Dreaming Bridges

connecting the dream world with the waking world :: Michael Klosterman, DC, ONDM

I have known about this book by Lama Anagarika Govinda for many years.  I put it off time and again thinking it would be yet another dense, unintelligible litany of dogmas.  Well, as usual, it really was simply a matter of timing. Now is the time to read one of the most wonderful books on the Tibetan Buddhist perspective of the nature of mystical experience.  It is a masterful book.  By that I mean not simply that it is a well written piece of literature, but that it was written by someone who was writing about a subject that he had personal experience with and who could write clearly about subjects that can be confusing, obtuse, jargon-filled and foreign to people across a wide spectrum.  Lama Govinda was a scholar/mystic/writer who brought an intense, precise wisdom to this work.

The book tells mostly about the great mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum”, it’s origins, meanings on many levels and most importantly, why it is such a great help on the spiritual journey.  This extremely well-researched, conceptual and pragmatic journey helps break down the rational resistances to otherwise deemed merely “magic”  mantras that have no basis in reality or that have such fantastic claims as to be rendered useless to the serious student.

Written in the late 50′s, this is truly a timeless classic that is a boon to deeper understanding of all mystical experiences that relate to our every day lives.  This has been of great help to me in filling out my understanding of Buddhist thought and in giving words and contexts to my own experiences for which I am truly grateful.

The point, as i see it, of dream work is to meld the inner and outer landscapes.  Yes it can inform you of obstacles, teach you about a great many things, organize your mental and emotional bodies, and the like.  For me the issue is broader still, that of working directly with the great Dreaming.  This is the co-creative aspect we hear so much about.  (Much of  that is simply wishful thinking and as useful.)  This has to do with “innerstanding” as my old friend Sunyata would say.  That is the capacity to be aware beyond reasoning and mental or cognitive functions with all of the life that is surrounding you, the good and bad, the mystery and all else in between.  What you see as the outer world is as a reflection of the inner.  Some of which belongs to your personal path and some of it is a collective path.  All of it can be found inside each and every one of us.  That is the task of re-membering the face you had before you were born, spirituality, “ascension” and the like.  It is the path of the Heart.  And further, it is the path of the inner Heart, the Emerald doorway of the Self as aware of Itself.  It is the path of acceptance of all things, equanimity, detachment, benign indifference, an active passivity. In the world arena, it is the ability to be present where you are, to be moved to do the things that resonate clearly with your inner sensation.

Dreaming is a way of checking in to what needs to happen, or rather, is happening.  My dream last night informed me of my frustration at listening to others and not simply doing what is before me.  I have a tendency to seek out authorities in my field, listen to their advice and wait on their assistance and light.  In this dream i could just as easily have done without, trusting my own judgment where it concerned my own activity.  “Just do it!”.

Confidence with the inner has ramifications on the outer in the same way that experiencing the outer landscape as sacred and in-forming.  When i hike in certain locations that have a particular numinous quality, it actually in-forms me of that same quality within me.  There is a resonance that i might not have been aware of before.  Now i look inside to name or simply enjoy that particular space inside, knowing that i can go there anytime.   Something else occurs as well.  I come home to that bit of landscape.  I know myself a little bit better, I am re-born into that place, i now belong.  This to me is what the Native Dreaming of emergence from the sipapu of the Underworld is a least partly about.  “I resonate with a place and therefor I am”.  There is no sense of antecedent existence, no great migration to this place,  as resonance is beyond time and space.  So when asked where they came from, they always say “We have always been here”.  They belong to that space in the ever present, eternal  now.  This is symbolized by the popular wooden ladder, a symbol of emergence and belonging to THIS place.  This is where the inner and outer dream meet and where the life that needs to be lived is lived, as a sacred contract,  one that bridges the stars and the mundane as a path that leads us home to our Selves through the great Dreaming.

It’s my birthday today!  9/11!  Horray for the day!  The great wheel of my life turns once again.  The dream from last night was a conglomeration of interconnecting scenes that ended with Chris and me going to a U-Haul place to pick up a truck.  We see a small group of people clearing out their just used truck, putting the hold down chains away and tidying up things. They are beginning to form a large circle and to do some sort of celebration dance.  We are invited to join.  Soon the scene morphs into a dance floor (an old skating rink) with a star quilt pattern on the floor.  Individuals then couples take turns dancing inside the ring.  Chris and i are dancing inside it, doing a fun, silly dance with  interweaving movements, pursuit and lead sort of thing as well as me doing a series of somersaults and Chris doing a cartwheel.  We are being  given bits of pastries from some of the others.  The owner has a concession stand that has just added pastries to the menu so i find myself looking into the back room at the racks of different pastries and taking some.

So with this dream i entitle “Star Dance” i can look at this time in the cycle as putting away the chains of the past, preparing  myself for the next adventure and joining in with a fun,  group dance on a star field.  I have recently had a vision of being able to reconfigure my star chart as all else had been done.  The somersaults and cartwheels noting to me of now being the cycle rather than at it’s whim.  Sounds good to me!  There is also the feeling now of being connected and dancing in/with the stars- all it’s beings one could say.

That’s what i get at the moment!

My dream action (that which brings the energy of the dream into this 3D world) consisted of going to a Star site here in Santa Fe at Cornell Park to visit Sirius/Shiva.  i meditate there and see myself going up to Sirius and am welcomed home.  (go figure i’m from someplace else!)  Then i decide that a pastry is needed.  So i go to Santa Fe Bakery down the street, see a pastry in the case that has some purple jam on it and am told that it is a figure 8 pastry!  It tastes great and doesn’t give me the usual heaviness in the stomach that pastries usually do.

What does that do for me?  While i don’t know entirely just yet, it’s part of the fun and mystery of dream work.  Being connected with “home” is a soothing balm at least.  And what’s the matter with feeling soothed!

Welcome to the Dreaming Bridges website.  This is an opportunity to tune into the messages that cross over our dream bridge into our daily life and assist us in navigating with more confidence and depth.