Welcome to this edition of Liminal Walker Musings!
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Dear ones,
If you are a new subscriber, a special WELCOME! Today I am collaborating with a dear friend Kristin Lang who is a Dream Guide. We will both be diving into the significance of our dreams as oracles in our lives. Ending with an exploration into my first Dream Incubation. Enjoy. Love to you all!
The Dreamer
Dreams are oracular stories. Some reflecting our inner landscape. Others are more archetypal filled with impactful messages. They come in various symbols, metaphors, feelings, senses, colors and shapes. Personally, I have found them to be extremely insightful. Opportunities to understand the multidimensional nature of my life as well as the mysteries of existence.
There are many ways to work with one’s dreams:
Keep a dream journal: Before going to sleep create an intention to remember your dream and write it down right when you wake up.
Join a dream circle: Journeying into the deeper meanings of a dream within a small group.
Dream incubation: Asking questions for guidance in our dreams.
Lucid dreaming: Practices that help you become aware within the dream.
Work with a dream analyst/guide: A professional that helps you understand your dreams.
Kristen’s Message…
Dreams are portals into experience and can be a treasure trove of insight as our ability to access their inner wisdom develops.
Although there are many ways to work with dreams, one thing we have learned is that dream incubation, the process of asking our dreams for healing or solutions to life’s challenges, has been practiced for thousands of years by our ancient ancestors.
Having trained in dream work with Jeremy Taylor and worked with dreams over the past 30 years, I have come to understand that dreams are not just for solving the messages hidden in images and symbols; they're there to be in relationship with. The more we honor and respect our dreams and the otherworld in which they come from as a connection to something sacred and larger than us, the more our dreams offer us their wisdom.
While we know dreams are personal and collective, thanks to the work of Carl Jung, they can be transpersonal as well, where spiritual experiences, divine encounters, or states of ecstasy and awe occur. I have experienced many of these states myself through my dreams, like my first lucid dream, in which I asked for it to rain, and then an angle of light appeared before me, and I went into a spontaneous state of ecstasy.
My dreams have been very responsive to my sincere questions for guidance in my incubation practice, and keeping a dream journal over decades has allowed me to track patterns of growth and transformation I would have otherwise forgotten.
Kristen helps people learn to work with their dreams and to navigate difficult dreams or nightmares within groups, private sessions and classes. If you would like to learn how to tap into the magic of your dreams for connection, healing, and transformation, please visit Kristen at: https://www.kristinlang.ca/
Dream Circles and Dream Incubation
For the past year or more I have been actively involved in a dream circle. Originally starting within a larger year program that
gave based on her book, Hagitude. This program has since ended, but I deeply appreciate that our dream group has continued.Briefly, Dream Circles are small groups that explore the dream world. Utilizing specific guidelines in the telling of the dream and then how to respond to it. One guideline is to speak about the dream in first person and present tense. Whether that is the person bringing the dream forward or the ones reflecting on it. In my experience, this supports us in dreaming the dream together!
It was through this circle that I was introduced to dream incubation. Which we collectively did at the beginning of the year for a new year’s message. Yet I was invited to enter my first dream incubation this past September through an Oracle card reading. Where it suggested that I ask for an ancestor to come forward in dreamtime with wisdom from the earth. Since my whole being lit up at the thought of this, I had to do this.
First, I prepared a dream bag. Writing my request down on a piece of paper, then folding it up and putting it in a bag along with dried herbs from my garden; roses, lavender and sage. For three nights I placed this bag under my pillow while also gently holding this inquiry as I fell asleep.
The first night I had two dreams, the second night one. Each dream gave me a two-word message, that I am still working with and contemplating to this day, probably for a lifetime. They seemed like simple directives at first. Yet, they have deeply impacted my being.
FIRST DREAM
I was transported to ancient Peru, where I met with an Incan elder on one of the many terraces in the Andes Mountains. His message at first seemed straightforward. Yet after some unpacking, it was quite profound. He told me to…
“PLANT SEEDS”
The next morning, I did some research in regards to Incan agriculture. What I found was amazing. Planting in the Andes mountains was and is today a feat of ingenuity. The terraces of Peru are marvels of engineering, the most sophisticated in the world. Enabling them to grow a variety of crops in what is considered harsh conditions.1 Inviting me to continue working with my garden, sewing plants that deeply call to me.
There is also a metaphysical meaning as well, for within each seed is the potentiality and coding for the mature plant or tree. The seed’s ability to transform is mythic! It begs me to pay attention to the ones I am planting in the soils of my own life. Each seed containing my intentions, thoughts and beliefs. Whether helpful or not. Asking me to pay attention to what I am sowing! To plant seeds of love, kindness and cohesiveness.
SECOND DREAM
Again, I traveled back in time, journeying to Capernaum, along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. This time it was an ancestor I was very familiar with, Yeshua! Even though I do not consider myself a Christian, Yeshusa has always been a spiritual teacher for me. An ancestor of the Heart!
In this dream I was sitting in a small group of both men and women, Yeshua was talking with us all but pulled me aside and told me to…
“SLOW DOWN”
This is a powerful message in general for our current times. Both outward and inward. For me this was more an internal attitude. Sitting back within the posterior part of my body, rather than leading with the front of it. Instead of looking towards the next step, being with the one I am currently taking. Open to receive the simplicity and nuance of the moment. To feel each ray of sunshine, drop of rain and puff of wind. For life truly is a gift, a blessing of aliveness.
THIRD DREAM
I am not sure of the location of this dream, with that said, it did have a Celtic feel to it. In current time, an ancestor came to visit me. A woman of middle-age explicitly said to me…
“TELL STORIES”
She continued by asking me three questions which she wanted me to answer in a story format. Upon leaving she told me she would return to hear it. I don’t remember the questions. What I do recall is I started communicating the story to a group of people. Then continued telling it as the dream shifted to my home where I was in the process of moving. Thus imparted my story to empty walls as I finished packing.
To me this was a very powerful message. Stories are impactful, having an existence of their own. Like psychopomps, guides to the imaginal world. Making the ordinary become alive. Lately I have been diving into Celtic myths, fairytales, fables and folklore. Ones made more current in books like: If Women Rose Rooted by
and Women Who Run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola. Teaching me to listen to the land, to hear its mighty whispers and recount their tales.Questions for you…
How do you work with your dreams?
What significant messages have you received lately?
Do you have any recurring themes, what are they?
Would love to know your thoughts and feelings. Let’s have a conversation…
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Cynthia Graber, “Farming Like the Incas”, Smithsonian Magazine, Sept 6, 2011
Julie, I love this synchronicity - I was just in an amazing class called Your Story Matters, with Kristin Lang! It bums me out though that I rarely remember my dreams.
Also, I cannot tell you enough how much I love the messages you received of Plant Seeds, Slow Down, Tell Stories. This is soooo beautiful!!!💃🧚♀️🤸♀️💖🕊🌷☀️🌈🌺🪷🌟✨💕
Julie, thank you for this beautiful piece of writing and for sharing the messages your dreams gave you...
I have been dreaming a lot lately, and then when I wake something of the dream manifests in to the physical realm that day. I feel that I am more in alignment at the moment than I have been in a long time, and this makes me feel so grounded.
Dreams certainly are powerful.!