I find a small (silver?) key inside of fear.

(more…)

Most have one or more recurrent childhood dreams. I had the typical one of flying, and a nightmarish one as well.

I climb up the pull-down ladder to the attic. As my upper body enters the attic, I fall. The ladder and floor disappear, and I fall through darkness. Suddenly, below me I see a large cauldron stirred by a witch. She looks up and grins at me.

The pull-down ladder to the attic was in the house I grew up in, and it was always exiting - and a little scary - to climb up it and into the attic. I would wake up before falling into the cauldron, with the image of the witch grinning up at me etched in my mind.

(more…)

A baby Buddha looks to be three or four years old, although he is newly born. His insights - and ability to combine familiar elements in new ways - goes beyond all the many current and past Buddhas. They have prepared the ground for him, as others did for them, and he in turn will do for future Buddhas.

(more…)

I am led by a guide into a secret Buddhist city, ancient and new at the same time. It contains all the wisdom of Buddhism and beyond, and research is being conducted into every subject under the sun. A man greets me in a small central office. He tells me, cheerily, that I am to learn all the knowledge in the city, not only once but ten times over. I say that it is not only hopeless but futile, and he says “yes, that is exactly what you will learn. It can’t be done, insight is endless, and it won’t get you what you desire the most.”

(more…)

There is an group of smaller bays just north of San Francisco used for processing the waste from San Francisco. I vist on bay where they process used clothes. Large plastic bags with used clothes are dropped in the water, and a whole community of people gather them up, sort and ship it off to where it can be reused. The area is lush, green and beautiful, and the community is a little town nestled in a hillside. I am slightly ambivalent at first, seeing the people as grimy and wrinkled, but my perception of them changes. I am attracted to the closeness of the community. It seems to be a naturally well functioning intentional community.

(more…)

I am with two or three woman healers and there is a sense of shared essence and quiet understanding among us. I notice how beautiful it is that it is naturally expressed differently for each of us. One of them gives me a long kiss on the cheek, and there is a sense of a  stream of sweet nectar flowing from the kiss into and filling my heart.

(more…)

I am taking over my father’s house. Although similar to what I remember and am familiar with, it is all also slightly different.

Two neighborhood kids are used to having free reign in the house. They retreat to the basement when I arrive, and leave completely after I am firm and persistent with them for a while. Their father walks his dog in the yard and is upset with me, but I am firm and clear with him as well.

There is a sense of it being necessary for me to be firm, clear and stand my ground for a while, until it all realigns. 

(more…)

There is a flying event where we are to fly to Paris and then Copenhagen using balloons. I am on a three person team, and design a combination of a hang-glider and a hot-air balloon that is fast and maneuverable. We get a little exuberant and fly low along a road, but have to steer off the road when a truck comes towards us. We crash and take a day off. It turns out that my two team members design a new craft on their own, but one that only floats and is not fast nor maneuverable. I plan on redesigning it.

(more…)

Amnesia I return to where I used to live (a spacious, artistically decorated loft apartment with a co-housing feel), but don’t remember anything. Everything - memories, skills, passions - are gone. 

Secret Project A tycoon has some of his people working on a secret project which will come to fruition in 5-6 years time. I am somehow in the center of the project, as the one who will bring it to the world. The only condition is that I keep it an absolute secret until then. 

(more…)

A lion has escaped. It is one that I know well, and it seeks me out and is very friendly and playful. I am a little concerned at first, but then realize it is all OK.

Day residue: I was in Ashland this weekend, noticing the banners of a golden lion on a red background. (or the Shakespeare festival, I assume.) I mentioned to Jen that the banner is similar to the coat of arms of Norway. There was also a toy store we walked by a few times with lots of stuffed lions and lion books in the display window.

(more…)

Unusual things are happening. A series of people I don’t know try to connect with me in peculiar ways. I am cautious at first, but then decide to talk with one of them. They want to recruit me to help with catching large scale international drug traders. I will play a small but important part in gaining their confidence, and others will collect the evidence and go in for the catch. It is dangerous. I ask why they want me. They say they need someone they can trust, someone who is sincere and honest. There are not many who has the degree of sincerity and honesty they need. I accept, especially since they are going after the largest fish, the ones who often go free when the smaller ones are caught.

(more…)

I am in Antarctica with my wife and a group of other people in their twenties and thirties. We ice skate, kayak, row in inflatable boats, swim in dry suits, and overall have a great deal of fun. There is a sense of being completely at home in this clear, brilliant, stark and immensely beautiful place on earth.

We are here together for a few weeks before heading home, and I realize that I would like to stop over and experience the deserts in Australia on my way home to Norway.

I help one guy with his skates, and I notice he is buoyant somehow. It turns out that there is an anti-gravity effect around him, which helps him in his professional ice skating.

(more…)

I see what is left to be worked through, represented as a black rectangle with some substance and thickness.

This was a dream image that stayed with me after I woke up.

It has a sense of something that needed to be exhausted through practice and effort. And also that they exhausting itself is the point of it.

(more…)

I am on a beach and wade out to a small island of sand. As I arrive, a large group of orcas of different sizes stream around both sides of the island. I am drawn to them and experience a sense of intimacy with them, but there is also some fear coming up.

This seems very familiar in my daily life. I am drawn to something and experience a sense of intimacy, but there is also a little fear coming up, a slight hesitation. In the dream, as in daily life, the attraction and warmth envelops and is there in more abundance than the fear.

In daily life, this dynamic comes up towards people and groups, sometimes towards specific activities, and also towards shadow/disowned parts of myself.

It is interesting to see how dream themes come up in the days before and after a dream. I noticed yesterday, the day after the Himalaya dream, a pattern that I only later connected with the dream.

For a few days, I had purposely gone into stressful thoughts to take them to inquiry, and also gone into unpleasant emotions so I could fully allow them and be with them., and noticed I had gotten a little stuck in that mode. So I decided to do some heart centered practices to lift it up a little, including the practices of rejoicing in other’s happiness, and prayer for the happiness and awakening of all beings, that I know from the Tibetan tradition.

I then realized that this mirrors exactly the dream. I purposely went down into the abyss, into the stressful thoughts and unpleasant emotions. And then climbed up to the top of the plateau again using a rope ladder, guided by a Tibetan teacher. Or as it happened that day, climbed up using a simple made-made device, the practices, and guided by Tibetan teachings.

A big avalanche went down a steep mountain side, and I and some friends go down its path. It is steep and far down. We are guided by a Tibetan Buddhist teacher on our way up, and use a rope ladder most of the way. At the very top, someone has inadvertently blocked where we need to go, I talk with him, and he removes the obstacle. We are back in civilization, with a large city surrounded by smaller towns. (more…)

A series of three people show up on my doorstep, one after the other, thinking I can help them. (They have read my blog, for some reason thought I could help them, and figured out my address.) I tell them I can’t help them. I brush them off. I don’t acknowledge them beyond that. The last one is persistent and follows me and my wife as we are go to set up for a meditation session in the evening. When we arrive, a meditation is in progress and the person following me thinks I have lied to her. I take time to explain the situation to her, and as I do so, a shift happens for me. My heart opens.

(more…)

A dream image: I move a knife easily through a dense block of intricately folded paper. There is a sense of great receptivity and of the path of the knife shifting to adapt to the consistency of the block, receptively finding the path of least resistance.

The experience of the dream was of a great receptivity and being finely tuned with the knife moving through the block, easily finding the path of least resistance. The block is large, dense and made of paper folded in intricate ways when wet, and has now dried.

This block of densely and intricately folded paper is similar to the veils and layers of beliefs and resistance I am exploring.

This dream image is quite similar in feel to the shifting staircase dream, and it also reminds me of the Taoist (?) analogy of a butcher cutting through an ox easily, allowing the knife to find its way around the bones.

I am part of a group of people with a warm connection. Everyone has similar age to myself, and we are all partly working on becoming familiar with ourselves. We each have houses representing ourselves, and my house has stairs that are in different locations each time I move among the floors. I intuitively find the path quite easily as I walk, although I never know in advance where they will be.

Well, this is one of those almost literal dreams.

The house represents me, I am familiarizing myself with it, and the paths between the levels of the house are in different locations each time. Still, I am able to quite easily find it as I walk, intuitively knowing where they are, although I intellectually don’t know in advance where they are. This is similar to what I experience in daily life when I explore my human self and myself as awakeness, moving along the different “levels”. The dream may be telling me that I am not as aware of this as I could be.

The sense of everyone sharing this work, and the warm connection, may reflect how I experience it when I am in Norway. For me, there is a sense of a soulfulness here that is shared by many, and also encourages a deepening into our humanity.

I am in a small restaurant or cafe relatively high up a building. It is open to the outside. F. is there, a successful artist friend of mine I haven’t seen in a while, but he doesn’t recognize me at first. He then comes over to my table, asks me a question, and recognizes me. I notice some shame for not having used my talents fully, as he has. He then wants to climbto the top of the building, along a live scaffolding going up around the building to the top. I stay, explaining that I have been to the top a few times, so I can do it, but have a fear of heights.

A man approaches me, says he also used to have fear of heights, and then talks about some other things. I am amazed by his insights and flair, and tell him that I usually am only mildly interested in what people have to talk about and teach, but with him, I find a deep fascination. His insights and experience goes far beyond what I have found anywhere, and far beyond my own horizon. I realized that he approached me because he knew we would work together, learning from each other, and that I would be an apprentice to the insights he has.

He then asks me to choose among several different smaller objects carved out of wood. I hesitate. The one I am draw to has “god” in its name, and it seems to presumptious. He chooses it for me. It is golden, shaped as a fat cigar.

(more…)

I am with a group of people doing healing work, most of them from Breema. I talk with a small group of men, and one of the points out how life is inevitably wounded, and the perfection in it. It is God experiencing itself as wounded. There is a very strong atmosphere, similar to what happens in Breema intensives. It is rich, full, deeply nurturing, joyful, free.

I had this dream the first night on my visit to Norway, after having noticed the family patterns quite clearly the night before. Strangely enough, I experienced it more as an outsider, and didn’t take it so personally. I can see the lack of belly center fullness, and also how this has shifted for me since the last visit. There has been a deepening into it, and a sense of that nurturing richness, fullness and trust that comes with a fuller and more open belly center. And this has happened, at least partly, through Breema. I can see the wounded patterns in my family, and find freedom from being caught up in it, including wanting it to change for them, and instead find sincere appreciation for it. It is one expression of the inherent woundedness of human life, and it is beautiful. (Especially since I have found some freedom from it myself.)

It is life exploring and temporarily experiencing itself through one flavor of woundedness. It is God, experiencing itself as wounded.

I watch a documentary about signs of oriental medicine in medieval Scandinavia. At the beginning, the narrator says that since this documentary was made, new discoveries indicate that oriental medicine was known in Scandinavia centuries, if not millennia, earlier than initially thought. I am surprised I have heard nothing about it. The documentary shows, among other things, exquisitely carved figures of animals and people with cutaways showing the meridians running through the bodies.

This happened as a short segment of a longer string of dreams. I am first surprised that I had not known about oriental medicine in medieval Scandinavia, especially since the documentation seemed so solid. And then, that they found signs of it hundreds or possibly thousands of years earlier. There is a sense of depth and richness of culture, mixed with oriental wisdom. I am not sure what this is about, but will explore it further (active imagination and process work).

A young man and woman from two Irish clans/families want to get married, in spite of a long standing feud between their families. They know they can expect trouble and possibly violence due to their union, and their only hope is to receive the blessing of the unofficial leader of the Irish community. Few if any would go against his wishes, and if they did, it would be to their peril. So the young man goes to the pub owned by him, and even if their relationship is strained as well, the patriarch reluctantly gives his blessing. He then gives advice for what to do on the wedding day for good luck, including placing a pocket watch inside a slit in the fabric of the ceiling of the carriage.

This is an Irish community outside of Ireland (not sure where, maybe London, Norway or the US). “I” am sometimes the young man in the dream, and sometimes a friend of his. There is a sense throughout the dream of a difficult and gritty situation, which is workable with a great deal of effort and getting things aligned a certain way. First, the feud situation is taken care of as much as possible, through the blessing of someone the members of the community do not want to cross. Then, the luck situation is addressed. The family feud affects both, so both need to be dealt with. I assume the dream reflect a union or intimate connection of parts of me there has been a feud between, although I haven’t explored that further yet.

I am loosely associated with a group targeted with the police, and everything I say or do is filtered through the expectations of the police. I am arrested and ticketed three times for completely innocent actions, including humming.

This reflects what happens when I get into an irritable mood: just about anything anyone does is seen as a crime or a potential crime.

Also, the dream also mirrors a slight shift that sometimes happens when I do The Work: any thought is suddenly suspect and possibly criminal.

When I was a child, I had a Big Dream about a black panther, and I realize later that it was very similar to shamanic experiences and connections with a spirit animal. In the dream, there was a connection with the panther as long lost friend, and someone who had immense wisdom, insight and ability to guide me.

The world is a mirror of what is inside of ourselves, and animals can be especially helpful in mirroring and evoking certain qualities in us.

When we journey - whether in dreams, shamanic rituals, active imagination, through using the whole of us as in process work, or even through voice dialog - we are often guided to exactly those qualities that wants to come into our lives more fully. Those that may have been disowned, or just temporarily forgotten. There is an infinity of sources for reminders, including animals.

What comes up is what is needed here and now, so will change over time. But some may have to do with longer term processes, unfolding over decades, and the black panther for me seems to be one of these.

For me, the black panther evokes a beautiful combination of polarities, maybe especially a natural confidence and relaxation, and alertness and explosive activity, depending on what the situation calls for. It is firm and gentle, cute and vicious, and follows its path with receptivity yet in a non-nonsense way and undistractedly. Its velvety blackness reminds of the fertile blackness and awakening of the belly center, which nurtures each of the qualities listed above.

Shamanism is probably the earliest form for psychology, and from the little I know about it, it can be every bit as sophisticated as any contemporary western psychology. Judging from the earliest examples of rock art, it is a form of psychology that has been with us since before the dawn of civilization, which is humbling and also gives a sense of connection across time and universality.

I have worked with the black panther more lately, bringing its qualities into my daily life, and have found it a great support.I may find the black panther qualities in myself through images and movements, or just ask myself what would the black panther do?

I am many others travel the oceans on one breath, effortlessly. We travel under the surface and on the ocean currents, around the whole world. We belong to a group biologically different from others, with an ability to travel within the oceans, and meet to play and enjoy this.

Following this, I talk with two making batteries, with factories across the world. I give my best The Natural Step talk, and one leaves while the other stays to listen. We find a mutual respect and admiration, and we see that we both want the same for his business: success and efficiency, in a way good for life. There is a sense of intimacy, engagement and authentic communication. As if a time lapse movie, I see his battery manufacturing business transform worldwide from toxic to life-supporting.

Both dreams share several themes…

• A sense of being of one piece. In the ocean currents dream, of one piece with a biological group within humanity. In the battery dream, being of one piece with the person I talk with, sharing our goals for his business.
• A sense of efficiency. First, through the simple and efficient travel on the ocean currents, then a new form of battery production that is efficient, profitable and life supporting.
• Nurturing & intimate relationships, with the biological group and the battery manufacturer.
• Worldwide span, traveling on the ocean currents around the world, and seeing the battery manufacturing transform across the world.

I can find two pieces of day residue (influences from the day before)…

• I read Mending the past, healing the future with soul retrieval by Alberto Villoldo, where he - among other things - talks about renegotiating contracts we have made with ourselves, mirrored in the renegotiation of how the batteries are manufactured.
• I also watched 3:10 to Yuma, which has as a central theme the growing mutual respect and admiration between two adversaries, as in my conversation with the battery manufacturer.

Other things that come up…

• Traveling through the oceans, on the currents, may be similar to exploring the (previously) less conscious areas of the mind.
• Transforming the battery industry means that energy is produced in a less toxic and more life-nurturing way. I have had something very similar to chronic fatigue for a long time, and it comes partly from food intolerances… energy is produced in a way that is toxic for the system (drains it), and the dream reminds me (my system) that it can be produced in a way that is nurturing for life.

I am back in the town where I grew up, and walk on a pedestrian path up a steep hill with my kicksled. It felt a little funny to be back doing what I had done so many times as a kid. The hill is icy, and I am unable to get up the last 20 meters or so. It is almost vertical and pure ice. Two people are on the side of the path. I notice they are Swedish, sister and brother, in their mid twenties, and dressed in winter sports clothes. They ask me if they can help me up the last bit of the hill. I hesitate as I imagine they may play a prank on me and send me sliding down the hill, but then remember that I cannot get up on my own, so wouldn’t lose much by sliding down either. I accept their offer, and they help me up effortlessly.I have had several dreams over the last year or so on this same theme: almost getting to the top of a hill but unable to make it all the way up, and then being helped up the last stretch.

It seems to reflect the process of doing some work on oneself, and then grace allowing the shift. The work prepares the ground for and invites the shift, but does not cause it. The shift itself is grace. This seems to be true for many areas, such as The Work where I inquire into a belief, and grace allows attachment to it to fall away (or not). When I do the work of deciding to wholeheartedly be with everything alive in my experience, and grace shifting how it appears (or not). When I do the work of headless experiments, and grace allowing a shift into headlessness (or not). Or any other practice for that matter. I do the work, and grace allows for the shift, or not.

(It is of course not really like that. If I look more closely, I see that this “I” the appears to do the work is just an idea of a separate self placed on top of thoughts, decisions and activities, and it is easy to place a sense of separate self on top of these because they tend to be in the foreground of attention. Similarly, what appears as Grace appears as Other because these are dynamics that tends to happen outside of attention. In reality, they are just two aspects of one seamless whole, life manifesting, the activities of the manifest world.)

And it also reflects a dynamic in my daily life. I notice I am in the grips of certain patterns, and am not quite able to get out of them. I admit it to myself. And I ask someone in my life: I am in the grips of this pattern, can you help me? I procrastinate, can you ask me by 8pm if I have done this task? When we go to the store, I want to make sure I don’t get that sugary stuff, can you remind me to not get it? Can you hold me accountable? I do most of the work myself, and also ask for help from others for that last little bit. (Much like a twelve step process.)

Other aspects of the dream:

The number 20 came up twice in the dream, first in the distance to the top and then in the age of the siblings. And they are two, so there is that number again. I am not sure what that is about yet.

The siblings had a freshness and innocence about them that I associate with (some) Scandinavians, and also a great deal of maturity, heart and skills.

I am also not sure why this was in my childhood town. Maybe I am revisiting old patterns established back then, and now am in a position to “get over the hump” with them.

I am participating in a group receiving the Munay-Ki rites. It is led by a Tibetan Rinpoche, who is one of several Rinpoches seeing the effects of the rites as very helpful for themselves and anyone else open to receive them. (John Cleese is there as well, and I talk with him briefly.) The Rinpoche tells us that although we only have received one or two rites so far, the changes have taken place and are available for us to use. We are already released from old patterns, even if we haven’t quite noticed it yet, or trust it enough to live from it.

A friend told me about the Munay-Ki rites a couple of days ago. They are offered where I live, a new cycle start in a few weeks, and it comes from a tradition I have been interested in for a while (Four Winds Society, Alberto Villoldo, Inka shamanism), so I decided to participate. It is similar to shaktipat, energy transfer serving as a catalyst for awakening or healing, which I know works from my experience with Waking Down, Diksha and some other flavors of it. And the differences just makes it more interesting.

In their typical pragmatic and inclusive way, the Tibetan Rinpoches in the dream see the value of the Munay-Ki rites, and use them with their students and anyone else interested. My associations of John Cleese is of a slightly cynical person with a big heart, so him participating may mean that even cynical aspects of myself are on board with it. And the release from patterns may reflect something already happening for me, or something that may happen through the rites, or, most likely, both.

The terrain dream followed this one.

I am back where I grew up, and realize that although the geography is the same, my experience of it is very different. I see whole new patterns of connections between places, which allows me to get around in ways I didn’t conceive of back then. My experience of the area is very different, even if I realize that the basic geography must be the same.

Hmm. Not much to say about this dream. The basic elements of my experience is similar to how it was early on in my life, but the patterns and connections between them are revealed in quite different ways. There are new and very different ways of orienting and moving around. The basic terrain may be the same, but it is revealed completely differently.

(more…)

I am spending time with Byron Katie at a large gathering, only the two of us. She sees a core belief in me, and tries to help me see it as well. I am touched by the interest she is taking in nudging me to see it for myself. After a while, just as she is about to leave to do something else, I glimpse a part of what it is about: I have a felt-sense of everything happening outside of this human self as God and God’s will, but not what is happening from the inside of this human self… thoughts, feelings, choices, actions. And this split paralyzes me to some extent. She acknowledges that this is true, but also only a part of what wants to be seen. 

The evening before, I was at a diksha/oneness group potluck, and talked with a friend of mine about The Work and also transformational breathwork. I am looking forward to a breathwork session with her scheduled for this coming week as I know I have frozen layers to work through, especially related to the bodily felt-sense of life (fear vs. trust, etc.).