Dreaming our Way Through the Threshold: Building a Medicine Bridge to the Future
This post is short, but its deep! As a reminder, all of these blog posts also have corresponding podcast episodes, and you can tune into the Herbs and Dreams Podcast on your favorite pod platform. For this one, I recommend reading or listening at least once where you can REALLY focus, because what I write here is essentially the core of what I’m always trying to say in many different ways:
THIS is why dreams matter now.
THIS is why I care about them now.
THIS is why they are medicine now.
Humanity is currently standing in a threshold. The threshold is that space in an initiation or rite of passage that is betwixt and between. The threshold time in a process of transformation is precisely the juncture when the self, as she has known herself to be, has shed her old skin, but does not yet know what form her 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 or a nation or a planet do at such a juncture? What creates the bridge out of the threshold and into the light of rebirth adorned by its new skin? In my studies of birth story medicine, where I support women in integrating their often-challenging childbirth experiences, I learned to utilize therapeutic storytelling to guide women who described their experience as traumatic into new stories woven by strands of healing, wisdom, and power. Pam England, who is the visionary midwife teacher behind birth story medicine, coined the term “medicine bridge” to describe the threads that are woven during this process of re-storying an experience. These threads build and carry the woman out of her troubled past and into a new, often redeeming, story.
In a true initiation, which childbirth most certainly is, the medicine bridge leading to rebirth 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 that leads to rebirth. As Albert Einstein so famously said, "A problem cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created it." This means that an initiate must tap into a new source of sustenance, a new place of wisdom, a new energy… and this energy must be sourced from broader streams of mystery and power.
How does an initiate accomplish this feat? From what source should the initiate pull if she cannot rely upon her old ways of knowing herself, of structuring reality, and of gathering information? Peoples from around the world and across time have developed reliable ways of accessing this place of mystery, means by which new insight from the broader powers of life can be touched, tasted, then ultimately implemented and woven into this world. The use of entheogenic plant and fungal medicines, trance-inducing percussion, fasting, and ceremony are a few of these ancient technologies. And though vastly overlooked by modernity, there is another gateway to mystery and higher wisdom, and it's accessible to all of us three to seven times every night, if not more. This is, of course, our dreams, those holy whispers from the other side that show up at our inner doors each and every time we sleep.
Dreams are inherently transformative and initiatory in that they always come just at the edge of our conscious awareness. As Jeremy Taylor so poignantly said, "No dreams come to tell you what you already know. They always break new ground and open access to new layers of consciousness." Developing proficiency in dreamwork, or as I like to call it, dreamweaving, is a priceless endeavor in support of one's personal evolution and healing. Though in a time like this that we are in,which is, as far as I'm concerned, a time of collective initiation, the dreams are needed to serve a deeper and broader purpose. We need them to guide the healing direction of the collective for all of us and for all of our relatives as we find our new story and new skin as a species. We need the dreams to architect the medicine bridge that leads us to the light of rebirth.
For this initiation to succeed, we must source from something more than we've experienced, something greater than we've known ourselves to be, something broader than our current vantage point. The modern age is the first time in the history of our species where dreams have been so widely overlooked, under-regarded, and thrown away as non-important. In Earth-centered cultures (where they still exists) however, dreams were and are treated as oracles sent from the other side to help life continue in balance and harmony. The devaluing of dreaming directly correlates with the devaluing of soul, which is so rampant in our world today.
Dreams come from the soul, both our own souls and the soul of the earth. Each of us arrives here as a magical, dreamy newborn baby with a purpose: a specific and unique role to play in the exquisite tapestry of Mother Earth. This unique purpose we can call the soul. The soul knows itself as a unique and essential strand of creation's fabric, yet also knows that it is intricately interwoven with and interdependent with all things around it, the whole web of life. When we lose our souls, we lose our sense of membership and placement within this web. Thus, turning away from our dreams has contributed to the destruction of the entire web of life on our Earth Mother. You don't need me to tell you that. So our task at hand is to dream our way out of this nightmare, to wake up to the fact that we all have a built-in access to mystery, kinship, and remembrance through our own minds each and every night.
There is a portal architectured by sacred design into our very own minds that the dreams can enter through. I call this inner place the dream door. Through our dream doors, we make contact with broader sources of wisdom and power each time we sleep. With the aid of the other world, we might be able to build a medicine bridge out of the thresholds, both personal and collective, that we find ourselves trapped in the midst of right now. Our job is to dream the future, one where all of life thrives. In this good dream, each member of the web remembers and fulfills their essential role within the great dream of the Earth. All beings are valued for their unique contribution, are protected in their position, and experience and find a sense of home in their kinship and in interdependence with all life.
This is the dream that I dream, and I invite you to dream it with me. May this be so in service to all. Blessed be.
