The Lion Dream

On May 9, I mentioned having some powerful dreams right when the Moon conjuncted my natal Mercury at 4 degrees Gemini. I had one and then another three-part dream, which I recorded right afterwards and shared with a few friends. I had not planned to post details here, except my sweet Faery Twin Tania Marie mentioned having a similar dream in the comments of today’s post about July’s astro energies.

Tania shared: “interesting mars in leo connection to last night’s dream of a male lion following/coming at me (not threatening, but definitely getting my attention). weird that in dream i say to myself, this is the second time a lion comes at me in a dream – but i don’t actually remember dreaming of this another time. 🙂 good stuff”

me: “Remember, though, I had that amazing dream about the giant male lion a couple months ago! Maybe that’s what you were thinking about. 🙂 I had a dream on the weekend where people were turning into cats standing on two legs. They would eat one bird and then change back into people. It wasn’t violent–more surreal. Wild stuff. 🙂 ”

Tania: “hmmm, interesting. that could be. didn’t remember your dream. i think i may have had a lioness once, and the white jaguar. it was very clear to me when the lion came at me, that i’d seen this before and was being told it was second time. so could be bleed through of yours, or i’ve actually had it before in a dream state i just don’t remember and now am with the trigger again. in either case, very cool! since we’re twins it makes sense. your dream is wild for sure with cat people 😉 ”

me: “In my dream, I actually had the same thing happen where the huge lion walked across our patio, and I ‘heard’ ‘this is a miracle. remember this’ and then I had three, back to back recurring dreams where the lion came up in memory in the dream. It was significant, and it also bled through … . In my dream, it was like an Aslan figure. I used to have cat dreams ALL the time– tigers, jaguars, shapeshifting people into tigers, cougars … but until the lion dream I hadn’t had any for many years. Then this weekend I had the cat-people dream. 🙂 ”

This synergy of lion dreams leads me to share both the comment exchange and my dream here in case it holds broader messages for other people.

Shortly after my lion dream (below), I emailed Timothy Glenn, who was part of the dream, and it turned out the timing and events were highly synchronous to real time events in his own life. My recent cat dream, along with Tania’s lion dream with similar “remembering” effects, seems timely once again, so here’s my three-part lion dream:

Groundhog Wisdom: Editing for Flow in the Garden, Life and Lyme

I love how life brings themes to our attention on multiple levels at the same time. In my case, I feel the need to edit for flow in several areas of life: the garden, relationships, and my book-in-progress, The Metaphysics of Lyme Disease. Although editing can seem like a left-brained process, I find a gentle balance of observation, patterns and ease provides the best indication of what stays, what goes and what grows.

In the garden, this means acknowledging that groundhogs rule this part of Kalamazoo. Our next door neighbor has already trapped and relocated two “whistle pigs” this year, and we’ve got at least three more who venture into our yards from across the street. Two weekends ago, I spent hours adding compost to the front beds, eyeing gorgeous lettuce, which I planned to harvest that evening. I heard some joyful squeals across the street and thought, “Those groundhogs are excited I added compost, because the produce will taste better. They are gonna love this lettuce!” I dismissed the thought, because who listens to groundhogs, right? Who thinks groundhogs cheer because of garden nutrients?

David and I left for a couple hours to run errands, and when we returned I immediately sensed something amiss. I felt, but couldn’t see a groundhog. Big energy. Big appetite! As I looked for the culprit, I noticed all my flowering purple kale stripped to the stem. And my lettuce, oh, my lettuce! In the center of a round bed sat the tiniest groundhog I’ve ever seen, finishing off the last of it. Five inches long, he was the cutest dastardly thing and ate his weight in lettuce.

Out came the very stinky sprays, which I suspect I hate more than the critters do. Within five minutes, back came the little guy. He nibbled on a couple leaves of chard and echinacea, but they must have tasted awful with all that stinky stuff. He made his way across the street and let out a whistle like a rowdy teenager completing a dare. Very naughty! The next day, out waddled Big Fat Mama, sauntering across our front porch and diving into red clover I’d vaguely “heard” a message to weed every time I passed it for the past week. Big Fat Mama doesn’t care about spray. She just likes her some lettuce, kale and clover — even locating hidden ones I forgot about.

This might seem like a minor mishap, frustration or tragedy, but Groundhog (the spirit animal) provides wise guidance.

Groundhog Wisdom focuses on the importance of clear boundaries and the cycles of life, death/hibernation and rebirth. A shamanic totem, groundhog goes into the Underworld and safely returns. Groundhog’s long winter’s nap connects to Dreamtime, and Groundhog honors Ancestral Wisdom by passing along track ways to generation after generation, even with no direct, physical contact.

Also known as woodchucks, whistle pigs, or marmots, groundhogs are resourceful, intelligent, persistent, and great problem solvers. Groundhog reveals hidden desires and aversions. Although they look alike, groundhogs honor their own personal tastes. They eat what they love and avoid what they don’t. They bring focus to long, complex projects, and they can keep these projects secret until completion. They can burrow and tunnel vast distances, but also climb trees and outwit traps. They know how to disappear when necessary. They look cute, but their sharp teeth, strong claws and metabolic control demand respect.

All of these qualities connect Groundhog very closely to the Faery Realm. Do not underestimate Groundhog!

What Do You Really Want?

Present! Dreaming with Robert Moss

On and on and on, the synchronicities roll!

In an email today, I let Mike Clelland know some recent developments in the bizarre dream-painting-bleedthrough-fiction-becoming-real “glitch” I’ve been trying to fix for many years, since it has radically inhibited what I can or cannot write about as fiction, lest that exact conflict, character or plot development appear in my “real” life. It got so over the top that I stopped writing fiction in November 2009. When I restarted in November 2017, the effect continued, dismantling key portions and people of “real world” “reality” once again. I stopped writing that novel, but the plot kept nagging and whenever I gave it the least research or attention, boom! High strangeness in real time.

I have been determined to find a solution to this glitch, because I know I need to write my novels, but I cannot risk writing them until I learn to manage this “gift.” I told Mike how powerful I’ve found the work of Robert Moss, whom I learned about through layers upon layers of synchronicities in my recent Sidhe class. Mike, of course, had a multi-layered owl synchronicity involving dreams and Robert Moss. For me, the presence of an owl synchronicity gives the added “ding, ding, ding” confirmation I would have expected with such a major realization. It’s like the Universe saying, “Happy Birthday, Laura, hoot, hoot, you’re on the right track.”

Mike’s post includes this very worthwhile and for me, even more hilariously synchronous video:

 

When Dreams “Bleed” Through

I had one of the stranger experiences of my life this morning, and that’s saying something, given my unusual life!

David’s alarm went off at 4:45 as usual, and, since we had both gone to bed early and slept through the night, I felt fully rested, too. After he got out of bed, I stretched my back a bit and fully expected to join him in the kitchen a few minutes later. The next thing I knew, I was in the middle of a lucid dream, wandering around my garden in the middle of snowy January.

At first, everything seemed similar enough to “reality” that my dream self thought I was still awake and just thinking about my garden. But then I looked more closely and noticed some unusual things. For one, we had enormous — and I mean larger than I’ve ever seen — lusciously ripe red bell peppers thriving under the snow. One looked like it had a slug on it, but when I moved to brush it off, I discovered it was actually two huge earthworms, because the soil and the garden were both teaming with fertility. Again, in the middle of snowy January.

We had spring blossoms, summer fruits and fall harvest all happening simultaneously, and it dawned on the lucid part of me, “Hey, this is the Faery Realm, where such things occur all the time, because in the Faery Realm ‘time’ works very differently than it does for humans.”

Here’s where it begins to get really strange, though:

Our bed transported outside into the Faery Realm version of our garden, surrounded by all the lush flowers and vegetation. At first, everything seemed “normal” — well, as normal as could be under the circumstances — but then I sniffed a whiff of what smelled like rotting flesh. The surrounding smells were so heady and overwhelmingly good that I almost ignored the rotten smell, but the lucid part of me started trying to figure it out.

My eyes fell upon two terra cotta pots. One had a plant in it as expected, but the other held a dead black squirrel, apparently drowned as it had tried to enter this paradise through the terra cotta pot portal. I looked around more, and found a stone slab wall like those in Ireland, but unlike anything we actually have in our “real” yard. Inside this stone slab wall, caught in a slight opening where it had tried to get through, was another dead black squirrel. In the dream, the lucid part of me said, “Remember this when you wake up. The black squirrels are important, and you’ll soon see why.”

I should note that Goshen does have these unusual black squirrels — tons of them, in fact — all descendents of one pair of black squirrels brought over from Germany. They’re very cute, but extremely aggressive, way more so than the grey, brown or partially albino squirrels we also have. In the dream, though, I knew that the black squirrels were simply the form these intruders had taken as a means of passing through the various portals. I don’t know what they were, but they weren’t black squirrels and they hadn’t intended anything good for the Faery Realm version of my garden. The faeries in my dream confirmed as much when I asked them:

“We’ve left the bodies there to show you that the portals are extremely well protected. Anything or anyone with ill intent is not welcome, and they cannot pass through the frequency of the portals. If they make it through as far as these two did, they die.” Then one of the faeries loaded my hands and arms full of fruit and sent me on my way. I had this “dream” three times, even though I wasn’t tired. I couldn’t quite get my garden bed back into the house, and until I managed to do that, it felt right to continue in this lucid dream.

I finally “awoke” just before my alarm when off a bit after 8:30. David was already gone for work, so I set about opening up the curtains and blinds. Everything seemed normal until I reached the north side living room window:

Unlike the rest of our slat blinds, these ones are screwed to the bottom and top of the window. I can adjust the openings of the slats, but I can’t lift the blinds. As you can see, we have some European lace in front of the blinds and then some sage colored thermal curtains that hang over the lace at night but get tied up during the day. Behind the blinds, facing outside, sits a red headed faery card — a warrior/protector from a series of paintings called The Faerie Journals, whose images mysteriously appeared in the moonlight and revealed themselves as helpers for human evolution. Even though it’s “just” a card, I always feel her strength at that window, keeping an eye on our driveway and front yard, staring out at any would-be intruders and saying, “Really? Just try me.”

This is not an easy window to get to from inside the house, since we have some objects in front of it. No living plants sit under it due to the proximity of David’s stereo, and we never bring liquids of any sort near there, again, due to the stereo and tricky accessibility of that spot. This morning, when I opened the curtains and twisted open the blinds, some kind of brownish-red splatter covered the window frame, window and blinds. It looked like someone had exploded a bottle of Coca Cola behind the curtains, except the splatter wasn’t sticky at all. We’re not talking a small splatter, either. It covered over 2/3 of the upper window and frame, plus some of the blinds themselves, and it was very cumbersome to clean without creasing or otherwise damaging the blinds!

The more I examined it, the more it looked like dried blood splatters — but not as thick or red as regular blood — more watery, with less iron. The image of the dead black squirrels crossed my mind, along with the faeries’ mysterious message: “We’ve left the bodies there to show you that the portals are extremely well protected. Anything or anyone with ill intent is not welcome, and they cannot pass through the frequency of the portals. If they make it through as far as these two did, they die.” I also remembered my lucid self saying, “Remember this when you wake up. The black squirrels are important, and you’ll soon see why.”

Did we have some kind of battle in the Faery Realm that coexists in a slightly different dimension over and through our home and garden? Did all that protection I’ve set up around our house arrest some sort of spiritual attack? Did the red headed faery make mincemeat of whoever or whatever tried to get through that north window?

I don’t know, but it was mighty strange, indeed. I’ve written and spoken before about past life “bleed-through” and Dreamtime bleed-through, but I’ve never had a dream about an attempted intrusion and then found a blood-like substance splattered around a window — or anywhere else for that matter. In any case, well done, red headed Fae, and yay, portal guardians!

Perhaps this dream also portends an enormous harvest this year. Those red bell peppers were absolutely amazing. 🙂

Lucid Dreaming

The past two months have featured particularly active mornings of lucid dreaming. David’s alarm goes off before 5 a.m. and we snuggle a bit before he gets up for work. Then I drift in and out of a light trance and test, tinker, retest “solutions” to whatever challenges I assign my subconscious mind. On any given day, such challenges range anywhere from “How do we clean up Fukushima?” to “How do we unhinge Monsanto’s stranglehold on seeds?” to “How do I get the bindweed in my garden to go away and where does it go anyway?” to “How do I guarantee permanent passage to the Faery Realm if all hell breaks loose in this dimension?” to “How do I turn last night’s leftovers into something extra yummy for dinner?” to “What’s the nature of reality?”

For years, I’ve used Dreamtime to solve my most pressing personal riddles, but for the past two months, I’ve passed the bulk of those hours on more global questions. [UPDATE: This article link pretty much sums up what I’m attempting to resolve in Dreamtime.]

In no particular order, the following quotes and chants have starring roles in both my Dreamtime and waking hours. They play in background loops of varying speed, as though my brain’s attempting to code crack them in a Rubik’s Cube meets LOST meets Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, like a soundtrack to whatever “plot” I’m dreaming or daydreaming.

As the Hopi say, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” One of these mornings that combination lock is bound to bust free and sooner or later, all heaven will break loose. In the event that one of you, dear readers, happens to be humming the missing frequency and wondering why you have this silly melody stuck in your head, I’ll list some the most frequent phrases and chants I hear all day, every day:

“Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo.” (I hear it in a very specific Snatam Kaur chant: Ong, namo guru dev namo, guru dev namo, guru dev … namo.) This Adi Mantra is chanted at the beginning of each kundalini yoga session and translates to “I bow to the Creative Wisdom; I bow to that Divine Teacher inside myself.” This chant plays in the background of most of my recent lucid dreams.

“Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen” This is the transliteration of the Reiki Distant Healing Symbol learned in Reiki Level 2. I usually see it or feel my arms motioning this symbol throughout my dreams. I’ve taught an entire day-long class just on this one symbol, so its meaning extends beyond what I share here. People most often translate it as “The Buddha in me reaches out to the Buddha in you to promote enlightenment and peace,” and/or “No past, no present, no future.” The Reiki Distant Healing Symbols collapses everything into a single point, thus doing away with all perceived separation, whether through time or space.

Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha (“Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the beyond — blessings on the journey and the journeyer,” or, alternatively, “GONE, GONE, GONE BEYOND, COMPLETELY GONE BEYOND, ENLIGHTENMENT, HAIL.”) I hear it as sung by Abigail Spinner McBride on “Fire of Creation,” although many people, including Deva Premal have presented their own versions of this chant.

From Dr. Joseph Murphy:

“The first thing to remember is the dual nature of your mind. The subconscious mind is constantly amenable to the power of suggestion; furthermore the subconscious mind has complete control of the functions, conditions, and sensations of your body. Trust the subconscious mind to heal you. It made your body, and it knows all of its processes and functions. It knows much more than your conscious mind about healing and restoring you to perfect balance.”

[“You do not always get the answer overnight.] Keep on turning your request over to your subconcious until the day breaks and the shadows flee away.”

From Walt Whitman:

“Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

From the Faery Realm:

“A person’s word is bond.
Respect, Not Control.
No Rudeness!”

“Behold, the silver branch.”

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” (This phrase is accompanied by an awareness of the star shape inside the apple, the silver branch as traditionally an apple branch giving passage to the Faery Realm, Avalon as “The Isle of Apples,” and a quite physical craving for apples!)

“Awen is available.” (Awen is a Welsh word for “poetic inspiration,” somewhat associated with the esoteric meaning on the OS Rune, which I sometimes also see and feel.)

From Dr. Larry Dossey:

(The concept rather than this actual quote from “Space, Time and Healing”):

“Interestingly, the perceptions of passing time that we observe from our external clocks cause our internal clocks to run faster. (Anything that demonstrates periodicity can be viewed as a clock, such as many of our physiological functions.)”

From Lewis Carroll:

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”

“Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’

“‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’”

And then I wake up.

The Power of a Poor Night’s Sleep

As a sometimes insomniac, I’ve long been intrigued by an apparent connection between disrupted sleep and enhanced creativity and spiritual awareness. I knew that some monks used to force themselves to wake up every hour so that they could better come to know God, and David sent me an article years ago about the benefits of that two to three hour period of insomnia some people experience in the wee hours of the morning. It turns out that many books, paintings and much music have come to be “as a result” of interrupted sleep. Since I hear complaints from clients regarding unusual sleep patterns and insomnia, and since I have recently been reaping huge benefits from being affected by David’s less than optimal work hours, I thought I’d share some decades’ long observations here. Not exactly rest for the weary, but perhaps the weary will find some encouragement and inspiration.

I should begin by thanking my parents — especially my dad — for kindly staying up with me when I screamed all night as a baby. For months. Possibly even a year of colic. My dad even made up a song, which he still sometimes sings as a joke when I visit them, “One, two, three, four, walk the baby to the door, five, six, seven, eight … [something, something, ends with “late”]. 😉 Even in the womb, I became most active at night, much to my early-to-bed mom’s chagrin. During the day, I was on hyper-alert. My Grandpa Frank, who was my best buddy until he died when I was three, took one look at me and told my parents, “This one will give you trouble. She notices everything.” And so I did. Not much has changed in that department.

As a child I needed my afternoon nap. Yes, in part that came as a logical consequence of less than restful nights; however, the need for an afternoon nap mostly happened due to stimulation overload. The phrase “overtired” came to everyone’s lips when I got cranky and my left eye drooped ever so slightly. “Time for a snack and time for bed.” Everyone assumed I was exhausted, but most of the time, I just needed some quiet time “to talk with my friends” and to dream. I’d get messages from house faeries that they needed certain supplies, which I’d procure (in real life) from my mom’s sewing cabinet or various storage covers — match boxes, spools of thread, small boxes, a thimble. They seemed particularly in need of sewing equipment!

Here’s the interesting thing, though: I would leave these requested items in the specified place, and they would actually disappear, never to be seen again. Part of me always thought my mom had gone around after me reclaiming her stuff, until she began asking for the little items I’d passed along to others. “I gave them to the Borrowers!” “Well, when will the Borrowers be returning them?! You know they’re fictional characters, Laura.” Hmmmmm, not entirely. That book series of The Borrowers seems to be based on Brownies.

Anyway, from early on, I experienced connections between disrupted sleep, afternoon naps, and communications with the Otherworld. I was also that creepy kid who would announce people’s deaths shortly before they expired, as well as that hair raising child who (until I learned to zip my lip) would tell mean people exactly what physical maladies their bad attitudes and nasty treatment of others were beginning to cause inside their bodies. More often than not, those people became even meaner, and sure enough, they’d develop what I said they would. I wasn’t cursing them. I could just see that their expressed dis-ease was impressing disease in their bodies.

At summer camp, I was even more popular at night than during the day — not that I could remember any of it. I used to give lectures whenever I did manage to sleep. My dad had — for years — found me talking when he’d check in on me before he and my mom went to bed. He would ask me questions about who knows what and listen to the answers, which is probably what primed me for my camp experiences. You see, I didn’t just mumble recaps of the previous day. At camp, I gave lectures about the stars! LOL, but true. I’d wake up the next day and be thronged with questions regarding things about which “I” knew nothing. When the other kids realized I really did know nothing about the things I gave college-like lectures on at night, that generated endless giggle fests among all of us. The only trouble was that I couldn’t stop it, so sometimes my sleep talking gave others a difficult night’s sleep. Ironically, I always slept great at camp!

Lucid dreamers know that we can program ourselves before going to sleep — either to empower ourselves in a dream, or even to solve real life problems in our sleep. Einstein drew many conclusions after sleep, and many inventors, artists, mystics and writers have developed odd, but effective methods of jostling themselves awake in the middle of REM sleep in order better to access the creative brew on the other side of the veil. Keeping a notebook (and pen!) beside the bed helps many people to access the wisdom of their dreams.

But don’t we need restful sleep? Yes, various studies indicate that we all function better with adequate rest. Extreme fatigue causes equivalent driving impairment as over the limit alcohol levels, and test scores usually show a relationship between quality of sleep and performance. But not always! I have personally used very poor quality sleep as my method of “studying” for big exams — especially Art History exams. I would glance over my notes and images right before bed, knowing full well that so much stimulation just prior to sleep would result in far less sleep. By design. My brain would flip through those index cards and images all night long, waking periodically to lodge things in my conscious mind. I experienced dramatically higher grades on exams using this method than when I tried more standard things like, ohhhh, going to the library and actually reading the books!

Ditto on books I hadn’t finished for English classes. If I just let myself drop slightly into a trance in class, I could answer whatever question a teacher threw my way — with sometimes (professor’s) jaw dropping insights. Of course, they weren’t really my insights, because I hadn’t finished reading the book(s) at that point, but, thanks to my ability to drift off at will during the day, I could access whatever information I needed from somewhere else.

People who suffer from insomnia or other sleep disturbances might notice this as well: when you finally do get to sleep, if you can extend that dreamy, sleepy state for awhile (even upon waking), then you enter a different realm. Waking life and sleeping life begin to blur. Most people consider this a bad thing, but that depends on how you live your life and how you choose to work this state of being.

If you pray for guidance while in this state, you will find that life takes on a magical quality thick with stacks and stacks of synchronicities, moving in slow motion with your brain filtering out inessentials and honing in on those most important details. Of course, the soul’s definition of “inessentials” and “most important details” often runs 180 from the ego’s, so bear that in mind. I happen to prefer a soul-rich life, so I surrender to this kind of dreamy, conscious trance state a lot, especially while running errands. Invariably, I have at least three highly serendipitous encounters on those jaunts, and people have actually spun around in line with a stunned look on their face, just due to the powerful energy this state carries.

When we first moved to Goshen, I shared a theory with David, which he has spread around to his friends, and they usually laugh it off. I know this theory has merit, though. Goshen has 85-90 trains on multiple tracks running through town every single day, all day and night long, except on Christmas. These trains honk at every intersection, because the town doesn’t have the guard arms that raise and lower. A federal grant may give us some quiet zones (hopefully near our house, since we really couldn’t get any closer to the train!), but that quiet zone won’t change the vibrating effects of the trains as they run through town.

Since we have multiple lines and major freight trains, there’s really not anywhere in Goshen that escapes the train noise. We have friends who live several blocks further away, and it’s really only a small gradation of difference. A couple neighborhoods along the Mill Race and at the “Dam Pond” are generally quieter, but sometimes those horns barrel down the water and echo even louder than being right near the train.

All of which is to say, that the many trains in Goshen simply must have an effect. People say, “You get used to them,” but on some level, they do mark time — whether through traffic, through minor wake-ups, or through interrupted conversations. I also credit the trains with triggering the huge outpouring of creativity evident in this little town in Northern Indiana.

Yes, the Mennonites have a great deal to do with it, too. Mennonites start learning how to sing in four part harmony from the moment they attend church, and most of them keep singing from cradle to grave. Yesterday, I attended a concert by two area high schools, and at the end, the high school choir directors invited the audience to join in the Hallelujah chorus. I walk a very different spiritual path, but that auditorium could have busted through the gates of heaven. Four part harmony, without any practice, young children and many, many people in their 80’s: it sounded like a choir of angels. A loud, glorious, triumphant choir of angels.

But this is just one example. Goshen College’s radio station was voted the top college radio station in the nation. Again. Goshen High School’s marching band and their choir frequently win state and national competitions. Ignition Garage — a little music store in downtown Goshen — draws big name performers from around the country, especially Nashville, but it also showcases incredible local talent, as well as people who grew up here and return for a show after “making it big.” We’ve got a new a cappella group performing there on Sunday — filled with professional a cappella singers, many of whom used to perform in Chicago.

We’ve got an amazing city chamber orchestra, and Goshen College’s acoustically excellent auditorium draws performers from all over the world — many of whom either went to Goshen College or grew up here. Our local theater is off the charts, including high school theater, and spontaneous gatherings of people of all ages result in concert quality riffs and duets. We’ve got artists, architects, creative chefs and an artisan bread maker and an artisan cupcake baker. It’s more common than not that you meet a farmer or chef who also happens to make jewelry, sing, knit, paint, play concert quality violin, and/or spin yarn. Usually several of those talents at once. Goshen is dripping with creativity. And I really believe the trains have something to do with it.

I know I use the trains as multi-sensory reminders that everything remains in motion, that from silence comes noise and from noise, silence. I giggle when a train honks to punctuate something I’ve just said in a session, and I enjoy the energy of connecting Goshen to so much of the rest of the country, even if many of those train cars carry GMO corn syrup grown in lovely Northern Indiana. I still bless ’em in my half-sleep. Drivers have told me that they use the time spent waiting for the trains to pass as a moment to ponder their lives and the philosophical implications of time and timing. I imagine their subconscious mind continues to process such ideas whenever they hear trains at night.

The last time I lived in Chicago really brought this interrupted sleep idea home to me. I had been led — directly through dreams — to find an apartment on the 9th floor, 1.5 blocks from Lake Michigan, in Hyde Park. Unbeknownst to me at the time of renting, there was an old fashioned elevator pully directly above my bed. That elevator clunk-clunk-clunked at random moments all night long. Every night. As a light sleeper, this obviously, woke me up a lot, but I used that time well. I spent many hours day-dreaming (at night) about the kind of life I wanted to live now that I had liberated myself from a very tricky to leave marriage. I also downloaded designs for nine portal doors, which I ended up painting. Synchronously, six of those doors came from that very attic above my bed, right next to the elevator pully! You can read about The Mother Lode of Doors by clicking here. Those portal doors (which you can see here) ended up designing — in detail — the very happy, magickal life I’m living now. It used to freak me out, pleasantly, but freaked out nonetheless, how those doors I downloaded in my insomniac nine months in Chicago became blueprints for a life I love.

More recently, David has begun setting his alarm for 4:45 a.m. so that he has plenty of time to putter around the house in the morning and to wake up before heading to work. I have an erratic sleep schedule, so sometimes I’ll go to bed with him, and sometimes I’ll stay up a lot later. If I go to bed with him, I usually wake up around 3:30 and have only just managed to drift off again before the alarm starts going off. With our chilly mornings, I stay in bed, but I can hear him cleaning pots in the kitchen until he sits down for awhile. Then I drift off to sleep again, right about the time he comes up to shave and shower. With winter here, he likes to keep heat trapped in the bathroom, so if he comes or goes, that door opens and shuts. It’s kind of incredible how often one person can go in and out of the bathroom in the span of a half hour, but I’ve learned to appreciate it!

You see, that is prime meditation time for my day. I’m not quite asleep but certainly not fully awake, and all those opening and closing doors become portals to change. My mind, body and soul become alert to the openings and closings of what seems to some like “Fate.” Over and over, I recognize choice points, prepare myself to recognize choice points even before they make themselves known to “ordinary” senses. Sometimes I find myself in other realms. Sometimes I go to the past or to the future.

Sometimes, I trace world events to their logical conclusions and then use this Dreamtime portal work to tweak Reality. Whenever I do that, the Universe always sends me some sort of confirmation that the original concern was a legitimate one, but then I’ll also receive some kind of email or news story or a message in an “ordinary” conversation with a “real” person that such and such plot was discovered and foiled. Dreamtime is powerful! Some Native tribes believe Dreamtime can accomplish things five times faster than in “real life,” but with tangible results in the so called waking world.

My work demands an ability to move through veils at will — to command my attention and consciousness into someone else’s body, memories, location/realm or timelines. Humans tend to prefer less blurry lines between the living and the dead, between waking and sleep, and between reality and fantasy. One could argue that these false divisions create much of the unhappiness so many people experience in their daily and nightly lives. The next time you find yourself unable to sleep when society tells you that you “should” be sleeping, instead of stressing about it, consider the possibility that this insomnia or sleep disturbance arrives as a gift. What answers have you recently sought? What changes are you secretly hoping to explore? What life would you love to live?

Let your Dreamtime and Awaketime flow through you and around you, and you will find yourself living from a more inspired and joyful place.

Blessed Be!