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Thanks to the sponsorship of the amazing Rubin Museum I discovered the fascinating documentary film Edge of Dreaming. In this film Amy Hardie documents, very intimately, a year in which she transforms from a “rational” scientific documentary film maker, into a dreaming, shamanic-journeying film maker. In the course of that transition, she experiences a convincing dream-based prediction of her own death and the healing that was needed to make that death an ego-death, rather than a physical one.
I was initially drawn to the film because Amy declares early on that she is a person who doesn’t dream. My Beloved is also one who rarely remembers his dreams, and I often wonder about the meaning of that. One night, Amy dreams that a loved pet horse has died. She awakens from this unusual dream to discover that her horse has, indeed, died, and in precisely the way portrayed in the dream. Some few months later, Amy dreams that she is to die in her 48th year, which is about to commence. Amy’s life begins to focus on what this possibility might mean to her, to ponder what this dream might mean, until she becomes ill in her 48th year with a lung illness that threatens her life. Amy then embarks on an exploration both intimate and scientific, within her own life and in interviews with various scientific experts in dreaming and neurology, eventually deciding that there might be some kind of “knowing” in her dreams. It is then that Amy consults with a shaman, Claudia Goncalves, who helps her to journey to the source of the problem. In this journey to non-ordinary reality Amy encounters helping spirits who show her how her life is connected to that of the Earth, and how her illness is a reflection of the Earth’s illness. And then they show her the way back to life and healing.
Amy has since begun work with Sandra Ingerman, who is leading explorations in the understanding of how human well-being is intimately woven with the well-being of our planet. And Amy has experienced healing as a result. She describes on a PBS web page her recovery from her illness. From a lung capacity of approximately 48% of normal, due to an illness that stumped her doctors, she has regained a lung capacity of 94% of normal. Her film now draws people all over the world to an exploration of their own dreaming, and she conducts workshops to help with this process.
In this documentary, Amy Hardie has explored one of the many edges of shamanism: Dreaming. As we approach and extend our shamanic explorations and practice, Dreaming is one important component of our shamanic toolkit. I find that as my daily work with Spirit deepens, my Dreaming deepens. I have come to find that my Dream time is an important learning time in which Spirit fills me with wisdom, experience and knowing that I don’t have time or attention for in the my waking time.
Here’s an exercise to consider: Ask God, the Universe, your Helping Spirits, to send a dream to you tonight answering this plea: Heal in me what also needs healing in this world. Ask for this healing dream three times before you sleep. Then see what changes in you and in the world.
I love the Internet. It has completely changed the way we communicate with one another, and created open doors for ideas and interactions that we couldn’t have dreamed of a few decades ago. When previously I’d have had to write you a letter or produce a flyer to let you know what I was thinking or what classes I am offering, now I only need think about it for a few moments, hit the keyboard, and you are informed and I’ve communicated.
Another thing I like about the Internet is that I can read what you are thinking, as you wend your way to my web site. I’ve invited Google, in the form of Google Analytics, to tell me how people arrive at my web site. So it tells me a lot of general, not specific, information about who is looking at my site and how they found it. For example, I can see that my average viewer spends over 3 minutes reading my site. And I’m glad of that because one purpose of my site is to help you understand healing, coaching, Reiki, shamanism and the possibilities they offer for your life. Another thing it tells me is how you, my anonymous reader, might have arrived at my site through a Google search. And those are the really intriguing bits of information Google feeds to me. The most fascinating Google search that brings you, dear Reader, to my site is this: Is Shamanism Real?
I like this question because it is what I asked, myself, for several years. As I intently studied shamanism and began a shamanic practice, I found great joy in it. But I asked myself at least daily: is this real, or are you making it up? I decided at the time that it didn’t matter to me whether it was real or not; it made me happy. And yet, there was a nagging doubt in me: how crazy is it to engage in a practice I don’t even know to be real?
As often happens in shamanic practice, a wild synchronicity eventually embraced me. In a healing session with the woman who was then my teacher, she began to describe a place in the “spiritual realm” that was my “power spot.” A power spot is a place that a shamanic journeyer visits routinely—perhaps every day. In a power spot, one gathers ones power, establishes connection to ones helping spirits, and prepares to embark on shamanic work in a strong way. And my then-teacher described in perfect detail my very unusual power spot, a spot that couldn’t be found in our world, only in a spiritual world where our rules of physics, biology, geology and botany do not apply. It is a spot so peculiar in its specifics as to be outside of the realm of ordinary reality.
It was that moment with my then-teacher in which I began to understand that this shamanism thing is real. I was floored, and my life was changed forever. Since that moment, I’ve had many moments in which the effectiveness, the reality, of shamanism and its practices have stepped starkly forward. Yes, dear reader, shamanism is real. It exists for us, and it is a technology that helps us to heal, to step more fully into wholeness, into our destinies, and into relationship with the Divine. I invite you to invite shamanism into your life.
I’ll confess right up front that I’ve struggled to get to this spot, my first blog post. And I’m not even talking about my usual struggle with semi-colons versus commas, Arial versus Verdana or even my titanic passes through the thesaurus looking for the word that perfectly describes the nuances of my idea.
 I mean that I’ve struggled for years to give life to this web site, this simple bare-bones statement of who I am and what is my work in the world. And I’ve struggled for weeks with the text of this first blog entry: what new is there to say about the struggle of beginning?
Modern life and technology has made it possible for us to regularly engage in the act of setting out. The kinds of settings-out our ancestors engaged in were epic and huge, requiring tremendous acts of courage, expenditures of time and resources, and even the consumption of human lives. Migrations and explorations are the stuff of our history: entire continents, people and cultures “discovered” halfway around the world; the flight into space; the journey of our species to become one human race through all of our wars and peaces, disasters and triumphs. I can’t help but contrast these epic efforts with the ease with which we modern humans can simply open an electronic space and create something entirely new where nothing existed before.
And yet, despite this ease, I have still experienced a great reluctance in this stepping out, this setting out. When I’m stuck in a process, I sometimes like to ponder the cultural understanding of that process, and so I often begin my process of getting unstuck with the dictionary. And this time, I find that Webster’s has handily provided me with a deeper understanding of my dilmena, and a roadmap for how to free myself to move forward. Here is what I found:
Set Out is a verb originating from the 14th century. (I’m already delighted by the connection to the ancient explorers who overcame their own huge hurdles in order to set out.) And I find three definitions:
1 a : to arrange and present graphically or systematically b : to mark out (as a design) : lay out the plan of?2 : to state, describe, or recite at length <distributed copies of a pamphlet setting out his ideas in full>?3 : to begin with a definite purpose: intend, undertake.
In this ordinary dictionary definition lie tremendous tools for getting myself unstuck in this process. Taking Webster’s advice, my first step was to mark out a step by step plan for my own setting out. You’re reading some of the fruit of that plan now; there is more to come down the road. Webster’s second bit of advice is to state my ideas in full; and my newly arrived web site does just that. I hope you’ll take a look and let me know what you’d like to see in its pages in the future.
Finally, Webster’s third bit of advice: Begin with a purpose, a definite intention. This is, perhaps, Webster’s most critical advice. When we act within our purpose in the world, when we act in concert with Spirit and in connection to the Universal Life Force, our intention is the critical factor to shaping the outcome. When our intention is unclear, our path forward cannot be sharp and clear. When our intention is false, our results cannot be true. And this was the final key to getting myself unstuck: understanding and stating my intention, then pouring that intention into my work. And so, my intention that I reach you through my words, and that you are led to your own healing through them, has finally freed me to set out on this blog. I thank you for the part you play in affording me this freedom.
A query: Where in your life do you need to set out? What do you call the place where you are stuck? Pick up a dictionary and see what your culture says about that thing. Is there a map for your freedom in there?
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