Tag Archives: dream

Lessons in a Life: The Great Unknown Known

Before sleep I call upon Robert Monroe, great out-of-body explorer and author of several books as well as guided meditations on the subject. “Will you take me on as your apprentice?” I ask. Before long I am asleep and dreaming.

Girl on beach, drawn as we all are... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Girl on beach, drawn as we all are…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I stroll along a boardwalk. On my left side is an endless row of doorways to video arcades, to adventures and games, places to learn and test skills. On my right is the ocean, dark and brooding.

I pop into one arcade after another, through wide doorways into big rooms, through narrow doorways, no wider than a sheet of paper, into rooms equally narrow. All doorways are accessible; no matter how thin, I simply slip in. I have many adventures in these various rooms, partaking in games of skill, learning how to manipulate and master everything that comes at me.

Every now and then I step back out onto the boardwalk and walk out onto the beach and step into the waves of the ocean. As opposed to the busyness of the arcade scene, all is calm and quiet here. I am calm and at ease here too.

All night long, while I dream, I partake in life along the boardwalk and in the arcade rooms. I play all the games. I am enticed, challenged, gain insights, skills, and a sense of power and prowess, and yet it all soon becomes repetitive and boring. At the end of the night, just before I wake up, I walk one more time out to the ocean’s edge and realize that this is what matters, this is what’s meaningful, this is the whole point of everything. I wake up in utter calmness.

The boardwalk is the path through life. We make many trips along that boardwalk, through many lifetimes, selecting how we want to live, being drawn here and there, walking the narrow planks over and over again.

The arcade rooms represent the many adventures we have, the choices we make to play one game or another, the things we are challenged with and the things we learn. Here all the desires, the wantings, the needs, the things of this world that we find so enticing are supplied, encountered, and experienced.

The ocean is the Great Unknown Known. I call it this because although it is dark and brooding and hard to see what lies in its depths, we sense such affinity with it. There is familiarity in its mystery and we are constantly drawn to it. We are drawn there by the High Self, our spirit urging us to discover what it offers, just as I was drawn in my dream. We go to it throughout our lifetimes, perhaps not as often as we go to the arcade rooms, but often enough that we all have a sense of its presence and significance in our lives.

Life's repetitions keep us going in circles... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Life’s repetitions keep us going in circles…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Our sense of familiarity with it, hard to pinpoint at first, becomes more realized as we get to know it better. For some, the unconscious, that Great Unknown Known, is frightening. To others it is calming though still mysterious. It will remain a mystery until we dive deeper into its depths and discover what it holds for us. Once we have gone into its depths enough times we gain a certain prowess and ease, equal to that which we gain in the reality of this world, as we engage in it, walking the boardwalks of our many lifetimes.

The more we explore the ocean, the more we feel its resonance, its energy so like the energy of our spirit. The more we enter it the more we gain a certain prowess in its waters. We might even experience the great depths of calm that came over me at the end of my dream as we dive deeper into the mysteries of the inner self. Even as we become calm in its waters, we are also aware that we have still much to learn, as its mysteries are endless. It is the vastness of infinity, and just that, infinite.

Each time I took a break from the arcade rooms and stepped into the ocean in my dream calmness came over me, and yet I always went back to the boardwalk and the arcades. By the end of the night, however, I got the message. It’s not the boardwalk and the endless supply of games, one more bedazzling, enticing and challenging than the next, but the deep and broody ocean that is important. It is where our spirit takes us over and over again. Our spirit knows it’s what we are really seeking, and that it offers all the adventure we really need.

The ocean, the Great Unknown Known, is the big draw. It offers the wonder and mystery of what lies beyond the boardwalk, beyond this world, enticing us to discover it for ourselves, asking us to test its waters as eagerly as we jump into another arcade game.

In the end it’s the balance between the two that we seek. We must let ourselves fully experience what the boardwalk offers, on both sides. We must fully live in this world, the arcade rooms, but also fully avail ourselves of the world of the Great Unknown Known. And that really means that we soon discover that it is not so unknown at all, but just another part of who we really are.

Where our heart knows we must go... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Where our heart knows we must go…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

There are many ways to go to the ocean every day, in sitting calmly, in simply breathing, in meditation, in just being, in refusing to do what we might normally feel we must do, in what the shamans call “not doing.” In “not doing” we refuse to go into the arcade rooms. Instead, we go to the other side of the boardwalk, slip into the ocean for a moment or two and wait for it to show us something. You too might ask for Robert Monroe’s help. I think he’s out there waiting.

For now, we must return to the boardwalk because that’s where we live, but the ocean is always right there.

Not doing,
Jan

Lessons in a Life: Blue Room Dwellers & Our Modern Day Addictions

In ancient times, mountain dwellers regularly went down to the sea to get food from the nutrient-rich oceans. The body naturally knew what it needed, and instinct—along with knowledge accumulated over time—led them there. Likewise, during the cold season many ancient peoples migrated to warmer climates—they had summer settlements and winter settlements—also led by the true needs of the body. Tradition, habit and physical needs all worked in accord with nature’s imperative to survive and thrive.

We humans have come so far from such innate wisdom that we have totally lost touch with what we really need. Without the need to struggle to survive, as our ancient ancestors did, we have become complacent and greedy. Our needs must be met! With our natural selves turned off we’ve become addicted to things of this world, thinking we need something to reward, stimulate, calm or provide any number of physical placations to the demands and imperatives of life. We have forgotten how to survive and thrive.

Sort of the color of my blue rooms... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Sort of the color of my blue rooms…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Last week I had a profound dream. I walked into a beautiful and serenely calm blue room. The room was familiar. I had been in it before in many dreams. It was always a room in my “house,” another living area that I was, for the most part, unaware of. One side of this big room was comprised of a huge curved bay window. Looking out over a beautiful ocean, this room was empty except for a couple of boxes that were packed and ready to go. To the left and two steps down was an adjacent blue room. This room was a little smaller. It contained no windows and was crowded with ghosts.

As soon as I entered this second blue room the ghosts came up to me, clamoring for my attention. “Oh, please make that delicious dish again,” said a round-faced man, smacking his lips. “That is my favorite meal!” They fought to get my attention. They crowded around me pawing at me, saying things they knew I would like to hear, buttering me up so to speak. There was a big party going on in this room. Every entertainment, every tasty food and drink was in this room, lavishly presented and greedily being consumed by all the inhabitants. Sexual innuendoes abounded.

At one point I noted, “Heck, I’m talking to ghosts!” Finally extricating myself from the ghosts I walked to the end of the room and, noticing that it did not have an exterior wall, stepped down another two steps out into a beautiful primeval forest. Here all was quiet and calm. I could be alone here.

As I walked in the forest, I noticed how enticing those blue rooms were, how comfortable and comforting, how strongly I was drawn to them, as well as to the serenity of the forest. As I stood in the lush forest, however, something didn’t feel right. “Am I in an old place?” I wondered. “I’ve been here so many times before!” With that thought I was immediately back in the first big blue room. I saw the packed boxes and realized it was time to leave. My son was there. I turned to him and declared that we were going to the mountaintop now.

The next thing I knew we were climbing up a steep mountain trail. Everything was pink now. The trail underfoot was dusty pink. It was lined with pointy pink spiraling boulders. There was no vegetation; the sun was beating down and barely a shady spot existed except every now and then in the overhang from a tall pointy boulder. It was a hot, dry hike, not an easy route, but I knew it was the only trail to take if we were to get to the mountaintop.

As we hiked up the steep switchbacks that were carved into the mountain, I talked to my son about trusting the psychic self, to not dismiss the magical things that occur in the course of everyday life but to remain open, that all would eventually make sense.

Eventually we will all get to the crystal mountaintop... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Eventually we will all get to the crystal mountaintop…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The dream ended as we reached the sunny top of the mountain and a beautiful pink quartz crystal monastery. It was then that I looked back down the trail we had just come up and noticed that the mountain itself was made of the same pink quartz crystal. All that had appeared as dry and hot was now beautiful, gleaming and glistening in the brilliant sunlight.

Although the monastery building was imposing, I was aware that it contained the accumulation of a life’s work in accessing, trusting, and utilizing the awareness of the innate psychic and spiritual powers inherent in all human beings. Its doors and windows were closed, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I would find my way into the cool inner rooms of this castle on the mountain and discover all I needed to know. Like a giant library containing all the answers, it awaits us all.

My dream points out how far we have come from our own ancient roots, the innate wisdom and knowledge that could guide us out of the blue rooms, away from the ghosts—the entities that keep us captive in our addictions and mundane realities—to find our way to the mountaintop where all will become clear. How far we have come from the knowledge inside us all that is there to guide us to what we truly need!

The blue rooms and the primeval forest represent the three lower chakras. The first big room is the ego, the third charka. The second room is the chakra of sex and the desires of this world. The forest is the root chakra, nature from which we all come. I was so drawn to those rooms of my dream, as we are all drawn to stay in the lower chakra system, attached to the things of this world, as familiar and enticing as they are. We must all live in them as we come into life in this world, as they offer us the rites of passage, but eventually we are ready to move on.

After a while there is something else we want. And that will only be found by climbing the mountain, going higher up in the chakra system. We all have our own mountaintop to climb. Everyone’s trail will be their own, everyone’s journey their own, but we all have within us what the ancient ones had, the innate knowledge of what we really need to survive and thrive.

In my dream I was with my son. I am usually accompanied by my daughter in my dreams. If you’ve read my books, you know she represented my spiritual innocence and she has been my dreaming companion for years. This time I am with my son. He represents my rational self, my doubting self who struggles to balance life in two realities, that of spirit and that of this world. And so, it’s significant that I take him with me when I go to the mountaintop but not unusual, for at this point in my life I have already done the work of assimilating my innocence, my spirit. The part of myself that my daughter has always represented in my dreams is fully integrated.

It’s time now for all of us to leave the lower chakras and really make the journey upward into the higher chakras. As long as we are human, however, we will have to revisit the lower chakras, but once we begin the trek upward those visits will be in accord with what is right and naturally appropriate. As our ancient ancestors knew, there were times to go down to the sea to get what was necessary and there were times when it was necessary to move to a new settlement, but such needs were always in accordance with nature, within and without.

Our trails may vary, but the goal is the same... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Our trails may vary, but the goal is the same…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I know that if I am dreaming of this work that others are as well, because I know we are all dreaming the same dream. It is reflected in the world around us. Why else is there so much turmoil in the world? Why else does it seem that addictions are rampant? All of the turmoil and all of the addictions, the excesses, are entities of the lower chakras, enticing us to stay with them, to become slaves to them and to our comforts.

In actuality, we are less and less attuned to nature, to the nature of how our physical body speaks to us, and the natural world around us and how it speaks to us too. We are so busy serving the entities what they want that we have forgotten our true mission. The mountaintop calls to us, now more than ever.

Time to go to the mountaintop,
Jan

Refer also to Chuck’s blog, posted earlier this week, along similar lines: Attachments Anonymous

A Day in a Life: Synchronicities Abound

We may be two at times in our lives, but the real truth is that we are all one... one great love... - Detail of an old lithograph
We may be two at times in our lives,
but the real truth is that we are all one…
one great love…
– Detail of an old lithograph

It was last Sunday. We were sitting on the couch in our living room. Chuck was reading to me from Elmer Green’s book, The Ozawkie Book of the Dead, the title a take-off on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Ozawkie being the name of the town where Dr. Green was living when he wrote the book.

Dr. Elmer Green, now in his late nineties, is a very advanced spiritual guy, a physicist and psychologist involved in early biofeedback experiments and always a seeker of meaning. The subject of the chapter we were reading was synchronicities, how they occur and what they mean.

It was actually a long string of synchronicities that had brought us to discover Dr. Green and the work he was involved in, along with his wife Alyce, both of whom had worked at the Menninger Research Institute in Topeka, Kansas. Back in the 1970s I had purchased and read a book by their son, Doug Boyd, called Rolling Thunder. The book was on our bookshelves when Chuck happened to pick it up one day and began reading. He couldn’t put it down. That was the beginning of a long string of synchronicities that led us to where we were last Sunday.

It was a snowy day. As with most Sundays, we were committed to spontaneity without commitment to anyone or anything, but also with rest and rejuvenation as our underlying intentions. Chuck had been reading for a while when his voice began to get raspy and hoarse. Soon he could no longer speak. He wanted to keep reading but was forced to stop.

Some time passed before Chuck decided to take up the book again and begin reading. This time we started on the next chapter, an autobiographical section about Alyce Green, taken from their previous book, Beyond Biofeedback, in which she tells the story of her upbringing and her early life before meeting Elmer. I had ordered a copy of that other book, which had yet to arrive. I was especially interested in hearing her story. With all that we knew of the Greens, she remained somewhat mysterious and I was really curious about who she was and how she had gotten together with him.

Once again, Chuck began to read. This time his voice only held out for a little while and soon he stopped. I was disappointed. I wanted to grab the book and keep reading, but we had decided that we would read this book together, as it was so deeply informative and rich in spiritual insights. I had to be patient.

Suddenly, I remembered that we hadn’t gotten the mail the day before. “There’s a book out there in the mailbox,” I said to Chuck. “It’s waiting for us. It’s getting cold.”

Chuck getting the mail on that snowy  Sunday afternoon... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Chuck getting the mail on that snowy Sunday afternoon…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Just as Chuck said, “I’ll go get it,” and got up from the couch, a hawk flew right past the window, low to the ground, its wings swooping the snow now piled high around the house. It startled me, but I wondered what it could mean. A synchronicity for sure!

Chuck donned hat and boots and when out into the snowstorm to get the mail. The only thing in the mailbox was a book. He brought it in. We wondered what it was. We opened it. It was the Green’s book, Beyond Biofeedback. Just what I had been waiting for. “Now you can read all about Alyce!” Chuck said.

The synchronicities abound in this experience. First we had been reading about synchronicities, then a series of unexplainable things occurred. Chuck’s voice gave out, for no apparent reason, just when I was finally getting to hear the story of Alyce, which I had so yearned to hear. I had even wanted us to jump ahead to that chapter earlier so I could hear about her, but then patiently held back. Then I remembered the mail. I envisioned a book in the mailbox, but not what book exactly, as I had recently ordered several. A hawk flew in front of the window, a messenger delivering a message. “Yes, there is a book in the mailbox!” the hawk was saying. And lo and behold, it was the one book I could have wished for, the one that would grant me the pleasure of reading about Alyce.

Now I come to last night and the subject of my dreams. In another synchronicity, another book I had recently ordered arrived yesterday. It was Robert Monroe’s first book—which neither of us has read—about his earliest experiences in out-of-body travel, called Journeys Out of the Body. Long familiar with Monroe, founder of the Monroe Institute, and his Hemi-Sync recordings, as well as his history as an out-of-body traveler, we were, synchronistically, reconnected with him through reading Elmer Green. Monroe had sought help with understanding his experiences and ended up at the Menninger Institute in the 1970s working with the Greens, just at the same time that I was reading their son’s book about Rolling Thunder, a Native American Medicine Man. As you might be able to tell, we find all these synchronicities very interesting and also “very entertaining,” a phrase often spoken by Elmer Green.

To return to last night’s dream. As we were preparing to sleep, I said to Chuck, “Even though we haven’t read Monroe’s book yet, just having it in the house is enough that we may have out-of-body experiences tonight, as it is imbued with that intent. Just touching it is enough for the power to rub off.” Chuck agreed. We’ve had the same experience with other such books, Castaneda’s books and William Buhlman’s Adventure’s Beyond the Body being but a few.

Suffice it to say, it happened. All night I was traveling out-of-body, in the cosmos. I became part of the greater universe, just a drop in the bucket of the larger whole of which we are all a part. It was thrilling, and yet I was calmly part of it all. None of it seemed strange or frightening; everything felt so right. In fact, I was lovingly accepted into all that is, far beyond any human expectation or belief. I tried to explain this to people I met in my dreaming state. “Don’t get attached to anything material or of substance,” I said, “it doesn’t matter. The only substance that matters is energy. Everything is energy. Love is energy.”

As I traveled deeper into the cosmos, I experienced what Chuck wrote about in his blog this week, Being in Love. Indeed, we are all beings in love, part of the greater love that is. I experienced just that, without attachment to anything other than those universal truths of loving kindness and compassion, for all and everything, that we are told to strive for as fulfillment in life on earth. In my dream, I was fully aware that we are all just that.

As I opened more and more into this awareness in my dream, without fear or attachment, and also into the cosmos, I experienced the synchronicities that had gotten me there, everything from Doug Boyd to the Greens to Robert Monroe, all beings who explored meaning beyond this world. And not least, I experienced myself, my own journey and all the people in my life as part of my own getting there, beyond this world in this loving way. I knew there was no need for fear or attachment to this world, that all that is really is love and loving. If we are ready for it, it receives us without bias, simply because it exists. Love is! And we are all part of it.

Synchronicities abound... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Synchronicities abound…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

My dream was just the next in the series of synchronicities that have abounded in our recent experiences. Life itself is, if we care to see it that way, a string of synchronicities. Yes, synchronicities do abound, not only in my life and in Chuck’s life, but in each of yours as well. You just have to see it that way. And I think you might just be able to do that if you pay a little attention to what is happening in your life on a moment to moment basis, how everything is connected, just as our Sunday experiences and my dream showed me.

Everything is connected by the energetic fact that we exist as part of the greater universal wholeness that is the cosmic world we live in, participate in, and experience every day in the synchronicities that abound, if we are aware of them or not. It’s actually a really fun project to decide to undertake, to remain aware of what is happening on a daily basis. See where you are led, what comes to show you your own part in all of this grand scheme of all that is.

No matter who you are or where you are in your own journey, you are part of this. If you exist in this world, you too are love. Set the intent to have an experience of that love that is, that you already are simply because you exist. It’s already in you. That is what my dream is telling me. There is no other work to be done but to open up to it. And then to become it, in all that you are and all that you do. Become the love you seek. It’s that simple. This is what Chuck wrote about, and this is what I dreamed about, all in synchronistic alignment with the truth of all that is: Love!

We are all energetic beings. We are all droplets in the greater ocean of awareness, synchronicity, and the love that is.

Just another drop in the bucket,
Jan

Another synchronicity! Here is a cool little video I came upon this morning, the theme is, you guessed it: LOVE! But more importantly, that we are all energy bodies having a human experience, and that all the many shapes and forms we come in don’t really matter.

Chuck’s Place: We’re All In The Same Dream

Chuck starts off with our first blog of the New Year, restating the intent that we embody, to take full responsibility for who we are and how we choose to participate in the dream of this reality. It’s what we at Riverwalker Press are all about. As the New Year begins we invite all of you to participate in dreaming a new dream with us. Happy New Year!

Warmly, with love and gratitude from us both,
Chuck and Jan

This is the dream we are in today... What does your dream look like? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
This is the dream we are in today…
What does your dream look like?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Every cell in our body has a life of its own. It is challenged daily to obtain necessary resources for its survival, maintain balance, rid itself of wastes and spawn new life. Little does that single cell know that it is actually part of a much greater integrated whole, a human body.

The interdependent reality of our wholeness escapes us as we focus daily, like every single cell within us, on our individual tasks of survival and fulfillment. Nonetheless, if we contemplate our greater cosmic reality, perhaps we might glimpse, through reason or intuition or experience, the oneness of everything. And, from that place of oneness, all of us are responsible for the dream we are in and where we are going to take it. We are all empowered, through consciousness and intent, to advance the dream, that is, to change the world we live in.

Over the past couple of days, the stock market has been in a downslide. Why? Because the price of oil has been plunging rapidly. Meanwhile, the auto industry has had its best year in sales in decades, due in large part to increased sales of gas guzzlers, the consequence of cheaper gas. Meanwhile, many, whose economic survival is dependent upon the stock market, are faced with threatening losses as “safe” investments like oil plummet in value. Behind all these challenges to daily survival lies the reality that fossil fuels are a major contributor to the rapid destabilization and destruction of the planet that feeds and houses us.

We, as individuals, are empowered to decide where this dream will go next. Many are so focused on personal survival that they feel obliged to make the best investments, irrespective of environmental consequences or the total destruction of lives and cultures outside of their own. Gas guzzling cars are one of the things that most of us use daily and yet most people can’t afford to switch up to hybrid vehicles or they are drawn to the perks of less fuel efficient cars, while still others have much more basic needs of daily survival, putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads.

If we look to government to solve the greater issue of climate change we are confronted with the likes of today’s headlines: Big Threat For Obama’s Climate Efforts From GOP-Run Congress.* It’s easy to indulge in powerlessness and point fingers at the GOP, but to be truly responsible we must examine the GOP within ourselves. No one can separate themselves from deciding which way this dream will unfold; we’re all part of the same whole.

The GOP reflects an old dream that insists that the world is ours for the taking, that consideration beyond the needs of self and ours is unnecessary. That dream downplays the interdependent reality and the global concerns that effect us all and instead focuses on the individual’s responsibility to ensure survival of the personal dream. That dream has been given full latitude to play itself out and now finds itself approaching nightmare, as that dream and the world it has generated are unsustainable. This nightmare has caused many to wake up and face the facts, but still many others, reflected in the newly elected American Congress, remain staunch champions of the supremacy of the old dream; self above all.

The truth is, we are all living cells of the same dream, each empowered to decide, within the context of our own lives, which way the dream will proceed. On a concrete level, if I refuse to invest in fossil fuels, I am changing the dream. If I choose to buy a fuel-efficient car, regardless of other sales’ enticements, I choose a different dream. If I choose to replace my light bulbs with an expensive, highly efficient LED bulb, I choose a different dream. There are even simpler choices we can all make, such as to recycle or to be less wasteful overall.

How powerful a little pocket of intent is! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
How powerful a little pocket of intent is!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

When Jeanne was in this world—as the Hindus say: at the gross level of reality—she strongly preached the power of the purse to effect change. Now she resides fully in the astral plane, the next, finer dimension of reality that houses our soul or spirit, guiding us to exercise the power of intent to effect change in our lives within and without. Though the main fuel of the astral dimension, intent is equally effective in the gross dimension of our reality, awaiting our discovery of its power.

When we pray, when we state our intent, repeat our mantras, send love and compassion, we are transforming the dream world we are in. Everyone who loves their enemy reconciles with their own divided wholeness and advances the dream.

If I can love the GOP within myself—the part that demands individual responsibility but is also so susceptible to self interest—exploitative and greedy—I can make responsible choices in the myriad of decisions I make today to advance the dream in a new direction for all living beings. Such a decision might be as simple as where I choose to place my awareness, how I choose to think or spend my personal energy.

If worry and fear beckon, I might shift to some moments of intentional release of tension in my body, into calm, deliberate breathing. This simple act changes the energy I bring to the integrated wholeness of the one dream that we all live in and are dreaming together.

Imagine if each of us decided to awaken to the power of intent and bring it into the gross dimension that we all live in in such a calm and nurturing way. It might just be a strong enough intent to course-correct the orbit of the dream we are now in, sending us into a new dream of sustainability. We are never powerless.

Staying awake in the dream,
Chuck

* Headline in The Huffington Post January 6, 2015

Chuck’s Place: Ego & Synchronicity

In a dream I am in a packed country bus, descending down a windy dirt mountain road, in a third world country. A boy holds onto a door at the back of the bus. All of a sudden the door swings open as we round a wide curve in the road, and the boy, gripping tightly, swings in and out. The bus’s momentum is too great and we swerve off the ledge and go airborne, a huge chasm below leading to certain death. I close my eyes as I feel myself float out into the air. I am already vibrating and intent upon raising my vibratory level as we descend, awaiting impact.

Buddha awaiting the great transition... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Buddha awaiting the great transition…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I wake up. I had already awoken earlier in the night with the intent to raise my vibratory level, to connect with Jeanne out-of-body. This dream ended my sleep for the night and soon Jan awoke too.

I hopped out of bed. “You’re very peppy today!” Jan said. As she said the word “peppy,” in my mind I said, “Pepe Le Pew, Jeanne’s affectionate nickname for her childhood dog, Pepe.” Jan spontaneously said, “Pepe Le Pew!”

We decipher my dream as my intent’s method of raising my vibration. It’s raining outside. I head out to feed the birds and discover that the rain is freezing over as I slip and slide to the bird feeders.

Later, as I head out to the office, I put the truck in four-wheel drive to climb the steep driveway. Regardless, I nearly slide back down. Suddenly I remember my dream. I get it! Be extremely careful driving, especially as the steep hills of my dream provide me with the necessary warning. I am more cautious than I’ve ever been as, without thinking at all, I turn to head down our road in the more gentle direction, away from the steep hill in front of our house. Jan informs me later that even the town salt truck would not go down the hill!

I arrive at work. Suddenly it flashes, “Oh, it’s December ninth! This is the day Jeanne left this world!” I’d completely forgotten. But Jeanne didn’t forget. As I had attempted to raise my vibrational level to visit with her in the night, I was left suspended in the air in my dream, in this world. That was the necessary association I got as I drove to work: Drive slowly on the hills and curves. Indeed, the message was exactly right. It sent me into heightened driving awareness as I slowly edged toward work over the icy roads, with little traction in spite of my four-wheel drive vehicle. And to boot, I got the greeting from Pepe Le Pew, an unmistakeable association Jan knew nothing about!

This is how ego and synchronicity differ. Ego has such a focused cause and effect filter that it misses the signs and symbols that appear to communicate vital information. I am quite certain that this morning’s Eureka moment in the driveway prevented a serious accident.

Typically, the ego quickly shifts into judgment mode when analyzing a dream. Must be some kind of psychic inflation, set to take a tumble, if you’re about to crash in a dream. And what about the recklessness of the vehicle you’re being transported in? Aren’t you responsible for that? These questions narrow the view to a judgment of fault and badness. We know how the ego is always on the lookout to avoid exposure of its inadequacies!

And then there is the case of Pepe Le Pew, that cute skunk of long ago cartoons. The ego has to admit to this amazing “coincidence,” but in suspending that judgment I knew it was Jeanne humorously assuring me that we were meeting after all!

Once again, though the ego narrowed the field, saying, “Don’t feel bad, but you are too inadequate to raise your vibrational level to meet as intended,” I know for certain that I was delivered a message, a synchronicity between dimensions, that completely shifted my behavior and perhaps saved my life. All this, before I even realized that, thirteen years ago, this was the magical day of transition!

Love never ends,
Chuck