Understanding dream animals

I was looking for something else when I found a book called Dream Animals by James Hillman. This was a gift of long ago that I found so beautiful I saved it in a special place, and then forgot it was there. I think our relationship with animals is like this. I see an owl beside the pond in the early evening; a wolf howls on the ridge beyond the road and my senses become hyper-alert. For a moment I am really awake. And then my instincts go back to sleep and I forget that I am able to be this alive all the time.

Dream animals also bring us into contact with our deep nature. The horse that was running away with me in last night’s dream, on closer notice, is a draft horse trailing the lines of traces and harness. So while a dream dictionary may interpret this image as my passion about something running away with me, if I am alert to the detail, the dream horse is really showing me I have broken free from something binding or limiting.

I sometimes use the Journey Oracle cards to interpret dreams. The images on the double-sided cards are like dream animals that flicker in and out of my awareness. Just like the moment of extreme attention caused by the wolf howl or the runaway dream horse, parts of my shamanic paintings on the oracle cards catch in the net of my heightened awareness, and make metaphoric connections between parts of a dream, and my ordinary reality understanding of its message.

Name symbolism or Naming it makes it so

My partner and I are in the process of buying a sailboat, and discovered that in 32 years on the planet, the boat of our choice never bore a name. While she must have had at least a casual name by the previous owners who took such good care of her, no name appeared on the stern or in the pages of her marine survey. Sound symbolism, or meaning derived from the sounds of the letters of the alphabet, suggests that there is significance in the very shape of the vibrations we make. So what is the situation of not having a name? Presumably this means that there is no vibration which would link to our unique form; in other words, without a name the world would not be able to find us or know us.

I drew a Journey Oracle card while asking “What do you have to show me about why this boat has no name?” I drew card #11 which represents the Sun in the Journey suit. I was immediately struck by the small figure that is both leaning against, and part of, the larger sad face with one eye looking out and the other looking up. If this is our new boat and me, then feeling the truth of her will bring her name.

Our boat’s name came quite easily--as oyster farmers who work on the sea, of course her name will be Pearl. This name reduces to the number 7 which has special symbolism for me. Seven is the number of the Universe. It is the three of the heavens (soul) combined with the four (body) of the earth; being the first number containing both the spiritual and the temporal. In looking over the list of meanings it doesn't take long to figure out why the seven has become significant in metaphysical, religious and other spiritual doctrines - as seven represents the virginity of the Great Mother - feminine archetype - She who creates.

Release tension of change with color symbolism

My partner and I are buying a sailboat, and I did a Journey Oracle card reading to ask how to release the tension of change by reading the color symbolism in an oracle card. This card was drawn for my one card reading about how to release tension, and its phrase was Tension. This felt like a powerful confirmation of my intentions to receive inner wisdom using color symbolism.

I see a face made of broken black lines, floating horizontally on a cushion of pinks and reds, with pale yellow above the face and also in the lower left corner. I am immediately drawn to the eyes of the face, one of which looks down while the other gazes out. From this position, the face seems to express more quiet than tension. Yet the eyes hold tension in their odd staring gaze. Overall there is a sense of flow moving from left to right.

I translate the color symbolism of this oracle reading about how to release tension in this way. The broken black lines are the intensity of this experience, sometimes flowing toward easily and sometimes circling with uncertainty. The pink color is the face of our partnership, and how we welcome the adventure of this new change. Red and orange combines to show the vitality and mutual encouragement that helps us release the tension of uncertainty around such a large new commitment. Yellow is the knowledge that flows from our past experiences with sailing, and also is the color symbolism of the intention that flows over our adventure.

This oracle reading of color symbolism helps me understand that we are flowing toward a right hand decision from a left hand knowing. Seeing with the intuitive eye looking down into the mystery of change will keep us in the flow, instead of looking at the complications that may bring on the tension of uncertainty. This card belongs to the Celtic tree months suit in the Journey Oracle card deck, whose themes are Connection, Exchange, Intuition and Power. What an excellent list of advice to release tension from change.

Create Sacred Speech

Sacred speech as eloquence is a gift from humans to the Holy. When we find the rhythm and shine in beautifully polished words, so that they uncurl like new sprouts from our tired, winter-hardened mouths, then the last rays of thin light from Februa’s cold heart soften and swell just enough to show us hope for spring.

Yet such speaking is hard to do. My mind and mouth would much rather stay flat and unmarked by these feathery fern tips of sacred speech. These mutterings of words that rise like bubbles to froth the sacred tea of speech we offer the Holy requires my attention and my effort. There is much sacred eloquence to learn from in the traditional tales of First Nations people, whether from the Eskimo of northern Canada or in the literature of narrative poetry from the Ainu of northern Japan.

Sometimes I practice sacred speech by choosing a Journey Oracle card, and describe the image as if it were something else that I am looking at. For example, as I look out to see the last light fading into dusk through the trees beyond the garden, I make a gift of sacred speech to this view with my description of this card 20: When I saw you, I saw your eye of daylight receding from your growing turquoise eye of coming darkness. Your soft purple mouth joined what was rimmed with light with what was deep in green growth, and although you appeared separate, I saw the filigree of dancing threads that stitched you together.

How to drum a shamanic journey

When I was first a drum maker in British Columbia, I was show by my guidance that I could not keep making a journey drum without learning to ride this good horse to the spirit world. I asked my drum to show me how to make a shamanic journey on its broad back of drum beats, and these are the journey instructions I received for making this journey into shamanic time and space.

The drum needs to be woken up by lightly running my fingers around the drum rim. This quiet irregular sound prepares my awareness for entering into the alternate reality of the shamanic journey. I next ‘sound the call’ by striking a quick series of beats with my drum beater in each of the drum quadrants. This is my knocking on the door of shamanic reality, saying, “Here I am, please accept my intention to journey to you.” After all, in this non-shamanic ordinary reality we consider it polite to knock on the doors of those we wish to visit.

I begin my shamanic journey beat on the drum quite slowly, as I bring my journey intention into my awareness and listen for the ‘doorway’ in the drum—this is a quality of drum sound that causes me to feel I am falling into the physical experience of the shamanic journey. When I hear this particular shimmer of drum sound I increase my drum beat until I reach the sound of a correct decibel and speed to lift away into shamanic reality.

At the close of my shamanic journey I again sound the call with a quick series of drum beats in each drum quadrant, followed by several minutes of very rapid striking of the drum to bring me back from the journey into this reality. I say goodbye to my shamanic journey experience by sounding the call very softly for a third and last time, and then again put the drum to sleep by lightly running my fingers around the drum rim in the opposite direction from the one I used to begin. While this quiet irregular sound is still vibrating the surface of my drum, I look back into my shamanic journey and ask two important questions. The first is, “What else do you have to show me or tell me?” The answer often expands or repeats some aspect of the shamanic journey and therefore underlines its importance in my memory. The second question is, “What can I do to honor you?” I make sure that after my shamanic journey is complete, I find a way in ordinary reality to honor the gift of this journey into shamanic reality by doing what I have been shown. This drum protocol is available on a CD called Ride a Good Horse to the Spiritworld which can be ordered by emailing me at journeyoracle@gmail.com.