Dreamwalking to Wake up to Our Belonging
To dreamwalk, we must first realize that the Earth has a consciousness and soul with which we can build a relationship. Philosophers often call this world soul the “Anima Mundi.” Although it may not speak to us in full, grammatically correct sentences, the Anima Mundi does communicate with us. It speaks the language of the dream world, sending messages through our experiences in waking life, which can then be explored as symbols, metaphors, images, emotions or tones. These types of coded messages speak to a deep space of inner knowing – one that is also engaged when we are dreaming, imagining or creating. We can therefore explore them in many of the same ways that we might explore the symbols from our night dreams.
Dreamwalking to Wake up to Our Belonging
By Katy Pavlis
It is important to remember that we are a part of the web of life, and that we belong here as a part of the living and breathing Earth. The false story of humanity as separate breeds imbalance and disruption. An inner awareness of our belonging to the web of life is needed in order for us to make sustainable and lasting changes to the way we live as a species. One of the ways to deepen our connection to the web of life is through dreamwalking with the Earth.
To dreamwalk, we must first realize that the Earth has a consciousness and soul with which we can build a relationship. Philosophers often call this world soul the “Anima Mundi.” Although it may not speak to us in full, grammatically correct sentences, the Anima Mundi does communicate with us. It speaks the language of the dream world, sending messages through our experiences in waking life, which can then be explored as symbols, metaphors, images, emotions or tones. These types of coded messages speak to a deep space of inner knowing – one that is also engaged when we are dreaming, imagining or creating. We can therefore explore them in many of the same ways that we might explore the symbols from our night dreams.
To begin building our relationship with the Anima Mundi we must focus our attention and curiosity on connecting with the Earth. Turning towards the Earth is the equivalent of saying, “Hello!” Such acknowledgement creates the beginnings of deeper connection and reciprocity. Energy follows intention. The more we turn our attention towards someone or something, the more the relationship grows.
When we go on a dreamwalk, our intention is to deepen our connection to the web of life. To do this we first ask the Anima Mundi, “How can I know you better? How can I feel and remember that I am a part of you?” You might be wondering exactly how to ask the Earth a question. For me, I take a moment to hold my question in my heart and mind. The question is delivered once my intention feels deeply rooted in my thoughts and feelings. It is at this point that I set out on my walk. Remaining in silence for the duration of the walk is important so that we are not distracted, freeing us to perceive fully through the senses.
To hear the answer, we must listen with our dreamer’s mind that speaks the language of symbol and soul. Intending to listen to the voice of the Earth as an oracle we must notice everything! What signs, symbols, plants or creatures are capturing our imagination? Bring your full curiosity to this process and trust everything that comes. Let the images of the natural world capture your imagination and awaken your unconscious mind. Everything we experience is part of the answer to our question – a message speaking to us directly from the soul of the Earth.
Let your dreamwalk be free from judgment and the need to reach a definite conclusion. There is always time in the future to explore the many layers of meaning presented to you through various dreamworking methods, researching symbols or seeing what wakes up in your inner knowing. For now, just perceive. Let yourself be surprised by how much the Earth speaks to you and how connected you actually are to the web of life.
Dreamwalking can be especially powerful when practiced with regularity. I go on a dreamwalk once a week. Each time I hold the above intentions, while asking the Anima Mundi, “If there was more that I could know about you today, what would it be?” With this question, I am creating an opening for the relationship to deepen, and preparing myself for the possibility of learning something new about the soul of the Earth.
On my weekly walks, I make a point to visit certain trees and plants. During each visit, I notice how they have changed since the week before – a new bloom or berry, a fresh leaf unfurling that I hadn't previously noticed. The plants are continuously changing and creating. I pay attention to who may have made a home among the leaves and branches – how these animals and insects respond to the weather, the season and time of day. As I observe these natural cycles and shifts in the world around me, I begin to realize my own cyclical nature. Recognizing that I am also changing and creating in response to these cycles, I experience my sameness and remember that I belong.
As my teacher Deborah Frances Dancing Crow always reminds me, it is important that we remember to "dream the good dream" for the world and its future. It can be easy to see how many things aren't working and lose ourselves in despair. Dreamwalking can be an antidote to this type of hopelessness and isolation. As we wake up to our place in the order of things, we come home to ourselves and our sense of belonging.
With this awareness of our interconnection, we dream the good dream with all of life. Together, with the soul of the Earth, we co-create a currently unimagined future – one of thriving and sustainable interdependence – allowing all of life to flourish in balance. May it be so.
We invite you to join Katy Pavlis and Lauren Morgan in our upcoming community program, Dreamweaving March 19-20, as well as our monthly Dream Council facilitated by Tamara Walker.
Katy Pavlis
Katy (she/her) is a lover of ritual, dreams and the earth. She began her study of mysticism as a young child through books and meditation. Throughout her life she has had the privilege of learning at the feet of teachers, elders, and healers from different traditions and lineages, and has earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Spiritual Studies and Liberal Arts from Antioch University. She has a long-standing private practice in which she offers healing ceremonies, as well as classes focused on the arts of ritual, mysticism and dreaming.
May We Be Dreamt
And, often overlooked, there is another gateway to mystery and higher wisdom, accessible to all of us, 4-7 times every night... our dreams.
Dreams are inherently transformative and initiatory in that they always come, as my late mentor Jeremy Taylor would say, just at the edge of our conscious awareness. "No dreams come to tell you what you already know. They always break new ground and open access to new layers of consciousness," he said. For this reason alone, though there are many others, directing energy towards improving access to the dream state and cultivating skillful means for understanding them (what some call "dream interpretation methods") is an endeavor very much worthy of one's time and efforts.
May We Be Dreamt
By Lauren Morgan
“We are the Weavers, we are the Woven ones.
We are the Dreamers, we are the Dream.”
- Song lyrics by Beverly Fredrick
It could be said that humanity is standing in the threshold, that space in an initiation or rite of passage that is betwixt and between. This time in the rite is when the self as it has known itself has shed its old skin, but does not yet know what form the new skin will take. Standing in this place betwixt is, in every sense of the word, unknown. The sacrifice of an initiation is that we do not know who or what will emerge from the other side... We don't even know, in a very literal sense, if we will emerge at all.
What does an individual (or a community, a nation, a human race) do at such a juncture? What creates the medicine bridge out of the threshold and into the light of rebirth?
The only guarantee is that the medicine bridge will NOT be built from anything previously known. Anything that the old, now dead, self has relied upon; any knowledge, mental faculties, or resources that it has used previously; are not the building blocks of the medicine bridge leading to rebirth. Albert Einstein said, "a problem cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created it." The initiate must tap into a new source of resource, a new place of wisdom, a new energy from the Earth herself.
How does the initiate accomplish this feat? From what source of wisdom and power should the initiate pull, if it cannot rely upon its old ways of knowing itself and gathering information?
Peoples from around the world and across time have developed ways of accessing this place of mystery. The use of plant medicines, trance-inducing percussion and fasting are a few of these ancient and new technologies.
And, often overlooked, there is another gateway to mystery and higher wisdom, accessible to all of us, 4-7 times every night... our dreams.
Dreams are inherently transformative and initiatory in that they always come, as my late mentor Jeremy Taylor would say, just at the edge of our conscious awareness. "No dreams come to tell you what you already know. They always break new ground and open access to new layers of
consciousness," he said. For this reason alone, though there are many others, directing energy towards improving access to the dream state and cultivating skillful means for understanding them (what some call "dream interpretation methods") is an endeavor very much worthy of one's time and efforts.
Efforts made towards developing dream proficiency are worthwhile for supporting one’s own personal evolution and journey of wholeness. Though in a time like this, a time of collective initiation, the fruits of those efforts are rendered more imperative for the healing and whole'ing of the collective.
We are in need of a new story. For this initiation to succeed, we need to source from something more than we've been, something greater than we've known ourselves to be, something higher than our current vantage point. This is true at the individual, relational, communal, global, and cosmic level. (And some might say, all are the same.)
There are many names for that something which is dreaming us into evermore layers of wholeness and interbeing with All Things. The term Great Dreamer resonates for me. Perhaps there is a calling within each of us to place ourselves, humbly and prayerfully, at the feet of this Great Dreamer. Perhaps we might make efforts in our waking lives to weave beauty into this world from the insights we receive each night in our dreamtime.
May we be the dream weavers the future generations need us to be.
May we be dreamt into re-membrance of our wholeness and thus our
kinship with All of Life.
Through the dreams, may we make sacred contact with that new source of wisdom and power. And from there may we build a medicine bridge out of whatever threshold we might be in the throes of, whether individually or collectively, for I do believe they are one in the same.
May a blessing be upon all the dream weavers of this world, which is all of us.
Join me in dreaming the good dream of the future.
We invite you to join Lauren Morgan and Katy Pavlis in our upcoming community program, Dreamweaving March 19-20, as well as our monthly Dream Council facilitated by Tamara Walker.
References:
Concept of “Medicine Bridge” adapted from Pam England’s groundbreaking work on Birth Story Medicine. www.birthstorymedicine.com
Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 2019 2nd edition.
Taylor, Jeremy. The Wisdom of Your Dreams. NY: Penguin Publishing, 2009.
Lauren Morgan
Lauren Morgan lives, loves and dreams in the heart of the Olympic national forest. She is a dreamworker, herbalist, ritualist and mother dedicated to listening deeply to the Dream of the Earth and weaving beauty in service to all life from that listening. She teaches classes and facilitates ceremonies that seek to foster belonging within the web of life through exploring folk herbalism, dreamweaving techniques and bringing ceremony into daily life.