Being a post-Jungian quasi-Hillmaniac, I believe in daemons. The energies that visit in so many ways: dreams, hypnagogic events, hallucinations, waking events, random thoughts, synchronicities.
Thus a summer solstice dream: During a work meeting at a conference center I somehow encounter a little boy about 8 years old. There is something wrong with him, I don’t remember what, but my impression of him is that he is brilliant and calm, very mature for his age. An old soul. Then, I visit him at a clinic or hospital where he is lying in bed. The room is also a work room, and he has a computer and things he can use to work and communicate with people. His feet hurt him a lot, and he may not want them to be touched, though when a nurse comes to adjust the sheets he is standing with me, waiting. So, it’s not that he can’t stand and walk. I don’t know what his problem is. He tells me some of his ideas, and that no one will listen to him. When he calls people they are interested and intrigued, but when they find out how young he is, they won’t talk with him. I tell him that when he’s 17 he’ll have created amazing entrepreneurial things, and to keep going. I’m coaching him a bit. As a gift, he gives me a small colored drawing, a plan of some of his ideas. I feel grateful. I say goodbye and leave the room.
Although I have forgotten details, as with most dreams, I nevertheless awake with the feeling that this one is significant. I have encountered an inner child. (I would probably like the idea of “inner child” more if 1) if it were not a misunderstood, therefore trivialized and hackneyed idea or, 2) if I encountered mine more often!)
I’m intrigued that there is a problem with his feet, which, along with meeting a child since I dream so few, is also why the dream seems so significant in the first place. Lots of mythic figures limp, and it is symbolic of magical gifts or the ability to foresee. The gifts are usually attained through painful, sometimes devasting trials. Think Oedipus, who in the end attains the often unenviable ability to see things for what they are. Hephaistos, called the “wise one,” the crafty master blacksmith god who makes Zeus’s thunderbolts, has his feet on backwards both because he was clubfooted from birth and because Zeus tossed him off Olympus (for calling out things as they are; after that he becomes more choosy about when and how to express what he knows, and finds more creative ways to draw attention). Hermes, the trickster god and patron of thieves and skillful liars and conveyer of messages between worlds, has winged feet. As a precocious newborn, he popped out already scheming how to get the recognition of his father Zeus and a seat at the big table in Olympus. Apollo is very jealous of his cattle, so when they turn up missing he’s bound to raise a ruckus with Zeus. Hermes has stolen them, making them walk backward, as he does himself, covering the footprints so he can later innocently recover them and get plenty of attention.
On hearing this dream, Kenton tells me I’m smart but I don’t have “feet,” meaning a vehicle to get out there. People are interested in my ideas, but can’t take them anywhere. The ideas have to be more developed and matured, the plans, perhaps, more schematic. In short, people have a hard time following my thinking. This is a problem!
I notice the numbers 8 and 17 (the latter is numerologically summable to 8). The smarty-daemon is surely telling me that this is the year, and season, to grow and mature some ideas for harvest. And my smarty-daemon is telling me to be crafty about it. Come back, smarty-daemon, and tell me how!
