Dreams, Meditations, and Prayers
Dreams, meditations, and prayers are some of the communication pathways I’m aware of that can take those of us as Essential I/spirit-persons who are relating directly with our current-day system of reality, into other levels and layers of our existence.
During the period of time in the later 1970s when I was immersed in the crisis over my father’s forthcoming death, I used as many tools as I could to resolve my dilemma. (He passed on in September 1979.) One tool I used were my dreams. To start with, I kept a pad of paper and a pen on my side of the bed to potentially write down a dream or two during the night. And after I awoke, I would record what I remembered of what had taken place. Then, within the morning workshops I was holding for myself, which was another tool I was using during my crisis, I would act out each symbol of a dream, becoming more aware of my own dream symbology. There were many surprises! I also kept a dream notebook I would read periodically, which was helpful in terms of understanding connections between the flows of dreams overall and their interrelated correlations with my awake life.
From the many experiences I’ve had over the years with my own dream symbols, I strongly recommend to others to take the time and put in the effort to become aware of what their symbols mean to them within the context of their lives, as contrasted with looking for more generic meanings. Keep it personal; free associate. There are occasions in my life today when it can take days, or even longer, for the meaning of a symbol and the dream itself to become clear … In such an instance I reflect about it in an easy way, without strain or impatience. But most of the time now, after a minimal amount of attention the next morning, dream meanings are understood.
Within that period of time in the later 1970s, a number of large-scale dreams emerged that have continued to be significant over the years, where even more facets of what they meant and mean have become evident. Here again, I believe each dream is highly individual and personal, even if it can also apply to others. I’ll mention just a few that continue to resonate for me.
The first that comes to my mind is one I titled “Easy Street.” In the dream I-as-Jacquie was in a car driving up a steep mountain. My car didn’t have enough power and slid back down the hill. At the bottom I exchanged the car for one with more power, but it too didn’t have enough and it too slid back down the hill. I did this trade-up to a more powerful car one more time, with the same results. When I got to the bottom of the hill for the third time, I went off to look at a map to find out if there was an easier way to get to where I wanted to go. What I saw on the map was that to the left of the steep mountain there was a flat and tree-lined road that went past beautiful beaches, with interesting little side roads I could explore off to the right of the tree-lined one. And the road to the left would get me to my destination.
My initial interpretation of this dream was that it was telling me there were easier ways to accomplish what I wanted to achieve. It furthermore said that if I stood back and looked at a situation I would be able to figure out those easier ways. “Easy Street” has continued to give me specific ideas I have needed to hear in various circumstances at various times over the years.
It was in early 2006, when I read some ideas about aligning my life with the basic designs of the Earth system they made sense. I was applying “Easy Street” messages in the present, telling myself, “Of course. By playing with and being in harmony with the Earth system this way makes everything a ton easier!” Therefore, beginning with the spring equinox on March 20th, 2006, I started my natural world year by being involved on a continuous basis with natural world time and events.
My overall design was that in the first quarter of the sun-cycle year I would plant seeds. In the second quarter I would tend them and add what was appropriate. In the third quarter I would care for and harvest what grew. And in the fourth quarter I would evaluate, contemplate, and prepare for the next sun cycle. I would also attune myself to moon cycles. The person whose writing I was reading said that from her experiences with this type of harmonizing, physical manifestations could just flow. So, by both energizing that framework and coordinating my activities within it, those are my experiences!.
In another dream in the later 1970s that I called “Bands of Reality,” I experienced myself as a spirit-being who was being shown the basic design for the Earth system (band C), amidst an environment of vast divinity (band D) where “I” was positioned. A major part of the experience was to understand how culturally-crafted patterns (bands B and A), that were designed and energized by participants in the Earth system, were easily replaced if one used an effective perspective and process to do so. This dream has continued to have huge reverberations for decades now! (At the same time, this is a way I can think when I choose to do so, but it isn't capital T truth.)
An extremely dynamic dream was one I experienced in later 1977 in which “I” was an observer. The setting was Nazi Germany during World War II. There was an interplay of marching feet, red flowing blood that was turning black, and screams. Then the scene switched to a seemingly more benign setting, but it was clear that the patterns being used in it were similar to those in the earlier part of the dream—they just weren’t as extreme. When I wrote about my dream the next morning, I stated I wanted something different than the cultural experiences the dream event contained. And so it was that from this dream Jim and I titled the manuscript we co-wrote in the 1980s Something Different. Looking at our world-of-today, I think we need something very different.
Not all of my dreams are big like the ones I’ve just described. Most often they seem to be playing with creativity, mixing and matching people I’ve known (and not known), using both those who have passed on and those still alive as characters amidst varying times and places. With years of practice I feel I’m usually able to decide which ones to really pay attention to and which ones to just note in passing. But at first when I embarked on this adventure of integrating the aspects of my life, I paid attention to them all!
The second communication pathway to other levels of our beings I’m choosing to talk about is meditations. I’ve experimented with many of them. It was in 1976 that Jim and I began our individual meditation practices, using Lawrence LeShan’s book, How to Meditate. We would each select a meditation and use it in our daily hour-long focuses for a few weeks, evaluate, and then go on to another one. Today, I see all of these emphases in terms of rich experiences that formed a foundation we both have built upon, in our own ways, over the years.
In the present I continue to meditate daily, usually in the later afternoon. It is most often a “guided” meditation because as I settle in there is a sense of expanded knowing about what to make significant. For many months now, after allowing what needs to come forth to my conscious awareness to do so, I imaginatively empty out my psyche and body organism, seeing them filled with cleansed and easily flowing energies. I think this opens them up to new, fresh materials and to new, fresh organizations of what is appropriate for now. The process also includes any concepts I have about who/what I am and what my body is. Then, the rest of the meditation varies daily.
My meditations are always filled with general and specific Gratitudes and Appreciation for my life, relationships, and the divine guidance/assistance I know I receive.
A cultural design I hear in our world of today is that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening to God. To my way of thinking I don’t need to make a choice. I see all relationships as two-way streets, where energies need to flow back and forth in appropriate ways. Along with prayers that include myself and all beings, I do spend a lot of meditation time multidimensionally and reflectively listening.
My advice about meditation is to explore it for yourself. Try different processes. And keep it meaningful!
Looking at prayers as multidimensional communication pathways, I think it is quite complex. First off, this includes who/what an individual believes themselves to be, how they think it all works including what their beliefs about God are, and which matrix they are amidst. I’m convinced that within various matrixes and wavelengths there are different physical and inner experiences, as contrasted with those one would have while being an experiencer amidst another matrix on another wavelength.
In terms of specific personal prayers, my experiences have been that when I clearly state a situation and request divine guidance and assistance, eventually an appropriate answer emerges.
For many of us, when we think and talk about “God,” we’re using the word to express what we intuitively know are vaster realms of benevolence, universality, and creative power. As a contrast, some people’s God is outside themselves, an awesome and remote deity that needs to be obeyed and feared.
In God’s River of Love, in the chapter titled “Which God?,” I wrote, “I believe there is a transcendent realm of being, a divine source—God—and then, each of us who uses a God concept fills it with what we've been taught about God and with our own ideas about It.” This way of thinking still continues to be the best picture I can envision. And so I see my prayers for the highest good of all being everywhere, as sending forth energies into the whole field of divinity, where the appropriate connections can be made as a two-way street, and then “I” as an Essential I/ spirit-being with a physical body in this reality system, tune in to listen (and converse at times). As I indicated in the title of this manuscript, I think translations and applications are crucial. Here again, the questions arise as to who/what is the I, and what are the beliefs one is using to translate and apply what one perceives?
In God’s River of Love I also stated, “At present I believe each of us is first of all spirit, a part of God as a whole, and as a spirit-person has our own portion of God that is vitally interested in our lives. This personal God is at the center of our beings, at our very core, and in order to activate Its presence to the degree where one is consciously aware of It, the person must purposely make the connections and then decipher Its messages.” When I spoke about “God as a whole” I meant the transcendent realm, the divine Source. Then I used my own ideas about It in terms of having a portion of the whole that is vitally interested in my life and at the center of my life, as a personal God. (I think other people’s designs of a personal God may be quite different than the one I was using.)
As I developed my closer relationship with what I conceived of as God, after 9/11/01 here in the United States when the hijackers said they were doing God’s will, in the last section of God’s River of Love I wrote about personal experiences with my God. I said:
“The God I know now is genderless. It is an encompassing, compassionate, Loving, caring presence in my life at all times. It Loves and cares about me, all people, and all species members equally. It also has given each of us humans free will to use our God-given powers of choice and energy generation.
“The God I know now does not punish. Instead, each of us in relationship with others reaps the results of the combination of our choices, both those we are consciously aware of and those below the level of our conscious awareness. I believe this is one of the design attributes of our reality system.
“The God I know is here to help, whenever I ask for it.
“The God I know is here for everyone, and all each of us has to do is activate our awareness of Its presence. Recent scientific studies are showing that along with serial neural sequences and associative neural networks, there is a third neural process hardwired in our brains. It has been called the ‘God-spot’ by some researchers, lighting up on tests when a person is in an expanded spiritual state.”
My previous writing continued, “This internal spiritual system is said to be unifying and expanding, as well as transforming. For quite some time now, when I meditate, I oftentimes envision it as rivers of energy flowing through the serial and associative processes in my brain and throughout my body, transforming their circuits as is appropriate. I believe this is God’s river of Love which extends throughout the universe, connecting us all here on earth.”
Those were my thoughts in the early 2000s, which still express portions of my worldview today. Recently, a cultural perspective I read resonates strongly within me, about there being something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding … This is what I choose to believe divinity is overall.
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