-IBIS-1.5.0-
rx
imagery
liver and eagle
psychospiritual approaches
definition
image: Close your eyes and breath in and out three times, letting your entire mind and body relax deliciously. Continue to breath comfortably as you let your body remain exactly where it is and as you allow your dream body to roam. At first, you may not feel that you are progressing very far or very swiftly. Yet, as you continue to let go, you find that you really do go, and you realize that you can wander widely as if in a dream.
As you drift ever more distantly from realms of self youve long known, into areas of being you've rarely explored, you find that much that you take for granted fades, and the experience of being yourself shifts constantly, like a drifting smoke. Gently, lazily, you find a growing enjoyment in the broadening of focus that seems to come naturally with the vague, but pleasant drift of self, far from a more tightly held sense of home.
There must be any number of things to feel, see, hear and experience this far from the beaten path. Yet as if by accident, you realize, that youve come upon an odd and rather disorienting image of yourself.
As you gaze with curiosity upon this twin, you also discover that you feel completely unconnected to the ground, without support or orientation. Upon reflection, you see that if this image really reflects a truth about you, then this feeling may explain itself; for the you that you see is held high above the ground, chained with massive irons to a rock, which in turn, is anchored into the side of a gigantic Alpine cliff.
As the implications of this spectacle swirl through your mind, it seems as if you had seen or heard of something similar a long time ago, but somehow you dont seem able to hold on to the facts. It is just at this moment that you discover that if the you you are seeing is really you at all, it is not the only you that exists in this time and place. The point of view from which youve been looking at this figure fastened to the mountainside sweeps forward, darting at your own body, with the speed of an eagle diving at his prey. The shocking reality is that you are an eagle and you feel driven to rip through the body before you and pluck out the liver and carry it away.
As your beak plunges into the flesh, bound, as if in an offering, to the rock, your own pain and satisfaction intertwine in a tangle of agony and satisfaction impossible to describe. As the blood-dark organ is ripped free, you discover that your awareness extends into a sensation that you are the abused and severed liver as well.
The confusion is horrifying and embarrassing. How is it that you are of three minds centered on the drama of a single organ in your one and only body? How can this entanglement be pried open and laid straight? "Who," you say, "am I really? And what can this possibly mean?"
The situation is unfolding too swiftly for thought; action alone can resolve this painful struggle. Quickly, aware of yourself as the liver, not waiting to have details as to why it has taken place, you forgive your eagle self for the ravagement. In less than a heart beat, as the body-self, you welcome the return of the liver, as if it had voluntarily gone out for a stroll. Finally as the fierce and powerful eagle-self, you drag the body loose from its chains, and allow it the constant support it needs to climb safely down from the cliff to which it has been bound.
As your pleasant feeling of peace returns, and you find your slightly battered awareness mending and drifting gently back toward the place of fully awakened consciousness, you find that you feel somehow greatly gratified and amused, feeling wonderful and complete about your adventure. And as your eyes flutter open into the normal world, you realize that many questions remain unanswered, and that perhaps you will find the answers either here or in another dream.
(Chavez)
uses: liver conditions, esp. cirrhosis; also, anger, frustration, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, liver dysfunction, cirrhosis, hepatitis, muscle spasm, dysmenorrhea, premenstrual syndrome
footnotes