The Dreaming

Inner Constellation theme for the month of May is Dreamtime--one of my favorite topics. I've studied the role of dreams in many ancient cultures and most recently, the Aboriginal people of Australia, whose perspective on dreaming interests me because it closely aligns with my Native American roots. Aboriginal people believe that the dreaming is a place where past, present and future come together as one reality and which houses all the knowledge of a person's spiritual and blood ancestors. Such a realm lines up perfectly with my dreamtime experiences. Imagine a place you can enter to align with every moment up until the present and then, go beyond, to access the wisdom of everyone who has ever lived. Mind-blowing, yes, and that's why for me the process of consciously dreaming is not a matter of mind alone. How can we enter the dreaming with open and fluid receptivity? Here are a few of my favorite ways to involve my senses in the process of dreaming. I would love to here your tips, please add a comment or contact me for conversation:

• sitting or lying down beneath the stars before bedtime
• spending the last waking hour in candlelight or low lighting
• resting all technology in the last waking hours
• reading some wildly fantastic story or book of poetry before turning out the light
• listening to: Loreena McKennit, Cocteau Twins, or Delerium   
• keeping a dream journal by the bed with a pencil for easy access 
• heightening my sense of smell with the use of herbs, essential oils and scented candles
• defining an intention prior to bed to ground my dreaming practice, while using my breath as an anchor, breathing in and out evenly
• mentally recognizing all the things I'm grateful for in the course of the last 24 hours (puts my mind at ease, and I'm usually asleep by the time I finish:) 
• cultivating a sleeping sanctuary with meaningful decor, feather down comforter, a dream altar and lanterns outside my bedroom windows

Dreams are the wisdom portal inside one's Inner Constellation--the comings and goings, ways to mend and heal, predictions and foretellings. A vast Eternal reality awaits, receives and wraps us in metaphor for eight luxurious hours a day.  May your dreaming be lucid and sweet, a chart on the course to your North Star.