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Dreaming
| Inner
focus |
womb |
| Outer
focus |
information from the void |
| Color |
red |
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Welcome
Feature from Los Angeles, California
Dreams of Dreaming
Why the Womb?
Book and Film Recommendations
Dreaming in the News?
Who’s
Who in Dreaming
The Child's Garden
Poetry
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From the Editors |
This month we are featuring Dreaming, number 22 of the Descending Principles (numbered 20-29). Dreaming is the mode of openness to the great Void – the “Dark” – to the subtle information of transcendent spheres that may not appear in familiar form. Everything familiar to us in the physical world is touched by light, by some kind of electromagnetic wave frequency. What comes to us from the Void is not; so it has not yet taken form. Our potential to access this realm is called Dreaming not because it has to occur in sleep or dreams, but because, like dreaming, it comes from invisible depths. If you are contracted with dreaming, your deep intuition may surprise you.
Tamar Frankiel, Editor
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Feature from Los Angeles, California |
This month's principle is Dreaming. Here is a teaching from one of our dream sisters: |
In 1998 I convinced Connie Kaplan, a teacher and a dear friend, to give me a “soul contract reading” (she now calls them invisible garment patterns) via-e-mail. What an amazing process that was. Every 2 or 3 days a new piece of my contract would come flying to my e-mail, and I understood every word! I began to make a little carry-in-my-purse scrapbook out of my principles, accessorized with images corresponding to each principle. I became obsessed with it, but could talk to no one about it because no one understood what I was talking about!
I have Dreaming three times in my invisible garment pattern – Sun, Uranus, and Neptune. I am sure Dreaming is my principal reason for incarnating this time around. My role is to dream both for myself and others. The key is whether I can do it consciously.
Because of this contract with Dreaming, I think I have particular access to the void, or as Connie says, “to the great nurturing abyss of the cosmos.” I seem to be able to go directly into the void, whether I’m awake or asleep, and pull information and ideas from it. When I do this, my life is very easy and feels like play. I adore what I do (my career) and most of the time I feel like I am “in the zone” making each decision effortlessly. I have found that I know when Dreaming is living itself through my body - it is a tingling sensation - and I feel the correctness of the information. When I have that tingle in my body, I know I am always at the right time and place, whether awake or sleep.
My contract reading taught me to trust Dreaming and helped me know what the rest of life was going to be (interior design), where I would live (southern California), and I knew I had to sit back and watch it unfold in front of my eyes! If I’d tried to make it happen, it would have been wrong. I moved from Texas, landed a “dream” design job, got a precious cottage to live in, and opened my own business without any money - all easily, within about a year of my contract reading. As I waited, I went to dream circles, told dream sisters my dreams, and watched as I began making others’ dreams come alive! At first I thought I was just going to get dreams at night. Now I know I dream in the awake time (day) consciously, and my whole life is centered around making my dreams and those of others come to the here and now, solid, touchable world.
With my design clients, I trust (that’s the key, I think) that whatever I hear from them as their wishes, I can produce with the perfect combination of price and aesthetic. What did Einstein say? ”There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as if everything is!” Because I know my purpose is to DREAM- the latter is the way I live.
--Peggy Braswell
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Dreams of Dreaming |
We
can learn about the principles by examining our dreams.
Here are three dreams of Dreaming:
I was shopping in an antique store. I found a pillow that was a reiki pillow - it could project reiki. I decided to buy it and was going to give it as a gift. Then I passed three men, who all acknowledge me as I go by. I realize they are The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost.
I then go home and am not sure where to put this pillow as it has a lot of energy, so I put it in my living room. I go in my bedroom and fall asleep in my dream and realize the pillow is projecting reiki in my dream. In my dream I am wondering where to put this pillow, and to whom I should give it as it has this power.
The shamanic pillow from the ancient world gives the dreamer power – with it, she is acknowledged by the Trinity. She seems to think that she should give the pillow away, but by putting it in her Living Room – the room of life – she enables it to project its healing power. Dreaming of dreaming, she then continues in “wonder” – not because she actually should give it away, but because the great Mystery, the realm of wonderment, remains.
At a seminar, the group has an assignment to draw or paint what they see in a room when it’s light, then when it’s dark. When it was light they painted a still life or just objects visible in the room. Then I am watching in the dark, as a woman coats the inside of a box with black paint and then tries to decide whether to use light or dark colors on it. Finally she paints a strong diagonal line of dark magenta.
I realize that the room’s window overlooks a vast black emptiness. It feels as if we’re in a resort hotel on a cliff, over a huge valley like Yosemite, but in the black night nothing can actually be seen. There’s no glass in the window but it’s safe. As I look out, I notice a group of people standing on a ledge to the right. They are praying, using flashlights to read the prayers. My reaction is that they’re “cheating” by using flashlights. I think of them as timid.
A man steps forward and begins calling out to God: “Father, use me!” I like his directness.
This dream gives us a glimpse of what it is like to receive information from the Void or the Dark. Magenta, a color that can be seen in light or dark, is the “new color” for Dreaming. The diagonal line divides the upper from the lower realms – and points the dreamer to the Abyss. The people reading prayers by flashlight are ‘cheating’ in the sense that they are depending on the light rather than the Dark for their guidance. The man who calls out, on the other hand, is putting himself directly in service to the Source of the Dark as well as the Light.
I've gone back to school. It was K-12 and I am going back to "bone up" on the basics before moving on to the UniverseCity.
I go to the cafeteria and listen to some seniors talk about their lives. After awhile, I ask one of them the time and he says, "2:30"! Oh! I am late for class. I rush off to find my place and get lost. I end up in a kindergarten class. The class is inside a giant tree trunk and the floor revolves. As she reads a story, I am no longer concerned about being late. I am just where I am supposed to be.
Then I am with a group of young girls & one gay boy meeting in a restaurant. Nearby a big glamorous party is going on for the "in" crowd, and this group of girls wasn't invited.
The girl at the head of the table is pretty with dark curly hair and eyes, distinctive looking – Jewish or Italian? She has recently moved here from someplace else. She is telling the others that "all this" is an illusion; that she has trouble sleeping but she realizes that she has dreamed all of this, the new place she's moved to. She says she feels like she is walking in a dream most of the time. She also tells them she has learned to alter energy, so that it appears to be magic but it is really science.
The others don't believe her so she makes an orange disappear. I am so proud of her.
We so often find ourselves back in Dream School! The dreamer tries out the ‘seniors’ but realizes she is better off with the kindergarten in the tree trunk – perhaps it is the Tree of Life, in the Garden of Eden prepared for the innocent. Then, she witnesses a master dreamer –the girl whose way of “looking” (seeing) is distinctive - confronting the world of skeptics, and our dreamer mentally cheers her on. “I am so proud of her” reflects on the dreamer herself as well – she has learned to discern the true dreaming from the false. Interestingly, she also notes that “it appears to be magic but is really science.” This is one of the great projects of the 21st century, which will discover the truth of dreaming.
Look
in your dreams for references to the womb
... the Void, abyss, or emptiness . . . the colors red or magenta ... to the number 22.
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Why
the Womb? |
As the womb nourishes and births a child, so Dreaming nourishes and births the new forms that will eventually enter the world. We provide the vessels, the birth canal, not only through the dreams of sleep, but through daydream, meditation, and free-floating imagination. Dreaming, like the womb, is a world of its own. The processes that operate there are not the ones that will operate after birth, they are not the ‘waking world.’ But they are essential to the world’s continued being.
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Book and Film Recommendations |
The Probable Future, by Alice Hoffman
The female descendants of Rebecca Sparrow, who was executed as a witch in colonial Massachusetts, all possess extraordinary powers. In multiple subplots, Hoffman’s novel deftly explores the character of each of these women who receive information from the Void.
Queen of Dreams, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A novel of mystery, suspense, and the supernatural, the story is woven around Rakhi’s search for knowledge about her past, with mysterious encounters and entries from her dream journals revealing the secrets.
Einstein’s Dreams byAlan Lightman
The year is 1905, the place is Berne Switzerland, and a young patent clerk is struggling with a new theory. For 30 nights in a row, he dreams. In every dream world he visits, time operates differently. In one world, time is circular, people repeating their triumphs and mistakes over and over; in another, there are only frozen moments. . . In a book of dreams, Lightman examines our ideas of time, possibility, and chance. –adapted from George Johnston’s “My Bookshelf,” at txtwriter.com.
The Science of Sleep, directed by Michel Gondry
This French film – La Science de Rèves, literally The Science of Dreams, explores the life, work and loves of a young man whose dreams interfere with his relationship to reality.
Waking Life, directed by Richard Linklater
In a perpetual lucid-dreaming state, the protagonist moves through a dream meeting various people and discussing the meanings and purposes of the universe. The dreamlike effects come from overlaying a digital enhancement technique called rotoscoping on live action film.
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Dreaming in the News |
Does Dreaming make it into the news or is it too “far out”? See what you think of these . . . . .
- Headline: Do Blind People See Images in Their Dreams?
Anahad O’Connor, New York Times, December 15, 2008. People born without the ability to see report no visual imagery but heightened senses of taste, touch, and smell. They also report more dreams with mishaps concerning travel or transportation. scitimes@nytimes.com
Headline:
Babies Dream in the Womb
Silent Night, April 17, 2009 . From measuring electrical activity in fetuses, we now know that babies achieve a dreaming state long before the first rapid eye movements are seen. But scientists don’t know why.
http://www.silentnight.co.uk/news_ext/19125732/babies-may-dream-in-the-womb
- Headline: Sleepless in Shanghai: X-Factor Dream Arrives in China
RedOrbit, May 23, 2009. Art and design students from Chinese colleges and universities will be asked to communicate the science of sleeping and dreaming - anything from jet lag to the physical and psychological effects of night-working - and to use their creative skills to present it in a visually entertaining and informative way, in the “Dream Lab Challenge."
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science
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6.
Who's Who in Dreaming |
We have no shortage of famous people with Sun in Dreaming! Perhaps the Red sphere leads more of them to prominence. Note that, in addition to a spread of people in entertainment and politics, we came across an unusual number in business:
Business
- Melinda Gates, 1964-
A former Microsoft unit manager, she married Bill Gates in 1994; they have 3 children. After serving on Boards of Directors at several companies, she now devotes most of her time to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
- Charles Prince, 1950-
Former CEO of Citigroup, who after 6 successful years resigned as the mortgage business failed. Identified as one of 25 core leaders responsible for the meltdown; still serves on important business leadership councils.
- Michael Ovitz, 1946-
Former talent agent who became a Hollywood powerhouse as head of the Creative Artists Agency, gaining negotiating leverage for his clients vis-à-vis the major studios.
- Donald Trump, 1946-
Business executive, television personality, author whose success in real estate and then in gambling casinos led him to fame; his books Art of the Deal and How to Get Rich were followed by a successful reality show, The Apprentice.
- Lee Iacocca, 1924-
American industrialist and businessman, most famous for his revival of Chrysler as its CEO in the 1980s. A passionate advocate of American exporting business, he authored Where Have All the Leaders Gone.
- Thomas Edison, 1847-1931
Inventor and businessman, the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” American inventor of many important devices including the phonograph and the long-lasting light bulb, is also credited with the first industrial research laboratory.
Politics
- Sarah Palin, 1964-
Governor of Alaska, who accepted the nomination for Vice President on the Republican ticket in the elections of 2008.
- Arianna Huffington, 1950-
Born in Greece, this American writer and commentator evolved from a conservative into a “progressive populist” and founded the Huffington Post. She has also written on spirituality (The Fourth Instinct).
- Prince Charles, 1948-
Eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburg, Charles is the Prince of Wales and the heir to the throne.
- Che Guevara, 1928-1967
Argentine-born medical student and Marxist revolutionary, who joined Fidel Castro’s movement and led Cuban and international guerrillas in revolution.
- Joseph McCarthy, 1908-1957
Republican Senator from Wisconsin who became the most visible public face of extreme anti-communist suspicion during the Cold War. His tactics led to his being discredited and censured by the U.S. Senate.
- Herman Goering, 1893-1946
German politician who rose to second in command under the Third Reich; commander of the Luftwaffe. He was tried and sentenced for war crimes at Nuremberg, but escaped execution by taking his own life.
- Jawaharlal Nehru, 1889-1964
Political leader of the Indian National Congress, a pivotal figure in Indian independence and India’s first prime minister.
- Napoleon Bonaparte 1769-1821
French Emperor after the failure of the French republic. His military genius won territory far beyond French borders, but he ended up being deposed and sent into exile.
- Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
Principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third President of the United States. His term was known for the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806).
Television and Film
- Ben Affleck, 1972-
An actor since childhood, hisrole in Good Will Hunting led to leading roles in many films, including Armageddon and Pearl Harbor.
- David Letterman, 1947-
Award-winning comedian and television producer, best known for Late Night with David Letterman and CBS’s The Late Show.
- Oliver Stone, 1946-
American film director, screenwriter. A Vietnam veteran, he has made three films about Vietnam; he has also made a number of films offering fictionalized versions of well-known events or personalities, such as JFK, World Trade Center, and W.
- Edward Asner, 1929-
American actor known best for his Emmy-winning role as Lou Grant on the Mary Tyler Moore Show; he has been politically active and is a spokesman for many causes.
Music
- Sheryl Crow, 1962-
Award-winning American singer and songwriter whose work blends pop, folk, country, and blues styles.
- Stevie Wonder, 1950-
American singer, blind from infancy, who holds the record for Grammy awards for a solo artist (22! – the number of Dreaming).
- Herbie Hancock, 1940-
Chicago musician who became one of jazz music’s most influential pianists, known for his experimentalism, but also achieved success with mass audiences.
- Oscar Peterson, 1925-2007
Canadian jazz pianist and composer, called “Maharajah of the keyboard” by Duke Ellington. He played to audiences worldwide for 60 years.
- Burl Ives, 1909-1995
American actor, writer, and folk music singer, known for his moving renditions of familiar songs.
Religion and Spirituality
- Jim Jones, 1931-1978
American founder of the Indiana group called the People’s Temple, exemplary in its time for promotion of racial equality. In 1977, when under investigation by tax authorities, the group moved to Guyana, founding “Jonestown,” and a year later 909 people committed mass suicide.
- Sri Aurobindo, 1872-1950
Hindu nationalist, scholar of classic Indian texts, poet, mystic, yogi, and guru. After a brief political career, he founded “integral yoga” to establish a higher level of spiritual consciousness.
- Georges Gurdjieff, 1872-1949
Greek-Armenian mystic, teacher of sacred dances, and spiritual teacher of many influential individuals in the first half of the twentieth century.
Literature, Philosophy, Art
- Agatha Christie, 1890-1976
British crime fiction writer, whose 66 detective novels gave shape to the genre itself, with classic characters like Hercule Pierot and Miss Marple.
- P. G. Wodehouse, 1881-1975
Comic writer who entertained audiences for 70 years with his stories of prewar English upper-class society, which still remain popular.
- Jack London, 1876-1916
American author known for Call of the Wild; one of the first Americans to make a lucrative career exclusively from writing..
- William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939
Irish poet and dramatist, one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
German philosopher, influential down to the present, through his critiques of religion, morality, philosophy, science, and modern culture.
- Claude Monet, 1840-1926
A founder of the Impressionist movement in France; the movement derived its name from his painting Impression, Sunrise.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-1896
American novelist and abolitionist, mother of 8 (including twins) whose Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) stirred the hearts of Americans against the cruelty of slavery.
- Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832
Scottish historical novelist (Ivanhoe, Lady of the Lake), possibly the first modern author writing in the English language to have a truly international career, as his popularity extended throughout Europe.
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7.
The Child's Garden |
The spiritual parenting of our children – through studying their principles – teaches us as well as them. We believe that bringing this work to the next generation can be one of the most powerful forces to heal humanity. Here are examples of learning from our children:
My daughter's emotional body (Venus) principle is Dreaming. Many things surprised me about my oldest child, but her emotional expressions were among the biggest shocks. Of course she has emotional ups and downs like anyone else, and she can certainly "act out" if the circumstances call for it, but the surprise is in her amazing capacity to forgive. In fact she's taught me more about forgiveness than anyone else in my life. She doesn't hold grudges. She sees the best in people. She stays in friendships and romantic relationships, even when the behavior of those friends would merit my "dumping" them. She has an innate understanding of why people behave the way they do. She doesn't generally take it personally when people are unkind to her. She gives people the benefit of the doubt more often than not. She's more loyal than any person I've ever met. Now, there is the tipping point, and she does have some ex-friends and ex-lovers, but they are few. I believe her ability to pull information from the void (Dreaming) gives her an insight into human behavior, and it gives her options and access to a wide range of possibilities for responses to emotional situations.
--Connie Kaplan
My son’s Neptune is in Dreaming. In some ways, Neptune is like Venus, replayed in another octave so to speak, in the collective rather than the personal. So it was interesting to compare his relationship to his cohorts – those traveling through time with him – with what Connie said about her daughter. He too doesn’t hold grudges and is extremely loyal. If there’s someone difficult in his life, he just steps back and waits to see what will happen. He also has a great insight into character, and his friends are somewhat in awe of his perception of situations. For awhile they were joking that they were going to start a campaign to have him elected Messiah, because he was so good at resolving difficult situations. I thought it was peculiar that they would pick Messiah rather than President or head of the U.N., but then I realized – it’s because he seems to bring his insights out of thin air, almost magically. Actually, I think he gets them from his reading – he reads the most elaborate novels, usually multi-volume, complex stories that span generations or centuries or many countries. They are like dream-worlds brought into the context of history and culture. What better expression of Neptune in Dreaming!
--Tamar Frankiel
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8. Poetry |
Once a sailor, later a priest of the Church of England, John Newton is most famous for his poem “Faith’s Review and Expectation” – better known as “Amazing Grace."
On Dreaming
John Newton (1725-1807)
When slumber seals our weary eyes,
The busy fancy wakeful keeps;
The scenes which then before us rise,
Prove something in us never sleeps.
As in another world we seem,
A new creation of our own,
All appears real, though a dream,
And all familiar, though unknown.
Sometimes the mind beholds again
The past day's business in review,
Resumes the pleasure or the pain;
And sometimes all we meet is new.
What schemes we form, what pains we take!
We fight, we run, we fly, we fall;
But all is ended when we wake,
We scarcely then a trace recall.
But though our dreams are often wild,
Like clouds before the driving storm;
Yet some important may be styl'd,
Sent to admonish or inform.
What mighty agents have access,
What friends from heav'n, or foes from hell,
Our minds to comfort or distress,
When we are sleeping, who can tell?
One thing, at least, and 'tis enough,
We learn from this surprising fact;
Our dreams afford sufficient proof,
The soul, without the flesh, can act.
This life, which mortals so esteem,
That many choose it for their all,
They will confess, was but a dream,
When 'waken'd by death's awful call.
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