Wake Up To Your Dreams

greensblack3I don’t know about you, but this is the time of year when my dream-life gets hopping.  I make sure to have a journal and pen by my bedside, because my dreams increasingly have something to say that I want to absorb and recall and guide by.

Not that they don’t at other times of the year.  But I find that as we plunge into the Crone time of the year, that my dreams increasingly speak directly to my deepest yearnings and questions, offering some pretty obvious insights and advice.  At other times of year, my dream-life is often far my subtle, and exasperatingly mundane (or seemingly so).

Here’s how I tend my dreams.

At any time of year, when, in a dream I have a physical sensation that pulls me awake, I take time to enter the dream, recall the feel and details, and then I write it down.  These dreams are my medicine dreams, the most potent and direct that come to me.  The “pay attention! if you want soul-direction, or messages, or teachings, here they are!” dreams’.  I’m not sure if I made an agreement with my subconcious to wake me in this fashion or not, but it’s only been in the past five years or so — during the time that I’ve seriously tended my dreams as ‘beings’ — that these dreams have taken place.  These are the dreams that speak so eloquently to my heart, that when I wake up I sometimes feel like crying (and do) because I’m not there anymore, or feel so much excitement and gratitude and awe because I really have received something profound.  Something that changes my understanding of my self or reality.

At various times over the past decade I have been earnest about recording my dreams (because, really, so much more reveals to you when you do–I often find puns and riddles in plain sight when I reread what I wrote about the dream, and reenter different parts of it).  At one point I was waking up and recording dreams whenever I had them during the night.  That was starting to make me crazy :-), so I made a deal with my subconscious: “I’m going to pay special attention to the dreams I have just before waking in the morning, so if you want to give me a particular message, put it there, or else make it really clear to me in some other way that I ought to take note of another dream!”  That’s probably when I also started having my medicine dreams: if I had a particularly message-laden and potent dream in the Northeast of the night (the vision hours around 1:30 to 3:30am) — especially one that physically pulled me awake, then I’d write that one down too (well, usually I’m so wowed by the dream that of course I’d do that!).

I’ll write dreams down any time of the year, but here in October through early December I am far more attentive to doing so.  When I’ve participated in Dream Circles it has always been at this time of year, so I think that has helped instill this rhythm.  But there is also the natural rhythm encoded in this stretch of year.  As we approach the cross-quarter celebrations of Samhain, Halloween, Day Of The Dead, All Saints and All Soul’s Days, we enter the mythic time when the veil between the realms is thin.  It is the time, the old tales say, when we can speak to our ancestors, or to the spirits, or to the Soul of the World, or to the hidden realms of the self in far more direct ways.

Wandering with your dreams is like peeling away layers of reality.  There is much to discover, and sometime it stings, and sometimes it’s not what you expected from the surface of it.  You have to hold the “messages” lightly (don’t start taking yourself overly seriously as the result of dreams and visions!), but I always try to take some action during the day based on what I think the dream is telling me.  As a way to honor the Dream and its visit, and to demonstrate that I am trying to listen–to it, to my deepest self.

I have at times felt deep longings and yearnings to have grown up in another place and time where messages from the natural world, and teachings from spirits would guide me in my medicine path.  I realize in a “duhhh” moment that inner wisdom and teachings to my heart are available to me in dreams (as well as many other places).  Taking an action, no matter how small, because of the richness and symbolism of a dream is my way of saying to dreams: I am listening.  I want to learn, to deepen.  I know I can deepen my medicine ways through dreams.  I believe in the alive resonance that lies within our own souls.   My treasure lies at my heart, and dreams can help me bring them forth in service to others, to the earth, perhaps even to the archetypes themselves.  Who knows.  (another question I’ll ask when I meet God after I die, I’ve got a whole list of ‘em!).

Sometimes I take a scene from a dream and detail it, imagining that it is a divination/inspiration card, from my own personal wisdom deck.  I note the setting, the objects, the main character, the feel.  Everything I can discern.  Then I set about decoding the symbolism of each aspect of myself.  I’ve thought that I could indeed create a personal wisdom deck based on scenes extracted from dreams.

What are dreams telling you these nights?  Are they muttering or sighing to your soul?  What might happen if you unpacked one of your dreams, spread out the images and symbols and words and let them soak into your waking heart?

It’s easy to start tending your dreams.  You can do as I do, and just write down the last one of the night.  Even if it’s just a snippet, or a feeling, evaporating as you try to grasp it, do so anyway.   You are signaling to your dreams that you are ready to listen.  Tomorrow night or the next it will become easier to recall a little more.hawthrn

Write your dream down as if it’s happening right now.  It is.  If you start going somewhere else with the dream, into a landscape that you know didn’t just happen, just fly with it.  Your dream is still conversing, singing a little into your waking-dreaming being.

When you’re done, reread what you’ve written.  Regard the dream as a being, someone you’ve just met.  Be curious.  Be receptive.  Ask some questions perhaps, and journal some responses.  Or just be with the landscape of your dream and let the images work into your heart in their own way.

You might ask: what might I pay special attention to at this time?

Let the image float into you.  Explore it.  Unpack it’s own personal symbolism to you, or its more universal meanings.  Literary references, even.  Or a play on words.

You might ask: what simple action might I take because of this dream that will shape my life in a good way, in a direction I need or yearn to go?  Then during the day, take that action.

My post today is one way I am taking action based on a dream!

In The Spirit Of The Dream

Diane Hillaire and Liz Brenneman–two wise women indeed from my village–lead dream circles.  Read this article by Liz to find out more about dream tending, especially in a dream circle:  In The Spirit Of Dream

Get Up And Dance!

Annie dances
Annie dances

Photo: Story Doll by Lisa Mathias

for The Next Chapter: Chapter 11 – Subtracting Serenity Stealers

First, some updates from me:

Finally, finally–my harp CDs are once again available for online purchase via PayPal. You can download free tracks from each album by clicking on the highlighted songs there. Check it out, and enjoy the music!

Me–organic, for-the-past-decade totally right-brain–Jane is reclaiming some of my left-brain self in gathering the threads of my business and reweaving them into a spiffy new medicine blanket, with whimsical charms, eye-catching found items, rainbow ribbons, interesting bits of feathers and fur (gathered, of course), that cool shell, and a strong, gleaming antler all cleverly sewn in (my dream for it all, anyway!). Left-brain Jane is focused and on fire with ideas, thanks to a marketing resource she discovered in the “horse-whisperer of small business” Kendall SummerHawk. Her How To Charge What Your Worth And Get It and more have been great resources for me for breaking out of some calcified notions I’ve had as an artist and idealist regarding my relationship to business and, well, money.

Right-brain and Left-brain Janes are currently in a lot of focus-group meetings and communion-with-nature experiences (steered by Left-brain J. and facilitated by Right-brain J. respectively) to determine how the practical ideas and true-to-my-nature practices can intermingle into offerings that are Real Magic — authentic to me, effective in the outer world, and exciting to the creative, heart-centered envision-a-positive-future-and-live-it-right-now folk with whom I love to hang out (all of you!).

I’ve got some fun ideas up my sleeve. Stay tuned as they unfold!

… and now, for my 12-Secrets reflection:

Get Up And Dance!

Okay. My biggest Serenity Stealer is my repetitive thought pattern surrounding trying to figure it all out! In the past couple of years, this has involved trying to figure out the perfect place for us to live, the perfect place for us to live, the perfect place for us to live. That one’s finished up–for now, anyway. Hurrah! But I’ve replaced it with trying to figure out my business and who I am in my business. (and I won’t retype that 100 times!).

Enough! Several of my blogging sisters have posted their remedies for their personal Serenity Stealers, so do visit the 12 Secrets Of Highly Creative Women link above if you need inspiration on a remedy. Here, however is my favorite:

  • Get up and dance!
  • This one is top of the list for me, and I thank Lisa and 12-Secrets blogging sister at Girl Can Create for this reminder. Nothing, nothing moves stuck energy for me like dance/authentic movement. Just spinning around, or running, or dancing or being playful–springing like a deer, scrabbling like a raccoon, whatever sparks in that second–is just right. Other times, when I have space and privacy, and need to shake something off that is just an entangling rope around me, or just want to go burrow into the possible, I mix up a bunch of magic into that moment of movement and expression.

    Such as:

  • Opening To The Nature Around Me – the companionable spirit of the house, the sweet serving nature of my favorite teapot, the birds singing around me, the trees, the clouds, the moon in its cycle, the waters … opening to who and what is out there, listening to them, for them …
  • Calling in of other Essential Natures – of certain animals, plants, or other beings and knowings of the Natural World, the Grandmothers and Grandfathers, the four or five Elements …With Opening To and Calling In, I invite these beings into the dance-of-the-moment, and they become part of the weave of movement–sometimes as witnesses, usually as partners.  Invariably I discover something I already know in my heart, thanks to opening to this dialogue of Other Within And Without
  • Gratitude – this always enters the mix.  You can’t have an Upright Mind or clear being without feeling your blessings and truly appreciating them! I give thanks to who and what are with me, and continue outward from there.
  • Reiki / healing energy – I bring healing energy into the moment, but then begin offering it to whoever and whatever springs to mind that may need it! As humans, we are all healers, so just call in your own personal healing energy if the idea inspires you!
  • Song, Sound, and Silence – these improvised vocal and non-vocal expressions are my multi-part harmony with the spirit in the moment, the way I tune into the focused resonance of the possible, and, truly, wing my way into Grace
  • When I Finish I Always Say Thank You
    - to whoever and whatever and for whatever showed up. I often call, whisper, or shout out the word Ameyn! – the word Jesus would have spoken in his native language of Aramaic.
  • The movement/dance emerges as both prayer and mythic theater, nothing I offer to human witnesses–merely an ensemble experience with more-than-myself/qualities-within-myself. It’s like becoming a dance partner with a dream-figure in the landscape of the dream you had last night that still mingles at the edges of your conscious mind. (Hm, and you could explore your dreams that way, couldn’t you–through actual movement.)

    In fact, as I write all this, my mind opens to the possible, other ways to journey with moment.

    But, as I remind myself of my chief Serenity Stealer, “trying to figure it all out” — perhaps more aptly translated as “over-thinking” –I’ll just break off from my musing, finish off this email, then go forth and dance! How about you?

    May You Move Merrily through the Coming Week,

    ~Jane-Singing Deer

    Medicine Dreams And Risk Taking

    I’ve been dreamtending in my own way for years. As a result, my dreams now tend me. When I experience a “pay attention” dream, that dream will wake me up when it ends, and I’ll feel a certain sensation in my body, like being pulled through layers of air or molasses or reality. Then I make sure to just sit with that dream, and feel the images in any way I can, and eventually write the dream down. It’s usually pretty darn clear to me that I’ve experienced a medicine dream.

    So it was last night, in that “elder-into-mystery” period of our night/day cycle that is midnight to around three a.m., that vision time. I felt myself pulled out of the dreamtime and into waking. The dream:

    renfairedeersmallI am visiting a friend at a well known wilderness awareness program. A gathering of students of all ages is taking place, and the founder of the program is present. Spontaneous groups of children and adults go up to this naturalist and he intuits an animal name for each person. I decide to join one of these groups and see what name emerges at this time. I’ve had several different nature names over the years from participating and assisting in these nature awareness programs–Northern Flicker, Raccoon, Great Blue Heron …. Each name was like making a new bird or animal friend. And of course I have my own true name, one that the forest gave me. What name will emerge now?

    As I approach the Naturalist, I discover that as part of the choosing or discerning of the name that we each carry an item that somehow represents our medicine bundle or something of ourselves. I find that I am carrying a small African harp. It is “antler”-necked, that is, having two curving wood necks, with three strings attached to each neck. The “antlers” join to a sounding bowl–a gourd or tortoise shell–that is covered with goat or deerskin and rimmed with cowrie shells. The harp, skin, and cotton thread strings are stained dark purple.

    The Naturalist takes the African harp and holds it up. “Deer,” he says, studying the body of the harp, which is the ‘deer head’. I realize–as does he–that we’ve met some time in the past, when I’ve had this harp, though I don’t remember the details of that meeting. “I’ve seen this before. Singing … Singing bowl …” He gazes again at the ‘antlers’. And now he homes in on the name, “Singing Deer,” he says, handing the harp back to me.

    I am astonished. I had never expected him to discern my true name! I start to tell the story: “The forest gave me the name. It was when I was totally distraught …” I stop. No one needed to hear the story. And it was no momentous visionary thing that a human had discerned that name. This Naturalist had been trained as a scout, and he had developed incredibly acute awareness skills. With his memory and awareness, this matter of name was just obvious to him. It was like putting a 100-piece puzzle together, or solving a two-minute mystery.
    renfairedeer2tiny
    When I’m pulled awake, I ponder this speaking of name and I ponder in particular the nature of the “antler-necked deer harp”, the African harp. For me, this harp in this dream speaks of deeply ancestral ways and knowings, and the rhythms and sweet sounds of the heart of our nature. I realize that even as I’m pulled to study herbalism and other threads of healing, that at the heart of my learning journey must remain honing my skills of awareness, of the natural world, of the ancient technologies of whole and healthy culture that is indigenous to all of us, and my own inner peace–who I am in the heart of my nature/Nature herself.

    And I decide to take a risk on behalf of my Medicine Woman self: to start signing my web messages with my outer and inner names. Whoo hoo, such a big step :-). As I do so, I realize that my Risks don’t really feel too much like risks anymore, when I step into the ah-ha form of them. They may feel filled with weather when I first consider something about them, and worry, and “oh, what will people think?”, but when I step into the right timing, proper understanding of them, it’s just an “Oh, of course. It’s time.” My inner village of selves has all come to consensus, one mind and heart. My antler-necked deer harp offers me the medicine bundle and music and arrows to take action. I don’t fully understand the nature of this harp–how can I? But I feel in all my cells and being how it is me.

    In the lovely way that life affirms our “ah-ha moments”, I wandered out in the snow this morning to my sit spot (where I engage in sense meditation, nature awareness, and thanksgiving). I noted that a deer had come by–browsing on the alfalfa bale we’d left out to offer as “winter greens” for our chickens. Nice that it was also feeding the deer! After some time at my sit spot, I felt the urge to spring to my feet and run like a deer. I did so, and immediately noticed a stag at the end of our fence line, watching me (so much for my awareness!). I stopped, then watched him, as he walked slowly away from me.  He then sped into that graceful gait that is like water. He trotted along the deer path I know well, past the mountain ash, across the street (setting a neighbor’s dog to barking) and disappearing into the neighborhood. A three-tined antlered stag.

    ~blessings to you from the Medicine Tree,
    Jane-Singing Deer

    This image is from the internet. They are two small harps from Kenya, a double-necked 6-string harp on the left, a single-necked 3-string on the right.

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