2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 15,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 3 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

It’s Only Just a Dream

It’s Only Just a Dream….how many of us have heard this seemingly harmless phrase after sharing a dream with someone at some point in our libloodroseves?  I have heard stories from others who tell of their “Just a Dream” experiences, often in childhood, and what followed was a lack of respect for the dreamer and the dream, leaving a scar and broken trust. But what you will see in my story is a tale of caution, where labeling a dream as “Just a Dream” could spell the difference between life and death.

Back in the mid 80’s I worked for a Commercial Real Estate Developer in Downtown Dallas, Texas during the Savings & Loan Crisis, which caused many companies to go bankrupt. The company I worked for was no exception, and so I also became a casualty of the economic crisis and suddenly found myself out of a job. I was young with limited work experience and found it difficult to find work. The only job I could find was to work as a rose girl trolling through bars in the evenings selling roses to amorous couples, or some guy hoping to get lucky with that pretty girl.

One night before I was scheduled to work as a “rose girl”, I had an unusual dream that changed my life.

Belle Starr Rose Girl Shot Dead

rosegirl

I see myself dressed in my rose girl uniform in a red jacket, black shorts and fishnet nose, and I am walking around Belle Star, a popular country and western bar, carrying my rose basket. I walk slowly around the bar and it is crowded. I make my rounds through the place and head back towards the front, as I do a man bursts through the door and begins shooting. I see myself hold my neck with one hand as I fall to the ground in slow motion and the roses spilling out everywhere. I have been shot in the neck, and am lying dead on the floor surrounded by a pool of blood with roses spread all around me. EOD.

I awake from this dream terrified, my body is shaking and I know I have just seen my own death. I shared the dream, fearing for my life, with my now ex-husband, who tells me frankly, “Oh it is just a dream,……..you have to go to work we need the money.” I was almost persuaded by his goading and pressure that I needed to go to work, but I was still very afraid, and so I called into work to tell them I was sick and would not be coming in. They were very upset with me, and told me they had given me the very best route of clubs to work that night and I would make alot of money. They told me what clubs they had scheduled me to work and at what time, and Belle Star was one of the clubs on that list. They also told me if I didn’t come to work and called in sick they would have to fire me. I didn’t want to lose my job and so I somehow mustered the courage to get myself dressed for work and drove in that direction. While driving down the highway, I saw a really bad car accident that had just happened. The car was totaled and I could somehow sense that someone had died in that car wreck. My hands began to shake on the steering wheel, and I began to feel the same sensation I experienced in the dream about seeing my own death. I could not physically force myself to drive to work after that, I was too shaken by the whole experience, and my body knew the real danger I was heading toward. I turned around and drove home instead.

My then husband at the time, was very angry with me, and yelled at me for being irresponsible by not going to work. My employer was not pleased with me either and fired me for not showing up for my shift. I was feeling pretty low about the whole situation. The next day however, on the front page of the newspaper, was a story about a man who had gone into a popular country western bar called Belle Starr and began shooting, and two people were shot. http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1987_443477/man-dressed-in-black-shoots-2-in-dallas-club.html

I was astounded, that could have been me! I felt I had been touched by grace somehow, and that for some reason I was given information in a dream which saved my life. Clearly there was more to dreaming than I had previously been lead to believe. Never again would I look at any dream as “just a dream”.

My life changed after that day and I made a determination to honor my dreams from that day forward. I began to look more deeply into the messages my dreams had for me, and I started writing my dreams down in journals.  I soon realized by keeping a dream journal, that many dreams I recorded had content which connected to events in waking life. They were not as dramatic as the rose girl dream, but just normal everyday occurrences would also appear in my dreams. I discovered that deja vu experiences I had often had, were a result of having dreamt it before, rather than lived it before.  I determined that dreams are a place where we can create our life and often give us glimpses of what may come.  I also began to have out of body experiences, and once found myself hovering above my body connected to my physical body by a luminous cord of fuchsia colored light which lit up the entire room in that hue. I felt the strong loving energy of the light which enveloped the room, and was confused about why I was looking at my physical body asleep in bed as I was hovering above. I wondered how this could happen, and suddenly found myself slammed back into my body and abruptly woke up. I was having what is known as an “out of body experience”, but at the time I was unfamiliar with this, and so I began to explore lucid dreaming and astral travel.  I learned that I was not confined to my physical body but could travel in my night time excursions beyond the physical.

These experiences were a turning point in my life, which set me on an exploration of consciousness, dreaming and shamanism. I have recorded my dreams now for over 25 years and studied many aspects and approaches to dreaming. The approach that I value most is Active Dreaming, a synthesis of modern day dream work with ancient shamanic dream practices.  Active Dreaming was developed through the pioneering work of  Robert Moss and it is through his dream teacher training and depth workshops over the years that I have joined the ranks of dream teachers around the world who are helping to create a dream sharing community once again. I offer classes and workshops on Active Dreaming where we explore the many ways dreams provide guidance and healing as we travel our life path and beyond.  Dreams have the ability to lead us out of danger and onto a path of heart and soul. All we have to do to start on this path is dream, and share our dreams in a way that offers respect for the dreamer and the dream. The lightning method of dream sharing is an excellent way to share dreams in a way begins with the felt sense of the dreamer upon waking, followed by a reality check,  for clues of a possible future which may play out in our dreams. The process asks “What do you most want to know from the dream” as an important touch stone to work from and then moves to “What action do you want to take?” This process is a quick method of dream sharing that points to the important aspects to work from when discovering your dreams. Dreaming the future does not mean your waking life must play out the same way. My story exemplifies how it is possible to change the outcome of a dream, if appropriate action is taken. Conversely, if a dream is showing us our heart’s desire, we have only to gather our courage and act.

Valley Reed 2012 ©

The Spiritual Mountaintop

Standing on the Spiritual Mountain June 5, 2012

I dreamt of seeing myself on a Spiritual Mountaintop, where I am a Giant among others who are present with me. I am the only Goddess among a group of several other Gods. We are all Giant in appearance and embody the presence of a God or Goddess in this spiritual terrain. From the heights of the etheric spiritual mountain, one could gaze down below to see the physical mountain.  A spiritual pilgrim throws his rope up onto the mountain peak where we stand, and suddenly everyone has the instinct to hide and not be seen. Everyone except me, ducks for cover. I stand in full view, the only one willing to risk being seen. The lone figure emerges from the side of the mountain and he is elated to have reached his destination. He stands looking back at me confused to be met by the presence of a Giant Goddess.  All the other Gods are hiding from him and the pilgrim does not know they are there. The Gods believe they cannot be seen, because he is not yet ready. I don’t agree with this perspective and stand in full view, ready to meet this spiritual pilgrim.  I  look into his eyes and see his confusion and realize, he is not yet ready to receive the wisdom he is seeking. I gaze back at him with loving compassion. He has gotten what he came looking for, but it was not what he expected. EOD.

In this dream I am experiencing my larger self, among others there with me. I experience this differently than my male counterparts who seem afraid to be seen as gods in the presence of the ascent of a seeker. I feel that religious perspective often describes this perspective, that a mere mortal cannot withstand the presence of the god/goddess. This etheric realm of the higher self is where the lower self seeks to come in contact with the higher nature of our own divine being. It is not separate from us, but a part of our true nature. The actual physical mountain top can be seen from just below this etheric realm, and it is something we have access to discovering for ourselves. It seems not only is mortal man perhaps afraid of being in the presence of god, yet compelled to climb forth as a seeker, but in my dream the gods themselves were afraid of connecting with their lower nature. Is it because if these two realms came together, we would be exposed as humans capable of becoming the gods we seek yet truly are?  Would we be afraid that others would not understand and seek to persecute us for arriving on this spiritual landscape?  In my dream, I felt the experience of being exposed, yet I was not afraid. It seemed only natural to greet this pilgrim on his journey toward reaching the spiritual mountaintop. When arriving on this terrain, it is the descent which takes the most courage, both for the seeker and for our higher self.

Perhaps it is time for the Patriarchal Gods to duck and cover, this is something the Goddess has been doing for a very long time. Perhaps it is time for the Goddess to be seen in full view in all her power for what she is, much to the confusion of modern man.

Compassion is the way down from the spiritual mountaintop, and being willing to receive those who come before us with love and compassion is the road ahead.

Footsteps of the Ancestors

Ten Bears as Earth Spirit – June  2006

I have been dreaming about Giants in many of my dreams over the past five years or so. I believe the first instance was when my first shamanic teacher, Bart Anderson “Ten Bears,” passed away in 2006. I dreamed of his crossing over shortly after hearing about his death.  In the dream, I saw him transform from his human form, into a Giant Nature Spirit that lived close to the earth.

Happy goes home with the African Ancestors  October 2009

A few years later a dear friend passed away, “Happy” Shel Weisman who was a community leader for African Drum Circles in North Texas and founder of the non profit organization, Drums Not Guns.  The night before his death, I dreamt of seeing the giant feet of the African ancestors walking upon the earth. Four sacred gatekeepers who had come to take him home.

Earth Guardian

In a dream in 2009, I saw myself as a Giant Goddess sitting upon the earth and an unseen voice tells me, “You are a guardian of the earth.” I see a golden streak of light travel the starlit sky and down into my body through my spine and into my womb. The golden light reveals an ancient labyrinth inside my earthen womb. I am firmly rooted to earth and heaven, as I sit in a sacred circle in the portal of the East as Gatekeeper and Earth Guardian.

The footprints left by these ancient beings are calling me to take my place among them. They anchor in my body and stretch my energy and awareness to grow large enough to encompass heaven and earth. They call me to other lands to remember who I am. I seek to honor the steps of the Ancestors, in my walk upon this Earth

Join me in this walk with the Ancestors  at an upcoming retreat, “Reclaiming Ancestral Wisdom ” September 2-4, 2016.  Recover Ancestral wisdom in a safe supportive circle of dreamers, as we travel our bloodlines and source our dna to recover what has been lost and release transgenerational trauma with kundalini yoga, conscious group shamanic dream journeys, exploring dreams with the lightning method of dream sharing, give away fire ceremony and a sound healing labyrinth journey. In this depth retreat we may discover hidden ancestors, but also meet our spiritual kin and guides. We may also find, just as we are seeking our spiritual guides and ancestors, they are also seeking us. Join us for this exploration of the other side, where your kin await your arrival and are ready to embark on this healing journey together with you.

Valley of the Giants

Becoming my Larger Self  June 2012

I dream of growing into a Giant being. I begin from my natural appearance and then grow into a very large version of myself.  Over and over again, I am growing larger and becoming giant. There is now, more than one of me.  I am aware inside of the dream of this transformation taking place, and my thought is, “It’s happening! I am becoming my larger self.”

I am deeply afraid of what is happening and at the same time, I know it is inevitable. My little self, lucid awareness, begins to try to control the dream and stop from growing so big, but soon I realize it is no use, there is nothing I can do to alter what is now happening. I even try to forget about it inside the dream, actually telling myself,” I won’t remember this dream in the morning, no need to worry!” (wrong) Finally, I try self deception and doubt, and tell myself this is not really happening. My larger reality however, overcomes the fears and doubts of the little lucid self in the dream.  I finally have to accept the truth of what the dream is presenting, and realize I AM becoming my larger self and growing into a larger being, on the scale of a goddess. EOD

What does it mean to become the larger self in affinity with a Goddess as big as a mountain? In one respect, it means the limits and constrictions of the little self can no longer control, nor hold the larger sphere of the soul and spirit which now reaches out to connect with the everyday world. This seems to hold a place of great fear, to be viewed on the same plane as a Goddess, and not seem like an egomaniac. The dream showed however, there is no stopping this transformation taking place anymore than one could change a butterfly back into a caterpillar.

I had a deep sense of knowing within the dream that this space of transformation was always available to me and that it would eventually come my way someday. It was as if remembering some long forgotten promise, that was finally coming true. Another part of this dream for me, is that it was not a singular event which resulted in this transformation, it seemed to be a process of learning how to shift into becoming my larger self, and indeed practicing becoming giant, over and over. Beyond that, I had the sense this replication of the larger self was perhaps creating these larger shifts of perception and being into other realms and dimensions.

Action Plan- Recall the larger self in waking reality, when I find I am struggling with fears and doubts.

Dream Re-Entry to get to know and explore the dream of the larger self.

My one liner from this dream is “Living the Larger Self!”

Valley Reed © 2012

Journey of the Soul of my Soul

By Valley Reed © 2012

I recently read Dreaming the Soul Back Home by Robert Moss and was inspired by his writing, to embark on a conscious journey given in the book, to connect with the soul of my soul.  The sound of my frame drum was my passport, as I sat ready to release to the journey, and off I went.

The Soul of my Soul Journey 5-20-12 Solar Eclipse, New Moon

I see a smoldering coal in the place of my heart, the flame grows like a ring of fire. I place my hands as a cup over my heart and begin to receive light into my body through the top of my head. I go deeper in connecting the light to my heart and the burning flame. I feel lighter, and begin to see a mist gather around my body. I enter into it and stick my head into a sunset beach scene, where a man is walking toward me from the distance. I see the sunset display a beautiful brilliant light which reflects upon his body and face, but I cannot see what he looks like clearly. A cloud shadow passes over and he steps out of the light and into the shadow. Now I can see his brilliance. He is beautiful with blond hair and blue eyes. Tall and muscular and tan. His face has a pleasant, beautiful, relaxed look and his smile is full of love. He approaches me and we begin to talk as friends. We sit back on the beach to relax, we are comfortable together, he has his arms around me and we are just listening to the ocean. He then places a mirror on the sand before me, it is large and he wants to show me something. He shows me how to enter the mirror and inside we go. It is like moving through a permeable membrane, and suddenly we are in a beautiful mysterious mountainous landscape in China. It is raining gently and we can hear the wind blowing through the forest like musical chimes. He becomes a white tiger and we move higher into the mountainous forest. We look together over a peaceful river perched high over this beautiful place. We do a shape shift dance into two beautiful White Cranes. We  take flight soaring over the river where an ancient boat sails. We find ourselves inside the boat and find a cozy bed for us to rest. We lay together in tender embrace and love-making on our journey together.

We sail to another shore, in another country, and arrive where the shore meets a desert landscape. He takes me to some horses awaiting us nearby. They are White and Black Arabian Horses. I ride upon a white one and he on the black. We ride through the desert until nightfall, when reaching a Bedouin tent campsite. We lay down with our horses gazing up at the crescent moon and the beautiful starlit sky. My appearance is now different and I have long curly dark hair and he is also dark featured and handsome and strong. He takes me to a waterfall spring coming out of an ancient mountain. We are naked and he makes love to me pressed against the mountain under the sacred spring. I feel I am becoming the mountain as he makes love to me and the mountain shakes beneath my body. It is passionate and healing. He takes me to a cave where I am told I must go in order to heal. The cave is an underground temple and I enter for sacred initiation of the ancient goddess. When I come out, I am met by a snake, which begins to talk with me. It is giving me wisdom, and it is also part of my soul. I am now given another horse to ride that is black and has a white heart on his forehead. This is my soul’s soul also, and I have a deep love for this horse. I ride with him and together we ride through the desert. I stop to gaze upon a pool of water in order to glimpse my future, I am continuing along the roads of my soul’s journey and writing along the way.

This journey was deep and beautiful for me, visiting other lives and landscapes, magical shape shifting, and connecting with ancient rights of passage in the cave of the goddess, as well as a ceremonial mating with the land to reclaim the energy of the goddess and connecting with her wisdom.

I discovered one of the places I visited in my vision, was the Yellow Mountains of China. A mystical place where  immortals are said to live. A place where white animals are said to roam, and immortals travel flying on the backs of white cranes. It is a unique landscape with interesting shaped mountains and curled up pine trees which grow upon the mountaintops, clouds rise to give the impression of a heavenly mountain island.  It is not a place I have ever known about, seen or wanted to go previously. I am so glad that now I know the way. Just look into the magic mirror of the soul of my soul.

The Wisdom of the Body and Dreams

“Wisdom is to the soul what health is to the body”-De Saint-Real

Dreams can provide a key to unlock the wisdom of the body. The body has deep wisdom toward balance and wholeness known as homeostasis in scientific terms. It has ways of identifying and expelling unwanted intruders through the immune system. Our sensory proprioceptive awareness allows us to know where we are in relation to the space around us and to navigate our world without effort. These processes happen without our conscious control and dreams certainly have an affinity with the realm of the unconscious and can help us navigate through illness and disease.

In dreams we may receive health warnings about impending problems, long before doctors could detect a problem.  I had a precognitive dream about a health condition which did not surface until a year later when I developed Uterine Fibroids.  The dream showed a tremendous black spider covering my lower body when it landed on my abdomen.  A large pointed needle like protrusion came from it’s mouth and stuck into my lower abdomen.  In the dream, I was really scared of that spider, it was really huge! I attempted gathering further information through dream re-entry, but my fear was blocking me from getting anywhere.

When I eventually developed symptoms of fibroids a year later, I recalled my dream.  I sensed the needle was an important clue to approach treatment of the problem. The information I read from the western medicine approach was not encouraging, and surgery was the consensus at the time.  I opted instead to go with acupuncture,  inspired by the image of the large needle offered by my dream ally of the huge scary spider.  After several months of intensive acupuncture treatments I found that the problem was not only alleviated, but has not since returned.

Dreams and the body are important in other ways, the body with it’s incredible wisdom can be a source of helpful insight in helping to navigate the realm of dreams. My lifelong background in dance, enabled me to learn how the body has a power and wisdom all it’s own. I found for instance, when I consciously asked my body to perform a movement that was difficult, my body would respond with ease and grace.  If I tried to force doing a movement with my will,  I was left with struggle and pain instead. I have also found the mind/body connection to be a valuable way to work with dreams and I often incorporate movement into dream workshops I teach.  Expressive movement is a beautiful way to get in touch with your dreams, and gain helpful insight through the information the body imparts.

Science has discovered the power of the mind and body to heal through imagery and dreams. Recent studies have shown that the inward experiences of the imagination and dreaming translates as a real experience to the body. The body knows that the dream world is the real world. When we activate our imagination to inspire and affirm the body’s healing capacity, we are supporting our body’s innate wisdom and ability to heal.  Dreams also provide a stage to rehearse for every day life, so whether you are practicing violin, healing cancer or learning french in your dreams, the body is there in a very real sense with you.

Valley Reed © 2011

Dancing Awake My Dreams

Over twenty five years ago,  I was lead by my dreams to join “Nine Fish Jumping” an improvisational dance performance group, made up of actors, dancers, yoga teachers, film makers, and martial arts practitioners.  We decided to make the group leader”full” where we had no one leader, but all took responsibility for creating the performances.  We built trust among each other, exploring our creative edges and stretching our creative impulses through contact improvisational movement.  One afternoon, as I prepared to leave my house to go to a rehearsal, I suddenly became really drowsy and felt the need to lay down for a minute before going to rehearsal. I lay down and closed my eyes, and suddenly found myself dreaming about a meeting taking place, at a nearby cafe, where the members of our group had gathered. One of them was trying to convince the others that they should vote me out of the group.  I woke up suddenly, and “knew” that this meeting was taking place right then.  I hurried over to the location I had seen in my dream, and found the exact scene playing out. My abrupt uninvited appearance at the meeting,  hindered their chance to proceed with the vote!  They all looked shocked that I was there and nobody said anything to me, in fact they couldn’t even look me in the eyes.  Someone suggested we proceed to rehearsal, so we all went together and began our contact improv warmup exercises. I did not participate, but decided to watch instead. I felt my trust had been broken and I was trying to determine if I could even continue to be part of the group after what had happened.  It was interesting to me, that I was not upset by what I had seen, in fact I felt quite empowered and watched as if from the perspective of an observer in a dream.  After rehearsal, the air was not clear by any means and everyone still felt uncomfortable.  I decided to sleep on it and ask my dreams for guidance about what I should do.

The next night had a dream based on my incubated intention to clarity for myself if there was still a place for me in this group. In my dream, I see myself doing a dance with the woman who was conspiring to vote me out of the group.  In the dance, I saw myself doing movements which were open and made me vulnerable, it was through this openness and vulnerability expressed in the dance, that a resolution was created. It was a dream of healing, through the dance.

In our next meeting together, I chose to share my telepathic dream of seeing the meeting taking place, and also my dream incubation question as to whether I should decide to continue to dance with the group. I suggested recreating the dream I had incubated, by dancing with the woman who had created the power play. She agreed to dance with me and together we improvised recreating the movements from my dream. We were able to move from the space of competition and jealousy toward the energy of openness and vulnerability, in the space we created together. We reached a place of healing and reconciliation, not only for our own relationship, but for that of the group as well.  It only served to deepen the connection we had with one another, and we went on to create many dance performance improvisations over a 2 year period.

The group later disbanded, and individuals moved away and went in different directions, but over the years, that experience stayed with me. It was through this experience, I was later inspired to create “Peace Moves” a program of conflict transformation with conscious movement.  It is a powerful way to deal with conflict from the perspective of wholeness, rather than the polarity of “us” and “them” thinking.  I have also found this format very powerful when working with dreams, which can often reflect the polarities we struggle with in our lives both inwardly and in our external worlds.

Exploring conflict through expressive movement, is also a very effective approach with children.  Years ago,  I taught at an Integrative Arts pilot  program at a private school with children ages 4-7. The program was developed to offer creative materials for children to explore, through their own imaginations and impulses, without someone telling them how to create a project.  They had just about anything you could imagine in the way of choices, such as an array of visual art materials, costumes, musical instruments, even a stage to put on a play or perform a dance.  One thing I observed, was that many of the boys in the class had very limited imaginations as to how they chose to express themselves creatively. They often chose to pick up some of the recycled trash materials we had made available to them, and would inevitably make some type of weapon, which lead to the boys pretending to be fighting one another.  The other teachers and myself grimaced at the sight, and complained about how sad that boys can get stuck in such roles at such a young age. I decided to take a chance, and asked the boys to follow me instead, to the dance floor, where I taught them some contact improvisation exercises. They took to it right away, and were able to dance and connect with one another without needing to resort to games of violence in order to connect.  They were no longer stuck in a “role” and found the world of their imaginations open up to other possibilities to explore.

Our dreams can provide us with doorways into the imagination, where we can transcend the limited roles we have been given and may be trying to live out without any sense of real accomplishment.  Dreams can show us new paths to move towards, if we have the willingness to look and the courage to follow them.

by Valley Reed © 2012

Dream Seed

World within a world, a drop of dew was shown to me in my shamanic dream journey as a dream seed upon my tree of life. I could choose one of many drops glistening in the light of my dream. I chose the one which lit up and wanted my attention. I was now ready to enter a tiny world of my dream seed. I entered and saw the reflection was upside down, I had to walk the side of the tiny globe to turn this world right side up. Once there, I found what appeared to me to be a castle which was presented to me in my dream of the book of Uriel. I was able to enter the castle in this tiny dream seed, perhaps planting actions that may activate something in my waking life. Dew is a magical substance highly prized by alchemists for their healing qualities. It was known to be an elixer for long life as well. The healing power of Bach flower remedies is rooted in the awareness of what can be imprinted into water from the extraction of it from flowers and plants. Science is now finding that the environment can imprint on water including the configuration of stars and planets. On sacred nights such as Imbolg, tradition says that if you leave a piece of cloth out overnight to be blessed by the goddess Brigit, she will bless you with her presence through the year. I imagine the morning dew is part of her magic.