There are big dreams that stalk us seeking a way into the world. Where do the big stories go when there is no way in? They take refuge in the imagination hovering around our head as ideas that never come to be. They may become part of identity and acted out as a persona, or a myth that lives in the land, and travels in dreams across time and space.
We all exist inside big dreams of past, present and future, and while we have dreams of our own, we are not just tied to our separate wants and needs. We can dream as part of and collaborate with the bigger stories that wish to come through us. We must trust in big dreams in order for them to take root beyond our imagination. We can dream on behalf of others and bring dreams to those who have forgotten or lost contact with their dreams. During times of great change and suffering, it is crucial that dreamers come together and track the dreams that are stalking us. This is where authentic power and everyday magic resides.
I had the following dream after meeting with a small group of women who wished to make plans for a Women’s Summit in Kyrgyzstan next year.
The Most Interesting Man in the World. 12/6/2025
Actor Jonathan Goldsmith
There is a handsome man who has a salt n pepper hair, beard and mustache, he reminds me of the beer commercial for the Most Interesting Man in the World. Big dreams float around his head and in his imagination. Gifts of charisma, magnetism, creativity, design, collaboration, strength, wealth, love, fame, and power. Getting a sense of the gifts held in the dreams floating about him, gives me enthusiasm of what is possible, so much energy here.
Like a whisper of a spirit or a muse, I am tracking the invisible movement of what wants to come together. I hear whispers of Kyrgyzstan coming from the land, and a mandala of colors and energy swirling, held in sand. It is the creative spirit of the project swirling like a whirling dervish.
In terms of the projected dreams and imagination coming together, there is a fracturing of energy where it cannot take root under the feet. I feel the mystery of the spirit of place in Kyrgyzstan, and the movement swirling at my feet, the energy held there in sand, and soft colors of orange and gold, yet fractured in relation to big dreams orbiting the head of the most interesting man in the world.
Djinn Dreams Swirling
I hear the whispering spirits held in this root dream, this seed of solace and healing. I feel the movement spiraling around in the sands of time, blowing in the wind inside this tiny globe of destiny. Like a glass menagerie that has been dropped and broken. The sands of time are spinning in the wind, like a dust devil, like a djin, peri, or genii, controlled by the magician head who has dreams of power.
I am witness to the sands blowing and whispers of the spirits of place, the voices of women held underground. The jinn as spirit used for the grandiose visions of man as ruler.
Only the dance can release the jinn, only the movement can root the memory of Women in the land, and culture whose powers are under the foot of the man.
I hear the whispers of women, and dreams of the land, carried on the wind, calling me in their broken reality, to be released and take seed.
So after recording the dream, I was researching the sacred sites in Kyrgyzstan, and came upon this UNESCO Heritage site called Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain in the Fergana Valley, near the city of Osh, at the crossroads of the Central Asian silk roads.
Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain in Kyrgyzstan
The story of this sacred mountain goes, that the ruler Sulaiman, also known as Solomon, the mightiest and wisest ruler of the earth that ever was or shall be, controlled 500 jinns, who he commanded to lift him up and make a throne of the mountain, on which he would rule the region. Today, the mountain is a place of spiritual pilgrimage where seekers come to visit caves with petroglyphs, and mosques built along the path up the mountain. Sulaiman was also known to be able to talk with animals, birds, and have powers of the wind. The story of Solomon is bigger than life indeed, he courted the Queen of Sheba, who it is said, was Queen of Yemen, and that she and her people bow to the Sun. It is also said that the Queen of Sheba was a Jinn, while some thought her a Sibyl.
Cave on the sacred mountain
The project in Kyrgyzstan so far, does not appear to be coming together, we shall see what dreams may come, and actions unfold. I have organized a number of international retreats and Women’s Summits, and each time, it begins with a dream of whispering spirits of the land calling me there.
Tracking my ancestral trails in Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado for a tale unfolding that wants to be told. Like ghost trails of history resurfacing, the stories of the land are alive.
I gave a workshop recently, on Dreaming on the Otherside, where we journeyed with the stories of the land, and a dream resurfaced for me from many years ago.
Spirit of the Wind
I see a Native Spirit hovering over the land with a rainbow streaming through his hair. I am on the prairie where fields of oats grow touching them with my fingers as the winds blow. The spirit tells me the legacy of this land will be mine one day.
Prairie Lands
In the journey, I see a herd of wild horses and am told this heard is from the lineage of Spirit of the Wind, the mustang my Grandfather Frank Reed bought from Native horse traders in the areas around Southeastern Colorado where he had a homestead along horse creek in Lincoln County. I then see a herd of buffalo on the plains who are also part of this lineage story.
Tracking Synchronicity
Last night, I came upon a story of Molly Goodnight in the Texas Panhandle who together with her husband owned the Goodnight Ranch in Caprock Canyon. Molly is known to history as a conservationist who was able to save buffalo calves and eventually raised 250 Buffalo on their land, during a time when they were being shot and killed toward extinction, she was quietly saving them. The herd in Caprock Canyon Tx. still remains today from her efforts and is said to be through DNA testing the only original Buffalo herd left in the world. This story reminds me of my dream and journey.
Buffalo herd at Caprock Canyon
Goodnight Cattle Trail
I felt a tug from this story to research the land where my Grandfather Frank Reed and Grandmother Nellie Reed were homesteaders in Colorado along Horse Creek, and my Grandfather was a cowboy along cattle trails in the days of no fences.
I found the cattle trail running along horse creek out of Texas was the Goodnight Cattle trail, which I had just read about Molly Goodnight, known to history as one of the first conservationists for her efforts at rescuing Buffalos.
Goodnight Cattle Trail along Horse Creek
“The Goodnight cattle trail is easy to find because it follows Horse Creek. Entering from the south, Horse Creek parallels SH 71 for a distance. Just before the mesa, Horse Creek turns west Climbing up the hill. It soon turns into a small stream with groves of trees lining the stream bed. It Crosses SH 94 west of Punkin Center. In the spring the prairie is ablaze with the red and yellow blooms of the cacti. It is a small valley the creek has curved out with cool and inviting shade from the trees in the summer heat.”
Tracing the cattle trails of history and dreaming with the Spirits of the land, has driven me into the lands of my ancestors, where lineages include more than human ancestors of Mustang and Buffalo, along the storied trails of the cowboy. It seems fitting this tale comes through the Goodnight Cattle Trail, where dreams surface to reveal ancestral legacy where the stories of the land are alive.
Pondering how dreams are sent and by whom? From where or when does my dreamweaver originate? What archetype, what oracle, what memory, what future, what life lived before, what ancestor, what spirit, what soul longing or loss?
When we let the thread of our dreams wrap hold of us we may find the location at the other end spinning a dream as part of the tapestry of the world story, or a galactic birth, or a far memory of the stories held in our bones. The Mothers divining fates past, present, and future, have always been rooted in the Earth Mother, from whose powers the oracle speaks and the threads of fate are spoken, interwoven with the story of the dream of the world. We are always dreaming, and connected to the web of multidimensional reality by the threads of time.
Unbidden
In 2009, I attended a dream conference in Chicago on Listening to the Earth Dreaming. I presented a workshop on Dream Way-finding and while there had this dream unbidden.
Crystal Star Goddess
In my dream, I hear a knock on the door of my hotel room, and get up from my bed and answer the door. I do not realize I am dreaming until I open the door to see in the doorway is a quartz crystal the size of the door, as a portal from another world, through which a beautiful goddess came through and stood before me. She wore a translucent light blue veil loosely over her head, and an eight pointed blue star design shown on her forehead. She held in her hands a crystal spiral which she gave to me, and in the other hand a crystal skull, which she placed in my other hand. This part of the dream repeated three times, so I would know this was real and meant to be. I accepted her gifts and she turned and stepped back through the portal. I received her unbidden mysterious gifts, wondering where they may lead me, or what gifts may unfold.
In Sumerian, Inanna means Queen of Heaven. She was known as daughter of the Moon, and morning or evening star as Venus. Her symbol is the eight pointed star.
Her initiation as high priestess is not complete until she can give up her stations of wealth and power, as she makes the journey into the underworld through seven gateways where she must release more and more of herself at each gateway and surrender to meet her death presided over by Sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the underworld.
From the Great Above, she opened her ear to the Great Below.
From the Great Above, the goddess opened her ear to the Great Below.
From the Great Above, Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below. (Kramer, Wolkstein, pg. 52).
Previous to attending the conference, I had a dream of seeing myself as a huge presence on the Earth.
Earth Guardian
I am a huge Earth Goddess sitting on a labyrinth, and my body is partially submerged. My Womb carries the design of the Labyrinth, and holds this ancient wisdom within the Earth, where my womb is also submerged. The labyrinth can also be seen on the Earth surface.
I heard a voice say, “You are an Earth Guardian”. Now, fully embodied in this huge Earth Goddess form, I can see sitting across from me a beautiful Sun God in the form of Apollo, with a golden face and bronze body that glistens like the Sun. I notice Apollo is attracted to me and moving in my direction. When he does this, he begins to move the wheel of time. I move with the wheel of the Seasons and gently tell him, no not like this. Indicating he must follow the spiral path for himself and go deeper to uncover his own mysteries, he cannot take for himself Wisdom held by the Earth Mother. I was able to guard the path of women’s wisdom held in the womb, as an Earth Guardian.
“Earth confounded the Apollonian cult by sending up dreams which revealed unto the cities of mortals the past, and the future. She brought forth the peoples of the dream, and all the tribes of Vision“. (pg. 292 Dashu)
Temple of Delphi
Bidden
Dreams of intention invite energies of Heaven and Earth, across Time and Space. These are dreams we invoke the numinous energies to visit. These are dreams we invite in to revisit dreams from before. These are dreams where we may stalk the past, or the future, with animal spirits, or connect with departed loved ones. These are dreams where we can have a travel plan for where we will go, who or what we may encounter, and what we may do when we get there.
I had heard a description of the Spirit of the Soul described by Michael Meade on his podcast Mosaic Voices, where he describes the Spirit of the Soul as a unique inner spirit or genius that life’s calling is meant to awaken. This had me curious to incubate a dream to learn about the spirit of my Soul. When I incubated my dreaming intention, the dream I had bidden, came through.
Spirit of my Soul
I see an entire wall covered in red roses, and standing before it was a nun wearing light blue and white habit. I was somewhat put off by this religious image, and told her, “You must be so disappointed in me.” Since my orientation is pagan, and animist, and which the Catholic church had burned women for being. My orientation was more as a wild woman, not devoted to a spiritual Icon or Christian beliefs.
The dream I had called upon reminded me of several past unbidden dreams I had over the years sharing my connection to the Mary Mysteries as part of my Soul Origin story. On the day of Annunciation I dreamed of the Virgin Mary, and she showed me her birthing grotto, and told me she would birth four children there, and would be staying here until she had birthed all four.
As a young woman, I encountered the Virgin in a dream where I was in California and saw it was snowing over the Ocean. I stood on a group of boulders overlooking the Bay, in order to gain a better look. It was then she approached and grabbed my arm and wrote symbols in red. One was a crescent with a dot in the center, and the other symbol was two slanted lines, close together.
I asked her who she was and what she was doing, and the Virgin, said, “I am Mary, and here to protect you” I jerked back my arm from her hold, and proclaimed, “I don’t need protection” and she said, “Yes you do”.
As a young Mother, I had a dream with Jesus as a young man, and he held a book in his hands with a dark blue cover. He spoke French when he talked to me and handed me the ancient book also written in French. I asked him to speak in English, since I don’t speak French, and he said, I don’t speak English. I took from him the book he offered, and then heard a booming voice carried across the ages, as the voice of God said, “You originated in the age of the Christos, you were among the Cult of Magdalena.”
This dream came to me sometime in the 90’s when the internet was new, and before books or films like the DaVinci Code, or the countless groups now devoted to Mary Magdalene. Having read many of these books about Mary Magdalene now, I was always left with a deep sense of remembering, and also grieving the loss of the divine sacred feminine.
In 2017, I lead a group of dreamers to journey through the portal of a painting of Mary Magdalene. Inspired by a bidden dream journey I did in collaboration with her. My intent was to ask her guidance to reveal what she wishes to be done to bring forth her energy. She revealed a group ritual, in creating a space resembling a grotto in the underground space of a cultural arts center over looking a lake. We transformed the underground space to look as revealed in the journey, featuring the painting of the Magdalene. Some who attended the gathering had been to the actual grotto sites for Mary Magdalene in France, and reflected the experience we created together, was much like the pilgrimage site. My vision of the journey I guided by the sound of the drum, showed the Magdalene coming through the portal of the painting and walking among us. A golden light from the sunset covered the painting just as the journey began. When the Magdalene moved through the portal she was surrounded by golden light which she blessed on the head of each participant as she walked through the space and walked out onto the water surface following the path of gold light unto the horizon as the Sun went down and the sky exploded into a blazing red sunset. In closing the ritual, we all gathered before the waters edge with red roses in hand and did a closing ritual with offering rose petals to the water as prayers of grace and gratitude.
This dream incubation of the Spirit of the Soul, stirs my unique spiritual essence to join with the deeper wishes of the soul to create spaces for healing, guidance, and wisdom that allows for the mysteries of the deep feminine to be remembered and revealed.
Sources
Dashu, Max. “Women in Greek Mythology, Pythias, Melissae and Titanides, Secret History of Witches Vol. II Book I. Velda Press, 2023.
Kramer, Samuel Noah; Wolkstein, Di ane. “Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth.” Harper Perennial, 1983.
Presence, where we enter our own story. Notice what gets attention, in the body, a feeling, a memory, a color, a sound, a texture. I can’t breathe.
Unhinged pushing down, keeping sounds hidden, holding back feelings by pushing down, don’t let them see your pain, don’t let them hear your rage, it will be dismissed. You won’t be missed when you go, because no one really knows you. Just smile, and laugh it off. Why are you so upset? Why do you let it upset you? Don’t make anyone uncomfortable. They don’t really want to hear it, they don’t really want to know you.
In the room a light comes through the window, a shadow falls on the foot, a design on the body as a flitting memory of a tattoo you never had in this body, in this life. A presence of a spirit in the room. How often you notice this coming through, and then write it off as some imagining.
Imaginalis Lunacy
When I dance under the full moon, there are magical designs hidden under my skin and messages come through. I hear the sound Crows make as winds take black wings flying miles upward in the direction of the moon. I feel the presence of Owl hidden at the axis of what is known and unknown. Silent wings of flight towards horizons of day falling into night. Liminal places where bidden and unbidden dreams arise behind eyes shut. I let go of this world and enter the otherworld. Ghosts dance with me, ancestors light the fire of generations to be carried forth in my blood and bones.
Messages coming through
in conversations with you
where nothing is heard
because we have said it all before.
I look to the in between, reading between the lines of what is left unsaid. Conversations in my head, and my heart left to bled.
Back here in the same spot,
we are getting nowhere.
Is nowhere a place like elsewhere,
or is it just a state of being invisible?
If I become invisible by magical ability
when I am stalking power,
that is no where near the same
as being invisible due to gender
race, sexuality, age, or ability.
Maybe it’s been awhile since I have flown to the moon,
I left my feelings strung out everywhere
and now I am in a state of lunacy.
Reeling myself in, I grab hold of the string that’s pulling on me,
Leading me back to reality, I feel where I have been, and what has been lost, and how to begin again at the dark of the new moon. Crow has flown me here before, into the dark where power was hidden, in dreams bidden and unbidden.
Crow gave me the golden key, a circle that fit perfectly into an ancient stone stargate. The gate opened and the light flooded through, never before had I seen such light surround me with a white and blue hue. I have been given Noticia Feminista when 10,000 years of Patriarchy have come to a close, and Women step through the gateway to reclaim what was taken from them through a violent take over. The most violent years of the history of the world, when they almost destroyed the human race, and many more than human relatives. Never again will Women be invisible. Crow has pulled away the darkness of Patriarchy, and the return of Star Wisdom begins again.
The history of the first peoples of the land, is remembered in the Stars and the Earth. A map of memory to open the way to what has been foretold. Crow holds sacred law, the book of Crow states, No harm shall come to the children. Women are held as sacred and protected and respected. Women and children sit at the center of the circle, and the Old Ones, the Grandmothers recall sacred law, as leaders of knowing what was done, what is done, and what shall be. They hold the sacred stories and traditions that create bonds of trust and power as a people. They weave the stories of belonging that can heal the dark times. They weave the world back together when we have become separated from our soul, and the world soul. We cannot find the answers in the shadow world. We must trust the old ones to lead us back to balance with the Earth Mother and the world behind the world. We enter the otherworld to bring balance back to our home again, where we no longer have to hide who we are and why we were born. We return home again with the wisdom of remembering, with the courage to stand Earthside and serve the community.
One cannot plant seeds if you cannot breathe. One cannot grow into the potency of darkness and the unknown if information and progress is the goal. One cannot hold the dreams of humanity if you forgot how to become Bear, for Bear was the first Human. Hu Man, breath of Man, much can be learned from Bear. Bears dream the world into being when everything is cold and dying. In the Spring, Bear breathes life into the Dreams of Winter, and Mother Bears awaken to her cubs feeding from her. She Bear birthed what she dreamed into being.
Whales sing songs that travel the great womb of the Oceans of Earth, a lullaby to coax the dream of the Mother Earth to sing us to sleep and dream with her dreams, a world complete and whole. Whale dreams with one eye open, and remembers to surface and breathe. Snow Geese fly patterns across the sky sustaining the past and in the direction of future generations. Dreams moving in the direction of Winter to Spring, and back again. Chasing a memory of ancestral patterns. The dream is always moving.
Mystery must be given space, a darkness that holds the stars in the sky. A womb of magic, where return and death also reside. The event horizon of memory, before taking the long journey.
When Winter comes, a passageway opens to the middle of a sacred mountain where the book of life is found. Spirits travel back and forth, they come and go over ages, over lineages, over seasons, over prophecy, over stories, over mysteries. It is here that Visions are found, and revealed only to those with a destiny to hold a vision from the ancients. It is a burden to hold a mystery, and decipher its purpose, and how it must be shaped and remade to weave culture and meaning for future generations. This is what happens when one notices a shadow on the foot, and the design of a message held under the skin.
Our Lady of the Dark Country – Sylvia V. Linsteadt
Ochre Base Coat and Virgo Constellation
A Dream from last Spring had me doing some research because part of the dream was precognitive, and I wanted to know the deeper messages coming through.
I am at my office, where I work as a grants manager. My desk is pushed against the wall, and my things on the desk are placed haphazardly about, and I cannot find my laptop. I start to panic, because that is where all my work is found. I yell at the painter, “Where is my laptop?” Instead of answering my question, he points to the wall and asks me to have a look. He says this is the base paint, Red Ochre. I look and see the wall is painted an Earthy Red color. He holds up a paper, and says this is what it will look like when finished. On the paper is the starry night sky with the constellation for Virgo on it. I begin to realize that is what my home office looks like, I have goddess paintings on the wall, one of Cybele with Lions on either side, and one of the Sleeping Goddess of Malta.
My Feelings upon waking from the dream – frustrated with all the rearranging, and angry I couldn’t find my laptop, there is also a feeling of having an office as a place to call home. The same week I had this dream was when the chaos of DOGE cuts were made known which made everything uncertain in the grant world, and who would have a job at all. My dream seemed to show me there was something deeper going on here, something ancient, perhaps an initiation.
Reality Check – Definitely change is happening, with federal funding cuts, and the office being remodeled. I don’t actually have an office in the building where our company is located on the 10th floor of a high rise building. Office remodeling began a few weeks after the dream, which I had no prior knowledge of previously, although I visited the office recently and everything was pushed up against the walls and in disarray (just like my dream). I work from home and rarely come to the office.
I did a deep dive into Red Ochre, and it tracks back to over 500,000 years, when our ancestors used it in connection with rights of passage, ceremonial body painting, or sacred art on cave walls. It was interesting to find how the word ochre in several lands means, “red and not red” (2).
This deep Earth red ochre seems to be direct communications with the primordial Earth Goddess as the base coat for ancient memory. Neolithic burials may have used red ochre pigments symbolically, either to represent a return to the earth or possibly as a form of ritual rebirth, in which the colour may symbolize blood of the Great Goddess (3).
“In early cultures, the colour’s resemblance to blood linked it to fertility, life and growth, a symbolism that has persisted throughout the ages. Evidence also suggests early cultures were attaching magical, symbolic properties to the potent pigment – it was scattered over the graves of the dead as a form of respectful ritual, seeping into the ground and even staining their bones, signaling a return to the earth or rebirth in the afterlife.” (1)
The other part if the dream is a mystery on becoming, in the Constellation Virgo where the Goddess of the Harvest is seen. Demeter as Earth Mother and Persephone as Maiden whose journey into the underworld makes her a Queen, her return brings the turn of the Seasons. A turn of the wheel to enter the dark time of the year.
She carries a shaft of the golden wheat, a symbol of the Harvest and a rights of passage into the Greater Elysian mysteries with Demeter and Persephone. This year, Virgo season started with the new moon on August 22nd the first of two new moons in Virgo, and also beginning Eclipse Season with a Lunar Eclipse and Blood Moon in Pisces September 7th. A partial Solar Eclipse on September 21st is followed by the Fall Equinox September 22nd to end Virgo Season. These are days of secret initiation.
Elysian Mysteries
It is during September that the Greater Mysteries take place over the week of the Fall Equinox from Sept. 21-27. This year, a week that also includes a Solar Eclipse in Virgo. The Greater Mysteries are held in secret, by pain of death of those who break a sacred vow. Eclipses are a time when the shadows reveal what has been hidden. Perhaps this Solar Eclipse will find Women stepping out of the shadows and reclaiming their agency and their voice, like the Women survivors who came forth to demand justice and release the names of the high powered predators whose identities have been hidden.
The constellation Virgo is Kore the Maiden Persephone, who holds a shaft of grain. The grain itself is a sacred offering of the harvest mysteries. The Greater Mysteries prepares us to take a journey into the unknown with ancient wisdom held in secret, cultivated and kept safe for generations. It prepares us to have a good death, where we will not suffer an afterlife existence, but cross over to the Elysian gardens of peace and tranquility.
3) Giulia Battiti Sorlini, “The Megalithic Temples of Malta”, Por Anthony Bonanno, Archaeology and fertility cult in the ancient Mediterranean: papers presented at the First International Conference on Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean, University of Malta, 2–5 September 1985, p.145.
In the beginning days of the pandemic, prior to everything shutting down, I had several dreams that alerted me to the dangers coming.
One was while teaching a dream retreat in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where we went crystal mining, and deep beneath the land where I was standing, I felt and heard a crystal from beneath reaching out to me. The experience was so strong, I had to sit down and just listen to the information the crystal was sending me. It was choosing to come with me, and its energy was embodied in me. I was not looking to dig up any crystals that day, but I brought back the energy of this one. When we returned to our lodging, I found that I was feeling very groggy, like a dream was coming over me. I asked to lay down a few minutes before we went to dinner that night. When I did, I saw a crystal cluster, like a castle growing from within my abdomen. I was told that this was to protect me from the virus. What virus I wondered? I soon found out a few weeks later as Covid spread and everything shut down.
Around the same time, on February 17th, 2020, I had another important dream, where the ancestors came to warn me of what was coming, and many would die.
Ulysses S. Grant
Lineage of Ulysses
I find myself in a dream, as a young girl, with her younger brother, we are between 7 and 9. We are walking down a path, past an ancient grove of trees, heading toward a graveyard. There are Union Soldiers accompanying us. I can sense the departed spirits of thousands of soldiers who died in the Civil War, and they are telling me what is coming now, as many people will die from it.
We are told that the two of us are actually part of another lineage. I was told we are connected to the lineage of Ulysses. The estate we are walking actually belonged to him. Here there are doors opening to rooms to where the children played. I am shown into the nursery, and when I enter I say, “it smells like breast milk in here.” I notice the presence of a spirit of a Grandmother in this space. She was kept in here with the children, and went a bit crazy. I walk around and see a young girl covered in a blanket, who has been sleeping there. She has longer blondish brown hair, cuddled up in a grey blanket shivering in her sleep. She was being haunted by the spirits in this place. I felt bad she had to sleep there. I could feel so many spirits there. I picked up another blanket to wrap around her, and realized even the blanket was haunted. Haunted by the spirits of confederate soldiers. She woke up shortly after, and I took her out of this place. I have had several follow up dreams re-entering this dream, to enter the body of the girl sleeping in the nursery, haunted by spirits surrounded by death, and grief. In doing so, I was able to track the traumas passed on through generations in dealing with the tremendous losses of the war. Generational healing and soul recovery along the mother line. Healing the sadness, grief, and depression that has been passed down through the generations, eventually breaking through to a place of freedom and thriving.
So many people died during the Civil War that people were desperate to connect with loved ones, which gave rise to the Spiritualist Movement, a progressive spiritual and social movement that was primarily comprised of the abolitionist, and women’s suffrage movements. A similar movement is now going on, in terms of Social Change and Spiritual not Religious, while the Religious Right seeks to destroy Civil Rights and Women’s Rights. This was before knowledge of the current pandemic, which gives a deeper understanding of the departed spirits wanting to get a message across, it was a warning about how many may die, like in the Civil War.
In my actual lineage research, I found that Ulysses S. Grant and his wife were very much in tuned with dreams as a glimpse of coming events, and also in communication with departed spirits. I was not able to locate any ancestral lineage connected with Ulysses S. Grant, I did find however, I am related to Abraham Lincoln, who dreamed his own death. Grant’s wife, Julia Dent was a also a prophetic dreamer and intuitive psychic. She alerted her husband, they would decline the invitation to accompany Abraham Lincoln and his wife to the theater that night. (Burch, p. 21)
Mark Twain appeared as a presence in one of my dream re-entries of ancestral healing. Historically, he played a role in the life of Ulysses near his end. He helped him publish his memoirs, and his recovery from financial ruin after a stock market crash. It was a synchronicity which alerted Twain in a conversation he overheard that the President, was writing his memoirs for another publisher, who was being greedy. Twain stepped in to remedy the matter forming an alliance with the President to help him finish his memoirs before he died, and then publishing and promoting to the public, becoming a huge seller (Moss p. 198). These signposts of synchronicity to tell us we are on the right track, and dreams from history being mirrored in important ways, can offer timely messages to navigate our lives and our world.
Now 5 years later, in the current political climate, we are facing the loss of history and degrading of our hard won civil rights, we are being pulled as a nation back into the darkest of histories. It is my sense that it is an opportunity to heal the past, and reclaim liberty. A time to heal the stories of the land, and divisions rooted in place and power.
I have been dreaming of labyrinths, layers and layers of labyrinths coming up from underneath the ground. Each one is deeper and more ancient, uncovering more layers of wisdom coming forth to be seen, to be worn with feet walking paths of spiritual longing. Each layer of labyrinths holds a reservoir of energy released as it comes to the surface. This immense source of energy scares me, it is a lot to hold and be responsible for, with great power comes great responsibility.
The labyrinth is familiar, a seven circuit labyrinth as found in Crete where the story unwinds of Ariadne, and her magical thread from the center of the labyrinth, guides a path for her love for Theseus to find his way back to her from his quest to kill the Minotaur. Ariadne is a weaver, who rivaled Aphrodite, which is never a good idea to go up against Aphrodite.
She chose another path beyond her family of origin when she fell in love with Theseus, who was on a quest to enter the labyrinth and slay the Minotaur that was considered a hideous creature gone wrong, part beast and part human.
A sacred contract not honored with Jupiter, who produced a divine bovine from the depths of the sea in order to favor King Minos and the power he yields. The King did not honor his agreement by making offerings to the god Poseidon as a sign of appreciation. He instead chose to keep the fine specimen of a bull. Aphrodite enchanted the wife of King Minos to feel uncontrollable passion for the Bull, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a man bull monster who had a taste for eating humans. The labyrinth harbors their family secrets.
Ariadne is interested in the quest of Theseus to slay the Minotaur, and decides to help him navigate the labyrinth by providing a string to find his way back. Her bargain with him in doing so is to become his wife. They sail away together, but not happily ever after, he leaves her on the island of Naxos, where she later meets Dionysius who becomes her husband.
This story is one of betrayal, and mistruths, and how life can become distorted when we misplace our power, lack gratitude for our gifts, and betray ourselves with a bargain that does not guarantee love in return.
So what layers lie beneath this story? The labyrinth was built and designed by Daedalus, an ingenious architect and sculptor. King Minos ultimately imprisoned him and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth tower, after he assisted Ariadne and Theseus to escape the labyrinth. While imprisoned, he created wings to enable their escape from Crete. His son however, did not take his father’s advice and flew too close to the Sun and melted the wings, which caused his falling into the sea and drowning. Another layer of hubris emerges in this saga, where men with power, make errors in judgement to bring about their own demise, rather than bring about freedom.
With all of these layers to the story, one must wonder why the fascination with labyrinths have spread around the world, as a meditation on the path of the soul in connection with spirit at the center, however in the myth of the labyrinth, the center holds what is hidden, the ugly truth of what happens when we misuse our power, and how it continues to impact everyone it touches.
I have worked with labyrinths for more than ten years as part of the Women’s Retreats I offer. The labyrinth becomes a path of walking in the footsteps of the ancestors, and the seven circuits are seven generations of the ancestors, and the return path of becoming an ancestor and how our choices impact 7 generations in the future. In the footsteps of the Ancestors we may feel the burdens carried by those behind us, and in becoming an Ancestor in the return journey we feel the responsibility of what are actions are today and how they impact future generations. In my mind, this meditation is more in line with the myth of the Labyrinth, which teaches us to be mindful of how we use our powers and to what end.
Awaken the Sacred Dream 