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.

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.