deep forest

Mr. and Mrs. Gnome, the mute gatekeepers standing permanent sentry at the doorway, graciously permitted me entry into the forest yesterday. Our minds have doorways too, like the one that snaps shut when we suddenly awaken from dreams which almost immediately begin to recede from memory.

Moving into the first layer of the woods, the traveler encounters a dream from the past, the fossilized remain of a 19th-century company town which prospered in a simpler time, when people's lives were organized on a much smaller scale. It's an early dream, like those which flit through our minds when we're still semi-conscious. The main gate into the depths is close at hand.

I've never seen the keepers of the main gate, who hide from view in their short towers and operate the fragile, temperamental mechanisms which permit, impede, or prevent access to the deep woods. I've heard them talking on the radio though, speaking in a cryptic, bureaucratic dialect that reveals as little information as possible.

Yesterday the gate was wide open. With the city, civilization's superego, receding into the distance behind, and the deep forest directly ahead, the mind prepares for the dream more real than any conscious perception, an egoless encounter with what religious devotees call "the soul," and which my late doctor, the famous Herr Jung, called "the collective unconscious."

It's a thrilling voyage, but you must be forewarned that you are likely to encounter your worst fear when you travel into the deepest part of the woods.