Dreamsapes and the Divine

As I contemplate the imminent dream healing intensive, I feel it fitting to include some of my personal philosophies on dreams and dreaming.  I believe that dreams provide some of the most powerful, creative imagery for living a fulfilled life.  I came to appreciate dreaming when I was five after being plagued by recurrent nightmares.  My mother was my first Shaman.  She taught me how to lucidly dream.  Since then I have paid close attention to my dreams.  I have joined dream groups, taken dream classes, read dream books.  I have kept a dream journal for most of my life and there are dreams that I have had many years ago whose images have stayed with me and on some level continue to guide and shape my life choices.  I receive important messages from my dreamscapes and have come to respect rather than fear them. 

Over the  past 15 years I have become a huge fan of Jeremy Taylor, an expert on dreaming, who writes: "...dreams always come to bring us closer to a deeper experience of the Divine".  And I acknowledge that with my entire being.  He also says that dreams always come in the service of health and wholeness, "...and they always start wherever the sense of transcendent presence is injured or broken... in the name of wholeness, my dreams will respond to my desire to become more conscious of the divine energies at work and play in my life by taking me directly to my unresolved emotional dramas that stand between me and the deeper sense of archetypal self and cosmos". (Excerpted from Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill, 1992. Warner Books, New York, NY.)  Clearly there are some dreamscapes that present themselves as a reminder that I have hit a "sweet spot" so to speak.  These are dreams where I fly or, as my uncle tells it, he "runs like the wind".  These dreams come to remind us that freedom is our birthright!  These types of dreams always leave me feeling closer to the Spirit world than I ever have in waking life.

There seems to me to be no greater purpose in life than working through my own issues in order to move closer to the Divine - therefore moving me closer to the collective - all of which I am a part - and then extending that to sharing it with others so that they may themselves have the same experience, thus evolving the very nature of archetypes.  Applying the expressive arts to working with dreamscapes seems to be a natural part of the evolutionary process in the sense that creative expression is organic, and emergent.  It is how we as a species have evolved - it is how we build relationships with others.  It is how we build relationship with ourselves. 

I am told that Mercury goes into retrograde tomorrow, and what that tends to mean is that life becomes more difficult for me and a few of my friends until Mercury gets back on course.  In doing a bit of research on Mercury, I discovered that the greco-roman god Mercury carried Morpheus' dreams from the valley of Somnus to sleeping humans.  So perhaps this day is meant to celebrate Mercury in deepest gratitude for the gift of dreams. 

I am hopeful that this offering tomorrow is received by all with the intention which I set many years ago and that is to share what I know of expressive dream work with others so that they can apply it themselves - anywhere , anytime.  I am hopeful that the spirit of compassion, joy and connection sings through the work, that Mercury is pleased, and that we have lots and lots of fun!