Awaken the Sacred Dream

Vein of Gold

The way to the Vein of Gold opens in dreaming, revealed by my higher self as a path of deep creativity and spiritual energy. An alchemical energy hidden within the Earth.

May 10, 2023

I am looking at a vein of gold from above, held deep inside the Earth. I am shown a map of two pathways which lead to the vein of gold. Once I chose a path in my mind, I am standing before the way. A stone is the entry point. I move with ease into the stone surface, becoming like the osseous rock, I am able to enter the crevice where the gold is found. In the dream, I do this over and over, practicing how to traverse this pathway of stone deep inside the Earth, becoming layers of stone to reach the vein of gold. Once there, I feel a deep satisfaction and happiness within myself. I notice the destination is a large and spacious cave, and a Chinese man is there to greet me. He asks me how I knew how to get here. He says we from the East, have been coming here for a very long time, but people from the West, rarely know how to get here. I told him, I dreamed myself here!

I explained how my dream showed me two paths I could follow in order to get there. I practiced in my dreams, over and over, following the path, so I would know how to find the path to locate the vein of gold. In my case, that involved becoming rock, moving through the solid, to find the movement held inside it. Becoming like the osseous surface that can breath in and out, shifting with each breath, and by becoming one with the rock surface, my awareness became fluid movement in the direction of my destination.

“At its essence, art is an alchemical process. By practicing art, by living artfully, we realize our vein of gold.”

— The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart (Artist’s Way) by Julia Cameron

The interaction with the Chinese man in the cave at the heart of the vein of gold, had me researching Chinese alchemy from a Taoist view. I discovered the vein of gold mentioned as a Taoist concept, which brings together the elements as a way of becoming one with our environment, and physical reality, and a path towards immortality. The Taoist masters taught about becoming, through receiving and letting go. Not a path to produce, accomplish, and consume, as we in the West are prone to do.

The history of the Vein of Gold in ancient Chinese Taoism identifies a vein of gold as akin to dragon lines of energy connected with an alchemical approach to longevity and immortality, which was the inward and physical goal of mystic Taoism. The vein of gold associated with the Dragon lines, known also as ley lines, are energy lines connected to Earth and Sky. A map between the worlds of inner and outer experience. Connection to this vein of gold, may also center in a cave of the ancestors, where reservoirs of spiritual power can be found, and held within the Earth, where perhaps my dream guided me.

One of its most important goals of Taoist painting was revealing qi, variously known as the “Breath of Heaven,” the “Breath of Nature” or the “Quality of Spirit.” According to one painting manual, “qi is as basic as the way [people] are formed and so it is with rocks, which are the framework of the heavens and of earth, and also have qi. That is the reason rocks are sometimes spoken of as ‘roots of the clouds.’ Rocks without qi are dead rocks, as bones without the same vivifying spirit are dry bare bones. How could a cultivated person paint a lifeless rock…rocks must be alive.”

“Vein of Gold“
by Valley Reed
Acrylic Pour

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.

Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.

-Laotzu

Iatromantis: Dream Traveling Philosopher Healers

Aristeas was among those of ancient Greece who was known to be an Iatromantis, a seer healer. It is recorded in ancient stories his soul could leave his body, and return at will. This is something that an Iatromantis would be able to do, both in dreaming, and waking realities. Aristeas was a poet philosopher, who is also said to be able to take the form of a Raven.

Peter Kingsley writes the Iatromantis is part of a larger Greek and Asian shamanic tradition originating in Central Asia. A solitary practice was incubation, which was beyond the dream healing temples of the Grecco-Roman world, but enabled these seer healers to enter a state beyond sleeping, dreaming or waking, but entering a state of being described as consciousness itself. There used to be experts at incubation–masters at the art of going into another state of consciousness or allowing themselves to go if they were drawn there. They had a name that fitted them perfectly — Iatromantis

Abaras the Hyporbean, was also considered an Iatromantis, a legendary sage and healer who practiced medicine on the soul and the body. Hermotimus of Clazomenae reported to his wife the ability of his soul to leave the body during sleep, as if on a trip. She shared this oddity with the wrong person, and they came and burned his body while he slept.

Evidence of this approach to healing of body and soul is rooted in incubation practices of intention setting for dreaming for the purpose of healing as was used in the Asklepion Dream Temple practices of ancient Greece and Rome which spanned into the Thracian ( Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria) and Dacian (Romania) world. The Egyptian dream practices also included dream incubation invoking Gods such as Imhotep or Serapis, known for appearing in dreams for healing. The Serapeion in Alexandria, and Memphis Egypt were popular locations for dream incubation and dream healing practices.

The gateway to entering the dream temples were built to impress, and often devoted to the Mnemosyne, Mother of the Muses and Goddess of Memory, as gatekeeper between the realms, her presence was to help bring back the memory of the dream. Hygeia the daughter of Asclepius, brings powers of hygiene and cleansing, in preparation for the dream healing incubation ritual. After the cleansing ritual of mind, body, and spirit, is complete the supplicant may enter the abaton, a sacred sanctuary where the Dream Healing Incubation takes place, and the pilgrim sleeps overnight to incubate their healing request into their dreams. If an incubant was unable to recall a dream, a dream healing priest or priestess would dream on their behalf, and transfer the dream in the telling.

In an area in western Anatolia, south of Phocaea, in a region called Caria was a famous cave known as a Charonium or Plutonium — entrance to the underworld. Next to it was a temple dedicated to the gods of the underworld. Here the Pholarchos (masters of dreams, lords of the lair) would lead the sick into the cave and settle them down, leave them there in utter stillness. – Peter Kingsley

The Pholarchos Tarot, developed by artist, scribe and dreamer, Carmen Sorrenti, brings dreams through the portal of each card, and her alchemical writing which accompanies the deck. I met Carmen at a dream conference in Los Angeles several years ago, as she was developing the deck. She had several of her paintings in the Dream Art Gallery exhibit at the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) conference. As I stood there gazing at the paintings before me in the form of dream inspired tarot, I began to share a dream with a woman standing beside me. The previous night, I I dreamt of a Viking Goddess who emerged from out of the underworld through a doorway sized portal like a life sized tarot card, she was driving a chariot pulled by dragons.

I admired the dream tarot art before me in the exhibit and recognized the synchronicity. Little did I know, the woman with whom I shared my dream, was the artist and creator of the Pholarchos Tarot. I knew then, I would order her deck as soon as it was available. She told me she was working on creating the chariot card at the moment. When I eventually did receive her lively deck of cards, before even opening the box, I noticed the sounds of a carnival like atmosphere, coming from inside the box. The dreams interwoven inside were bursting to get out and come alive!

Indeed, the dreams realms come through in most unexpected ways sometimes, and we may have forgotten how dreams are rooted in the western modern world, but dreams have not forgotten us.

Curative Dreams

The hypogeum is an underground temple or tomb where one could be immersed in dreaming with the curative powers of the land and the numinous powers of the divine, often as part of a dream healing temple or entrance to the underworld. One of the most ancient is the Hal Saflieni hypogeum in Malta which dates to the Neolithic period, where the “Sleeping Lady” was recovered in 3200-2500 B.C. The reclining nature and sleeping position of the statue invokes a dreaming pose, and also evokes the popular dream temples that would later populate the Roman Greco world. Is the sleeping lady dreaming us, or is she seeking healing from an ancient creator Goddess? Cristina Biaggi writes the Sleeping Lady is a priestess engaged in Dream incubation or an Adept in giving oracles, interpreting dreams, or suggesting cures for illness. C. Biaggi (1986) p131-13. “The significance of the nudity, obesity and sexuality of the Maltese Goddess figures.”

“The Sleeping Lady” from
Hal Saflieni hypogeum in Malta, 3200-2500 B.C.

The dream temples of the ancient Greco Roman world were wide spread and wildly popular. Pilgrimages to dream temples became a place to go and stay overnight as a place for healing, from which the idea for modern hospitals may stem. A symbol for western medicine is the snake wrapped staff of Asclepius. The chthonic powers of the serpent brought transformation, and changing poison into medicine. His daughters Panacea brought healing of the mind, and the powers of the mind to heal. Hygieia brings cleansing powers of healing with spiritual cleansing, mental and energetic cleansing, emotional cleansing, and physical cleansing in order to bring back health and balance. Although both of these principals are part of western medicine today, dreaming seems to be missing.

“Patriarchy associates dreaming with fiction. Dreaming can’t be quantified or measured with an apparatus. But Dream incubation was considered a cutting edge technology even well into the Roman Empire. Invalids looking for a cure, would go to sleep in the temples of Asclepius, god of healing, in order to receive curative dreams. “ – Sophie Strand, author of The Flowering Wand; Rewilding the Sacred Masculine.

The Dream Healing practices of the ancient world included making clay offerings of the body which required healing, such as an eye, a leg, or a heart, and placing them into a wall. This practice of sympathetic magic, engages the healing powers of the mind through Panacea. There was also a cleansing ritual and perhaps fasting, presided over by Hygieia, where pilgrims were disrobed and washed, and clothed in white, in preparation for entering the dream temple, where snakes were guardians of the healing temple. The word hygiene is derived from Hygieia, and her wisdom includes cleanliness, prevention, and health.

Once inside the dream temple, pilgrims would be invited to incubate their healing request into a dream, and stay overnight in the dream temple, invoking direct healing powers from the divine, or a prescription of cure for their ailments. This may include dreaming with plant wisdom, or energetic dreaming with divine intervention from the God of Healing, Asclepius. Council from Dream temple priests or priestesses would be offered upon waking to help clarify and integrate their experience.

Dream healing includes the capacity to incubate a healing dream on behalf of another. Here is a dream report from a pilgrim at the abaton. “Arata, a Spartan, suffering from dropsy. On her behalf her mother slept in the sanctuary while she stayed in Sparta. It seemed to her that the god cut off her daughter’s head and hung her body with the neck downwards. After a considerable amount of water had flowed out, he released the body and put the head back on her neck. After she saw this dream, she returned to Sparta and found that her daughter had recovered and had seen the same dream.”

The most well known dream healing sanctuary was found in Epidaurus, considered the birthplace of Asclepius, who was part mortal and part God. He was raised and taught by Chiron, the great teacher. As word of the healing powers of Asclepius spread far and wide, so did Dream Healing Temples located at places such as Corinth, Sicyon, Tegea, Megalopolis, Argos, Sparta and Messene; on the islands of Paros, Aegina and Crete (Leben); and at Alexandria (Egypt) and Cyrene (Libya).

Asclepius was such a profound healer that he was able to resurrect supplicants from death. Hades became furious because he realized such practices would decrease his powers as God of the Underworld. He demanded his brother Zeus intervene on his behalf. Zeus then struck down the God of Healing with a thunder bolt. Asclepius still resides among the stars as the constellation of the serpent bearer.

Second Sight Dragon King

I kneel down before a newly born cowled face dragon, and reaching down, pull the cowl from his face. I gather the baby dragon in my arms and decide to adopt him as my own, as a mother of dragons.

I bring him home and give him a soft furry kitten to cuddle up with as a comfort companion. They cuddle up together, and sleep, but the dragon wakes.

He looks at his spikey back and tail, and his scaly skin, and then at the soft furry white kitten. Although he likes the cuddly kitten just fine, he needs to become what he is born to be. He steps over to a golden crown and circles round inside, and makes a nest inside the golden crown. This is where he belongs.

I see then a young boy of 7 or 8, with blonde hair wearing a golden crown. The baby dragon has become a Dragon Prince.

As I type this dream, I am watching Sandman on Netflix, and as I type about a dragon becoming where he belongs as King, I see a dragon enter the scene flying through the air. The Lord of Dreams, Morpheus takes the dragon back into himself, he must take on something he has created from the dream world, that has become physical in the waking world. He creates a snake and a dragon egg from the dragon powers, as a gift for the fates. The dragon egg hatches and a baby dragon is revealed.

This interweaving with the dream world and the waking world is revealed even as I type this post.

On the other side of my dreaming, I delved into researching the Dragon King, or Dragon Prince, which takes me into Slavic territory. I find a folk story of a dragon King, men and women of power who can travel into dreams and practice weather magic. They have protective powers to enter dream realms and battle for territory to protect the fields for a fortunate harvest. A Dragon King can only come from a Mother of Dragons.

The Celtic tradition considers a cowl covered birth as a sign of one who is gifted with second sight as a seer. A dragon king in the Celtic way would be one who is given the power to rule through the Earthly powers of the Goddess. “The Celtic Goddess of the Land expressed as Maeve or Mead is an example of the Dragon’s energy as fertility in Irish history. The Dragon is the life force or energy of the land that rises at Spring and rests at Autumn. “ Spirit of the Celtic Dragon – – celticdruidtemple.com

I am reminded of the story of Merlin who became seer and guide to King Arthur. The story of his becoming Merlin begins in his youth as a teenager when he is called before King Vortigern whose castle keeps falling down after being repeatedly rebuilt. The wise council tells him he must sacrifice a fatherless child to overcome his tower crumbling at the foundation over and again. This is how Merlin enters the scene, he questions the wisdom of this demand and as a seer is able to view the problem from the ground up. His vision reveals dragons underground which are causing the shifting foundation and crumbling tower. He recommends digging up the foundation to remedy the problem. “When Merlin bests the wise men and instructs them to dig below the tower, revealing a dragon’s nest, the child of Matriarchy reveals the “snakes” below the foundation of this new paradigm” (Strand, Sophie, The Flowering Wand p. 102).

“These dragons are easily connected to Tiamat, Inanna, Cybele, Lady of the Labyrinth, Eve, Medusa.”

We see in this dream, the potential of a sacred king, born with the dragon powers of vision. The ancient powers of the Goddess are bestowed upon a son of the Goddess. A sacred King to protect the land, and the people. The dragon powers are not for making war, and dragons need not be slayed, as part of a heroic male quest. The fatherless son, need not be sacrificed to the sins of the father, and countless wars, where the towers of empire crumble over and over. To heal these wounds, we must reconnect from the Earth up, and encounter the dragons sleeping underneath, who are dreaming of the birth of a Dragon King with second sight.

Dreaming in Threes

In dreams sometimes, when a message is important, it will repeat, exactly. Just to make sure I don’t forget.

When a dream sequence repeats three times, I know the message coming through has a deep source, and feels like direct communication with the divine, or the ancestors. These are not messages that can be turned away from memory or knowing.

In this dream sequence, I am being given different facets, research, and origins of how a story is coming through, how it fits together, and how it may grow in community.

Three sources of the same story 5-2-22

Shards of white light splendor, like a sliver of the crescent moon, cradled my dreams last night.

The Pleiades blew starlight kisses on my cheek from light years away.

Thunder rolled conversing in rumblings that were deeply meaningful.

Lightning flashed from all around like the paparazzi trying to catch a story.

I was given a story three times, from three separate sources.

I was given a task to speak the story from the voice who entered me. I kneeled on the ground to receive her story, looking up at her with my hands lifted and palms open.

She is frail looking, hard working, with wispy strawberry blonde hair. She has a fierceness about wanting this story to come through.

A fierce Irish woman ancestor looking skinny, tired, and ragged, came and sat down in my body. She began to weave the pieces of the story together into my inner world. When I opened my mouth her voice came out.

The storm continued outside and gave rains that never ended. The lightning gave powerful energies and set in motion the story.

I could see written research lists and demographics that belonged together.

People who belonged together and were no longer invisible or separated.

Powerful lists of presence and learning.

I am shown pages of research and demographic lists, three times in the dream. It is from here the story unfolds.

The story I told, became a children’s story, one for future generations.

The next day after waking from this dream, I woke without a voice, and couldn’t talk for about a week, but I did dream.

There is more to this story and I have dreamed into it more deeply, as I was given a different piece of the story over three nights.

Story Pitch for the Dream Producers 5-3-22

I woke from a dream that was about a story I had written and submitted to pitch as a British comedy TV show. I was the first one to get mine in and they were interested in the story idea. The premise was based on the difficulties between classes, and what happens when we no longer separate each other based on race, class, disability, gender, sexual orientation or education level. In the dream, the characters were taking shape and dialogue began to come through.

The show producers were very interested in my story, and were showing me around the studio. That’s when I saw the story start to play out more deeply into the premise.

Community Dream Mapping 5-5-22

The number 3 continued in my dream last night as I was shown a grid for community asset mapping, based on the flower of life design. The Vesica Piscis feminine principal of the yoni held between two points of the masculine and spirit within the wholeness of two circles which create a Mandorla.

The number three is a magical number of manifestation in this way. In my dream, I spoke to a group of three which included a Guatemala Grandmother Matriarch, an Elder Male Maestro who deferred to the voice of the Matriarch, and a young man Latino college student. Each voiced their concerns, needs, and wisdom. The process was shown to me as a way to map community assets and bring people together to collaborate from a place of equity, rather than power over.

The 3 dreams strung together over 3 nights creates threads of design for how this story takes shape.

Dream 1 – Three pages of research, speaking with ancestral voice, and embodying the spirit of the story.

Dream 2 – night two, the plot thickens, my dream producer submits a screenplay, developing the characters and watching the story deepen.

Dream 3 – Community Asset Mapping in the form of sacred geometry with the flower of life design, and the number three as a way of grouping people together and bring them into the broader energetic grid of community. An equity based model where people share their stories to create a symmetry of collaboration.

The Black Horse with the White Heart

A horse story from my past popped up right before the Taurus Solar Eclipse, which is about showing us our hidden soul potential.

I recall as a child, growing up on a horse ranch, where at age 8, I was a foster mom to an Appaloosa colt, when a Mare died birthing him. That experience changed me, I saw the Mare die, and then I took her place. I became the mom, and so bonded to this beautiful soul, a black leopard Appaloosa named Educator.

I bottle fed him from birth. I later halter trained him when he was old enough. I felt he knew me and I him, soul to soul. We had a unique bond. I could ride him bareback without a halter, and used to lay on his back and just wrap my arms around his neck, letting him take me wherever he wanted. He was so gentle, never spooked.

I came home from school one day, and my Dad had sold him to somebody. I was crushed, my soul was deeply betrayed by this dishonor. He said that’s what I do, I’m a horse trader.

I asked him one day if he thought horses have a soul, he said no only humans. I couldn’t believe he actually thought that, a man who spent every day of his life with horses and he never understood them.

Years later when I was grown and on my own, I had a dream my Dad’s Mare gave birth to a black horse with a white heart on his forehead. I called him up and asked him if he had a Mare foal a black colt with a white heart on it’s forehead. Total silence on the other end. He finally asked, How did you know? I’m coming to see him, I said.

I arrived at the barn and my Dad took me to the empty stall where the colt was born. He said that right after the colt was born he jumped up on his feet and ran into the gate, so I named him Calamity. That was what my Dad nicknamed me as a child, after Calamity Jane. He told me I was a wild cowgirl.

Where is the colt now? I asked. He lead me out to the corral where the colt was nursing on his Mom. We walk up close, and the colt, curious to see me, tried to walk up to me. My Dad kept standing in between me and that colt. He wouldn’t let it get close to me. He knew it was special and he was afraid of me and what I had dreamed. I told him, “You have to give me this colt.” He said, “Sorry it’s already sold.”

How many of us have sold our soul to the life of making a living? I guess that’s what my Dad did. I guess that’s why he was afraid of me, if he admitted horses have a soul, perhaps he could no longer be a cowboy.

I see how this story shaped me, made me want to shape my own life, based on soul, not money. I later came to understand, I hold an animist view. Something I have always known.

Everything in nature is imbued with soul, we are part of, not separate or above. It’s all about heart and soul for me, and dreams:) 🖤🖤🖤

That black horse with a white heart on it’s forehead, has visited me often in dreams for many years now as my protector. He knew my soul, and I his, and that will never change.

Golden Dragonfly

I have been dreaming about the color gold in many dreams over the past several years and it always leaves me feeling that something magical is at work in my life. Alchemy is a magical approach of turning lead into gold. Alchemists believed that gold was a spiritually pure metal, and the journey of the soul to was transmute lead into gold. The Arabic term al-khimia means ‘the art of transformation’ which just happens to be the tag line for my business Chrysalis Healing Arts. Like butterflies, dragonflies are also connected with regeneration, immortality and rebirth.

Dragonfly Dream Catcher

A giant golden dragonfly entered my dream and flittered before me. I turned with a sense of awe as I followed in the direction of where this giant golden creature had gone, and saw it had landed on a golden circle held in the hands of an artist weaver who was creating a dream catcher with golden thread. The giant golden dragonfly was large enough to cover the entire center of the dream catcher, and so the weaver had to work underneath it to create her dream catcher with her golden thread.

It turns out the dragonfly is an ancient creature, and actually dates back 300 million years, when it arose in giant form with 2 foot wings and 4 feet across. There are many tales of the dragon fly from many cultures around the world.

Ancient mythology reveals the original name for Japan is “Akitsushima” meaning dragonfly island. Dragonflies are known to be returning ancestors and celebrated in the Summer Festival known as Obon which is coming up on Friday, August 13th. Samurai warriors identified themselves with dragonflies as a symbol of power.

In a Mayan legend, dragonflies hold the power to heal and rebirth the Moon Goddess Ixchel by humming over her and filling her up with their life force.

Zuni Native tribal peoples see dragonfly as having supernatural powers and who carries prayers to the spirit world. The indigenous people of the southwestern tribe of the Hopi, also believe the dragonfly has supernatural powers and are shamanistic. They assisted the ancient Hopi in migrating to find their permanent home, and helping them to locate water and to grow corn. The Hopi have lived in their permanent home in Arizona for over 2000 years, but they are rooted in much more ancient cultures from which they migrated from South America, Central America and Mexico. They are considered one of the oldest cultures living in documented history.

These are just a few of the tales of dragonfly from around the world, and in my dream the dragonfly got my attention appearing as a giant ancient ancestor and pointing me to a golden web of dreams giving protection and vitality to the dream catcher being woven by an artist weaver. My dreams are woven from the transformative process inside my being. Blessed by the presence and protection of the golden dragonfly, big dreams are being created in the center of my circle.

Balance Between the Worlds

“You must retrieve the dagger” the Faery Queen says, “It holds magic from the other world. You must return it where it belongs, and restore the worlds to balance.”

At the Fall Equinox in 2020 I had an other worldly encounter during a journey with an intention to return balance between the worlds.

I determined to remember the connection to the Faery Queen and the Otherworld, and on the Fall Equinox, a time of balance, I did a conscious dream journey guided by the drum, with the intention to set things right between this world, and the world behind the world.

The Portal – September 2020

I see my guide, from the wee folk, he holds out his hand, and I place an Irish coin in it. He then smokes his pipe, and I tell him I will bring him tobacco next time. He takes me before the Faery Queen. She is tall and beautiful with her long silver and white hair. Her dress is a gossamer material glowing in white and blue light. Her staff is silver with a crystal ball a top. She takes me over to a reservoir of water illuminated by a blue and white light. A mythical blue phoenix flies around the perimeter, and across the surface, in a magical display of beauty. I stroll around the magical pool of water, and the Faery Queen tells me, “It is a portal”, and says, “Get in.” As I walk towards it to enter, I am moving deeper into the Earth, like stairs descending, and I enter it from underneath it. Just then the pool surface changes into a vortex swirling with great force in the middle. A White Lion jumps into the vortex joining me in a watery realm of blue and white light. We move through it together, traveling far across time and space until we approach a golden gateway. The White Lion enters the golden gate and turns from white into a Golden Lion in a land of sun and sand. I follow behind him and notice we are in the Middle East. I hear the voice of the Faery Queen instructing me what to do. She speaks of an imbalance that has occurred, “Magic was stolen from the otherworld, and placed in sacred objects, to use the power for selfish aims.” I see before me a man whose face is covered by a black scarf, and he holds a golden jeweled dagger in his hand.

“You must retrieve the dagger” the Faery Queen says, “It holds magic from the other world. You must return it where it belongs and restore the worlds to balance.” I approach a man with a black veil covering his face, realizing he is an Assassin. I then take on an invisible cloak, so that I may move about undetected. I walk right up to the Assassin and take the dagger from his hand and make haste to return it to the Otherworld.

Upon my return I stand before the Faery Queen, and she takes the dagger from my hand. She places it’s blade onto the Silver blade of her Sword. She then places the sword into the water of the Faery Pond, and the magic moves down the blade and into the magical pond. The Balance of magic between the Otherworld and Earthside has been restored

Heart of the White Lion June 2021, Summer Solstice

On this Summer Solstice weekend I offered a workshop on Dreamweaving your Destiny and when I pulled on my own thread of destiny, the story unfolded. As I drummed for the group, my own journey emerged and I was guided by fox to an ancient tree with an immense hollow. I entered inside where this time a Golden Faery Queen greeted me, who had just been in my dreams from the night before. In my dream, she gave me her golden robe and gossamer wings. As she stood before me now inside the journey, she reminded me of what had taken place previously in restoring balance between the worlds. The dagger had been retrieved and magical energies restored to their rightful place in the otherworld. She placed the golden robe upon me once again and the golden energy moved to encompass the entire space surrounding everyone in the circle. The Faery Queen handed me the dagger and told me it was a magical tool I could use to help heal. I was given permission to make use of it’s healing powers to help others, because of the role I had played in restoring balance and returning it back where it belonged. Just then the White Lion, who had showed up as a guide in my first journey, was now beside me once more. Only this time the portal he entered was my own heart. He jumped into my heart and I felt a tremendous surge of energy and strength. I became aware of the pain that I held in my heart from grief and loss and betrayal, and it began to slip away, no longer having a home there, and radiated out of me in the form red lines that echoed into the Earth. The White Lion had given me the strength to reconnect with my own heart and my own truth. A deeply meaningful healing that brought me a feeling of freedom and liberation. Many other group members experienced deep healing, significant break throughs, and visions of their soul destiny.

The Weaver

Since the Spring Equinox of 2021, I’ve been dreaming with the Weaver. She paid me a visit in my dreams on that night, and I’ve been tracking her wisdom in myth, stories and dreams.

The Weaver – 3-21-21

I woke this morning from a mysterious dream of an older woman who was tall and slender and learned as a weaver. She was there to teach me her skill at weaving, and told me it was time for me to learn what she had to teach me, I can no longer put it off. I knew it was true, but I did not feel a desire to learn from her, whose energy seemed harsh to me, and I felt weaving is not a skill I am prone to naturally. I could see by learning this skill, it would set my path to a crossroads where I would have to make a choice about the direction of my life, but without this skill, I would not make it to this crossroads. The deeper teachings being transmitted through the practice of weaving include connection, discernment and inclusion. The ability to see the threads of fate and destiny and make choices. I knew internally I need the teachings of the weaver, but I do not want these lessons to be harsh. The weaver teacher has a need to share her wisdom, and if the student does not choose to weave, then she cannot share her life’s work and her gifts go to waste. She carries both a sadness and resentment about this, that weighs on her slight frame. She is a Crone and guide, able to teach me about the strands of my life, that can be woven into a beautiful path and sacred container.

Waking – Aware of the struggles of being at the beginning of something, and learning something new that will affect my life journey, leading me to a crossroads.

Action – Invite the weaver into my dreams open to learning and practicing her gifts.

There are many stories and myths about the Weaver, she is the ancient wise woman who weaves the world. The Mayan Goddess Ix Chel brought weaving to women, was a midwife and psychopomp who oversaw all phases of life and death, fate and destiny as measured by the moon and the stars. The Spider Woman of Teotihuacan, Mexico predates the Aztec culture, and is also called the Great Mother Goddess. Similar stories of Grandmother Spider as Weaver can be found in by indigenous people of the Anasazi (Pueblo), Hopi, and Dine’ (Navajo) Southwestern Native Indian stories. Canyon de Chille, AZ in the four corners area holds a site sacred to Na’ashje’ii Asdzaa (Grandmother Spider). Spider Woman Rock is a red rock spire rising over 800 feet from the canyon floor like a giant needle. Spider Woman was said to have woven a web from this place that covers the vast area of the Navaho lands.

Spider Woman Rock in Canyon de Chille, AZ

Baba Yaga of Slavic origin, Athena and Arachne of the Greek Myths and Ariadne of the Labyrinth in Crete are all weavers. There is the well known western fairytale of Sleeping Beauty, who pricks her finger on a needle from a spinning wheel to fulfill her fate. There are the 3 Fates also called the Norns in Scandinavia, and the Moirai in Greek myth known as Clothos (spinner), Lachesis (allotter) and Atropos (unturnable). The Primordial Greek Serpent Goddess Ananke is said to have created herself, before weaving the world. The Egyptian Goddess Nuit is another Cosmic Weaver and one of the oldest weavers of the Universe. So many stories of weaver, so many webs to unfurl.

Web Walker 4-15-21

I am conscious in this dream, suddenly transported to a dark desert canyon, where a woman stands dressed in a sheer white cotton blouse and skirt. She has black hair with a few white streaks. She has a round sweet Native face. The narrow canyon she enters is in striated grey tones. She walks in her bare feet on a sandy path deeper into the narrows of the shadowy canyon. She steps into a circle of moonlight shining on the path. She makes eye contact with me, and looks down at her feet, showing me the layers, upon layers, of webs loosely wrapped around her ankles. The webs carry stories, and she walks with ease and keeps a slow and careful steady pace. They do not constrict her movement, but her stride is small, and she must walk with intention in every step she makes, to be sure and safely carry the many folds of webbing draped around her ankles. Deeper she goes into this ancient sacred place. She carries the dreams and stories of her people to awaken them in the deep womb of the Great Mother.

“Web Walker Canyon” by Valley Reed
in watercolors all rights reserved.

Valley Reed © 2021

The Return of Spring

Venus just leaned down and asked me
to tell you a secret, to confess.
She’s just a mirror who has been stealing
your light and music for centuries.”
Hafiz

The turn of the wheel opens the door to the Spring Equinox on Saturday, March 20th, 2021. A powerful portal between Winter and Spring, when the astrology wheel circles into completion in Pisces and begins anew in Aries. Venus enters Aries the next day on the 21st to help fuel her underworld transit to meet the heart of the Sun. This Venus Cazimi completes a cycle of Venus, and begins anew on March 26th. It is a good time to begin a Venus journal to track her movements over the next 18 months. This powerful and potent window of emergence and revelation is also connected with Isis and her underworld journey, or Persephone and her return from the underworld bringing with her all the wisdom she has gained as Queen of the underworld.

The New Moon in Pisces last week, had me journeying with a group of magical women to dream into the underworld and convene with the Goddess Persephone, as she prepares to arise into Spring. She is assisted by Hekate who delivers her into the arms of the Earth Mother Demeter.

When I journeyed into the lower realm with the Queen of the Underworld, she showed me a shattered mirror on the ground and said, you cannot build your life on broken dreams. She then showed me a full length mirror, where an image of a maiden goddess reflected back to me. I knew it was time to reclaim her and bring her with me on the return journey. Hekate was our guide and gave me her sight to help me find my way. She guided us to greet Demeter at the doorway of Spring. When I arrived, I offered Demeter a Pomegranate. I said, “look what I grew.” She greeted me with open arms ready to share her abundant nature and beauty with me. She offered me a gift, which I am to keep secret as part of entry into the Elysian Mysteries.

This Spring Equinox feels particularly important this year because of all we have been through over the past year. We have learned much, and suffered greatly. Many have lost loved ones, jobs, and relationships. Many feel as though we have lost our footing. Stepping back into the world may feel tenuous. It requires us to take our time and be mindful as the world tries to swing back to some kind of frenzied normalcy. We can instead keep our focus on what matters, who and what we truly love, and dreaming into becoming who we truly are. Perhaps that means bringing back parts of ourselves we have left behind, or perhaps it means leaving behind what was never ours to begin with.

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