Rite of Oneiric Insight, Part 3: Reflections

Some quick notes on the Rite of Oneiric Insight (for the files).

"Dream Drawers" in varying stages of production.
A project initiated & further inspired by the Rite of Oneiric Insight.

It is all in the intent.


I attend a dream circle led by a very astute & intelligent attorney who has been journaling & doing dream work since the early 1990's. During a discussion of dreams, dreamwork & how we understand, interpret & relate to our dreams, the attention turned to me. All eyes in my direction, I gestured as though I was placing a hat on my head & said, "Time to put on my crazy hat..." And I offered perhaps a more candid explanation to that group of relative strangers than I would to people closer to me. I had expected eyebrows to raise, or faces to glaze over, but instead the response was, "It is all in the intent."

And so there we have it. I just needed to say it.


A few reflections on the inaugural Rite of Oneiric Insight:

My people:
My (deliberately) small group was comprised of four participants, plus myself as officiant. The group was diverse with ages ranging from approximately 30 to over 60, three women & one man, representing multiple ethnic backgrounds, occupations & spiritual leanings. Two have inclinations toward shamanism -- one modern or "neo-shamanic," one vis-a-vis culture/heritage. One participant has a proclivity for Hellenic practice & the another is a seasoned dream worker. Everyone had their own understanding/interpretation of this journey & everyone had wonderful reflections & energy to contribute.

The Cards Don't Lie:
One of my participants was feeling leery about attending & waffled hot & cold over the week, primarily because of the elixir -- having a sensitive disposition, she was nervous about consuming it. I told her she could participate without drinking it & she agreed to this condition. Since I only had three drinking horns, I told her that was convenient & I would make her some chamomile tea instead. But, when she arrived, she had changed her mind, as she is wont to do & decided the elixir would be fine. I replied that since she is so fickle, she didn't get a drinking horn this time. She also neglected to bring her hearing aids, so she missed much of my introduction, the ceremony & basically all of the visualization despite my careful placement of her head nearly in my lap. 

When the time came to draw cards, she was the only participant to draw a Gate of Ivory. 

I sent her home with the script for the visualization journey & she recorded it for herself, repeating the journey using headphones, with more success (I hope). 

An Inspiration from Offering:
My personal offering was a small apothecary chest which had been fashioned as an advent calendar. I planned to convert the chest into a small, portable shrine for dream ceremony-ing, painting it with a simple black exterior, maybe putting it on feet. I felt the simplicity of the shape & design allowed the personal imagination to operate uninfluenced by specific iconography, with the drawers representing the multitude of possibilities in the dreamworld & also functioning as containers for offerings amassed over time.

The night of the rite, I dreamt of images on the drawers of the chest, each representing various themes, landscapes, concepts one might encounter in the dreamworld. Thus, a new variation on the shrine was born -- the box will probably remain a night sky black while the drawers will each bear a different symbolic image. I also considered using each of the first four people who participated with me as muse for a drawer face. (The drawer with musical composition in the image above was inspired by one of the participants.)