More about Dreams

More about Dreams

“If we go to that realm (the inner life or unconscious) consciously, it is by our inner work: our prayers, meditations, dreams work, ceremonies, and Active Imagination.

If we try to ignore the inner world, as most of us do, the unconscious will find its way into our lives through pathology: our psychosomatic symptoms, compulsions, depressions, and neuroses.”—Robert Johnson in Inner Work, Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth (Harper&Row 1989), p.11.

My spiritual director best helps me and others connect with God through dreams. Dreams are certainly one way that God, the dream maker, speaks to us. Studying our dreams is like learning a new language. It is the symbolic language of the unconscious. We connect to the unconscious with dreams, imagination, synchronicity, coincidences, or serendipity.

We study our dreams, learning about personal symbols specific to us. For me, the sea, water, and trees speak most often to me. However, there are also collective symbols that are universal, such as water representing the unconscious, light being our consciousness, a child being the creative part of us, animals representing instincts, vehicles representing energy or how we get along with a car representing our independent energy, and buses, planes, trains being collective energy.  

Dreams also speak in the language of mythology, fairytales, religious rituals, and music.

 Consider learning about dream work as a spiritual practice. Join a dream group. The gold in dreams is more easily and richly mined with the help of others. Two initial books to learn more about dream work are Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth. by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson and Natural Spirituality: A Handbook for Jungian Inner Work in Spiritual Community by Joyce Rockwood Hudson. Both are also excellent books to read together in a group.

If this spiritual discipline interests you, simply keep an electronic or old-fashioned notebook by your bed, write down your dreams as soon as you awaken, and see what happens!

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

 

 

C.S. Lewis: The Great Divorce

C. S. Lewis: Great Divorce

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done..”’—C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

The Great Divorce is Lewis’ classic study of the difference between living in heaven and living in hell. In hell, people become increasingly isolated and separated from each other until they lose all communication. Then, before the great distances develop, there is a bus stop where groups of people in hell can go to heaven on a tour bus ride to decide if they want to live there instead. Spoiler alert! Only one person stays in heaven. The rest return to their life in hell. It is a choice.

With each character, Lewis describes what keeps each of us in hell. My favorite is the bishop, whose intellect holds him in hell, as he must return to hell because he is scheduled to give a lecture he does not want to miss.

Other characters remain in hell because they cannot recognize joy. Others see all the difficulties in life as someone else’s fault. Some stay connected to their material goods, which means the most to them. Some find people “beneath them” in heaven. One sees heaven as a trick. An artist must return to hell to preserve his reputation.

The Great Divorce is an excellent study for a book group, especially in Lent, for people to share which characters they most identify with. Lewis hands us a mirror to see where we fail to recognize we are still controlling the show and living in hell and have forsaken the gifts of heaven on this earth.

Silence, Waiting for Dolphins, Chant

Silence, Waiting for dolphins, Chant

“When chant music stops, sometimes quite abruptly, an audible silence reverberates throughout the room, especially in the high arches of the oratories in which it is sung...If we listen carefully, we discover that chant inducts us into this silence that is the ground of our being.”—David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., The Music of Silence.

We sit silently on a balcony overlooking the Gulf in the early morning, watching, waiting for the sunrise and the dolphins to make their first run. Then we wait for a line of pelicans to sweep silently by.

The rhythm of the waves is like a heartbeat. Today, it is a slow heart rate. At home in Arkansas, when the weather is warmer, we sit with our son and his family on his back deck as the sun sets behind the trees of his backwoods, and wait for the hummingbirds to come and feed before they finally rest for the evening.
Nature seems to call us to wait, to wait. Our heartbeat slows. Our body seems to say we are connecting to something greater than ourselves. Our mind wants to repeat Julian of Norwich’s famous words, “And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”


We are ready for whatever comes. We think. Maybe. The dryer stops working. We know whom to call for help, and we wait again for the repair workers to arrive. We pray to take time between tasks and breakdowns.

What do we do between sunrise, dolphin, pelican, sunset, and hummingbird times?
Another suggestion is to wait for the heartbeat of the music, especially the “silence between the notes” of the Gregorian chant. One of the earliest popular versions is CHANT by the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos.

If you get “hooked,” you may want to read their companion book, The Music of Silence, by Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., which may lead you to a desire to follow in some form the canonical hours or seasons of the day. Another book is simply called CHANT, by Katharine Le Mee, who tells you more about the origins, form, practice, and healing power of Gregorian Chant.

It is incredible where silence can lead us!

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/