Waking up the West: Return to Dreamtime

The Dreamer Awakens

Christmas morning, I open the gift from my kids: a journal, deep purple with two birds perched on a flowering tree branch. I run my hand over the soft faux leather cover and then open it to stare at the fresh blank first page. What will be written here?

A year of dreams, comes the answer. I will record my dreams and see if there are indeed messages inside. I will play in the dream world and try to decipher its code. Perhaps I, too, can connect to the wisdom the Achuar people know in their dreams.

I continue to think about the Achuar people, one of the world's last remaining dream cultures, introduced to me at the end of my year in yoga through the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream symposium. For an entire village to wake early and set the tone for their day by their collective dreaming – there had to be something there. And it wasn’t only the Achuar who lived by dream guidance. Other cultures, like the Australian Aborigines, referred to Dreamtime and dreaming the world into being.

It was, however, the dreams of the Achuar people that led them to reach out to their American neighbours for help as they dreamed their village, their environment and their way of life destroyed by these same neighbours. To share their sacred and private way of life, to call out for help, they must have believed strongly in the messages of their dreams.

On the inside cover I write:

Dream Journal

This is how we connect.

This is how we communicate

This is how we co-create

With an indigo cover like sixth chakra, the journal conjures all-things Dreamtime. I sift through its pages at the kitchen table the next morning, poised to write, when a bald eagle flies low past my window. His immense presence stirs the air around me and my pen moves across the lined page. I capture the following words before they flee my mind.

There is a difference between seeking and curiosity. Seeking holds the promise of a reward: we seek hard for the antidote to our suffering. Curiosity provides an Ah-ha! Gotcha! Just for the sake of getting ya. The curiosity of childhood provides no anticipated outcome, only scratches the figuring-out of the mystery in question. It’s more Let’s see where this goes than What does it all mean?

Seeking is an adult’s burden: grasping for an answer to an identified problem. Parameters are already set, expectations in place, form identified. Curiosity allows for any imaginable and, more likely, unimaginable outcome: even the possibility of no outcome. Curiosity is raw, spontaneous, organic and expansive. Seeking is narrow, focused, planned, with attachment to outcome.

Curiosity is sitting in meditation with a smile on your face, noticing your position, your breath, thoughts, the process, the experience. “How curious!” you say. Seeking is sitting in meditation determined to get something from it: a nugget or treasure for doing it right.

I put down my pen and read what I’ve written as if hearing it for the first time. I realize I’ve spent many years seeking. Even now, I sought the messages of Dreamtime. I pick up my pen again and conclude the journal entry with:

I want to be curious.

The Rant

“I'm not saying don't be strong.” I paced the living room carpet while the spontaneous rant gushed from my lips. “But check your definition of strength. It takes immense strength to allow yourself to be vulnerable, intuitive, graceful, and soft. It takes creativity and strength to maintain your softness and display your vulnerability to the world while protecting that softness from those who judge, criticize or take advantage.”

I stop to face myself in the large mirror above the couch. Both speaker and audience, I am alone in the room, save for my twelve-year-old cat. The Rocky Mountains stand in the distance out the window over my shoulder.

“I think we are missing the essence of the feminine. I’ve read that in meditation the act of trying to calm the mind is actually more doing, therefore not truly meditative. Similar to the return to feminine: less is more. We are feminine in our nature. It exists without our trying, striving and proving. This is not he versus she, not masculine versus feminine, not men versus women. We all hold masculine and feminine energy yet have lived in a highly masculine-centric world for a long time. A return to the feminine helps us restore the scales of balance that have tipped too far for too long.”

Captivated by this stream of consciousness, I return to my pacing and allow it to continue. “I see many strong, empowered women yet their energy and actions are heavily masculine. They speak of intuition and spirituality, they speak of recovering the feminine, yet their actions follow old processes, systems and thoughts: more striving, achieving, reaching.”

“Feminine power appears to lie in mastery of the subtle, the formless, the beauty, and emerging creativity. What is actually created is less important than the process. The masculine is in the finished product, what purpose it serves, how much it is worth. The feminine is in the blossoming, the formless. What is created is less important to the feminine than the flow, the rhythm and the possibilities.”

“It may be difficult to allow the vulnerable, the intuitive, in a world where harshness still exists. Where anger and fear are prevalent. If we are truly to allow the feminine to re-emerge, to filter through civilization and nurture blossoming creativity, we need to protect it, to hold it sacred and honour it in each other. The feminine is the great creative, the masculine is what draws it into form. We have exhausted the old form. It is time to create anew.”

“Find the strength that is not required to push further, work harder, yell louder, move faster or climb higher. Find the strength that fosters softer, slower, simpler, more elegant, beautiful and creative solutions, heightened intuition and connection to nature's rhythms. Find the strength in nurturing self, family and community. The strength in listening deeply for another way.”

I collapse into the chair in the corner of the room. Rants are equal parts exciting and emptying. The information runs quickly off my tongue and leaves me spent.

The Grandmothers – Dreamtime

I am with many grandmothers. They want to do more, but we tell them to nap, to stay and rest. They are too old and weak. My grandma wants to walk with us to get ice cream. I tell her it is too far and will bring her back something, a long popsicle. I forget to bring it back for her.

There are two grandmothers in bed. My daughter, Khali, lies between them but she keeps moving around. I take her out of the bed so the grandmothers can get some rest.

When I wake, I am sad and disappointed in myself for not remembering the popsicle for my grandma. I grab my journal from my nightstand and quickly scribble the details of my dream before it fades. I feel like the grandmothers need to rest yet we are not responsibly taking up the duties they left to us. What are our duties? Grandma only wants to come for ice cream, a simple pleasure. We are not saving the world, just a walk for ice cream.

There is a sense of life's joys: ice cream, a small child cuddled in bed. There is also a sense of not allowing the grandmothers to do more, to do what they want. We are protecting them, but should we instead invite them to help us? Invite them along for ice cream. Allow them to support us. The grandmother: wise feminine energy. Perhaps instead of forcing them to rest, we can invigorate them by inviting them to come along for the walk.

A Stone By Any Other Name

I hadn’t visited the gem store in years. I’d actually forgotten it existed. My dear reiki friend and healer, Sophie, had suggested I pick up a new crystal to work with.

As I enter the shop, I remember why I’d forgotten about it. “Good morning.” I smile at the store owner behind the counter. She looks up at me and says nothing. Prickly. I move on to the display cases. A tarot card deck catches my eye. I pick it up and read the back. Focus, Stephanie. Just a crystal. I was known to drop a small fortune in this type of store. I return the deck to its shelf. A stone next to it appeals to me.

“Excuse me,” I opt to engage the not-so-chipper owner since I am the only person in the store and the awkward silence needs to break. “Can you tell me what this stone is?”

“Bring it over here.”

Seriously? Are you trapped behind that counter? Do I need to call for help? Be nice, Stephanie. I pluck the stone and walk it over to her, placing it on the counter.

She looks over her glasses at it. “It’s a fire agate.”

“Really?”

She looks again. “Yes, that’s a fire agate.”

“Are you sure?”

She turns her gaze to me. “Quite.”

“Hmmm.” I pick up the stone and return it to its shelf, trying to make sense of it. I am no stone expert but something about the name feels wrong, as if the stone whispers otherwise. I leave the store, stoneless.

At home, I try looking up the stone but have no luck identifying it. Each day for a week, I google various possibilities, looking for a match. I can’t get the stone out of my head and, for some reason, have to discover its rightful name.

I finally return to the store. The shop owner remembers me when I enter.

“I looked up that stone after you left to discover it was not a fire agate but a poppy jasper.”

It’s funny that she also felt the identification wrong, as if the stone demanded we get it right. I still feel her research is incorrect but purchase the stone anyway as I know it’s mine. It chose me last week, just as my rescue cat had chosen me twelve years earlier. This stone wants my attention.

At home, I take a deeper research dive into jasper, despite the migraine building behind my eyes. I finally find the markings match that of ocean jasper. That feels right. As a bonus, a suggested meditation accompanies the research. I read it over. It involves the bathtub: timely.

While the pressure moves alongside my head to the base of my skull, I head upstairs to run a tub. I take the ocean jasper with me into the bath, holding it in my hand. “Okay, ocean jasper.” I sink into the warm water. “Thank you for granting me a vision.” The stone obliges and quickly produces what feels like a past life and a revealing account of life in between lives. I close my eyes.

I stand on the top of Courthouse Rock in Sedona. There are two of us. I believe there was a fire but it is out now. I know I failed at my task but I don't know what exactly my task was. I only know I have returned to the village with it unfulfilled.

My Chief, Elder or superior stands atop the rock with me. His headdress is fuller than mine and I kneel before him. I am disappointed that I have failed but I accept my punishment of death as it is our way. I am a peaceful man.

My Chief or Elder is Leo. He ends my life, possibly with a blow to the head or a beheading. Then he and I sit, as spirits, side by side, legs dangling off the edge of the great red rock, looking over the beautiful expanse of Sedona before tourists or buildings or development. Great red rocks of Cathedral and green shrubs of agave and creosote dot the landscape.

We talk about how we'll be back for more adventures together. More lifetimes. I chuckle and say, “It'd be nice if next time we are on the same side.”

Permission To Quit

I want to take a course by Toko-pa called Dream Walking. It starts next week. The course is $150. I cannot afford to cover the cost since product sales have been slow.

I read an article yesterday by Martha Beck on quitting. Quitters are both healthier and wealthier it seems. It's all in the letting-go, knowing when to quit, when to “stop throwing good money after bad.” Quitting almost always feels like a relief to me. And if I release my concern for what anyone else thinks, almost becomes always.

Quitting, for me, is an opportunity to let go, to lighten up and reinvent myself. It's my shedding-of-the-skin. Leo, during our recent group meditation, suggested I may shed my skin this year. Perhaps four times, like the southern rattlesnake. I liked the sound of that. Seasonal shedding suited me. Like the hat of the consultant, it fits me well. I don't enjoy hanging on to things that have served their purpose, particularly jobs.

When I think about what I'd like to quit in my life right now, I think about the company I started in order to sell my herbal oils. I love playing around with the plants, crafting the oils and coming up with new blends. The marketing and selling is dragging me down and I beat myself up because it's not as successful as I thought it should be.

I feel tied to it because of the investment of time and money. It feels like an obligation. I consider obligations. I create many of them. I set myself up for daily posts for social media, a series of ongoing classes, or a new yoga studio to carry the oils, then later dread the same obligations I create for myself.

I am quitting the company. Whew. That was a toughy. The whole website needs to go away. For now I will remove the products page. No more selling. No more marketing. No idea how to recover my investment but at least the good money won't follow the bad. Some things are never meant to be made into a business. They are purely personal. I need to step out from behind the counter and stop selling.

I delete the page. Funny thing: immediately after making the decision to stop trying to get people to buy the oils, three people emailed me about buying the oils. Now that I’ve made the decision, I can’t wait to be done with it.

I reply to the email orders, opting to fill them, and quote the amount owing for each person. The total sales from the three clients is $148. I sign up for the Dream Walking course.

Mind The Work

“Use the mind to work, not to judge,” come the words on the breeze. Struggle is a constant companion these days. My mind is busy.

I've tried to quiet my mind, observe it. It's difficult. Perhaps the best course is to direct it: work not judgement. I focus on my heart and return to my meditation.

My heart centre feels warm. It feels as if it is radiating heat. I sink deeper into meditation.

Let the heart lead to the work, then use the mind to work, not judge.