Dreamweaving Our Way Across the Threshold

Humanity is currently standing in the threshold; the 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 marriage, a community, a nation, a human race, 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, I learned to utilize therapeutic storytelling to guide women whose birth stories they’d describe as traumatic into new stories woven by strands of healing, wisdom and power. Pam England, the visionary behind Birth Story Medicine, coined the term medicine bridge to describe the threads that would build and carry the woman out of her troubled past and into a new 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 leading to rebirth.   As Albert Einstein said, "a problem cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created it." The initiate must tap into a new source of sustenance, a new place of wisdom, a new energy 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 and new technologies.

And, though vastly overlooked by modernity, there is another gateway to mystery and higher wisdom, accessible to all of us, 3-7 times every night. This, of course, is 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. "No dreams come to tell you what you already know. They always break new ground and open access to new layers of consciousness," Jeremy Taylor, again, so poignantly said.

Developing dream proficiency is a priceless endeavor in support of one’s personal evolution and healing. Though in a time like this, 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, all of our relations, as we find our new story and new skin as a species. We need the dreams to architect the medicine bridge leading to the light of rebirth. For this initiation to succeed, we must source from something more than we've been, 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 relegated as throw-away non-importances. In whole and well Earth-centered cultures, dreams were, and are where they still exist, treated as oracles sent from the other side to help life continue in balance and harmony. The devaluing of dreaming directly correlates with devaluing the soul. As we will explore throughout this book, dreams come from the soul - our own souls and the soul of the Earth.  

Each of us arrives here a magical dreamy newborn 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 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 and continues to contribute to the destruction of the entire web of life on our Earth mother. 

The 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 re-membrance through our own minds, each and every night. There is a portal, architectured by sacred design into our very own minds that the dreams enter through. I call this inner place the dream door. Through them, we make contact with broader sources of wisdom and power, each time we sleep. With the aid of the Otherworld, we might build a medicine bridge out of the thresholds, both personal and collective, that we find ourselves trapped in the midst of.

Our job is to dream the future, one where all 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, experience and find a sense of home in their kinship and interdependence with all life.  

May it be so for us all, in service to us all. 

References

England, Pam. “Birth Story Medicine” 2005. www.birthstorymedicine.com

Taylor, Jeremy. The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Tarcher Publishing, 2009.

Photo by Aleksandr Barsukov on Unsplash