A gun appeared in my guided meditation last week and I was afraid something horribly wrong was about to happen. It was a small, black handgun, what they used to call a “Saturday-night special.”
I owned one of ‘em when I served as a training officer in Ft. Polk, Louisiana. I believed I had to get one because I was living in another country — “way down yonder” some two hundred miles outside of New Orleans. It felt like the Old Wild West to me, a city boy living in a trailer park with another second lieutenant off the army base.
I bought the gun one lonely weekend. I remember walking into the gun shop, looking at a couple handguns, and then choosing one that cost around thirty dollars. I don’t think I had to sign anything or even show identification, let alone have a waiting period before the purchase went through. Within minutes, I became the proud owner of the .38 caliber revolver.
Although I was qualified as an expert with a rifle, I never really liked guns. We never used them in North Philadelphia, although some of the old head did create and fire zip guns in Faimount Park.
I kept my pistol empty and hidden away most of the time, especially after Nicholas, my favorite son, was born and grew up in our abode.
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My meditation journey, however, brought visions of shootings on the street as well as nightly television broadcasts of the massacres in churches and in elementary schools. I was afraid of something so deadly re-appearing in my life.
All of a sudden, however, the metal gun turned into a paper mache gun. A toy gun that could be used as a decoration or something one could put on display, if something like that turned them on.
Put paper gun into a writing!
(See http://innerlighthc.com/)
I mentioned this gun to my good friend Christina, who was guiding the meditation. Christina runs the Inner Light Holistic Center in Gilbertsville, PA, where I meet weekly for what I call a “shamanic-travel.” Eight to ten of us gather in the pleasantly-scented room as soft music plays in the background and Christina takes us on a journey through our minds.
She advised me that the gun was made of paper and that I should put the gun onto paper. That I should write about it. Write about the guns I came into contact with as a younger man in war, and how I survived the shootings and the battles and the fear that comes when someone you don’t even know wants to kill you. Or you kill them . . .
Yes, I no longer fear the gun. I have conquered its symbolism with Christina’s help and guidance. Now I can turn the weapon back into a plowshare and cultivate the many fields of my mind for more useful purposes.
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Contoveros 
The following conversations took place between Belva and Contoveros on Facebook:
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I had a dream once of a gun and it really rocked me for a few days. Then I remembered that it was the same gun a friend of mine carried — a Barreta (?). Silvery, shiny, scary… I called him asked him how he was doing. It had been years since we’d spoken. I told him about the dream and he said it’d made sense since he’d been thinking about me too — wondering how I was…. Not sure if that’s what my dream was about, but I worked through it to take it away from a fearful unknowing place and got back in touch with an old friend.
A paper gun? Fascinating on so many levels. So glad you were also able to find peace with it’s meaning….
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I’m glad that you could find peace and calm after your dream involving a gun. It’s amazing how such an image could have effects on some people like us. Maybe we’re just too sensitive or too open. I don’t know.
I’m glad you could hook up with your old friend. It was “synchronicity” in a way because he was also thinking about you. So, it had a happy ending after all!
Michael J
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I always found it interesting that when you step back from the technology, all that a gun does is throw a rock really, really fast … the reality is we have not come that far from the cave – Have we?
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Throwing rocks to obtain food or to protect oneself is one thing. Killing for politics is another, one in which my country never returns to. Yes, we have come a long way technically, but our mind set may not have kept up with evolution of the heart and soul.
Michael J
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