Mythic Dreaming – Awaken the Sacred Dream

White Horse of the Otherworld

Blessings as we near the cross quarter turn of the wheel at Imbolc, in between Winter and Spring. I can feel the seeds and prayers and dreams awakening underneath the soil finding room the breath. A quickening of becoming who and what we are. As it happens, these cross quarter and seasonal alignments are portals for entering deeper realities in dreaming. A blessing to remember the otherworld as among the community of beings with whom we share this world in the past, present, and future.

White Horse in the Burren
County Clare, Ireland photo: Valley Reed 2018

1/30/25 Time Jumping into the Otherworld

Last night in dreaming, I was time jumping into the past, traveling through house after house going easily through walls and windows until I reached the time I was tracking in the 1800’s to a village in Ireland. The second story building I was moving through became solid suddenly and when I went through the picture window, the glass broke and I fell to the ground. I was time tracking movements of a wild white horse, and my journey had brought to this time and place. I could see the worn deer trail alongside a railroad track and caught a glimpse of the gorgeous white horse ahead, who took my breath away, and my heart skipped a beat. I knew the path I must follow to catch up with this otherworldly horse, but first I must mark where I came through in my time travels, so I could return again to my own time. I walked back to find the broken window where I had fallen into this time in the 1800’s. There in the street looking up at the broken window was a couple, who I knew to be connected to the good folk. They said, “Yep, this is the place!” I looked carefully at the window and felt something was off about it, and decided to walk a bit further up the street, and found that the blue ornate building I had entered through was there but the window was no longer broken. Some faery mischief was afoot, the couple was trying to trick me to entering another timeline beyond the one I had travelled. I called them on their trick, and said they would need to make an offering for a dumb supper at the crossroads in order to make amends to the spirits of the otherworld.

The couple agreed, and came to the crossroads prepared to make an offering with a plate of meat and potatoes. The woman was pregnant and wore a beautiful, blue slate, silk dress, and when she went to set the plate down at the crossroads, she had a look of distress as her water had broken, and her beautiful silk gown had water all over it. Her labor was about to start. I felt the intensity of the moment, as she made offerings to the spirits her birthing had begun. I looked closely at the offering and noticed there were three pieces of coal on the plate, and asked them to be removed, the faeries won’t like that as an offering., and I certainly didn’t want to offend the faeries.

The husband removed the coal as requested and the offering was completed. Now I was free to go about my journey of tracking the wild white horse. I returned to the deer path along the train tracks and went about setting my sights on the White Horse leading me deeper inside the otherworld.

Fairy Bridge in Ireland
Photo by Valley Reed 2019

While a dumb Supper is usually held during Samhain as a silent way of communing with the spirits by offering a meal when the veil between the world thins, this ritual supper at the crossroads of Imbolc (a term meaning “in the belly” when sheep are pregnant and begin to lactate) is a halfway point between Winter and Spring, and a portal when the doors between the otherworld are open to bring through birth and new beginnings.

The story unfolds of the dumb Supper offering as that of making amends, in this world and the otherworld, and remove anything blocking that connection. It is said that coal was often left in barns to keep fairies from steeling milk. In this way, the coal must be removed so that the fairies may receive the offerings, while being respectful and honoring of this liminal sacred space and what is brought into it. The very act of making this offering at the crossroads, is a watershed moment, when the water breaks, and birth begins. This encounter frees me to carry on my journey in search of the White Horse of the Otherworld.

Enbarr is a magic white horse of Celtic lore who could travel between worlds, and the otherworld. The horse could travel across water or land and is associated with going on a mystical journey. Enbarr is connected with Niamh, the Queen of Tir na nOg (Land of the Young) an island of the Celtic Otherworld, which is a parallel universe that exists alongside this one. It is home to the Tuatha De Danann also known as the Faery Folk, Good People, Shining Ones, or Sidhe. Niamh means bright or radiant and she herself is a Faery Queen. What follows is a Gaelic lullaby, “Sleeping in Tir na Nog” by Liz Knowles inspired by the painting by Jack B. Yeats In Tir na nOg.

https://on.soundcloud.com/uP8pWZYbDXfcTFdX9

In Tir na nOg by Jack B. Yeats 1936 oil on canvas

The Lot of Oneiroi

The Spirit of the Place

June, 8th 2024

On a recent flight to the Netherlands to attend the IASD annual dream conference, I caught a couple hours of sleep before landing in Amsterdam. I found myself in a lucid dream and flew out the airplane window, and over the clouds to see the shore emerge below. There at the Atlantic shore near Amsterdam, was a blue vortex of energy, and within it I saw Lucid Dream Teacher Ryan Hurd. He was tossing energy up into the sky as a kind of beacon, to make sure dreamers could locate him, and know where to go in the dreamsphere. I decided this looks like fun, and I joined him in the light blue energy vortex, I said, I wanna play!

I tossed the energy up as blue ribbons of energy arched in the sky. They reminded me of aurora borealis. I was surprised to see Ryan in my dreams, as he had never appeared previously, and I have not studied with him, nor do I know him very well.

When I actually arrived at my destination for the International Association for the Study of Dreams conference at Rolduc Abbey in Kerkrade, Netherlands, my first encounter was with a Jackdaw perched in an arched window. I enjoyed our interaction as we spoke to one another and he was rather chatty with me. I acknowledged this interaction as engaging with the spirit of the place. I took a photo as a fond memory, and to my surprise, I found the appearance of the light blue energy streaming like a ribbon across the photo. A synchronicity that resonates with my lucid dream of the energy vortex.

Spirit of the Place; Rolduc Abbey in Kerkrade, Netherlands
Photo Credit: Valley Reed

I then found my way to my room and looked out the window to see the chapel steeple in full view with a clattering of jackdaws flying the winds. I woke to their Raven like cooing voices each morning.

Oneiroi Circling Rolduc Abbey Chapel
Photo Credit: Valley Reed

During the conference a favorite presentation was on Astrology and Dreams by A.K. Katok. He shared about the three fates of the Greek Moirai, and the Goddess Ananke or Necessity. He talked about how our Lots in life are shown on our astrology chart in how we were born into this life. He began to focus not only on the Lot of the Damion, but also the lesser known Lot of Dreams. The presentation pulled my string of curiosity for sure. I spent the evening doing further research into the Lot of Dreams, the Lot of Destiny, and the lot of the Daimon. I decided to incubate a dream to be shown the Lot of Dreams. I had the following dream.

The Lot of Dreams

I see a staircase with black and white tile, and hand rail with arabesque designs swirling upwards. The staircase resembles those found at the Abbey. I see an otherworldly figure on the staircase, walking up the stairs.

She is dark with a green patina, a statue come to life. She is small in stature, half the size of a stair step. She is very pregnant, and with a hand held under her belly, she supports her baby in her womb. The other hand is on the staircase railing as she climbs each step with great effort and determination. She knows she will get there, she has no other choice, she has a baby coming soon. She stops to rest and looks over at me. She sees me, and I see her. I am seen by her round white eyes, that look so familiar.

I woke from the dream and attempted to paint the image I saw for my Lot of Dreams. Her round white eyes, and her pregnant belly, the black and white tile, her small stature and the green patina as remnants of the past, stood out for me. I was curious about her eyes and how they looked at me.

Lot of Oneiroi, 2024 Rolduc Abbey
Watercolor painting by Valley Reed

I finally understood where those eyes had seen me before. I recalled the Jackdaw encounter I had when greeting the spirit of the place. The eyes are the same, and in reflecting on my painting, I notice her skirt resembles a bird wing or tail. Her green black hue resembles the hidden colors of the jackdaw, and even the shape of her head is similar, and her small height is more birdlike too. This magical otherworldly creature that is the Lot of Dreams, carries the stories of old as a statue would, and is both human and bird like. According to Homer, the Oneiroi were described as a flock of dark winged spirits of dreams. The Oneiroi passed through two gates, one made of Horn as the place of prophetic or true dreams, the second made of Ivory as the gateway of illusion or false dreams.

The mystery continues to unfold, as I had scheduled time with A.K. to go over my chart and discuss the Lot of Dreams and the Lot of the Daimon.

During the course of our meeting, I discovered an error in my chart, and while we went over the chart that was incorrect, I began to feel ill, like I was sinking, or drowning and there was no way out. It was then I noticed the mistake and once my chart was corrected, I felt the return of my strength and stability immediately. I wondered what was going on with this story I had been studying that was not my birth chart.

I recalled another story, where my mother had a twin in her womb with me who did not survive. In waking life, this was possible since my mother was given what was called twilight sleep to relieve the pain of childbirth. The medicine she was given means she was unconscious when she gave birth.

The twilight sleep I know however, is a lucid dreaming state. It so happens, the story of the twin had come to me by a lucid dreamer, known as PasQual, who I had never met previously, She is located in the Netherlands, and I in Texas, and were connected through a mutual friend who had emailed the dream.

We ended up collaborating on a presentation called “Stranger Dreaming” at an online IASD Psiberdreaming Conference in 2019. Around the same time the dream was initially shared, within days, echoes of this story had emerged in my waking life, where on two separate occasions, twin stories emerged. One of a twin carried in the womb of her mother who did not know she was having twins. The other was of a twin, who after the death of her mother, she found out the horror of her mother being held in a WWII concentration camp, and was made to incinerate infants.

Now that I am here in the Netherlands and exploring the Lot of Dreams, the story of the womb twin has resurfaced again, and may be showing up as two birth charts.

The story of the Goddess Nyx has also come through in connection with the figure dreamed for the Lot of Oneiroi. Nyx is the Goddess of Night, is a primordial Greek Goddess who created the Earth, the Sky and Sea from her cosmic egg. She is one of the first deities to exist. She is described as a black robed Goddess who lives at the ends of the Earth and drives through the sky in her chariot pulled by horses.

She is the mother of Moros (doom), Ker (destruction) Thanatos (death) Hypnos (sleep) Oneiroi (dreams), Momus (blame), Oizys (pain, distress), Hesperides (nymphs of evening), the Moirai (fates), Nemesis (retribution), Apate (deceit), Philotes (Love), Geras (old age), and Eris (Strife). She is mentioned as the mother of Hecate who delivers prophecies from the adyton, which can be an innermost temple, or cave.

Nyx as the mother of both fate, and dreams, seems a fitting image of how we may see the Lot of Dreams, through the Mother. In my case, the story of my own mother emerged, a story hidden from view that contains many other elements such as Thanatos, Oizys, Moirai, Apate, Hypnos, Eris, and Pilotes.

Womb Dreaming

The amniotic sac that surrounds the fetus is a protective boundary that holds the amniotic fluid. A watery dream realm within the uterus. When the fetus is born through the birth canal and has a face covered by the veil of the amniotic sac, it is considered to be a child protected and connected to the otherworld. One who sees with second sight beyond the veil, destined to be a healer, oracle, and seer.

When we dream from the womb, we are able to see into our matrifocal lineages, and reclaim the powers of the deep feminine. Dreaming from the womb is a portal into the past, the present, and the future, like the wisdom of the three fates who guard the cauldron at the roots of the tree of life. The womb is the cauldron of life, and when we are born, the first thread is cut from the umbilical cord between mother and child. We go from being a watery creature who breathes under water, to an Earth-side creature who breaths the air.

The Selkie

The story of a Selkie Woman is known in Ireland and Scotland, and it talks of a female Seal, able to shift from a Seal under the sea, to a Woman on land. She does this by removing her seal skin, or cowl, and she becomes land bound. If someone steals her seal skin, she cannot return to her watery home below the waves.

As the story goes, a man finds her seal skin and uses this power to demand she marry him. He hides away her powers and she loses a part of herself to become his wife. She bares children with him who have webbed toes and fingers. She cannot lose who she is completely. After staying with him for 7 years, she discovers the hiding place of her Seal skin. She immediately kisses her children goodbye, and takes her leave. Her soul longing takes her back to the sea, where she puts on her true skin. She dives under the waves once again and is gone. She has returned to her natural state, and no longer a hostage to the ways of Man who would try to own her. She morns the loss of her Earthbound children, but is reunited with her own soul, and her Seal family under the sea.

The gift of the Selkie is the ability to live in multiple worlds, and to see beyond what others may see or accept. The lesson of the Selkie is not to allow anyone to hold you hostage for their own selfish benefit, and hiding your power away in order to do so. Reclaiming the wisdom of the womb powers and returning to our soul gifts is the longing of the soul heard in the sounds of the waves, and call of the sea. She Dreams inside the Womb of the Mother, held by the Earth Mother. This ocean of dreams is a watery womb, and her true home.

Green Man and the Vernal Equinox

March 19th, 2024 is the Vernal Equinox in Aries, when the astrological wheel takes a new turn. Moving towards the Full Moon in Virgo on March 24th, we see that our seeds of intentions planted in a Pisces new moon, are coming to the surface.

A beautiful dream seed came through for me around the New Moon, after I made plans to travel to the Netherlands this Summer, around the time of the Summer Solstice, where I will be teaching a workshop on Dreaming an Ancient Future. A call for Dream related artwork is still open until April 15th.

It is significant to me that the Green Man, has showed up in dreaming as I make plans to attend the conference. The first time Green Man appeared to me was in 2008, as I was scheduled to attend the IASD conference in Montreal, Canada and was Chairing a panel on Dreaming Across Borders where I presented on “The Call of Quetzalcoatl and Dancing with the Moon”.

I had a big dream about preparing the way for my Father’s death, and was shown how to make sacred offerings to the ancestors. I traveled to the Pyramid of the Sun, the temple of Quetzalcoatl, and the Jaguar Palace at Teotihuacan, Mexico to make prayers and sacred offerings on behalf of my father, who was dying of Cancer. During the trip. I was invited by a Toltec Medicine Man and Keeper of the staff of Quetzalcoatl, to join in the traditional annual Aztec Moon dance in Mexico City.

The Green Man – 2008

In my dream, the Green Man appeared as a Man in the shape of a tree, this primordial male wildness, is something I had never before encountered, and I was afraid. I was in the pool when I saw him, and I pretended to be moonlight shining on the water so that he would not notice me. He walked right over to me and said, I am your teacher. He offered me his hand to help me out of the water.

A year later, as I prepared to present a workshop on “Dream Wayfinding” at the 2009 IASD conference in Chicago, Illinois called Listening to the Earth Dreaming. I had another dream with the Green Man picking up where I had left off.

The Green Man and the Moon Goddess – 2009

The Green Man offers me his hand and pulls me out of the water. I emerge naked covered in silvery Moonlight. I am a Moon Goddess. He offers me his sturdy back, and I climb on, and together we fly to the Moon. I am reminded of Witches on Broomsticks.

Now I am excited to get my plans in order to travel to the Netherlands this Summer to present a workshop on “Dreaming an Ancient Future” at the International Association for the Study of Dreams annual conference at the Rulduc Abbey in Kerkrade.

I took a nap after arranging my flights, and I had this lucid dream.

Green Man Ancestor 2024
I am in the twilight zone between waking and sleeping where one can easily slip into a lucid dream. I see a man with grey bushy hair, who is talking to me and I notice he takes two red candles and places them side by side on a wall shelf, and lights them both. I walk further into the space where I see an antique rug and furniture. I am standing near a green couch and I notice an ancestral spirit is sittting on the end of the couch next to me. I can see him out of my peripheral vision and realize his rather large size and tremendous presence. I can only see his feet and legs because he is so large, I also realize he is wearing green pants and shoes. I stand still to see what I can learn. I can hear a man’s voice but I am not sure if it is the man who performed the candle ritual, or this giant green man ancestor I am hearing. I am lucid in the dream, able to stay with the dream easily, and feel that I have entered a conscious dream in another time and place, that could be the Rulduc Abbey in the Netherlands where I will be staying, and is said to be haunted. It seems the ancestors are already opening the way for my arrival this Summer. My workshop, “Dreaming an Ancient Future” is on Tuesday, June 11th from 2:00 – 3:30, so mark your program.

Anyone interested in attending the IASD annual conference taking place this year in the Netherlands, can find out more information here. https://iasdconferences.org/2024/

Now, here I am yet again, dreaming of the Green Man, as I prepare to present at another dream conference on Dreaming an Ancient Future. This feels like an important time for the Green Man to appear yet again, as my workshop will dream into embodied ancestral wisdom, to help us remember how to collaborate with our ancestors and more than human relatives like the Green Man.

The Earth and the Moon also ancestors collaborating to dream us into being, and we each have a unique role to play. Our ancestors did their part in unfolding this dream through their own Earth Journey, in tuned with the ancient Wisdom of the Moon.

Like the Monarch Butterfly whose migration sometimes takes 3 generations to complete, our ancestral Legacy is embodied in our DNA, and carried forth in ancestral dreams that are multigenerational. They are here to assist us in Dreaming an Ancient Future.

Sacred Grove near Rolduc, in the Valley of the Vrouwezijp.

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

Upside Down World

“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

“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.

Buddha Purnima

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. – Buddha

The May Full Moon celebrates the Birth, enlightenment and death of Siddhartha Guatama Buddha. It is a day celebrated and honored at many countries across the world. A time during which the Buddha is known to return to the Earthly realm.

The conception of Buddha to Queen Maya, was foretold in a dream, that of a white elephant with six tusks entering her right side. Her dream was interpreted that she would give birth to a world leader or a Buddha.

I recall a lucid dream from years ago, where I looked down at my legs and saw they were the wrinkled legs of a white elephant. I was amazed! I heard a voice say, don’t you know you do this all the time…..Shapeshift???

This Scorpio Full Moon is a time of dreaming, what we will give birth to the world. A time for the truth to be revealed, to look into the darkness and see what we are truly aligned with becoming and living as a unique individual, as a compassionate human being, and as part of the Earth community of the natural world. The term Buddha means “awakened one” and when we become conscious dreamers, we are on the path toward understanding the mystic nature of reality. Like the Moon, our dreams can help us reflect light into the darkness. Our conscious dream travels can also guide us into the heavenly realms of experience with spiritual teachers, and divine beings, or the deepest depths of the Ocean, in connection with primordial feminine wisdom.

My celebration of Purnima, was a beautiful full moon ceremony guided by Bhola, a beloved shamanic teacher from Nepal. He guided us on a journey into the bottom of the sea, where we met up with a giant conch shell, and entered into a deep ancient wisdom, spiraling deeper under ground at the bottom of the Ocean. In my journey, I experienced a tremendous wave of rainbow energy enter my being and offering healing in my womb, and then traveling up into my solar plexus and throat and ears, and finally coming out through my third eye as a cobra. My body began to shake from the energy rising through me. I then saw 4 Naga spirits dancing as they rose into the ethers, carrying me with them. I was given several white wind horses to travel upon, like a wave or a cloud. I was told to continue to travel with the wind horses. I felt my spirit rise with the freedom of spiritual adventure, and the beautiful energy surrounding me. Lung-Ta in Tibet is the name given for prayer flags and means wind horse. The Nagi are semi-divine serpent beings, known to give special powers, and guard treasures under the sea.

I returned from this journey with such gratitude, feeling relaxed and nurtured, and a deep sense of healing and belonging in myself.

A few days previous to this full moon shamanic journey, I was taking a nap and recalled a dream from years ago, of discovering a mysterious blue starfish. The starfish was held inside an ancient carved lava rock alcove alongside a beach. I walked into the alcove to get a closer look and when I did, I discovered the fossilized starfish had awoken, and was looking back at me. I took the starfish from out of the stone alcove and set it on my shoulder. I began whispering sweet loving words to the starfish to return her to her human form. Hearing those loving words, while being carried on my shoulder, helped her remember how much she is loved, and she changed back into a Grandmother. I returned her to her village, where she was received with loving, open arms.

Upon waking, I thought it was important to revisit this dream story, by creating artwork to depict the story. At that moment, a friend contacted me and wanted to schedule a private session with me together with her and her 6 year old daughter. We agreed to a time to journey together in sacred space, and I told her of just awakening from a nap where I was recalling my dream story of the blue starfish, that was meant to be a children’s story. She mentioned her daughter had just the other day, been talking about wanting to search for starfish on the beach. I took the message of synchronicity, that we were meant to journey into the ocean realms on a magical mermaid journey with the moon and the stars. Together we journeyed guided by the sound of the drum, held by the bright moon above, and we delved into visiting a treasure filled sea cave in the magical ocean realms of mermaid. In my journey, I saw the blue starfish at the end, which was actually a falling star from the heavens, and 2 gold coins left by the mermaid. The very next day, I found myself journeying to the bottom of the sea, into an ancient conch shell. On the altar for the journey to the bottom of the sea, part of the offerings I was told to prepare, included 2 coins. Namaste

Faery Gateways

Faery Folk have long been known to appear in my dreams on occasion and when they do, I feel a certain importance and magic has visited me. I feel blessed by their presence which often is accompanied by mystery & shenanigans. One such dream came recently, when contemplating a trip to Ireland in the coming year. I used dream incubation and put the question to my dreams to find out if this was a good idea. Dream incubation is a core practice in Active Dreaming and can give one access to deeper levels of reality and the deeper wisdom of the soul, when dealing with life’s challenges and questions. The dream which came was an immediate response to my question. I share a couple of related dreams here following the steps of the Lightning Dream Sharing Process, which is also a handy way of recording in your dream journal and exploring your own dreams or sharing with others.

Foxglove Faery Gateway

I see two purple flowers growing in a forested glen and my awareness comes closer in the dream to see them. I become aware these two flowers form a small gateway into a faery realm, where I now hear the voices of faeries chattering away in excitement. I cannot see them, but can hear them. I am told the flower on the left is for me and the flower on the right is for my partner.

Feelings upon waking – Excitement! A confirmation of going to visit Ireland, as the land of my Ancestors and Faery Folk.

Reality Check – In response to my dream, I did look up foxgloves to see what connection they may have to Faeries or Ireland. I learned Foxglove Flowers are known to originate in the British Isles and closely associated with Faery folktales. The flowers are also known by the names, Folkgloves (The Good Folk), Faery Fingers, Faery Bells, Faery Caps, Thimbles of the Sidhe or The Plant of the Faery Woman.

What do I want to know? I want to know what is on the other side of the Faery gateway.

Action Plans – Re-Enter my dream to travel through the gateway of the Good Folk, and ask for the assistance of fox as a guide. Make travel plans to visit Ireland in the coming year.

Fox Glove Myth — Foxgloves by Kelly Louise Judd

In folk tales, the Foxglove flower is said to get it’s name from how Fox was given gloves from the flower, which were placed on his feet by faeries, so that he could quietly slip by undetected by hunters and escape.

Whale bones — Baleen Whale Skeleton Photo by Lisa Levin and Nicholas D. Pyenson.

Harp Gateway

I had a fascinating dream years ago, which apparently was hinting at me traveling to Ireland, if not in physical reality at least in dreaming. In my dream I was drawn into what appeared to be a rib cage made of whale bones. The bones were ancient and had turned to crystal, and standing inside I could see strings of sinew between the bones. I passed my fingers across the strings and an otherworldly song was emitted. The whale harp became a dream gate with entrance into a magical otherworldly realm. I placed my Native American flute at the entrance to the gateway and then picked up a tin flute that lay at the entrance before stepping through the gateway.

Feelings – Mystery

Reality Check – In subsequent research after having this dream, I discovered a folktale of how the Harp became a symbol for Ireland. It is said that a Queen was strolling along the windy shores of the Sea one fine day, when she heard a haunting sound that reached to her very soul. She searched to find the source and came across the carcass of a Whale, whose bones had washed ashore. The rib cage bones of the Whale were the source of the magical sound, created when the wind blew through. The Queen was determined to have a musical instrument made which could create this haunting beautiful music she had heard. She could think of nothing else until once again she could hear such beautiful music whenever she pleased. She ordered the court musicians and craftsman to examine the whale bones and come up with a design for an instrument to be made. After many attempts to create an instrument capable of replicating the sounds made through the whale bones, the court craftsman finally were able to come together to complete the task. Together they created an instrument known as the Harp. The Queen was very happy to have magical music played by her court musicians whenever she pleased. This is how the Irish harp came to be and later known as the symbol of Ireland today.

What do I want to know? – The changing of the Flute upon entrance through the dream gate suggests giving up something in order to pick up a new song and follow a new path. I want to know what lies beyond the gateway.

Action – Pick up the tin flute. Play a Harp. Revisit opening the Harp gateway in dreaming.

King Arthur and the White Hart

Sacred Tree

In conscious twilight dreaming, I see myself down in the earth around the roots of an enormous tree. I move around from root to root to feel and connect with the wide expanse that roots this magnificent tree in the earth. I then travel up through the core of the trunk of the tree, but find it difficult to move upward, because I encounter energy blocks inside the trunk.

I begin to feel the fear that I have stored there, and I consciously allow my fears to come undone. When the blockage is removed, I am aware my dreams have now also become unleashed. The fears held there were blocking my dreams from coming through. Now my dreams are free to be gathered each night and morning as I enter sleep and later awaken. Now I can move freely up the core of the tree, into the hartwood.

White Hart

I am suddenly called to step out and into the middle realm. I am deep in a wooded forest, where a young king stands alone with his white horse to take water at the stream. He is handsome with shoulder length blonde hair, and blue eyes. He wears fine clothing and a simple gold crown. His back adorned with a silken purple cape and his hands are protected by tailor made leather riding gloves. He stares at the water with a look of peace and serenity, taking in every moment of the rare chance to be alone in the wild. Watching his horse drink from the stream, he looks up when hearing a crack in the wood. He stands face to face with the huge dark eyes of the stag staring back at him. There is something between them, something being transmitted, yet unspoken. It is a destiny, it is a sign. The White Hart then leaps across the wide stream and moves up the bluff until reaching a vantage point where he can look down upon the strange encounter he has just discovered. He will turn up again when the time is right.

Upper Realm Journey

Now I am called back to my sacred tree to move ever upward until finding the very tips of each branch as it reaches skyward. I scan the reach of this tree, it is broad and reaches high into the heavens. It holds home to many birds who lay in her branches tucked safely from harm. The trunk is strong and stable, and the roots reach wide and deep. I am now perched on the tiptop of the branches like a bird, surveying the view from uptop of the world. I am called to move ever higher in my journey and enter the upper realms. I look up and see a rope drop down, and a helping hand emerges to pull me up to the next level.

A rip in the fabric of time

I find myself dreaming in the twilight zone hoping for sleep or dreams to find me. A dream draws near me, tearing a rip in the fabric of darkness, that makes up my inner space. Upper and lower are pulled apart to reveal the brightness of the sun piercing through like the break of day. From this space, now torn wide open, I can see the energy of another dimension spilling through into mine. I begin to see etheric beings stepping into my dreamspace, making their way toward me, moving ever closer. One moves close enough to come into view and I begin to make out the details of his person. He is a King in his prime years, experienced and fearless. He holds his hand extended out toward me. In it he holds, what looks to be the head of a man, or perhaps a skull. When I look closer, I see it is made from beeswax.

Mythic Reflections

There are tales of King Arthur in connection with the white hart deer, one of which is at the wedding feast of King Arthur and Guinevere at Camelot. A White Hart Deer was seen to enter the great hall, followed by the chaos of a white dog followed by 30 hunting dogs, a fair maiden in pursuit of the white dog, and a knight in pursuit of the maiden. At the behest of Merlin, King Arthur orders they should all be brought back and chooses Sir Gawain to bring back the white hart. He is accompanied by two other knights, who gave chase to return the white hound and the fair maiden. The maiden was killed accidentally by Gawain who fought the knight for her. The White Hart and White Hound were returned to Camelot.

There is another tale that takes place at a Christmas feast at Camelot, when Sir Gawain encounters the Green Knight who challenges the knights of the round table to cut off his head and in a year and a day return to have the same fate returned. Sir Gawain is the only knight to accept the challenge and he takes the hatchet and chops of the head of the Green Knight, who then catches his own head in his hand.

Sir Gawain returns to the Green Chapel at the coming of Christmas the next year to honor his part of the bargain with the Green Knight. On New Year’s Day, he meets up at the Green Chapel to receive the returning ax blow to cut off his head, but his life is sparred after three tries by the Green Knight. He is found to have been given a green girdle talisman of a fair maiden to protect his life.

What will the coming year bring with the mythic themes of King Arthur and the White Hart spilling into my dreams? A spiritual quest maybe in the offering for the coming year. Time will tell, in a year and a day, if my head will be cut off or not. I will be sure to make plenty of magic talismans this year. The Green Knight is steeped in the older traditions of the Green Man. The King of the Wood, as protector and consort of the Goddess, is sacrificed in the yearly ritual. When winter comes, the Green Man becomes the old man of winter and he is sacrificed in a ritual fire to be reborn at Beltane. The reborn sacred king and goddess are joined in a sacred marriage to fertilize the land. It is then, that his power is bestowed upon him by the goddess and held in the land that he serves.

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