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!”

A Toast to Dreaming 2016

I first found Robert Moss’s work in 1997. Jim and I were vacationing on wild and rocky Monhegan Island.  I took many solitary walks along the rustic paths crisscrossing the island where no cars are allowed, drinking in all the changing majesty of that place.  On some walks, I took my Walkman with me (imagine!) and listened to my first of his works, Robert’s audiobook, “Dream Gates”.  I had some wonderful tiger dreams on that island, and a new treasure trove of insights to use in my dream play.

After that, I began reading Robert’s books, taking workshops with him and happily partnering with him and my husband, Jim, to add video to his teaching outreach, (now in download formats at psycheproductions.net.)

Although I’d been teaching dreamwork for many years, I knew Active Dreaming was IT for me.  In my teacher trainings with Robert and so many amazing, gifted dreamers that are today, old friends, I dreamed myself teaching Active Dreaming, like I’m doing now, every chance I get.

I’m blessed to be a guest on the faculty of the innovative East coast graduate oasis, The Graduate Institute.  TGI has been graced with many high profile teachers, such as the ever more wonderful, Dr. Bernie Siegel.  I have the privilege of presenting my course, “Active Dreaming for Health and Healing” in the Integrative Health and Healing Master’s program.  The really wonderful thing about this is that the people who choose this program are hungry to break the boundaries of constricting old mental paradigms and move into the 21^st century of healing arts.  They recognize dreaming as one of the cornerstones.  I’m like a gopher in soft dirt!

This past December, I had the opportunity to journey with about 15 TGI dream explorers, with permission, as always, into the dream of a group member.  The second she began her detailed description of the landscape where she encountered the mother black bear and her three cubs, I was in my dream, "Bear Country".  In a post this August, I shared my experiences with Black Bears (who have been tracking me in dreams all year) and my dawning understanding that not only must I do more to educate myself and work for the benefit of our natural world, but the call is out to many, many people through the dream worlds, often in the guise of Black Bear.  

This is why I find Active Dreaming to be the most fruitful framework for personal or group dream exploration.  Things happen that you couldn’t plan if you tried in a group; we all experience the numinous thrill of recognizing that there is much more to dreaming and dream sharing than analyzing the message could possibly deliver.  Re-entry experiences fill out our dream experiences in valuable ways.

Everyone could see that the dreamer was visibly heartened by the dream, her own re-entry and the experiences of her dream shared with her by others.  I’m so often empowered by the synchronicities and the “aha” moments popping like flashbulbs around the group, whether we’re doing Lightning Dreamwork, Dream Theater or Re-entry.  I’ve learned, it’s not me, it’s us and all that comes from respecting the powers that speak to us in dreams.  

I’m taking this opportunity to thank Robert for the great gift he’s given the world in developing this approach and in his ever more expanded teaching of it.  I’d also love to hear from all sister and brother Active Dreamers about your own experience of sharing dreams through Active Dreaming.  It really works, right?  May all our doors and gates and paths be open…

And may the peace that passes all understanding be ever in our hearts.

A Time to Honor our Dead

Today is my favorite day of the year; Samhain, commonly called, Halloween.  This is our pagan new year; the wheel of the year turns again and we are in winter.  On this day, all over the world and for time immemorial, persons, tribes and cultures have stopped to honor their dead and their ancestors.  This day not as in October 31st necessarily, our ancient ancestors didn't keep"time" as we do with calendars and watches, but this day, when the earth is at this seasonal transition point, autumn to winter, they believed the veil between the living and the dead thins and our beloved dead can more easily come back to us.

I believe our beloved dead are always accessible to us in the dreaming, but yes, this day is special.  It offers a holy day set aside to remember and honor our dead.  This is the etymology of Halloween, "hallowed eve" of the dead, though it's devolved into our "trick or treat" and ghoulish fixation of modern day.  At one time, lit gourd lanterns in the windows and sweet honey cake offerings to the spirits, was a sacred practice ritually honoring the dead. Though, I like the idea of sweet kids dressed up in the imaginal character of their heart's content, goddess only knows it's fun for them, trick or treating at Halloween is somewhat like presents at Christmas, it's not the point.

One thing I love about paying attention to my dreams is that dream gifts often come around special holidays or anniversaries.  Sure enough, both my deceased parents showed up in a dream this week; pondering this dream has led me to a very happy resolution of some issues we can heal together.  I'm busy assembling an altar to honor them and my dream revelations, in thanksgiving for it all.

In Active Dreaming "honoring" the dream is a standard practice derived from the teachings of many indigenous and ancient cultures. It means bringing the energy of the dream into the waking by embodying this dream somehow in the physical through creative efforts unique to the dreamer. If I take action to bring the dream story into the waking in some way, it's likely my dream will release it's energetic charge in me, allowing me to better understand the gift it offers.  Understanding a dream is not necessarily Left Brain analysis; it's more like a dialogue of heart, head and soul.

For example, the day after my dream, without trying to interpret it, I dug out my high school prom dress, which I was wearing in the dream and which my so talented seamstress mother made for me, and hung it where I'll pass it several times a day.  I also found a wonderful picture of my parents dancing I'd forgotten I had; in the dream, we were all at a dance, so I'll use it on the altar.

Our dead come to us in dreams in many different guises and with different errands.  That's nothing to be afraid of.  I'm always puzzled by the ghoulish aspect of Halloween.  My husband, Jim, and I were married on Halloween.  We asked our guests to a masquerade ball, but to think whimsical, please not ghoulish.  Our guests had amazing outfits, from a bonafide Beefeater man to Mother Earth and Father Time.  Nobody came in dripping in blood or zombied out.

Perhaps the ghoulishness is an unconscious attempt of the modern psyche to laugh at it's own fear of death and what lays beyond death.  Yes, there can be some scary characters and situations in dreams (not talking about PTSD dreams here), but as the Senoi tribes revealed to mid-twentieth century anthropologists, if you turn around and face your fear in a dream, ask what it wants and be ready to negotiate, it will transform into an ally, 99% of the time.  And at any rate, you have better odds dealing with anything outside the physical than in the waking world. I like what my dad once said when my brother and I made spooky noises as we passed a cemetery, it's not the dead ones you have to worry about.  We have all sorts of capacities while in our dream body that we don't have as easily in our physical ones, one of them is to connect to the dead.

Our dead are in other dimensions; it's not necessarily "heaven" as depicted in religious tomes, but  parallel realities, other consensus realities. Hopefully, they're all growing and developing their soul's purpose and reaching their own connection to ultimate Source.  It's a soul by soul process, though we all pass through it.  That's what I think from what I've experienced. What I believe with all my heart is that my soul will survive death safely, as did the souls of my mom and dad.  I know this from my own dream visits to these dimensions, from their visits to me here in this one and from the scores of people who've borne the same witness in their own stories or writings.

When I have a dream visit, I pay attention and carry the dream in my heart until it unfolds its gift to me.  Never fails to happen, that aha moment when I understand the dream gift and can start using it in my waking life. But it's not always an immediate revelation.  Often the dream is one I really want to turn away from, one that evokes painful or bad memories, though, sometimes it's plain wonderful, right from the get go.  Whatever its residual feelings, I pay attention.  I write it down and let it sit with me until I get it.

So on this day of Death, a day not to fear but to celebrate, may all those you love that have crossed be well and be near to your heart.  One of the quintessential gifts of dreaming is that we have nothing to fear in death; we never truly lose anyone; death is as common as the changing of the seasons, and just as impermanent. Depending on how near we are to the physical separation, death can bring us great sorrow.  But meeting our departed again in our dreams can help us know for sure that we are forever, in one form or another, not ghost, but holy, holy spirit, each one of us.

A blessed Hallow's Eve to all.

Go Find Me

I had the excellent idea that to grow my dream teaching practice I would start a Go Find Me campaign where I ask all I know to consider me as a wonderful potential speaker at an event, preferably paid, but under some circumstances gratis.  Or, if you have a group of friends, at least six, who want to have a dream party playshop and you live in my driving distance, call me and I'll explain my work and my fee.

I love to teach dream work.  Most people who learn from me seem to love it, too.  So, I could use my friends and students's help in getting out there more.  Thanks so much.

But it's more than what I want to do; it's what I think I'm here to do.  And, I'm not alone.  There are some AMAZING dream teachers out there, on a global scale, like my teacher, Robert Moss, and inspiring teachers on a smaller scale in many communities.  I think there's a very good reason for this; dreaming is a vital skill for achieving spiritual independence. It can help us get the world out of the present human quagmire that's choking all life on this exquisite planet.  How?  By helping us focus on our real spirituality, dreaming is a connection to where we came from and where we're going.

Why do we need this bridge; spiritual independence from what?  From the tyranny of religion, from dogma. No one can tell you that you are a sinner, that Love can be withheld for disobedience.  No one can separate you from the true Spirit Being you are.  How can I know this? Every night I travel in another body, not my physical body, and sometimes, the things I experience as this being blow the doors off my previous waking perceptions and make me feel I am not alone and that I'm truly loved.  Love is a huge, creative, forgiving and humorous presence in my dreams.  It's a resource available to anyone who pays attention to more than waking reality.

Yes, PTSD dreams and severe nightmares need very special attention, but for many people, dreams are an avenue, perhaps a very neglected one, leading to true self awareness and self love.  I'm guessing that's why I volunteered for a tour on the physical plane right now, at this time, in my place, because so much depends on us learning that nothing can conquer Love.  No fear of some spiteful Father can eclipse the natural energy that is our very own nature, a nature we constantly share with the Divine.  It doesn't matter how we speak of Love, what name we call it; it does matter how we Show what what we profess to Know.

The universal need to love and be loved exists because it is our Source; it's who we all are regardless of geographic place or cultural space. We were all born of woman and we will all dissolve with all the sacred elements of this planet at a physical level; we will all die. That's what I call a tour of duty or a lifetime; this lifetime, as opposed to perhaps others, past or parallel or to come.

Here on this plane, at this time we have an opportunity to turn things around, to replace Fear, Anger, Hate and Cynicism with Love.  There are many saying this, like those who practice and teach Mindfulness; Pema Chodron and Eckhart Tolle come to mind, but, gratefully, there are a host of others.  We're experiencing a spiritual revolution.  Is the media reporting it?  Not much, but Oprah does a good job introducing new concepts and many people are finding books or teachers that are challenging the toxic paradigms making us suffer so unnecessarily. The revolution may not be mainstream, but more people now realize that belief creates a psychic paradigm that dictates all we do and say and that is responsible for our joy or sorrow.  When we believe things that oppress, limit and make us submissive, we lose the natural love of life we're born with.  When we're discouraged from loving ourselves by the firm edict that we're born in need of redemption and God's got some conditions we need to meet, if we're going to get any love from Him, we eventually turn on ourselves and believe we are unlovable.  We let charlatans put these ideas in our heads and then we self-police ourselves and create a world in dire need of Love.

Shall I enjoy sex?  Shall I laugh, and sing and cause the rafters to ring?  No, God is constantly asking us to suffer, just like He let his only son do.  Was that His pound of flesh decision, his choice, his fault? No, supposedly, it's ours for being so rotten in the first place.  This kind of catechism breeds self-loathing, a common problem these days, as most will note.  But, what kind of a father could bear to watch his son suffer, especially as some kind of appeasement for a grudge the father himself is holding?  Let it go, it was only an apple.  Good and evil is basically Love or no Love.  We all know that.

Dreaming can help us learn that.  Because my dreams have shown me a landscape for my death transition, as well as allowed me to connect to those I love on the "other" side, I fear death very little.  Through dreaming, I'm already familiar with many things I'll find very helpful to know; most practiced dreamers will concur.  Yes, many of these revelatory dreams are lucid or out of body, but some incredible insights have come to me from my day to day, garden variety dreams.  It's all good.

This is a very important time in history and it's important not to be swayed by dogma and rhetoric, to be our own independent spiritual authorities. Now is the time to place our hands on our hearts and ask to feel Love, to be able to give Love and to receive it.  What we stand for as Americans and as human beings is at stake.  The American dream was always about freedom, escape from tyranny - usually religious tyranny.  Now, maybe for the last century, it's about money.  But since we will all be exiting this planet, a question that we've relegated to the compartment of religion, what happens after this, is really the most important question to answer.  Money is not a necessary commodity once we no longer have a physical body; goddess only knows when it became such a tyranny in the physical.  It wasn't always so.

Once greater number of people connect to their own dreaming resources, religions that manipulate the followers they attract  to exclusivity, to the point of violence, hatred and fear against all others, will no longer be the dangerous monopolies they've become.  It's liberating to know that I have nothing to fear from death, but that I have something to live for on the physical, enough to commit to the here and now and trust the help that I know is available to me spiritually.  The more we Love, the more certain we can be of being reunited with Love.  The more we all Love, the more Real will be the experience of Love on this planet.

Now is a very good time to become a dream explorer.  I hope I can help.

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.”

That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It!

Here’s a Waking Dream. 

I walked on the beach this morning, early sun and so beautiful.  I walked, meditated, and did some Tai Chi because I pinky swore a friend I’d get back to it.  I was a few yards from the stairs up to the street and there was a woman coming down them, so I slowed my pace.  Beach hellos are always fun; she had a mug of something in her hands and looked like she was at the start of a stroll of her own.  Her husband calls for her to wait, so she stops and I come to where she’s standing and greet her:

“It’s marvelous down here!” 

She nods and begins to tell me how she loves it here at low tide; I certainly love low tide on this beach and nod in agreement.  Then she makes a U-turn in conversation and begins to tell me how high the tide has been and how that’s not good because it means more storms and blah, blah, blah. 

It feels like a visceral onslaught so, having just played Tai Chi, I push back.  I lean over and say to her lovingly, “I think you should just enjoy this day.” And I move on.

I get it; there are scary things happening because of our doodoo headedness as a species, but you’re here, with your cup of coffee, waiting to take a stroll in this miraculously beautiful day and this is what you talk about?

Besides, she was seriously bumming my afterglow. 

I’m a student of the power of story; the power of story is also about the power of word.

It’s a long story, but think about it.  As a human race, we began communicating verbally whenever we did; it was supposed to mean progress in our evolution.  The jury’s out on that one for me, we may have shot ourselves in the foot as we put it in our mouths. 

Here’s another story, one of my all time favorites.  It’s the story of how I got my mantra; I know I’ve told it before but it bears retelling. 

When my niece had her first little boy, she and her husband were over the moon about him.  As he grew beyond the expected age for him to start speaking, some relatives got worried.  The two of them, I remember, were cool and nonplussed about it most of the time; they were going to give him space and time to reach the point of wanting to speak without pressuring him.

One day I’m talking to her on the phone and she tells me he has uttered his first word; of course, I want to know what it is.  She says, well, at first she thought she heard him say “dada” so she rushed out to get her husband and then she coaxed him, “Say that again, pumpkin.” 

He looks at them both beaming at him over the bed and says; “blah, blah, blah.”

I howled laughing and decided it would make a great mantra.  Most people are familiar with this word used in meditational practices, a signal word that you repeat to block out the mental chatter.   I want to be in the moment, especially when I'm in Nature, like at the beach.  When I catch myself in my head instead of embodied in the moment, I use my mantra. Blah, blah, blah.

It's so effective in alerting me that I’m in my monkey mind and need to focus and be present because that’s where the fun is.  My nephew is in his teens now. I’ve got to tell him this story; I think he’ll get a kick out of it.

We started out using words to tell stories.  I like stories and I like words, but there’s a difference between living my story day to day and telling myself stories about a time that isn’t now.  Where am I going to place my focus?  Either way I create my own story, but with very different results. 

In fact, that’s another mantra I use; “What story am I telling myself?”  When I go to that place of worry and fear and loose focus of my present moment, I weave a scary web of what might happen. I  play a dour story out like a movie in my head – I envision this happening or that could happen. 

This is pretty typical of how we're programmed to operate in our heads by Western culture, as the beach lady story illustrates.  I've learned to stop the story; "what story am I telling myself?" It usually makes me laugh.  Holy shit, that’s some gruesome story I’m spinning.

I have a choice. I’m creating the mental web of words that will trap me if I let it.  Some stories can sap my spirit from the inside out.  It’s my choice! I can tell myself stories that have a healthy impact on my psyche or I can entertain future scenarios that frighten and sicken me.

I just listened to a wonderful talk given by NDE experiencer, Jeff Olson, at last year’s IANDS Conference.  A major lesson that is part of his story and his teaching is that we have a choice and the smart thing is to choose to love.  He also shares how dreams still keep him in touch with his wife and I say, yeah, baby, of course!

I received the same lesson in a 2007 dream, the night of an anniversary of my mom’s death, so it was probably a gift from her.  I won’t go into the dream here, but at the end a voice says to me, “You have a choice; that’s the secret of the universe.”  I try to practice that teaching as much as possible and as Jeff Olson says, “choose joy.”

The story I tell myself is important to what I think, feel and do.  It’s my choice.  I’m creating my story as I live it, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of my story creating me. One way I always know which is happening is by the way I feel. If I’m sliding into glum or grumpy, I listen to my mental chatter for a clue.  I'm telling myself things that make me feel that way so all I have to do is change the story.

In the beginning was the Word.  

Not in my book.  The word is Logos, the power of intellect, rationality, Left Brain, structure. Logos is okay, but without Eros, the very vitality and energy of life, Logos is a killer.

To speak is to make it so, not just for the great patriarchs, like Jehovah, but for each of us.  When we say, I’m not smart or I’m not creative, we’re baptizing ourselves in our own labels.  I’m this. I’m that.  Labels limit our experience.  They put us in boxes of our own and collective definition.  They’re loaded with energy, good or detrimental.

So here’s the outline for a new story.

Fewer words, blah, blah, blah. 

More heart.

Lots of imagination.

Always, Love.

Live the best story possible.

Your dreams will guide you to those best stories, so pay attention.