Water Water Everywhere

I had promised to share how my spiritual path influences my day to day productivity. A key part of my practice is dream work. This is how I tailor my journey based on the clues within my dreams.

I hope to share more of this process in the future.

blessings,
Katrina

Water, Water, Everywhere

That was the beginning of a recent dream. I am surrounded by water as far as the eye can see. That is exactly how I felt over the last few months, but it was only the beginning of this dream, so there is much more to this image than meets the eye.

Water and eyes, an interesting combination in the preceding paragraph. Simplistic dream amplification would lead to emotions and awareness. There is more to the emotions that are overflowing within me than I am aware of at the moment. Which makes sense to my waking self. Because dreams do not simply illustrate what is known, it expands and deepens one’s self-awareness – hell it often explodes self-delusions and exposes what is unknown or hidden.

The next part of the dream seemed incongruent with the first part; I am at a gathering filled with song along with all these wonderfully incredible people. It was glorious. And then it was time for me to leave. So I began gathering my belongings. As I was leaving, I could still hear the song, but I no longer knew the words. As I left, I became very sad.

Singing for me is bliss, and within my dreams, it has always symbolized beauty, peace and sweetness. And a gathering calls to mind the pulling together of what had been separate. So a gathering filled with song seems like a poetic description of where I found myself briefly after this last bit of underworld work. But then, I had to leave. Why?

The next part of the dream was my perennial search for my car – my drive, my ambition, my focus, and my spark. This incredibly beautiful dark man in a hotel uniform began trying to help me. He wore this most inexplicably beautiful pink shirt under his jacket. I have seen that pink before. In the dream, I knew it meant something important. But as usual, I became obsessed with finding my car, and he finally gave up and left me. And the dream ended with me wandering through the city hopelessly lost, trying to find my way home.

It hit me as soon as I wrote this last part into my journal. I left the gathering filled with song because I thought I needed to get back to work. And I have been working almost non-stop for the last month.

So I sit with the images from the dream. I notice that at times, I have no idea what is happening or what there is to do. And at those times where everything seems distant, deep inside I feel nothing. I sit staring out the window, not lost in thought, but feeling completely and totally blank inside. I keep looking at my lists and projects, searching for inspiration. It is as if I am lost – bingo!

So in the last few days, I have allowed myself to flow. I skipped the goal setting part of my weekly planning process this past Monday, and just let things flow after a thorough review. I seem to spend more time truly lost in thought, but I find myself doing what is really important. The truly important things get my attention without effort. It is as if I am being helped somehow. I smile remembering the dark man in the pink shirt, thank goodness he returned.

I do not know if it is just a phase or a new way of working for me long term. I only know that my dreams were pretty clear about my getting lost when I left the gathering filled with song. So now my plan is to go with the flow, and maybe just maybe, I will hear that beautiful song once again.

Katrina

Posted in

Dreams

Submitted by katrina on Thu, 06/19/2008 - 12:32am.

"Such beautiful dreaming! Such clear work. You sound so much in-focus just now.

I honor this work and delight in reading your words ... and I'm moved to participate in the dreaming-work, perhaps more than is appropriate.

I think I'll take the risk, and I hope you'll tell me if you'd rather I not do it again.

In the dream group I used to work with, we would read one of our dreams aloud and then go around the room, each one beginning their remarks with "If this were my dream..." and then sharing whatever the pieces seemed to illuminate for them. And then the next person might see something quite different in the same images, the same words.

In that sense, if this were my dream just now, in my dream I am surrounded by water -- my life is filled with emotion, covering and drowning everything else, so that all I can see is my feelings.

The gathering of song and all these incredible people -- my life, friendships, the harmony we make together. And in my dream, I am beginning to see myself moving on. Does this mean a change of geography? a change of emphasis? in my life this minute this could be about gradually shifting some of the focus of my everyday spiritual community from the UUs to the Yoga studio, or it could be something quite different. If I had this dream last week sometime, it would look like the impending end of an important relationship.

And in all of those possibilities, I am so present to the sadness with which I gather up what is mine to take with me, make my farewells, and lose my ability to remember the words. In all of these possibilities, even as I'm leaving I'm rethinking the choice to leave ... do I really have to? why?

In my dream, I look for my car because I want to escape ... and I can't find my car because there's no way out. As I'm searching the beautiful dark man in the hotel uniform helps me -- the hotel uniform telling me that wherever I am is only a way station, his beauty telling me that I can enjoy and appreciate his help, his darkness telling me that sometimes I need to look closely to see what is important (other times everything is well-lighted).

I keep looking for the way out even as the hotel man would make me welcome, and eventually the welcome is withdrawn as he leaves. And then I am lost and wandering, trying to find my way home -- having ignored help and support, I find I can't find the way alone after all.

And now that my dream has ended, I see there is much here that I can use in my waking life, too. So thank you for dreaming this dream, thanks for sharing it, thanks for letting me dream it, too.

Many blessings, Dear One"

"I sit staring out the window, not lost in thought, but feeling completely and totally blank inside." I have been sitting in a similar space.

Your post reminds me to trust and to listen for the song.