Compass Dreamwork

Dreamwork as Spiritual Practice

Page 4 of 18

Three-Part Dreams: Discovering the Rogue

Many dreams have distinct scenes, and it’s surprising how often those scenes come in threes. It’s also common to have multiple dreams in the same night, and those frequently come in threes as well. Maybe it’s just that our memories tend to organize themselves in sets of three—perhaps there was a fourth scene, or a fourth dream, that we don’t remember. Nevertheless, whether it’s a function of memory or a function of the dreams themselves, the pattern is significant, and can be useful when we are trying to relate to the dream world.

One way of looking at a three-part dream is to think of the parts as past, present and future. Something happened in the first dream, which leads to what happens in the second dream, which leads to what will happen in the third dream. Or, there’s a problem in the first dream (where the problem started), which becomes better or worse in the second dream (what is going on now), and could reach its best or worst potential in the third dream (what will happen if the trend continues). If you look at a three-part dream this way, you’ll see a development from one situation to the next, and that can certainly be meaningful in many cases.

However, time may not really be relevant to the unfolding of dream meanings. Modern physics suggests that our sense of past-present-future does not reflect the way things actually are. Time is not linear, and we can sometimes experience this in the dream world. Often, it’s not entirely clear which dream-part came first, second or third. Dreams can transcend clock time—with precognitive elements (showing future events in the waking world), or dream events that occur simultaneously, or with cause-and-effect dream elements that work both forward and backward.

For example, recently I dreamed:

I’m buying some food at a deli counter for tomorrow’s journey: a packet containing an egg-and-potato pancake. I walk past the produce display just as the mist-spray comes on—but it malfunctions and is more like a gushing sprinkler, which soaks my clothes…

When I tried to record this dream (which had many other details not included here), I realized that I couldn’t figure out which part happened first. It seemed impossible, but in the part where I was buying the packet of food, my clothes were definitely wet. And in the part where my clothes got sprinkled, I was definitely carrying the packet of food. So, somehow, each scene had to have been preceded by the other scene. Hm.

Because of such incongruities, I’ve been exploring other ways of looking at three-part dreams—where the three parts are interdependent in a more cyclical or multi-dimensional model that doesn’t rely on sequence.

Threes are dynamic. When you have two things, there’s balance or contrast. When you have four things, there’s stability. But three means that something is happening. Whenever two things interact, a third thing comes into being that is more than the sum of its parts. My own way of describing the “third thing” is to call it the “rogue.”*

In couple relationships, the two partners as individuals combine their energies, but the rogue of that relationship is a third individual in itself—often having characteristics possessed by neither of the two partners. A child is a rogue, because she or he comes from two parents and has an individuality that can resemble both parents, but is also unique and distinct. The rogue is not just a synthesis, but a leap into new possibilities. Continue reading

Dreaming the Change We Wish To See In the World

When I work with dreams, I’m always asking myself what kind of meaning and value this work might have for the larger world. Mahatma Gandhi said that we should “be the change we wish to see in the world”—and I believe our dreaming lives can be as important as our waking lives as we try to manifest meaningful change.

There is so much suffering everywhere—all around us and within us—and  most of us share a deep longing to make a difference, to serve and to help, to contribute to positive change and healing. How do dreams make a difference? It’s clear that our dreams can be a tremendous resource for creative ideas, and an inspiration to collective action. But it’s not only the inspiring, constructive, encouraging dreams that have something to offer. Our mundane, difficult, uncomfortable and even awful dreams may be our best hope as we grow into new possibilities for the future of our world. If we want to “be the change,” we have to bring our entire “being” and contribute through our difficulties as well as our successes; if we want to “dream the change” then we need to share our difficult dreams, and learn from them together.

Perhaps the biggest lesson that we have to learn is that we are not alone. We share this beautiful planet, and we share a magnificent world of dreaming as well. We also share suffering. When I am in physical or emotional pain, millions of other beings are familiar with that pain, and many of them are experiencing those same feelings along with me right now. When I react in anger, or withdraw, or become overwhelmed—millions are with me. Even (or especially) when I’m lonely, I am not alone—countless others are lonely, too. When I wrestle with myself in my very personal dreams, I’m struggling with experiences that are universal: these dreams have been dreamed before, and they will be dreamed long after I am gone. So, when my dreams seem uninspiring, I can still open my heart and mind, expand my point-of-view, adapt and reflect and grow… and perhaps this opening, expansive response can grow in the world. My dreams invite me to include everything, include others, because my solitary idea of myself is too small for the dreaming we need.

When my dreams are unpleasant or just “ordinary,” my tendency is to dismiss them and move on to more substantial, more appealing dream experiences. But if I want to grow, and if I want the world to change in positive ways, I can’t avoid the reality of disruption, distraction, and difficulty. While big challenges may seem more inspiring, it’s the little day-to-day problems that add up to the most significant world crises. If I can’t manage my temper with rude drivers in traffic, I can’t expect to transform the worldwide hatred and vengefulness that can lead to war and genocide. If I can’t tolerate the minimal deprivation or discomfort of a power outage or a neighbor’s barking dog, then I can’t expect entire populations to welcome refugees or forgive painful historical wrongs. If I am greedy for more than my share of local resources like water and shelter, then I can’t help persuade wealthy nations to give up their privileges to prevent drought, starvation and despair on other continents. My “ordinary” dreams often confront me with the ways that I cling to my own agenda and refuse to open myself to new experiences. But these dreams give me opportunities to notice the problems that result from this self-preoccupied behavior, and to practice exactly the kinds of responses that could lead to real change in the world.

As I reflect on these difficult dreams (the ones that tell me disagreeable truths about myself), I discover what works and what doesn’t work in my conduct toward others. I begin to catch myself perpetuating the problems of this world, and eventually I begin to take responsibiltiy for behaving differently. These dream experiences give me the chance to change myself. And when we share such dreams—without paralyzing shame, but with authentic remorse and the desire to see clearly, grow wiser, and be kinder—we can expand the process of real change exponentially.

No Nourishment for the Long Drive: Tonight, I’m leaving for the long drive “home.” I’m looking forward to the solitary drive, but I need to get a meal first, to fortify me for the journey. I go into a busy restaurant and sit at a central table with several people. I order my meal, and it arrives: an unappetizing plate full of pale orange tomato sauce with large meatball-like lumps under the sauce so I can’t really tell what they are. But it’s okay; it’s what I ordered. Briefly, I leave the table to get something (silverware? salt?) and when I return, my plate is gone. One of the women at the table has gone, too, and someone tells me that she sent back my dinner and ordered something “better” for me—something similar to her own, more special, meal. She’s a regular here and knows the menu, so she wanted to be sure I got a memorable meal. I’m annoyed that she took this liberty and now I have to wait a very long time for the new order to come.

I need to get on the road so that I won’t have to drive all night. I wait and wait, getting grumpier and grumpier. I consider just storming out and skipping dinner, but I’m really hungry and afraid I won’t handle the drive well if I haven’t eaten. Finally, the food arrives and it’s just a tiny plate with a little serving of something that looks oddly beautiful, but not satisfying. After I’ve apparently eaten it, I’m still hungry. There are some condiments and extras on a side table so diners can help themselves—at first, these look appealing and I think I can serve myself a plateful and fill up on that. But when I try to fill a plate, I find there’s not much here after all—just some overcooked vegetables in an oily sauce. I eat a few bites, but I’m still hungry and now I really need to leave on my long drive without any real sustenance.

I complain to another woman who apparently works here, grousing that the meal I got was probably more expensive than the meal I originally ordered, and I don’t feel like paying for food I didn’t order. The woman is very nice and immediately says that she (or the restaurant) will pay the difference, so I only need to pay for the meal I ordered. I’m taken aback, maybe embarrassed by her generosity, realizing how petty I was being… but I refuse her offer saying I don’t even know how much my original meal would have cost. Then I’m at the counter, to pay. An older woman rings up my meal at the register and hands me the check—it’s way too much! I notice that one of the dishes listed is actually the meal eaten by the woman who ordered my meal. Now I’m really indignant and I say that I won’t pay for her meal, especially since she inconvenienced me so much. The restaurant women recognize that I shouldn’t pay, and start to redo the math, removing the extra meal from the check. Again, I feel a little ashamed of my own crankiness. I just want to get on the road, in my quiet car, for the long drive home.

I woke from this dream feeling disappointed, isolated, and incomplete. My fantasy of a peaceful, reflective “drive home” had been spoiled by the interference of others, and by my inability to find the nourishment I needed to enjoy the experience of my private journey.

Yet I recognized that this kind of feeling is all-too-common in the small world of middle class American white people. The dream-ego imagines that her spiritual journey is a solitary one, and that her goal is to get on the road, to retreat into the quiet of her own private car. She thinks she needs to get where she’s going, so she doesn’t notice where she actually is. She knows she’s hungry, but doesn’t understand what kind of hunger needs to be satisfied before she can “get on the road.” The food she ordered (and doesn’t get to eat) looks pretty unappetizing—yet she resents being forced to eat something unfamiliar, chosen by someone else. When she tries to “serve herself” some “extras,” she feels even more unsatisfied. The shared table in the midst of the busy world of this restaurant offers opportunities that she rejects. Nothing pleases her, and she doesn’t want to pay for anyone but herself. When she’s ready to drive home at last, she is not really equipped for the journey ahead, and has left something essential behind.

It’s painful to see my own narcissism reflected here. But it’s a narcissism that would be recognizable anywhere—just about everybody wants to have their own immediate desires satisfied, wants control of their individual life journey. The first thing I need to understand as I approach this dream is that the important journey “home” has already begun when I enter that busy restaurant. I’m so busy trying to get “on the road” that I don’t notice I’m on the road right now. Our day-to-day search for personal nourishment and satisfaction, at a shared table in the midst of the world’s unpredictability and bustling activity, is just as important as the intentional spiritual path. I’m on the path already, along with everyone else in that restaurant. The dream seems to stall as I become more and more preoccupied with trivial matters. But, while my attention is on my own displeasure, while I’m feeling wronged and dissatisfied, I’m missing the gifts and opportunities that are coming my way.

If I order what I think I want and need, I get a bland, barely adequate meal. But a stranger at the table offers me an alternative: something surprising, something special—a smaller serving, but one that’s created with care. It doesn’t satisfy me because I barely notice that I’m eating it. I want more. But, really, no matter what I serve myself, it will never be enough. When I complain, I’m met with kindness. Yes, life is hard and we’re often hungry for more than we’ve been given, but we only have to pay for what we’ve ordered ourselves. This isn’t a dream about real starvation, real deprivation and suffering, it’s about the suffering and hunger we cause ourselves because we’ve refused to be nourished by the abundance that’s available.

When I share this dream with others, they commiserate with me, because it’s a pretty dreary story and it’s all I’ve got to share today. Yes, sometimes our dreams aren’t much fun—we all agree. But as the dreamwork unfolds, we pay attention to the possibilities that gleam softly in the dark corners of that dream restaurant. We recognize the dream-ego’s goals as our own, and we feel some compassion for her—but we also recognize that she isn’t going to be satisfied by the kind of food she’s been looking for, and she isn’t going to change unless she wakes up.

I know how I want to respond to this dream when I wake up. I want to go back and meet the other people who are sitting at the table with me. I want to thank the woman who ordered me a different meal, and the woman who offered to pay the difference, and the servers and cashier and cooks. I want to appreciate every bite of what I get to eat, and leave the extras for somebody else. I want to pay for my own meal, and more. Maybe, when I’m ready to get on the road again, I want to offer someone a ride—we could share the driving, so it wouldn’t be so hard to drive all night. If I dream this bigger dream, it won’t change the world tomorrow—but it will change me. And if I can change, we all can change, because there’s no such thing as a solitary spiritual journey. If we’re going to “dream the change,” we’re going to dream it together.

The Unknown Someone: Anonymous Dream Figures

Have you noticed that there are characters in your dreams who are a part of the story, but remain unidentifiable? Perhaps in a dream, someone tells me the truth… someone is angry at me… someone is sitting alone in the corner…someone keeps interrupting. Is it a man or a woman, old or young? Is it even a human being? I’m really not sure. I’d like to get to know this unknown someone—to make a connection, to recognize who is there, hovering in the background, exerting an influence on the dream scene. These dream figures are often overlooked when we share dreams or write them down: we assume they are unimportant, because we can’t describe them adequately.

Such incidental, indeterminate characters keep showing up in my dreams. In “Pity the Poor Ego,” for example, there’s a room full of hot coals that is too hot to endure, yet I sense an unknown someone in there, just out of sight. The only thing I know about this person is that they are where no one can be, so I imagine that they must be wearing protective clothing, though I don’t actually see them. When I wrote the dream down, I almost didn’t mention this person, because their presence seemed incidental. But, as I explored further, the unknown someone began to seem more and more significant. I looked for similar characters in other dreams, and found them, in abundance. They always seemed to have something to do with the relationship between self and other, between “me” and “not-me.” Often, these characters were doing something that “I” (the dream-ego) couldn’t do (like standing on hot coals), or saying something that I couldn’t say, or knowing something that I didn’t know. They “just happened to be there”—but at a key moment, presenting an alternative understanding of the dream reality.

Perhaps these dream figures are unidentified because they represent, or embody, more than the dreamer can imagine. They are “beyond me.” Like images of the divine, they are beyond words, beyond our limiting ideas of what is possible or reasonable, or what is even conceivable.

Many spiritual traditions avoid naming God, or creating images of God that can only diminish that which is inexpressible. Yet, in most traditions, God is among us all the time, seeming so ordinary, so inconspicuous, that the immanent presence of the unknown someone can appear to be merely an inconsequential afterthought: the person standing beside me at the bus stop; the dog pausing to sniff my hand; the trees along my street that blossom extravagantly every Spring—all these divine beings can show me a different way to experience the reality I tend to take for granted.

Exploring the “unknown someone” can open up big, universal concerns—and can also be personally revealing. So, as I write about this, I think about my own identity in relation to these anonymous dream figures. Many of my recent posts have been quite personal. Sometimes, I feel that I’m walking the fine line between sharing and self-indulgence. Still, I believe it’s vitally important to share, because an isolated experience quickly becomes meaningless, while a shared experience resonates beyond any individual, potentially creating deeper connections and a larger purpose from challenges that would otherwise be monotonously difficult, empty, painful and exhausting. We are all manifestations of God for one another—we show each other that there is more to us than what we think we are. When I really see you, I see someone“not-me,” someone beyond myself, someone that expands my understanding of who I am. When you see me, you see another world, another way of being that is both familiar and unfamiliar.

Anonymous characters share our dreams, and also populate many areas of our waking lives. It’s important to acknowledge them and recognize that we are in relationship all the time, even if we are preoccupied with our own concerns.

Because my health challenges have forced me to spend more time than I’d like attending to my own immediate needs and coping with my own practical problems, I find my work with others (in spiritual direction and dreamwork facilitation) to be refreshing, and even more meaningful than it would have been if I were healthy. What a joy to concentrate on someone else’s concerns and spiritual journey for a change! I also find it refreshing to engage with “strangers” who I encounter in the course of my day, or who have become friends through social media, for many of the same reasons. When I write, I hope to open up my own concerns and journey to others, as others have opened their lives to me. We all play essential roles in one another’s lives: we learn from each other, receive support and encouragement from one another, and have the opportunity to be supportive and encouraging ourselves.

In dreams, all of the dream figures (human or animal) might be considered to be aspects of the dreamer’s own personal psyche. But, more significantly I think, all of our dreams touch upon levels of experience that we share, and all of our dream figures can legitimately be seen as other people, other beings, other possibilities—manifestations of something or someone beyond ourselves. So, when I’m sharing a dream, I’m revealing things about myself, but also communicating about a mystery that includes you, and invites you to enter the dream world with me. There, in the dream world, we meet friends and we meet strangers. The dream characters that are least familiar to us—those unknown someones—may have the most to offer. And sharing the dream, like sharing our waking-life experiences, gives us the opportunity to acknowledge and learn from perspectives that differ from our own. Continue reading

The Art of the Gesture: Dream Guidance in Gentleness, Genuineness and Generosity

What do I have to give? How can I create and offer a meaningful response to all that this life has given me? How do I do the work that is mine to do, convey the depth of my caring, and contribute actively to the well-being of this world, my own community, and my loved ones?

These questions become more urgent as I get older. Urgent, because I no longer assume that I will somehow begin to “give back” at some indeterminate time in the future… I know from experience that loved ones may die before I have given as much as I wanted to give; that the world around me and my own life keep rapidly changing all the time, and opportunities to make a difference might not be available when I think I’m ready. I know how easy it is to put off doing and being what I would like to do and be, and I know that I’m often too tired, or too busy, or too distracted to notice that the things I care about most are getting left out. I know that the years go by, and there’s so much I want to offer in gratitude and love… But, maybe this evening my back hurts, and I’ve already had several appointments, worked hard, run lots of errands, and I just feel like watching television with Holly or playing spider solitaire on my cell phone.

Because I have a degenerative disease that adds to my exhaustion and will probably shorten my life, I’m both more urgently aware of the need to give what I have to give now, and more easily spellbound by the need to rest, recover, and cope with immediate concerns rather than extending myself to make a creative effort. So, how to reconcile this paradox? I know I’m not alone in the dilemma. Most of my clients and friends, especially those who are over fifty, are wrestling with similar challenges in their own ways.

An example that will be familiar to many is my desire to get some writing done (articles, blog posts, a book) along with an equally compelling desire to do something—anything!—else. I’ve written and published all my life (usually wrestling with the process the whole way), and now that my health is problematic, writing is one of the primary ways that I can engage with others and make a contribution to the world. So, I really do want to do this work. But, when the time comes to do it, I’d almost always rather not. I’m easily drained, and concentration is difficult; there’s usually a good reason to give myself a break.

After years of experimentation, I’ve learned not to force myself into long writing sessions with high expectations, but also not to indulge in excuses that would allow me to avoid the issue entirely. Instead, I make a gesture toward writing every day: I write at least a sentence or a paragraph, or whatever I can do in twenty minutes, just to remind myself that this is important to me, that I care about doing it, and that it’s easier than I think. Of course, once I get started, I often keep going and work for hours, and whatever I have to offer in a particular piece of writing begins to take shape based on something truly heartfelt, rather than based on something that I think I “should” express.

Dreams have helped me develop this practice. In dreams, the possibilities aren’t limited by our expectations or excuses. Dreams invite the art of the gesture. Often, a dream situation will give me a new insight or direction, but I don’t know how to follow it up with concrete action in the waking world. Yes, that crazy dream was really important, but how the heck am I supposed to apply it to my waking life? The dream has given me a gift, but what do I do with it? I’ve found that any simple gesture (even just a pause for intentional thought or prayer) in response to the dream’s offering can be tremendously meaningful, because the dream points toward the vital essence of my experience, which is ready to be conveyed at this particular moment. Almost any expression of that dream-essence will resonate outward as a meaningful gesture, and will be in keeping with my own capacity to give and others’ availability to receive. It doesn’t have to look like a purposeful or important demonstration of anything.

Making a gesture in the direction of the dream, or in the direction of my own deepest intention, doesn’t require me to plunge right into a big enterprise when I’m not sure what to do or whether I have the energy to do it. When I make a gesture, I stand where I am (in my uncertainty) and tentatively reach out, allowing myself to experience just a little bit of my gratitude, longing, gifts and hopes, as well as my authentic desire to connect with others.

This kind of gesture engages the intrinsic human capacity for gentleness, genuineness and generosity. Like most dreamworkers and dreamers, I have a penchant for wordplay: the root “gen-” that these words share means that they are all connected in some way with creativity.

Gentleness is probably pretty self-explanatory: Whatever it is that I want to bring into the world and give to others cannot be forced—neither forced out of me, nor forced onto them. Genuineness is also fairly obvious: Giving cannot be contrived—ulterior motives just get in the way. Generosity may seem redundant—if I’m giving then I’m being generous, right? Well, not really, no. So often we give because we need something. Maybe we need others’ gratitude or recognition, or maybe we just need to feel that we have accomplished something or contributed something. These needs are completely natural, and not “wrong” in themselves, but any need comes from a sense of lack, a sense of deficiency, whereas the true joy of generosity is that it comes from abundance. We are all so gifted, so blessed—with our own unique creative potential, our love and caring and gratitude toward others—that giving can just spill over. As Rilke wrote: “May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, as it is with children…” And this doesn’t mean I have to move mountains to make way—all it takes is a gesture, a small act of gentleness, genuineness and generosity, to release the flow.

The best metaphor for the profound gifts we have to offer the world might be the tangible gifts—like birthday presents—we might give to our loved ones. Though I often want to give something special to those I love, the usual forms of giving don’t seem to fit. The expectation of a gift exchange around holidays has become so commercialized, and most everyone I know has enough “stuff” already—to give a present can seem to create an obligation for reciprocation. Also, trying to figure out what someone else might want can cause me agonies of indecision, and can seem wasteful and disappointing when I suspect I’ve gotten the wrong thing. On the other hand, an authentic gesture of love and acknowledgement can be wonderful.

I always felt a genuine desire to give my mother presents, yet I had a difficult time coming up with an uncontrived offering for each special occasion (Christmas, birthday, Mother’s Day). So on holidays, I just made a gesture by sending a card, and the the rest of the year I made a deeper gesture by holding her dear, complicated, unique self in my heart, waiting for the right gift to come along. Out of the abundance of my own pleasure in the process, I recognized when something would truly delight her—and then sent it as a surprise, for no particular occasion. This became a gesture of spontaneous appreciation and affection between us.

I’ve wanted to make a similar kind of gesture toward my sisters, Jill and Didi, too—especially since our parents both died in 2015. I hold my sisters in my heart all the time, and often feel a longing to give them something meaningful that would make their lives easier and bring them joy. So far,  I haven’t found literal gifts for them like those I gave my mother. But a recent dream reminded me of the feelings of gentleness, genuineness, and generosity that flow through me when I think of them:

Gifts for the Family: I’m traveling with a group (walking the Camino?) and we stop for supplies at a huge supermarket. I must find everything I’ll need for the remainder of the journey, and it’s very stressful and rushed. Mostly I’m looking for groceries I can carry and prepare easily, but I also pass through a bookshop within the larger store. Can I find a lightweight book? There are too many options, and I’m feeling frustrated when I notice a display of beautifully-bound blank journals. Immediately, I think of my family—these would be perfect gifts for my parents and sisters. I know that Mom and Dad are dead, but it doesn’t matter, I can still give them something precious and personal. And I’ll find exactly the right journal to suit Jill, exactly the right one for Didi. My sense is that these blank books will represent all the love I feel for each of my family members. The books I choose for them will recognize the individuality and “wide open” potential of each of their lives. I’m not able to complete my choices yet, but I know that I’ll come back here after I’ve finished the rest of my shopping. The shopping task is no longer overwhelming. Now that I’m thinking about the gifts for my loved ones rather than concerned with my own urgency, finding what I need for the journey comes naturally. Choosing the journals will be effortless, too. I am happy and at peace.

Yes, this is a dream about “gifts for my family,” but it’s also about any form of giving, any original, essential gifts that a person might offer in gratitude and blessing to others. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of a lifetime, we struggle to meet our own immediate needs, carried away by the tasks at hand… and then, an opening appears, a way of making a meaningful gesture that guides us toward the true tasks of our lives, the work/play of giving and loving. Whether that work/play takes the form of art or music or writing, building, cleaning, planning, social activism, counseling, healing, teaching, gardening, discovering, collaborating… or just being fully present (pun intended!) to whatever task we have at hand—we all have something to give (gently, genuinely, generously) that requires “no forcing and no holding back.” Continue reading

Interview by Metka Cuk on the “Dream Owls” website

Metka Cuk, a creative and inspiring dreamworker and artist, has been interviewing other dreamworkers and dreamers, introducing us to the depth and breadth of the dreaming community. These interviews are posted on her delightful website, “Dream Owls: A Place to Talk About Your Dreams.”

Some months ago, she did a wide-ranging interview with me about my background in dreamwork and my spiritual journey with dreams, including connections in my life between dreaming and healing, hospice work, Buddhism and Christianity, the Camino de Santiago, haiku, and more.

Please click on the picture to read the interview, and while you’re there, you’ll want to check out “Dream Owls” and the many other wonderful interviews, as well as Metka’s excellent cartoons and artwork!

I hope you can imagine your own version of how dreams have affected your life… Think of how you might share your own dreaming story with others. Dreams take us to our depths, and reflect the vital heart of our lives—and sharing these stories can be meaningful for all of us.

Pity the Poor Ego: Trickster Dreams

My most disturbing dreams have not been the classic frightening nightmares—instead, I dream of being a bystander while someone else suffers. Instead of terror, there’s horror, and the agony of helplessness and vicarious pain. Just as with nightmares, the emotional impact is ugly, and, at first, it’s not especially useful to tell myself that there must be something valuable here, even though I know that disturbing dreams have been some of the most meaningful experiences in my life. I’ve witnessed the beauty and transformative power they can have again and again in working with my own dreams and those of clients and friends. Yet, I can’t plunge in with enthusiasm right away; I need to respect the real (awful!) feelings that such dreams arouse, and give them time.

When I had the following dream, it left me feeling ashamed and upset:

Burning Alive: A man, with the cocky over-the-top manner of a Master of Ceremonies from a television game show, keeps intruding on the scene. He has a large, toothy smile, and he speaks loudly and glibly about nothing, with a lot of fake laughter and fake friendliness. He assumes that everyone should pay attention to him, and is idiotically over-confident.

There’s a room with its floor covered in blazing hot coals, radiating waves of heat. A waist-high wooden wall, blocks the open double-doorway. Casually, the man climbs onto the wall, waves, and jumps into the room—showing off. Apparently someone else is inside there, working on the hot coals (raking them?)—but s/he must be wearing protective clothing, because s/he’s not harmed by the heat. The Master of Ceremonies, who jumped in without protection, has no chance of survival.

I’m horrified. There’s nothing that I can do, or that the person in the room can do, to help him—and he can’t help himself either. He must be in agony as he falls on the fiery coals, unable to get up or get out, slowly burning to death. I don’t actually see this, but I hear him shouting and imagine what is happening. Ironically, his voice sounds almost as stagey and artificially enthusiastic as he was when he was just showing off. First, he shouts, “It’s so hot!” An absurd understatement, in that loud, falsely cheery voice. Then, his cries seem more poignant and painful, though he’s still using this “game show” voice He says something that suggests he can’t stand the suffering: something like, “Please get on with it!” And even though there isn’t anguish in his tone, I feel the anguish for him and find this suffering unbearable. Please, let it be over soon. Let him die quickly.

I woke from this dream truly distressed—and the only meaning I could find in it at first was not at all encouraging. The waves of heat radiating from the room reminded me of the radiation treatments that are the source of my current neuro-muscular disease. Twenty-three years after my cancer treatments, the residual radiation is increasingly active in my body, “burning me alive.” Am I like that pathetic fellow, somehow causing my own pain? Have I been “showing off,” throwing away my life, leaping into trouble and then finding myself helpless—desperate, but somehow also ridiculous? Of course, this is not a fully-formed response, and certainly not a reasonable way to approach the dream or my own life situation. But it seemed consistent with the awfulness of the dream’s aftertaste. I wanted to feel compassion for that man (and for myself), yet all I could feel was pity, helplessness, and a strong desire to turn away from the suffering, to get it over with.

I didn’t want to remember this dream. I wrote it down, but tried to forget it. Then, a couple of days later, while I was taking a walk, it came back to me vividly—with a new title making a different impression. Instead of “Burning Alive,” the new title was much more specific, and somehow less painful: “The Self-Immolation of the Master of Ceremonies.” Why did this seem less painful? Well, “self-immolation” implies a kind of intention, a sacrifice rather than a silly, wasteful, careless act of self-harm. I associated “self-immolation” with the Vietnamese Buddhist monks who set fire to themselves in protest against the Vietnam War. Their actions were drastic, and not consistent with my own cultural ideas about what constitutes appropriate dissent… yet their intentions were genuinely meaningful. They gave their lives to draw attention to an injustice. Could the man in my dream be making a similarly meaningful statement? Also, the term “Master of Ceremonies” implies not careless foolishness but the possibility of “mastering” a situation that might represent a “ceremonial” offering. What if this ridiculous character is suffering for a reason? And what if his suffering is something other than it seems?

In a previous post [“Seeing With Fresh Eyes”], I mentioned two important “tricks” that I often use in working with difficult, unpleasant dreams: 1) look for anomalies and inconsistencies in the dream itself; and 2) question the dream ego’s perspective on the situation. In “The Self-Immolation of the Master of Ceremonies,” the anomaly and the questionable point-of-view are directly related; the most obvious inconsistency suggests a potential inaccuracy in the dream-ego’s perspective. The dream-ego assumes that someone who has fallen on hot coals must be in agony, yet the “Master of Ceremonies” himself does not sound distressed. He uses his “game show” voice to express what he is experiencing, and his emotion is not at all consistent with the suffering that the dream-ego expects him to experience.

So, what if the “burning alive” really is a ceremony, a game, or a show—a metaphorical ritual that involves the “burning up” of old patterns rather than a soul in torment?

With the strong emotion of my initial reaction to the dream, it was easy to assume that this egotistical fellow represented my own Ego-identity in its crudest form: trying to be the center of attention, and coming to grief as a result. But, in fact, the dream-ego (the “I” in the dream) is actually a much more accurate representative of how my own Ego-identity (the “I” in my waking life) sees the world. The Ego, in Jungian terms, is not necessarily egotistical—it is just the essential lens through which the much larger Self perceives and understands experience. We can’t reject the Ego, because we need an Ego-identity to function in the world, but we shouldn’t take her perspective as the whole truth. The dream-ego, like my waking identity, does her best to interpret what she’s experiencing. She understands what’s happening according to its impact on her, so when the Master of Ceremonies behaves as he does, she reacts by judging and defining him as “idiotically over-confident”—his leap onto the burning coals is “ridiculous” and, from her perspective, inevitably results in his pathetic annihilation. Yet, she also wants to be a good person, and finds her own inability to help, or to feel authentic compassion, shameful and painful.

If you want to find the Ego in a dream, look for the one who’s suffering, because the Ego always suffers when reality doesn’t conform to what the Ego believes is important. In this dream, the man who leaps onto hot coals doesn’t seem to be suffering—but the dream-ego is clearly in a lot of pain. She can’t bear what she thinks is happening. In my waking life, my own experience of fluctuating emotions and deteriorating health often causes me suffering. Yet there’s more to me than this suffering Ego, and more to my experience than my Ego can imagine.

Who is the Master of Ceremonies, then? Who is running this “game show”? Dreams have more to offer than the Ego can grasp—but the wholeness of my Self includes all of it, and my Ego can learn from the other characters in the dream. In this dream, I suspect the Master of Ceremonies is not just an exaggerated Ego figure, but a Trickster.

Tricksters in world mythology are not usually very appealing characters, and their stories can make an ugly and painful first impression. Characters like Coyote in some Native American traditions, and Loki in Norse traditions, have all the worst qualities of the Ego: they are malicious, greedy, lustful, and brutally selfish; they are clever, even brilliant at times, but they always end up being too smart for their own good and coming to a bad end. Other Trickster figures may seem more benign, especially when they are represented in cartoons for children, through characters like Bugs Bunny or the Cat in the Hat. But all of them are, at the very least, cocky—and, to some degree, this cockiness is self-defeating. Tricksters are always getting into trouble. While the Master of Ceremonies in my dream seems merely annoying rather than mean, his bad behavior (“showing off”) seems to be his downfall. But wait…

Tricksters are not just bad guys. They may be brought down by their own machinations (often explosively, grotesquely, or pathetically) but, like Wile E. Coyote, they are always up and at it again in the next scene. They always bounce back, and the inadvertent consequences of their actions are often massively transformative.

Tricksters are game changers; the world is recreated in their wake. When Coyote steals fire for his own selfish reasons, his tail ends up in flames, and as he flees in panic, the sparks he scatters form the stars in the sky. By accident, new energies are released, new life begins, new possibilities are opened up. We human beings are the epitome of the Trickster, with our greedy self-interest, our crazy, impulsive, ego-driven yet creative technological advances, we harm and transform ourselves and the world around us. The Trickster leads the way to catastrophe, but also, potentially, initiates whatever comes next.

In my dream, the Master of Ceremonies leaps onto the hot coals, showing off. The dream-ego interprets this as a wretched mistake. Meanwhile, another unseen person, who is impervious to the heat, bears witness. The MC should be in terrible pain, yet his expressions of dismay are unconvincing, and it’s primarily the dream-ego who seems to suffer. Another dream anomaly is that the wall which separates the blazing coals from the rest of the world is made of wood. Wouldn’t a wooden wall catch fire?

If the wall is made of wood, then perhaps the fire is not as hot as it’s supposed to be? Or else, that wall represents an illusion of protection; sooner or later, the wall will burn and the fire will be right here, where I must experience it directly. The fire is inescapable, not only for the MC (who plunged right into it!) but for me. For every mortal being, protections are only temporary. It’s inevitable that we will all encounter experiences that are too painful, “too hot to handle,” as we lose loved ones, physical health, and ultimately our own lives.

The dream-ego is caught up in the horror of the dream’s apparently disastrous momentum, but she never actually sees what is going on in the fiery furnace of that room. If I actually get closer, overcoming my revulsion and dismay… If I actually look past that anomalous wooden wall… What might I see? I imagine the Master of Ceremonies, the Game Show Host, would not be writhing in agony. In fact, he wouldn’t be there at all. The “someone else in the room” could turn out to be another face of the Trickster, with no need for “protective clothing,” impervious to the pain, but raking those coals in order to make the room ready for a ceremonial Fire Walk. These “too hot” horrors could become a way of transforming pain into something more meaningful.

Perhaps my own Ego-identity can step into that room, and walk across it, without judgement or suffering. Perhaps she is willing to change, to let her old life be burned away, and to walk into a new world, born out of the flames of losses, illness, and uncertainty. Continue reading

Beyond Dead Ends: Accepting the Kestrel’s Invitation

Recently, I shared a dream about a hawk, and explored ways of working with dreams that present us with our “problems.” Since I wrote that article [“Seeing With Fresh Eyes: Finding Meaning in Problem Dreams”], more hawks have appeared both in my dreams and in my waking life. They seem to be heralds of a new way of seeing and being, presenting me with a challenge to open my eyes, my mind, and my heart to new possibilities.

The hawk in my previous dream was a juvenile Sharp-Shinned Hawk: a small hawk that generally hunts in forested areas. Within a week of that dream, I saw a hawk exactly like this in two different places. Both times, the hawk appeared unexpectedly, landed close to me, and seemed to look straight at me. Up until then, I’d seen many adult Sharp-Shinned Hawks, but no juveniles. I knew from the field guide that juveniles have different markings—plain brown and white, rather than the more detailed adult markings—but I’d never encountered a juvenile up close (except in my dream). Seeing these juvenile hawks when I did seemed significant. At the very least, it suggested to me that my dream was both meaningful and currently active in my life.

Then, I had a second hawk dream about a different kind of hawk: a Kestrel. A Kestrel—also called a Sparrowhawk—is a very small falcon with extraordinarily colorful markings. Kestrels hunt by hovering high in the air, beating their wings rapidly in place (like “treading water”), looking for their prey below. This dream also includes my deaf black cat, Toby, who died of a neuro-muscular disease (not too different from the neuro-muscular disease I’m coping with myself) last year, while he was still quite young. He was a sweetheart, very brave and innocent, funny and affectionate—I’m still wrestling with his death, not fully able to accept it.

Toby Wants To Fly: Toby’s on a leash outside with me, and I need to get him home safely. I lift him in my arms, holding him tightly, and hurry. It’s a long way. I have to get across a large, busy intersection and traffic circle. We’re surrounded by loud trucks, car horns, shouting voices, city sounds… I’m so afraid that Toby will get spooked and struggle to escape, but then I remember that he is deaf, so of course it isn’t noisy for him. He’s alert in my arms, looking around with calm curiosity at everything.

We get beyond the city, and I have to climb a little hill covered in low, heather-like shrubs. Suddenly, a stunningly beautiful Kestrel flies right up to us, and hovers in the air at head-level, just a few feet away—looking straight at us with a piercing gaze. Toby struggles to get free, to leap after the Kestrel. I cling to him, desperately determined to hold onto him. I can’t let him go. I know that if I let him go, he will die. I notice that there’s a second Kestrel in a bush nearby.

Having subdued Toby, I continue on over the top of the hill and begin to descend the other side. Now, it’s getting dark, and the downslope is treacherous because there are white plastic garbage bags full of some unspeakable, dead, rotting stuff scattered everywhere in the shrubbery. It’s difficult to pick my way through the shrubs, without stepping on those bags. Toby’s still wriggling. Perhaps this is a place where people come to do drug deals or shoot up, a real “dead end place.” I’m not scared, but the downslope is ugly, grim and sad. I need to get Toby home.

Because of his deafness and his obliviousness to danger, Toby would not have been safe outside; he was an “indoor cat” his whole life. I never took him out on a leash (except in this dream). But I loved to hold him in my arms, whenever he would let me, and I wished I could have held him like that forever.

Throughout the dream, I’m motivated by seeking “safety” and “home.” I’m apparently willing to ignore the powerful invitation of the Kestrel, because my strongest need is to get Toby home safely. When members of my peer dream group pointed out how clearly the dream was offering an opportunity to let go, I insisted that if I let go, he would die. Maybe I would die.

But the contradiction is evident: Toby is already dead. And this is a dream: Anything is possible. If I had been lucid in this dream, aware that I was dreaming, I would have realized that I could release him—he would go free, maybe fly into the air after the Kestrel. He could not be harmed. He is already home, safe. I’m the one who’s afraid. I’m the one who’s deaf to the call of the Kestrel, and who trudges on, “over the hill,” in the bleak landscape of decay and death.

This dream, like most of my dreams lately, reflects how I’m dealing with my own mortality and health challenges, and also how I’m seeking meaning in my life.

I have a disease (Radiation Fibrosis Syndrome) that makes me vulnerable in some of the same ways that Toby was vulnerable. I long for a safe place to rest, but, at the same time, I understand that my physical symptoms and uncertain prognosis put me in a situation that is potentially a spiritual opportunity. Every moment of every day, I’m meeting the unknown. I don’t know how quickly the damage to my upper spine and heart will progress—and I don’t know whether these conditions will cripple or kill me, sooner or later. I don’t know how to proceed with my work commitments, since my ability to undertake long-term projects is entirely unpredictable. I’m holding on, desperately, to the things I treasure about my life, afraid that the clamor of the busy world around me will sap my remaining resources, or distract me into wasteful, exhausting digressions. But I know from many years of inner work that this open-ended experience of not-knowing gives me a chance to question my assumptions, release my need for control, and surrender to the freshness of a life without agendas and absolutes.

Yet my dream tells me that I’m not as open as I truly want to be. I’m holding on tightly, believing that death, or at least a painful loss, is the inevitable outcome of a leap into the unknown.

What if I let Toby leap after the Kestrel? My dreamworker friends also mentioned the phrase, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” The second Kestrel waits “in the bush” nearby. Both Kestrels are wild and free. My “bird in the hand,” my beloved cat, wants to be wild and free, too. But I’m holding onto him. I wonder… How am I holding myself back? Do I think that possessing my life is more important than living it? Continue reading

The Challenge of Real Change

This article, “The Challenge of Real Change” was published in the spiritual direction magazine, Presence last year.  I wrote about pilgrimage, dreams, and change in my own life, and in my work with clients. I hope you’ll take the time to read it. Please consider sharing your thoughts with me: I’d love to hear how you have changed, what experiences have changed you. We can all encourage each other, and walk together, even when we are venturing into unfamiliar territory.

To read the article, click here.

What makes real change possible? My work as a spiritual director gives me many opportunities to explore dreams in the context of our spiritual lives—and, of course, our spiritual lives are always a work in process. We aren’t looking for a final, ideal state of perfection and certainty, but for ongoing flexibility, and fundamental openness to experiences of deep change. Life itself is defined by change, and  if we can’t really change, we can’t live fully.

Dreams—with their untamed (and often uncomfortable) changeability—help us to practice being flexible, but if we want to embrace change at the deepest level, we have to invite the weirdness and wildness of dreams into our waking lives as well. Sometimes, we have to step out of the “comfort zone” and into the unknown.

Fight, Flight, Freeze… or Flow?

In a recent dream, I experienced several ways of responding to chaotic and frightening circumstances:

Dangers and Discovery: I’m in a forest as it gets dark and the wind rises. The tall trees are swaying and creaking, and several come crashing down quite nearby! Frightened, I try to find shelter, scampering around looking for a safe place. One of the fallen trees is apparently dead and rotten. It breaks apart as it crashes to the ground, and a beehive inside bursts open. Shiny black bees swarm out. I run desperately and they follow… But gradually, the swarm disperses and I return to the fallen tree. I search through the fragments of rotten trunk and broken branches, and find a chunk of heartwood that is soft and pulpy on one side, but smooth, hard, rounded and beautifully-grained, like polished agate or petrified wood on the other side. It is very special. I realize that the falling trees, swarm of bees, rotten wood, and this precious gift are all part of an initiation for young girls. I’m part of it, in my own way, as an older woman.

This dream coincided with some thoughts I’ve been having about our instinctive and natural reactions and responses to threatening situations. What happens when we get past our first fearful reactions, and respond instead with curiosity and openness? In the dream, this exploratory process is an initiation for girls. While traditional initiations for boys usually involve overcoming or standing up to our fears, perhaps a female form of initiation might allow for a variety of more complex responses. Both boys and girls, both men and women, might benefit from honoring all the choices that are available to us when we are confronted with crises or uncertainties. When we recognize that every situation offers alternatives, and we can choose our responses, we are entering into maturity, finding our place in this wild and wind-blown world.

When confronted with an unwanted experience, we respond instinctively in ways that reflect our most basic options—commonly called “fight or flight,” sometimes with a third possibility, to “freeze.” These responses evolved to cope with direct threats to our survival, and for the most part, they don’t serve us well when we are faced with difficult, complex interpersonal situations in the modern world.

These days, the basic instinctive responses might look a bit different from the prehistoric scenarios. Fight might not mean literally throwing a punch or a spear, but instead just throwing a tantrum, resisting, blaming, complaining, disrupting. Flight might not mean literally running away, but instead avoiding, denying, refusing, distracting. Freeze might not mean literally playing dead, hiding or becoming a “deer in the headlights,” but instead spacing out, going numb, dissociating, ignoring. Such strategies can be effective as immediate reactions to a shock, giving us a little distance from whatever unpleasantness is confronting us—but as long-term strategies, they are not only unsustainable, but potentially destructive. In the dream, I tried fleeing… but this didn’t really get me anywhere.

When we keep fighting, fleeing or freezing in response to the things that happen to us, we end up threatening others and setting off similar reactions in those around us. When I ran away, the bees seemed to chase me—if I hadn’t run, what then? When conditions are stressful, as in the United States under the current administration, the entire population can seem to be engaged in nothing but fighting, fleeing or freezing. Nothing works, and no one is happy or safe under these circumstances.

But there’s another response in our repertoire, which I believe is just as instinctive, just as natural, as the fight, flight or freeze response. We also have the capacity to respond to threats with flow. What does flow look like?

Flow is our resilience, creativity, adaptability. Flow is our capacity to respond to a threat or problem—and the accompanying rush of adrenaline—with curiosity, or humor, or surrender, or improvisation, or compassion, or investigation, or determination, as appropriate to the circumstances. Continue reading

Seeing With Fresh Eyes: Finding Healing in “Problem Dreams”

Sometimes, dreams just seem to show us where we are stuck—blatantly and unhelpfully highlighting our struggles and suffering. What is the point of such dreams? Waking life can be stressful enough without reenacting our problems when we are trying to get some restful sleep. I’m having a lot of these “problem dreams” lately, and even though I usually wake up from them feeling discouraged, I’m finding that these dreams always contain powerful healing if I can get past my initial resistance and take a closer look.

My most recent problem dreams have had to do with my deteriorating health, and the changes in my body that sometimes bring me to the edge of existential despair. I’m coping with a neuro-muscular disease that has been steadily progressing over the past year, and although the life-threatening aspects of this disease (heart damage and stroke risk) are stable for now, there are several less dramatic symptoms (muscle spasms and weakness, digestive trouble, intense fatigue) that drain my life force. It can be difficult to keep my spirits up, and everyday obstacles can seem insurmountable.

In many of my dreams, I’m trying to pack for an important journey but can’t get it together: there’s too much “stuff”—more than I can carry. Everything is just too hard. On top of this hard work, there are always other dream figures who are suffering. I feel their pain, but can’t do anything about it. My dreams are full of pathetic, bedraggled, wasted characters who embody my own physical misery in all-too-obvious ways. So how am I supposed to respond?

This seems like an impasse, but it’s not. When I look at these miserable dreams from a different angle, they can open my eyes. In a previous post [Feel It In My Bones: A Dream Experience of the Body] I wrote about how the physical condition of dream figures can reflect the physical condition of our own bodies—and how relating to those figures with compassion and respect can help us relate to our physical selves. So here’s an example of one of those dreams. In this case, compassion and respect come easily, but a sad, hard outcome still seems inevitable:

The Hawk Who Can’t Fly: …Oddly, there’s a a hawk standing on the pavement between buildings. Not perched on a branch, just standing there in the open. Although she has plain brown plumage and markings, and is quite small, her presence is powerful, and her eyes are bright and fierce. But something is wrong. Her wings are spread (as if she were flying) and one looks crooked and withered while the other has large torn gaps. Clearly, she has been seriously injured. She can’t fly, but also can’t even fold her wings to rest. The injuries don’t look fresh, so she has been surviving for quite some time like this, and appears fairly healthy for now. How has she managed to feed herself? I imagine she’s been picking up scraps, though there’s not much food that would appeal to a hawk here. Maybe people have been feeding her? Hawks needs to be able to hunt, and it’s difficult for them to eat food that isn’t alive, so this seems like a miserable existence. I’m so sorry to see her suffering this way. Should I try to feed her? Or maybe it would be better if she died quickly, since her death is inevitable. She isn’t looking at me, but I feel the intensity of her gaze.

My first impression of this dream was that it painfully illustrated my own dilemma: I need to fly, but even my wings (my strengths) have become an encumbrance. I can’t get off the ground, and I can’t even rest. My food (daily routine) is lifeless and doesn’t nourish me. I’m leading a miserable existence, not sure it’s worth the effort. Well, okay. That is how I feel on bad days. Sometimes, the broken bird is just broken. The dream seems to end with a whimper.

But I’ve still got a few dreamwork tricks to try. Let’s see what happens when I pay attention to the dream itself, instead of my predictable assumptions about broken birds and sad stories.

When I imagine what might happen next if the dream continued, I think of trying to feed the hawk, helping her fold her wings so she can rest, or even “putting her out of her misery” by gently euthanizing her—allowing her to transcend her problems through death. None of these problem-solving possibilities seem to fit with the dream itself, however. The hawk has no interest in my efforts to save her. Similarly, my own health issues seem indifferent to my urgency and concern, and the things that I try to do to fix myself—medical appointments, tests, therapies, medications—have no apparent influence on my condition. Trying so hard to solve these problems, I find myself in the same situation as the dream-ego in the dream: my genuine compassion and respect for my own body (or the hawk) seems tainted by feelings of pity, frustration and hopelessness.

Are problem dreams like this one just meant to torment us? Of course not. So, instead of buying the obvious premise that these “problems” need solving, let’s look instead at what the dream has to say. To find the core issues in a dream, it’s always useful to pay attention to anomalies or questions within the dream itself. Although dreams don’t always make sense by waking life standards, they have a kind of internal consistency, and things that don’t seem to fit are not accidental. In this dream, there’s a crippled raptor who can’t hunt for herself, yet she seems healthy and “her eyes are bright and fierce.” If her condition is so awful, how has she survived? How has she sustained herself? Clearly, there is something about her situation that is not consistent with the way I have understood the “problem.”

This leads to another important insight: Particularly with problem dreams where the dream-ego is thinking and behaving in ways that lead to an impasse (reflecting a similar waking life impasse), don’t assume that the dream-ego is always right about what is going on and what should be done about it. The dream-ego (the “I” character in the dream) usually follows the dreamer’s expectations and reinforces the dreamer’s beliefs about life’s limitations—but other characters in the dream may represent different perspectives, different possibilities. When the dream-ego’s point-of-view leads to a dead end, other characters or circumstances in the dream may be giving the dreamer an opportunity to see a different picture, tell a different story.

So, I ask myself: How is this hawk surviving and even thriving? The answer is immediate, surprising, and consistent with the information the dream presents, rather than with my expectations. I expect the hawk to be miserable, desperate, defeated, near death. But the hawk’s eyes are “bright and fierce.” What does she see? How does she see herself and her life? I’m stunned by the world that I see through those bright, fierce eyes.

The hawk sees herself as a hunter. For her, finding food and eating it—even if it’s “scraps”—is hunting, and she sees herself plunging on her prey, doing exactly what she was born to do. The hawk embodies the spirit of a raptor, a formidable bird. For her, keeping her wings open means that she is flying—she is always flying. Even while standing on the pavement, she feels the air moving through her feathers in the smooth swerve of flight. The hawk has acute perceptions, powerful vision. For her, the world is vivid, clear, enticing, expansive, even if it’s just the narrow paved alley between buildings. The hawk is wild and free. For her, pain and disability are just part of life. Death will eventually be part of life, too. She is not crippled or desperate. As long as she is alive, she is fully alive.

If I take this hawk as my teacher instead of seeing her as a victim, I am able to experience the fullness of my life, even when my wings seem heavy and my world seems small. I can see what the hawk sees, with her bright, fierce eyes. Our limitations do not define us. Our dreams may show us those apparent limitations, but they also show us that we are wild and free.

Can we open our wings? The next time you feel oppressed by your own problems—hurt, tired, helpless—ask yourself to see as the hawk sees. Ask yourself who you are, and how you might live this life you’ve been given. Dream your wings wide open. Whether you know it or not, you are always flying.

 

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Compass Dreamwork

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑