A Perspective on Time That Dreaming and Age Has Taught Me

My mom had the best Cuban sayings that she would pepper in the wisdom she gave us. One of my all time favorites is, “Mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por ser diablo.” The devil knows more because he’s old than because he’s the devil. 

I was talking with a dear friend about young people contemplating suicide in our country and how it is epidemic.  It’s so distressing to witness, let alone to live that sad reality as a parent or guardian. When we’re very young, perhaps we don’t see time as changing all things as easily as we do when we’re older.  Our passion for whatever we deem to be our sorrows is overwhelming.  We can’t speak it and it seems it will never go away or get better.

 

What is causing our youth to suffer so poignantly?  We need to listen to them and then do something to alleviate that suffering. How can we better open our hearts to the young?  How can we open our ears and hearts and help?

 

Listening is a tremendous skill to develop.  One way to develop your listening skills is to listen to your dreams.   You would think something so simple and so beneficial would be taught in every home and school to our children, that we’d be telling them, here’s a simple way to connect with your inner life, your organic spirituality. Here’s what you do to understand what you’re doing in your dreams and what indeed, you can do.  Your wildest dreams, your most passionate desires can come true in dreams and perhaps, as they do, so they will in your waking reality. Fear is power in your dreams; you can learn to do much to create what you want in dreaming, despite the obstacles.

 

However, we aren’t “in control” in dreaming, we are hyper aware spirit beings with super powers, but those powers come from powers greater than ourselves.  Above all, dreaming has taught me that Love is the greatest power in the dream worlds.  That it should also reign in our hearts here on this beautiful struggling planet, I can only dream.

 

Why don’t we teach our children to dream well now?  Dreaming can help them rely on themselves as eternal spiritual beings, living for a purpose unique to each of them.  Since it wasn’t taught to us, we adults need to learn how to dream first and how to live our best dreams, as Robert Moss puts it.  Doing so can help us get our creativity back and change the things that need to be changed so that our kids don’t have to feel so overwhelmed. 

 

Only Love guides without asking for anything but love back.  God is not a man or a woman; that’s how we may manifest in the physical, but we are energy connected in every way to the source, Love.   All the confusion and constraints are man-made, literally.  Patriarchy has truly set a barrier to people feeling good about themselves and their sexual expression, an iron curtain in the psyche.   Sexuality belongs to the physical; spirituality is formless.  There are no genitals in the afterlife unless you want them, of course. It’s not God the Father or God the Mother.  It’s Love. Simple.  Love.

 

Living a spiritual life has nothing to do with joining some denomination of patriarchal religion and goose-stepping to whatever they tell you to do.  Living a spiritual life is paying attention to your constant connection to spirit, to Love.  Participating in your dream life is a way of participating in your spiritual life while living your physical one, as best you can.

 

What is the perspective on time that dreaming has taught me?  There is no “time” in my dreaming experience; dreams can take me back, spotlight the present or fly me forward to what’s coming on the river of temporal events in the physical.  

 

"Old" is another construct of the physical world.  Living a long life of dream exploration and waking experience can lend much needed perspective to any life; especially, the perspective that the end is a new beginning, one in which we can be intentional about creating.  Once I die, I will continue my work in the service of expanding dream awareness, in myself and in others.  Perhaps, I'll volunteer for dream bringer duties, part time.

 

I also plan to surf the tunnel of an amazing ocean wave unafraid and many other things, as well.  I once had a beautiful dream that presented itself as a gateway through death’s transition, if I should want it.  Yes, I want it and am gifted to have it. If I can, I will enter that landscape and be guided as I was in my dream.   

Once we really listen to the way dreams speak to us and what they consider important (it’s rarely our egos), we can let go of the self torture we’ve been taught or terrorized into making our belief system. We can begin to experience our spirituality organically, not on a merit system.  As William Buhlman, master teacher of the OBE experience says, the first thing we need to let go of in order to experience our authentic dream/energy bodies is to examine our conscious and unconscious learned beliefs and let go of them in favor of direct, experiential exploration of our uber-real inner worlds.

May we listen and learn from our dreams so that we can help our wonderful young people survive the fake world and find strength in their spirits to do what they were called to do in the physical.

The Inner Child

photo by Luba Rasine; The Sparkly Water

When I'm feeling inexplicably sad or the like, I look for my Inner Child to check on how she's doing.  I use the Active Dreaming technique of journeying to meet her in a familiar place, usually a dream place.

When I journeyed to meet her today, I was surprised and deeply re-assured to meet my wonderful friend, Bear, the huge grizzly that once scared the pajamas off me in a "nightmare." It also made sense, because as Robert Moss frequently points out, the Inner Child will often feel protected and comforted by large animal guides.

To begin with, I sat in silence with my feelings of sadness to see where they traced, and yes, my little girl was sad.  As often happens in dreams and journeys, the unexpected takes over and something real happens; I know it's real because it's so unexpected.  I witnessed her tears and bent to comfort her where she sat curled into herself, and that's when I felt the presence of Grizzly Bear from that long ago dream.  After that, I had flashing images of all the Black Bear guides that have been showing up in my dreams frequently over the past few years. Each image gave me huge comfort and a true sense of being loved and assisted. Finally, I saw this wonderful scene from a card I have by Hillary Bird; a little girl in a teepee with a bear, sitting crossed legged opposite each other, obviously deep in warm conversation, though they are depicted as silhouettes against the beautifully painted canvas of the tent glowing from within.

Relief from sadness flooded me, as it became my little girl in that teepee telling Bear all she was feeling.  She wasn't talking about past stuff alone, she was talking about what "I" was feeling now, she wasn't even talking to me, the observer/big sister.  My restlessness, lack of productivity and despondency were inexplicable to me, not at all caused by anything in my environment I couldn't fix; well, most of it anyway, (what I can't fix, I choose to accept in love).  Bear listened and Bear advised.  The shift I felt is comparable to leaving a great therapy session. I am so grateful.

The Inner Child has been on my mind for another reason, too. One student I'm working with has a clear image of a five year old self from a dream of that age; thus, she has a portal to genuine interaction with that aspect of herself and is exploring what she might learn developing this inner relationship. It's fun for me as a dream guide because I can readily identify with the experience of first connecting to my own five year old self through a dream and synchronicity experience 15 years apart.  I share that with you in Crocodile Friday.

What is the "Inner Child"?  To be objective, I did a quick search and got:

 "... a person's supposed original or true self, especially when regarded as damaged or concealed by negative childhood experiences."
 

"...inner child is our childlike aspect. It includes all that we learned and experienced as children, before puberty. The inner child denotes a semi-independent entity subordinate to the waking conscious mind." (my underline:-)

I know from my own studies and practice as a counselor, that there are many good psychological theories of the gifted/wounded inner child and its effects on our emotions, behavior and self-image. In my view, no theory around will give me a better insight into my own inner child than connecting with her, just as if I wished to reconnect with any friend or relative.  I'd make the effort to see and talk to them; to listen to how their life is going and catch up. 

One of the many gifts of a dream practice like Active Dreaming is that things go from the theoretical to the poignantly personal and experiential very quickly.  You're consciously exploring dreaming locales in a spirit, energy or imaginal body.  I don't think any amount of talking, Left brain, analysis or theorizing can yield such rich results so quickly. In my experience, genuine interaction flows from Right brain, creative approaches to engaging the dream character, symbol or place. 

In Robert Moss's wonderful book, "The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse" he writes:

We are at the center of all times. The dramas of lives being lived in other times and in parallel realities may be intensely relevant to understanding and navigating our current relationships and life issues.  We can learn to reach into those other lives to share gifts and lessons.  We can dialogue with our own older and younger selves within our present lifetimes.  We must entertain the spirits, starting with our very own - the child self, the inner artist, the passionate teen, the animal spirits the creative daimon.  p. 13.

One would think that we'd welcome our little girls and boys home to us with open arms, like we might do puppies or kittens, but I've noticed in my own and others' experience that there can be quite a bit of resistance.  Why is that? What sometimes comes up is a very judgmental adult ego self, one that will not let that little kid be flawed in any way, who might want to get away from that little child and who needs to learn love and compassion for that child before that "inner child" may agree to come home for a re-union.   This was a fascinating discovery for me, one that time and again, my dreams have assisted in clarifying.  Like all inner work, depending on the degree of trauma suffered in childhood, it may require wise, compassionate counseling to undertake in highly traumatic cases.

When I encounter in myself unwillingness to embrace an aspect of myself, especially a child aspect as she manifests, I want to face my own resistance.  If she won't talk to me, it's up to me to figure out what it will take to strengthen our bond, to make her comfortable with me and me with her, to "entertain" her.  I ask myself, what am I holding back? Am I judging this child for something?  Has this child's voice gotten overlaid by an older self, inhibited, saddened or repressed?  What I want to see is her smile, her joy, her bliss and the bond of our mutual love. After my journey to meet her, I went for a walk on the beach - with her.  One seagull was screaming as they do and part of me wondered how to understand its cry, what it's trying to say, until I saw my little imaginary companion hopping after it on one leg imitating its call.  What a lesson in child vs. adult nature that was!

She isn't just an imaginary aspect of myself dominated by my waking ego ("subordinate to the waking conscious mind"), she's as "real" as "I" am. In the Dreaming, all time is NOW.  Ignoring her distress, distress that is an undercurrent of my waking ego's feeling experience, is not only unkind, it's unwise. Our soul aspects in the inner world, perhaps what Jung meant by complexes, have a life and "mind" of their own. My relationship with my inner child is that, a relationship.  The illusion of being in control which the ego perpetuates becomes evident when, like in my case, sadness would out, regardless of my ego's effort to ignore or over-ride it.  "I" prefer a sunny disposition and a good sense of humor, so I was having none of this weepy child.  My little girl "Inner-Child" was demanding and directing my attention from my external, waking world to my ever-present inner world. The minute I relented and journeyed to meet her, I witnessed Bear come to her immediately and felt awed by Bear as I recognized again, Bear's numinous nature.  What a gift to me to be reminded of something so strengthening and powerful that I experienced in a dream long ago.

What my inner child is, is less important than who she is.  Who she is harbors some of who I am that I may want to reclaim now; plus, she may need me to feel totally loved and accepted again, as every child should feel.  One of the easiest ways to do that is through the portal of dream/play.

Remembering childhood dreams or dreams featuring little children, writing them down, drawing or using any creative expression to manifest the energy they contain for our waking life, can bring our little selves back to us, helping us each feel our genuine core of joy.  Dreams don't get old; they belong to a realm where time is irrelevant.  Exploring childhood dreams and memories as if they were dreams through Active Dreaming can open floodgates of creative and caring energy blocked, perhaps, by shutting out the little person we each once were.

Here's a toast from that magical poet of the inner child, Shel Silverstein, who crossed over in 1999:

“If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If you're a pretender come sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!”

Family Dreaming/Spiritual Parenting

"River of Dreams" Elizabeth Westaway, 1962

In my dream practice training group, we dedicate one session to dreaming as a family activity.   This is an important part of Active Dreaming, sharing dreams with those we love and using dreams as family entertainment.   

How were dreams approached in your family? What did you learn from others about dreaming growing up?  What dreams do you remember from your childhood?  What help did you receive figuring dreams out?

For many, the answer to any of these questions is, not much.  It complicates things that the most memorable dreams are often experienced as nightmares.  Unless we’re working with PTSD playback dreams, nightmares are usually dream gauntlets thrown down by our dream guides because they think we’re ready to face what we’re running from in waking life.  As you know from many of my previous posts, I believe a nightmare is my best friend.  Working and playing with nightmares  is a practice that has always payed off for me and for dreamers in my groups who’ve bravely ventured where before they feared to tread.  There is an old saying: “Where there’s fear, there’s power” that is especially true in dreaming dimensions.

One of the perks of being a dream teacher is you witness magic and healing in every encounter involving someone’s dream.  Sometimes people tell me they used to have vivid, magical, wonderful dreams as a child, then “something” happened and their dream portals dried up and their dreams are full of the worries of waking existence, when they’re remembered at all.

I’ve had the great honor of seeing that turn around in my students.  Just recently someone who said that very thing to me when we first met at a workshop, at the end of the group course she took with me said of a dream she'd just had:

“Last night it hit me like a ton of bricks!  I guess I couldn't see the forest for the trees but this was the first time in decades that I was flying again in my dreams.  For me this is HUGE as I loved my childhood flying adventures and finally I was, AM, airborne again!!!!”  Yay, hurray, yippee…that’s all I have to say.”

Again and again, I see the joy people take in their own dreams once they reconnect with their dreaming self.  Wouldn’t it be better if we nurtured the dream life we all came here with in our children, instead of letting it be shut down due to ignorance or censorship?

It’s only a dream?  Really?  If we learn to follow and trust our dreaming intelligence we can pass that wisdom on to our children and they can pass the magic of that world from their vantage point back to us. Parents who know how to work and play with their own dreams are at a tremendous advantage, as are their children.

For one, dreaming is an organic path to consciousness and spirituality. We have natural access to the many dimension of reality we left behind to incarnate into this physical body, in this physical world, through our dreaming, lifelong. 

This can come in handy when addressing the quintessential questions about God, death and the meaning of life that often get asked of parents by their children.   When a parent has nurtured a dream dialogue with their child, and encouraged a dream practice in their child, it’s more than likely that child, having grown up with strong dream guidance and experience, will come up with some answers on her/his own.  If not, the parent has the entire cornucopia of dream images they've heard from their child to build an explanation to which the child can thoroughly relate.

For example, this might be a scenario of a parent listening to a child’s dream of a beloved grandma, who died; the child dreamed of her last night: “You saw grandma last night in your dream?  Yes, grandma died last week. The dream didn’t scare you?  You felt happy to see her?  She wanted to visit you and tell you she’s okay and how much she still loves you?”  Then a parent might say;  “Shall we draw a picture of your dream?  We can give it to grandpa, if you want.” 

A parent with a dreaming practice has access to a unique resource for nurturing a spiritual core in their children  that goes far beyond what Western culture has offered in centuries.   Today’s parents can learn how to develop a family dream practice that will serve their children throughout  their lives.

I hear so many friends say when their children reach that questioning age that they are going to take their child to church, regardless of the fact that they, on their own, wouldn’t go, but they say, they want to give them a spiritual base.  Later they say, their child can choose what religion or not they will follow. 

As a former psychotherapist, I say this is the stuff the profession counts on for their bread and butter, that and childhood family entanglements.    Not to worry, I would love to say to them, connect to your own dreams, teach your children to connect to theirs, and not only will you feel confident that you’ve given your child a spiritual terra firma, you’ll also have a lot of fun in the process and develop out of the ordinary communication with them, as well. 

As in any other practice, yoga, tai chi chuan, dance, playing an instrument, etc, you can't teach what you haven’t experienced yourself.  It’s a great idea for parents to learn how to have an ongoing relationship with their own dreams.   I highly recommend the innovative and practical approach Robert Moss presents in his books and DVD series on Active Dreaming; it's the modern shamanic approach to a dream practice.  His book,  “The Three Only Things” is a great introduction to Active Dreaming, as is, quite humbly, the DVD series Jim and I produced with him, The Way of the Dreamer.   With a little guidance from veteran dream explorers to get you started, nothing beats your own dream journal for the best tutorial on dreaming. I encourage parents to develop a dream practice so they can pass this great gift on as soon as possible to their children.

Dreaming protects and sparks imagination, something we desperately need in these creativity- numbing times of electronic entertainment.    Do you think, when you’re dead, you’ll still elect to spend hours of each day in front of a babbling box of ever cascading images of the same thing?  Or will you be out there doing the impossible, dancing and singing your joy?   Flying? 

We are not finite human beings; we are infinite spiritual beings.  Nothing ends; it’s never over.  It changes, that’s all.  The good news of this brave new world we are now living in is that consciousness studies and dream pioneering has brought us to this new age of discovery, not an exploration of outer space, but one of inner space.  The 100^th monkey has got the picture; it’s time.  Dream time is as important as waking time.  Help, as Robert likes to say, is always available to those who ask, especially if they listen to the answers offered in dreams.

May your best dreams come true.

Dreaming With Children in 2020

I’m happy to have met an amazing young man of 14 who came to our Robert Moss/ Gore Mt. dreaming retreat early this month with his mom, a wonderful dreamer participating in a Dream Practice Intensive training I’m leading.  He is so cool, sweet and true.  It’s very obvious that he liked what he experienced because he wants to come to some dream classes with his mom. 

I think young people and children like Active Dreaming because it stimulates imagination and reveals the fun it is to play with your dreams in a group of creative dreamers.  Our young mountain dreamer shared one of his dreams with our group and then directed us in Dream Theater, a game where the dreamer casts people to play out his or her dream. I got to play his cat, a part I enjoyed immensely, as I love cat companions and he has a really cool one.

Every time I share Active Dreaming with children and young people, I see how much they really appreciate innovative, imaginative ways to learn.  I’ll paraphrase what I heard renowned child psychologist and author, Dr. James Garbarino, say in a keynote to educators; ‘it’s a challenge for children to “survive the crashing bore” that is our conventional public and private educational system in this country.’  It’s a system that’s economically impoverished, yes, but the real poverty is in the curriculum and the structure, (not the teachers, with some exceptions). In other words, it’s the Spirit of education that in 2012 is impoverished.

As a teacher, I’ve always dreamed of unleashing, not harnessing and curving, our children’s curiosity and energy.  My vision of primary education is a lot of outdoor, nature based running and playing with very little time spent sitting and listening to adult blah, blah, blah.  Yes, they’d be guided in learning about many things in which they show an interest and the skills of reading and writing would be encouraged in them in creative ways, but learning will always be experiential, not rote and mechanical.

Young adults will be out in the community learning from gifted people in the fields of interest they choose. Dream explorers teach wonderful programs for children of all ages, including adults, to initiate and develop the art of dreaming.  Musicians, dancers, poets, actors, scientists and experienced spiritual healers, all of them dreamers, staff our educational programs.

I’ll add an idea proposed by a young mother in our Gore Mt. Group to my 2020 vision for education; our communities have created cyber classrooms in a central location we might call a “school” where through our amazing technologies, youngsters connect with others from all around the world and learn about each other’s cultures and life.

Dreaming the future to the year 2020, I see that our educational system is diverse and creative; its aim is to open the doors of imagination and to dreaming so that each child finds an authentic life path. Art programs will flourish as children manifest their dreams creatively and science will be based on developing the now revered powers of imagination. We all understand that consideration for all living things and the planet can drive our technology; we value strong dreamers in all fields and promote all creative activities. Einstein, of course, was way ahead of us;  “Logic will get you from A to B, imagination will take you everywhere.” 

Right now, while dreaming this future, the best way to open dream gates for children is for their parents to open their own, first.  When parents know how powerful, wonderful and energizing it is to be connected to dreaming, they’re the very best teachers for their children.  As for dreaming itself, children are the experts, many spiritual teachers say it’s because they are newly transitioned from dreaming dimensions.  The most important practices for adults to learn are: to listen, not judge, not analyze, respect the dreamer and the dream, and offer only what might delight or truly help the child, like back up to face anything scary and to create something positive out of the fear.

Here are some great articles from Robert Moss’s DreamGates blog and two of my own posts on this topic:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/dreamgates/2011/05/the-first-things-to-know-about-childrens-dreams.html

http://blog.beliefnet.com/dreamgates/2010/06/when-children-dream-the-future.html

Here’s a story about my own experience-teaching children about dreaming:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/dreamgates/2010/09/dreaming-with-inner-city-kids.html

http://litadreaming.blogspot.com/2011/09/playing-dream-games-with-our-children.html

What does your dream of future education look like?  What can we do now to make our children's future brighter and deeper?

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.

Dream Games With Children

A dear friend told me a story I love, about her grandson's first reaction to the concept of the "tooth fairy." After he lost his first tooth, she said to him, "Honey, if you put your tooth under your pillow, the tooth fairy will take it and leave you some money. He looked earnestly into her eyes and said; "I don't want that woman in my room."

I howled with laughter when she told me this and thought, we just have to pay more attention to the wisdom of children. Frankly, I never understood why the same protective adult who told me not to talk to or go with strangers expected me to be thrilled to sit on Santa's lap at some department store or let a clown hug me.

Children's instincts are usually spot on; the more they're encouraged to trust them, the better served they will be all their lives. Now I'm not talking about letting kids choose their menu or bedtime; I'm talking about listening to their thoughts and reactions and respecting their intuitive behaviors. And of course, listening to their dreams and encouraging their dream play.

Children find Active Dreaming techniques easy to incorporate into their flexible paradigms. They have no trouble acting out a dream character, drawing a picture or making up another ending.

You know from previous posts that I enjoy playing with nightmares; I find little kids can get into that easily. Did I tell you about the little boy (5?) whose big brother, (maybe 10), wanted to borrow the movie, "Jurassic Park" from the library? Browsing the shelves near by, I heard the little one say to his brother, "I always get nightmares when I watch that." Unable to help myself, I stepped up beside him, and said, "I get nightmares, too, when I watch scary movies. But you know, I can sometimes make them not so scary." He was shy, but interested; "How?" he said. "Do you like dinosaurs?", I asked him. "Yeah!" he said. "What's you're favorite one?" I asked him. "TRex!" he said. "Well, if I have scary dreams about dinosaurs chasing me, I would want to draw a picture of my favorite one, TRex, and give him a name and make him my buddy. I'd put the picture next to my bed and I know that if ever any dinosaurs chase me, my buddy TRex will protect me. And, I might even want to draw a story book about what we do together so I can remember and make more stories when I'm asleep." He looked at me, eyes wide, big smile and said, "Thanks!"

Not to be creepy, I stepped away and went on with my own library reverie, but you can bet my smile did not fit on my face.

Let's play dream games with our own dreams and then we'll know how to guide our children.

(The picture was drawn by another dear friend of mine, Allie Leigh, when she was maybe 12 or 13. She'll correct me if I'm wrong. She let me use it for "The Way of the Dreamer" DVDs so I'm guessing she won't mind my using it here. Again, she'll correct me if I'm wrong:-)