Dreaming with the People of Amber

The first time I visited the Baltic, I dreamed of an ancient priestess who showed me the spiritual uses of amber. She brought me inside a chamber like the inside of an egg-shaped amber, glowing with golden light, and showed me how to use a smaller version of this amber as a place to see. She gave me words in Old Lithuanian that Lithuanians in my workshop at Nida, on the spit of land in the Baltic Sea called Nieringa, were able to translate with some difficulty.

On my second visit to Lithuania, I dreamed again of the People of Amber. Here is the report I wrote in my journal at the tme:

October 6. 2009. Suvalkija district, Lithuania

I am out in the woods, in the rural part of western Lithuania where I am staying. I come to some wide, shallow steps, just packed earth with wood at the edges. I notice two snakeskins, tied in knots that resemble figures of 8, then a larger one, tied in a slightly more complex knot, on a higher step, and know these were left as signs and also that the snakes were not venomous.
    Now I see vivid, brightly colored scenes of ancient battles - of Teutonic Knights who invaded these lands, and Lithuanian Grand Dukes with their knights and men at arms, struggling against great odds to force them back. This living history unfolds into times where local people took to the forests and the mud to carry on their resistance against invaders. I see people who lived with wolves and bears and tried to call on their energies in the fight. I see huge mystery beasts in the woods that look like elephants and wonder whether these are the shades of extinct prehistoric creatures, or entities created by the country''s defenders in an effort to equalize a conflict through psychic means of attack.
    I wander deeper into the woods. I am conscious that sticky mud is everywhere, and getting deeper, just as I found it roaming fields and ancient hill forts the previous day. I come to the house of a ragana - a witch - on one of the sloppy forest trails. It is just a hut among the roots of a crooked tree. I see the face of the witch before she scuttles away into hiding. She has painted the upper part of her face, from the hairline to the cheekbones, chalk-white so it looks like part of a death's head, or perhaps a venomous spider. While she avoids me, nasty slithering things rise from the mud.
    I'm willing to fight her allies, if need be, and am glad to see that an enormous Bear is with me, as a bodyguard. Yet I'm thinking that the witch is merely defending herself; I have wandered into her territory, and she has reason to fear intruders. Instead of starting a fight, I call down Light, and a bright shaft of amber light immediately descends.
    I am happily surprised to find that it serves as a tractor beam. It pulls me straight up into the air, far above the mud and the dark woods. I find myself inside what seems to be an egg-shaped amber, with female presences who remind me of ancient priestesses of this land I have met in previous dreams and journeys.
    The leader tells me, "You must understand that there are the Mud People and the Amber People, and here you belong to the People of Amber. Your duty - and that of those you train here - is to build bridges and wooden pathways so people can get across the mud safely. You must avoid allowing yourself to be sucked down into the mud. You must remember to call on the power of Light Amber to heal and to guide, and on the power of Dark Amber to remove the darkness."

I titled this dream "The Mud People and the Amber People". 

As I surfaced from this mostly lucid dream, the moon shone bright in my face for a moment, like a spotlight. Then a cloud blew above the apple trees and mountain ash outside my window, and I lay back in the gentle dark, savoring my latest encounter with the "understory" of the Baltic lands where I was traveling.
    I was staying at the country place of a "good witch" in the Suvalkija distrct in Lithuania. After attending my workshop in Vilnius, she invited me here to learn practices of healing and divination handed down in her family from mother to daughter and never written down (until I took notes, with her permission). She had burned amber in a ritual the evening before my dream. In the morning, after hearing the dream, she continued my instruction. She demonstrated how to move light amber over the body in a spiraling motion to heal. Then she showed me how she uses a dark amber (also called "vampire amber" here when used in this way) in a different pattern to extract disease and "strangers" in the body.
     Over a breakfast of dark, nutty "grandmother's bread", homemade cheese and butter and coffee chewy with grounds, we talked about the significant of "Mud People" in the literal history of Lithuania, whose name means "Rain Country". Lithuania has no real natural borders. Its main defense against invaders and occupiers, across the centuries, has been the mud. When the cities fell to enemies, people "went into the mud".

My dreams of the People of Amber offer light in more than one landscape. I have invited groups near and far to enter that amber space of sanctuary and healing.One of those groiups met with me in a forest of dark green pines and silver birches at Kurzeme on the Bay of Riga in neighboring Latvia . Fueld by shamanic drumming, we journeyed tigether therough the dark woods of histiry and personal struggle into the amber light.In Riga, I found the egg-shaped amber in the photo. It fitted my palm, and my dream.

I recount furher adventures in Lithuania, including an encounter with a Merlin of the Baltic and dream archaeology at a working site in Kernave, in The Boy Who Died and Came Back. 

Dreaming with the People of Amber

Suvalkija district, Lithuania

I am out in the woods, in the rural part of western Lithuania where I am staying. I come to some wide, shallow steps, just packed earth with wood at the edges. I notice two snakeskins, tied in knots that resemble figures of 8, then a larger one, tied in a slightly more complex knot, on a higher step, and know these were left as signs and also that the snakes were not venomous.
    Now I see vivid, brightly colored scenes of ancient battles - of Teutonic Knights who invaded these lands, and Lithuanian Grand Dukes with their knights and men at arms, struggling against great odds to force them back. This living history unfolds into times where local people took to the forests and the mud to carry on their resistance against invaders. I see people who lived with wolves and bears and tried to call on their energies in the fight. I see huge mystery beasts in the woods that look like elephants and wonder whether these are the shades of extinct prehistoric creatures, or entities created by the country''s defenders in an effort to equalize a conflict through psychic means of attack.
    I wander deeper into the woods. I am conscious that sticky mud is everywhere, and getting deeper, just as I found it roaming fields and ancient hill forts the previous day. I come to the house of a ragana - a witch - on one of the sloppy forest trails. It is just a hut among the roots of a crooked tree. I see the face of the witch before she scuttles away into hiding. She has painted the upper part of her face, from the hairline to the cheekbones, chalk-white so it looks like part of a death's head, or perhaps a venomous spider. While she avoids me, nasty slithering things rise from the mud.
    I'm willing to fight her allies, if need be, and am glad to see that an enormous Bear is with me, as a bodyguard. Yet I'm thinking that the witch is merely defending herself; I have wandered into her territory, and she has reason to fear intruders. Instead of starting a fight, I call down Light, and a bright shaft of amber light immediately descends.
    I am happily surprised to find that it serves as a traction beam. It pulls me straight up into the air, far above the mud and the dark woods. I find myself inside what seems to be an egg-shaped amber the size of a spaceship, with female presences who remind me of ancient priestesses of this land I have met in previous dreams and journeys.
    The leader tells me, "You must understand that there are the Mud People and the Amber People, and here you belong to the People of Amber. Your duty - and that of those you train here - is to build bridges and wooden pathways so people can get across the mud safely. You must avoid allowing yourself to be sucked down into the mud. You must remember to call on the power of Light Amber to heal and to guide, and on the power of Dark Amber to remove the darkness."

As I surface from this mostly lucid dream, the moon shines bright in my face for a moment, like a spotlight. Then a cloud blows above the apple trees and mountain ash outside my window, and I lie back in the gentle dark, savoring my latest encounter with the "understory" of the Baltic country where I am traveling.
    I am staying at the country place of a "good witch" in the Suvalkija district in Lithuania. She invited me to learn practices of healing and divination handed down in her family from mother to daughter and never written down (until I took notes, with her permission). She made the invitation after she heard me speak words of ancient Lithuanian after a shamanic journey I led at a workshop she attended in Vilnius. During that journey, I met a  priestess of Žemyna, the Earth goddess of Lithuania, who brought me inside a chamber like the inside of an egg-shaped amber, a smaller version of the space I was in last night. It glowed with golden light. The priestess instructed me that I could use a pocket size version of the amber egg as a place to see.
    The wood witch burned amber in a ritual in her house the night before my new dream of the Amber People. In the morning, after hearing my dream, she continues my instruction. She demonstrates how to move light amber over the body in a spiraling motion to heal. Then she shows me how she uses a dark amber (also called "vampire amber" here when used in this way) in a different pattern to extract disease and "strangers" in the body.
     Over a breakfast of dark, nutty "grandmother's bread", homemade cheese and butter and coffee chewy with grounds, we talk about the significance of "Mud People" in the literal history of Lithuania, whose name means "Rain Country". Lithuania has no real natural borders. Its main defense against invaders and occupiers, across the centuries, has been the mud. When the cities fell to enemies, people "went into the mud".

From the Journal of a Dream Archaeologist  2009

The Goddess Lives in the Dreaming Land

Lithuania is one of my soul countries and a place where I feel close to the Goddess. It is a country where the old Goddess tradition has survived unbroken from before the arrival of the Indo-European gods and is the country of the great scholar of the goddess, Marija Gimbutas. I have led six depth workshops in Lithuania over 15 years and had extraordinary encounters with the Goddess tradition here, as described in three of my books The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, Dreaming the Soul Back Home and The Boy Who Died and Came Back.

On my first visit, I led a shamanic group journey to the ancestors through the gateway of an ancient oak, and I found myself in direct contact with a priestess of Žemyna, the great Earth goddess of Lithuania. The žyne (priestess) belonged to an ancient time. She instructed me in methods of healing and visioning involving the use of amber, and gave me symbols and words in old Lithuanian – a language previously unknown to me – that others in the workshop helped me translate.

On a later visit,the priestess came to me in dreams suffused with amber light. She told me “You belong to the People of Amber. Your duty – and that of those you train here – is to build bridges and wooden pathways so people can get across the mud safely. You must remember to call on the power of Light Amber to heal and to guide, and on the power of Dark Amber to remove the darkness.”

A woman healer in my workshops- a woodwitch from Samogitia (bear country in the west of Lithuania) - was inspired by my dreams and visions to invite me to her summer home. She taught me how to use amber and beeswax for healing, spiritual cleansing and soul keeping. She taught me spells in Old Lithuanian handed down in the maternal line for countless generations. She said these had never previously been shared with a man or a non-Lithuanian. I found, yet again, that the right dream can be a visa.

I discovered first-hand that despite the long nightmare of invasion, occupation and persecution, the Goddess lives in the dreaming land, as the fire lives in wood. In my visits to the Baltic, I have been reminded again and again that one of the gifts of dreaming is that it opens authentic connections to the ancestors, offering us the chance to heal the wounds of the past and to perform cultural soul retrieval.

Image: Žemaitiu alka, a shrine to the old gods and goddesses at Palanga, Lithuania.

Dreaming with the People of Amber

The first time I visited the Baltic, I dreamed of an ancient priestess who showed me the spiritual uses of amber. She brought me inside a chamber like the inside of an egg-shaped amber, glowing with golden light, and showed me how to use a smaller version of this amber as a place to see.

I have been on the lookout for the right egg-shaped amber since then. Its specifications were clear: it must be clear, light golden amber, natural but free of inclusions (such as ancient insects) and polished by hand. I found it, at last, on a cobbled street in the Old City in Riga last month, when we had to to leave the street we were on because construction drills were throwing huge quantities of cement dust into the air.

The amber is beside me as I write. It takes me back inside a big dream I saw on my second visit to the Baltic, when I taught in Vilnius and traveled through Samogitia. I titled this dream "The Mud People and the Amber People". In the dream, I was out in deep woods at night and found myself sinking into sticky mud while creepy things moved about me. I came to the house of a ragana, a witch, among the roots of a crooked tree. She had painted the upper part of her face chalk-white, from the hairline to the cheekbones, so that it resembled part of a death's head, or perhaps a venomous spider. While she scuttled away from me into hiding, nasty slithering things rose from the mud.

I was glad to find that an enormous Bear was now with me, as my bodyguard. While willing to fight the witch's familiars, I also recognized that I had strayed into her territory, and that she had reason to fear intruders. Instead of engaging in battle, I called down Light, and a bright shaft of golden light immediately descended from on high, like a column of amber coming down from the sky. It worked a traction beam, lifting me straight up, high above the mud and the wood witch.

I found myself inside an enormous egg-shaped amber, in the company of wise women. It was like the amber room where I had first met the ancient Baltic priestess, expanded to the size of a mother ship. The leader told me: "You must understand that there are the Mud People and the Amber People. You belong to the People of Amber. Your duty - and that of those you train - is to build bridges and walkways so people can get across the mud safely. You must avoid allowing yourself to be sucked down into the mud. You must remember to call on the power of light amber to heal and guide, and on the power of dark amber to cleanse and remove the darkness."

That seems like an agenda for more than one landscape. I have offered that dream as a space of light and healing that others can enter. Several groups - most memorably in my recent workshop in Kurzeme (northwest Latvia) - have traveled together, with the aid of shamanic drumming, through their own dark woods into that space of amber light, and have brought back energy and guidance.

The full report of my dream of "The Mud People and the Amber People" is here.

The Mud People and the People of Amber

Suvalkija district, Lithuania

I am out in the woods, in the rural part of western Lithuania where I am staying. I come to some wide, shallow steps, just packed earth with wood at the edges. I notice two snakeskins, tied in knots that resemble figures of 8, then a larger one, tied in a slightly more complex knot, on a higher step, and know these were left as signs and also that the snakes were not venomous.
    Now I see vivid, brightly colored scenes of ancient battles - of Teutonic Knights who invaded these lands, and Lithuanian Grand Dukes with their knights and men at arms, struggling against great odds to force them back.I This living history unfolds into times where local people took to the forests and the mud to carry on their resistance against invaders. I see people who lived with wolves and bears and tried to call on their energies in the fight. I see huge mystery beasts in the woods that look like elephants and wonder whether these are the shades of extinct prehistoric creatures, or entities created by the country''s defenders in an effort to equalize a conflict through psychic means of attack.
    I wander deeper into the woods. I am conscious that sticky mud is everywhere, and geeting deeper, just as I found it roaming fields and ancient hill forts the previous day. I come to the house of a ragana - a witch - on one of the sloppy forest trails. It is just a hut among the roots of a crooked tree. I see the face of the witch before she scuttles away into hiding. She has painted the upper part of her face, from the hairline to the cheekbones, chalk-white so it looks like part of a death's head, or perhaps a venomous spider. While she avoids me, nasty slithering things rise from the mud.
    I'm willing to fight her allies, if need be, and am glad to see that an enormous Bear is with me, as a bodyguard. Yet I'm thinking that the witch is merely defending herself; I have wandered into her territory, and she has reason to fear intruders. Instead of starting a fight, I call down Light, and a bright shaft of amber light immediately descends.
    I am happily surprised to find that it serves as a traction beam. It pulls me straight up into the air, far above the mud and the dark woods. I find myself inside what seems to be an egg-shaped amber, with female presences who remind me of ancient priestesses of this land I have met in previous dreams and journeys. The leader tells me, "You must understand that there are the Mud People and the Amber People, and here you belong to the People of Amber. Your duty - and that of those you train here - is to build bridges and wooden pathways so people can get across the mud safely. You must avoid allowing yourself to be sucked down into the mud. You must remember to call on the power of Light Amber to heal and to guide, and on the power of Dark Amber to remove the darkness."

As I surfaced from this mostly lucid dream, the moon shone bright in my face for a moment, like a spotlight. Then a cloud blew above the apple trees and mountain ash outside my window, and I lay back in the gentle dark, savoring my latest encounter with the "understory" of the Baltic country where I was traveling.
    I stayed on Monday night at the country place of a "good witch" in the Suvalkija distrct in Lithuania. She invited me - after attending my workshop - to learn practices of healing and divination handed down in her family from mother to daughter and never written down (until I took notes, with her permission). She had burned amber in a ritual the night before. In the morning, after hearing the dream, she continued my instruction. She demonstrated how to move light amber over the body in a spiraling motion to heal. Then she showed me how she uses a dark amber (also called "vampire amber" here when used in this way) in a different pattern to extract disease and "strangers" in the body.
     Over a breakfast of dark, nutty "grandmother's bread", homemade cheese and butter and coffee chewy with grounds, we talked about the significant of "Mud People" in the literal history of Lithuania, whose name means "Rain Country". Lithuania has no real natural borders. Its main defense against invaders and occupiers, across the centuries, has been the mud. When the cities fell to enemies, people "went into the mud".

.

Dreaming on the Amber Road

Vilnius

-

I am exploring the streets of the old city of Vilnius. This is an earlier time, because the walls of the city are intact and there are no automobiles or artificial lighting. I pass a number of people, including older women in traditional Lithuanian dress, with embroidered fringes and large, richly ornamented pins and brooches.

-

One has an unusual headdress. It contains a glowing orange-golden head that radiates ight. I pass a second woman who has three similar heads suspended above her own, also radiating light. Then I pass a woman who has twelve of these glowing heads shining above her own. The heads look like human heads, but they are half-size or a little smaller. The rich orange color makes me think of jack o' lanterns, but they are certainly not pumpkins.

I wake awed and intrigued from this dream on Sunday morning, in my hotel room near the Gate of Dawn in the Old Town of Vilnius, where I am in the midst of leading an "Active Dreaming" workshop for 30 Lithuanians (plus a Finn, a Latvian couple, and a young woman from Austria). My intention before sleeping was guidance for the circle for the day ahead. I feel I have received it, though I cannot immediately explain the "head lights" the dream women are wearing. These are clearly women of power. I reflect that I am privileged to have several such women in my workshop, several of them renowned as healers and psychics in this country. I decide that I will share my dream with the group early in the day.

When I open the circle and tell the dream, I am immediately urged by several Lithuanian dreamers to go back inside the dream right away and seek closer contact with the women with the headlights. This group has wasted no time in learning core practices of Active Dreaming such as dream reentry and tracking. Accordingly, I drum for a short time, get my head back inside the dream and realize that the "headlights" are amber, and that amber - the gold of the Baltic, but better than gold - has value far beyond its beauty. The amber heads embody the essential spirit and energy of great ones who are lending their wisdom and light to those who carry on an ancient Goddess tradition as healers and guides. The numbers are significant. They relate to levels of initiation and earned powers. The third woman has reached the 12th level, the highest a human can ordinarily aspire too.

-

A much-revered Lithuanian woman healer in the group tells me that the amber heads are also gates. She saw me stepping past the first gates, and then three gates (of gold, silver and gold), bent on something beyond.

-

This is fascinating, but we have to move on. There is a lot of dreaming and healing to be done on our second and last say. To minimize the time needed for translation, I introduce a rapid-fire series of seven mini-journeys, aided by drumming, through the seven major energy centers. I explain that while the energy schema we are using may sound familiar from yoga, this has nothing to do with yoga. We will enter a visionary landscape in each of the chakras with the aim of finding a living symbol and the energy of an ally - who may appear vas animal or bird or something else - that we can use in our own healing and may be able to transfer to others.

-

The results of this journey were wonderfully productive. I encouraged the group to make personal energy maps, by drawing seven images of the key symbols they found in each chakra. Then, in a follow-up journey, I had them go the place in their energy chart where they found most power, and carry that power to places in the map - and in their lives beyond the map - where there was a challenge, a deficiency or a mystery to be addressed.

-

But for now I will stay on the Amber Road. I found things in my own energy chart that I had never seen before, things related to the mythic symbology and ancient practices of the Baltic territory where I was traveling and teaching. I saw a great crowned water-serpent rising from the sea. I saw a great golden beehive dripping with honey, with wild bees buzzing around that were also - on closer inspection - winged priestesses; and knew I was in a Goddess realm. I saw a great amber, and was instructed by a zhyne (priestess) that this was a see-stone that could be used like a crystal ball. She showed me how burning amber is a valid sacrifice, offering a gift of the Goddess to the Goddess herself, and also how the smoke becomes a window into the world-behind-the-world. In the smoke of amber, I saw into the realm of Sleeping Kings - in this case the Grand Dukes of medieval Lithuania who fought invaders and would-be oppressors and wait (like the Arthur of British legend) to be recalled to fight for their land again, on the psychospiritual plane, in the event of a new threat to its survival.

-

I was told by the ancient priestess that I should wear amber on my body to maintain a link with her tradition. My translator, Agne - a marvelously gifted linguist, psychologist and artist - gave me no opportunity to duck this assignment. She presented me with the amber figure of a man (a copy of an ancestral figure) on a thong. I am open to fresh discoveries of ancient things on the Amber Road that has opened before me.

Photo by Robert Moss