fourth stage. Black is commonly known to represent death. Crystallinks.com suggests that black symbolizes the initial step toward the darkness of the inner world of the soul. In this case, a death of consciousness needs to occur to begin the "spiritual" process (emphasis mine).

The pelican, according to CatholicHerald.com is a symbol of sacrificial act. Crystallinks.com marks this suffering act as significant in "self" transformation. However usually this archetypal image of the pelican is shown stabbing its breast with its beak and nourishing its young with its own blood. In my dream it was stabbing me not itself (unless of course I was "the pelican" looking from the outside).

If you were to look at a cockatiel and a phoenix, you would see some similarities in their warm fiery hue and in their blazing crest. Crystallinks.com states that the Phoenix completes the process of the soul's development. "The Phoenix bird builds its nest which at the same time is its funeral pyre, and then setting it alight cremates itself. But it arises anew from the ashes transformed... [the phoenix] has integrated his being so much, that he is no longer dependent upon his physical body as a foundation for his being. ("Dropped quote")." In spite of this argument, I disagree that consummation has occurred.

The color of this phoenix-like bird cockatiel in my dream is not completely yellow; it has tints of white. In the alchemic process, the white swan (i know this is not a cockatiel, however it's an archetype)represents the beginning of the whole inner world. However "the initial inner brightness...is often erroneously mistaken for true illumination [thus] this experience is merely a first conscious encounter with the etheric world."

In conclusion , in the past two nights I do not think I went through an initiation and a completion of a spiritual sort (or did I?). The symbols seem to cancel each other out. The color black is death of consciouness hence life of the subconscious begins. The Pelican stabs itself to feed its young so they can live off its blood. In the process, the pelican dies. The phoenix is a chimerical bird; on the contrary a cockatiel is a real bird. Since supposedly, a bird's "domain" is in the element of air which is between heaven and earth (symbolic of spiritual journey between heaven and earth), the birds in my dream never take flight. The black pelican is on the ground pecking me and the yellow-whitish cockatiel is firmly ensconced on the top of my head. The cockatiel is not as wild as the black pelican. The cockatiel is my former pet named Angel, and everytime she tries to fly she ends up landing on my head. Also in my dream, I am placing Angel( a heavenly creature nominally) in a cage (symbolic of limitation and fettered enlightenment). So what? So what do they mean? Who knows? DO YOU?