Remembering How to Dream

#CallToCreation

If there is one thing my ancestors have taught me, it is “remembering to dream”. Dreaming is how the mind, heart, and soul communicate. Deep longings, playful whims, and hidden messages lay in the fabric of our dreams. Dreaming awakens pieces of the self that serve our creativity in the Now. It is a channel that opens in the meta-conscious states of sleeping or meditating and when you are fully conscious in the waking world. The mind knows how to dream, the heart knows how to dream, the soul knows how to reveal itself through dreams.

When the heart or mind are encapsulated by the resistance of blind spots, the overwhelm of un-integrated emotions, or cyclical fixations in thought, dreaming becomes harder to achieve. Extending our efforts to dream may feel like too high a demand in the face of a personal struggle to accept change, loss, and death. The truth my ancestors taught me is that dreaming takes little effort at all, and that stillness and quiet are the allies that enable the gateway of dreaming to re-open.

There is a still point between every inhale and exhale- between every loss and gain- between the ending of every dream and new beginning. Every living thing must grow to stay alive. Every living thing must compensate in the change of seasons. Every birth has its eventual death and every death, real or metaphorical, returns the potency of life to the source of creation.

The still point resides in this return to source, allowing the breadth required to dream something new into existence. There is no set timeline for any still point in its duration. Its seeming emptiness is quite full once awareness of it is tended to and honored. The duration and magnitude of these periods in our experience are defined by their relevance to the capacity and process of each individual, wherever it is inviting them in or challenging them to reclaim and restore their power.

The call for effort lays in the act of manifestation. When re- constructing the pieces of one’s life after great change, loss, or death, we must give ourselves over to the transformation with patience for the many transitions that arise in that journey. Remembering to dream provides a balance in the darkest of times. The practices of knowing oneself, facing what feels looming or hidden, and surrendering to the unknown possibilities beyond our calculation of the notable probabilities, grant us new opportunities to manifest forward.

Let your mind wander. Give your heart the attention it calls for. Listen to the whispers of your soul and let them teach you how to grasp the essence of your life song. Then, raise your voice and activate that creative zephyr within to follow the many dreams, quietly waiting, in the wellspring of your being. Remembering to dream unveils the threshold of rebirth, again and again, throughout life and death.

-Excerpts From the Writings of Julie Hightman