In dreams, the image of Mother can hold many meanings. She may reflect our relationship with our own Mother, or the archetype of the Universal Mother, the Holy Mother, the Mother Goddess, The Earth Mother, The Terrible Mother, The Devouring Mother, The Great Ambivalent Mother and our Inner Mother.
How many aspects of “mothering” can you identify in your dream?

Transform one or more dream images by finding the animating spirit that belongs to each.
Invigorate the soul and intelligence of each image by allowing it a voice.

From the depths of your dream, allow your heart to burst open and overflow into your journal.
Let a torrent of words invoke the feelings brought forth by the dream images.

Janus is the presiding deity who holds the knife that cuts both ways in the dream. With the voice of Janus, the presiding deity of the dream, contemplate upon what is ending, and what is beginning in your dream

Look for elements of change in your dream narrative. Is there a transformation? Is there an exchange of energy? Is there a conversion, a removal, a replacement. Is there a change of mind?
How does your dream usher you into the beginning of a new era?

How can you rededicate and rekindle your inner light?
Is there a perpetual light within the dream that cannot be extinguished?

Shift your point of view.  Take on the identity of one of your dream images. Speak in first person with the voice of the image. Explain who you are. Talk about what you are doing in the dream  Elaborate on what you see, sense and how you feel.

Your mission should you choose to accept it…

WRITE FOR 10 MINUTES

With a still, calm voice from the center of your dream, speak about the images from your most sacred center.

• Is there a place or experience in your dream where you (or another dream character) feel secure, grounded, out of harm’s way or protected? If not, how could you bring the dream forward to find that place?

EXPLORATION

Write for 10 minutes. In a few condensed sentences, write about what happened in the dream. Leave out the details. Focus on the Action. Who did What? Where? How? When? How does the dream end?

Riff about what is going to happen next in the dream? Open up your expectations and assumptions. Riff about what would happen if…. ??? Take a Take a Leap of Faith as you let your mind wander in a stream of consciousness.

EXPLORATION

Take ten minutes to write in a stream of consciousness…

How do the dream characters view the world and their place in it?

In our dreams, we often seem to be chasing our own tail in the repetitive themes of our lives. We feel condemned to recurring cycles of our life patterns. Yet, the perpetual movement of our dream narratives create a self-fertilization for self healing. As we track our dreams, we sense the cyclic pattern which continually returns, like the Ouroboros, to our beginnings in an eternal homecoming. The enigma of the dream is like the paradox of the Ouroboros who symbolizes “The One” that emerges from opposites – the beginning that originates from its own end.

EXPLORATION

Drop all of your preconceived notions about the “meaning” of your dream. Allow found images  from magazines to guide you. Just as our dreams point to what is possible, allow found images and text to invite what is probable. Use the pictures to make a collage page in your journal.   Through free association of feelings, relationships and memories, allow your inner Ouroboros to point toward the unity of transformation and integration. “Shift Happens” by simply swallowing your own tale.

EXPLORATION

Curiosity is the most fundamental key to creative DreamWork. Those of us who explore our interior worlds are guided by a sense of wonder for the strange and fascinating worlds within. Release some aspect of the dream that seems stored or trapped. When you dare to open your dream, what energy are you are releasing? Is it something fragile, fearsome, precious, or secret? Does your thirst for self-knowledge become a Pandora’s Box? Is your innate inquisitiveness an invitation to unforeseen complications? Does the opening of your dream reveal a gift or a curse?

Write for ten minutes and see what spills out.

Yet, grace most often comes into our lives through unexpected dangers, toils and snares. Dreams most often come as perplexing or nightmarish narratives.

Neither Grace nor Dream can be created from desire or intention.

We explore dream journal techniques to acknowledge that the divine, omnipotent, omniscient cosmic spirit of Grace is always present in our dreamings.

Is there a moment of balance, beauty, purity, or simplicity in one of your dreams? Is there a sense of kindness or compassion? Is there a point of reconciliation? Is there an inexplicable spirit or presence that hovers through the dream landscape? Is there some quality of effortless renewal in your dream?

Unlike Inspiration that often comes as a lightening bolt, Grace comes as a whisper. Grace is the ultimate mystery of the universe. Allow found images from magazines to help you find hidden aspects of Grace in your dream.

Surrender yourself to what you find and open yourself to what finds you. Embellish and beautify these precious, unexpected images in your journal.

EXPLORATION

 In a stream of consciousness style, write for ten minutes without stopping the movement of your pen. Mirror the dream by reflecting upon the images with as many observations and details as possible. Riff with whatever thoughts present themselves. Is there at least one image in the dream which has no split and offers a reflection of unity?

EXPLORATION

Bring your dream images alive. Make a list poem with each of the images (both animate and inanimate.) Begin each line with “I am.” Endow every image with a voice.

Create a scapegoat to carry the burden of emotional attachments and old patterns reflected by characters and events in your dream. Expressive image-making invites us to release the anger, the fear, the neglect, the haunting memories within our dreams.

Find a contemplative space by a river or a body of water. Bind branches and stones and nature’s ephemera together to make a sacrificial bundle. Tie up the sorrows and guilty feelings that weigh upon your dream characters. Create a ritual scapegoat to carry the frustrations and injustices within the dream narrative.

Cast your scapegoat onto the waters.

Release, forgive, absolve.