Blog o’ Gnosis

I have had the distinct pleasure over the past few months of immersing myself in some wise and erudite books on dreams. Here, rising to the top of the pile, are two books that I consider essential to the serious study of dreams in history and practice.

The first is by Dr. Kelly Bulkeley, former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, visiting scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and author of many worthy books on dreams. Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Comparative History (2008, New York University Press) is a book that finally answers the basic question: how did people in ancient cultures view dreams?

I call this a basic question, because anyone who spends a significant amount of time working with their dreams inevitably wonders how it was done in the past. In your religion, in other religions; by your ancestors, by other people’s ancestors. Dreams call us to understand our place in the world, and Kelly’s book answers the call because it addresses the problem with both comprehensive scholarship and also a deep love and appreciation for dreams.

In the book’s first three chapters, Kelly covers Hinduism, the religions of China (mostly Confucianism and Taoism), and Buddhism. He then branches out to the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Judaism), the religions of Greece and Rome, then Christianity, and Islam. In the final three chapters, we learn about the religions of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. A whirlwind tour to be sure, but with Kelly’s flair for laying out a clear overview combined with meticulous attention to detail, one is left after each chapter with the feeling of having had an excellent introduction to a fascinating, and ever-changing subject.

This book is required reading for my class at Cherry Hill Seminary on using dreams in spiritual direction. It gives the student of Pagan religions a valuable sense of perspective, and the student of dreams a glimpse at the rich possibilities for dream interpretation and understanding in the continuing evolution of our dreaming minds. I highly recommend it.

The second book is not new at all, but is certainly new to us. Children’s Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936–1940 (Princeton University Press, 2008) is the English translation (finally!) of a seminar conducted by Carl Jung with some of his more advanced pupils, and is the most accessible, understandable presentation of Jung’s dream theories  that I have ever read.

Here we have the master in action, explaining his theories and then showing in great detail how he applies them, using examples of his patients’ earliest remembered dreams. In the first chapter, Jung lays out all of his methods of dream interpretation, which is invaluable in itself but also helps focus the later chapters, as each dream analysis follows the steps first introduced here.

Each of the later chapters include his students (among them Marie-Louise Von Franz, Aniela Jaffe, and Jolande Jacobi) presenting a dream or dream series, then analyzing them using Jung’s rubric. Jung makes comments, clarifies ideas and answers his students’ questions. The conversational style highlights Jung’s skill as an educator, and reading it one has the sense of witnessing the development, there in that room, of the practice of analytical psychology. It is a fascinating and inspiring ride.

This beautiful English edition of Children’s Dreams was a project of the Philemon Foundation, which is dedicated to bringing into book form Jung’s unpublished works. The Philemon Foundation also facilitated the publication of Jung’s Red Book last year; they do beautiful work. Children’s Dreams will make you realize just how much of your ideas about dreams are from Jung, and at the same time will show you just how little of Jung you really understand. I find the combination exhilarating; I am sure you will too.

Patrick McCollum’s legal challenge against the State of California may sound like it just concerns the religious freedom of prisoners, but make no mistake: the outcome of his case will affect every one of us, and determine whether our Constitutional right to freedom of religion is conditional or absolute.

There have been several great articles written about Patrick recently, by Jason Pitzl-Waters at the Wild Hunt, Gus diZerega at Beliefnet, and this Llewellyn article by Donald Michael Kraig. Today I sat in for my friend and colleague Peter Laufer on his Sunday morning KOWS radio show, which gave me the opportunity to interview Patrick on the air about his case. If you have not educated yourself about the case and what is at stake, now is your chance to listen to Patrick explain it in his own words.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3 file

Time is of the essence for making our voice heard in this case, and publicity, like sunlight, may be the best disinfectant for the insidious creep of religious discrimination not just in California but nationwide. Here again are the people to contact in the State government. Phone calls and written letters are best, and public pressure really can make a difference.

Write the Governor of California.  This is a federal case, so you do NOT have to be a California resident to make your views known.  If California prevails, similar efforts will be made in other states.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-558-3160

For the same reason write California’s Attorney General.

Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
Attorney General’s Office
California Department of Justice
Attn: Public Inquiry Unit
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550

And write the Secretary of the California Dept. of Corrections.

Matthew Cate
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
P.O. Box 942883
Sacramento, CA 94283-0001
916-445-1773

State that you want a state-wide truly fair and neutral policy that includes equal accommodations of Pagans and other minority religions based on religiously neutral criteria.

Yes, it’s time once again to post my New Year’s Dream Resolutions. Actually it is well past time to post them, and my handwritten notes from reading through last year’s dreams have been sitting on my desk for over a month, waiting for me to write them up.

The one waking-life resolution I made for myself this year is to relax more, and the only way I can make this resolution square with having so many projects in motion is to not push forward any project until I feel the energy for it. Everything has to take its own time this year, without me trying to force anything to fruition before its time. So, much to the dismay of my Aries mentality, everything is not getting done instantly. Dream resolutions are being written in mid-February, and that’s just the way it is.

In 2008, this is how I explained the concept of New Year’s Dream Resolutions:

This new feature is not like most New Year’s Resolutions because these are not about how to act during the day, they’re about what to do in dreams. Doing the right thing in dreams is much different than doing the right thing in waking life. It is hard to know whether a monster in a dream is an evil demon that needs to be vanquished or a gift in disguise that only needs witnessing in order to completely transform. Sometimes of course it is both, in which case you may want to consult a professional. Fortunately, I am a professional.

My dream resolutions tend to come out more like pronouncements than typical New Year’s resolutions, but that is part of the fun. This is a type of dream re-scripting, so if you try them yourself just let them come out the way they are. And here are mine for this year:

1. If you are held underground in a “DNA-resistant container,” get out immediately, maybe by turning into a tree and growing yourself out and away.

2. The lucid stream is glittering all the way down to the gravel, so go ahead and dip your fingers in.

3. Do not give your name when caught in someone else’s library—Google will find out and publicize it!

4. If you are pole-vaulting across the grass, don’t assume you will fail. Enjoy sailing through the air and you will make it just fine!

5. If you see a bunch of little kids wandering around backstage after a performance, bring them to the main hall so their parents can find them and bring them home.

6. Joking about how old you are getting probably isn’t the best opener at your high school reunion. On the other hand, you’ll learn a lot from the reactions you get.

7. Don’t just pass by the guy doing uninteresting things in a dream—he may be about to open the treasure drawer!

8. If a dead relative returns for 25 seconds to tell you your future, and it is everything you want, believe them.

9. Even if the others are hanging back, moving toward ground zero is the only way to get the footage that will really make a difference.

10. Just because you dream of restoring a beautiful theater into a thriving community hub doesn’t mean you should do that in waking life. But who knows? Pay attention, and see what opportunities come your way in waking, and in dreaming.

The ramp-up to this year’s huge PantheaCon event has been remarkably mellow for me. I have been working hard on it for days now, but blessedly without the usual high-pitched whine of anxiety in the background. I attribute it partly to the unheard-of luxury of having a partner who has my back and is happy to help out—and also to my latest herbal garden experiment.

My friend Gail Julian, who teaches here, was telling me a couple months ago about the wonders of the ubiquitous California poppy as a sleep aid, anxiety reliever, and mildly euphoric nervine. It is gentle enough to use with children too, apparently, and who wouldn’t want that?

I had a patch of poppies growing where I didn’t want them to grow, so I took the next full moon opportunity to harvest the whole plants, and soak them in alcohol for a while. The result, decanted just this week, is a marvelous, very strong tasting but energetically not overwhelming California poppy tincture. It is keeping my shoulders from bunching up with stress, yet my head is clear and I am actually enjoying getting everything done. What a marvelous find! And part of the car-full of goods and services I will be selling all this weekend at the Serpentine Music booth.

There has already been an entertaining stream of Twitter posts about PantheaCon, and if you want the scoop on what’s happening at San Jose’s long-suffering Doubletree Hotel, follow the hashtag #pcon.

PantheaCon is the largest indoor gathering of Earth religions, eclectic spiritualities, Pagans, Druids, witches and freaks eccentrics that I know about. There is a fascinating mix of practitioners, teachers, researchers, clergy, and seekers in attendance, not to mention those who just love the party.

I will try to post pictures in my idle moments between selling music and herbs, leading and assisting workshops, and socializing. If you are attending, be sure to stop by the booth and say hello. But whether you’re there on site or just enjoying the home game, have a great weekend!

This poem may not be finished—I have spent the evening taking it apart and putting it back together, and still have some tinkering to do around the edges. But what fun to have a new poem to share for Brigid! And to be writing poetry again. The stress of the past few years must be easing up. May it be so.

Fresh Powder

My mistake was thinking
I had been down this slope
before. A night spent traversing
the ridge, looking for tracks as phantom
traces of moonlight and tree shadow guided
me first to one route then another, a faint
smoothness to the land here, hints of
familiar curves waiting there,
around the bend. But
no sure match—memory
promising what the moment
did not contain. Backtracking,
confidence giving way to doubt,
the lift and heave through hip-deep
powder, a strained ascent for another run.
Then, dawning wonder: I had not been here
before. Never these woven flanks of land, never
this finely-tuned air warming to dampness in
my nostrils. I pause to listen, fingers
flexed like dowsing rods sweeping
across the mountain. Minutes
pass, possibly days.
From behind me an owl flies
low, disappearing into the shadows ahead
and my feet follow, maneuvering rise and swale
with harnessed speed. The boughs overhead give out a soft
cry, and a rustle of downy feathers, sinew and silk. Such unearthly
beauty this night, the heavens keeping watch, and so many miles before we           both can sleep.

Anne Hill
Feb 1, 2010

I had to go back to this post to find the earliest reference (Reya’s original blog post is lost in the mists) to the now annual Silent Poetry Reading in honor of Brigid (Saint or Goddess, as you prefer). And while the first invitation was for a single day’s blogging event, watching the misty full moon tonight got me thinking of a favorite line from a poem that I want to offer, so I will simply declare that this year’s event has begun!

Life is hard enough; why shouldn’t we take all the full moon weekend leading up to February 2nd to celebrate this patroness of the arts and healing, and read her a poem or two?

For those of you with dormant blogs (ahem, Oak and Pandora!), now would be a great time to dust them off and offer up a poem. And for those of you who are more web-savvy (I’m looking at you, Yvonne and Cat), perhaps there is a way to aggregate everyone’s contributions, so that it is easier to have a glass of wine on Brigid’s feast day and browse through all the great poems.

Update: Yvonne has set up a system: if you post a poem this weekend, go to delicious.com and enter your post url with the tag brighid2010. (Or get a geeky friend to do it for you; it’s not super intuitive.) If you just want to read all the poetry, search for the brighid2010 tag at delicious and all our posts will show up together. Magic!

This is a poem I wrote back in 1990. I remembered it because the last line came back to me tonight, and I still really like it. Here it is.

The Basket
(after John Berryman)

What should I do, evenings, cobwebs
swaying in the rafters and three finely
printed invitations nailed to the

message board? (they quote Neruda, say
Bring the Children, or Softball at the
Reception) But marriage? Why flower

the hair or slip new diamonds through ears,
when the chapels are emptying: vessels
thrown with relief into rivers, small

silver placed in the notches of trees and
bells over arms of sky? The bride’s demure
look is not modesty but ambivalence—notice

the primrose which holds her gaze as he
leads her out of the valley. The day I
ate caviar from your navel and we pulled

each other through the brush to gather
the sweetest berries, I thought you were
a finely feathered basket, serpent-coiled

and watertight. We have been each others’
alibis, laughing as the caterers filled our
plates, saying we were too young to know

better, with the happy couple making the
evil eye behind our backs. Now, three-fingered,
I sit nights mending coil, sedge soaking

in the dish pan. I will make them one with
blue feathers, tell them marriage is not bells
but the basket, and we its constant gleaners.

I have just spent an hour watching the excellent Rachel Maddow interview people about the public health disaster unfolding in Port au Prince. Once the visual shock of some of the images registered—the wounded lined up in the hallways and parking lots of barely functioning hospitals, the man lying on the ground whose IV had run dry and who was slowly dying while family members held his hands—I began to realize that my personal connection to this scene felt like more than that of a casual viewer.

I have in my home a couple pieces of furniture made from fine Haitian mahogany. The story behind them goes that my grandfather, a Naval doctor, was stationed in Haiti during the U.S. occupation. His job was to oversee construction and be officer in charge of one of the many rural hospitals the U.S. built. Unfortunately, I do not know the exact area. Roads were quite scarce in Haiti at the time, so my grandfather rode out every day on horseback to oversee his hospital.

One morning after a great storm, he rode through the woods to work and came upon two giant mahogany trees that had been felled by lightning the night before. He had his men go out and bring the trees back to the compound, and later had a local carpenter make a whole set of furniture to his specifications.

I am quite sure that as a Naval officer my grandfather perpetuated our racist, destructive governance of Haiti in many ways. I also know that he was a good man and a strong leader, and that he probably ran an efficient hospital. It breaks my heart to read that, of all the ill that was done to Haiti during the occupation, one good thing that did endure were the hospitals we built—many of the buildings were still functional well into the 1990s.

My father was conceived in Haiti, and in the latter part of 1926 my grandmother sailed to Washington D.C. so that Dad wouldn’t be born on the island. (Her standard joke: “I didn’t want to have a black baby!” As a child, this really confused me.) My grandfather joined her later and ended up doing the delivery himself, when her regular doctor was out at a D.C. New Year’s Eve party.

Pop-pop (as we called him) returned to his post shortly after my dad was born, but my grandmother stayed with family in New Jersey for another couple months before travelling with the baby back to Haiti. During her absence my father’s older brother, not yet 2, stayed in the care of Haitian nuns.

Haiti needs our help long-term. After this crisis has passed, we need to figure out how to help the people of Haiti without repeating the missteps of our ill-begotten occupation a century ago. Can we do it? Can we aid the infrastructure, literacy, health care and survival needs of the country, while making sure that the system we help build is what Haiti wants and is capable of sustaining in our absence?

My family had a hand in the meddling—and also did some good in the country. I have an old gateleg table, in need of some repair but well-built out of beautiful wide mahogany boards, that reminds me of my connection to the country every day. May all go well, may relief get to those in need, may Haiti emerge stronger and more vibrant than ever. Viva Haiti.

I did not buy my home on my own. It was bought several years ago by my then-husband and me, as we looked to the future and decided that we wanted a house on the California coast to retire to. We got a fixer for a great price, and spent the next couple of years working on it so we could rent it out as we waited for those golden years of retirement to roll around.

As you can probably guess, that’s not what happened. Well before the housing market sprung a leak, our marriage did. And what was going to be a dream vacation home waiting for our habitation became a half-finished crash pad that I moved into when it was clear I needed to leave.

In the years since, I have learned a thing or two about surviving the breakup of a long-term marriage. Not from reading books on the subject — I stay away from most self-help books like the plague. My friends were the ones I turned to, kvetched to, and leaned on throughout the seemingly endless divorce process.

The principles I learned and practiced got me through those four years, and continue to serve me well in my new, post-divorce life. So on the off-chance that someone else is in the same predicament, here are the five most important principles I learned for surviving a divorce.

1. Know what you are in for. Because many of my close friends had also been through bad breakups, I learned a surprising amount from them about what to expect. But the best road map came from a therapist who said, “it takes four years to get through a break-up.” I protested when she said this — who wants to hear after two months of sheer agony that there are 46 more to go?

She continued: “The first year is awful. But the second year is worse, because while things are just as hard, you’re exhausted from doing this for a year already. By year three the drama has calmed down a bit, and you start getting your new bearings. And the fourth year is the clean-up year, taking care of details you let go, and moving on with your life.”

I have to say, she was right. Like it or not, it does take about four years to get through the whole thing. (Not including co-parenting, of course, which is a lifetime gig.)

2. Always face the dragon. During a divorce, there are so many days when you just want to do nothing. And of course, you need lots of down time. But often you want to do nothing because there is one thing you really need to do that you just dread. Maybe it’s talking to a financial adviser, or filling out a complicated form. Maybe it’s having a difficult conversation with your ex. Whatever that one dreaded thing is, you have to do it. I call this “facing the dragon.”

Whenever I felt miserable, I went over in my mind all the things that were feeding my misery. Usually there was one task I really didn’t want to do, and my rule was that I had to do it. I could avoid everything else on the list, but that one thing I had to attend to. And you know what? It saved my ass. It was grueling and painful, but I showed up prepared when I needed to be prepared, and handled important things in a timely manner. I am thankful every day for all the effort I put in when I really didn’t want to get off the couch.

3. Hunker down. When you’re not facing the dragon, you do get to collapse sometimes. Do things that give you pleasure, or at least take the edge off, and bow out of anything you’re doing that isn’t helping you survive. Social events that you’ve lost interest in? Let them go. Friends that leave you feeling drained? Take a raincheck.

Be responsible, especially if you’ve got kids to take care of, but aside from that take stock of the things you no longer want to do, and drop them. Instead, take advantage of the opportunity to re-shape your life by staying focused on what is important and letting the rest fall away.

4. Sometimes, it’s good to watch The Godfather. That was the advice of a trusted friend who listened to me complain one day about the injustices I was dealing with. I laughed, but she repeated herself: “No really, go and watch it. I can’t explain it, but you’ll feel much better.”

I decided to humor her and rent the movie, though I didn’t think it would help. But once I hit the video store I ended up in a near-trance walking down the aisles, and I left the store with not one but three DVDs tucked under my arm: I’d rented The Godfather, but I also got V for Vendetta and The Corpse Bride. When I emerged from the next two days of cathartic movie-watching I realized my friend was right: I did feel much better.

5. Give yourself room to grow. My half-finished crash pad had the beginnings of a lovely garden, and after a few months of neglect I realized that if I let it all die, it would very quickly be the most depressing-looking house to come home to. I resolved to replace the dead plants right away, and make sure all of them were hooked up to water.

As I was planting them, I followed the instructions and left what seemed like a ridiculously large amount of room around each plant. Apparently those little starts would grow quite big someday. I doubted it, but gave them room anyway.

Meanwhile, I had a house with a cavernous bedroom to furnish, and I had to decide what size bed to get. Should I be frugal and get a double or (shudder) a single? Or should I buy a large bed that was the right size for the room, and that said rather strongly that I planned to stay here and did not intend to sleep alone forever? Maybe because I had been so optimistic with the plants, I decided to get a big bed, with the best quality mattress. Every night for a long time I went to sleep alone, but in the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in.

The next year, my little plantings filled out in the garden and were very happy I’d given them the room they needed. And after all those difficult years, I am so very grateful now that I chose to be optimistic about my bed and other things, and gave myself enough room to grow.

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post.

Just like dressing for success puts our best foot forward, dreaming for success can help us achieve our biggest goals this year.

Last year I shared 10 great tips for having big winter dreams. But more important than having big dreams is knowing how to work with all the dreams we have. Here’s how to make every dream count, no matter how small.

1. Remember your dreams and write them down. Even if you only remember a word or name, color or feeling, write it down. Dream recall increases the more we practice it.
2. Go for what makes you happy in dreams. Some traditions insist that to be happy in waking life you must pursue pleasure in your dreams. Being successful in 2010 means being bold, so start by doing what you want in dreams even if it’s something you would never do in waking life. It’s just a dream–go for it!
3. Don’t run from conflict in your dreams. This may take some practice, but you’ve got all year, right? If there’s a dragon chasing you at night, coach yourself to turn and face it. Likewise with intruders, thieves, and other scoundrels. You will soon find it easier to overcome obstacles of all kinds during the day. Seriously, it works!
4. Keep tabs on your health. If you are sick or injured in a dream, don’t freak out, but do heed the warning. Dreams usually work on the symbolic level, but sometimes they have direct, concrete advice for us. Always check out a health concern in a dream, it could be the best move you ever make.
5. Pay attention when things go bad. Notice what happens just before a good dream starts becoming an anxiety-ridden nightmare. Do you hesitate out of fear? Is there a misunderstanding that sets things off the rails? Are you listening to someone with the wrong information? Figure out what the glitch is, and start overcoming it in waking life.
6. Look for dream allies and treat them well. Dreams are full of unforeseen turns of fortune, if we know what to look for. Just as in fairy tales, if someone offers you something in a dream be gracious and thank them. It may look strange, but looks can be deceiving, and we never want to turn down what could be a golden opportunity.
7. Always go for the highest good. If you have a choice of two actions to take in a dream, and one of them benefits you alone whereas the other benefits you and several others, take the second choice. Start now to shift those self-centered patterns in the dream world, and you may find that others are more willing to help you achieve your goals on waking as well.

We all have to sleep and dream, no matter how desperate, ambitious, or energetic we are. The good news is, our dreaming minds are perfectly capable of helping us with our waking goals–when we act in accordance with our values and stick with it in spite of the setbacks that inevitably occur. In a year where money is scarce and every advantage counts, who can afford to discount their dreams?

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post.

One summer in the beginning of the Aughts, I spent an amazing week in Somerset with Donald Engstrom and Sharon Jackson. That is to say, the weather was amazing, the countryside amazing too, the company was fabulous, and the spot we were staying in was perfectly lovely. Our job, on the other hand, was thankless, arduous, and at times grueling.

We were teaching at Avalon Witchcamp, the first year that the camp did not have any of its regular teachers there. It was an experiment in “introducing new talent” and “altering the camp dynamics,” which surely would benefit the entire community in the long run. We were, in effect, substitute teachers while the camp was in its adolescent rebellion stage.

Having spent years working as a substitute teacher I had a premonition that it would be a tough gig, but didn’t want to believe it beforehand. After a day and a half, though, I instinctively moved into damage control mode with Donald and Sharon: Stick together. Be sympathetic to everyone, but don’t promise anything. Project confidence, and do what you do best.

We each had our strengths, but Donald had one technique that seemed to always—at least momentarily—quiet the discontented and bring the camp into some kind of altered state together. I watched him, transfixed, until I figured out what he was doing. Anyone who has seen Donald in ritual will know exactly what I mean when I call it “Stirring the Pot.” Here’s how it’s done:

First, be stocky, Swedish, and Lutheran. Have a low, gravelly voice and enjoy humming. When it is your turn to guide the energy, step into the circle and keep your gaze on the fire.

Before taking another step, extend your arm toward the center of the circle, fingers pointed slightly down to the flames like dowsing rods. Start a little hum, as low as possible, and as you do this begin to slowly swirl your fingers in a circular motion, still pointing down toward the center of the fire.

Let the hum build into something barely audible, then into a song containing actual syllables. It doesn’t matter what the syllables are exactly, but they should sound like a cross between a Native American raven chant, a Saami joik, and a middle-aged guy puttering in his garden.

Continue this stirring and singing until you have the crowd in the palm of your hand, so to speak. You’ll eventually want to say something, if only to snap people out of their trance. Take your time, and enjoy being able to talk without challenge. Cap off the ritual with warm beverages indoors, and stories told in a salacious tone. Rest easy, get up in the morning, and do it again.