SONGS FOR SOPHIA CD OF CHANTS

Song for Gorilla came from a dream that I had right before I attended a Dream Seminar in 1994 at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA with Dr. Stephen Aizenstadt, called Nature Dreaming: Learning the Craft of Dreamwork and Therapeutic Applications of Dreamwork. I had the opportunity to work my dream in front of the conference gathering. A large gorilla played prominently in the dream, a gorilla the size of King Kong. However, he emerged deep from the darkest ocean depths to reach up and drown a statesman in full (shining) armor who was just being released from an underwater prison himself. The armored statesman had been wrongly imprisoned for his political beliefs. I felt a strong connection to and love for this man and so his drowning was very disturbing to the dream ego. There was a sense at the end of the dream that I must inform the family of his death.

I woke up distraught and feeling terrified of the gorilla. However, in relating the dream in the conference, Stephen had me “call” the gorilla into the room through the imaginal realm and see what wisdom he might have for me. What I discovered was a real sadness in the gorilla and what he conveyed to me, with tears in his eyes, was a line from Mary Oliver’s poem, Wild Geese: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” I was encouraged to spend time with my Gorilla throughout the next few days of the conference, and I did. I also made a Sea-gorilla mask, which I took home with me.

In working with this dream, I came away with a sense that my love for and acceptance of my body/animal nature had long been repressed and had perhaps been controlled by the strong armored animus who also had been repressed through imprisonment, but who nevertheless had to die and be transformed. I wrote the chant in honor of my dear dream gorilla for his gift of insight and whose presence I still feel strongly with me.

Here’s the whole poem:

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

Love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

Are moving across the landscapes,

Over the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

Are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination,

Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

Over and over announcing your place

In the family of things.