My closest friends are visiting me. Something terrible then happens: My friends are all slaughtered by a group of wild animals (lions, tigers, etc.). The creatures are led by a mysterious black woman. She wears an African-style robe and holds a staff.

I am utterly grief-stricken and weep inconsolably. There’s a feeling of profound loss: how can those so close to me all be destroyed in this way?

*             *             * 

Reflection upon awakening: The black woman seems archetypal: the Black Goddess, an instinctive force of nature mercilessly destroying my domesticated relationships and supports, and leaving me groundless and grief-stricken in the process.

It seems to me now that, if the Goddess is at play, if it is not merely Death Mother but Great Mother Earth who presides, the death would at once contain seeds for rebirth.