Remember Who You Are – Carol Dawn
This was my teaching at the gathering this year. Remember? It was my presentation., my teaching. “Men – grow up. Ladies – get over it”. I believe those were my words. I failed to realize just how much I was speaking to myself.
The Dream – last Thursday – 9/3/98
There were three main layers of the dream all occurring at the same time. The top dream layer had many strata with multiple levels of beings, many realms and realities.
We (I don’t know who) adults and many babies and young children – were on a platform made of wood – something like a stadium – and could see the other layers below us – no notice of anything above us.
The platform began to separate into planks. Planks “floated” in this atmosphere – thicker than air – less dense than water. We each had a number of babies on each of our planks. I was nursing babies, memories of that bond between mother and child is renewed in my mind. These are not my babies – I didn’t give birth to them. But I had the nurturing milk they needed. Some babies fell into the depths below (too many to save all of them – had to focus on the ones remaining) but no distress was expressed or felt. It was just part of the drama of life on this reality.
Some of the lower level beings were trying to reach our level and were a “danger” to all of us – but mostly the babies were in danger. There were also some beings like “us” who were trying to come “home” to where we were. We wanted to welcome the ones like us – who were safe – but we did not want the ones who were dangerous. The ones who were potentially harmful had learned to “look” like us. We had to develop a way of telling the “real” beings from the impersonators. We learned to look to see if they were wearing a wig (danger exposed) or if they had some kind of disguise (like in the movie Cocoon. We had to pull a piece of flesh to the side to look under it and see if they were real. When we discovered an imposter we would push them off the plank. They immediately sank to some unseen depths below. (Looking back – I don’t know if they were truly dangerous or just different – therefore perceived as dangerous)
We – on the planks – decided that we would have a better chance if we went in different directions. My group went to the right and the other to the left. ** In my Tantra studies, the Left Hand path follows the Mother Tantra – all things come from the void. It is formless and beyond body. The Right Hand path is of form / body and work in the world. ** There was no further contact with the left-hand group. After a while, my group and the strata below came to some kind of opening – similar to a cave. The atmosphere began to swirl into the opening but the separate strata were maintained. All down the cave/tunnel there were levels that one could have reached out to – grasped – and anchored. One could have chosen to stay on that level. I did not see anyone stop. The swirl continued and there was curiosity about where we might be going.
******** Dream layer # 2 – IN THE CLOSET
At the same time – different dream – simultaneously occurring. Yes! I dream in layers. Sometimes several dreams at one time. I could say something flip like, “It saves time”. But I don’t understand it. And more importantly, I don’t need to understand.
I was in a closet in my mother’s house (a real closet). Shelves with blankets, clothes, boxes, etc. Under the blankets was one of Daddy’s rifles. I wondered why it wasn’t in the safe with the other guns. Many hanging clothes – adult and many children and baby clothes. On the floor and elsewhere were sleeping bags, boxes, clothes hamper, folding table, chairs … many items stored. One of the items was a “stuff bag” filled with my dad’s things (Daddy died 10 years ago).
A group of women were having a garage sale in a side yard. Some of the closet items were taken to the sale. Decisions were being made about what to save and what to sell (get rid of).
Daddy came into the picture. **Frequently my work in other realms involves my family members who are no longer here. ** He had an electric saw (larger than a carving knife but smaller than a chain saw) and sawed the “stuff bag” in half with one quick movement – also halving all the items inside … a ball cap, a necklace bought for Mother but not given, fishing items, waders … many things. The message was don’t hang on to all that “old stuff”. Nothing was usable any more.
I am still in the closet and find an opening at the back of the closet. I go through the opening and find myself in a closet in my grandmother’s house. Some of the things I remember being there were still there. There were many other things – Everything from the quilt box, and many other things such as some rifles were leaning in the corner.
I open some of the boxes and find things Granny had put away. Many I had never before seen. I wondered about what meaning those things had for her … a scarf, jewelry, glasses, gloves, shoes ….
Then I found another opening at the back of that closet and was in the third level of the dream. I was still in the first layer on the plank, finding new planks when the ones we were using began to loose buoyancy. I was still wondering where the spiral was taking us. I was looking at the stop off places on the side and watching out for the babies and dangers.
Daddy was still “talking” about not holding onto the “stuff”. The women were still selling things in the garage sale. I was still sorting through old memories and stored treasures.
******* AND … Dream layer # 3 – THE CELLAR and BEYOND
I went through that door at the back of the closet in my grandmother’s house and went down steps into the cellar. There were canned goods, a rolled mattress – for when we stayed there during a storm, lanterns, oil … other things. Memories of childhood hours playing in that cellar flowed through my thoughts in the dream. I reminded myself to tell Mother about Daddy, the stuff and the cellar when I woke up. Yes … Again. I was aware of the dreams and was watching while I was participating. It’s something like watching three televisions at the same time.
While in the cellar I was thinking about where we could store more things. Everything was full to overflowing – no more room. Still I didn’t want to let go of anything, the past, the memories, the “stuff”.
I found an opening at the back of the cellar. This was familiar. It is a place I visit frequently. I have never gone down these steps past the third or fourth step. I stop short. I’m unsure why. There are many more things stored on the wide shelves at the left … willow and deer hide burden basket, boxes …. full of old stored memorabilia. I know that everything is intact, just as it was when it was put away. I begin to open boxes and look at the stuff.
“We” (several of us – I don’t know who) begin to gather lights, lanterns, sleeping bags, food … supplies for a trek into this place. It will be a long journey. I “know” that it connects to something important. I am eager to find out what is beyond the end of the steps and on the many levels to follow. I am glad to have company. I’m not really comfortable going alone.
As in the many visits before, I wake up before going to the depths.
Awake, I feel the importance of the dreams – the stuff – that has become overwhelming – “stuff” that has been stored for generations and lifetimes. I spend some time thinking, remembering, processing the dreams. I remember several nights earlier when I woke at 2:00 am with the same oppressive feelings. I remembered getting out of bed and gathering up books, papers, trash, and stacks of “not important” stuff and taking it to the garbage. Then I went back to bed and sleep. This happened in this reality.
The more I processed the feelings, the more I needed to go back to the dream and continue through the layers and depth to find out what was there … in the beyond place.
I went into a deep hypnotic trance, reconstructed the layers of the dreams, watched it unfold once again and once again I failed to go beyond where I had been before. After talking with a Jungian friend and analyzing parts of the dream, he pointed out all the detail and how that same detail “caught” me and held me in the past and in old memories.
***** Pause for comments
Now I am going to pause in this narrative and remind you that in February, the 18th and the 19th of this year (’98), I was hit quickly and very hard with a flare of Lupus, the first in several years. I couldn’t get out of bed and go to work because of the extreme pain throughout my body. My entire body had simply shut down. I hurt, slept, dreamed – woke up, went to the bathroom, ate and went back to sleep. Yes, I had worked too hard, pushed myself beyond reasonable limits. All those things trigger lupus flares.
At the same time, one of my spiritual colleagues, Beth Hin, cancelled a class she had scheduled. I found out about it from friends. This had never happened before. I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t know what to think but I knew that this was bigger than overwork. I knew there was a connection and Beth would be able to see from a perspective I couldn’t. A few days later I drove to Santa Fe to hear her lecture and to talk with her about what was happening. I knew that world events were involved, but I didn’t understand the specifics. That time period of a few days, was the time that there would have begun a Third World War if we were going to have one. Many of “us” (many “special” beings and, as nearly as I can determine, 60 to 100 thousand others) were involved in working with peace at that time. Some of us felt it as a deep physical blow to our bodies.
Other things were happening at the same time. Humanity of the planet was working with the Holocaust world scars that continue to plague us. Those of us who consciously do that sort of thing seldom talk about it publicly. We work quietly on an inner level with those forces for the good of all beings. There has not been a safe place to bring it into the world on an open and public level. “Hey – family, guess what I have been doing today. A few of us got together and worked with Christ and Buddha to heal some of the planetary wounds.” That might be acceptable for a Yogi in India but here in the West it is weird, crazy, schitzo, or simply “not OK” to talk about. “I’ve been on that road before and won’t go there again”. I have learned not to discuss it even with those I am most close to (part of the armor – and need for acceptance). It seems that I, among others, am coming out of the closet with who we are.
In our human past, the persecution, the prosecution, the sacrifice, and the eventual deaths experienced by many of us left deep scars in our psychic and emotional bodies. We learned that the world is not a safe place to be fully who we really are. We learned to armor ourselves against the judgements and the rigid beliefs of the world. Even if the “eternal lake of fire and damnation didn’t deter us”, the judgements of our family and friends tended to keep us quiet. There has been no “place” for the mystic, the spiritual practitioner in today’s modern “Western” world. We learned who to “not” talk to, who to guard against. “Do you know the difference between a mystic and a madman? The mystic has learned who ‘not’ to talk to” (psychology joke – not very funny is it?). We learned repeatedly that the world is not a safe place to be who we really are. It is difficult to release that kind of long tern learning. Then for many of us, those we did trust, betrayed us. (side-note) Many times this was our perception more than our reality, but whether our perceptual reality or our relative reality – it still was an unsafe world. We expected the world and people to be less than trust worthy. Our self fulfilling prophecy fulfilled itself – either in reality or in our perception or both. Once again we had proven the world to be unsafe (I and others – perhaps we unconsciously orchestrated the betrayals to confirm the view that the world is unsafe). We – “I” – could not allow my body, my form-self to be what my spirit was. This has always made it difficult to be in the world with others. My external world resembled Carlos Castanadas’ “controlled folly” and my inner world reality was the place I could be real and be me. The more fully I became the spiritual me, the less I knew how to participate in the external world. This paragraph is my story but it may be familiar and true for many others.
***** Another jump – The Gathering of Circles – August ’98
A Dream – Friday night.
I was asleep (in my dream) and became aware (still in the dream, a lucid dream within a non-lucid dream) of a dark figure leaning over me. This figure was going to kiss me and I would die “the kiss of death”. Still in the dream – I had fallen asleep with scissors in my hand. I had been cutting pictures for the gathering. I thought (in the dream ) “I will fool death” and I stabbed death. Death feel dead beside my bed. I jumped up and ran to a neighboring motel room to tell someone (a good friend) that I had beaten death. I couldn’t get the friend to wake up. I began to realize that I had no body. I couldn’t shake my friend nor could I speak. In my dream I was having an out of body experience. When I realized that I had no body a figure appeared beside me (perhaps Christ or Buddha). It was someone divine. I began to tell them of the death escape. Then realized that I had not fooled death, death had fooled me. We – the figure and I – began to laugh at the joke. It would not have been surprising if death had appeared in the room with us to laugh with us.
My silver cord began to gather in a coil at my feet, then dissolved. I said, “Wow, life is lots easier without dragging all that around”. We laughed again. The feeling of perfection and freedom remains with me. I can’t say that I continue to long for it but the memory is powerful.
*** Still at the Gathering – Saturday night
(This reality – not a dream) I went to another campsite, a place I had been before and I knew would be peaceful and safe. I went to take some of the intensity and difficulties to the Council of Elderhearts I work with. Some of these elders are human spirits with a live body. Others are departed human spirits who no longer have a body. Still many of the other members are no of this realm of reality. Usually I can’t “see” them (their form) clearly. They appear mostly as light or some other reflection of energy. I believe this is because my humanness has no context to translate their images (maybe they have no image).
The council immediately relieved my distress and assured me that there was no cause to be concerned about any of the events that were troubling me. It was all “insignificant” happenings that I need not give any energy to.
Grandfather David, a long departed Hopi elder who I have known about but never met – at least in this reality – came to me and gave me some information and instruction. The information was about one of the eight realms I am familiar with — outside this earth realm of reality. He told me that one of those “worlds” no longer existed. He tried to explain. I could not comprehend. Those eight realms and earth are closely bound together. What happens in one place has direct effect on the others. For Christians – and Buddhist – the Christ energy and the Buddha energy is equally active on those worlds. There was no regret or loss about that realm. It was something like they had been moved someplace else. That realm had experienced “extreme” and destructive events. I still don’t understand.
As I began to write about the instructions, I had the feelings that it was just for me – no need to share. So I won’t for now. I am still processing the gathering. Thank you to my secret angle and to Fran for the cards. Thank you for the prayers. I feel you near. Yes, I hear you when you call me and yes, I was really there. For some others – I don’t know. We will see when it is time. I’m getting mysterious aren’t I? Sorry. If all that means nothing to you forget it. Listen for your own instructions. We all have a direct line.
Back to the lupus flare. Six months have passed and the pain still controls my life. I walk the line between life and death – literally. Many of you were aware of that at the gathering. I cannot imagine any way to continue to live in this body and in this life. Once again the homesickness hits me. This was the first time in many years I had felt this thread of sadness about being on the planet as a human being. I thought I had learned to be in the world, be full of joy, see the “Maya” – the illusion, and enjoy the action of the play and the audience. Now, with the pain, both physical and spiritual — “I just want to go home”. I want to go home to the peace, the bliss, the joy … all that I remember from “beyond” life. I am tired. My body won’t work. My mind is in a fog. I wonder if I am finally finished with all my commitments in this life. “Please, God, Let me be finished here and come home”. I don’t know of anything left that I must do. I am ready and eager to go home. Nothing speaks to me to stay on this plane. I say my goodbyes in subtle ways and leave notes to people. Then I wait for the “big” transformation and transcendence. It does not come. More to do I suppose. OK.
***
I remember another dream. A dream I had two weeks before the time that I write this.- a dream that was not a dream. I was fully awake. I was with friends in Santa Fe. It was night and I was ready to go to sleep. I felt very bad … pain, ache, distress, and a rare feeling of deep loneliness and longing to be lovingly held. My silence and my solitude is my refuge, my place of being in full union with everything. Loneliness is not a familiar feeling for me. It is when I am alone that I recognize and bask in my union with the divine. I haven’t felt lonely in many years. As I lie there on Susan and Lynn’s bed and think about who I might choose to be with if I had my magic wand with me. I can’t think of anyone – I float into a place free of pain. A very idealistic and archetypal “beautiful, white, lady of light” sits on the bed beside me. She radiates such brilliance my eyes can’t focus on her. I simply bask in the feelings. She touches my forehead, lies down beside me and moves in (into me). I think, “It is over”. This is the transformation I knew was coming. It wasn’t over. The following two weeks were very difficult. School began, people filled my life, and pain filled my body.
My dreams and my incapacitated body are my teachers. When I fail to listen to what I know and when I fail to learn, my body goes on strike and refuses to play any longer. It requires me to be still and pay attention. I sleep and dreams teach me. I have been taught this way in the past and will probably be taught in the same way in the future. My body and my dreams continue to try and provide the lessons but I am not getting it. Then the dream / vision / teaching, that I began this story with, happened. It is too big, too powerful to “not get”. It was something of a sledge hammer to my armored mind.
Again, I consciously recreate the dream, the layers, the babies, the flow, the dangers, the going “through and to” the depths, again and again. I move through the stored memories and “stuff” again and again. Then I sit down and just do it. I go to the place beyond the last step.
I find myself surrounded by moist earth, sweet smells, no clutter, nothing stored away, just pure clean peace. This is also a place I’ve been before … with the Mescalara Apache women – twenty or twenty five years ago, with a spirit guide, many times with Shamanic journeys. I am not alone. There is no light but it is not dark. Everything feels right.
The next day I work for a few hours then go to the mountains (this reality, in my car). I drive – for hours. I listen to the tape of Beth’s lecture – for the ump-teenth time. I hear things I have not heard before. I stop many times and make notes to myself.
“Couldn’t I be separate from the world just a bit? Couldn’t I protect myself in just a few places? I am afraid of ‘God in Creation’ – afraid I will not be supported – not supported in health, in relationships, financially – this body, this physical state is my enemy. I am not safe on this plane of existence. I have been killed too many times to risk being killed once again. I don’t want to stay in world where we are coming into Vedanta – into union. I am not safe here if I have to be in union. I want my refuge. I want to go home.”
On this drive, I see what I think is an eagle from the corner of my vision. I stop, get the binoculars and get out to watch it. I see many ravens and think “I must have been wrong, no eagle”. Then I see it, sitting in the top of a dead tree. I watch until it flies into the distance. As I return to my car, another vehicle stops and asks me if I want to buy a rug (remember, I am on the Navajo Reservation). A long story later … of age, death of her only son by stabbing, clan responsibilities, the high cost of her new pickup truck, money orders, my cedar bead necklace, the fact that I look “pretty” when I put my hat on (what do I look like without it), grandchildren, and hay for the stock … I buy the rug from Leta, Leta of Luckachuka. This all happens on the side of a rutted, dirt, mountain back-road. I don’t ask for her last name. It is too personal to ask for “other” names. And we have already made eye contact. That is deeply personal and rarely done. Neither of us is willing to get any more intimate.
In an old Star Trek episode, an energy borrows the physical body of one of the characters and says, “How lonely it – is isolated within this form”. I know the depth of the emotion of the statement.
Beth’s tape is referring to the armoring I mentioned earlier. She is addressing the shift into the “5th world” the Hopi talk of. She reminds me that we are creating this new way of being. “We are creating the model of this new-world paradigm.” She is reminding me/us that:
“we can no longer keep hidden who we really are. We must open the doors of union – open the navel – become the etheric body – nature will teach you the union with the cells of your body – heal any place you are afraid of being killed – feel the soul grief of how much you had to sit on your kundalini so that you did not become an ecstatic (in a world where there is no room – no safe place – for the ecstatic).”
“Feel the 108 meridians of the chakra systems. Feel the transpersonal points above the crown chakra. Discover the 1008 meridians from the 108. Discover the connections to “beyond.”
I seem to remove my skin or it dissolves – not in the ethers or an altered reality – or a dream – but here in the woods in my car, driving this back road through the mountains. There is no longer any separation, anywhere, between anything. The total union with nature and the earth (that previously – I was certain I already knew fully and understood completely), suddenly multiplied by thousands in intensity. I take it all into my body and it takes me into it. I have been in these mountains many time in the past several years. The sweet smell of pine, the blue and green colors of the spruce, sage, cedar, the coolness of the air, the flowing mountain springs … it always nurtures my soul – sings to my heart, and heals my spirit. I am always struck in awe with the beauty. This is so much more – when I thought there could not be any more.
Easy! Nothing new, nothing I haven’t always known – you have always known. Nothing we haven’t all talked about intimately in small circles for years now. Nothing we haven’t said to each other – time and time again. Bigger that our conceptions. Oneness. Union. At-one-ment.
The tape said, “You will now live HERE (now, this reality, this body), what you have wanted to die to become”. You, my reader, will either understand that or you won’t. I can’t explain any further. I probably wouldn’t even if I could. It is experience discovered not shared through words. “I am pointing my finger at the moon.” Look or not.
The moral to the story….
Probably more than I will understand for years. Realization, enlightenment, everything is here and it is now and we are creating a new way of being. All we, “I”, have been reaching for is here and it is now. It is all happening in this body. I don’t have to go anyplace to be there.
Simple isn’t it? How do I do it? I will learn. It is safe. The old “stuff” is not valid. Old ways no longer work. We can keep important truths but must discard dogma. It no longer serves a purpose. There is nothing to protect. The ‘god me’ can’t be killed. My armor only keeps me from the sacred. Acceptance or rejection does not exist. I am that which is.
****** Requirements, for now …
- Live in and with my body in the here and now.
- Lupus/pain/death, they are only experiences, impermanent, insignificant.
- Seeing a behavior to be clearly erroneous and spiritually unhealthy – remain still – be not carried into it.
- Know that the sought after “there” is now here.
- Understand that I need no protection. My body may be healed and it may have more lessons to teach me. It is all equal.
- Cultivate the free spirit of detachment — with full appreciation.
- Have no attachments and simultaneously participate fully in life.
- Feel the joy of the moment.
- Be aware of my physical body, my ethereal body, the dissolution of all my subtle bodies – my causal body.
- Live life as if God couldn’t come and sent me instead.
No, the work is not ended. The samscara (world scars) we carry from the time of the crucifixion, the attempt to poison the Buddha, the violence perpetrated in the name of God, the falls from grace, all this must be healed. It must be a unified process of healing for and by the entire planet.
Children are coming into the world free of veils of ignorance. Young people are learning very quickly what took many of us a lifetime to learn (some of them are beginning to give up on us). There are lessons to be learned from our differences. Sacred marriage is required – internal marriage of the opposites and the marriage of the masculine and feminine in the external world as equals – is necessary for growth for the whole. We are all teachers of each other. There are gateways for me to keep open and new ones to be opened. The violent temper tantrums of fear must be healed. We have to create a safe place for all beings, here and on other realms.
I remain here until time to go. I renew my commitment to me, and to the sacred, and to the Boddhisattva vows. I live in joy and beauty (and perhaps pain). I live in gratitude.
She’ Atsah,
My eagle you are,
flying , soaring so high,
far above earth cares.
‘Till the weight of the world
draws you down
to speak, to serve
to show others
how to open their wings
how to stretch, to jump
to make tiny leaps of faith
and finally fly – then die.
I puzzle – deep thought,
blood on my wings
soon to dry.
What source?
Where is it from?
What wound
has spread it’s life
on my dark wing feathers?
Is it my own pierced heart?
Or have my talons
released the fountain
of some dear kin?
It seems not to matter now.
the circle begins once more.
new life, new flight
with no hindward glance.
My wings are spread
red tail feathers fanned
to balance my flight
or stay my speed, if need be.
We circle together, Eagle … hawk
in joy, in beauty
above … beyond
then, return to walk again.
This was my teaching at the gathering this year. Remember? It was my presentation., my teaching. “Men – grow up. Ladies – get over it”. I believe those were my words. I failed to realize just how much I was speaking to myself.
The Dream – last Thursday – 9/3/98
There were three main layers of the dream all occurring at the same time. The top dream layer had many strata with multiple levels of beings, many realms and realities.
We (I don’t know who) adults and many babies and young children – were on a platform made of wood – something like a stadium – and could see the other layers below us – no notice of anything above us.
The platform began to separate into planks. Planks “floated” in this atmosphere – thicker than air – less dense than water. We each had a number of babies on each of our planks. I was nursing babies, memories of that bond between mother and child is renewed in my mind. These are not my babies – I didn’t give birth to them. But I had the nurturing milk they needed. Some babies fell into the depths below (too many to save all of them – had to focus on the ones remaining) but no distress was expressed or felt. It was just part of the drama of life on this reality.
Some of the lower level beings were trying to reach our level and were a “danger” to all of us – but mostly the babies were in danger. There were also some beings like “us” who were trying to come “home” to where we were. We wanted to welcome the ones like us – who were safe – but we did not want the ones who were dangerous. The ones who were potentially harmful had learned to “look” like us. We had to develop a way of telling the “real” beings from the impersonators. We learned to look to see if they were wearing a wig (danger exposed) or if they had some kind of disguise (like in the movie Cocoon. We had to pull a piece of flesh to the side to look under it and see if they were real. When we discovered an imposter we would push them off the plank. They immediately sank to some unseen depths below. (Looking back – I don’t know if they were truly dangerous or just different – therefore perceived as dangerous)
We – on the planks – decided that we would have a better chance if we went in different directions. My group went to the right and the other to the left. ** In my Tantra studies, the Left Hand path follows the Mother Tantra – all things come from the void. It is formless and beyond body. The Right Hand path is of form / body and work in the world. ** There was no further contact with the left-hand group. After a while, my group and the strata below came to some kind of opening – similar to a cave. The atmosphere began to swirl into the opening but the separate strata were maintained. All down the cave/tunnel there were levels that one could have reached out to – grasped – and anchored. One could have chosen to stay on that level. I did not see anyone stop. The swirl continued and there was curiosity about where we might be going.
******** Dream layer # 2 – IN THE CLOSET
At the same time – different dream – simultaneously occurring. Yes! I dream in layers. Sometimes several dreams at one time. I could say something flip like, “It saves time”. But I don’t understand it. And more importantly, I don’t need to understand.
I was in a closet in my mother’s house (a real closet). Shelves with blankets, clothes, boxes, etc. Under the blankets was one of Daddy’s rifles. I wondered why it wasn’t in the safe with the other guns. Many hanging clothes – adult and many children and baby clothes. On the floor and elsewhere were sleeping bags, boxes, clothes hamper, folding table, chairs … many items stored. One of the items was a “stuff bag” filled with my dad’s things (Daddy died 10 years ago).
A group of women were having a garage sale in a side yard. Some of the closet items were taken to the sale. Decisions were being made about what to save and what to sell (get rid of).
Daddy came into the picture. **Frequently my work in other realms involves my family members who are no longer here. ** He had an electric saw (larger than a carving knife but smaller than a chain saw) and sawed the “stuff bag” in half with one quick movement – also halving all the items inside … a ball cap, a necklace bought for Mother but not given, fishing items, waders … many things. The message was don’t hang on to all that “old stuff”. Nothing was usable any more.
I am still in the closet and find an opening at the back of the closet. I go through the opening and find myself in a closet in my grandmother’s house. Some of the things I remember being there were still there. There were many other things – Everything from the quilt box, and many other things such as some rifles were leaning in the corner.
I open some of the boxes and find things Granny had put away. Many I had never before seen. I wondered about what meaning those things had for her … a scarf, jewelry, glasses, gloves, shoes ….
Then I found another opening at the back of that closet and was in the third level of the dream. I was still in the first layer on the plank, finding new planks when the ones we were using began to loose buoyancy. I was still wondering where the spiral was taking us. I was looking at the stop off places on the side and watching out for the babies and dangers.
Daddy was still “talking” about not holding onto the “stuff”. The women were still selling things in the garage sale. I was still sorting through old memories and stored treasures.
******* AND … Dream layer # 3 – THE CELLAR and BEYOND
I went through that door at the back of the closet in my grandmother’s house and went down steps into the cellar. There were canned goods, a rolled mattress – for when we stayed there during a storm, lanterns, oil … other things. Memories of childhood hours playing in that cellar flowed through my thoughts in the dream. I reminded myself to tell Mother about Daddy, the stuff and the cellar when I woke up. Yes … Again. I was aware of the dreams and was watching while I was participating. It’s something like watching three televisions at the same time.
While in the cellar I was thinking about where we could store more things. Everything was full to overflowing – no more room. Still I didn’t want to let go of anything, the past, the memories, the “stuff”.
I found an opening at the back of the cellar. This was familiar. It is a place I visit frequently. I have never gone down these steps past the third or fourth step. I stop short. I’m unsure why. There are many more things stored on the wide shelves at the left … willow and deer hide burden basket, boxes …. full of old stored memorabilia. I know that everything is intact, just as it was when it was put away. I begin to open boxes and look at the stuff.
“We” (several of us – I don’t know who) begin to gather lights, lanterns, sleeping bags, food … supplies for a trek into this place. It will be a long journey. I “know” that it connects to something important. I am eager to find out what is beyond the end of the steps and on the many levels to follow. I am glad to have company. I’m not really comfortable going alone.
As in the many visits before, I wake up before going to the depths.
Awake, I feel the importance of the dreams – the stuff – that has become overwhelming – “stuff” that has been stored for generations and lifetimes. I spend some time thinking, remembering, processing the dreams. I remember several nights earlier when I woke at 2:00 am with the same oppressive feelings. I remembered getting out of bed and gathering up books, papers, trash, and stacks of “not important” stuff and taking it to the garbage. Then I went back to bed and sleep. This happened in this reality.
The more I processed the feelings, the more I needed to go back to the dream and continue through the layers and depth to find out what was there … in the beyond place.
I went into a deep hypnotic trance, reconstructed the layers of the dreams, watched it unfold once again and once again I failed to go beyond where I had been before. After talking with a Jungian friend and analyzing parts of the dream, he pointed out all the detail and how that same detail “caught” me and held me in the past and in old memories.
***** Pause for comments
Now I am going to pause in this narrative and remind you that in February, the 18th and the 19th of this year (’98), I was hit quickly and very hard with a flare of Lupus, the first in several years. I couldn’t get out of bed and go to work because of the extreme pain throughout my body. My entire body had simply shut down. I hurt, slept, dreamed – woke up, went to the bathroom, ate and went back to sleep. Yes, I had worked too hard, pushed myself beyond reasonable limits. All those things trigger lupus flares.
At the same time, one of my spiritual colleagues, Beth Hin, cancelled a class she had scheduled. I found out about it from friends. This had never happened before. I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t know what to think but I knew that this was bigger than overwork. I knew there was a connection and Beth would be able to see from a perspective I couldn’t. A few days later I drove to Santa Fe to hear her lecture and to talk with her about what was happening. I knew that world events were involved, but I didn’t understand the specifics. That time period of a few days, was the time that there would have begun a Third World War if we were going to have one. Many of “us” (many “special” beings and, as nearly as I can determine, 60 to 100 thousand others) were involved in working with peace at that time. Some of us felt it as a deep physical blow to our bodies.
Other things were happening at the same time. Humanity of the planet was working with the Holocaust world scars that continue to plague us. Those of us who consciously do that sort of thing seldom talk about it publicly. We work quietly on an inner level with those forces for the good of all beings. There has not been a safe place to bring it into the world on an open and public level. “Hey – family, guess what I have been doing today. A few of us got together and worked with Christ and Buddha to heal some of the planetary wounds.” That might be acceptable for a Yogi in India but here in the West it is weird, crazy, schitzo, or simply “not OK” to talk about. “I’ve been on that road before and won’t go there again”. I have learned not to discuss it even with those I am most close to (part of the armor – and need for acceptance). It seems that I, among others, am coming out of the closet with who we are.
In our human past, the persecution, the prosecution, the sacrifice, and the eventual deaths experienced by many of us left deep scars in our psychic and emotional bodies. We learned that the world is not a safe place to be fully who we really are. We learned to armor ourselves against the judgements and the rigid beliefs of the world. Even if the “eternal lake of fire and damnation didn’t deter us”, the judgements of our family and friends tended to keep us quiet. There has been no “place” for the mystic, the spiritual practitioner in today’s modern “Western” world. We learned who to “not” talk to, who to guard against. “Do you know the difference between a mystic and a madman? The mystic has learned who ‘not’ to talk to” (psychology joke – not very funny is it?). We learned repeatedly that the world is not a safe place to be who we really are. It is difficult to release that kind of long tern learning. Then for many of us, those we did trust, betrayed us. (side-note) Many times this was our perception more than our reality, but whether our perceptual reality or our relative reality – it still was an unsafe world. We expected the world and people to be less than trust worthy. Our self fulfilling prophecy fulfilled itself – either in reality or in our perception or both. Once again we had proven the world to be unsafe (I and others – perhaps we unconsciously orchestrated the betrayals to confirm the view that the world is unsafe). We – “I” – could not allow my body, my form-self to be what my spirit was. This has always made it difficult to be in the world with others. My external world resembled Carlos Castanadas’ “controlled folly” and my inner world reality was the place I could be real and be me. The more fully I became the spiritual me, the less I knew how to participate in the external world. This paragraph is my story but it may be familiar and true for many others.
***** Another jump – The Gathering of Circles – August ’98
A Dream – Friday night.
I was asleep (in my dream) and became aware (still in the dream, a lucid dream within a non-lucid dream) of a dark figure leaning over me. This figure was going to kiss me and I would die “the kiss of death”. Still in the dream – I had fallen asleep with scissors in my hand. I had been cutting pictures for the gathering. I thought (in the dream ) “I will fool death” and I stabbed death. Death feel dead beside my bed. I jumped up and ran to a neighboring motel room to tell someone (a good friend) that I had beaten death. I couldn’t get the friend to wake up. I began to realize that I had no body. I couldn’t shake my friend nor could I speak. In my dream I was having an out of body experience. When I realized that I had no body a figure appeared beside me (perhaps Christ or Buddha). It was someone divine. I began to tell them of the death escape. Then realized that I had not fooled death, death had fooled me. We – the figure and I – began to laugh at the joke. It would not have been surprising if death had appeared in the room with us to laugh with us.
My silver cord began to gather in a coil at my feet, then dissolved. I said, “Wow, life is lots easier without dragging all that around”. We laughed again. The feeling of perfection and freedom remains with me. I can’t say that I continue to long for it but the memory is powerful.
*** Still at the Gathering – Saturday night
(This reality – not a dream) I went to another campsite, a place I had been before and I knew would be peaceful and safe. I went to take some of the intensity and difficulties to the Council of Elderhearts I work with. Some of these elders are human spirits with a live body. Others are departed human spirits who no longer have a body. Still many of the other members are no of this realm of reality. Usually I can’t “see” them (their form) clearly. They appear mostly as light or some other reflection of energy. I believe this is because my humanness has no context to translate their images (maybe they have no image).
The council immediately relieved my distress and assured me that there was no cause to be concerned about any of the events that were troubling me. It was all “insignificant” happenings that I need not give any energy to.
Grandfather David, a long departed Hopi elder who I have known about but never met – at least in this reality – came to me and gave me some information and instruction. The information was about one of the eight realms I am familiar with — outside this earth realm of reality. He told me that one of those “worlds” no longer existed. He tried to explain. I could not comprehend. Those eight realms and earth are closely bound together. What happens in one place has direct effect on the others. For Christians – and Buddhist – the Christ energy and the Buddha energy is equally active on those worlds. There was no regret or loss about that realm. It was something like they had been moved someplace else. That realm had experienced “extreme” and destructive events. I still don’t understand.
As I began to write about the instructions, I had the feelings that it was just for me – no need to share. So I won’t for now. I am still processing the gathering. Thank you to my secret angle and to Fran for the cards. Thank you for the prayers. I feel you near. Yes, I hear you when you call me and yes, I was really there. For some others – I don’t know. We will see when it is time. I’m getting mysterious aren’t I? Sorry. If all that means nothing to you forget it. Listen for your own instructions. We all have a direct line.
Back to the lupus flare. Six months have passed and the pain still controls my life. I walk the line between life and death – literally. Many of you were aware of that at the gathering. I cannot imagine any way to continue to live in this body and in this life. Once again the homesickness hits me. This was the first time in many years I had felt this thread of sadness about being on the planet as a human being. I thought I had learned to be in the world, be full of joy, see the “Maya” – the illusion, and enjoy the action of the play and the audience. Now, with the pain, both physical and spiritual — “I just want to go home”. I want to go home to the peace, the bliss, the joy … all that I remember from “beyond” life. I am tired. My body won’t work. My mind is in a fog. I wonder if I am finally finished with all my commitments in this life. “Please, God, Let me be finished here and come home”. I don’t know of anything left that I must do. I am ready and eager to go home. Nothing speaks to me to stay on this plane. I say my goodbyes in subtle ways and leave notes to people. Then I wait for the “big” transformation and transcendence. It does not come. More to do I suppose. OK.
***
I remember another dream. A dream I had two weeks before the time that I write this.- a dream that was not a dream. I was fully awake. I was with friends in Santa Fe. It was night and I was ready to go to sleep. I felt very bad … pain, ache, distress, and a rare feeling of deep loneliness and longing to be lovingly held. My silence and my solitude is my refuge, my place of being in full union with everything. Loneliness is not a familiar feeling for me. It is when I am alone that I recognize and bask in my union with the divine. I haven’t felt lonely in many years. As I lie there on Susan and Lynn’s bed and think about who I might choose to be with if I had my magic wand with me. I can’t think of anyone – I float into a place free of pain. A very idealistic and archetypal “beautiful, white, lady of light” sits on the bed beside me. She radiates such brilliance my eyes can’t focus on her. I simply bask in the feelings. She touches my forehead, lies down beside me and moves in (into me). I think, “It is over”. This is the transformation I knew was coming. It wasn’t over. The following two weeks were very difficult. School began, people filled my life, and pain filled my body.
My dreams and my incapacitated body are my teachers. When I fail to listen to what I know and when I fail to learn, my body goes on strike and refuses to play any longer. It requires me to be still and pay attention. I sleep and dreams teach me. I have been taught this way in the past and will probably be taught in the same way in the future. My body and my dreams continue to try and provide the lessons but I am not getting it. Then the dream / vision / teaching, that I began this story with, happened. It is too big, too powerful to “not get”. It was something of a sledge hammer to my armored mind.
Again, I consciously recreate the dream, the layers, the babies, the flow, the dangers, the going “through and to” the depths, again and again. I move through the stored memories and “stuff” again and again. Then I sit down and just do it. I go to the place beyond the last step.
I find myself surrounded by moist earth, sweet smells, no clutter, nothing stored away, just pure clean peace. This is also a place I’ve been before … with the Mescalara Apache women – twenty or twenty five years ago, with a spirit guide, many times with Shamanic journeys. I am not alone. There is no light but it is not dark. Everything feels right.
The next day I work for a few hours then go to the mountains (this reality, in my car). I drive – for hours. I listen to the tape of Beth’s lecture – for the ump-teenth time. I hear things I have not heard before. I stop many times and make notes to myself.
“Couldn’t I be separate from the world just a bit? Couldn’t I protect myself in just a few places? I am afraid of ‘God in Creation’ – afraid I will not be supported – not supported in health, in relationships, financially – this body, this physical state is my enemy. I am not safe on this plane of existence. I have been killed too many times to risk being killed once again. I don’t want to stay in world where we are coming into Vedanta – into union. I am not safe here if I have to be in union. I want my refuge. I want to go home.”
On this drive, I see what I think is an eagle from the corner of my vision. I stop, get the binoculars and get out to watch it. I see many ravens and think “I must have been wrong, no eagle”. Then I see it, sitting in the top of a dead tree. I watch until it flies into the distance. As I return to my car, another vehicle stops and asks me if I want to buy a rug (remember, I am on the Navajo Reservation). A long story later … of age, death of her only son by stabbing, clan responsibilities, the high cost of her new pickup truck, money orders, my cedar bead necklace, the fact that I look “pretty” when I put my hat on (what do I look like without it), grandchildren, and hay for the stock … I buy the rug from Leta, Leta of Luckachuka. This all happens on the side of a rutted, dirt, mountain back-road. I don’t ask for her last name. It is too personal to ask for “other” names. And we have already made eye contact. That is deeply personal and rarely done. Neither of us is willing to get any more intimate.
In an old Star Trek episode, an energy borrows the physical body of one of the characters and says, “How lonely it – is isolated within this form”. I know the depth of the emotion of the statement.
Beth’s tape is referring to the armoring I mentioned earlier. She is addressing the shift into the “5th world” the Hopi talk of. She reminds me that we are creating this new way of being. “We are creating the model of this new-world paradigm.” She is reminding me/us that:
“we can no longer keep hidden who we really are. We must open the doors of union – open the navel – become the etheric body – nature will teach you the union with the cells of your body – heal any place you are afraid of being killed – feel the soul grief of how much you had to sit on your kundalini so that you did not become an ecstatic (in a world where there is no room – no safe place – for the ecstatic).”
“Feel the 108 meridians of the chakra systems. Feel the transpersonal points above the crown chakra. Discover the 1008 meridians from the 108. Discover the connections to “beyond.”
I seem to remove my skin or it dissolves – not in the ethers or an altered reality – or a dream – but here in the woods in my car, driving this back road through the mountains. There is no longer any separation, anywhere, between anything. The total union with nature and the earth (that previously – I was certain I already knew fully and understood completely), suddenly multiplied by thousands in intensity. I take it all into my body and it takes me into it. I have been in these mountains many time in the past several years. The sweet smell of pine, the blue and green colors of the spruce, sage, cedar, the coolness of the air, the flowing mountain springs … it always nurtures my soul – sings to my heart, and heals my spirit. I am always struck in awe with the beauty. This is so much more – when I thought there could not be any more.
Easy! Nothing new, nothing I haven’t always known – you have always known. Nothing we haven’t all talked about intimately in small circles for years now. Nothing we haven’t said to each other – time and time again. Bigger that our conceptions. Oneness. Union. At-one-ment.
The tape said, “You will now live HERE (now, this reality, this body), what you have wanted to die to become”. You, my reader, will either understand that or you won’t. I can’t explain any further. I probably wouldn’t even if I could. It is experience discovered not shared through words. “I am pointing my finger at the moon.” Look or not.
The moral to the story….
Probably more than I will understand for years. Realization, enlightenment, everything is here and it is now and we are creating a new way of being. All we, “I”, have been reaching for is here and it is now. It is all happening in this body. I don’t have to go anyplace to be there.
Simple isn’t it? How do I do it? I will learn. It is safe. The old “stuff” is not valid. Old ways no longer work. We can keep important truths but must discard dogma. It no longer serves a purpose. There is nothing to protect. The ‘god me’ can’t be killed. My armor only keeps me from the sacred. Acceptance or rejection does not exist. I am that which is.
****** Requirements, for now …
- Live in and with my body in the here and now.
- Lupus/pain/death, they are only experiences, impermanent, insignificant.
- Seeing a behavior to be clearly erroneous and spiritually unhealthy – remain still – be not carried into it.
- Know that the sought after “there” is now here.
- Understand that I need no protection. My body may be healed and it may have more lessons to teach me. It is all equal.
- Cultivate the free spirit of detachment — with full appreciation.
- Have no attachments and simultaneously participate fully in life.
- Feel the joy of the moment.
- Be aware of my physical body, my ethereal body, the dissolution of all my subtle bodies – my causal body.
- Live life as if God couldn’t come and sent me instead.
No, the work is not ended. The samscara (world scars) we carry from the time of the crucifixion, the attempt to poison the Buddha, the violence perpetrated in the name of God, the falls from grace, all this must be healed. It must be a unified process of healing for and by the entire planet.
Children are coming into the world free of veils of ignorance. Young people are learning very quickly what took many of us a lifetime to learn (some of them are beginning to give up on us). There are lessons to be learned from our differences. Sacred marriage is required – internal marriage of the opposites and the marriage of the masculine and feminine in the external world as equals – is necessary for growth for the whole. We are all teachers of each other. There are gateways for me to keep open and new ones to be opened. The violent temper tantrums of fear must be healed. We have to create a safe place for all beings, here and on other realms.
I remain here until time to go. I renew my commitment to me, and to the sacred, and to the Boddhisattva vows. I live in joy and beauty (and perhaps pain). I live in gratitude.
She’ Atsah,
My eagle you are,
flying , soaring so high,
far above earth cares.
‘Till the weight of the world
draws you down
to speak, to serve
to show others
how to open their wings
how to stretch, to jump
to make tiny leaps of faith
and finally fly – then die.
I puzzle – deep thought,
blood on my wings
soon to dry.
What source?
Where is it from?
What wound
has spread it’s life
on my dark wing feathers?
Is it my own pierced heart?
Or have my talons
released the fountain
of some dear kin?
It seems not to matter now.
the circle begins once more.
new life, new flight
with no hindward glance.
My wings are spread
red tail feathers fanned
to balance my flight
or stay my speed, if need be.
We circle together, Eagle … hawk
in joy, in beauty
above … beyond
then, return to walk again.