The Dreamtime

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Comment by Georgia Cammann on August 20, 2009 at 4:30pm

Especially as the collective conciousness has begun to shift in the last few years, I too have seen a much greater interest in shamanic practices. I think it comes from several venues. We as humans, are feeling somthing is missing on all levels, esp. spiritually and emotionally. What the 80s and 90s brought into our culture here has not been feeding us at the deep level we need and want. The material things and jumps in technology (which have certainly had their rewards for many) haven't filled the "soul aches" that have either been there all along or are coming up for so many. Neither is organized religion on many fronts. I want to be careful here not to put down anyone who embraces it or anything else if they feel it serves them in a healthy, positive way. O.R. has also helped a great many in communities where a collective, heartfelt effort was put forward to help those in need. I have many friends and aquaintances who steadfastly practice various religions, are great people and feel very good about it. It's never black and white. I'm speaking from my own pt.of view and that of so many others I know and have worked with. Many of those who tried to feed their spirits in that manner were met w/ guilt, a great deal of judgement, fear, abuse (often of an extreme nature), etc., all of which were certainly not conducive to growing in Love, Compassion and Spirit.
We all have a great deal of information and knowlege at our disposal but we have to learn how to access it and every single one of us can. It takes the desire, being open to new ways of perceiving, the time to learn and implement it and integrity.
The basic Shamanic principles of all indigenous cultures have common threads regardless of their individual, tribal beliefs and practices; a deep respect and reverence for the Earth and all it's sentient beings (animals and plants) and an awareness and strong belief in other realities, dimensions, spirit worlds, etc. (they're all the same thing) are intregal parts of the thread.
Shamanism is a spiritual practice and belief system that has no written text. It's handed down from generation to generation and requires a lifetime of commitment, sacrifice and practice. You're correct...there are numerous venues out there touting shamanic practices, with more coming up all the time. Many of the native cultures highly resent this and to me, it feels very sacreligous as well if it entails "mimicing" their sacred ceremonies, etc. The basic "knowledge" is there however, availible and congruent to the laws of physics and spirituality for all people. It's the place their knowledge collectively came from in the first place....something much bigger than ourselves. The principles can be taught and implemented regardless of the methods. As our earth has become more ravaged, at a very deep level, many, many of us are becoming increasingly alarmed and I truly believe our anxiety and fear over this comes not only from our linear knowledge about the pollution, deforestation, ect. but also very much from the intrinsic knowledge we carry at a cellular level through many lifetimes. Our "guts" know we can't survive w/o a healthy planet and we're being called to be part of the solution. There are those of us (including me), who have a particularly strong pull in the shamanic direction. It resonates at a particularly deep level. I find that giving people the knowlege and information and then letting them decide on an individual basis works best. I'm a true believer there are many ways to accomplish the same goals and it needs to be what resonates with each person.
If anyone reading this is possibly interested in do a workshop which would give you the basic information to begin to understand the various natural, healing modalities and spiritual practices we're all seeing, hearing and reading about more and more frequently, I'll leave my e-mail and website addresses at the end of this and I will look at putting one together soon. My intention is based on a concious effort to empower others in their own personal journeys of healing and growth and the reverberating rewards that come from that. EVERY single thing is connected and affects everything else in some way.
I've also sought the help of many types of healers myself, including shaman with some amazing results and experiences which I would be glad to relate if it gives anyone more clarity.
Georgia Cammann
425-443-0842
www.creativepossibilites.net

Comment by Tembo Chinook on August 20, 2009 at 3:12pm

Georgia,

Good points - at a small forum on shamanic work last night, it was quickly apparent that there is both a genuine curiousity about a methodology which may have some great lineage behind it and also an accurate caution about trying to learn enough to learn how to "decide how to decide" if one was interested in experiencing more. For myself, as only one member of the panel with limited time, I realized just how much has begun to be stored up in my little rock skull . . . I'd be interested in seeing some of your course info and I bet others would too. TC

Comment by Georgia Cammann on August 19, 2009 at 8:23pm

An added comment:
I'm aware of the confusion out there regarding the many types of healing modalities and philosophies and who could be surprised?! As the conciousness in thinking "outside the box" is pushed forward, more and more "choices" also come come to the front as well. Those that are legitimate share a common thread but may have very different ways of reaching the end result. Many may have validity but different venues resonate w/ different people for different reasons.... a perfect example of why there's no ONE WAY to accomplish somthing as many dogmas would have us believe. There are of coarse, just by virtue of human nature, those less-than-integritous healers as well. I actually developed a course to give people w/ these type of questions who were confused, some basic information that might be helpful in gaining some clarity.
We don't know what we don't know until we know it and there's SO much out there none of us ever have the opportunity to scratch the surface of.

Comment by Georgia Cammann on August 19, 2009 at 8:08pm

Tempo,
I couldn't agree more...I think it really boils down to "Perception" in general, regardless of what the topic is. Five people could be looking at and experiencing the same situation at the same time in the same place and ALL could very likely come away w/ a different view based on, not only their own experintial life lessons, but also I have learned, very much from a DNA standpoint. No wonder we all have different views of the same thing! Knowledge is good, in all it's forms and maybe...just maybe... this dynamic is also a wonderful lesson put before each of us many times throughout our lives in reserving our judgement and just letting go, trusting and opening ourselves up to the process which will inevitably manifest itself according to something much bigger than we are anyway. Despite my human (trying to have a spiritual experience here... ;-O), I work very hard to stay out of human judgment and allow the experience to blossom w/o those type of limits and I can say for myself, I have never once been disappointed. ALL worlds..... human, spiritual, dimensional...however we think of them, are so very connected and so full of information just ripe for our own growth and also for the quality of our collective exisitence . ALL of our answers are availible if we know how to "see" them. One day... when I grow up, I want to be a Spirit hanging out here, viewing things from the other, more aware side of things, having a human experience....yet another example of perception I suppose! :-)

Comment by Tembo Chinook on August 17, 2009 at 10:39pm

Georgia, a ong overdue thanks for your contribution . . . I often think that there is a style of the soul which relates to healing in its own language . . . and that is good, to have this proliferation of different medicines. Issues associated with it that i see are (1) the proliferation of modalities may make it confusing in a culture which does not really have a vocabulary of healing for individuals who are not in the "in group" to know who to choose or to even know how to choose a modality which will be good for them. (2) From my own bias, I think the paradigm of the shamanic methodologies, if they can be called that, have the essential feature of recognizing what i am calling the three way conversation between the human community, the natural or "living" world, and the spirit world. Some, if not many modalities do NOT recognize this interactive system as the "given" background within which the healing occurs. I think this three way conversation is an essential ingredient of an indigenousity which must in some way be rediscovered or reinvented in order to survive our current challenges. TC

Comment by Georgia Cammann on June 16, 2009 at 11:17pm

As a very shamanically based, intuitive healer, I have come to rely quite a bit on my Dreamtime. If I'm seeking clarity or direction on something, I will go into a meditation and ask for information from this realm. Because I dream so achetypally, it used to take me a while to figure out their meanings. I then realized, it usually it wasn't about what I was seeing in them but rather what I was feeling.
I have had a certain type of powerful, psychic dreaqm for about the last 6-7 years. I know when it's coming becquse as soon as I lay down to go to sleep, my sinuses swell completely shut...wierd I know! I begin dreaming and they usually end up being very frightening...trying to run away, filled with terror, can't breathe, etc. I'm talking, yelling, whimpering during the night. If I wake up and get a glass of water or whatever, it picks up right where it left off, like a movie w/ a pause button. I've always had a strong feeling these dreams came from a regressional/ past life position.
On a recent trip to a small village in Mexico, I asked a Huichol Shaman who was visiting, if he could do some energy healing on me to try and stop these particular dreams. As he worked on me, he literaly sucked off energy from my 4th chakra anbd threw up twice in the bushes! That was 3 mos. ago and I haven't had one since! Even as a healer myself, I often go to other healing modalities to address various things. I believe there are many ways to do the same thing but the shamanic way is a personally powerful one for me.

Comment by Pam McWethy on April 3, 2009 at 2:56am

Hey R. Tembo Chinook Canukk.
Thanks for the invite. I dream a lot sometimes small, jumbled dreams, sometimes big, detailed, complete story line dreams. I'm not consistent about writing the dreams and think this forum would be wonderful to encourage both my wirting and my dreaming become more consistent.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to collaboratively participate in gaining skill in dreaming those "little dreams" for self and those "big dreams" for the larger whole in what ever form that may take... of course we know that the boundary between self and whole cosmos is a mysterious ephemera, difficult to define.

An so my next chapter begins... I feel myself pulled bit by bit out from my brush hidden, south slope badger hole into the electronic village or at least to the near-by cross roads where exchange often happens. Enough for now...

Comment by Tembo Chinook on April 2, 2009 at 11:31pm

The circumstance of being seen while in an embodied dialogue with the imaginal, emotional, mythological, and non-ordinary is affected by personal and cultural memory at least. It is possible with certain practices to extend one's willingness to be seen and not be "taken out" of the trance-forming space of these experiences. In my winter dance cycle, most people either tone down their expression of the ecstatic, or close their eyes to avoid the sense of being seen. One of the practices in stretching the flexiblity of one's ability to be seen can be the "relocation" of one's own "eyes": (1) inner referencing - deep trance, (2) eyes of meeting the other - focused on connection (3) view present, and omnidirectional (4) far off horizon eyes - in the outer world, but not at the current location. I believe the ability to "hold the territory" of our inhabitation of dreamtime takes quite a fierce intention, and also needs to be done in places and times that are relatively safe . . . I know I have had to pull my self back from fully committing to some of my more carnivorous animal guides at times since the context was not really safe for me or for others . . . and this ultimately meant a loss of some of that knowledge that could come through in a "dance." This September, I am planning a ritual gathering to set up the appropriate safe container for some extreme journeys. Hope this might have been helpful. TC

Comment by Maggi Squire on April 2, 2009 at 2:40am

Thanks for invite.

this is definatly a skill I want to develop more .
Am actually intersted in any information or experience of waking dream time as i rarely am concsious of night time dreams and though I have attempted dream dairies it has had only vague success.
I think my dreamtime contact tends to be in my artwork as my process is very unconcsious , I just let stuff develop on the canvas/paper/material in the moment and it emerges like a dream and has a definate impact on my awareness of spirit time/space.
I love the idea of walking towards the dream as soon as it happens.
I do dance into dreamtime , only when i dance alone with no one else around as then I can let go of the thoughts of other people and be open. ... of course I don't normally tell anyone about this but as this is looking at the skills we have and how we develop them it is worth examining it more openly and more deeply !

Comment by Tembo Chinook on April 1, 2009 at 8:07pm

Go to the discussion and register to "follow this discussion" if you would like to be kept up to date . . . Feel free to comment here as well. I am investigating the possibility of reviving the very specific instructional conversation with the Other World which is the knowledge of "Big Dreams" coming through those with abilities in the dreamtime.

The etiology of such an approach follows several clues. Credo Mutwa says simply, "If you have a dream, wake up in the morning and start walking toward that dream." Then there is the idea that "People can lie, but a dream must tell the truth." Or that (?) South Pacific island where children are asked every morning if they had a dream.

I plan to encourage discussion in the direction of "efficacy" rather than entertainment. A pretty good book on working with dreams ritually is Robert Johnson's INNER WORK. But the jist of it is to just do something, anything, to acknowledge, thank and encourage the continued flow of imagery and guidance. I often add a phrase into my prayers "We humans are willing to do our part of the work, and if there is a way you can construct what messages you have for us in a way which we can understand, we are more able to work on the projects in which we might be in partnership with you."

So for anyone new to this kind of work, you are encouraged to jump in: we know there are dreams which foretell the future and exhibit synchronicity and other non-linear temporal and causal relationships. For those who are explerienced, let us look toward the "imaginal alacrity" which can deepen our mystery. And for the first dream . . . look to the discussion "PRIMARY COLORS"