Tending the Inner Garden

Mid-season, between winter solstice and the spring equinox is a time for people from many different cultures to celebrate the return of the light and emergence of new life.  From Candlemas to Imbolc, Groundhog Day to Tu Bishvat, there seems to be a common theme of reemergence, dedication to nature, and reverence for the fertile aspects of life. In some ways this in-between time acknowledges both an ending and a beginning. 

It's quite common for many of us to contemplate new beginnings at the New Year, yet there is so much commotion with the holidays, travel, and family and community engagements that it seems challenging to also fit in time for reflection.  This in-between time, post-holiday hubbub and before the Vernal Equinox is the time I choose to slow down and reflect on the deeper callings of spirit and soul and what offerings are being called forward to share with family, friends, and community.

In the Sonoran Desert, where I’m located, it’s a busy time of planting native seeds, pruning trees indigenous to the desert, and weeding out invasive herbs and plants that crop up after the winter rains. So too, it’s a time to do my own meditations and planning for the months ahead.  Spiritually and creatively, I ask myself, what will I prune away, or better, what has overgrown and needs to be maintained so that new life can emerge?  Too much of something can deter healthy growth.  Worry or taking on too many obligations are obvious choices, but then there are the weeds, that if left to grow further, will seed and create even more problems in my spiritual and creative garden.

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Seed Self of Glory, Watercolor, D. Delaney Wamer, 2016

Recently, I’ve immersed myself in piles of fairytales where planting, pruning, and weeding are commonly illustrated themes.  Jack and the Beanstalk exemplifies the seeding of an idea or desire by way of what seems like a fortuitous tradeoff, but when the enchantment takes over and has wrought an oversized energy seeking to destroy us, we realize we’re in over our head. Naturally, I speak from experience. Even Shakespeare couldn’t resist including in King Lear the self-destructive nature of fealty over sincerity, whereby the enchantment grew so vast that an entire kingdom was felled.  So, while we want and need a little bit of enchantment in our lives, we also must climb down from the clouds and touch the earth, where we can tend to the sincerity of our spiritual and creative garden.

Another reflection may involve discerning how, like Jack, we’ve grown enchanted by the promise of magic that has now taken over our lives or depleted our innate creative energy. Where do we place our gaze so generously, as though mesmerized, that we’ve neglected the very thing that is life affirming and provides sustenance in due course.  In early December I was given a Christmas Lily.  It was my first and it was lovely to watch it bloom over and over again.  Sometimes the lilies would open within just a few hours.  Had I been able to hold my gaze long enough I could have watched it happen in slow-motion.  I was reminded at how other things, the weeds in my life, hold my fascination and are so tempting to constantly watch.  Email, texts, and news can be important, but when they overtake the entire garden preventing other creative projects from blossoming, then what tumbles down the overgrown stalk is an overgrown persecutor, an inner finger-wager, that tries to shame or blame us for taking its treasure.  That giant lives in me too.  When contemplating this as though it were my own dream, I realize that real magic is in the steady tending to my own creativity and passion projects.  When I feel as though I’ve become overly fascinated by something that is harming my spiritual garden at large, or when feelings of shame, fear, or fatigue crop up, I know it’s time to do the pruning, weeding, and seeding for what is to come and to allow my own growth the patience and sincerity it deserves. 

In this in-between season, as more light returns, let’s allow ourselves to dream and to tend the inner garden that will blossom in due time as both creative bounty and spiritual treasure.

Reflections…

• Where has my attention been mesmerized by external forces that prevents my innate creativity to emerge?

• What do I need to prune away so that new life may grow?

• How will I tend to my spiritual and creative garden this mid-season?

• What creative offerings are being called forward in me?

Please join me on Thursday, February 8 to welcome the New Moon, celebrate the mid-season, and share dreams and creativity calling us forward. 

10:00am Pacific/11:00am MST/12:00pm CST/1:00pm EST. FREE. (This event has ended)

Dream Frequencies

Whether it’s in a dream or in our waking life, there are moments where it feels as though we’re tumbling back through time and memory.  The feelings and sensations can be overwhelming, disorienting us from the present.  Images surface from our unconscious, seemingly out of nowhere, while driving down a familiar road, turning the corner on a well-worn path, or returning to long-ago places.  These deep memories are stored away like items in a dusty old attic.  But our unconscious is assuredly neither old, nor dusty.  Dreams emerge from our unconscious mind to get our attention or get us to notice something we’ve been desperately trying to ignore.  What arises in dreams can be a metaphorical tap on the shoulder, “remember this,” or, “did you forget about that?”  It can be something we’ve tucked away in a memory, good or bad, for safe keeping, that can serve us now.  But how?!  Imagine this dream is your dream, holding it in your mind’s eye, and experiencing the dream as if it were your own.

As though I were watching film footage in reverse, I see myself tumbling backwards in time from one childhood room to another, spending time in each room, looking at the wallpaper, the photos and all the memories stored there.  In the last room, I hear someone approaching and quickly seek a place to hide. But they find me and tell me that I can’t stay, that this place now belongs to others. They say, “you can take just one thing with you.”  Looking around the room was like looking at old memories, the posters, the hand-me-down dresser, and a wind-up music box.  As I’m about to leave empty handed, I spot my transistor radio.  A feeling of wonder came over me at picking up this long-ago memory and imagining the excitement of turning the dial just to hear the static until finally landing on a station.  Out the back window I went with radio in hand.

In most dreams, there is a great deal of energy around one or more elements. In this dream it was conveniently tucked away amidst an array of other memories. When our gaze in a dream focuses on one particular element over another, it becomes a point of reflection.  “Why was I drawn to that image,” you might ask yourself.  In this dream the energy was constellated around the transistor radio, a childhood toy loaded with memories. To better relate to this dream, or any dream, and the guidance it’s offering, we begin by reflecting on the images that have the most energy. Reflective questions I considered for this dream began with what was so special about the radio, how did it make me feel seeing it/holding it in the dream, and what do I associate with it either in memory or in the body.  These reflections are a starting point that help to magnify both language and relationship around personal memory and imagery while also revealing how the symbolism of the images can serve us today.

In exploring this dream’s symbolism there is an immediate draw to the concept of static.  In the dream itself there was mention of a “feeling of wonder…in turning the dial just to hear the static.”  This is such a specific feeling and expression that, in any dream, would compell us to pay closer attention. In my own reflections, as I continued to explore the concept of static and the act of finding a station, I saw the relevance of the dream unfolding. 

This back-through-time-and-memory kind of dream had me thinking about how I define the static in my own life, the in-between disquieting nature of not being tuned in to my place or purpose. I wondered, “haven’t I found my station already,” and, “when will I stop searching for the perfect frequency?”  There is so much static in our lives.  Often, it seems we spend more time in between metaphorical stations than we do on the stations themselves. Or we get stuck on a frequency we can’t get away from.  Static becomes a metaphor for uncertainty, while also a symbol for searching and tuning in.  The stations we attune to are often pre-defined narratives and information offered up by culture, or our social or ideological groups.  We turn the dial (our inner dial) until we find the station that’s right for us.  Other times we wander from station to station, never being entirely satisfied.  Whichever we choose, both the static and the stations in our life journey shape us.  The narratives especially and the uncertainty are not entirely our own. We’re shaped by many stations such as our origin story, peer groups, community, place, cultural practices, our economic status and on and on.  The station as a symbol is a powerful narrative, sometimes positive and at other times manipulative.  Our experiences of searching and uncertainty, as well as various life stations in memory, shape us personally and collectively.  In reflecting on the collective meaning and our associations with this dream imagery, we might question both our cycles of uncertainty and the survival aspects of our ongoing search for our place of belonging. Is the static in our lives uncertainty or are we more accurately searching for who we are and our place of purpose?  Consider how such dream symbolism calls us forward to reclaim our agency over the narratives in our life, giving voice to stations all our own.

Working with the symbolism of the dream even wider we might also consider how we’re both the transmitter and receiver.  We must embody both for the symbolism of the radio to work. How many of us have difficulty receiving?  We’re so often in giving mode that we overlook or deny our need to receive. How might we be missing out on life affirming frequencies because we’re too distracted with doing, pleasing, or giving to others? Do we transmit our needs? And are we listening to the physical transmissions from our body and unconscious that ask us to notice something important for our healing and personal growth?  Tuning in to our dreams and the memories and images that arise, can offer us deep healing and guidance. 

When certain themes, symbols, or narratives surface, we might wonder, “why this, why now.”  Remember that dreams tell us things we don’t always want to know but need to know. When we’re feeling like our life is nothing but static and uncertainty in our emotional, physical, or spiritual stations, tuning in to what our unconscious is trying to transmit can help.  What arrives to us through dreams serves our personal journey by helping us out of the static to create a path, story, narrative, or station that reflects more accurately who we are and our place of purpose and belonging.

The Dream Sojourner

Welcome Dream Sojourner! I can’t wait to share with you all that I know and continue to learn about dreams and our relationship to the dream world. I am deeply passionate about dreamwork, empowering others to explore their dreams, and sharing the benefits and opportunities for transformation in traversing the symbols, images, and stories that befall us at night.

Dreamwork isn’t just for the benefit and examination of our inner life. Dreams have a way of spilling over into our waking lives.  We tend to separate ourselves and our daily activities from the dreaming as though it were irrelevant or disposable. Dreams are often referred to as “strange”, “weird”, or “bizarre.”  This may not be arguable; and yet, this is not all that they are.  Our culture has moved us further and further from the dreaming.  From the industrial age to the present day tech era and digital spaces we have been bound by the clock and excessive working hours, sometimes hard labor and other times rarely glancing beyond the screen. It may be the time we spend on a quiet walk, doing dishes, or gazing the distance from a window where we may find our bridge between the ordinary world and the unconscious, where we begin to wander and wonder. During these activities, we tend to let go of thinking and sink into a meditative or imaginative state. We do this quite naturally. Every night in deep sleep, it’s this bridge that we cross entirely from the conscious to the unconscious. The thing is…we cross back every day we awake.  Sometimes the dreams come with us.

Have you had a dream that’s sparked your curiosity?  Maybe it’s a dream that you can’t forget.  It was so real to you, the colors, sounds, smells.  Your dream was palpable, visceral, and yes, completely out in left field.  Maybe you’ve had nightmares. Those are dreams too, and they can carry a lot of energy into our waking life.  In fact, I’ll be using the word “energy” quite often in reference to dreams and dreamwork.  Our “energy” gets constellated around specific images, characters, storyline, and other aspects of dreaming. Sometimes dreams take us to a memory, a place or a person from our past. We may awaken and wonder, “why that,” or “why now?”  This is energy. We may have experienced an intense dream, something scary, possibly repetitive, and we’re shaken awake.  It stays with us.  This too is energy. 

I imagine you have many questions. It’s this curiosity that spurred my own journey with dreams and continues to place me in wonder and awe with each awakening.  It’s my hope that this space will offer you ways of reflecting and building relationship with your dreams. Rather than offering you answers, I will be a guide, helping you navigate your dreaming. Any good dreamworker worth their metal won’t give you answers. A dreamworker’s role is to help you uncover your own meanings and associations. I won’t tell you what your dreams mean.  What I will do, is say, “let’s explore here,” and we’ll do it together.  I would like you, the dreamer, to experience how metaphor is working and shaping your life. In Jungian work, this is done primarily by exploring the images that arise from the unconscious and awaken us to aspects of our greater Self. Sometimes dreams awaken us to things we don’t want to see or acknowledge about ourselves, things that may be challenging to look at. We can work with these dreams too and embrace them for all they have to teach us.   I know it may sound impossible, yet dreams, including the nightmarish ones, can be turned into gold. Having said that, only you, the dreamer, truly knows what your dreams mean.

In my work with individuals, groups, and organizations, it’s not one size fits all. You and I could dream of a similar image and it will have a completely different meaning for each of us. You have specific associations to imagery that contribute to the meaning you make. Context is also important which is why I don’t interpret. This is about exploration, and in doing so we find much deeper, richer, more imaginative ground upon which to see ourselves.  This has been my journey and I hope to bring my practices and experiences to you. I am here to guide that journey so that you may find your meaning, your path of exploration, and ultimately the story that you can carry forward in your waking life.

In forthcoming blogs, I will speak to the inquiries I often hear when someone first finds out that the stranger they’ve just met is a dreamworker.

The Flying King Dreaming, Watercolor and ink, D. Delaney Wamer, 2021