Pray to the Moon when She is round,
Luck with you will then abound,
What you seek for shall be found
On the sea or solid ground.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

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.
"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.) 





4 comments:

brian taylor said...

I love the way you've written this up, and hope your sensitive participant found it helpful. 'Crazy Hat' sounds good to me.

This week Alice came into one of my dreams. She's the person I bought this house from forty years ago. We've kept her wallpaper at the end of the landing all this time, as a gesture of friendship, having heard and felt that this had been a happy house previously.

I have to admit that I'd been reading about spiritualism - and since I never met her I can't say whether it was 'really' her, but there was a hair-standing-on-end feel to it. A good dream either way, that's still reverberating.

Keep up the good work :)

Brian.



Moma Fauna said...

I believe our sensitive participant did find it helpful -- she indicated that after recording the visualization for herself. We shall see where it takes her, if anywhere, in the future.
I am pleased there is someone else who can appreciate the Crazy Hat!

As to the household "companions," (or something) we too have one of those. Her name is/was Velma and I kept her big old stainless steel Hamilton Beach mixer. (Her in-laws sold the house while she was in a home and they were not keen on that marriage so they left all her personal things -- we returned her photos to her son). I almost never make cakes in Alaska. But when we are here in Utah, let them eat cake! Oh! I am so sure part of the cake perfection is Velma's mixer. (And fresh goose eggs when I can get them definitely don't hurt a bit.) I think about Velma every time I use it -- about her unhappy marriages and losses and her final years of happiness here in this house with her last husband, despite everyone's disapproval. There is something so special here. And we might have left her wallpaper had we been able to bear any of it, but... Gah! ;)

Anonymous said...

Great googly-moogly - that lil dream chest, and the way you employed it, is slicker than snail snot. I wish I was a neighbor of yours so I could be in your workshops and warm my hands by the hearth of your inspiration. Well done (AGAIN)!

Moma Fauna said...

Mitch,

If my work is slicker than snail snot (I love that btw), then yours is the bee's knees. Just imagine the imaginative shenanigans & permutations of magick we could getup to if we were indeed neighbors!
Oh, goodness...

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