The Gifts: Honouring the Yang (Masculine Aspect) within and without

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In this blog post, I want to share with you a large piece I recently created called ‘The Gifts’. It is based on a very strong and healing dream which I received and is done in the style of Vittorio Zecchin, an artist who I really admire for his sensitivity, composition and detail. Firstly let me recount the dream:
 
Dream: The Gifts
I am on a small boat with a group of other women drifting towards an island on a lake. Our boat bumps into a smaller craft, a raft of sorts. Ther are personal items on the raft, a jacket, clothes, food and a fishing line is set up. There is nobody on board though. Where is the person? One of the women in my dream is Norwegian Astrologer Karianne Stenshagen with whom I have connected in real life through a dream group. We land on the beautiful and lush small island. When we go ashore, on the centre of this small island, we see a man through the trees. Curious, we move closer to him and realise that this man is almost dead. He mouths to us for help. We gather around him, protecting him from a group of other visitors to the island. It feels right to respect his dignity and privacy.We call for other hel as we assist him. We think he will survive.  It feels like a healing
 
On waking, I felt restored and felt that the dream held something profound in terms of healing. I mulled over the dream, and what it might be asking? It feels like a masculine aspect/energy asking to be seen, nourished and assisted. That the balancing of the yin/yang energies is being called for both within and without. I meditated on the dream and asked myself if I came across this man, what would I give to him? What gifts would I bring to him? Pure clean water and Light came to me immediately.
 
The next day, I messaged my friend Karianne Stenshagen who was in the dream with me and recounted the dream to her and asked her what gift she would bring and why? She said a Fish - the Piscean energy. The Christ energy.
 
Karianne says
 
 “As an astrologer I often associate characters or themes with astrological archetypes. Its my reference point trying to understand life. 
 
As a dream colleague of Patricia I will give some input on the pisces or Neptune energy. As I think its very relevant for this particular dream. Neptune is the planet associated with the astrological sign of Pisces. We all have a Neptune in our astrological chart, meaning it is a universal archetype. 
 
Neptune is associated with our inner mystic. Your inner mystic is a soul aspect that is connected to a dimension beyond the physical. It is connected to intuition, to dreamtime and to the ability to see beyond the physical world.
 
It is also associated with Christ consciousness. By Christ consciousness I mean a soul love that is beyond the personal. We can experience this feeling when we have a divine or numinous moment e.g. watching an otherworldly beautiful sunset and feeling our being filled with love. 
 
The planet Neptune is currently in the astrological sign of Pisces, from 2011 to 2025. People have during this time period been talking about a second coming, meaning that Christ will return. A way to interpret this is that many of us are starting to open up to the Christ consciousness within. Some would call this moving into a crystalline form. Many you may have heard the term ‘crystal children’. 
 
The point is that if you are reading this the chances are big that you are also on this journey open up to the Christ consciousness within yourself. Opening up to this quality sometimes can take us to our deepest wounds, on the journey to opening up our hearts. 
 
I guess one of the most painful feeling for us humans is loss. Opening up to this Neptune energy is a way of finding healing and comfort, when connecting to this dimension beyond the physical. Neptune can give a feeling of being connected to everyone and everything. Its a reminder that we are all God. 
 
The boat, the island, the fishing line, the need of privacy in the dream reminds me of the quality of Neptune and Pisces; a sensitivity and highly intuitive, transcendental quality.  Pisces is a water sign, meaning its energy is hightly sensitive and deeply in touch with emotions and intuition.”
 
Thanks so much to Karianne for sharing this beautiful insight and for engaging in dream work with me. It never ceases to amaze me the connections that happen during dream time….this otherworldly connection that brings us together.
 
Bridging the dream to my own waking life, I felt that the masculine side within was asking to be nourished. Allowing him voice. For me that looks like having better boundaries, saying something that needs to be said rather than being afraid to and then having it blow up at a later stage! It means taking action on the ideas that I receive and seeing them through into manifestation rather than letting them gather dust. What might nourishing your masculine side mean to you? (Remember, this is not to do with gender, but rather the Yin (feminine) and Yang (masculine) energies that we all hold within us.)   
 
On a collective level, I can’t help thinking with all of the talk of “toxic masculinity” in recent times,  that perhaps less judgement is needed and more nourishment given to the masculine side within each and every one of us, man or woman.  When we heal within ourselves, we begin to see that healing reflected all about us in the physical world.  As within, so without, as above, so below. So before we cast judgement outside of ourselves, the call is to heal and nourish what is inside.
 
Wishing you a lovely weekend ahead!
 
This piece measures 100cm x 100cm and is acrylic and metallic pens on deep edge canvas (so does not require framing) It is available for sale at €1,200 and as always I am open to people paying in instalments as I understand art is an investment. I will also have prints available of The Gifts soon.
 

Karianne Stenshagen, Astrologer