“….Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt – marvelous error! – that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures….”
“Last Night As I Lay Sleeping” by Antonia Machado
My mother died on New Years Day, and my heart was broken open. I began to see the patterns that had kept my heart trapped my entire life. It was as if I was looking through the eyes of my mother, being feed the sweet honey of her wisdom of a life lived for love over 88 years. I now could open my heart to her love and receive the gift of her loving wisdom.
I came to visit her the day before her passing, she was sedated and snoring. I spoke with her knowing on a deeper level she was hearing me. I told her how much we all loved her, and thanked her for bringing us all here. I told her it was ok for her to go, it was ok to let go. Just then, I felt a surge of energy pour into me from her and move through my body and out the top of my head. It was surprising, and at that moment I knew some part of her had gone, and some part of her remained in me. A transmission of her love, her last gift to me. She died early on New Year’s Day around 6 a.m. and about 5 a.m. I woke to get a drink of water, and saw my car emergency lights were on! A strange sight, I went out to check on my car and saw the emergency lights button was pushed into the on position. I knew then my mother had passed. I spoke to her, and let her know I got the message.
The next day I saw and felt her spirit around me and when I was finally able to get some sleep, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw her spirit standing over me at the foot of my bed. Another dream came where I heard her knocking on my door. Later the next day, I went and sorted through some of her things and brought some home, and placed some on my altar for her. She speaks to me mostly through my heart, and I am listening. She is teaching me more deeply about love.
I see my mother in the birds, when I went to her house to continue sorting through some things, a hawk flew in front of my car as I turned onto her street, and then again on the day I went to pick up her ashes, the hawk flew circling over my car as I made my way home with them. One morning a beautiful finch sang a lovely song to me as I sat on my porch drinking tea and I felt the joy of it’s song and the presence of my Mom. When I set up my altar for my mother, burning candles for her journey, I had the urge to include a group of Canadian Geese feathers I was gifted years ago. The story behind the feathers goes, one day I was driving with my mother to treat her to lunch, and as we passed the creek by her house, a group of Canadian Geese came up out of the water and began to walk toward us. Just then a dog came after them chasing them into the street. A cacophony ensued with feathers everywhere, and as the geese crossed the street in front of my car, they left a bunch of feathers behind. I got out of the car and gathered them up and brought them home, keeping them for some purpose I did not know. My mother had looked at me with curious amusement and asked, “What are you going to do with those?” Now as I placed them on the altar for my mom, I recalled the event of that day and the gift left behind. I counted them as I carefully placed each feather on the altar. I saw there were 4 large feathers, one for each of her children, and 9 smaller feathers, one for each of her grandchildren. The gaggle she left behind and gifted to the world, like each of those feathers. She is on her own migration of spirit now, may swift winds carry her soul home. Later she appeared in a dream once more, to let me know where she landed. A beautiful lake reflecting a luminous pink on it’s mirrored surface. She told me, ” This is how I look now!” She made it home.
On this final Full Moon of 2020, I am taking time to reflect on the dreams of the last decade and those which arrived in 2010. Here are some, and how they took root in my life.
Photo by Carolina Teteris
The White Tiger and the Cave of Innocence – Summer Solstice 2010
I am in a dark cave where the light of my soul hovers above dark waters. I see a white tiger emerge from the mountain and sit beside the water looking into the darkness. The water surface is covered with what looks like oil, and a creature crawls out covered with the black tar. The tiger looks at the creature covered in oil and wants nothing to do with it. She turns her head away. The White Tiger jumps into the water, its white fur contrasting with the deep darkness is amazing to see. The tiger swims through the dark waters and reaches a place of murky astral waters where many spirits are floating. The water begins to clear as the tiger swims further out to sea and into the clear waters. She emerges on another shore with a rope in her mouth and she is pulling a boat. Inside the boat is a royal looking woman with maroon colored clothing and gold trim, and wearing a regal shaped head dress, a man sits behind her wearing dark blue clothing with gold trim. On the shore is a small girl of about 7 who runs toward the boat to meet the visitors. I am now back inside the cave again, where the black covered creature is still lying inside the cave. The White Tiger begins to wash the creature and reveals it to be the small girl seen previously running to greet us on the beach. The child lays in the arms of the white tiger as she is lovingly cleaned, nurtured and protected.
I was sent photos the next day by a teacher, revealing the two people I saw in my dream. My teacher was at a ceremony in the Altai Mountains in Kirgizstan, where many shamans had gathered from places around the globe. The woman in my dream, and in the photo was an Altai elder. She later revealed when she lit the ceremonial fire, she saw the spirit of a small girl released.
This dream confirms for me the cross cultural nature of dreams, and the ability to transcend borders and bilocate to another physical location. I have seen this occur in my dreams and shamanic journeys many times over the past decade, and continue to learn how to bring forth my healing gifts in service to others and the planet.
Bringing Up the Bones 9-11-2010
A wealthy, older white man wearing a burgundy and gold smoking jacket, will host a social gathering at his private residence. He escorts me into his office, which is in disarray. There is a beautiful old Asian desk made of antique bamboo. I am walking around in his space looking at how to organize it, and I walk over the top of the desk in my bare feet. I am wondering if he really wants this desk, he obviously is not using it, and I really like the way it feels under my bare feet. I am thinking about asking him if I can have it, although I already have a new desk. I really like this one, it is very ancient and regal. I hop down from the desk not saying anything, thinking if I am meant to have it, it will come. The wealthy owner takes me outside and we arrive at his private home. There is an Asian woman who lives there with him. She greets me, leaving the door open as we enter the house. Suddenly, there is a commotion while some kind of creature escapes through the front door. I am thinking it is a family pet like maybe a cat, but when I look more closely, I see what appears to be a bat or maybe even a phoenix. I can’t quite make it out. It moves very fast, and has such unusual energy. There are many birds flying after it that look like doves. The wealthy man and the Asian woman move quickly and immediately fly out the door after the creature.
I am left standing in the house and I walk outside to see there is a lake, and a boardwalk by the sea. I am looking at the water and am now joined by two shamanic teachers. One tells me there are bones at the bottom of the sea, and that the bones are my ancestors, and they are Buryat. I am told this is the line of shamanism which I am connected through my ancestors. We must awaken the bones, and bring them to the surface. I can see in my minds eye the bottom of the ocean, and the sediment of salt and minerals that make up the bones of the ancestors. As we focus on raising the bones of my ancestors, I can see a white circle forming on top of the lake. Nearby huge waves are rising from the ocean. The more we focus on raising the ancestors, the more the waves become very high and come crashing down on the boardwalk. The energy I am raising is through my ancestors, and my teachers are helping me.
A week after having this dream, a Turkish friend in Istanbul sent me a photo of a white circles floating on water. They were reported being seen appearing in different places, and no one knows what they are, or why they are showing up.
When I saw her picture I almost fell out of my chair because it looked just like the circles in my dream, that were from the bones of my ancestors. I have been very focused on honoring the ancestors and working with their energy over the past decade. I am also called to assist others in reconnecting them with their ancestral gifts and lineages, and bringing forth their collective energy for wisdom and healing.
Faery Joy 11-14-2010
I dreamt of hearing strange beautiful music and seeing lovely faeries with white lilies and orchids, with yellow and orange sunlight, feeling complete joy and beauty.
The otherworld is a place like home for me, a place of joy and beauty, wisdom and healing. The good folk are my other than human relatives, and my connections there have continued to grow. I was fortunate to visit Ireland in 2018 and 2019, guided and invited by my dreams, where I met up with my Faery Kin.
Persephone Planting Her Seeds 12-20-2010
I dreamt of an encounter with the Goddess Persephone. She offered me a Pomegranate which she held in her hands and told me. “If you never open the Pomegranate, you can not plant the seed and the tree will never grow.” She then took a single seed from the open Pomegranate and planted it from which a beautiful tree grew tall, full and strong like magic.
This dream planted many seeds for me, including continuing to grow my connections with Persephone. I began offering monthly Women’s Dreaming Groups on the Full Moon, and later facilitated biannual Women’s Retreats over the past 7 years. I went on to become involved in Women’s activism and organized several International Women’s Summits, including one in Sarajevo in 2019 with the Kolo Women’s Cross Cultural Collaboration, where I was Executive Director for 5 years. Part of our work involved trauma informed care and training, and collaborating with the MMIWTX for No More Stolen Sisters!
As this decade comes to a close and another begins to open, I will keep my dreams focused on what seeds wish to be planted at the New Moon of 2021 for the coming year and decade. I have some Moon Flower Seeds ready.
Our dream body is beyond the limits of race, gender, and sexual orientation. In dreams, we can embody different race, culture, class, gender or sexual orientation, to bring us more empathy and compassion into our everyday lived experience.
Body Awareness involves the ability to recognize where your body is in relation to space. Dream Body Awareness involves being conscious of where your dreambody is located inside the space of your dreams. Body Image has to do with how we see our physical body, where as Dream Body Image has to do with how we show up in dreams, and being conscious of what shape we have taken.
Dreaming beyond the Physical
Dreams allow us to have experiences beyond physical reality, and concepts of time and space. We are not limited to the physical body, and can explore physical reality in other times and places. We may embody other forms of being in dreams, including gender, race, animal, plant, star, Earth, ancestor, element, and even Gods or Goddesses.
Dreaming into the Physical World
Scientific studies have shown that dreams, imagination and visualization, bring measurable impact upon our physical body, and can boost healing, learning and performance capacity. Sports psychology taps into this inner resource to boost athletic performance. Studies have shown that students who sleep and recall their dreams before taking a test, perform better than those who crammed all night before an exam. I know I have dreamt of studying for and taking a test before actually dong so, and been able to ace it. When I was a Ballet dancer, I would often imagine difficult moves in my mind perfectly, moments before actually performing it, and never had a single fall or accident.
Out of Body Dreaming Awake
As a dancer, I once had an anxiety attack, before it was my turn to practice a set of moves I had just learned. When it was my turn to perform, my mind went blank. I was so frustrated from being exposed to fear and humiliation as a common tactic in dance training. I decided I had enough, and instead chose to fully trust that my body knew the movements, even though my mind was blocked from fear. What happened next was both surprising and exciting. I found myself outside my physical body hovering above, watching as body wisdom took the helm and performed the movements perfectly. At the end of the sequence of dance moves, I popped right back into my body! I looked around the studio, wondering if anyone had seen that move!
Years ago, when I was a member of a Contact improv dance theater, a telepathic dream came over me in the middle of the day. I found myself in a secret meeting arranged by a rival dancer, who went behind my back to try to vote me out. Upon waking, I was able to act on the dream immediately, and went to the place my dream had shown me, only to discover the exact scenario playing out in real time in physical reality! They were very surprised to see me! Luckily, I was able to dream into resolving this conflict peacefully. I incubated a dream about it, and dreamt about seeing myself and my rival performing a dance of open hearted vulnerability and trust. We performed the dream dance together in waking reality bringing healing to both of us just like in the dream, and expanding also to the group as a whole. This amazing experience inspired me to create a form of embodied conflict transformation called Peace Moves. I now offer trainings for facilitators to share this form of embodied wisdom and conflict transformation within their own communities.
The Equality of Dreams
Our dream body is beyond the limits of race, gender, and sexual orientation. In dreams, we can embody different race, culture, class, gender or sexual orientation, to bring us more empathy and compassion into our everyday lived experience. By doing so we embody a wholistic view of humanity based on equality, that does not see one race, gender or sexual orientation, as more dominant over anyone else. The equality of dreams is a common bridge where we can stand shoulder to shoulder, because we all dream. It is a language we all share, and a potent opportunity to affect change on global and societal levels, as well as individual, ancestral, and cellular levels of healing trauma and transforming racism.
Valley Reed leading a blessing ceremony for the Future of the World’s Children at the 2007 World Children’s Festival on Washington D.C. National Mall for Drum, Dance, Dream for Peace event by the World Dreams Peace Bridge.
Social Dreaming and Natural Paths of Energy
As Dreamers, we are not just individuals concerned with the workings of the psyche and unconscious mind, nor gazing at our navels to bring enlightenment. Dreaming can be a social experience where we are dreaming together with others we may know and love, those who have passed on, those who have yet to be born, or those we have yet to meet. Dreams connect us with alternate personalities in other realms of experience, past lives lived, or glimpses of possible future timelines. They can bring us into contact with realms that are close to the Earth, where we may connect with relatives who are more than human. We can meet up with our wild instinctual nature and our animal allies, and flow with the elements and natural paths of our energy. We can connect with our cosmic counterparts in the upper realms where spiritual guides and star beings reside. Dreams are a place we can go to visit both human and beyond human, and they can also visit us.
Healing Patterns of Trauma
The place where our stories of trauma gets held is on the cellular level in the body. Each phase of our lives, from birth, childhood, teenage years, young adulthood, and into old age, our trauma stories reside within us physically and psychically, often disconnecting us from our Body, Soul and Spirit. The same stories and coping strategies of survival, get passed on to future generations with transgenerational trauma held in our DNA. Studies have shown the echoes of transgenerational trauma in historically oppressed populations, decreases resiliency in future generations. Ecopsychology posits the Earth as a sentient being, and like us, her stories of trauma are also held in her body. Generations of atrocities, creating community cycles of repetitive trauma. The body of the community, the Earth and the individual, can be healed from the stories of trauma held there, through bringing out those stories and honoring the victims, while also releasing them to transcend, and reveal the deeper stories of the Soul of the Earth. The time is now to dream into healing our relationship with our body, our connections with each other, and the Earth.
“To have sensed something sublime in the life/death/life movement of the seasons, to know that contained in you is the knowledge to pull the sword from the stone and to live well in fierce woods in deep winter.” – Martin Shaw
Recently, I was sharing with a friend, a story of when I carried my daughter in my womb. It was close to her due date and she was not ready, not yet. She was not head down in position to be born into this upside down world. My OB told me I needed to do something about this, or else schedule a C-Section birth. I wanted to have her naturally if possible, so I was determined to turn her around. Nothing I tried was working, so I decided to ask my dreams for help. I incubated an intention into my dream for assistance turning my daughter into position. What came was this surprising dream.
Faery Queen
I see beside my bed, a Crone of Asian lineage. She has come to help in response to my dream request. She places her hands on on the top of my womb, and when she does, her hands light up. She moves her hands down, step by step, making a path of light for my daughter to follow. I feel my daughter flip inside my womb, and move her head into the portal of her birth in my pelvis. The Asian wise woman, who has interceded on our behalf, tells me one last bit of information before she departs. She says, “You know, your daughter is a Faery Queen.” I am thinking to myself in the dream, What’s a Faery Queen and does that come with a manual?
I was thinking about that powerful experience of my daughter turning, head down to be born, assisted by a mysterious dream midwife, and it got me thinking about my connections with the good folk in dreams over the years, and also the dreams my daughter reported of visiting other realms, where she had two beautiful women teachers from the Faery folk. She would visit there often and learn from them. I once dreamt into a dream with her, when we both had the same exact dream of her graduation from her learning in the otherworld. My dreaming was a waking dream that appeared before my eyes clear as day, while my daughter slept taking a nap, and when she woke, she described the same dream I had just seen. I was told by the beings in my vision, to create a portal to the otherworld in my back yard. I was quite concerned by what they described asking me to build, I felt it was too big of a responsibility to manage a portal like that in my back yard. I did not understand the importance of it at the time, now looking back, I can see it was a portal between her more than human people in the otherworld, and this world. It was so she would remember who she is. I suppose the portal closed after that, she no longer reported dreams with her Faery mentors any longer. She began to forget who she was. 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
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, to return 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.
The Fall is here, and normally we would be so excited about this season where we can look forward to so many festivals and family celebrations, but in 2020 nothing is the same as what we have known before.
We are exhausted, our country is grieving, and we are grappling with how to move forward with our lives as individuals, as communities, and as a country. We are having to look at every part of our lives right now, no stone is unturned, to see the systemic injustices, environmental impacts, feeling the economic downturn, losing loved ones and fearing impacts from the pandemic. This reveals our class system, the racism, the sexism, all the isms. It appears our World is really out of balance.
This is where the Autumn Equinox comes in, as a point of focus, to remind us the universe, and nature herself is always seeking balance. We are in a place where vision is crucial as we move forward. This is a portal we can explore in connection with the otherworld, or the world behind the world, when the veil is thin and the ancestors are near.
Mabon is a Celtic Fall Seasonal Celebration known as the 2nd Harvest. The 1st being in August for Lamas, and the 3rd being on October 31st for Samhain, when the harvest of souls takes place with the Wild Hunt, and the good folk come through from the Other world. A time when Winter and the Celtic New Year begins. It should be particularly Wild this year as it is a Full Blue Moon in Taurus on Samhain. We celebrate the 2nd Harvest on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020 with gratitude and sharing, releasing and healing, to help bring life back into balance. Incubate a dream and ask, what do I need to do to help bring my world, and the world behind the world, back into balance. The role of the shaman or witch or healer, is to help bring the unseen worlds into balance with the Earthly realms, and thereby protecting the community. When calamity and despair, disease and disgrace starts to appear, it is time to look into the otherworld to see what prayers need to be spoken, or forgiveness asked, permission granted, or repayment of some kind offered. This is a kind of justice, and what we can offer now, will determine what we are able to receive later. So join me in celebrating Mabon and creating balance in our world, and don’t forget to vote this season!
My beloved was in the hospital this week, having surgery in the midst of the Covid Apex. I could not be there at the hospital with him because of concerns of me getting exposed to the virus. It was difficult for me to not be there with him as his advocate, and my concern about his safety due to Covid were hard to take. My worries felt unbearable at times.
Finally, I decided I had enough of worrying, and not able to be there for him and with him at his time of need. I traveled to meet him in a conscious dream.
I gathered my protective energies around me, and cloaked in a golden light I transferred myself there to his hospital room. I came surrounded by a bright golden light and shared this healing energy with him, directing it to any places needed for his healing, protection and speedy recovery. I told him to remember my dream visit and the golden light.
The next day we spoke on the phone, and I asked if he recalled any dreams. He said, “You were in my dream.” Oh really, what else? ” I asked. A golden light” He said. “I thought it was morning, and so I asked the nurse what time it was, 3 a.m. she said.” That just happens to be around the time I made my dream visit.
Later that day, he was released from the hospital a day after his surgery, I picked him up and brought him home and we are now focused on his speedy recovery. I am so grateful.
Awaken the Sacred Dream 