This morning I had a dream where I am with my best friend Daniel who died many years ago. I am asking him if he knows the whereabouts of my friend Robert who I know also died many years ago. I had lost contact with him years before I found out he had died. Daniel tells me that he knows where to find him. He then takes me to where I can meet him. We find my friend Robert and after a few minutes I ask Robert about our old mutual friend Richard. I lost contact with Richard many years ago and I have no knowledge on what became of him. Robert tells me that he knows where he is. I ask him if he will help reunite me with him. He then takes me to where I might find him. Upon finding my friend Richard, we all sit and chat for a few minutes. I then ask Richard about our mutual friend Augusto. I’m sensing that they are now aware of the trick I am playing on them to help reunite us as one. Still unsure of my motive, Richard naively answers that he does know where Augusto is. We all then travel back in time to a period in our lives when we were all together as one. It is a good and happy time with many pleasant memories.
My fiend Daniel and I then leave to find a quiet place where we can continue our talk. I have a room that I rent at a nearby spa and resort which I invite him to. When we come onto the room I draw down the shade so that the management of the establishment won’t become aware that I brought with me a non-member. I’m caught by the management and told that I cannot bring non-members with me into this establishment. Daniel is angry because when he was alive he had a valid membership. He then calls upon the gay community to come with their chisels and picks to chip away at the wall they have constructed to keep people out. I’m thinking they are never going to be able to tear down the wall that separates us but in fact they are. The wall is now crumbling.
In tearing down the wall they expose a secret labyrinth. There is a man at its center struggling with a demon that has the head of a bull. I’m told if I want to confront the demon I can enter into the Seventh Ring. Knowing this is my own interior space the demon is occupying, I venture into the labyrinth to confront the demon. He is held behind an enclosed fence at the center of the labyrinth. The demon sees me and immediately jumps over the fence and aggressively comes at me. The shock wakes me up out of my sleep.
Now awake with my eyes open, I can see the demon before me. He has the head of a bull and the body of a man. All I can see is the fur around his eyes because his face is pressed up against mine. I can feel his heavy breath upon me. Without a second thought, I snarl back at the beast pushing into him to let him know that I am not threatened by its presence.
His image remained beside my bed for a long time as we locked eyes. I could see the red fiery anger in the pupils of his eyes. I had to go to the bathroom so I paid the beast no mind and got up and walked over to the bathroom. Determined not to be frightened I intentionally left the light off and sat in the darkness that was in my bathroom. When I was done I returned to bed where the image of the beast was now gone.
When I got to work I wanted to know the significance of the Seventh Ring. The only thing I could think of that referenced rings was Dante’s Divine Comedy which surfaced recently by chance in a previous dream titled, The Emperian Heaven of the Green Orb so I pulled up the Divine Comedy on Wikipedia and in the section of The Circles of Hell, I found the Seventh Circle.
Seventh Circle. This circle houses the violent. Its entry is guarded by the Minotaur.
My first question was what the heck is a Minotaur? I followed that clue and to my surprise found:
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur (Greek: Μῑνώταυρος, Mīnṓtauros) was a creature that was said to be part man and part bull.[1] It dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction built for King Minos of Crete and designed by the architect Daedalus to hold the Minotaur.
Here I was lead back to the labyrinth. It was now apparent that the beast I encountered this morning was a Minotaur. Now my question is what is the significance of the labyrinth? I don’t know anything about them other than the fact that they are a maze.
In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth (Gk. λαβύρινθος labyrinthos) was an elaborate structure constructed for King Minos of Crete and designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus to hold the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull and which was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus. Daedalus had made the Labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it.[1] Theseus was aided by Ariadne, who provided him with a fateful thread, literally the “clew,” or “clue,” to wind his way back again.
The term labyrinth is often used interchangeably with maze, but modern scholars of the subject use a stricter definition. For them, a maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage with choices of path and direction; while a single-path (“unicursal”) labyrinth has only a single Eulerian path to the center. A labyrinth has an unambiguous through-route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate.
Prehistoric labyrinths are believed to have served as traps for malevolent spirits or as defined paths for ritual dances. In medieval times, the labyrinth symbolized a hard path to God with a clearly defined center (God) and one entrance (birth).
Labyrinths can be thought of as symbolic forms of pilgrimage; people can walk the path, ascending toward salvation or enlightenment. Many people could not afford to travel to holy sites and lands, so labyrinths and prayer substituted for such travel. Later the religious significance of labyrinths faded, and they served primarily for entertainment, though recently their spiritual aspect has seen a resurgence.