The Wheel of Life

A dear friend just experienced her daddy’s passing on Christmas day. This post is a tribute to her and her father.  It’s also a response to the constant reminder that on the wheel of time, death has a place.

For me, what inspires courage and brings me solace is knowing that even if our physical bodies cease to function, the spirit we experience now, the one we call the I, never ceases to exist.  Consciousness persists to experience itself, even after physical death.

We don’t die, anymore than a butterfly dies when it ceases to be a caterpillar.  Contrary to conventional teachings, we can communicate with those who have crossed over before us.  The main channel of communication after death is dreaming. 

We’re lucky enough to live in a time when science is taking life after death seriously, due in part to the number of verifiable NDEs (Near Death Experience) reported by both medical specialists and patients who have the experiences. There’s also the growing body of work on sleep, dreaming, lucid dreaming and OBEs (Out of Body Experiences) that explodes outdated views on life after death.  Personal experience can put us in a position to re-examine our old religious beliefs and materialistic myths.  

Modern physics is a new science that goes beyond materialistic dogma, just as contemporary spirituality goes beyond patriarchal religions.  Dreaming is something anyone can do; once a person learns to dialogue with their own dreams, a bridge beyond the physical is revealed. In fact, there are a great variety of psychic dream experiences that, with a little knowledge and effort, most dreamers can test drive for themselves.

As a dream teacher, by far the most common dream people describe to me is about someone who has crossed over.  I love validating their dream connection and honoring those amazing stories of loved one who’ve crossed over.  So many times, people are told to dismiss these dreams as wish fulfillment fantasies, though most people intuitively know their dream is uncanny.  I love seeing the relief and amazement in so many people’s eyes when we speak of their dreams of the departed as something real and important.

Dreams are an organic rainbow bridge between these two realities; they are life and death.  Each of us has access to so much more than material reality in the dream realms.  One thing for sure, our loved ones who’ve crossed over speak to us in dreams.  We can nurture that communication as much as we want by always paying attention to our dreams.  

Our loved ones still love us and know that we have the tougher road here in the contemporary material world, with its political insanities and wars.

Our loved ones still want to help us.  They also have their own affairs to look after; there is a point that we might want to let them go on.  But grief is a state of being that must be honored. When we lose a loved one; there is no way around, only through the grief.  I’ve found dreams guide us through the grieving and recovery process, in part by granting us access still to our beloved.  Relationships can continue and they can evolve.  I’ve grown to understand many things about my parents, and about myself, because we continue to know each other in the dream realms.

Through dream teachings, I’ve come to better understand the importance of forgiveness. What would we do if we couldn’t reach out to those who’ve crossed and ask for or give our forgiveness?  We would be consumed with unresolvable remorse and regret.   Dreams help us understand that death is not an end to the connection. Death leaves a huge physical vacuum in our lives and that hurts, but dreams open a window we can explore to a new kind of connection, one that can bring us the consolation we need to keep healing from our pain. 

The other day, a friend told me a beautiful dream she had days before her beloved mother’s death. In it her father, who had predeceased her mother by many years, was hustling her mother out of a cab in a city where they used to live. My friend wondered at the dream and was saddened by it somewhat, but when we spoke of it, I could see in her eyes and hear in her “ahhh” that the dream’s importance just knocked on the door of her consciousness.  

Many people are drawn to see a medium when they lose a loved one.  I’m not attracted to this option, though I do respect the psychic virtuosos among us.  But, as Edgar Cayce, the sleeping prophet of the 20^thcentury wrote, each of us is capable of psychic understanding if we pursue it in the laboratory of our dreams. I don’t fault anyone who seeks the guidance of a psychic to connect with a loved one, but I wonder that people aren’t more interested in learning how to connect to those they love themselves.  Dreams are a bridge to the afterlife; they give us experiences of both sides.  If we each pay attention and develop our own dream practice, we don’t need mediums to mediate our personal connections to our departed.

I thank my dreams for messages they’ve brought from my mom and dad, for how they’ve helped each of us, on both sides of the divide, grow in love and compassion.  I thank dreams for keeping me connected to this essential part of my life, my relationship to those I loved and lost from this temporal dimension. Dreaming isn’t the only way to connect to our beloved departed, but in my estimation, dreams are the most organic.  We’ve born dreaming and dreaming we’ll exit, if we’re lucky.

In the meantime, I’m alive.  Knowing what dreams have taught me about life and death helps shape my  waking existence.  Ecclesiastes said we came naked into this world and naked we’ll return.  We can’t take any material thing with us; what we do take with us is what we’ve  become through our own actions on earth.  

According to the celebrated expert on OBEs, William Buhlman, outside of the physical dimensions, like attracts like quite readily.  Think of the power of attraction on steroids. My motto is if you don’t want to be spending your next existence on another plane living with assholes, then just don’t be one now.   Endeavor to learn how to choose the essential and dismiss the not important.   I choose love so that Love is where I land when I cross over; it’s simple.  

Religion purports to offer guarantees about our “salvation” if we pony up with whatever is required.  They claim God is Love, but stack the deck for themselves, the rich male patriarchs, and psychologically handicap the rest of us with guilt, sin and other bull-crap. We don’t need religion to feel ok about the afterlife. It’s not that God is love; it’s that Love is god.  Love is an energy that’s vital to life, not an anthropomorphic projection that looks just like the guys in charge.  Choose Love and Love will guide you when you cross and help you find you’re way. Choose violence and hate and that might be your heaven when you cross; it’s a choice. 

There’s no judgment; we learn while we’re in the physical and we continue to learn, grow and understand after we’ve left the physical.  Consciousness evolves; hallelujah!  We can help ourselves along if we break out of the mesmerizing herd and smell the dreamy coffee.

The right practice and attitude towards dreaming can open important psychic channels.  The importance of dreaming doesn’t just belong on a psychiatrist’s couch; dreams belong in our daily lives.  Dream sharing in families and among friends can be wonderful fun, and dreams can bring us great personal gifts of understanding and guidance.  And, so importantly, dreams can help us heal from the grief of loss; they can help us stay connected to everyone our hearts have embraced, even after death.

Dreams can give us the courage to live from our hearts, to follow our best dreams and to triumph over our fears.  I wish everyone bright and powerful dreams in 2020 and all of us, the courage to make our best dreams come true for the good of all. 

May it be so.

The Most Important Thing

Many people shrink in dismay at having to spend family time at a funeral or wedding; I've mentioned before that I'm lucky.  As diverse a bunch as Chirino's are, we tend to stick together. Our glue is love.

I just returned from a memorial for my friend and sis-in-law's brother in my high school home town.  What I experienced is that, despite our sometimes day and night view points, we have each other's backs.  Love does that. You can believe that I am immensely grateful and appreciative of that reality in my life.

Still, these differences I mention can be like day and night; like living only in the waking world and never in the dreaming worlds, living as if only waking experiences matter.  Why has the art of dreaming been so diminished in our culture?

 A short while ago I was at the wake of a friend's mother. The preacher was a lovely young man who suggested in his eulogy, with existential Christian honesty, that he didn't know what happens after death, nobody knows. He goes on to offer the promise that faith in the death and resurrection of that amazing man, Jesus Christ, whom we must worship according to a rigorous set of precepts, depending on religious denomination, is the only road to a happy eternity.

And Jesus knows, I say this with no irony intended. Jesus is amazing, especially as a divine son, derived of this colossal six millennia long patriarchal cultural myth we've been living on this beautiful, endangered planet earth.  Thank goddess for the example he set while he was with us.  Too bad the patriarchy that killed him found ways to use his legacy to their own gain.  Following Jesus is pretty simple; Love Is The Answer.  Following patriarchal religious 'biceps' leads nowhere good.

The joke Jim and I share about that particular memorial is that when the preacher proclaimed that nobody knows about life after death, (think Monty Python, "The Life of Brian")  I could barely contain myself from raising my hand and saying,  "I do".

Anybody who pays attention to her/his dreaming life, and brings the same attention to her/his waking life, can tell you the same thing; consciousness is much greater than the brain.  Anyone who has had an NDE, OBE or lucid dream encounter with the numinous knows that there is more to heaven and earth, Horatio, than has been admitted in patriarchal theocracies.

The most important thing each of us has is our own spirit; we are connected to our spirit home through our dreams on a daily basis.  It's another perspective.  It helps me live twice as long because I live my dreams as well as my waking experiences.  The best symbol to embody this wisdom I know is the Yin/Yang, the great Balance.  That is who we are: Spirit/Physical.   It's not opposites that are either/or; it is compliments that are best in equilibrium, in a constant dance of balance.  The relationship between Yin and Yang is the dance of Life.  Living aware of our waking and dream experiences is a reflection of this equilibrium.

The most important thing is to stop putting mommy/daddy responsibility on whatever Mystery it is that makes us tick and take responsibility for using the tools we are each born with to solve the problems that confront us here in the physical.  In other words, as Ecclesssiastes aptly stated, "Naked I'm born into this world, and naked I will depart."  You take nothing from the physical, but you can develop so much understanding to take with you!  There is always help available in a dream practice.

I've found my way to so many soul answers in dreaming, very few in listening unquestioningly to others.  I've also found so much in books, or film, or art or dance. I see my task to live from the heart and do as much as I can for myself and others, in balance.  But one very important thing is to pay attention to my dreams and to respect that the dreams of others can only truly be interpreted by the dreamer, her or himself.

So, while maybe some of my tribe wants to fine dine, I want to hear about people's dreams.  Does that mean I don't enjoy fine dining with them?  Of course I do; it's awesome food shared in love.  But I also enjoy how we talk about things more intimately in person and how my topics never fail to come up, eventually.

"My dreams are weird; I don't dream except sometimes."  So are everyone's dreams weird from the perspective of waking paradigms. When you look through the lens of dreaming as an experience, however, you recognize that the laws of the physical may not apply in many dream scenarios.    And as I love to say when someone tells me they can't remember their dreams, "Well, do you want to?"

It's the new year.  We're in a shit-load of confusion.  As former president, Barack Obama, suggests, what are you going to do about it?  We feel small, powerless to alter the big picture, but if the big picture includes our own journeys through this life and on into others, in other dimensions, then perhaps we can brave up and do whatever we can, however insignificant we deem it to be, to help make it better for others, as well as for ourselves, before we inevitably move on.

The art of dreaming always involves a correlation to the art of living a waking life; it's up to each of us to create the lives on both sides, the spiritual and the physical, that we truly want.  I say the spiritual first because without a spiritual anchor, we tend to seriously drift on the oceans of existence.

However, if we let ourselves be tethered with fear and inhibitions, hate and hopelessness, we'll miss our opportunity this time around to contribute something useful to the expansion of the spirit in the physical and the salvation of this planet.  Religions barter in salvation, but when I say salvation, I mean in the physical sense, as in survival rather than extinction on this beautiful planet Earth.  Otherwise, I don't have much to fear, and I devote a lot of my time to understanding my spiritual existence, because my dreams are a window to my soul.

The most important thing is that we are eternal beings, because we are, not because we have to earn it.  We also have nothing to fear but for the damage we can do to ourselves in self-hate.  A social/psychological paradigm that includes original despicableness (sin) is not a good place, psychically, from which to live.

You will die.  I will die.  What we believe about death will color everything we do in life.  Dreaming is our spiritual companion all of our lives long.  We're not born into ignorance, abandoned by our inner resources and beholding to some mercurial male deity.  We're born eternal; we probably asked to be here.  We are responsible for everything we do; we have a connection to spirit, that which we are, that cannot be broken.

To Be or Not To Be...or to Always Be

“To be…or not to be”, those infamous words spoken by the befuddled prince of plays, weigh the pros and cons of living vs. dying;.  Here’s a translation of Hamlet's famed soliloquy from the Shakespeare:-) to remind you.

 
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“The question is: is it better to be alive or dead? Is it nobler to put up with all the nasty things that luck throws your way, or to fight against all those troubles by simply putting an end to them once and for all? Dying, sleeping—that’s all dying is—a sleep that ends all the heartache and shocks that life on earth gives us—that’s an achievement to wish for. To die, to sleep—to sleep, maybe to dream. Ah, but there’s the catch: in death’s sleep who knows what kind of dreams might come, after we’ve put the noise and commotion of life behind us. That’s certainly something to worry about. That’s the consideration that makes us stretch out our sufferings so long.”

Shakespeare’s insight into death and dreaming in these famous lines is uncanny. Hamlet is caught up in the dualism that plagues patriarchal paradigms, you’re either this or that, dead or alive. Today, the doors of consciousness and inner space are blown wide open by gifted pioneers in every science and spirituality; the paradigms that bound our patriarchal ancestors don’t bind us now, unless we choose to be bound.  Belief in our time doesn't require "blind faith." Once when Carl Jung, that great pioneer of psyche, was asked about his belief in God, he replied,  "Believe? I don't believe.  I know."

How did he know? Through direct experience of his own consciousness outside the body, through dreaming, visions and his signature contribution, synchronicity.  He was raised a minister’s son and became a doctor in the pioneer field of psychology, as ruled then by Sigmund Freud.  He rebelled against SF’s materialistic dogma about the human psyche and spoke of the soul. Robert Moss dubs him a shaman of the west, or as Jung himself jested, he was a witch doctor for Europeans. 

Since Jung, many have continued to explore the inner realms, and many have come full circle, to acknowledge that much of what we’re discovering, we’re re-discovering.  History is the story as told by the conqueror and the conquerors were very, very wrong.  Many ancient and indigenous cultures were treated as primitive, savage, tribal, uncivilized, heathen and ungodly by white, patriarchal, western European "civilizations" who believed bloody conquest was their God given right, as they fought for Him.

Think of the bloodshed and cruelties in the name of righteous religions that still rain on the faithful and unfaithful alike.   Religious laws, strictures and competing divinities are responsible for such an unnatural percentage of the world’s pain that we ought to stop and think more about what we really want from our religions.  If it’s love and peace, religion might not be your best bet.  The us vs. them mentality that won’t back down and needs to win at all costs makes the human experience into a football match.  Ancient earth religions offered a much deeper spirituality, All is One. The divine which we call by different names can be experienced personally in dreams, visions, meditation and in nature.  Consciousness or soul or whatever we end up calling it, doesn’t die and may visit this earth plane many times, by choice, perhaps with some passion to fulfill.

The consciousness revolution of our time points to a new awareness of reality that is completely organic.  It’s like having a belly button to the inside where the cord is never cut.  There is no free fall forever. Gruesome as death can be in the physical, (birth is also an immense physical challenge), across the bridge of death, the gates of Love are open and we’re greeted and seen as we most need to be. 

This isn’t faith, this is the story told by innumerable women and men, in all walks of life, around the world, who’ve crossed the boundaries in some way.  The growing literature being produced by respected professionals in the fields of psychology and medicine, as well as by first-hand "experiencers" of near death, out of body travels, dreaming and after death communication leaves doubt of after death survival to only the most entrenched.

The implication for Hamlet, for instance, might then be that suicide or not, he will still have to deal with the circumstances and choices that are hanging him up, in the physical or in any dimension that follows the physical.  He might just want to be a regular guy, party with Horatio and marry Ophelia, but no, here’s his father’s ghost demanding revenge and telling him way more than he really wants to know.  So, he’s stuck thinking only he can solve this problem and that his only choice is to give up all his joy and fulfill what’s expected of him.

Let’s take Hamlet out of his torment and put him in a parallel universe, perhaps in the present, where his choice is much broader.  We live forever, Hamlet; your father and his brother will eventually face each other, so help your father find his way on the other side and ask yourself: what have I come to do in this life? Where is my joy? If my joy is in justice, then I will fight for it openly and call to account whom I choose. Joy isn’t always a belly laugh, it’s however it feels to be completely centered in your own being and purpose, sure of the great beyond without the wagging fingers of “god-betweens”. 

To be, to really, really be…as much as I can, as loving as I can, with gentleness and kindness for all, is the quest that brought my soul to this plane of existence.  To each, his or her own quest, but all quests lead to Home and dreaming is a sure road back and forth, a gift to explore.  Religion asks you to follow blindly.  Your dreams offer you experience of “spiritual” realities before you cross into them again at death.  If you fear your dreams, a common experience in our toxic psychic and physical environments, there are many ways to find your way back in them. 

The question of our times is not to be or not to be.  It’s what should I do while I’m still here? What made me want to come here in the first place?  What do I want to take with me?  What can I do better? What will make me happiest as I look back on my life? What do I want to happen in the thought responsive realms I will be living in next? What do I want to happen here? What matters most to me?

The Dream Connection and the Pope

This may be a bit David and Goliath of me, but I'd like to challenge the need for institu-tionalized religion. I'd like to propose that modern day "religions" do much more harm than good; they divide us from one another and fail to deliver on all the Good they claim for themselves.  I'd like to suggest that we each enter this world connected to our Spiritual Source and will exit this world to reunite with the same Loving Source; even as we reside in the physical body, in a physical world, we are spiritual beings living our unique purpose.  The burgeoning exploration of near death experiences, NDE's, out of body experiences, OBE's, and dreaming in general is opening the gates to direct spiritual experience for everyone, not just the chosen prophets of the status quo.

The organic spirituality dreaming offers is like having a spiritual compass through life helping to connect us on a regular basis with inner resources, as it provides us with personalized guides, teachers and angels, messengers of the wisdom beyond embodied reality that delivers us from the trials of waking life, big and small.  We can also gain freedom from judging ourselves by the standards of the physical world only, because we have other experiences to cultivate in other realities that often more than compensate for lack on this plane.  We’ve been brainwashed to believe the physical is the only solid, real reality. Despite a century of exciting developments in the fields of Physics, Consciousness Studies and Dream Studies, a great number of people ignore the dream portals to other worlds that are being offered them on a regular basis.

We've been taught, conventionally, to rely for spiritual nourishment on external reality based religions that give prescribed outlines of dimensions beyond the physical and demand consensus on the grounds of an elite, usually male, group of authorities who alone can decipher what even older all male authorities wrote about the Divine. I'm mostly talking about the big three, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  Perhaps some accept constricting religions as our only spiritual option for lack of alternative. These limiting religions, especially as absorbed through the mind of a child, which is when most of us get brainwashed into them, operate on a deeply suggestive psychic level to imprint on us the dire consequences of disbelieving their dogma.  They utilize a simplistic and dualistic punishment and reward system, commonly known as hell and heaven to instill fear and obedience to their projection of the Divine. Yes, they profess that at the core of their teachings is the ultimate reality of Love, but by their deeds, as Jesus put it, you shall know them.  These patriarchal religions have a track record of deeds that belie their preaching of Love, from present warring zealotry in the Middle East to horrendous historical events like the Roman Catholic Inquisition, when claiming any direct revelation from dreams could get you barbecued.

The myths that these for-profit organizations perpetuate can be truly detrimental to the human spirit, especially if you're a woman.  The myths begin by saying that once we were loved and provided for in a wonderful place, but something happened, so we got kicked out.  Humans DISOBEYED and worse, it was HER fault, the woman’s.  The serpent, EVIL, outsmarted her cute little self and she used her wiles to get the smart one, THE MAN, to do what he otherwise would surely not have done.  The rest, most believe, is HIS-STORY.  SHE must be constricted, especially sexually, so she doesn’t again undo all HIS progress,  SHE, whether in human body or as EARTH can also be abused and used, because SHE is but MAN’S servant.  HE AND GOD are on the same level; they are the PATRIARCHS.  The GODDESS is no longer anywhere to be seen, at least not in the CIVILIZED world; yet, since the beginning of human history, archeologists have discovered, the Divine was worshipped as the GREAT MOTHER.

Surely most people can see that religion, at least as much as money, is the root of our accelerating self-destruction.  The great mystic poet, William Blake described our mental chains, our unexamined, constricting paradigms as "mind forged manacles." These patriarchal myths, with different players, are in dangerous and violent competition for supremacy around the world.  If people adhere to these limiting myths for lack of a real alternative, one that satisfies, informs and inspires beyond that old time religion, then the world is ready for the alternative - individual, direct experience of the divine.

There are many roads to these direct experiences being explored by a growing number of people, all over the world, through the contemporary Consciousness Movement   My portal of choice is dreaming because it's effortless, natural and organic.  It doesn’t require much of me; all I need is to want to dream, want to remember and to pay attention.  Sharing and playing with dreaming in family groups and community groups can nourish our need for human connection and help us build a better future together.  Through individual and group dream explorations, we arrive at our own certainty, we gain our own authority over our spiritual lives.  For me, dreaming provides access to my spiritual home long before I finally go there; death does lose its sting.  It’s taught me that in thought responsive, non-physical worlds of dreaming, it’s all up to me.  I create my inner world with my intention, desire and imagination, yet in these worlds, I meet others who share similar visions and we create together.

Dreaming has also taught me that “as there, so here.”  The mirror lessons from the dreaming that apply to physical reality are the gifts we receive to carry into our waking lives.  If I can create my dream realities, how much of my waking reality can I create?  If I can conquer my fears in the dreamworlds, can I conquer them in waking? 

Rather than disconnecting us from what’s important and turning us into “dreamers” as is sometimes said with disdain, connecting through our dreaming to our eternal, non-physical self and exploring the resources available to us in those dimensions can anchor us in our authentic lives, despite the “peer pressure” of social consensus.  In waking life, connecting through meditation, mindfulness, open-hearted living are ways to keep spiritual portals open; when we sleep, it can be effortless.

In the frilly aftermath of Saint, I mean, Pope Francis’s whirlwind visit to our land, I heard the fluttering comments about his awesome Presence here. I have nothing against him personally; he seems like a truly sincere and nice guy, but as a Pope, he’s doing the RC Church a great service by gaining so much popularity. Talk is cheap and the fact that he rides by papal Fiat is not the point, or perhaps, on a PR level, it is.  The Vatican alone is a vast empire of wealth and power with deep corruption issues; does he really wield any influence there?  Could he be, perhaps quite unwittingly, the misogynist and power hungry RC church’s best media foot forward?  This is the church of the outrageous child sexual abuse scandals that are still current in the courts and the just as outrageous cover-ups by Church authorities.  This is the church that continues, the only one out of just about all others in “Christendom,” to deny women equal access with men to clerical office, and it’s proud of it!  So, how about that papal fiat to reform all this; will he do it?  Can he do it?  I don't know; but the fact that he just canonized J. Serra, despite all the impassioned pleas for him to consider the man's brutal acts towards the indigenous peoples he savagely forced to build his missions is not a good sign. 

Here’s a wonderful article on papa’s visit by Maureen Dowd in the NYTimes; well worth reading!  In it, I learned that a San Francisco priest was just officially forbidden to say mass, for attending a women's conference on ordination.  This outrageous censure of true pastoral outreach happened under Francis's watch, NOW.  What's changed? For those who might think that women's ordination is a marginal issue, here's a view to consider.


Without the Feminine Divine to balance the Male Deity, the psyche of humanity is completely out of balance.  As Carl Jung famously put it, the fate of humanity hangs on a single thread and that thread is the Human Psyche, the soul of humanity, which is dangerously out of balance.  Restoring that inner-world balance of Feminine/Masculine Divine is the only way to restore outer balance; an internal mythic world where God is Male alone means an external world that reflects this.  But, the Feminine Divine is an energy source just as powerful; to deny Her is to bring on our own destruction.

A dream connection is more important than a pope or a religion.  Organized religions need people to close their minds to other possibilities; dreaming perpetually opens new frontiers with first-hand adventures. One time, when my husband and I attended a friend's religious themed Halloween party as Death (me) and the Devil (he), someone in clerical garb asked us about the religious connection of our costumes,   My mate promptly replied, "Without us, you'd be out of business."  It's much easier to move beyond fear in the actual practice of dreaming than it is in the tomes and regulations of sects, cults and religions.  Organized religion feeds on fear of death and projects evil outward. Our own dream encounters over a lifetime with all aspects of Spirit, helps us weave the personal connections with divinity that makes us strong and helps us not to be afraid.

Religions give us a prefab God with lots of restrictions; one of my favorite jokes is that religions are all guilt with different holidays.  Relying on my own innate ability to connect with Spirit gives me the confidence to know that whatever my strengths or frailties, my successes or failures, I'm essentially a spiritual, whole being, experiencing this physical existence willingly for a purpose.  As long as I stay connected to my own experience in waking and dreaming, I'm free of the fears which make me vulnerable to psychic manipulation.

I'll end with one of my favorite quotes from a great dream explorer, Carl G. Jung:

“The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.”

Happy Papi's Day!

I take this opportunity to celebrate my dad, mi papi, and also dads everywhere around the globe who love their children fiercely and participate in their lives joyfully.

My dad crossed over more than two decades ago, but thanks to my dreams, he remains close. On this side of the veil, my dad was my best friend. Since I was little, he spent as much time with me as he did with my older brother. He took me with them fishing and taught me, patiently, to bait my own hook. From dreaming, I know he's still got my back. He often reassures me just when I need it most and always reminds me of his love for me. Father’s day coincides with papi’s birthday by a few days, so his energy is extra strong around this time.

I met a lovely scholarly gentleman, a bit older than me, who was sitting near me at a conference the other day. When we were asked to pair up for discussion to share stories about how we experienced nature growing up, many of my stories involved my dad, how he took me fishing, taught me to ride a bike, throw and catch a baseball and solve geometry formulas from scratch so when I took the Regents exams, I wouldn't have to worry about forgetting one while doing a problem.  I got 100% on my geometry Regents, though it's a skill I haven't maintained. My new friend was very surprised that growing up in the 50s and 60s, I enjoyed such liberty as a girl.  Thanks, dad.

Papi loved to joke with people, he was always gentle and kind.  If he got angry, he didn't lash out.  My brother and I respected him and were happy to please him.  As a young adult, he let me make my decisions, even when he knew I might be mistaken.  I loved talking to him and, though we didn't agree in some things, he was very accepting of our differences.  

Of course, Dad sent a dream this anniversary as well; I'm knee-deep in pondering.  It's a wonderful consolation to know that Love bridges the Great Divide.  My dear friend Mally enjoys the same dreaming relationship with her departed father, as do many dreamers. It's not unusual or "woo-woo;" it's available to anyone who explores the dream terrains.  Robert Moss, creator of Active Dreaming, has written extensively about dreaming as a practice for dying and a bridge to our departed.

On this national Father's Day I want to applaud any and every man who loves children unconditionally, who guides them wisely and with compassion.  It's a great gift to have a father like I do; I wish everyone the same blessing. The song,  "Oh, My Papa"  has always evoked what I feel for my dad. In one dream of years ago, I'm walking the beach singing it full-heart throttle; this image brings me utter joy. 

Thank you, Octavio I. Chirino, for being my papi.

Dreaming Key to Self-Reliance

 When people know how much I love dreaming, they tend to share dreams with me.  Then they look at me and ask; what does it mean?  

And there in lies the rub; the truth is, only the dreamer knows what it means.  Fortunately,  Robert Moss’s "Lightning Dreamwork" framework is a fast and easy way to turn the dream back over to the dreamer with a new perspective on their own question. The LD process is an excellent anytime mini-lesson in the power of dreams.

In this dreamplay process, the dreamer  is her or his own authority on the meaning of his or her  own dream. Credit for this understanding goes to Carl Jung and a wonderful modern dreamwork pioneer, Montague Ulman; thanks to them, this approach is honored by many modern dream work models, especially Active Dreaming.    Yet, probably the most frequently asked question about dreams is what does it mean?  It's at least right up there with "Isn't that weird?"

I’ve loved this OT saying from the Wisdom Book of Ecclessiastes  since I read it when I was a teenager; “Naked came I into this world and naked I shall return.”  It’s always meant to me that when I cross over, I will be doing it alone.   That thought never scared me; it’s just a fact of “life.”  What it has always conveyed to me is that I am responsible for that part of me that will exit, my soul.  As I've matured, it's also come to mean that there are certain gains I can make in this life that I can take with me, not the tangible trappings of the physical but the intangible gains of the soul:  How much I love. How much I learn and how much I care.   It also means that the work that I love doing here will be magnified somehow; I’ll have plenty of opportunities to grow my path once I’m dead.  Death isn’t the end so don’t fuss overmuch about getting older.  Just do what you can and stay curious.

Another thing I definitely know now is that in death I won’t be at the mercy of some Nobodaddy (W’m Blake’s brilliant term for the vengeful patriarchal Father God).  I’ll shape my own path in the subtler dimensions, just as I've shaped it here, hopefully with even more will and awareness. As long as I vibrate with the energy of Love, I’ll find each new adventure rewarding.  In other words, everything is up to me and that’s okay.  As it was in the beginning, is Now and forever shall be, right?

One of the best ways to experience what's available in other dimensions is to pay attention to nightly dreams, record them and ponder them.  This is valuable because the self-reliance a dreaming practice teaches spills over into a dreamer’s waking life. Spiritual lessons learned tilting with the windmills of the mind apply to waking windmills, as well.   Every time  I befriend the scary lion in my dreams, (and not necessarily by making it a cute, cuddly pet, either) I find new courage in some aspect of my waking life.  It also helps to see myself connected to a great Spiritual Resource that is extremely personalized to  my experience; I get the images I need, the messages I need, the support I need, freeing me to need less from others.  My connection to those I love improves when I don’t make burdening demands because my needs for security and self-esteem are met.

That doesn’t mean that human love, bonding and community isn’t a beautiful, natural, spiritual reality;  dreaming just helps us bear in mind that ultimately, it’s the soul’s journey that matters and I need to walk it by my Self.  Dreaming makes it so it’s never lonesome, though.  Not only is there help and love from the spirit side, other dreamers, other souls on their own journeys can help us on ours.  Not by telling us what to do, but by lovingly supporting our efforts as we lovingly support theirs.

So, when I say that only the dreamer can answer the question, 'what does it mean?', I’m not saying dreams shouldn’t be shared with others.  On the contrary, dream treasures are constantly unearthed in shared dream work, as long as one person isn’t telling another what to think or do about their dream.  “If it were my dream, I might think this or do that…” is perfectly acceptable because it respects the dreamer while it allows another person to play in the magic of a dream without the ego inflation of playing psychic guru or the unconscious  projection of misplaced good intentions.  

When I learn to travel my own dream worlds confidently and independently, it rubs off on my waking life.  I live my day to day dramas with much more awareness and self-reliance.  I love how Louise Hay constantly tells herself “I’m safe.”  I’m safe because there’s more to me than meets the I (ego), because I am forever; even if I have to suffer something painful or unpleasant, in the end, I’m safe.  My body is like a piece of clothing that I will shed one day in order to go naked into that good night, (and to continue to put a new spin on Dylan Thomas) dance, dance into the Light!  Does that make Now irrelevant and my physical body of no consequence?  Quite the opposite.  It makes Now a treasure and my body my best friend, because I came into the physical to do something, and I appreciate all the time and resources I’ve been given to do it. I especially appreciate all the many doors dreams have opened for me; living both awake and dreaming as fully as possible fairly doubles your existence.