Last night I dreamt that I found a peacock wandering on a tennis court and as I looked closely it’s feathers turned from dark to white. The transformation was so shocking and beautiful. I woke up in a state of wonder about what I had just experienced in the dream. It took me a while in thinking about various aspects of the dream to remember this feather transformation, and I knew it was the most amazing important moment. I made a version of the dream image by combining a white feather from the internet with the colorful ones in my room. My feather wand also includes a white and black turkey feather and a black and red one from a red tailed hawk.
The next step in working with the dream was to Google the totem significance of white peacocks. It’s associated with a higher perspective, unconditional love and purity. Next was to break down the parts, such as color, bird, and feather. The color white is associated with purity. The feather and birds are seen as a sign of big picture or higher perspective like angels in the sky. And the Peacock is associated with beauty and luxury as well as God’s and goddesses.
Finally, the transformation itself is very alchemical. Changes from black to white to red are various stages as the prime and materia transforms into the fountain of youth or the Sorcerer’s stone or gold. And what’s neat is from the quote below you can see the birds are often associated with the colors too.
The albedo is the second stage of alchemy. In this process, the subject is divided into two opposing principles to be later coagulated to form a unity of opposites or coincidentia oppositorum during rubedo. Alchemists also applied it to an individual’s soul after the first phase is completed, which entailed the decay of matter. In Medieval literature, which developed an intricate system of images and symbols for alchemy, the dove often represented this stage while the raven symbolized nigredo.
