Horse Witches

Tracking Horse Stories with the Reed Clan

Son of the Wind

I come from horse people, my Father, Harry T. Reed was a horse trainer, and Appaloosa Breeder of World Champion Horses, and honored in the Appaloosa Hall of Fame. My grandfather Frank D Reed was a cowboy who rode on the cattle trails in Colorado in the days before there were fences. My dad had five brothers and five sisters and he was right in the middle. Nearly all of his siblings were also in the Horse Business, as well as plenty of cousins, from rodeo to thoroughbred racing. I began to wonder, what has been passed down in the Reed line. So I began looking for horse stories connected to the areas of Scotland where the Reeds were known to have come.

The surname Reed, means Red and originates in Scotland around the 14th century. Plenty of my Reed Aunts had Red hair, as does my older sister. Aberdeenshire is one of the areas in Scotland where the Reeds first appeared, and it is here where I began to find horse stories that were beyond my imagination. My own grandfather is known as a horse whisperer, who trained a wild mustang into a flashy cutting horse that eventually became a world champion polo horse.

Mystery surrounds this horse who was called Son of the Wind, because he was born in a blizzard in Winter, outside of foaling season. A spirited horse indeed, no cowboy could break the young mustang.

In the early 20th century, Buckskin Charlie was chief of the Southern Utes in the southwestern corner of Colorado. He was also a notorious horse trader, who occasionally raided herds of the Dine’ people on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. When the Altman ranch in Lincoln County, in Southeast Colorado, bought 50 Ute broncs from Buckskin Charlie, a shipment of Navajo Mustangs were delivered instead. In cowboy terms, the Mustangs were a lightweight smaller breed to the Castillo Spanish horses the Utes often traded, and the Altman riders unloading the mustangs in Colorado Springs figured “they got stang”. The mustangs were turned loose on the Altman Ranch and there Old Shorty was born. Most Colorado range mares foaled in the Spring or Summer, but Old Shorty was born in a blizzard in November. Luckily a couple of cowboys heading home from the range came upon them and brought them to the ranch where they were sheltered and fed through the Winter.

The Altman riders gathered around the chuck-line for dinner one evening perched on a corral fence watching Old Shorty feuding with a bull calf in the corral. They began talking about his genealogy and the fact that he was born out of season. One vaquero from Baca county proclaimed, Aqui esta un hijo del viento! Behold a Son of the Wind!

You see the cowboys all knew that there had been a movement to eliminate inbred Stallions in order to upgrade their horse herds. Cattlemen from Horse Creek to Cheyenne Wells agreed to remove all stallions from their ranges, only permitted to run with the herd at certain times of the year. Son of the wind could mean fatherless, or a speedy footed racer, Old Shorty Qualified on both counts .

A Portuguese Legend goes “when the west wind blows, mares set up their tails and turn them full against it, in order to conceive that genital aire in steed of natural seed; in such sort as they became great with-all, and quicken in their time & bring forth foals as swift as the wind.”

Old Shorty was turned out on the range with the herd for two years, who kept mostly to himself, earning the title of a Cimarron Mustang, and an altogether rough and wild Bronco. He had grown strong and muscled, and stood at 14 hands and 800 lbs. A Blood Bay with Four White Stockings, and the short-coupled back of his Arab Ancestry, which all mustangs can claim.

Bronc Busters were brought into to break the two and three year old wild herds, and ride out the raw stuff. These Bronc Busters were very good riders but not good horsemen, and sometimes much meaner than the broncs they busted. They mishandled him from the start, and he fought them tooth and hoof in a frenzy of fear and rage. After a few weeks the busters quit on Old Shorty in disgust. They couldn’t learn him a damn thing. He was a bawling, bucking, son of a blizzard. A spoiled horse.

He was put up for Auction and his reputation proceeded him with hardly anyone bidding, except for Frank Reed who bought him for $26. My grandfather bought Old Shorty, knowing he was dubbed a spoiled horse, and no one could break him. Frank Reed was known as a right salty cowhand and a good rider, but he was also a good horseman, which is something entirely different. He may have seen something in Old Shorty the other men could not.

My grandfather took the horse and put him in a small barn, and made his bed alongside the horse, and slept there until the horse recognized him as kin. He brought him the best oats and hay and fed him from his hand. The horse learned to trust him, and that his hand was not there to harm him. Eventually the re-training began, and always with gentle respect, and a whisper, the mustang named Old Shorty, was never parted from his new teacher. Old Shorty became a faithful cutting horse on the Cattle Trails, now weighing 900 lbs at 15 hands high. Shorty could cut on a dime and give five cents change, a real honest to gosh cutting horse. He was so gentle my Grandmother Nellie could ride him pregnant, with a toddler in her lap, and was seen riding all over the county unescorted.

Nelly Reed and Frank Reed

A Bet Without a Bit

Frank Reed was on a beef drive of 900 steers in 1917, from the Altman Ranch to the Santa Fe Railroad at Rocky Ford. He took Old Shorty as his Night Horse, and at no time did he picket the horse, who was always found grazing peacefully by the chuck wagon until time to go on night watch with the herd.

When the herd reached Rocky Ford, 300 hundred were to be held in the feed lots of the American Sugar Company to fatten on grain and sugar beet pulp. The other 600 were to be shipped to market. The range cowboys held the herd, while the Sugar riders cut the feeders. It was a sorry exhibition to the cowboys, when the herd was stirred up on the verge of a stampede, with no steers cut out yet. Frank Reed, exasperated, bet a dollar he could cut a Steer in one minute into the scale pen for weighing, but without a bit in Old Shorty’s mouth. The president of the Sugar Company sitting on the top rail of the corral, called the bet. Reed removed the bridle bit, rode into the herd, and cut a feeder in forty seconds. The Sugar Magnate called it a fluke and offered Reed a dollar for every steer per minute he could cut into the scale pen.

Reed and Old Shorty went to work and cut 27 steers in 27 minutes into the scale pen. When his opponent admitted the spectacular feat was more than luck, he then offered $200 for the horse, but Reed would not sell. The Son of the Wind was eventually sold for $3500 to one of the world’s greatest Polo Players, Tommy Hitchcock. In 1924, Old Shorty played for the U.S against Great Britain in the international polo championship at Meadowbrook and helped score the winning goal for the U.S.

My father was a world champion horseman much like his father, who became so masterful in training horses, he boasted a money back guarantee to train a horse in three days. He could deliver a trained horse so in tuned, the rider could steer the horse with only their feet.

The Horsemen’s Word

The roots of the Reed Clan in Aberdeenshire, Scotland unfold with horsemen as members of the Society of the Horseman’s Word. Those Horsemen skilled as horse trainers, were sometimes seen as magical figures. Tales were passed on about ways they gained mastery over the horse. The Society of the Horseman’s Word in Aberdeen, Scotland, would invite initiates to their rites through the mysterious appearance on their beds of an envelope with a hair from a horse tail in it.

If the initiate accepted the invite, he would arrive in a secret location with offerings of whiskey and bread. Once there he would be blindfolded and led through a series of questions and rituals and threats to the initiate. The one piece of real knowledge embedded in the ritual, was the Horseman’s word, some say it was the Latin “sic jubeo”, meaning “I conquer this way”. The secret rites resemble Freemasonry with secret rites and rituals that accompanied entrance into the craft. Being invited to join the Society of the Horseman’s Word was a mark of distinction.

Those skilled with horses were viewed as having occult origins.

“Initiates were believed by some to have practiced forms of folk magic or witchcraft. In East Anglia, horsemen with these powers were sometimes known as ‘horse witches’ or ‘horse-warlocks’ or ‘whisperers.’

It has been speculated that these initiation rituals were derived in part from the witches sabbat, or from published accounts of witches and their ceremonies.”

Some speculate the Horseman’s Secret Society was a survival of an ancient pagan cult that had been persecuted in the witch trials in the Early Modern period.

“The Society of the Horseman’s Word originated in Scotland, and it is thought that the practices associated with the Society entered into East Anglia with Scottish prisoners of war from the Civil War era. With no possibility for defeated soldiers to be repatriated, many of them settled and sought work in our region. This theory gains credence from the fact that there is no evidence for the existence of the Society and its practices in East Anglia prior to the 17th century.”

In East Anglican Suffolk, the skills of horsemen were tied to their connection to animals that have been known to possess magical qualities such as the Toad. Stories surround the so called Toadmen and Toadwomen of their rites, such as acquiring a bone from a toad that gives power over man and beast. The bone is buried in the Earth and then taken then taken to a stream at midnight, under the moon. The toad bones are thrown into a stream running and watching for the ones that would separate from the others and float upstream, a mark of holding potent powers.

Toad bones often appear in spells and stories of horses. The bones could be used to halt a horse, until released it from the spell. There were also certain secret elixirs and unguents that could influence horses. Rubbing a magic potion on the hand or on the horse itself, could move the horse along or bring it to a halt. One tip from the gypsy horse coppers was to carry a ball made from oats and honey to curry favor from the horse.

Horse Dreams

My interest with horses and my Scottish Ancestors comes from growing up on an Appaloosa Breeding Ranch in West Texas under my father’s shadow, learning all I could from him about riding, training, breeding and caring for horses. I was always surrounded by plenty of horses, but none of them were mine. I had horses I could ride all I wanted, but it wasn’t mine to keep. So many horses I loved deeply were sold out from under me, and broke my heart. I even was a surrogate mother to a couple of beautiful leopard Appaloosa colts, when the Mare died giving foal, both were sold after I had halter broke them.

Eventually, I began seeing horses showing up in my dreams, and one night, a particular dream showed up of a magical colt born from my Father’s brood mare, Princess Valley. The colt was black and had a white heart on his forehead. I called my Dad first thing in the morning and asked if his Mare had foaled. Long pause, how did you know that, he asked? I dreamed it last night. I went over to visit the new born colt, and my Dad took me to see the empty stall where it was born. He said, when the colt was born, he jumped up on his feet and ran into the gate. I named him Calamity. Now my turn for a long pause, I was dumbfounded, because that is what my dad used to call me as a child. Where is the horse now? I asked. He took me to the corral where the colt was nursing under his mother. He stopped and looked up to see me, and began walking straight over to me, to sniff me out. My Dad stepped in between us. He was afraid once we connected we would never be parted. I said, you have to give me this horse, you know it belongs with me. He just stood there and said, I’m sorry but I already sold it. There it is again that heartbreaking loss. I would find out later, after years had gone by, that he did not sell the horse, but gave it to his ex-wife. She posted a photo of it on Facebook after he died. I recognized the horse, as the one from my dream, who had been coming into my dreams all these years as a protector and guide.

Sources

Adapted from Western Horseman Magazine “Son of the Wind” article by Harry Galbraith

https://www.horsemansword.org.uk/the-society-of-the-horseman-s-word/

Bee Lore, Initiation, Lineage and Priestess

Just the other night, in my dream, I was in a multilinear experience, where I was undergoing an initiation into a community of bee mystics. The hive mind had deep pockets of wisdom like sweet honey in the hive. I encountered several that were portals of entry to experience the deeper reality of each. Pathways of wisdom available to becoming part of a community of mystic travelers, dreamers, keepers, and creators.

Hive Mind 5/23/26

I was part of a group of Bee Followers, Men and Women who were part of a magical community, who were steeped in bringing back Bee Mysticism. I was taken through an initiation ceremony with four phases, Lore, Initiation, Lineage, and Priestess. In each phase, I was shown different teachings and given hidden information as the initiation progressed. Hidden within the initiation were lines of knowledge one could follow to learn more.

Bee Lore

In following this bee-line in my dream, I found myself with my partner visiting a mountain village where we found beautiful turquoise waters flowing into pools of pure natural springs near the mountains. Only a few people were there, so we were able to get into the waters. When entering the pool of ever flowing spring waters, one emerged cleansed, and renewed with inner pools of deep wisdom.

“The bee’s life is like a magic well, the more you draw from it, the more it fills with water.” – Karl Von Frisch

Pamukkale Hierapolis Turkey

Bee Initiation

In following another bee-line in my dream, there was a bee Priestess who was sick and dying.

She received a message someone was trying to infiltrate the hive, her body shaking from the news. Precautions and protections have been made to keep the hive safe. The hive must be kept secret from outsiders who would misuse the wisdom passed down through initiations for thousands of years. The power of the hive must be kept safe. I am told as a new initiate, I will be a guardian of bee wisdom. I have passed all the tests and the wisdom is held within me now, as embodied wisdom. I am not alone in guarding this wisdom, and I must protect the hive mind.

Bee Lineage

I am teaching a group about some of the lineage wisdom, and begin talking about Vision and Dreaming, Pure Vision and Dreaming True. As I am sharing with the group about how this works, I see reflected in the eyes of a man, the vision he is having and the energy surrounding it. I see the vision is a bright galaxy that looks like an eye. The energy is immense. No one else is aware this is happening, except me and the man who is having the vision but not saying anything. I share with the group what I am noticing of the galaxy vision reflected in the eye of the man in our group. We are all part of the same vision now.

Helix Nebula

Bee Priestess

Another honeypot of wisdom became a portal of entry in the dream, where I saw myself embodied as a bee priestess. I am wearing white and wear many strands of different shapes and sizes and shades of blue beaded necklaces. I am strong, healthy and courageous in leading a law suit against a company that is poisoning the environment with chemicals that are destroying the bees. I win the legal case in protecting the environment, and when I step forward to receive the settlement, I look down and see that my legs, and feet have become bee legs and feet. Bee legs can sense the environment like antennae, able to smell, spread pollen, hang onto a flower petal when the wind blows, and dance.

Flying Minoan Bee Goddess with bee feet and arms,
with her protector guardian, a flying Griffin. Crete 1700-1450 BCE

Eugenic Dreams in New Mexico

Charming Casita near the Pecos River

During Covid, of 2021, my partner and I took a trip to New Mexico for a week. We had a beautiful trip that started at a lovely get away on the Pecos River, a sweet respite in the Summer Heat, where we could look at the stars, cook dinner in our small casita and French kitchen, and dip in the river waters when we wished and gaze at the horses on the land and let our nervous system reset. It truly was a special spot we found.

Mountain Goats over the Rio grande Gorge

We went from there to Taos area and stayed at another AirBnB that was cozy enough and then went to visit the Gorge and were followed by mountain goats as we walked the trails. We then found our way to Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs and stayed there at the lovely resort, where we had full access to the hot springs from our casita. It was much nicer than when I had been there years before, when it was just mud holes in the ground with mineral waters bubbling up.

Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs

We had a relaxing soak and then were ready for bed. When I woke the next morning, I had a disturbing dream that stayed with me. A dream I could not shake. A dream that would not go away. I dreamt of young women of color who were being held against their will and being impregnated to create the perfect race. I dreamt that some of this happened right there at the location where we stayed at Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs.

The women were held at this resort during their pregnancy to ensure they were cared for while they were in the final months of their pregnancy. Once the baby was born who knows what happened to them. They just seemed to disappear in the dream, while others were forced to be impregnated again. There were two young poor brown women they had captured into their scheme with the promise of money as a surrogate. The women in the dream were young, and afraid, and kept captive. Although they were treated to staying at this retreat, they could not leave if they wanted.

A foreboding sunset, looked like a large looming eye.

After having such a disturbing dream, I decided I could not stay there a second night and asked for a refund and checked out early. When I had the chance to do some research after we got to Santa Fe, where we had access to WiFi, I found that Epstein had been convening scientists, well known scientists from the top universities to work on this Eugenics theory with him. Weird.

I read it was reported that he was indeed involved in Eugenics experiments impregnating young women to give birth to a perfect race. I thought at the time, it was an outrageous story, especially since I had no prior knowledge of such things. I was familiar with Epstein previously, as I had followed the case against him in Florida, which he got off with hardly a punishment even though convicted. I knew there was more to his story as there were a dozen or more survivors who had filed complaints against him. I never heard anything about New Mexico being one of his properties and home base for more of his despicable acts.

Now the stories about New Mexico are back in the news again, and more is sure to surface. I wonder if they will find anything related happening at the Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort? The investigation is currently focused on the Zorro Ranch in South Eastern New Mexico. It’s hard when dreams like this surface and you know there is something to it, but you cannot figure out what to do, if anything, about it. I sincerely hope they find more of the story, and bring justice to these poor women.

Elixir of Love

Pink Rose petals found

On the ground

all around.

Pink petals tattered

and torn,

blown away

from the thorn

by the storm.

You swept up

handfuls of petals.

Now holding

rose essence,

deeply kept.

Fill a jar of full of pink petals

In remedy of memories bereft

Find essence released.

A concentrated whiff.

My heart is pleased.

Smell the torn, spent, petals

Scents to awaken the soul.

It’s not what you imagined

as you both have grown old.

All is not lost,

while essence remains.

We make sweet

love potions,

transforming the pain.

This Tree of Pink Roses

has one side as bare

as Winter.

A grieving place so hard

to enter.

The other side blooms,

enough love to share.

and with it brings,

an eternal Spring,

Together we gather

Petals lost…

Together we let settle

the cost.

A recipe for alchemy,

layers of petals,

Covered with brandy,

Topped with honey,

Steeped in love.

A triple infusion,

of petals found,

No longer lost

in confusion.

A memory to

ground the past.

A remedy for

love that lasts.

Alchemical essence

gives potency to life.

A legacy of love,

beauty and sacrifice.

What was lost,

and withered away.

What was bare

with nothing more to say.

Let go of beauty

Nothing stays the same.

Let go your cares,

The truth is plain.

Winds blowing

Here and there,

bringing changes

from spiritual heirs.

My heart rearranges.

Set free the petals

from this pink rose tree.

So we may find ourselves

Together and free.

Gathering essence,

from the ground.

Gathering together when

friends come round.

This Soul rescue remedy

Heals the heart

of what may be,

Creating a love

of potency.

Diana’s Mirror at Beltane

This eve of Beltane is upon us at this coming Cross Quarter Turn of the Celtic Wheel, a mid-point between Spring and Summer. A time to cross boundaries of endings and beginnings.

Jumping the fire purifies the heart to be able to leave behind our old ways, and jump into the new life honoring the heart, the land, and sacred union.

It is a time when lovers come together for a year and a day, promised to one another, hands wrapped together in their clan colors for a hand-fasting ceremony.

Beltane is a time when the Moon Goddess reveals her mysterious luminous presence like moonlight on the water, to merge with the Forest King, or Green Man, sworn to protect the land and those upon it. This sacred union of Moon and Earth, embodies the mysteries of the divine held by the Female and Male energies, Heiros Gamos – divine union.

It is important for us to remember that in this divine union, the commitment is given only through the choice of the Goddess, only she can choose the Forest King, who must prove himself worthy.

Lake Nemi in the cauldera of a volcano in Italy, is known as Diana’s Mirror. It is here Women would gather under the full moon and scry the surface of the Lake to reflect the oracle as Sibyls. Those wishing to be chosen as the Forest King, undergo ritual fighting like two bucks in the wood sparing for a mate, to vie for the hand of the Moon Goddess. If chosen by the Goddess, they may lay with the land, ensuring fertility of the crops, sovereignty of women and protection for future generations.

This Beltane invokes this sacred ritual union on May Day, with the Full Moon in Scorpio, deep passions and sacred mysteries are ready to surface. The Goddess must choose who will be her Green Man, her Forest King for a year and a day.

I am reminded of the recent mission of Artemis 2 circling the moon and bringing her closer to us in the return of beautiful photos of the moon, and a view of the Earth from her sight, to enamor us again with our beautiful home. This love of beauty and connection is what draws us together.

We must break the spell of Patriarchy and the dark dream of Apocalypse to return to falling in love with the sacredness of Nature, and choose leaders who will protect the land, the sovereignty of Women, and above all else protect the children. This union of Earth and Sky, will recommit us in sacred union for a year and a day.

You may wish to do a moon ritual with the Scorpio Flower Moon on Beltane Eve or May Day, and invite your Forest King or Green Man into your dreams for reclaiming Sacred Union with the Divine Goddess and Green Man to bring Sovereignty, Protection, and Abundance.

Renew your sacred commitment to the Earth and the Moon for a year and a day by sleeping on the Earth under the Moon. Setting out water for the Moon and charging your crystals as sources of energy protection, and anchoring the energies as a bridge between Earth and Sky.

By Valley Reed 2026 all rights reserved

The Triple Spiral and Cosmic Web

The Triple Spiral is said to be an ancient symbol from the Neolithic era, which means Earth, Sea and Sky, or Life, Death, and Rebirth, or Body, Mind, and Soul. The Yellow and Black Garden Spider is also known as the Writer Spider who can inscribe designs in the center of her massive web, that often appear in doorways. The triple spiral is also known to signify the triple Goddess. I have been drawing spirals since I can first recall as a child, a kind of soothing doodle, or perhaps ancestral memory. While it is well known as a symbol inside New Grange, this ancient symbol can be found in ancient designs across cultures. 

Writer Spider

Blowing In the Wind 4-21-26

In a recent dream, I saw a massive web in front of the door to the retreat center where I had just finished teaching this past weekend. 

The wind blew the web away from the door, as the bottom had come untethered and the web blew free in the wind. I became conscious in the dream. I noticed the doorway of the retreat center, where a rainbow unity flag had hung, but now held a triple spiral design in the center of the web that covered the doorway. The huge web blowing in the wind felt like an invitation from spirit to be guided on the next strand of my journey guided by the great weaver, Grandmother Spider, the old one who weaves the world into being, and leaves her invisible threads as paths to travel in dreams as a bridge between time and place, and between Earth, Sky and Sea. What is written in the center of her web becomes a spell of creation, or a mystery into the unknown.

Unity of Augusta

Cosmic Web

The first night of the retreat, I had a powerful dream journey with lots of energy coming through with the stellium of seven planets in Aries and the New Moon. A  cosmic web was shown in the stars, and a typical yellow and black garden spider sat in the middle of the web, waiting for me. The center of the web had a single thread, which out of that there was two other webs coming up from behind, and connected to this original web next to me. Three webs connected by a single strand. The energy these webs held were shimmering before me in rainbow colors.

Neolithic Dreaming with the Ancestors

The Dream web is interesting, and the energy intense. When I saw the web in my dream, strung before the door of the retreat, with the Triple Spiral woven into the center, it seemed connected to my journey guided by the drum, which opened the retreat where the spider first appeared in the center of a cosmic web that was strung across the galaxy by a single thread woven into two other giant star webs vibrating with energy. Three webs of galactic energy. 

The last guided journey of the retreat was tracking sacred sites on the Earth by way of ley lines, as a mode of dream travel. I first visited New Grange, Ireland in my dream travels, and saw the triple spiral inside the Neolithic tomb, guided there by strands of energy ley lines. Perhaps this is a favorable wind blowing the dreaming web in the direction of my Irish ancestors at the sacred site of New Grange, Ireland and the Neolithic tomb where the mysterious triple spiral rests. 

Triple Spiral at New Grange

Some of my Irish ancestors are traced back to New Castle in the Boyne Valley, not far from New Grange. I had recently told a friend in Ireland that I would like to visit New Grange next time I visit. We are planning for me to come to Ireland in the coming year to offer a retreat on Collaborative Dreaming with the Otherworld. 

Certainly we will delve into the mysteries of New Grange as a cosmic sanctuary of the Sun and the Seasons, and the energy ley lines that connect sacred sites together and the web of energies that exist in the land and the stars as maps to travel in dreaming to the in between and the Otherworldly places interwoven with the Earth, Sea, and Sky in Ireland. In my dream journey, I tracked many ley lines through Celtic lands, from New Grange, Ireland to Stonehenge, England to Chartres Cathedral, France and the Rose lines of Southern France. All ancestral territories in my blood lines. 

The invisible threads cast by Grandmother Spider are a wide web of collaboration in dreaming with the lands of my ancestors. 

By Valley Reed 2026 all rights reserved.

The Tree of Life

Collaborative dreaming includes the natural world, and trees are especially important. The tree of life contains entry into multiple realities. A portal to ancestral realms of experience rooted in the underworld, where the depth of the ocean and primordial wisdom remains. The heart wood of the middle realm, is where our more than human relatives reside, those who live close to the Earth, where we may find portals to the Otherworld and travel ley lines and timelines of past, present, and future. The upper realms are where winged ones, angelic beings, and the presence of the divine is encountered. Where holy ones, spiritual guides and teachers appear. A place of vision, prophecy, and questing a spiritual path, or creating a shared vision of community. The Tree of Life is the place where we begin and the place where we return, when we go dreaming, guided by the drum, on conscious group dream journeys to explore dreaming paths.

The journeys into and through the tree of life, are guided by the animal guides as part of our instinctual nature. Impeccable guides who know their way around the dream realms, and can assist us with their specialized skills. We can trust their guidance into dreaming and in our waking life too. The animal powers are part of our vital energy, an energetic relationship that brings us into dreaming based on the intention we have set. This is a primary skill in collaborative dreaming, learning to trust ourselves very deeply, and learning to let go and allow the dream to unfold without needing to change or control it.

The tree of life is a container for dreams, and a portal into other realms.

Stuck Dreams and a Hand Up

I am dreaming with the huge tree and crawling around the roots of the tree. I climb up the trunk and go as far as I can, but become hung up where I can go no further, there in the middle of the trunk is where my dreams have become stuck and not getting through to me. I am not getting my dream messages, I endeavor to release the dreams held there by untethering a fear that was holding them there. When I release my fear, my dreams are let go and now can make their way back to me. I continue my way up the trunk and into the upper realm at the tip top branches of the tree. I see a rope drop down from the upper realm, and as I climb, a hand drops down to help pull me up.

Trees are home to Earth spirits and ancient souls

I recall many years ago a dream where I was walking through a forest at night, and it was very dark. As I looked around to see what I could see, I noticed a green light surrounding the trees before me. I stepped up to take a look and saw within the green light of each tree was the face of the soul within each tree. I was thrilled to see confirmed what I had felt around trees since childhood, but could never articulate it. Trees not only have a sentient presence but they have their own language, made of light.

Light Language

I am standing before a huge ancient tree, I am pulled into the inside of the tree, inside the trunk. I see a green light shining within the tree and the information transmitted in the light is transmuted from the Sun to feed the tree, and give energy. This light language is now encoded in me, and shared with the community of trees, shared with me from inside the tree.

Trees as Earth Guardians

I am dream-walking across space and time to a beach in Crete. The beach has thousands of tiny shells on it, as I walk barefoot I can feel the shells crunch under each footstep, and I hear the sound. There are no people around, and no houses or businesses around anywhere, no boats or cars. Only a single solitary ancient twisted tree on the beach. I walked over to the tree and as I approached the energy of the tree pulled me nearer and the powerful energies it holds expands out towards me in waves. I am overcome by this mysterious place filled with ancient wisdom calling to me. I researched the tiny shells on the beach of a small island off of Crete, and discovered there was an island that made purple die from the tiny mollusks, that was all they had on the island, only for making purple dye that was highly prized and used only for royalty to wear. On the island is an ancient forest of Lebanese cedar, that looks like twisted drift wood. As I move toward the ancient tree before me, I feel a tremendous energy coming from this tree the closer I get. I am finding it harder to move closer and stay lucid in the dream, and wake up.

Indigenous roots

In a recent Dream, I found myself standing before a beautiful Beech Tree reflecting her beautiful light to me as I stood in her presence grateful that such an incredible being was before me. I later discovered the American Beech tree is indigenous to Georgia, where I will be visiting in a few weeks to teach a retreat on Earth Dreams. This is just the kind of collaborative interaction that dreams can bring, to root us in place and dream into the stories of the land, and our own stories that we also carry, that are rooted in our Soul Wisdom. When we share dreams together, we nourish one another very deeply. Just like a Forrest shares its nutrients through the roots. Earth Dreams bring us back to recall not only our stories, but our more than human relatives who we live amongst, as part of a community of beings.

Valley Reed 2026 All rights reserved

Windswept Longing

By Valley Reed

“Rising” photo by Valley Reed

Feet finding Earth
beneath footsteps
of who came before.

Words spoken
through the teeth,
of what lies
hidden underneath.

Power hangs
in the air
in songs of yore.

Waves rise
with the tide,
Withering
a windswept shore.

Destiny is a wild ride,
Sinking
to the ocean floor.

The Crescent moon
shines her light
a bit more,
reflecting
in tide pools
of what’s in store.

Clouds hover
above me,
Making shadows
over the sea.

I hear the sounds
of birdsong,
wishes woven
into a nest
of longing.

The colors
surrounding me
radiate more
than I can see.

“ Blackbird” Photo by Valley Reed

Dreaming Awake in the Great Turning

The Great Turning is described by Eco-psychologist Joanna Macy, as the shift from an industrial growth society to a life sustaining society. There are multiple ways this shift is happening around us as a society, and within each individual, in the midst of undergoing social change and transformation.  Moving into the Great Turning, we encounter stages of Holding, policies, direct actions and legal actions, which help stem the tide of destructive policies and actions harmful to life systems. The second is Structural Change, where we can envision and create new systems. A transformation from Patriarchal systems of “power over” to more Matrifocal systems of “power with”, rooted in sustainability practices, equality, community, and the web of life. The Third focus is Consciousness Shifting, which includes an awareness that we are all in this together, there is no separation (Brown/Macy pg. 5-6). We are all part of this Great Turning, and dreams connect us to the web of collective consciousness, and continue to awaken and inform my actions, of what is mine to do.

In the midst of the changes surrounding us, grief and healing are part of transformation. It is for me a process of honoring and grieving what has been lost, to be able to more fully embody a vision of the future. In 2017, my dear friend Baba Ifayomi was tragically murdered in Dallas, Texas. An African American Civil Rights Leader, initiated as a West African Yoruba Priest, he and I stood shoulder to shoulder many times protesting on the streets, or playing drums and singing sacred songs, or honoring the ancestors with prayers. The night after attending his “Homegoing” Ceremony, Baba appeared in my dream. 

Valley Reed with Civil Rights Activists, Charles Hillman and Olinka Green at Baba Ifayomi’s “Homegoing” Ceremony 

Photo by Andrew Buckley/Special Contributor  Dallas Morning News

Sacred Contract 

I held in my hands a contract, which read at the top, “Civil Rights”. Baba approached and took the contract from my hands. He said, “You don’t have to do this anymore” and gave instead another contract, which read at the top, “Healer”. This dream set my focus more clearly, on what direction I must take to honor my Sacred Contract. I had the sense that my previous contract, was the completion of an ancestral contract, started generations ago, by an abolitionist ancestor whose home was part of the underground railroad. 

The Healing path has shown itself to me in many ways over my life, for my own healing and that of others. The following dream, showed me a deeper realization for my path as a dreamer and healer. 

The Dream World is the Real World

I am in the hypnagogic zone, or the twilight zone as I like to call it, I see a horse very near to me, so close I could touch it, and hear it breathing as we stood together under the night sky. 

I see it’s bushy sorrel colored Winter coat. I am amazed how real this conscious dreaming experience is, and say to myself, the dream world IS the Real World! I know I have said this many times to students as a Dream Teacher. This time seems different, I am getting this deeper awareness and experience of what this means. Now I am standing before the cave of the Goddess, and two frog headed nymphs with luminous blue faces guard the entrance. They hold either end of a Turkish looking sword, between them. They tell me, “Pick up the sword of truth to gain entrance to the cave of the Goddess”. I hear an inward voice ask, “Still the real world”?  I respond, “Yes!”  I pick up the sword of Truth to enter deeper into the wisdom of the Goddess. Now I am walking through a forest hugged meadow along a narrow dirt footpath. I see at my feet, an egg shaped stone in the middle of the path. I pick it up and hold it in my left hand, and find it fits perfectly in the palm of my hand. It is covered with moss, and has the seal of the Goddess embedded on its surface. It holds the ancient powers of the Goddess. I now bring my awareness inside the stone, where a golden light streams into the cracks and crevices of this ancient universe. I hear the voice of the Goddess speaking, “You must open up more, and stop being so guarded, let go of your fears.”  I can feel all the places where I have become guarded, from pains of past betrayals. I open myself completely to the Goddess, and allow her golden light to permeate all the cracks and crevices inside my being. I have stepped more deeply onto the path of wisdom and ancient truth of the Goddess.

  “Oweynagat” entrance to the Otherworld, sacred to the Celtic Goddess Morrigan Photo Credit: Valley Reed County Rosscommon, Ireland 2019

Healing the Stories Held in the Land 

I am in an adobe house located in New Mexico, I am standing in the living room, and a beautiful blue crane flies in and hovers just in front of me, and changes into a native grandmother. She asks, “Will you help heal the stories held in the land ? ”  I look at her directly, and see the look in her eyes, and reply, “Yes, I will”. I then question myself inwardly, do I know how to do such a thing? As if hearing my thoughts, the grandmother responds, “You already know how to do this, because you know how to listen”. 

The Blue Crane is the National Bird of South Africa

I took council from this dream, and when I was asked to organize an International Women’s Summit on Nonkilling Cultures, held in Sarajevo, Bosnia in June of 2019, the answer was…Yes, I will. You see, I had been dreaming also of ancient Slavic bird Goddesses and grandmothers. My presentation in Bosnia, was on Healing the Stories Held in the Land, where I shared a dream of collective soul recovery on sacred lands in a place impacted by genocide, located in the Altai Mountains of Kyrgyzstan. I returned to Bosnia in 2025, at the Kolo Memory in Motion Women’s Summit I helped organize, and taught a workshop on healing the stories of the land for transgenerational trauma. I was also invited to teach a retreat in Ireland in 2019, where I offered, “Dreaming with the Speaking Land and Entering the Otherworld”,  this year I am teaching a retreat in Georgia on Earth Dreams, and how are always dreaming, and the Earth Dreams us into being, we are part of her Dream.

“We are all of us, dreamed into being. For the Earth lives in a dream”. (Pg. 373, Buhner) 

Shifting Energies

Much is shifting in the Great Turning, including the places on the Earth where sacred vortexes of energies are held. One evening during an intense lightning storm, I was going to bed and noticed a massive lightning storm outside my window. I went on and slipped into bed, tired from my day, and as I closed my eyes, I noticed a presence trying to reach out to me from inside the storm. I was in no mood to open myself to some unknown energy, and declined to respond, kind of like not answering your cell phone, when a call comes in marked unknown.  

I suddenly found myself lucid, inside a massive thunderhead, standing before a vortex of blue lightning. A portal through which a dream visitor was about to step through. The famous 19th century Inventor, Nikola Tesla  (who was born during a lightning storm) arrived to tell me,  “The sacred sites on the planet are changing, and this storm is a transfer of energy, from those sacred sites to Dallas.”  

Blue Lightning – Getty Images

I understood this to be a good thing, and much needed in a place like Dallas, which is known worldwide as the place of the Kennedy assassination, and perhaps a lessor known history as having the largest KKK chapter in the world in 1920.

This transfer of energy from sacred sites around the world, seemed an important way to shift consciousness. I then opened myself fully to the energy in this conscious dream state, and was filled with a blue light of sacred energy, which streamed through my crown chakra and down through the rest of my body. I have an inkling, I am now a receptacle of this sacred energy, and fully open to the shifting energies on the planet. 

When I wrote this essay to present as part of a Dream conference, I wrote this last line, in a coffee shop in Dallas, the electricity has just blown out for no apparent reason, on the entire block. I guess I need to get the hang of this better, or perhaps my dream Tesla, is having a bit of fun with me, he was known to blow out the circuits of entire communities with his experiments! (PBS News Hour)

 

This tesla coil snuffed out the power in Colorado Springs when this photo was taken. 

Photo by Dickenson V. Alley, photographer at the Century Magazines via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Bibliography

Brown Molly; Macy, Joanna. “To Choose Life.”The Work that Reconnects, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, B.C. Canada, 2014, pg. 5-6, Kindle edition.

Buhner, Stephen Harrod; “Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.” Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming Earth, Bear and Company’ Rochester Vermont, 2014, pg. 373.

“8 things you didn’t know about Nikola Tesla” https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-nikola-tesla 

 

Dream Doula

Thresholds of coming and going, a dream doula welcomes announcement dreams of birthing something new into the world. A psychopomp as guide to the Other-side, plays death doula to point the departed toward guardians of gateways to the underworld, crossing over the river to ancestral lands into the afterlife, and meeting thresholds of transformation for the ongoing journey of the soul. These profound liminal boundaries of the coming and going of the soul are places where dream doulas await as experienced guides on both sides of this portal of life, death and rebirth.

Birthing dreams may assist in announcing what may be, when given a glimpse in dreams of who is expecting, who is arriving, or any delays in arrival.

Dream Doula 1995

In my pregnancy with my daughter, as I inched towards my due date, she was in a breech position, and I was struggling to get her turned around head down into the birth canal. My OBGYN told me I needed to do something or else she would schedule a C-section. I wanted a natural birth, and so I tried all manner of positions, exercises, and remedies to no end, nothing worked. Finally at my wits end, I incubated a dream asking for assistance in turning her around. Immediately, as I entered a lucid dream, I saw an Asian Wise Woman standing next to my bed. She put her hands on my womb, and each place she put her hands they lit up. She continued to move her hands in the direction of my birth canal, as her hands provided a path of light, and I felt my daughter turn in the womb. She was in a head down position now thanks to the dream doula. She went to leave my side and as she did she stopped and turned to say, you know, your daughter is a fairy queen. I was stunned, and did not know what to make of her statement. Does she come with a manual? I asked. She smiled as she turned to vanish inside the dream.

I went to my OBGYN the next day who was pleased to see I had somehow managed to complete my assignment of getting the baby to turn. After my delivery, I did a follow up with a midwife, and told her about the dream to get the baby to turn. She remarked it is an old midwife trick, done with a flashlight held to the womb, and the baby can see the light shine through and follows the path of light to the birth canal and turns head down.

Thresholds of change for each season or the year, or lunar cycles of new to full moon, are also liminal places of beginnings and coming full circle, where dreams may reflect what has been seeded and what is coming to fruition.

The Psychopomp may assist the departed in locating a portal to the Otherside to cross over or dream into the territory of one’s death as preparation for rebirthing the soul on a home going journey, welcomed by the ancestors.

As Dream Doula we may explore cross cultural welcoming rituals of new family members, and also portals of home going greeted by the ancestors. We welcome and remember, comfort and congratulate on paths leading to the womb of the Earthside Mother, or paths leading to the tomb of the Great Mother. We are welcomed home from Womb to Tomb by Dream Doulas, Fate Weavers, Gate Keepers, and Song Givers of Joy, Celebration, and lullaby. We sing song lines of delivery and travel to the Otherside, for grieving and remembrance, and welcoming the soul home.

Perhaps we can call upon the Dream Doula to assist in the collective rebirth we are undergoing right now, to help turn us around in this upside down world. Opening a path of light for us to follow and find our way through the darkness of the unknown and rebirth into a world where ancient women’s wisdom may be the remedy we need to turn things around.