Posts Tagged ‘transformation’

WHOSE DREAM IS IT ANYWAY?

Posted on Saturday, August 16th, 2014

Recently, a friend was giving a presentation about her creative/healing journey, which included a dream. Knowing that I do a lot of work with people around their dreams, she asked me if, after the presentation, I would tell her what I thought of her interpretation; I agreed.

 

Wonder of wonders, this experience actually highlights what I tell people all the time: Do NOT rely on so-called dream dictionaries, as YOU, the dreamer, are the best interpreter of your own dreams. So, when you give feedback to another dreamer, it is useful to preface that feedback with the phrase, “If it were my dream. . .”

 

In brief, the dreamer came upon a body of water which lay inbetween her and her goal, but there was a ladder there which she used to climb over the water and into the third floor of the building she was heading towards. She felt good about this accomplishment, which she viewed as reaching a more mature stage of her life without letting her emotions (the water) rule her life.

 

After the presentation, and the other attendees were gone, I went up to my friend, laughing. “If it were my dream, I would think that I had just avoided some useful information in my unconscious.” My friend thought for a moment, and then laughed along with me. Though water can and often does represent unconscious material, it doesn’t have to, nor does avoiding going into it always mean an avoidance of such material.

 

In hindsight, I think I was being influenced by a very powerful dream the daughter of a friend of mine had as she approached puberty (a very different time of life). She was trying to get to the other side of a river by crossing a bridge, but the bridge broke and she and other girls fell into the river which was filled with snakes. Though the girl heard the other girls screaming, she was peaceful, and had a very powerful encounter with a snake. Snakes often represent transformation, and this girl was clearly approaching a time of great transformation, and was doing so with a sense of peace and calm.

 

The girl needed to fall into the water and have her encounter with the snake; my adult friend did NOT need to go into the water to continue on her journey. In fact, what the dream seemed to say was that she was rising above old, unconscious, emotional patterns.

 

So. . .if either of these dreams were yours, what would you think? What lies beneath the surface of your psyche? What are your associations with water? (My relationship with water is mixed: I love taking showers, and I love being NEAR water and listening to its various sounds but, as a child, I had the felt experience of nearly drowning, which continues to color my feelings about water as something not entirely safe. Still, I recently had a dream about calmly facing a huge tsunami, and having it simply dissipate. So. . .my relationship with water appears to be evolving.)

 

SYNCHRONICITIES, PART 1: PORTABLE LABYRINTHS

Posted on Thursday, September 5th, 2013

PortableLabyrinthLGMShortly before going on vacation this summer, I emailed a fellow labyrinth enthusiast and asked her for some ideas about labyrinths that I could quickly put up and take down in my yard. She sent me a picture of one she had just used at a weekend retreat; it was made out of floirst silk tape, anchored with hairpins. Alas, I didn’t have time to make a labyrinth before flying out to visit a friend in MN, but our first evening together she began telling me about a workshop she had just attended which ended with the most beautiful labyrinth made from white florist tape. Of course, it was my other friend’s labyrinth.

To see my portable, quilted finger labyrinths, go to my etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/innerlandscaping

Potluck gathering as sacred geometry

Posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2012

Last night I was at a potluck dinner where I began knowing only a couple other people. As is my tendency, I gravitated to a corner from which I could talk with the person on either side, or sit back and just listen to other conversations, or watch the proceedings, which is what I did, but this time with different eyes. At first I simply took delight in all of our surface differences the tattoos, hairdos, clothes, ages, levels of engagement with each other. Then, given our differences, I wondered about what drew each of us to this gathering, not just on a social level, but on the underlying level(s) – those of energy, geometry, gravity. I began to “feel into” the energy of the group, and found a cohesion there, even as people moved toward, and away from, the center(s). And, as I began to move towards “separating” myself from the group, I wondered what would happen to the feel of the group as I did that. When I look back on it now, I imagine a large bubble of water, from which a single drop emerges, and the bubble reforms, slightly smaller, but still with an attraction for the individual water drop, now forever connected and transformed by, energetically, that bubble. I am now more likely to reconnect with that group than I was to go there in the first place. These people are now part of my memory – the boy with curls just like his sister’s at that age, the man with empty holes in his earlobes, the teenage girl sitting on her mother’s lap. And beneath that, circles within circles; spirals; spheres. What will happen when we all see the entire universe this way?

First You Need Ashes – A Personal Story of Joyful Resurrection

Posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2012

I’ll be speaking about my “release” from work on 12/26/11, and subsequent joyful “resurrection,” at Jubilee, 46 Wall Street, Asheville, on April 8th, Easter Sunday, at 8:30, 9:45, and 11:15. I hope to see you there. If you can’t be there, I’ll publish the text here in a couple of weeks.

2012: Tending Relationships with Self and Others through the Transformation Game

Posted on Friday, January 6th, 2012

I hope 2011 came to a good end, and that you are now welcoming the New Year and new growth.  Bonnie and I are gearing up for a great new year by setting some intentions for ourselves!  One is to ignite ‘couples’ to avail themselves of the opportunities the Transformation Game has to offer.  Our focus is to encourage the idea of “tending” relationships with self & others.  Relationships can be of all kinds: mother/father & daughter/son, self & partner, self & parents, self and boss, self and the past…..  We are always in relationship!

Our Game schedule will offer players some new days of the week to play.  And of course, we are still doing G.O.D.- Games on Demand!

Another intention we have set is to facilitate a minimum of 10 games this year. We’re hoping you will help us get the word out.

Wishing you all a very good year,

Laurel

 

Currently scheduled game dates:

Jan. 28th — 12:00-5:30pm

Feb. 11th — 1:00- 6:30pm

Feb. 20th —  1:00-6:30 pm

Feb. 26th —  1:00-6:30pm

2012: Tending Relationships with Self/Others through the Transformation Game

Posted on Friday, January 6th, 2012

I hope 2011 came to a good end, and that you are now welcoming the New Year and new growth.  Bonnie and I are gearing up for a great new year by setting som  intentions for ourselves! One is to ignite “couples” to avail themselves of the opportunities the Transformation Game has to offer.   Our focus is to encourage the idea of “tending” relationships with self & others.  Relationships can be of all kinds: mother/father & daughter/son, self & partner, self & parents, self and boss, self and the past…..  We are always in relationship!

Our Game schedule will offer players some new days of the week to play.  And of course, we are still doing G.O.D.- Games on Demand!

Another intention we have set is to facilitate a minimum of 10 games this year. We’re hoping you will help us get the word out.

Wishing you all a very good year,
Laurel

Scheduled Game dates for 2012 (so far) are:
Jan. 28th —  12:00-5:30pm
Feb. 11th — 1:00- 6:30pm
Feb. 20th —  1:00-6:30 pm
Feb. 26th — 1:00-6:30pm

A Holy-Days Transformation Game

Posted on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

The holidays are fast approaching, and I have just the thing to help make those days, and your life, more fun and meaningful – a Transformation Game. Either participate in the next scheduled game on December 5th (4-9:30pm; $100 covers the game and a delicious meal), or schedule one of your own with some like-minded friends. Call 828-215-7424 to register.

The Transformational “Slough of Despond”

Posted on Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

I first came across sloughs in my mid-thirties as I traveled around northern California; ;these small, muddy areas were often labelled with signs which simply read “SLOUGH.” (According to an online dictionary, a slough is “an area of soft, muddy ground; swamp or swamplike region.”) For some reason, I began calling my moments of despair the “slough of despond” which, whenever I thought of it, tended t pull me immediately out of the despair into a lighter state; in fact, it often got me laughing out loud because of how ridiculous it sounded. It occurs to me now that this was an interesting intuitive understanding on my part, as sloughs are exactly the kind of murky “shadow” realm where one is likely to find gold and pearls. What do you find in your “slough of despond” when you look more deeply?

The Healthcare Field of Fear

Posted on Friday, October 15th, 2010

a review of Healing without Fear by Laurel Reinhardt
— written by Irene Alleger; published in The Townsend Letter

After turning to alternative medicine for more effective help for her asthma, the author relates how, when face with a lump in her breast, she felt a terrible fear rising up that sent her running back to an allopathic doctor. After waiting ten days for the results of her mammogram, by the time she saw the surgeon again, the fear had taken over and she was not able to take the time to make a decision that was not fear-based. Fortunately, it was a holiday and she couldn’t be scheduled for biopsy for some time. Because of the delay, she was able to think more clearly and finally decided to try alternatives (herbs and dietary recommendations) first. By the time she was the surgeon again, the lump was gone.

Her doctor was as restricted by fear as she was — fear of being sued, fear of the medical board, etc. Even if we begin without fear, the author says, “the field in a doctor’s office or hospital is often palpable, and can induce that fear in us.”  Our society has become extremely fearful about health concerns, some of the fear being fed by the pharmaceutical ads on TV, medical news, and government recommendations for screening, test, etc. The author says, “There is a collusion of silence, fear, and disempowerment of ourselves and each other that creates a morphic field of fear surrounding the Western health care system in general, and some illnesses, such as cancer and AIDS, in particular.”

The morphic field of fear which surrounds the practice of Western medicine is created by the following:

  • the personal fears we each have about pain, illness, disability, life, and death
  • the fears of doctors that we assimilate, sometimes called “white coat fever”
  • doctors’ fears of making mistakes, failing their patients, or being sued
  • fear-based methods of teaching and practicing medicine
  • financial fears of patients, doctors, insurance companies, and the government
  • fear-based sales tactics of insurance companies and advertisers
  • fears engendered by media reports on health care topics
  • fears of loss of power and control
  • fears of the unknown

We are so bombarded with messages and images of fear on a daily basis that we are often not even aware of it. The author of Healing without Fear, Laurel Ann Reinhardt, is an experienced psychologist in practice for more than 20 years. In this little book she brings this important, but hardly acknowledged factor powering our health care system, to light. She makes us aware of all the fear in our contemporary life and, especially in the arena of health care. I think most alternative practitioners would agree that an emotion such as fear is a real impediment to healing.

The authors have suggestions for overcoming this field of fear, and has included a wide variety of exercises that can help one become aware of the feeling of fear, and using effective tools such as journaling and breath work, begin to transform the fear. She writes, “Where fear is constrictive, love is expansive; where fear undoes, love creates; where fear inhibits, love opens up. By loving your body, the people around you, your environment, your job, your life, and yourself — your whole self, including your dreams and intuitions and even your illnesses and fears — you can create a field of joy and health that fear can no longer undo.”

A Joy-ful Offering – Re-ignite delight via the Transformation Game

Posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010
I won’t say much about the game now; you can check it out for yourself at: http://www.innerlinks.com/products.php#6. But one of the things I love about the game is its noncompetitive nature. Whether played solo, or with companions, each person has their own path and, depending on their playing focus, sometimes has lots of interaction with their playing companions, and sometimes not. Although participants usually select their playing focuses completely independently, the games can be played with an overall focus, such as cultivating joy. And this is what I am offering now:
Have you lost your ability to access your joy? Have you lost the glow with a romantic partner? Do you find yourself behaving irritably in one or more of your relationships? Consider playing the Transformation Game, alone or with someone close to you, to re-ignite your joy, passion, delight. This version of the game is regularly available in Asheville, NC and is occasionally available in Madison, WI, Duluth, MN, or the Twin Cities, MN. If you aren’t located in one of these areas, joy coaching is available via phone or e-mail. Please contact Laurel at InnerLandscaping@aol.com.
(If you’d like to get a sense of the game, check out Intuitive Solutions at: http://www.innerlinks.com/products.php?page=Mentor%20Spirit#4