I Dream In Color

Blessings Darlings!

I rarely share dreams here, but last nights dream seems different.

It started post Shit Hitting The Fan, with lots of trains, all going down the same track. Then a parallel track, on which a train of Army women in green colored fatigues. I was wearing my Assembly of the Sacred Wheel tabbard, in it's specific blue.  Had to deal with a train full of folks in black on the track my stuff was on.  Another train had all sorts of brightly colored children's books, one series that was coordinated by color. Realized that coordination of trains on tracks had to be re-established and my group was the one to do it - me standing on the tracks waving at the random trains wasn't cutting it.  Found the original round house area .... where I realized that the train lines were coordinated by color.  A Wise Woman - rather like the recently passed Shakmah Winddrum - commented on how finding this was the right approach, so I showed her the few clues to how it was done before that we'd found and where we were looking for more.

Okay, that was the dream.  But let's add in that yesterday online in a group we had been discussing Kontantinos' "Nocturnal Witchcraft".  Which I compared to Scott Cunningham.  I didn't go into detail on WHY  saw them as equivalent (other than to say both tend to be rather Kindergarten Wicca).  But the dream commented on that for me.

Cunningham and Konstantinos both tend to work strongly with a white/black duality.  Black.  White. Only grey lies between them.  Okay, that's one map of the territory.

In my dream there were all the colors of the rainbow, shown by the rainbow of knowledge in the books.  My job is to see the best way to combine all those many and varied colors.  I suspect that the roundhouse also has 'color wheel' associations - there are NO 'pure colors' outside of the filing systems like the Kabala and the chakras.  Which are GREAT filing systems, but it's not good to mistake the map for the territory.

But the stuff on trains, or in books, don't do any good while still on trains.  Mix, match - and use in every day life.  The train load of coal is nice and all, but it's more 'useful' to me as electricity that I use to power my life.

Dreaming of cookies.

Blessings, Darlings!

Weird dreams. The intersection of 'Tara and Frank, in Chicago' (or north suburbs?) was important.  Gathering wild bamboo shoots was important.  But they were not shaped like they really are.  And ... oddest of all .... Roman Catholic communion wafers that were shaped sort of like palmiers but had the image of crucified body on them, but often just skeletons, colored differently each which  might have related to the Loa or to chakras - it wasn't my path, either Christian or Eastern or Afro-Caribbean, so I didn't examine it closely.  And we were getting cookies from a Jewish Temple as well.  But the hosts HAD been consecrated at a Mass, and I was surprised that they were being handed out in bulk.

The oddest part is that I so rarely remember any of my dreams at all.  Maybe it's the influence of tomorrow's full moon?  Or the siren call of cookies? 

Frondly, Fern

Working It

Blessings, Darlings!

Now comes the nitty-gritty of working the 'no more accumulation' challenge. Working the stuff I've not sufficiently worked before.

I'm starting with a Ivo Dominguez, Jr.'s book "Spirit Speak: Knowing and Understanding Spirit Guides, Ancestors, Ghosts...".  Wisely, he has his main preparations work chapter early in the book, so you can start work right away before you're too tempted to do anything else!  But, as in all good books - there are so many exercises!  The Emerald Heart (to be one only once every week or so), chakra exercises, and such that can be done daily.  And stuff that is best to work to memorize - chakras and their locations and associations, etc. 

How long will it take for me to really have worked these things?

I'm figuring a month for daily workings, hopefully only two weeks to memorize associations.  But doing the Emerald Heart (which I will NOT be posting - it would not only be another 'info dump' into your overcrowded piles, but would also tend to deprive an author another eventual sale) once every week or so means that mastery of that is going to take .... well into reading another book!  And this is even with me  having been exposed to all of this before, since I've been attending Ivo's workshops for well over a decade, been attending Assembly of the Sacred Wheel events for a decade, and been a MEMBER of the Assembly for over 5 years.

If I was re-working Ivo's "Castings" book, and giving each of the 6 castings alone a month of practice each (and those aren't the only things to practice in the book) it would take me half a year to work it. 

Clearly, really working the books/etc. that we Pagans accumulate would slow down our Pagan reading ... and slow our accumulation!  Not the best thing for our already under royaltied Pagan Authors, but a better thing for the spiritual/magical growth of our community.

So, while slowing our reading of Pagan books, what do we do with that reading time freed up, even after we add working?

Read deep background books/magazines!

Deep background includes at least popular publications on science, history, primary sources (well, okay, translated) of paleopagan mythos, following the daily national/world news, etc.  Most of these are at your library, BTW - you can read 'em without buying them!  Don't have time to read every story on the cover of the NYT? Read the front page of USA Today! 

Anyway - so far today (1 pm yesterday  now, I'm playing catch-up on blogging) I've read a few chapters, done two exercises, and did some note-taking to help me memorize associations.  And this while sitting in the food court of a grocery store as a friend does tarot readings at another table, kids are loud healthy kids, the PA system makes announcements, and there are general 'busy grocery store' noises going on.  I'll save the Emerald Heart for when I DO have quiet space!

But I DO give thanks for the distractions - for if I can hone my focus under these circumstances, then I should be able to have really great focus in rituals/magical situations where I have built a better/quieter/less distracting more focused environment.

I give Thanks!

Frondly, Fern