Crocodile Friday

Today is Good Friday; Christians all over the world commemorate the sacrifice Jesus made on their behalf, a sacrifice rooted in extreme LOVE.

For me, today is also Crocodile Friday. Let me tell you why.

When I was a little girl, around 5 years old, living in Havana with my mom, dad, big brother and collie, I had my first Big Dream. It was Good Friday and in those pre- revolution times, Good Friday was a religious holiday observed by all business, media and people. I didn't grow up in a religious household, just a loving one. As usual in those halcyon days, I got up and had the whole day to play on my swings, draw or find some other enchanted occupation for myself.

Graciela, the wonderful Afro-Cuban woman who came to help my mom, was in the kitchen chopping carrots. I ran in to say hi and she was uncharacteristically curt with me. In a firm voice she said; "No nina, vete, que tengo este cuchillo y el diablo esta suerto hoy, y alomejor te corto sinquerer." Meaning, "No little one, get out; I have this knife and the devil is loose and I might cut you accidentally." Needless to say, I made a bee line for my swing set in the front yard. But then, I was afraid to swing, just in case, so I sat and thought about what Graciela had said.

I might have forgotten all about it after a while because next thing I know, it was bed time and I'm kissing my mom and dad goodnight; they were watching a Passion Play, which was the only thing being televised. In the middle of the night I woke up from a big ass nightmare, crying.

In my dream, I know that there is a gargantuan crocodile standing in the bathtub. I see it in my child mind's eye, just towering in the bathtub. I do the only sensible thing and scream for my parents to come and get me.

Spring ahead 13 or so years later and I'm a Freshman English major in college. Reading Joseph Frank's, Literature of the Bible, I come across a footnote on the creature Leviathan in the Book of Job. To paraphrase (as I no longer have the book handy) he says that Leviathan is often depicted as a humongous crocodile and identified with Satan. I hadn't remembered my crocodile dream until that moment when it came slamming into my consciousness like the huge dream train slams into the station in the movie, Hugo. I sat there and marveled; how could a five year old child know this? As a Freshman, I hadn't read Carl Jung's work on the collective unconscious, but my deep curiosity about dreams and the nature of dreaming began that day.

In Jung's view, and this is something that contributed to his rejection of Freud's dream theories, the unconscious is not just a repository for suppressed, uncivilized and aggressive impulses. (No wonder people don't want to look into that velvet dark.) To Jung, the unconscious is a vast inner space, (to borrow a phrase from the brilliant Sci-fi author, Ursula LeGuin), a space that offers both creativity and healing and is accessed in dreams. Part of that space is the collective unconscious, the source of all that binds humanity as one, home to the Archetypes of human kind.

I've since learned that Cuba is thought to resemble a semi-submerged crocodile, because the island is shaped like one and that there is a species of crocodile, one of only four in the new world, that's found primarily in Cuba and is called the Cuban Crocodile. It's known for leaping straight up from the water in order to catch prey mid air. I didn't know this till just recently; imagine!

My Crocodile visitation is an ongoing source of fascination to me. Since I discovered this particular animal archetype in my childhood bathtub, I've come to see many aspects of the image. Today, She is the Babylonian Queen of the Ocean, Tiamat, the primordial dragon, and She is fearsome. She is Howling Mary, the slain Feminine archetype who came to me in my Howling Mary dream, biding her time, letting her presence be known. http://litadreaming.blogspot.com/2011/08/howling-mary.html And, haven't you ever seen those wonderful little front yard shrines to Mary in an upended bathtub? Yes, it's Mary in that bathtub, too.

This is the power of dreaming. This is how Big Dreams often come, as childhood or early nightmares. Perhaps, with apologies, the dream source impacts us with nightmares and hopes we've got the good sense to explore the message further.

I don't want to skip over the role of Devil in my early totem dream. Certainly, I would never romanticize or cutesy up the crocodile; never do I want to come face to face with one in waking life, (unlike my elephant totem which I've met on both sides).

I hold that the devil is the invention of patriarchal religions, as is dualistic thinking and the hierarchical paradigm. Goddess inclusive religions tend to see things cyclically: birth, life, death, birth again, mirrored in the seasons of earth. Death isn't evil, it's part of life. We're all capable of good and evil. The Devil is part of a dichotomy that projects evil as one Absolute, the opposite of Good, God. As Jung taught, it's dangerous to project our own dark shadow on to others and as Jesus taught, don't look for the mote in your neighbor's eye unless you remove the plank from your own.

But tomes like the 15th century classic, The Malleus Maleficarum or The Hammer of Witches, written by two Dominican monks as a guide for Inquisitors, are monuments to blind projection and provide ample evidence of the malice, cruelty and misogyny of the medieval Christian Church. In those illustrious times of male bullying, women were leagued with the devil, at least any woman who showed the least bit of spine and independence, owned property that could be taken from her, or just knew too much.

If Woman is maligned by being linked with the devil, the serpent and the apple, the fall from grace, the first one to sin, then no wonder Mary is pissed off and there's a crocodile waiting for me in the bath tub; waiting to talk to me, to teach me.

On Crocodile Friday, I honor the Great Mother and I honor Jesus, her beloved Son. I honor Spring and I honor Dreams. Blessed Be.

I and Thou: Dream Characters and Other People

Still reading Robert Waggoner's book on lucid dreaming (see previous post) and am delighting in the chapter: "Independent Agents and the Voice of the Unconscious" in which he poses some intriguing ideas:

"Taught to believe and expect that the entire dream exists as our imagined projection, that we dream it into being, many lucid dreamers naturally resist any notion of not completely creating and controlling the dream. Yet, these conversations suggest a new level of inherent complexity in dreaming. With experience, lucid dreamers come to realize that the dream space contains various types of dream figures, behaving with varying degrees of awareness." p.58

What, who, where are the characters in our dreams? Are they aspects of our own waking personalities that need attention and integration? Of course, but Waggoner raises the possibility of autonomy in some dream characters. A key indicator of a character's autonomy or "otherness" is when he experiences in lucid dream adventures characters who resist his intentions, give him unexpected information or profess independent viewpoints. Are dream characters projections of our own personalities, created by our dreaming minds to instruct our waking egos? Or are they, as in our waking experience, independent beings, separate from us and capable of choice, as we are?

A little mind blowing, perhaps, but how valuable a consideration. What's wonderful about the dream world is anything is possible. It doesn't have to be one way or the other; it can be both, or entirely different than expected, so dreaming offers a model for expanded consciousness and creativity in the waking world.

In ancient alchemical teachings, inner and outer realities mirror each other, as above, so below. I find this is very true with dreaming. What I learn in the dreaming, can usually come in handy in waking reality. Reflecting on waking experience, how much of what I know about other people is my own projection based on my own needs, much as I might assume the shadow figures and animus gents in my dreams are? The negative things I see about people and the people I put on a pedestal, if they were dream figures, how would I see them? Why would they be in my dream?

Considering the autonomy of dream figures in my dreams heightens my sense of my own autonomy and that of others, those I like and those I don't, in waking life. I'm more mindful of my waking projections and also more eager to look at my dreams for that spark of independence in people I encounter. Perhaps these are other dreamers sharing my dream locale or people who lived in another time or on another dimension?

One of my favorite authors, Ursula LeGuin, writes about outer space as a metaphor for inner space. In her view, inner space is the real frontier for exploration, available through the vast unconscious to all of us. Dreams help me understand myself better, and they help me understand others. In my dreams there are scenarios, like when I find myself in traffic on a highway or when I'm riding on a train or bus. that say to me, "We are multitudes, but we're all in this together." I take that feeling into my waking relationships.

The idea that dream figures may in some cases be autonomous just as I assume people in waking life are creates another dimension of exploration every time I cross the threshold of sleep. At the same time, realizing that even in waking life, people I meet reflect for me some aspect of myself, especially when they elicit strong emotional reaction, helps me interact more mindfully with everyone, keeping a check on my projections and truly honoring each individual and his or her unique life journey.

The Strange Case of Me and Not Me

I’ve loved public libraries since I was 15 when I worked in one after school; recently, I've taken to frequenting my neighborhood library again. I’ve especially enjoyed access to a great selection of literature on audio CD. I can listen to wonderful stories while I’m making jewelry, driving or cooking. Sometimes I listen to contemporary works, other times I select a classic. Often, I'm delighted by the energizing synchronicity of finding myself listening to the exact inspiration I need at the time.

I just finished Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", wonderfully narrated by Scott Brick. I was mesmerized by the story of a brilliant man who experiments with splitting himself from his Shadow and consequently reaps the tragic results. Stevenson wrote the story prior to any publication of Jung's famous work on the Shadow and what's even better, the story was based on his dreams.

In a recent post from Robert Moss's Dreamgates blog, Robert includes these great quotes about the story from Stevenson and from his wife.

'“For two days I went about racking my brains for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two, in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his pursuers.”

His wife related picturesquely how one night Louis cried out horror-stricken, how she woke him up and he protested, “Why did you waken me? I was dreaming a fine bogy-tale!” She also related how he appeared the next morning excitedly exclaiming, “I have got my schilling-shocker — I have got my schilling-shocker!”'

You can read the rest of Robert's post here:

Stevenson entertained a vibrant dialogue with his dreams and believed his very livelihood depended on it. An active dream dialogue is key to unlocking many of life's essential mysteries, not the least of which is how to achieve balance within our imperfect humanity.

According to Carl Jung, the characters we reject or that repulse us in our dreams, especially when they are the same gender as us, are our Shadow parts. These are the aspects of our personalities that we don’t want to own, aspects that we deem undesirable or socially unacceptable. Sometimes, we also reject our "bright Shadow," admirable characteristics or qualities which our low self-esteem won't let us claim as our own.

The thing about the Shadow Archetype is that in waking life, we often project on to others what we reject and fear in ourselves. When we're hyper-critical and condemning of others, we may be animated by our unconscious Shadow blindness. But when we're actively in dialogue with our dreams, we have an opportunity to interact with Shadow aspects of our personality in ultimately rewarding ways.

Case in point is my Jeze-bella, whom I've renamed after getting to know her a bit.  When she appeared in my dream, I saw her as opposite to me, the Whore to my Madonna. But it was that gut feeling of rejection that led me to seek more interaction with her in a dream re-entry. When I met her in my night dream I was indifferent to her; I was willing to let her take my risks and suffer my dangers without so much as a thought for her well-being. Then I re-entered my dream and really met her, talked to her and came to understand her life strategy. Maybe she's down and dirty, but she’s a survivor, with a survivor’s stealth and wile. I’m learning a lot from her. Now, I love getting together with her for continued extended adventures in the in-between spaces of dream re-entry.

Dreams teach us introspection. They put us in dialogue with dimensions of ourselves that we've unconsciously rejected but that our dreams show us we must consciously integrate. Jung believed that the Shadow Archetype is critically important to our personal development and saw it as the first gateway to individuation. He also posited that integrating aspects of our Shadow selves is the secret to unlocking our true creativity. Creativity is the goddess/god given faculty of living life with imagination, a sense of humor and an accurate compass to where our bliss lies.

Each time I react negatively to a dream, especially to a female character, each time dreams leave me with feelings that are icky, scary or embarrassing, my dream radar says, “Darling, do you think this may have some valuable teaching from your Shadow?” Owning the "not me" parts of myself allows me to navigate my waking life more consciously and responsibly, with fewer blind spots to trip me up.

Now, what do you think Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry would say about their inner Jezebels or Mr. Hydes? In the same sense that we project our evil and taboos on to others individually, we collude with other one-dimensional personalities and project as a group on to other groups all our denied short-comings, fear and doubt. This was characteristic of the Nazi fervor in WWII, absolute Black and White; we’re Good, God is on our side; they’re Evil, Satan on earth. If you think this is a past phenomenon, just look at what, besides money-greed, is fueling our scary world conflicts today.

Instead of buying our own ego hype and living in a rigid Persona, we come to realize through dream-play that we’re capable of many personalities, some good, some bad (in our own judgments anyway), some we see as "me" and some we insist are "not me". Establishing a dialogue and living consciously with our rejected parts guards us from the lure of polemic ideologies; we become rooted in our own spirituality. Without this insight, we sit in judgment of people whom we believe are opposite to us; we list the faults of others and criticize their choices. But when we have experience meeting and dialoguing with our own Shadow through dreaming, we recognize the complexity of the other person's existence, and though we may still not agree with them, we don't need to villanize or exterminate them.

I think that the more of us get chummy with our personal Shadows, the more of us will recognize the Shadows looming behind the ideologues that seek to rule us. We can point and say, “I’d like you to turn around and answer to that Shadow behind you, and when you’ve found your humility and compassion, you can speak to me of your god, your right and wrong, and your vision for our country.

Howling Mary

I’m excited to tell you my Howling Mary dream from May, I think, 1971. It was the end of my Senior year at University of Rochester. I only wished that at that time I was recording my dreams in journals. I didn’t really start till 1976 with another BIG DREAM.

What’s a BIG DREAM? Oh, it’s like the diving horn on a submarine or like the in your face divine apparition.

Howling Mary was the middle dream of what I call a triptych dream - three dreams in a row that transition from one setting, etc to the next – tied together by the fact that they all happen in succession.

I don’t remember the first and have vague image recollections of the third, but even though I didn’t write and draw HM till 1982, eleven years after the dream, she was as vivid then as she is to me now. ‘

The telling of this dream and the image I created for your pleasure of it are both the contemporary versions.

I’m inside the small Catholic church I knew as a teenager, “Our Lady of Good Counsel” (The picture above of the statue outside this little church was taken on a family visit back a couple of years ago.)

I walk in and instead of going up the center aisle towards the altar, I turn and go up the left side aisle, by the stained glass windows and the Stations of the Cross. Mass is in process. I’m probably the 21-year-old self I am while I’m dreaming this, dressed as I would be usually, entering the church by some compulsion.

I take to the left side, drawn by an overwhelming pull, something calling to me inside my heart. Ignoring the worshipers following their lines, I quietly make my way up to the statue of Mary that is to the left of the altar, if you’re facing that direction.

She is Mother Mary of Mercy who in her compassion steps on the head of the snake so we don’t have to worry about it so much anymore.

As I approach her, the statue animates, like in Fantasia; she looms 10 times her size above me and howls. I rush to the foot of her howling form and place my hand at her feet and bow my head in reverence and awe. I know she is howling from outrage and pain, I just don’t know what that outrage and pain is.

However, when I look to my right, the priest has finished consecrating the Host and is about to commence the giving of communion to the congregation. I know I must intervene. I rush to where he is poised in front of the first communicant and snatch the chalice from his hand.

Looking in, I’m horrified to see that there are worms in the chalice, but as I take one out it becomes a rubber band, which I hand to each person to take away with them.

My dream ends. After the third dream I wake up in my room at college and marvel at the images and complexity of the dreams. It was Howling Mary, though, that I remember in detail, the way you do with a Big Dream.

I’ve had lots of time to see this dream manifest.

First, I was on my way to graduate school in English Literature and had no idea I’d end up so involved in the Women’s Ordination Movement of the Roman Catholic Church in the mid 70’s and 80’s that I pursued my Masters in Scriptural Studies and Pastoral Counseling from Colgate Rochester Divinity School instead.

And I certainly didn’t anticipate discovering that my beloved patriarchal Christian paradigm had such serious flaws that it really wasn’t worth bolstering with my efforts. Especially when Mary shape-shifted thanks to Erich Neumann’s “The Great Mother”, Mary Daly’s “Beyond God the Father” and Merlin Stone’s “When God Was a Woman” to name but a few paradigm-blowing master works.

Who knew? Apparently, Howling Mary did.

I was only 21 when that dream created a Divine Theater for me of things to come. As a great Mother archetype, I can’t imagine any finer. She is pissed off; she is aching. She howls like a wolf calling the troops that will hear her, come to her and run with her. In the last two years, I've had many wolf dream visits; She’s back. Howling for justice; howling for compassion and for innovative, loving and creative ways to fix this mess, She is my direct connection to the Divine. She can be Mother Mary, Kwan Yin, Isis, Demeter, Yemaya or so many of the Mother Archetype manifestations that have graced our humanity since the beginning of time.

It occurs to me that the job of a rubber band is to hold something together by first stretching to contain it. It stretches and contracts according to the need. What a beautiful symbol for the life-giving sacrament of communion. Expanding to nourish us and give us what we need to hold it together and continue to grow until we finally get it and Mary doesn’t have to feel so frustrated any more.

Latinas always have their patron Mary. Mexicans love Guadalupe and La Caridad del Cobre is the beautiful Ochun of Cuba. My Mary is Howling Mary. I don’t need to keep her to myself, but she is the Archetype who first announced to me a mission She hopes I’ll lend a hand in while on the planet. Don’t know if I’ve done much yet; but, as long as there is breath in my body, I will honor her and do what I think she wants me to do.

Archetypes

The word archetype derives from the Greek, archetupon. meaning something like, first-molded. It combines arche, the beginning and tupos, a pattern, model or type. (My source is Wikipedia.)

According to one on-line dictionary I used, it’s come to mean:

1. the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype.

2. (in Jungian psychology) a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches.

I bring this concept up because my husband, Jim, and I have a favorite "discussion"; "What is an archetype?" We often lapse into it lying in bed, waiting for sleep; I love when the room is dark and we talk. If I bring up our archetype discussion he’s likely to pose the question; "If there were no people, would archetypes exist?"

I think he believes that "archetypes" are human constructs. For instance, he'll say, "our pre-historic ancestors are out in a terrifying storm, the lightning blazing and the thunder booming so loud their teeth chatter. For that ineffable power they’ve experienced, they create an archetype, the God/Goddess of Thunder or Storm, the ultimate source of all this power.

Well, it makes sense. The purpose of it, I suppose, is to interact with this power in some approachable form in order to see if you can get IT to go easy on your neighborhood.

No people, no archetypes seems to be his thinking, but maybe it’s no people, less pressure on the Archetypes to make it better. Here's how I see it:

Archetypes are Energies that have been intuited by humans from the dawn of our habitation here on earth. They are energies experienced universally by woman and man of any race, in any culture, at any time in history. I don't think we create the Energies, although I think we create the forms they take in our personal or elected cultural mythology. These Energies can shape shift into many forms and can be recognized in stories, myths, religions and now, the mind-bending science of contemporary physics.

Because the Archetypes are actually Energies not subject to one permanent form, I think it's a waste of time and an invitation to trouble to fix the Energy, say of Divine Love, into one immutable aspect of itself. Especially when that concrete image excludes other aspects of that same energy vital for it to flow and do its job. For instance, God the Father definitely suffers from a lack of God the Mother.

In our dreams, the archetypes show up in many forms and communicate a lot of useful information. Jung identified some common ones as: the Self, the complete person, integrated in her or his many aspects, body, mind and soul; the Animus/Anima, the opposite gender aspect of each person’s psyche, one we’re likely to project on to the person with whom we “fall in love.” In dreams, this archetype can be tracked in the opposite gender characters peopling our night adventures; the Shadow, which contains the disavowed aspects of ourselves we commonly project on to others, shows up in characters we dislike, envy or of whom we are in awe, usually the same sex as the dreamer; and the Persona, is the mask to meet the faces that we meet, the one Ego dons to face the public. Sometimes when we dream of ourselves naked in public, it may have to do with how we think we’re perceived or how we desire to be seen.

There are many Archetypes; the Major Arcana of the Tarot is a gallery of universal archetypes preserved through centuries in a pack of playing cards. The greater the Archetypal figure in our psyche, the stronger the energy that accompanies its appearance. How I feel about a figure in my dream is often the first clue to who I’m really dealing with.

In my next post, I’ll tell you my Howling Mary dream. This is a Big Dream in my life story, a visit from the Mother Archetype. It came some forty years ago, before I had any idea what its message was, but to this day, it’s my moral compass and spiritual paradigm.

Although we may name the Archetypes, we don’t invent them and we certainly don’t control them. In my opinion, religion tries to bottle these archetypes and sell them under their brand name. I see no point in denying that the Archetypal Energy manifests in a myriad of metaphors and shape shifts according to each persons needs. That is normal. What's not normal is trying to claim absolute TRUTH status for one manifestation.

Being in tune with personal revelations in our dreams can save us from believing the projections of those whose intentions may be to manipulate us where we are most vulnerable, our imaginations. Dream work helps us claim our imaginations for our own ends, making us far less vulnerable to the myths of others.

What are “archetypes” is a popular conversation with many people, in and out of bed. The wonderful astrologer, Caroline Casey, suggests that we consider “composting” the word; her Trickster Redeemer is a wonderful manifestation of her composting work with archetypes. I’m grateful for my own on-going dialogue with such a wit as is Jim; and now, I’m opening the discussion to you. Your comments are most welcome.

Video courtesy of Jim and Chango.

Expect An Answer

Dream "incubation" means that the dreamer went to sleep focused in an open hearted way on a question or a request to the Dream Source. In both the ancient cultures of Egypt and of Greece, dream incubation was a sacred practice that anyone who needed spiritual help and physical healing could access by going to the temples as a pilgrim in search of a dream cure. Gods and goddesses spoke to the dreamer and intervened on her or his behalf through dreams.

So if you need the answer to a problem or a question; just ask. But expect an answer. Not always that night and very often not the answer you might have anticipated. The pact I make with my dream guides is that no matter what comes through, icky or not, I'll write it down.

This has proved over and over again to me that my dream guides love me and have a superb sense of ironic humor. On the surface, the dream may seem distasteful, irrelevant or embarrassing; but when I sit down with a dear dream friend and play with it, light bulbs go off. I love the sheepish joy I feel; "Oh, I get it." That "aha" always floods me with gratitude for the unconditional, loving guidance of dreams.

I love telling my friend my dream as dramatically as possible. The theater of it, speaking the dream out loud, begins to release some of the emotional charges of particular images and characters in a first wave of enlightenment.

I also love to hear my friend describe to me her experience of my dream; whether it applies to me, or to her, I gain insight. She emphasizes different things; I hear another perspective. She uses only the personal pronoun, shares with me her feelings, associations and intuitions and opens wonderful new vistas in my dream for me to explore.

Re-entering the dream through my imagination in a dream journey, alone or in the good company of a dream friend, is my favorite form of dream exploration.

In a dream I recently explored, re-entering allowed me to find a close, unexpected ally in a Shadow figure (in the Jungian sense) whom I referred to in my dream as "the buxom blonde" but after an exciting re-entry conversation, she became my dear friend, Jezebelle.

The answer to the dream questions we incubate may appear in many unexpected ways. Perhaps a waking feeling, perhaps a synchronicity. They'll appear in an unlikely dream that I faithfully wrote and pursued, and continue over a series of subsequent dreams until I get it.

I'm fond of Jung's point of view that dreams don't come to tell us what we already know. They don't call it the unconscious for nothing. So when someone prefaces their dream narrative with, I know what this is about, I always keep an open mind and suggest a little further play.

You asked, an answer will come. Focused intention and attention to dream material regardless of seeming insignificance pays off big time in dream exploration. Do you knock on a door, knowing your friend is home, and not expect her to open it for you?

The Power of Dreams to Heal

I will soon facilitate an all day workshop for a very committed group of healers in graduate level training. I'm focusing the day on the healing power of dreams; dreams heal us body and soul.

In his foreword to Wanda Easter Burch's excellent book about her experience healing from breast cancer, "She Who Dreams, A Journey Into Healing Through Dreamwork" Robert Moss says this:

"Dreaming is healing. Our bodies speak to us in dreams, giving us early warning of symptoms we might develop, showing us what they need to stay well. Dreams give us fresh and powerful images for self-healing. Dreams are also the language of the soul; they put us in touch with wells of memory and sources of creativity and energy far beyond the clutter and confusion of the little everyday mind. Beyond this, dreams are experiences of the soul, and can take us - sleeping or hyper-awake - into realms where we can have direct access to sacred healers and teachers."

I know from personal experience that this is true; perhaps, you do, too. What I find so wildly exciting is the thought that access to this wellspring of healing energy may be in the process of going mainstream. Perhaps dreaming is reaching the hundredth monkey. If healers are practiced at dreaming and utilizing the benefits of dreaming, they will pass this healing practice on to the many people who come to them for help.

Once a significant number of people are paying attention to their dreams and acting on dream wisdom, a real healing transformation is possible for each dreamer, for whole communities and for Mother Earth. A dream connection teaches us to take responsibility for ourselves, for our own healing. It makes us open to new creative ways of solving our personal and planetary problems so we can dream a different future for ourselves than the dismal violence wracked apocalypse favored by patriarchal religions. A future where we're not motivated by fear and self-loathing because we're each directly connected to Spirit and have confidence in Love.

Possible or impossible? If an individual dream has the power to heal us, how much more can be accomplished by a shared dream?

Sole Responsibility

Facing death, understanding that it is inevitable, leads to lots of philosophical questions. I particularly like what Ecclesiastes says in the Old Testament; “Naked came I into this world and naked I shall return.” To me this means that I have sole responsibility for my soul; this is the vessel I’ll ride out of here, so it’s up to me to steer, both here and once I cross over. I can’t let anyone else interpret the meaning of my life because no preacher, teacher or lawmaker is going to cross with me, let alone, for me. The dreamer is the only interpreter of her or his dream; my life, my soul, my crossing is my sole responsibility.

Dreaming is the bridge between these two realities for me. I live in this plane and I live on other planes, mostly at night, in dreams. It’s important to keep a balance, pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, recognize the laws of waking, material existence and thrive there. The Taoist’s philosophy of Yin and Yang teaches that opposites can be balanced and when they are, we exist in harmony. Yin/Yang is a dance of opposites constantly in motion, flowing from one to the other.

Waking/Dreaming is also such a flow, such a dance.

I don’t remember a dream from last night in words, I remember it in the afterglow of feelings, like I'm returning from a very enjoyable experience. I woke feeling contentment and that’s the feeling I carry into my day; it colors my actions and words, my outlook and thoughts.

I take from the teachings of this waking world, its religions and philosophies, whatever feeds my soul; I reject what I feel shrinks my soul. From my dreams, I get the strength, courage and humor to live the best life on this planet I can. I offer these thoughts in case they help you. Jesus got into a lot of trouble for claiming to be his own authority, but he was right. The kingdom of heaven is within; all we have to do is pay attention and trust ourselves. “Naked came I into this world, and naked I shall return.”

Thanks again to my dear friend, Mally DeSomma, who gave me permission to use her beautiful painting.

Remember Who You Are

My dreams help me remember who I am. I love that experience, that aha moment, when an image or a scenario or something I say in a dream brings home to me the feeling of being at peace in my own core, my center.

Recently, my dream self brought home some core personal truths. It was my waking dream at one time to be a spiritual teacher via the route of ordination in the Catholic Church. Some of you may remember those heady times when women stood up even to the Pope in public and said, we want to be ordained.

In a recent Sisters of Mercy Newletter which I discovered on their website, they recount an event from Pope John Paul II's visit to the US in 1979:

"In 1979, Theresa Kane, a Sister of Mercy, was denied a conversation with Pope John Paul II in her official capacity as the then-president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. At the official welcome ceremony at the Basilica of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C., Sister Theresa beseeched Pope John Paul to include women as equal members of the Body of Christ. Had her request been heeded, the Church would surely be a healthier, holier institution than it is today and, more importantly, the pastoral and sacramental needs of Catholics around the world be better served today. It is time to again raise that issue."

I remember watching Sister Theresa stand up and address the pope, knowing it would be broadcast around the world on TV. I remember thinking, you go, sister! That took cojones! (Or brass breasts, as I'm fond of saying).

All this great stuff was happening during my post-grad studies in Scripture and Pastoral Counseling at Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, NY., including the successful and courageous campaign that ended in official Episcopalian ordination for women in 1976. We in the Catholic church believed! Yes, we can!

Then, not so much. It took a decade but by banishing the rogue bishops who supported women's ordination and replacing them with papal clones, the RC managed to beat back the tide.

You know, I don't regret a second of that good fight, and maybe it is time, as the Sister's of Mercy are suggesting, to take it up in earnest again. But for me, what happened was a major transformation of paradigm, initiated by a dream I titled, Howling Mary, and fueled by the writings of some incredible theologians like Mary Daly with her bombshell "Beyond God the Father". The door opened for me to alternative spirituality, primarily women's spirituality. It's been a lovely trip since then; my spiritual life is rich, diverse and anchored in dreamplay.

Still, anytime you choose to live outside the primary social paradigm, you're going to feel the pull of normalcy a bit. In the western culture in which I reside, the norm is to be Christian, Jew or Muslim because these are the three big established patriarchal religions of the world. What bothers me about these religions is that they often put women outside their circle of trust. What's up with that? Even after all these years, to suggest that it's important to also see god as Mother, that we abandon the Feminine Divine to our own very great detriment is, at the least, controversial.

Here's the dream that's led me down this alley of contemplation:

Episcopal Aspirations 3-3-2010

I'm talking with a woman Episcopal priest about my application to be an Episcopal priest. She's telling me that she submitted Jim's name (my husband) thinking that it was a good idea and the committee decided that he was their choice. I'm dismayed, disappointed; I say to her; "You submitted his name? Why?" Then I started to change my mind and get behind supporting him: 1. because I really don't want the pressure of answering to the committee in an interview; 2. because I really don't want to be an Episcopal priest, or a Christian for that matter. I say to her that Jim will be a good candidate because he'll be honest, blunt and frank. She modifies it saying, "but he would never say anything inappropriate." I say I'm not so sure, rolling my eyes like, are you kidding me? At some point, she gives me an example of a question that would be asked that is about a place or historical event that is pretty obscure. I realize with relief that I won't have to answer questions like that, but Jim pops into the conversation with a lovely, accurate answer that confirms my sense that better him than me.

This dream had me laughing about what I said about Jim; anyone who knows Jim will probably find it funny, as well. I really love how my dream self is helping me center on what I want and who I am. My spiritual role as teacher is outside mainstream religious offices; teaching people to listen to dream messages is what I love to do and do best. Yet, I fully support those who in truth and courage fill those official positions, like those lovely rogue bishops, priests and women religious of the 70s; bless them every one.

Exiles

My dear friend and I, the one from the train in my first post, are having an ongoing conversation about Life and Death and Healing in both realms. I'm sure I'll share more of what surfaces, but here's what I'm hot on the trail of now.

There are experiences in life that can send bits of our Soul or Psyche or Self - however you conceive of your Being, into hiding, into exile. There is a cornucopia of literature on soul recovery and/or healing psychotherapy, as I'm sure you know.

In dreams, the stories of these exiled selves pops up from time to time. Because I keep a journal, I can trace these appearances and ponder them. Tracing a character or character type through past dreams is particularly revelatory when we're ready to see and to listen, sometimes even years after the dream; (Did I mention what a good idea I think it is to keep a journal?)

I use dream characters, themes, scenarios and images as maps to life's deeper meanings. By observing the drama presented in dreams each time a particular image appears, I learn the story of this exile. In that character, I also have a dream gate I can enter to renew my relationship with the part of me I'm calling back.

These encounters and relationships are serendipitous and genuine; I can't predict how the adventure is going to go. It's a process that's full of surprises. It's a two-way street; just as challenging as any waking relationship and just as worth it.