Exciting new dreamwork website!
I’m excited to announce the birth of a hot new website dedicated entirely to dream work! I am a part of the “dream team” of dreamwork facilitators who support the site.
The site will be a place for you to share and explore all of your dreams- your healing dreams, your plant, animal & nature dreams, your ancestral dreams, your prophetic dreams- all with the support and guidance of expert dreamworkers.
The website is going live April 27. In the meantime, check out the inspiring 45 second video by clicking here.
Let the global dream weaving begin!
Dreaming with the Ancestors
One way I have been applying my training in Indigenous Mind is to lead dream groups that focus on dreaming with the ancestors. Dream work was a central part of the Indigenous Mind experience and we were blessed to be guided by some incredible distinguished traditional elders, including Dr. Apela Colorado, Mr. Hale Makua and Auntie Mahealani Poe Poe. In much of the western world, dreams are viewed mostly from a the perspective of the individual’s psyche. In IM dream work, we also viewed dreams as a major means of communicating with the ancestors. Many of us had dreams of ancestors and were able to recover lost bits of family history through our dreams. I personally had many dreams about the Polish land and Polish people as I began to explore my Polish roots. You can read more about my ancestral dreams in a paper I wrote called “Dream Journey to Poland.”
Vasalisa the Brave, from Slavic fairy tales of the Goddess/Witch Baba Yaga
Starting on March 18th, I will lead a 8 week dream group that focuses on Dreaming with the Ancestors. In this facilitated dream group, we will focus on how our dreams can help us connect to the ancestral and spiritual realms. In each class, we will build an altar and create a sacred space for our dreamwork. The focus of our dreamwork will be first be on our genealogical ancestors and we will set our intentions to remember their stories, rituals, and healing traditions. We will also practice making dream connections with our animal and plant allies, magical beings (like fairies) and our own spirit guides. We will work with family stories, fairy tales and folk art to help activate our ancestral dreams and memory. Flower essences and plant spirit medicine will be incorporated to help enrich our dreaming process.
I have facilitated similar dreamgroups for the past few years and amazing things are occurring in them. It seems as if the ancestors are ready and eager to show up for us to do this work!
For more information, go to the Events and Classes page on my website, AncestralApothecary.com.
For those of you who don’t live in the California Bay Area…….. teleclasses coming soon! Drop me an email if you are interested.
Blessings,
Atava
Mind-Body Healing Dream Group Beginning Soon!
Mind-Body Healing Dream Group
Starts January 19th, 2010
6Tuesdays Starting January 19th, 2010
The New Year is a great time to give renewed attention to our physical, emotional and spiritual health. Dreams can be powerful allies and guides on your healing path. They tap into a wealth of imagery that can be directed towards personal healing. Dreams also can connect us to our healing guides that may take the form of a plant, animal, ancestor or other supernatural being.
In this facilitated dream group, we will focus on the healing art of dream work. We will explore our dreams to discover clues, remedies and prescriptions for health and wellness. Flower essences and plant spirit medicine will be incorporated to help enrich our dreaming process.
Date: 6 Tuesdays, January 19- March 19th
Time: 10:30-12:30 pm
Cost: $150-$250, sliding scale
Location: The Goose Sisters Healing Center, 3798 Grand Ave, Oakland
To Register: Class size limited. $100 deposit required to save a space. Call 510-541-2715; or email atava@ancestralapothecary.com.
Polish Ancestral Dream, Thesis Excerpt
Dr. Apela Colorado, Founder of the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network
On Summer Solstice of 2003, I participated in a Polish ceremony that has its roots in ancient pre-Christian times. A few days before Solstice I had this dream:
I am at the Summer Solstice Polish picnic. I am lying on a picnic table with my sister. Polish people are surrounding us. They walk up and say, “Dzien Dobre” (Good Day).” Everyone is chattering in Polish. Many of them have brought jars of pickles. Polish people and pickles are piling up on the picnic table. (June 18 2003, Sun in Gemini, Moon in Pisces)
On this day, special fire and water rites are performed. The word Kupala comes from the ancient word kupati, meaning “to bathe.” Water is believed to be infused with special healing power on this day, and people gathered to bathe at rivers, springs, and seas. Women create wreathes of nine sacred herbs and flowers to offer to the water. These offerings to the water helped to strengthen the water as well as to bring protection to families from floods and thunderstorms.
In the evening of Kupala (also called Sobotki or St. John’s Eve) people gathered on hilltops, mountaintops or in clearings in the forest to light huge bonfires. The sacred fire was believed to be connected to the sun itself and could only be started by rubbing two sticks together. People would dance and sing around the fire. Later they would jump over the fire to receive its blessings of cleansing and protection. The smoke from this sacred fire would drift into nearby fields to help protect the crops.
Mugwort or Blycia
Later, in the afternoon, I met with other members of the Polish Arts and Culture Foundation at Lake Temescal in Oakland. We were gathered to reenact an ancient ceremony, in which we created beautiful wreathes of flowers and herbs. After we finished making our wreathes, we walked to the water’s edge and tossed our wreathes to the water. As I sat with my Slavic friend David watching the wreathes, the water seemed to shimmer with our prayers and blessings. The lake looked like a beautiful woman covered in flowers and jewels. The energy surrounding us felt peaceful and welcoming. I could almost hear the lake saying: Thank you for your beautiful gifts.
This day was an important landmark for me, for it was the first time I had participated with the Polish community in such a ceremony. Smelling the pungent aroma of the blycia, I was transported back in time. As my hands wove together strands of herbs and flowers, I could almost see the hands of my great-great grandmothers. As I gazed at the lake decorated with our wreaths ancient memories stirred within me.
Tags: Dreams, Kupala, Polish ancestors
Dreaming with Plants
1. Place a bit of the herb under your pillow at night. If I have some fresh herb, I also like to hold some in my hand as I go to sleep. If it’s aromatic like lemon balm or rosemary, I’ll sniff it during the night.
2. Take a drop dose of the tincture before bed. Drop doses help us to tune into the energetics of the plant.
3. Incubate a dream with your herb of choice. To incubate a dream, set your intention before bed to dream of this certain herb. Your intention may be general or specific. A general intention, for example would be, “I would like to dream about passionflower.” A more specific intention would be to ask the plant a certain question. For example, “I would like to ask passionflower to show me in a dream how I can help to heal my anxiety.”
When you incubate a dream, it helps to create a mantra that you say as you fall asleep and that you repeat during the night when you wake up. Your mantra may be similar to your intention, but stated as an affirmation: “I will encounter passionflower in my dream tonight.”
For extra support on your dream incubation, you may wish to write down your intention and place it under your pillow.
4. Incubate a dream of your plant ally. This time, instead of dreaming of a specific plant, you may ask your dreams: “Please show me my plant ally.” Pay close attention to which plants show up in your dream that night.
5. Incubate a healing dream. You may be working on a particular self healing project, such as a chronic illness or injury. In this case, ask you dreams for herbs may be useful in your healing process. Again, pay close attention to what plants show up in your dreams.
6. Make an offering & creating sacred space: All of these suggestions can be amplified if you create a sacred space before going to sleep. You may wish to create an altar and place on it objects that relate to your intention. Another good idea is to make an offering to the spirit of the plants and the spirits of the dreams. You may wish to offer a song, a prayer, a pinch of tobacco, some candy (flower fairies love sweets!) or whatever is part of your own spiritual tradition.
Mugwort, the Queen of Dream Plants
How Dreams Can Heal
How Dreams Can Heal
Mr. Hale Makua, Hawiian elder
I have been listening to my dreams my entire life. In fact, one of my earliest childhood memories is of a scary dream of a big black raven. Later, when I was around 9 years old I had another nightmare that at my tender age sent me to the library researching books on dream interpretation.
As I grew up, I continued to jot down my dreams in journals. I never knew quite what to do with them, I only knew that they felt important and worth keeping.
In graduate school as a student of Dr. Apela Colorado, I was introduced to an entire new universe of dreaming. I learned that dreams are of central importance in many traditional indigenous cultures. I began to track my dreams according to the signs of the sun, moon and planets. I realized that my dreams were full of messages from the ancestors. We students in the Indigenous Mind program began to rediscovered the power of our collective dreaming. Sometimes our dreams would have similar themes or images; sometimes we would dream for each other; sometimes our dreams would fit together like pieces of an intricate puzzle.
Reverend Jeremy Taylor
One of our assigned books to read was Healing Dreams by Marc Ian Barasch. I was fascinated to read the story of the author, who was able to diagnose his own cancer by listening carefully to his dreams. As someone who had studied and practiced healing arts for 20 years, I became intrigued by this process of dream diagnosis. What if our dreams do in fact, hold the key to our healing? I have had many clients with illnesses hard to diagnose and even more difficult to treat. I began to encourage them to look towards their own dreams, not just for information on their illness, but also to find the prescription for cure.
At the 2007 IASD’s Psiberdreaming Conference, I participated in a workshop entitled “Mind-Body Healing through Dreamwork” led by Ed Kellog, Ph.D. I was very inspired by his work. Later, in a live lucid dream chat, I learned from Ed about his “lucid dream challenges”. In these, the dreamer becomes lucid (awakens in the dream) and challenges himself to some task he or she has chosen before falling asleep. As a die-hard Harry Potter fan, I was intrigued by Kellogg’s “Harry Potter” lucid dream challenge. In this challenge, the lucid dreamer would visit Hogwarts and practice various Hogwarts spells. I was thrilled at the opportunity. Who hasn’t had the fantasy of being able to make magic?
Around this same time, I was dealing with a chronic painful condition in my right shoulder. I decided to incubate a dream in which I practiced a Hogwarts spell which would also send some healing energy to my shoulder. The spell I chose was “Lumos!” which calls forth light. The directions I gave myself before going to sleep were: 1) become lucid, 2) practice the “Lumos!” spell, and 3) once the light appeared, direct the light to help heal my shoulder.
As I drifted off to sleep, in my mind’s eye I practiced waving my magic wand. The next morning I woke up around 5:30 am and without my lucid dream. “Oh well. I’ll try again another night,” I thought, too sleepy to really be that disappointed. I drifted back to sleep. Soon I was dreaming again and found myself in an underground cavern. Suddenly I realized. “Wow! I’m dreaming! Time to practice my magic spell.” I began to enthusiastically wave my hand, which was holding a magic wand. “Lumos!” I cried as a bright light burst from the tip of my wand. My wand blazed with a neon green light, much like a Star Wars light saber. “Cool!” I exclaimed and began swirling my light saber, watching the beams bounce off the walls of the cave. In the midst of the fun, I remembered that I still had more work to do- heal my shoulder. As used my mind to direct the light to my shoulder, it changed both color and shape into a bright lazer-red eye, shaped like the eye of Horus. This eye is an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection and power.
I awoke amazed. The chronic pain in my shoulder seemed to have decreased. In the months to come, I continued to reflect on the red eye of Horus to guide my healing process. My shoulder went through many more phases (including completely frozen!) but my dreams continued to be my allies that guided my process.
Tags: Dreams, Healing, healing dreams
Psiber Dreaming Has Begun: Online Conference!
I want to invite all Dreamers of the world to join this amazing on-line psiberdream conference. Attend presentations on all aspects of paranormal, lucid, healing, and spiritual dreams. My friend and colleague from the Indigenous Mind Program, Teresa MacColl, will be presenting on Dreams and the Ancestors.
Other workshops include: Healing the Wounds of Your Dream, Dreaming Well, Intuitive Dreaming, Visitations and Inner Level Communication.
I highly recommend the conference. It takes place over two weeks and people from all around the world participate. It’s pretty affordable ($40 US dollars) and it’s worth every cent and more! It’s a wonderful feeling to be part of a global dream circle. Magic happens and the ancestors do indeed show up.
Here’s the link:
http://www.asdreams.org/psi2008/index.htm
Top Ten Reasons to Buy Atava’s Herbal Products
Top Ten Reasons to Buy Atava’s Herbal Products:
10. Shopping at a small business supports our local economy.
9. Products made from locally grown herbs conserve resources by limiting fossil fuels needed for transportation. Many of Atava’s herbs come from local farmers.
8. Organically grown herbs preserve natural ecosystems.
7. Supporting your local herbalist and not “health food” corporate conglomerates is good for your karma.
6. Digestive bitters: everyone needs them for optimal digestion, especially during the holidays.
5. Elderberry cordial: tastes yummy & protects your body against viral invasion, like all those nasty colds & flus.
4. CALM Herbal Compound: Support your nervous system and keeps you peaceful, especially in this crazy overextended time of year.
3. PROTECTION flower essence spritzer keeps your personal boundaries crisp & clean.
2. POWER MUSHROOMS: Support your body’s immune system with deep immune tonics. This formula is anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, helps to lower cholesterol plus it supports the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, the nervous system and the digestive system. Need I say more? Mushrooms rock!
1. GOOD HEALTH is a priceless gift.
GIFT CERTIFICATES also available for Acupressure, Jin Shin Jyutsu & Herbal Consultations
Call or email to make an appointment to come by my Oakland office & sample these amazing remedies. Shipping available at extra cost. Pay by cash, check or Pay Pal.
VERY VERY SOON you’ll be able to order on my on-line store. Stay tuned!
Coming in 2008: Herbal House Party in Oakland.
Forget Tupperware! Enjoy an afternoon of free herbal classes, and sampling herbal teas, tinctures & cordials. Atava’s hand-crafted, organic herbal products will be for sale. For exact location, call 510-541-2715 or email atava@ancestralapothecary.com
Blessings to you all as we gently move into the longest night of the year,
Atava
