Joy with the Elf Boy
This dream came to me after six years of doing this dreamwork therapy. I was moving through my traumas in this life, and being shown difficult scenes from past lives in my dream. I am learning to let the panoply of my feelings wash over me, mostly my pain and grief. But this dream shows how the true joy is flooding into my psyche. Here, the boy comes to me, a live elf-boy who holds the potency of life, the libido, the immediacy, and the joy of just being alive. I really had not known joy until I did this dreamwork. For me wild, crazy experiences, drugs, alcohol, and promiscuity, were the source of exhilaration and joy. But I was deceived by my shadow self. Pure joy is simple, and it is not always boisterous or wild. Here, the tickling elf-boy descends to let me return to my boy-self, and rediscover the autonomy of my own desire.
Dream: I am in a bed, in an unfamiliar house. I look up at the ceiling and see an elf puppet hanging off the overhead light, about the size of a beagle. I watch as the puppet comes to life and drops slowly down on top of me. He lands gently on my stomach and starts tickling me. We jump around in the bed together, playing tag and tickling each other. I love this elf boy and want to play with him all night.
Dream: (from the Elf boy’s perspective)
Oh boy. Here comes Jackie. She seems young again and full of life. I want to jump on her and tickle her. Here goes, but I’ll drop down slowly from this light fixture. Yeah- she is smiling at me with a light in her eyes. I put my hand in her armpits and she starts giggling. Then she tickles me on my tummy and I can’t stop laughing. Then I start running around on the bed and she tries to catch me to tickle me some more. I do a somersault and jump over her head. She screams with delight. This is the Jackie I love- free, joyous and fun.
Here, my dreams are aligned- the boy child archetype who plays with me in my dream feels what the younger me feels- free-flowing joy and immediacy. I come to life because he is full of life. His energy is contagious. The elf brings the potency of the archetypal boy to me, as I begin to discover my own boy-self. I tickle and am tickled, I jump around with the elf boy, and I am overflowing with the juiciness of these antics. As the elf boy comes to life, so do I. He brings me the active energy that I am just beginning to discover in myself. It feels like bubbling lava erupting in my heart and spilling out to others near me.
As a child, I knew my boy self. I loved working with my hands. I collected insects, put them in alcohol then labeled and pinned them on boards for display. I spent hours in the woods watching animals, wading in creeks, and collecting crayfish. At five I watched a snake swallow a frog for hours. At 25 I got certified in auto mechanics, and loved working on cars for a number of years. As a young mother living on a farm, I always preferred fixing the car, or splitting wood to cleaning house. I am still fascinated with how machines work. My dreams are now bringing me back into feeling my soul-boy energy: physical, immediate, joyful, and always yearning. The boy is the masculine aspect of the soul, full of potency and life.