The Big Dream Picture

I’ve had enough of the Hillary hating.  I expect it from Trump-trumpeters, but from Bernie Sander’s supporters?

Why?  Why this exorbitant degree of visceral hating for a person who has done more than most to serve her country in a variety of exceedingly demanding offices, taking on civic responsibilities that far exceed what the average Joe or Jill ever gives in service for their country. 

I once had a very special dream, a birthday present to me, as it was my birthday.  It was a few years after my dad had crossed over. He’d visited me before in dreams, but he hadn’t in a while.  Papi and I stood in front of a giant screen TV watching rebellions around the world ignite into bloody battles, the dis-empowered fighting the might of the privileged in power. 

In the dream, we both know it’s a huge uprising of clashing male ideologies; yet also that the Feminine is rising.  He says; “It’ll be a blood bath” as he looks on what this huge TV is broadcasting.  I turn my eyes from the screen to him and say; “Patriarchy has been one blood bath after another.”

I love this dream.  First of all, it was a genuine visitation, me - him, on the same side, watching and observing.  This dream came over twenty years ago, but I think of it over and over as I watch the world explode in rage and raging, on small and large scales. Patriarchy has been one blood bath after another.

Secondly, it’s palpably precognitive. The first clue for me is in the imagery  of transmission via TV, screens or other communication devices.  It’s a clever dream ploy for; “Hey, here’s some possible news of interest for you.  Now, what, while awake, will you do about it? Like it or not, here it comes.”

My waking response is to dream the future I want to see happen with all my might, while there’s still a chance we can make a difference at this important juncture in our collective human existence on the planet.  In our situation, right now, it’s up to each individual to contribute something while here in the physical. 

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the best person for the critically sensitive job of POTUS, the spokesperson for our country, at this important moment in time. Here's an excellent explanation of why written by Michael Arnovitz.  Our present POTUS, who according to most recent polls, has earned our collective respect, also thinks so.  As another dream I’ve already told you about implies, it’s up to each of us to preside over the good we do on this planet. We need a spokesperson who can navigate the current patriarchal minefield of explosive situations, here and around the world, so each of us is free do our own wee bit.

The Dalai Lama has credited western women with the potential to save the world. I believe we have the monumentally important opportunity to set an example for the world and tell everybody it’s time to start listening to their mamma.  It’s time we take women’s position in the world ultra-seriously, and what better way for us Americans to send that message than to elect this very qualified and extremely well vetted candidate? 

Ironically, the reactions I often hear from Hillary haters seem a bit hysterical and without solid underpinning in fact. I ask myself, what is this visceral reaction some people have to Hillary Clinton?  Honestly, what has she done so wrong as to merit such hostile disdain?  People say she’s a liar, but as Arnovitz points out, she is considered the most truthful of all the 2016 candidates by the fact checking organization, Politifact. She's had to endure an insane number of lies and disrespect, aimed at her by both self-described “conservatives” and “liberals" yet, she continues to win supporters and forge ahead.

Is she a person who’s changed, evolved and grown; most definitely. You can’t take on the jobs representing this country to the vast and diverse world as successfully as she has and not actually change and grow.  Been around the world lately, sitting in pow-wow with some of the most dangerous and, sometimes, misogynist men on the planet, have you?   Why do people trivialize the things this person has accomplished? 

Well, honestly, I did see it happen over and over again to President Obama.  The disrespect and dismissal from the pea-brain populace, the obstructionism of the Republican party, blatant, ignorant knee jerk racism, has been embarrassing to witness.  Interestingly, almost all of it is confined to the US.  President Obama has been highly respected around the world since his first inauguration; he is now, highly respected at home, as well. Is there, as Arnovitz points out in his excellent analysis, a strong sexist current beneath the vitriol towards HRC, as well?

Probably. It may seem hard to believe, but patriarchal sexism is a deeply entrenched psychic paradigm, perhaps more deeply entrenched than racism.  It bears examining; is it about a woman flying the plane?    Like President Obama, I think HRC, once in office, will work well with diverse groups, and, hopefully, given her strong and capable network of supporters, accomplish a great many of the social reforms listed in the democratic platform.

The voting decision of each person in this presidential election is of great consequence.  It’s an opportunity for us to carry forward a rational and heart full agenda for our planet, not just for us, for generations to come around the world.  We just have to survive our huge mistakes until we can fix them.  HRC is the best person for the presidential job at this time.  Her most vital qualifications to me are that I trust her to make good judgments in difficult circumstances that will affect me directly as a citizen of this country and to protect my civil liberties and respect my contributions, which are my civic duty to make. 

The body politic is us.  We aren’t voting for a personality, or a high school class president, we’re voting for POTUS. It’s not just about HRC, it’s about us.  We need a chance, each of us, to make things right, to work on the platform issue we feel near and dear to our hearts.  So, please, don’t make this a personality contest; check your facts.  Her service is public record; she has been the target of scandal after scandal propagated by her political enemies, but she is always exonerated and continues in public service.  

If you don’t like her, at least revue the platform she’s running on.  Why do you think Sen. Sanders endorsed her?  Does it come as a surprise; didn’t you watch the respect he showed her from the first debate?  The man likes her and will be a good ally to her.  All of a sudden you don’t respect him?  He’s a sell out?  Read the platform she will be promoting and compare it to Drumpf’s, or the Republican party's; good luck with that.  Above all, don’t abandon this country in a snit of righteous indignation. I’ve even heard some disgruntled Berners say it would serve this country right if we get Trump.  Really?  How is that going to help anything? If you can't trust Hillary Clinton, please ask yourself how we progressives will fare in a Trump presidency.  And, trust Bernie; he's the same guy he was when you supported him and he asks you to vote for her. 

This election isn't about HRC.  It’s about what a wise idea it is to keep someone level-headed and responsible in the highest office of the land and one of the most prestigious in the world.  It’s an important job.  Who is best qualified?  Wasn't she the first to courageously champion universal health care in America; that's one of the platform items Bernie and she share.    What does Trump stand for; what's his platform?  

I just hope that when push comes to shove, people vote with a deep consideration of what the outcome of that vote is likely to be.  I dream an America where a capable woman is finally awarded the most important job in the world. I dream of a world in which each of us feels free to make a positive contribution.  I envision us evolving out of bloody patriarchal mindsets, into an expanded awareness of our collective capacity to solve problems without bloodbaths.  I want the happy ending; don’t you?

A Waking Dream Or How I Spent Labor Day Weekend

I hope everyone who reads this post can recall at least one magical waking dream from this weekend.  I’m sharing one of mine I really enjoy.

It began with a wonderful tribute to a sister healer at her birthday party on Saturday.  It was beautiful in every way and by the sea, in my neighborhood. I enjoyed sharing the love that poured out to her for hours in our circle and meeting her amazing friends, some of which I friend as well.

When the party was breaking up, a friend says she’s headed down to the small fire pit that had been lit on the beach to burn her journals.  Intrigued, I follow.  Soon she realizes that fire pit won’t do and went to the neighbor’s fire pit.  A circle of friends invited she and I to join them and burn the journals, if she liked.

After much fun discussion among all six or seven, my neighbor in the circle and I began a conversation about dreams. She talked about a recurring dream, about a place that I felt might be a portal for frequent dream reentry. Exciting stuff which we discussed for quite a long time.  One by one I had the most wonderful conversations about dreaming with each member of that group. 

Two days later, on the beach, I spoke to one of the members of that group; when a neighbor introduced me he said; “You’re the Dreamweaver”.

I’ll take that, I smiled to myself; "Yes" I said.  A magical night and the essence of it so encapsulated in a casual remark.  The title of my waking dream is thus; “You’re the DreamWeaver.”

May your best dreams come true. 

  

You Have A Dream

by Tom Feelings

I love people who inspire me to hope and dream.  Maya Angelou, one of the great dream prophets of our age, crossed over last week.  People's hearts are singing her praises all over social media.  I say she was a dream prophet because with her poetry, art and oratory, she called on all of us to dream from every cell of our existence and to sing our hearts out to the tune of that dream.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is another dream prophet I honor.  When I was in my late 20s and fresh out of seminary, (here's that story) I taught at an all girl's high school run by the then wonderfully progressive Sisters of St. Joseph.  I had the grand honor of helping to produce, with a caucus of African-American students, a kick-ass assembly program in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday.

The opening of our assembly was a spectacular dance performance to Stevie Wonder's tribute to MLK, Happy Birthday.  The dancers were among Garth Fagan's best students in his Rochester based dance school, (yes, the Garth Fagan of Lion King fame, and you can imagine how fortunate I feel that I got to learn from him and his A-list dancers, just for a few years, while I was teaching high school in Rochester).

My decision to open the school assembly with this dance was inspired by a dream.  In my dream I saw dancers silhouetted on a dark stage with the most amazing light show of streaming colors flowing out of their every move.  The waking dream performance had that magical, luminous energy.

Dreams inspire creative action in waking life.  Shaping your own dream according to your heart and soul's desire keeps life extremely interesting.  As Maya Angelou said with her succinct power:

" A person is the product of their dreams.  So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream."

from "Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now."

Flush Rush: A Waking Dream

In my waking dream, a little bald man, something like the Wizard of Oz, has the microphone and is broadcasting the most insane bullshit about a Georgetown University law student, Susan Fluke, who testified before congress about the importance of insurance assistance for obtaining safe birth control for a college/graduate school woman student. This man behind the curtain suggested that this student should have to submit sex tapes of herself so that taxpayers like himself can watch and get something out of the exchange.

Knowing how to handle icky dreams:

First, I throw up, preferably on his shoes, because it’s such a visceral shock to my system that a media figure with his outreach should advocate this criminal intent toward a young woman; (remember, our nation is currently watching the results of such an awful invasion of privacy, something that was intended as a joke, in the Rutgers students’ trial).

Second, I ask, what will women say about this stupid ass comment? Will they say, "Enough! Who are you to legislate my sexuality?" While Viagra and Cialis are constantly promoted, religious farts are arguing about my right to use birth control, let alone have a safe and legal abortion? Who died and left them in charge? What century is this?

In my waking dream, women don’t allow such idiocy, such harmful idiocy, to go unaddressed. Like the backlash incurred when the Komen Foundation cut financial support of Planned Parenthood, there’s a tidal wave of response from women and men who value mutual respect, partnership and equal rights for women. Everyone is saying; “Enough. I will not support a party politically who calls this entertainment nor will I endorse this entertainer. His slander affects not only Ms. Fluke, but also my daughter, my niece, my friend’s daughters.

Ms.Fluke is an accomplished law student willing to make an intelligent public statement on this important issue, the right of any woman to have safe, affordable access to birth control. I can’t believe this is still an issue! Limbaugh's base approach to this young woman, to this issue and to his women listeners is so unacceptable to the majority of Americans, in my waking dream, that he loses his show and has to move to Afghanistan and join the Taliban where he once again can feel appreciated for his views on women.

Measured against this young woman’s commitment, vision and intelligence, Rush Limbaugh sounds like a seismic jerk. He obviously owes her an apology, but he also owes every woman an apology. I hope he doesn’t have daughters, or is he the kind of patriarchal guy Lot was when he said to the angry mob outside his house, “No don’t harm these male guests; harm my daughters instead”.

In my dream, American women and American men get up and say to the presumptuous males who hold a hearing on contraception and do not allow Fluke or any other woman’s input, “Here’s your pink slip”.

In my dream, every time I and every other woman or girl using toilets flush, we say: Flush, Rush. Now I don’t mean him personally; I mean what he represents: The old back room boy, the in-with-the-big-boy boys, and the patriarchal women haters. I flush that ideology. I reject that behavior. And I am speaking out against it.

Pretty soon, we can get rid of crap like this. I suppose we just need to give a shit.

Remember what Yeats predicted:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

It doesn’t have to be like this, that’s my waking dream.

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.

Waking Dreams with Bernie Siegel

Once you get the hang of playing with dream images, plots, characters and happenings, you start to play around with your waking life. There are some moments in life that deserve to be viewed from a dream perspective.

I just finished a three part workshop with the wonderful Dr. Bernie Siegel, a great pioneer in the art of integrative medicine, a visionary and a spiritual man. His books are worth reading; his work puts heart and spirit back into medical care. That's why I took the workshop, because of who he is and what he's done. Here's his website; http://berniesiegelmd.com/

In my waking dream, I come into the room, find friends in the group of perhaps 29 women and one man, and sit down beside them. Bernie invites all 30 people to introduce themselves and the reason they're here. It takes the better part of an hour for everyone to speak, but I'm amazed at the stories in the room, the suffering and the hope. When I get home the first night, I write this poem in response:

The Crucible of Our Suffering: Reflection on Class Introductions


Tempered beyond endurance by pain,
we Endure.

What Dreams fuel our will to live?

What Wind buoys our shaky flight?

What Light warms our tattered hearts and
tells our lungs to Breathe.

What do we See?
What do we Know that keeps us going?

The second workshop was about how drawings reveal our unconscious, inner needs and perspectives. I've posted before about dream drawing, how the more spontaneous and fast you let yourself draw, the more comes to the fore from the dream that hadn't been noticed or even imaged quite that way. (I actually just had a doozy of a revelation drawing a recent dream scene and will definitely be sharing that with you in a future post.) Bernie asked us to draw a self portrait and a landscape, the picture above is my self portrait. I like it a lot; it makes me feel happy because I'm dancing.

I believe that images surround us in waking and dreaming that speak volumes to our psyche on a constant basis. The ego, perhaps the part of us that has been schooled in words and logic, balks at simplistic, pictorial communication. With the shield of the Persona, the Ego seeks to keep control with words and theories, but drawing knocks it off it's perch. Imagery is the pictorial language we used when we first hit the planet as a species, or individually, as a baby. Imagery cuts through the subterfuge of mind and goes to the heart of our truth.

The more willing I am to give up ego control and free-fall, the easier it is to navigate the wild waters of the "unconscious", (Ursula LeGuin calls it "inner space"). Robert Moss's Active Dreaming places great emphasis on dreaming, synchronicity, intuition, and imagination, practices that help us bridge the waking and dreaming worlds.

Bernie uses dreams and drawings to help him diagnose illness in his patients, and also to help his patients understand themselves better, giving them powerful tools for spiritual, emotional and physical healing. He may be a reincarnation of some ancient physician who knew that illness is not just a somatic phenomenon, that healing has to address the whole person.

The third meeting focused on some questions that Bernie asked us all to answer. These were questions born out of his personal experience and studies that he's answered for himself and posed to many. Do you want to live to be 100? How would you introduce yourself to God? What would you do in your last 15 minutes of life? There were some 80 questions and 7 essay questions. I did my homework.

In class, Bernie shares with us his own responses and some stories they evoke. Now that I'm not handing my answers in, I think I'll go back and answer them again, even more honestly. The course is thought provoking and soul searching. One mother of a child with special and demanding needs is there also as a professional healer. She asks, "Why is it so much easier to agonize over our failings than it is to accept our accomplishments; why is that so much a part of our human nature?" Indeed.

I like to think of myself as sent to this particular parallel universe with a mission. To me the ultimate freedom is, as Jesus put it, to be my own authority. By who's authority do I believe what I believe? By the authority of my own experience, especially, my dreaming experience. So I think it's the nature of this particular reality level to be in constant struggle to get out of the muck and I trust that it gets better some incarnations on. Still, what that mother/healer said, or rather, the longing to know that I felt from her through her question, leaves me pondering.

In this waking dream, I experience learning like throwing a pebble into water and watching the concentric circles of impact spread across the surface. It's Bernie's intent, I believe, to radiate love, (a fitting metaphor for a physician whose innovative healing practice with cancer patients is legend). "Love is The Answer" is an acronym I've used for years in my jewelry design business, LITA Designs, just to get that thought out there. I think Bernie has distilled from the alchemy of his practice as a healer this very same lesson, and with all his credentials and accomplishments, that simple lesson is what he teaches.

Walk Like an Egyptian

In the practice of Active Dreaming taught by Robert Moss, waking dreams are as important as night dreams. A “waking dream” is an experience from my waking life that I choose to treat as if it were a dream. It can be recent or from long ago, the key is to play with the memory the same way I play with a dream.

First, I write down my memory of the experience in my journal. I take an objective approach, as if I were writing a news story or filing a police report, just the events as they occurred, no speculation or interpretation. I date it fully- month, date, and year - and give it a title. When I’ve finished writing it down, I can look at the experience more objectively and perhaps learn something from it.
Let me offer a recent waking dream example:


My friends and I are working together at a business event we’ve produced. We’re enjoying ourselves, as usual; talking and laughing between attending to customers. In walks a stranger, a man dressed in black, abrupt, arrogant and aloof. Throughout the event, he interacts with each of us and says things that in the guise of jovial jesting are veiled insults.

My waking dream story is much longer, but this vignette illustrates how I play with a waking dream. In this experience, which I titled "Kiss-off", I choose to look at this stranger the way I look at a shadow/animus figure in a dream.

According to Carl Jung, sometimes a character we dislike or fear in our dreams is a Shadow figure. Shadow figures for Jung are usually the same sex as the dreamer, but the opposite sex can also appear in shadow roles. I believe the shadow delivers a message I need to hear. It may upset me, insult me, or make me feel shame, but if I look beyond my defenses, the reward is always worth the effort. (For more of my musings on the Shadow see my previous post “The Shadow Knows” on 12/22/09.)

The animus/anima is an even more intriguing archetype, according to C.G.Jung, much more complex (pun intended). In my experience, my animus, the male characters in my dreams, come in a variety of personifications which I can put into two groups; good animus – bad animus. When I encounter a “bad animus” he’s usually threatening, bullying, undermining or skeeving me out somehow in the dream. He may even be threatening my life. If I face and challenge him, I'm sure to benefit because he embodies my fears and self-loathing; he comes at me menacing and it’s my job to figure out how to tame and transform this beast within me.

One caveat, dreams can sometimes be literal warnings about waking life threats. Playing with your own dreams for an extended period of time is the best way to ascertain a dream’s meaning because you become familiar with your own dream ways. (For more, see my post “When Bad Dreams Happen to Good People” 3/6/10.)

Back to my waking dream, if I use my dream sense to evaluate my experience I have to ask, is that person I so dislike a Shadow to me or what Castaneda might call, a worthy adversary? Should I look at his insults for what I might learn? Why not? There may be personal or communal benefits to be won if we’re willing to dive in, face what we fear or own what we dislike. The Shadow illuminates our blind spots, in waking or sleep dreams. That doesn’t mean I have to like the guy or be his BF. When I become the observer of my experience, an extra benefit to learning a lot about myself is that it diffuses the sting of negative energy.

Walk like an Egyptian means pay attention, as the Egyptians did, to the omens, messages and spiritual lessons that may come in my waking life, as surely as they come to me in dreams.