Who Let the Gods Out?

—02.02.23—

Present-day Nik here. I’m stepping into the journal flow today without the accompaniment of a past post. The reason is a big, blue dog.

Early this morning I was playing in the snow, with two dogs, in the front yard of a dream. All of sudden they stopped and stared past me. I turned around and there, as if out of nowhere, stood a huge, blue dog, backed up by two or three other giant, but normally-colored pack mates.

He was probably over 200 lbs, perhaps a pitbull mix with a head and body three to four times the size of an average dog. I was the one that growled. I felt scared. I thought, “Oh my God, I’m going to have to fight this dog.” I moved closer but it just stood there. Then it was all too much and I awoke, recalling that this was the second time I’d seen this dog in my night travels.

I recall Joseph Campbell telling the story, in the PBS The Power of Myth interviews, of a blue boy that appeared at a mythical Indian palace to deliver a message of humility to an Indra (a God-King who represents the divine in the field of time) who is possessed of the idea that he is the grandest one and only. When thousands of ants march through his palace in a wide, perfect column, and the Indra asks, basically, What’s with all this?, the blue boy answers, “Former Indras, all.”

At first I wasn’t sure of the huge, blue dog’s message. I view dreams as bridges to the spirit world though, so it had to be something. Was he a mirror? Perhaps the message was: Look at me. I’m an aspect of you. You’re immensely powerful, loyal, and part of a pack of powerful equals. And yet I was afraid of him. Am I perhaps afraid of power, including my own? That may be true. I so often perceive its abuse.

In the Indian myth the message for the Indra (and, I think, for us all) was/is be your fully empowered self; be the full expression of all that you are; honor your role as a representative of the divine in the field of time; be this in love, in equanimity, without judgement.

Simply, I perceive this as: Be fully all that you are. And be humble.

I imagine that’s a tricky thing to balance, to be fully in our own power and to not judge ourselves. To judge oneself as good (or bad), it would seem, puts us on one side of a polarity: good/bad, right/wrong. If we’re good and right, we may see someone on another path as bad and wrong. If we’re just in our own power, however, that doesn’t diminish anyone else’s.

Well, I’m going befriend my big, blue dog, embrace my role as a representative of the divine in the field of time, and work toward balance and humility.

I offer a big thank you to one of my partners for talking through with me what the message might be.

And here’s the Joseph Campbell video. I think he’s quite the story teller.