Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Spiritual Empowerment Through Dreaming

“It’s ok not to be ok” popped up in a meme on my FB page.  It made me think of all the times I’ve heard health professionals teach about self-acceptance. Why should I need anyone’s permission to be who I am? To feel OK?   Who set the standards for okayness?

Society? The norms that bring us so much gun violence and so much divisiveness are in painfully obvious need of reinvention.  American citizens are dealing with a hot mess, politically at home, as well as around the world; the hot mess male leaders insist on making perpetually. Boys with very dangerous toys! 

Or morally?  That which is right?  And who gets to decide that; the boys in black dresses with their ‘oh so special’ inside track to Nobodaddy? Who is your God?  Patriarchy’s bloviating dictators who demand total allegiance on the pain of death and perdition, or Love, the greatest mystery we can know, the champion of our self-acceptance.

I believe, as a spiritual being having a physical experience, each of us has her or his own inside track to morality. Our hearts teach us what is wrong and what is right throughout our lives, and that still inner voice Jesus pointed to, assures us we’re never alone.  The Queen/Kingdom of God is within.

Morality is my social conduct based on my spiritual understanding, which is based on my own experience, not some external law.  My experience has brought me to the conclusion that Love is the Answer (LITA).  Love is a force that very few people have never experienced, but plenty of people deny.  Love is so much more than private ownership of a physical chunk of earth or another person. Love transcends the physical appearances of waking life, whispering in our ears at night.  I AM Here with you; you are SAFE with Me.  Look within.

My spiritual evolution comes from dialogue with my dreams.  Watching my dream life taught me to observe waking life in a similar way. I often experience how the magic of sychronicity and dream correlations meld my waking and dream experiences into a complete sense of Self.  

I have faith in my dreams because they’ve helped me immensely in my waking life, whether by giving me a head’s up that what seemed improbable in a dream is now happening so take charge of the situation, or by consoling my heart when it’s aching, or by making me see the very funny side of life and not take me and other’s pecadillos so seriously.

Because of dreams and dreaming, I have faith that however distressing life gets, collectively and personally, help is always available from the spirit, from those who love me on the other side, from Home.  I have faith that goes from my heart to the Heart Divine.  I’ve found grace, forgiveness and courage so many times in my dreams, and I know it’s a universal reality.  Dreams are our bridge to spirit.  Our breadcrumbs to home. 

If I feel not okay, it’s because I’m suffering from the expectations of me that come from outside myself.  Rules, regulations, codes and enforcers are the hallmark of patriarchies. Our modern psyche is full of dread from too many years of brutal patriarchal rule.  Granted, 6,000 years of warring father religions and rulers is nothing compared to where archeology puts us homo sapiens, 200,000 years of human cultures around the globe.  It's time to admit that patriarchy is bad for the soul, the spirit.  Angry Father Gods have got to go. 

Our earliest archeological records are of the veneration of the Mother Goddess and her Body, the Earth. 
The Venus of Willendorf, circa 29,000 BCE,  is one of the few ancient  Goddess images extant in the modern patriarchal era; goddess worshiping traditions were largely destroyed by centuries of patriarchal religious inquisitions.  Goddess worshiping cultures weren’t necessarily matriarchal, they were, as Riane Eisler brilliantly presents in The Chalice and the Blade, cooperative societies. 

The Goddess spoke to me first in a dream, Howling Mary. Honoring the Feminine Divine doesn’t involve putting our old patriarchal paradigm on a female projection; it means accessing what’s been demeaned.  Chief of all things to access is Love.  Self-love, love of others and love for all things; love as a spiritual practice.    There’s no doctrine for that; it’s a practice, just like dreaming is a practice with guidelines, but no rule book. 

The pay off is spiritual empowerment.  

May all your best dreams come true.  May Love help you find your way.