Ancestral Dreaming

I'm inspired by Samhain and Day of the Dead to speak about ancestral dreaming.

This can have many meanings. We may dream about the land where our blood ancestors lived. We may dream about the land upon which we were born. We may dream about lands we lived on in past lives.

And it's not just the land that comes to us, but the ancestors as well. I know many people who have dreamed of grandparents, great-grandparents, and even more distant ancestors who have passed away and visited in dreams. In my own work, I've come to believe that it's not just blood ancestors, but the people I call spiritual ancestors, who come to us as well.

Three years ago, on the morning of Halloween, I had just such a dream.

I see a spinning globe with red lines being drawn all over it. One line is drawn down Eastern Europe or Africa, I'm not sure which. Then I hear someone telling a story about hundreds of orphans. I am one. I am in a house with the people who adopted me. I am drawing a big blue and green eye on my hand between my pointer finger and thumb. It is shaped like the eye of Horus. As I draw the eye, I have a memory: I work at a market. Every day I see another girl who works there who has a beautiful brown horse. I want to go see her, but I am afraid. Finally, I do. She has symbols drawn in purple on her hand...one is a half-moon, another may be an eye. She is a gypsy and a psychic and she tells me I have the gift too. That night, as I am drawing the eye on my hand and having this memory, a violent storm blows in with lots of lightening and pounding rain. I am scared at its power and feel it's related to me somehow. My adopted mom and I look out the window and see our house surrounded by a flood.

That night, I was lucky enough to work this dream in a class I was taking. We did Gestalt dream theater in which each piece of the dream is played by someone in the room. When I walked up to the woman playing the gypsy psychic, she said, "This is your lineage." I had shivers.

I knew the ancestors had come to me in my dream. You can see the importance of the land in the dream as well, from the map to the market to the house. And storms play a big role in my life, so it's no surprise I have a violent, scary storm raging outside in this dream. I've worked with this dream on and off during these three years and it continues to bring me gifts.

I encourage you to do your own ancestral dreaming, especially at this time of the year. Speak to the ancestors. Call out to your ancestral lands. See what comes.

Here are some other writings on ancestral dreaming to whet your palate.

Dream Genealogy by Amy Brucker

Connecting with the Ancestors on Day of the Dead/Samhain/Halloween by Robert Moss

Initiation Dreams by Erin Langley

Prayers for the World

This afternoon I listened to one of the most moving and heartwarming recordings I've heard in a long time. On the summer Solstice, members of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers came together along with 17,000 people from around the world on a phone call. The grandmothers had messages for us about the water, about the land, about peace. They asked us to hold the Earth in our hearts, to say prayers for the Gulf of Mexico waters, to always think about the children. I highly recommend you listen to it. It is long, but completely worth the time. The prayers and blessings that were said were so beautiful.

The story of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers alone can bring you to tears. There have been prophecies in many indigenous cultures that such a group would form, and we are living in the time when that prophecy came true.

You can learn more about the grandmothers in their movie, For the Next Seven Generations or by reading their book, Grandmothers Counsel the World.

Honoring the Dream

A wonderful way to deepen your connection to your dreams is to bring their energy into the physical world. To do this you could share a dream with a trusted friend, or paint, sing, draw, or act out a dream. Many times these activities foster insight into dreams and they always help create a space for dreams in your life. Honoring dreams in these ways shows you respect your dreams and are willing to listen to their messages.

One caveat: some cultures believe that speaking a dream dissipates its energy. Judge for yourself whether or not to share a dream based on how you feel about it. Of course, I encourage you to paint, draw, sing, or dance the dream in private if it is not one you wish to share publicly.

I have worked with my dreams in this way several times and I always get juicy results. My most memorable exercise involved Owl, my spirit guide. Owl first arrived in my life last July. She came in a dream disguised as a hawk with a cat's head. To honor this dream, I shared it with a class of dreamers and then wrote a paper about it (this is the paper I will present at the IASD conference; you can read it at the link above).

I worked with Owl's energy for a number of weeks after I had the dream, which led to synchronicities and further dreams featuring Owl. During this time, I read about owl behavior, myths involving owls, and goddesses connected with the owl. I also asked Owl for further dreams and she brought them to me. Through this work, I unearthed my creativity and found new strength within myself.

After the summer class ended, my intense interaction with Owl calmed down. But once I started another dream class, she came back strongly. I encountered her as a snowy owl in a shamanic journey and a dream. This time, to honor her, I created two art pieces. One was a nest made of sticks from local trees, moss, and lichen. The other was a cape sewn and beaded to look like a snowy owl's feathers. The cape allowed me to overcome fears about sewing (I broke out my sewing machine and taught myself how to thread it) and it taught me patience, for beading the cape was a painstaking and slow process.

When I donned the cape at the end of the class and held the nest in my arms, I felt transformed. I was imbued with the energy of Owl: her grace, wisdom, stealth, and cunning. This is what it means to bring the dream into waking life.

My story does not end here, however. In January Owl visited me again in a dream, this time after I had asked my ancestors for a dream. She came in the form of a great gray owl, which I later learned lives in Minnesota and Sweden, my ancestral homelands. This dream had an immense impact on me, and I knew I wanted to bring its energy into waking life.

First, I researched the great gray owl. Then, synchronistically, I ended up on the website for the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, a local wildlife hospital and museum. It turns out they are caring for a beautiful great gray owl from Minnesota. One of the programs at the Lindsay is wildlife adoption, so I immediately sent in a donation to adopt the great gray owl. I now have a picture of the owl on my altar and in May I will be able to visit the bird at the museum. It felt wonderful to honor Owl in this way.

After looking back on all the amazing ways Owl appeared in my life, I decided in February to create another art piece tying it all together. Making this piece was thrilling and it now has an honored spot at the top of my altar. It ties together the "cathawk," snowy owl, and great gray owl dreams as well as my ancestral homelands and my connection to oak trees.

These interactions with Owl changed my life and I know that my commitment to bringing my dreams into waking life enhanced them. Owl is now a constant companion and I call on her energy when I need strength. This is the power of honoring the dream.

Ancestor Art

The Bakersfield Museum of Art is looking for artists to participate in its Visual Arts Festival. This year the theme is roots. The first thing I thought of when I heard this theme was ancestry and I hope to submit a piece.

Works can be no more than 8''x8''. The deadline for entry is April 21 by mail, April 20 in person. Prizes are awarded at the opening reception May 14.

Find out more here.

Ancestry -- Clues To You

I've been doing a lot of work with my ancestry lately, and the further into it I get, the more I learn about myself. I have started to see that my love for nature did not spring from nowhere: my ancestors were people who lived close to the land; many of them were ranchers and farmers.

My great-great grandfather Frank Baxter (the man on the top) was born around 1880 and his family came from New York to Colorado in 1883. They lived in the mountains west of Fort Collins, ranching and farming, according to historical records. At some point Frank moved down to Fort Collins, and eventually to LaPorte, where he ran a general store and post office. In a 1979 interview with his daughter Norma Salisbury (my great-grandmother) and his son-in-law Walter Salisbury (my great-grandfather), I learned Frank ran stables and was involved with horses.

Norma moved to a ranch back in the mountains outside town with her husband, Walter, whose family also homesteaded in Colorado, and their property was up Rist Canyon near Stove Prarie Road.

After my great-grandparents got married, they lived on what was left of the once 900-acre ranch that my great-grandfather's family had homesteaded. They lived there for years running the ranch and enjoying the beauty of the Colorado mountains. It wasn't all idyllic, of course: my great-grandfather, grandfather, and great-uncles hunted deer, elk, and even bears for sport, just so they could hang the heads on their wall, which is something I find hard to deal with. Their love for animals appears far different from mine. But I could sense a deep love for nature in my great-grandfather's words nonetheless.

Walter reluctantly moved back to town after suffering a stroke later in life. His doctor recommended he come down from the high altitude (about 7,000 feet). My great-grandfather didn't think it made much difference (Fort Collins is at about 5,000 feet, after all) and he had another stroke and two or three heart attacks after the move to town. I think he was heartsick for the mountains. He couldn't stand the growth and the noise of the city and he was far removed from the life he once knew. Reading about this was hard for me; I only knew my great-grandfather for a short while, up until I was seven. I remember he would give us a quarter and a cookie every time we came to visit. I don't like to think he was not happy in his final years.

My artistic bent certainly came from my grandparents on my father's side, and perhaps other ancestors I don't yet know about. And my musical talent likely came from my ancestors four generations back on my mother's side. Or, at least, they had a large part to play in passing this on to me, as did others before them. One of my musical ancestors was Clerin Woods, my great-great-great grandfather (the man on the bottom).

According to the Fort Collins Museum, Clerin was a cow-puncher on the great plains. Along with being a rancher, Clerin played the violin for local dances and his wife Emma played piano. Surely Clerin and Emma had something to do with my love of music.

I love knowing these stories. It makes me feel more rooted, more at home in some ways. Sometimes it helps to know where we came from so we can move forward more surely on our path into the future.

Honoring the Snowy Owl

I have had an amazing month. For the last three weeks, I have been in my first art class since junior high. Signing up for this class meant taking a huge leap into something scary for me...sitting in a room full of artists and trying to feel like I belonged amongst them. Now that I have declared that I am an artist, I knew I needed to try it and see what happened.

This was the perfect class for my rebirth.

The class is called Sacred Art: Ancestors and Spirit Guides. I have been working with both ancestors and spirit guides for about a year now as part of my master's program at JFK, but I have not experienced anything quite as amazing as this. Part of it has to do with the teachers, Kaleo and Elise, who hold the space incredibly well and bring a wealth of knowledge and materials to the class. Part of it has to do with the journeying and qigong we do as part of the class in order to get in touch with our ancestors and spirit guides.

During this class, I became well acquainted with a new totem animal, the snowy owl. The owl came to me in a dream a few weeks before the class. Now she sits on my right shoulder, guiding me and encouraging me.

As part of honoring the spirit guide or ancestor who comes to us in this class, we create art pieces. In one journey, the owl gave me a cape and a nest, and I decided to make them to give them form in this world.

I started with the nest. I gathered sticks and twigs from the parking lot at school and brought a bag full of them to the second day of class. It took me four hours to twist and bend those twigs and sticks into a nest. I tied the twigs together with raffia and stuffed the inside with moss and lichen. In the journey, the owl had also shown me specific items to go in the nest: a piece of amethyst, a piece of jade, a piece of carnelian, and a blue egg.

These are all meaningful for me. Amethyst is a protector stone and it is also my birthstone (and favorite stone!). Jade connects one with the heart. Carnelian's energy works with the first three chakras and helps one manifest their creativity in the world. Connecting the energy of these three stones meant that I was connecting all of my chakras, and also connecting my spirit with my heart and my creativity. This is exactly what I am trying to do with my photography and art, and so this nest is a representation of where I am going with my creativity.

The blue egg ties it all together. Blue is the color of the fifth chakra, the only chakra not represented by the stones. The fifth chakra is about communicating and using one's voice. This is so meaningful for me, for I believe I am in the process of developing my true voice, and an egg in a nest could not be a more appropriate metaphor for this process.

After the nest was done, I tackled the cape. This was considerably more difficult for me, because I don't sew. I have dabbled and had a few lessons, and I have a sewing machine passed down from my mother-in-law, but I have had fear around making an entire piece.

I overcame this fear through this process. I Googled a hooded cape pattern. I went to the craft store and got fabric, buttons, and beads. I came home, cut out the pattern, and headed upstairs to learn, once and for all, how to thread my machine (it's a 1969 model!).

After 45 minutes or so of messing with the bobbin and the complicated threading process, I was ready to sew. I put together the hood, sewed it to the cape, and viola! I had my cape. I added a button and a loop to close the cape, and it was ready for beading.

I spent the rest of the time in art class beading that cape. It was an exercise in patience. Bead after bead, I created what came to look a lot like the spotted pattern on the back of a snowy owl. I am thrilled with the results.

And so, here I am. I've taken my first art class in a long time and overcome the fear of creating among other artists. I've tackled my fear of sewing. And I truly know now that I am an artist, and I am ready to own that in a much more profound way.