Symbols of Rebirth and Renewal

Springtime reflections on dreams and active imagination

Flora and Zephyr by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens

“Any essential change of attitude signifies a psychic renewal which is usually accompanied by symbols of rebirth in the patient’s dreams and fantasies.”

C.G. Jung, Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche (CW 8)

Active imagination¹ notes:

Strange dreams have been finding me these last few weeks. They seem to oscillate in intensity and emotional quality. Some are stressful scenes of rising flood waters, monstrous wind storms that are ripping apart a house that I am in, anguish as I attempt to hold a vulnerable child in my arms, but it keeps slipping through my hands. Then, dreams that bring ease and a sense of peace. I’m cradling a child in my arms, feeling depth and connection. I’m walking through sun-drenched green fields, the smell of spring wildflowers filling the air. My voice joins in harmony with others for a choral evensong after wading through cleansing waters.

I sit in quiet meditation for a bit, setting the intention to visit these strange threads of psychic images. I feel myself descending, inwardly journeying lower and lower. An imaginal scene unfolds in my mind’s eye. I’m standing in a similar green field, the warmth of the sun against my face. I walk towards a cottage at the edge of the forest, to a fenced garden lush with vegetables, herbs and flowers. A figure kneels next to the beds, tending to the crops, she feels like me, and yet not. Her features are similar but there is something markedly mysterious and awe-inspiring about her presence. She reaches out her hand, I place mine in hers. The connection feels like a jolt of electric energy, a pulse that runs from my fingers all the way up my arm.

I’m now lying on the ground, amongst the garden, I feel enveloped by the earth, the plants snaking around me. It’s not a scary experience. I am held, merging, renewing.

Deciphering Symbols of Transformation

Primavera by Sandro Botticelli

“The possibility of rebirth constellates with the breakdown of what has gone before. That is why Jung emphasized the positive purpose of neurosis. But because they do not understand, people cling to the familiar, refuse to make the necessary sacrifices, resist their own growth. Unable to give up their habitual lives, they are unable to receive new life.”

Marion Woodman, The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation

It’s hard to decipher from the dream images alone that a process of rebirth is afoot. It is easy to get wound up in the stressful dreams, they strike at the emotional center with such force, leaving a residue that lingers long after waking. Are they indicative of instability? A warring inner struggle that I’m unable to overcome? Or perhaps of lost opportunity to nurture something emergent?

Taking the words of both Jung and Woodman into consideration, we can step back and look at the interplay of (seemingly oppositional) images as an expression of the shifting psychological factors that are present when in the throes of transformation. Typical symbols of rebirth will be generated within dreams and fantasies. In addition, reflections of breakdown will also arise in the subtle psychic space, urging us to lean into the dissolution of rigid or outdated structures.

With this idea in mind, what may these dreams of mine be expressing? How do the fantasy images from the active imagination play into it?

• The “stress” dreams carry their own themes of renewal, albeit via a force of intensity that feels all together destructive. Flood waters mythically symbolize a cleansing that gives way to redemption and new life. The wind storm is dismantling the home, a symbol of the current state of the psyche where I typically dwell, and perhaps do not want to leave. The baby, an archetypal representation of potential and new beginnings, is close at hand.

• The “positive” dreams provide a counterpoint, that as difficult as the demands of transformation are, we can also feel the resourcing and strengthening of self it provides. The child (or the budding potential) is now held securely in my arms. I walk through abundant, blooming fields, a reminder of the turn of seasons, and how cycles of loss or withering flow into rebirth. Moving through healing, cleansing waters allows me to find a sense of harmony and alignment from a deeply spiritual place.

All of that leads to the meeting with the mysterious soul figure; she who tends the inner garden, the sanctuary where a relationship to nature is honored. Words don’t need to be exchanged, there is an embodied, felt-sense experience to be had. Like a seedling, I am planted into the ground. The weight of the dirt upon my body, the sensation of merging with the plants, I am being sowed into the fertile lands. Through this, I will experience metamorphosis. The shape of my being will change, my roots will grow thick and deep, I will bloom, be harvested, and replanted once again.

Walking the tenuous path of transformation is a balancing act. We yearn to feel the positive effects without suffering the difficult challenges and crossing of thresholds that energize the process. The lesson I takeaway is to welcome the painful dreams and the joyous ones. To honor my resistant behavior patterns and inner strife as a companion on the journey, so they may be more fully recognized, processed, and eventually let go. This is the beauty of real change — raw, painful, enlivening, expansive.

Join the conversation

1. What typical symbols of renewal have you experienced in dreams or fantasies?

2. Were these accompanied by difficult or intense images as well?

3. Which resources do you draw upon to facilitate the processes of renewal?

1. Active imagination is an intentional engagement with imaginal material of the unconscious where we consciously interact with it via focused states of reverie.