Halloween: Dreaming with the Dead

For a pagan, this is a very sacred time of year.  Honoring our dead is not a superstition or a means to ward off hostile ghosts; honoring our dead is about building a bridge between their reality and our own, in the dream worlds, especially.  Across that connection, we can continue to grow our relationships, smooth out misunderstandings and express mutual support.  We stay in touch, all year long, but at this time, we acknowledge that the veil is extra thin between the living and the dead, so take the opportunity to give and get forgiveness or cut ties, altogether.  Whatever unfinished business or desire for renewed communication you may have with someone who has crossed over, now is a good time to ask your dream guides to open those gates for you.

You can be as specific in the request as you'd like, the point is, now is the time on the wheel of the solar year that we go underground with the Maiden Goddess and we dream deep, renewing dreams of the world to come.

Pagans see time as cyclical rather than linear; this lifetime is one on a great wonderful wheel of existence that continues, despite transformations from physical to spirit, from matter to energy. Death is included in an understanding of life; birth is the other side of a particular life journey into the physical that transforms us back to the spiritual at death.

It's sad to me that Halloween is turned into something all about ghouls, zombies and hatchet murderers when it's really about honoring the dead, our family, friends and ancestors who were here before us, helped us, loved us and then transitioned back to the spiritual realities before us.  Honoring the dead is an ancient practice among indigenous peoples around the world, not because we're scared of them, but because we love them still and respect what they did for us.  The well known Day of the Dead, Dia de Muertos, is one such tradition from the indigenous peoples of Mexico.

A highly esteemed Mexican holiday, Dia de Muertos is characterized by symbols of death like the skull and the skeleton, but they're colorful and celebratory, often humorous. Altars to the dead at grave sites or in the home are decorated with marigolds and all the departed's favorite things.  The three day holiday dedicates specific attention to children, little angels, on the first night.

It's easy to see how these ancient traditions of honoring our departed have devolved into yet another commercialized opportunity for we consumers to consume.  I don't mean to spoil the legitimate fun of dressing up and trick or treating, for children and adults alike.  I do think it would be better for everyone if the connection to our beloved departed were more emphasized than our ridiculous fears of death.

We associate fear and fright with Halloween; we unleash our worst fantasies of what death might be and the hideous ways it can come.  If we take a more holistic view of death, we might unleash our imaginations on what we'd like to do in non-physical realities, when we're no longer limited by corporeal restraints.  We can dwell in the world of possibility we call magic, we can live in our dreams, as well as our waking realities.

I'll be setting up my altar to mom, dad and other beloved beings and asking my dreams to make it easier for them to get through.  If you listened to my conversation with Robert Moss on his radio show earlier this month, you heard me share my death journey dream and his wonderful psychic slip about my setting up a business to help people, like a travel agent might, design their own death journey.  Why not?  It's a great idea; let me know if you need my services.

If you'd like to hear our whole lively conversation, click here.

Dreaming it Forward

This past Tuesday I had a wonderful talk with Robert Moss on his web radio show.  Knowing that he'd ask me if I had a dream story to tell, I incubated a dream for the show; I asked my dream source to send me the dream I should share with him.   I titled the dream I received, Create the Moment.

I'm in a beautiful outdoor setting, like an emerald glen surrounded by green trees.  My focus is on listening to an inner voice that feels like an inner knowing; it's coaching me to experience the moment as it's being created by me, even as I experience it.  Somehow, I'm being challenged to participate in the flow of time differently, moment by moment, as I create it.  I know there is a subtle difference that's huge.  I have to focus on the subtlety of what I'm being taught to discern how it feels.  I woke from this dream with a sense of wonder.

Robert and I used the Lightning Dreamwork game he created and several insights opened for me then, but the illumination of many dreams is gradual and eventual; their meaning evolves out of our lived experience.  Very often, synchronicity plays a large part in this process.

The day after I shared my dream with Robert on the air, he posted an insightful description of using the twilight zone for in depth dream adventuring on his blog.  I practically smacked the middle of my forehead with my palm as I read his post, of course!  My dream is not about this level of reality; not only is time a different sensation, I'm being shown the liminal space where I can experiment with this teaching.  I was treating it as a lesson for my waking life, manifestation and all that, but my dream is showing something far more valuable.  l have a lush green dream locale where I can experience what it might feel like to relate to time without a body.  Through this portal, in twilight dreaming, I can return to learn the types of life lessons that will come in handy when I cross death's threshold. 

The synchronicity of finding Robert's post, was followed the next day with more of the same, as if the dream source was working in installments. I spent the day with a dear friend, you can meet her in my first post. She's a healer, a poet and an amazing person. We drummed together sitting on her patio.  As I drummed, I looked out and recognized the greenery in front of me; it had an uncanny resemblance to the location I experienced in my dream. I allowed the drumming to take my spirit into the landscape before me and into my dream.  I'd found another facet of wisdom from this dream, by magical coincidence.  It feels like someone is leaving sparkling bread crumbs for me to follow home.

Elizabeth created this photo art and haiku to honor our beautiful day together and as a gift to me.  It captures the entire journey, the dream, the sharing and the honoring over a period of three days perfectly.  I asked permission to share her gift with you here; you can find more of her soulful work on Instagram.

The last step in the Lightning Dreamwork game is "how are you going to honor your dream?"  I honor "Create the Moment" originally by sharing it with Robert Moss, as it seemed intended I should, by sharing it on my blog with you and by living myself into it, thinking about it and watching for it in my waking life.  Using the Active Dreaming guidelines for playing with dreams invites joy and creativity into our every day lives, especially when friends use their loving imaginations on your behalf.  I'm grateful for the many gifts I've received through dreaming this way.