I Am Loyal To My Dreams

I am loyal to my dreams.

Sometimes it is the tiniest fragment. An image. A person. A feeling. A setting. Sometimes it is more. Characters. A plot. Actions. Symbols

I hand-write my dreams. Most often first thing in the morning. I’m now in my eighth dream-journal. The first seven sit on a nearby bookshelf.

I am loyal to my dreams.

They have things to teach. Last night it was a dream of my mother and my father. It was a dream of the long path. My mother in front of me. My father giving me tools to seek that which has disappeared.

I write my dreams. Because so often, they write me.

They give me insights and intuitions. They bring me into relationship with that which is meant to be less linear and less obvious.

The process I use is below, six steps.

1) Write the dream. 
Don’t edit. Just write. Open to whatever is showing up through words. It may be a paragraph. It may be several pages. It may be a fragment of a dream. It may seem silly to write such a short thing.  Just write. Mine are most often 1/2 a page, 10 ish sentences.

2) Highlight key symbols, words, or images from your writing. 
I draw circles around these words and images. I look for what seemed particularly clear in my dream. I don’t ask why. No sense-making yet. Sometimes I choose as few as 2-3. Usually 7-8. Sometimes more.

3) With each symbol, freely associate meaning.
I write 1-3 associations with each symbol I’ve circled. Notes. I usually start with the most obvious. “Towel — for drying.” I often continue to next brief descriptions. “Towel — for cleaning.” It’s here that I often begin to pivot symbol meanings to personal desires. “I have desire for cleaning, for making clear — this personal circumstance, this working circumstance.” Dreams speak from the psyche — from a less protected and less rational place.

4) From this associating, name the general story. 
From my dream last night, “my mom and my dad guide the long path.” There could be several stories here. It’s not about logically claiming the right story. Your intuition gets to declare — close enough. Perhaps it was a transformation dream. A change dream. A seeking dream. A letting go dream. A fear dream. Don’t name what you think it should be. Don’t try to be smart. Go with what arises.

5)  Name a couple of questions, insights, or assignments for your waking life. 
A few key areas of focus that you can carry with you into the day or the next week. I often reframe an association into a question. I don’t force it. It just feels like an invitation. How might I be different today if I remember my parents and the long path? How might I participate in the meeting with more fluidity.

6) Repeat.
Do it again with tomorrows dreams. Or next week if that is when they come. I find that more dreams come when I give them my attention this way. And sometimes, they are weeks apart.

I am loyal to my dreams.

I am loyal to what the psyche has to say.

Because it integrates. Because it welcomes well-being. Because it gives very specific practices and reminders. Because the psyche has always had things to say. Because this kind of listening makes for such informed humaning.

Want some dream conversation, some dream guiding? Let’s connect.

8 Miracles Of Love

As I find myself in a deeply companioning, heartening, and hearthing love and life relationship, I find myself exploring nuanced awareness and alchemy with love itself.

It’s insight that applies to this love, deeply — I believe insights, and acceptances, and offerings that I can have now at this phase of life that I couldn’t have had before. And it is insights shared and buoyed by said sweet companion.

And of course, love matters. Not only with partner, but with all the other expressions of life-giving and learning-giving ways.

Here’s the 8 miracles — four about capacity, and four about readiness.

It’s possible to have capacity for one of the miracles, and less for another. It’s also possible to have capacity, yet not have readiness. It’s possible to have readiness for some, yet not others. It’s also possible to have readiness, yet not capacity. When they both exist, well, thus gives rise to miracles — to something so life-giving.

  1. The capacity to love another.
  2. The readiness to love another.
  3. The capacity to love self.
  4. The readiness to love self.
  5. The capacity to be loved by another.
  6. The readiness to be loved by another.
  7. To capacity to love life flowing.
  8. The readiness to love life flowing.

When capacity (perhaps some growing baseline) meets readiness (again some baseline), then, I’m finding, love of a whole new level comes alive.

What sweetness. Thank you Dana. I love you and our life.

Now, I am a person that thinks such love. And celebrates it. I’m also a poet. My heart yearns for such simple expressions. And, I’m also a group process facilitator that believes such personal things also have place in the professional things. So, there is a pivot in these personal statements of love that can also be invited to explore values in groups. It could be love. Or respect. Or learning. Or authenticity.

Substitute love and your’ve got 8 powerful invitations. Eight astute practices. Eight life-giving questions. For example…

  1. The capacity to be authentic with others. (How might we improve our authenticity with others?)
  2. The readiness to be authentic with others. (How could be improve our readiness for authenticity with others?)
  3. The capacity to be authentic with self. (What would become more available to us and our work through added authenticity with ourselves?)
  4. The readiness to be authentic with others. (In what ways might we add readiness to our own authenticity?)
  5. The capacity to welcome authenticity from others. (What would it take for us to welcome more authenticity from others — our partners, our customers, our staff?)
  6. The readiness to welcome authenticity from others. (How could we improve our readiness to welcome authenticity from others?)
  7. To capacity to be authentic with life flowing. (In what way might we improve our capacity to be more aligned with life that wants and needs to flow through us?)
  8. The readiness to be authentic with life flowing. (How might we add to our readiness to be with life and calling flowing through us?)

For others.
With self.
From others.
With life flowing.

It all goes together. It is the close-in that often teaches about the far-away. It is sometimes the far-away that teaches about the close-in.

Love does indeed open life.

When Daughter Is Mother

That’s my daughter Zoe. It was late 1995. That’s me. I’m a first time Dad then. I love the sweet connection.

That’s also Edelweiss. Dried to a beautiful ornament. And hand-carried by Zoe from Germany to Utah, and then gifted to me.

Lot’s of sentiment. Lots of love.

My daughter is now a mother. Of a child, Alba. I’m getting pics these days of parents + child joy. Which brings me some grandparent joy.

It all goes around.

I find that grounding.