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Dream Gates

Shamans use poetry, sung or spoken, to achieve ends that go deeper than our consensual world. They create poetic songs of power to invoke spiritual help; to journey into nonordinary reality; to open and maintain a space between the worlds where interaction between humans and multidimensional beings can take place and to bring energy and…

Poets, it’s said, are shamans of words. True shamans are poets of consciousness. Journeying into a deeper reality with the aid of sung and spoken poetry, they bring back energy and healing through poetic acts, shapeshifting physical systems. When we dream, we tap directly into the same creative source from which poets and shamans derive…

Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright-eyed Fancy, hov’ring o’er, Scatters from her pictur’d urn Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. The lines are from Thomas Gray’s Progress of Poesy. The image is derived from William Blake’s illustration, originally rendered in ink and watercolor over pencil drawing. You can view the original in the…

Contrary to what we are often told, dreaming is not fundamentally about what happens during sleep. It’s about waking up.  In ordinary life, we are often in the condition of sleepwalkers, going through the motions, trying to keep up with pre-set schedules and to meet other people’s expectations and requirements. We let other people determine…

It’s never been said better than in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” In the sacred psychology of the Malay bomoh (shamanic healer), the…

Don’t let anyone tell you what your dreams mean. And never do that to anyone else. This is the golden rule of dream-sharing.  One of the great contributions of the American dreamwork movement has been to insist that dreams belong to the dreamers. As Henry Reed, a PhD in psychology and one of the founders…

I’ve been writing a lot about women and horses recently, for example in my recent essay here on Dream Horses. I received a beautiful account of a horse dream that carried a woman through the pain of a bruising divorce. It gave her the courage to cross a continent, as a single mother with young…

The great ancient dream interpreter, Artemidorus, insisted that the meaning of a dream symbol is connected to the life situation, and especially the occupation, of the dreamer. Losing a tooth or having sex in a certain position means something different depending on whether you are rich or poor, a scholar or a laborer, a seaman…

A huge, woolly bear in fierce warrior guise is storming through many scenes of battle. Her footfalls make thunder in the earth. Soldiers of an ancient army crumple before her, as if a mountain has fallen on them. I have been watching from a distance. Now a portal opens before me. It is a high stone…

What is it that nourishes the soul? This is a marvelous question to ask any day, and in relation to any life choice. I have put the question to quite a few people. Here are some responses: Puppy breath swing dancing like my father taught me beach time no plans and a good book trees hugs drinking the…
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