Viva il Papa

i had the strangest dream while i was having my siesta after lunch today.

i was looking at a tall, blond Amazonian woman, dressed so smartly and efficiently, cornering an old woman in frumpy clothes and putting a microphone up to the old woman's face. apparently the Amazon was a media person interviewing the old woman who worked inside the Vatican about certain scandals going on inside the Church.

the old woman was hesitant but the information was probed out of her. after the Amazon left, i saw the old woman wring her kerchief in tears. the kerchief actually dripped water!

then i saw her face change from one of shame and regret to one of firm resolve. she started walking out of the dark alley the Amazon cornered her into and out into the cobbled streets shouting, "Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa!"

i saw an Italian couple inside a Volkswagen get out of their car to join the woman in her chanting. then people all around started chanting and i saw many Filipinos congregating in what looked like a large square, altogether chanting, "Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa!"

*****

what couild have this dream meant?

i normally dream about everyday things and the people in my life, and i have gotten quite adept at interpreting them for my own self-knowledge and self-growth. i have learned that interpreting dreams basically involves 3 levels: the literal, the symbolic and the precognitive.

you start out with any literal meaning/message/warning the dream might have for you in your life. if something rings true inside you, then stop, look and listen and think about what it could mean for your life.

if the literal doesn't mean anything for you, you then move on to the symbolic. usually, when you start out in dream interpretation, you base your dream's symbol on archetypal Jungian symbols, but as you grow more familiar with your dreams you learn to interpret them according to certain very personal symbols. for example, i know now that when i dream of childhood settings--my old elementary and high school, the store my parents had when i was small--i am usually going way way down deep into my subconscious issues and my long ago past. being in water -- showering, or swimming-- usually means emotions for me.

usually, my dream interpretations take on the symbolic, although a recent other dream in my other blog i take to be quite literal, like a message bopping me on the head for my being so dense and for not seeing something so obvious so clearly in the first place.

but this dream... can it be precognitive? (i haven't even read Da Vinci's Code although ive heard of what it says about the Church...) or was i just simply travelling astrally to Italy at noon today?

i have long lapsed in my religious duties as a Catholic, although i was almost a fanatic in my late teens, when i still fervently wanted to be a nun. i have immersed my self quite well in what i later on drifted away from (i actually spent almost my entire teenage years immersed in prayers, devotions, reading the lives of saints and trying to be saintly in all my thoughts, actions and behavior! ... when i could have spent my teens dating and partying and doing all the normal things teens do!!!), so in many ways, i have reasons for my drifting and i don't want to debate them.

but it doesn't mean i have also lapsed in my spiritual growth. actually, my drifting away from the formalities of religiousity has catalyzed the growing and blossoming of a higher, deeper and more universal spirituality in me, so i don't feel like i have "regressed" as much as i have actually spiritually progressed and matured.

still... the dream haunts me.

i won't even presume delusionary notions of grandeur about it being precognitive and with such global implications... i am just concerned about me.

what could it possibly mean to me, in my life right now?