Adventures through the Dream Gates: Meeting Great Turtle

 

This is a story about what you may gain if you stay with a dream after waking and let a fuller story unfold. I rediscovered it while engaged in a favorite pastime: opening an old journal at random and seeing what an experience I recorded years or decades ago may say to me now. Sometimes old mysteries remain unsolved. I often notice recurring themes and situations that help me to become more aware of my attitudes and behavior, providing a necessary witness perspective on my life roads.        
      Sometimes a dream I did not understand at the time has meaning and application for me today because subsequent events have provided a context. I notice again and again that I dreamed events long before they played out – hard evidence, of the only form relevant here, of long-range precognition.  I discover that I missed warnings or advisories that could have smoothed my path and try to learn from my lapses how to get better at discerning and acting on oneiric clues to the possible future.
      Sometimes a dream I recorded looks like a dramatic production, maybe an instalment of a streaming tv series, staged by a personal film crew behind the curtain of the world. Very often - and this is most interesting for me - my dream reports seem to contain memories of events in another reality: a real life world that is running on a different time continuum or in an alternate universe near or far from the ordinary one.
     The report that follows appears to belong to the latter category.The action is played out in another reality, starting with an alternate version of a country where I used to live. When I stay with the dream, something irrupts from the mythic depth, a great power of Earth and of deeper knowing acknowledged by the First Peoples of the land where I now live. The gift of connection with Great Turtle is a blessing in the ordinary world today, as it was eight years ago. 

January 3, 2017

Dream and lucid dream reentry

I save a turtle, Great Turtle saves me

My youngest daughter is driving. We are in London. I tell her to head for Green Park so I can walk the dog there. I wave in the general direction. However, she drives us into a very narrow, twisting street in an area I don’t recognize. It’s very dangerous. Cars and trucks keep rushing at us from around blind corners, in the middle of the road, which has narrowed so only one vehicle can pass at a time. We come to a stop at what is virtually a hairpin bend, and just avoid a collision with a car that shoots out from behind it. My daughter is quite upset. I persuade her to stay in the car while I walk the dog.
    The dog and I are now in a shopping area. Time has changed. It seems that shops in a colonnade at my left hand are just opening. We walk behind two short squat women. One turns into a shop; she may be going to open it. They bid each other goodbye and the second lady walks on with a dog with silky hair that hangs to the ground.
    My dog and I pass them. Unusually, he takes no interest in the long-haired dog. He is after something up ahead. I glimpse it under a lamppost. It looks like a pigeon that has gotten hold of a paper plate. My dog rushes at it, with me hurrying behind. It jumps up onto my left shoulder. I am surprised to see that it is a little turtle. The “paper plate” is its shell.
     I experiment with removing the turtle. It clings to me with determination. Since I have not figured out what to do with it – beyond keeping it away from my dog – this is okay.

My body is stirring in the bed. Grey light is spilling through the bedroom curtains. I am fully lucid. I am in London and in bed in upstate New York. I could leave the dream now, but I want to stay in it. I want to take care of the little turtle that is still clutching my shoulder. My sensations in my dream body are more acute than those of the dormant bdy in bed. 
    I walk with a protective hand over the turtle while I keep my dog on a short leash with my other hand. I look for a safe place to set down the turtle. There is a large garden on the next corner. Behind an ornamental iron fence, I see steps leading down to a pond. There is a sculpture garden and there are statues of animals – including a turtle – there. This seems like a good place to release my little refugee.
    I open the gate and walk down the steps. I tie the dog up while I set down the turtle near the pond. It seems fine now.
    But there is a tremendous stir in the waters. They fountain upwards. With a great roar an immense being rises from the water. Its great head looms over me. I look up at the leathery skin, the lures of the tongue, the ancient, heavy-lidded eyes. I know in this moment I am looking at Great Turtle, A’nonwara, the Teacher of the Deep. In its gaze, I remember the story of the Real People: how the Light Twin descended to the deep realm of Great Turtle, to learn how to wage the eternal battle with the Dark Twin.   
    Great Turtle wants me to descend to his realm. I let myself drop. I am on my back in the water, falling, falling. I have no problem breathing. I go through utter dark to a place of light. There is a world of light own here, in the depths of water. Here Turtle adjusts its form and becomes humanoid (nothing like the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, however). Knowledge streams into me, of how life came from another world to the world that was danced into being on Turtle's back.
    Tosa sasa nikon'hren. "Do not let your mind fall." Do not forget the higher world, Earhth-in-the -Sky, that contains the origin and purpose of life on Earth. When humans let their minds fall, they bring down the Dark Times. 

I returned from this adventure feeling blessed.

I ran a reality check on the contents of my dream. I know Green Park and often walked there when I lived in London. I am certain I will never walk my little dog there. I have been in London with my daughter and we could make a future trip but it is most unlikely she would be driving. I don't think the dream anticipates a literal future situation, but rather an alternate reality which becoems the stage for a deeper - indeed a mythic - drama. 
    I live on what Native Americans call Turtle Island. I have great respect for the snapping turtle (the kind in the dream) and its cousin the sea turtle. They can’t retreat into their shells. Their underbellies are not armored apart from a tiny shield piece called a plastron. I have studied the cosmology of the Iroquois (the Onkwehonwe, or “Real People”) in which Great Turtle not only offers its back as a home for Sky Woman but becomes a form of the Great Teacher of the Deep. I have swum with sea turtles. 

I immediately made a drawing of Great Turtle. His fierce appearance reflects my original nervousness as this huge creature exploded from the water. His intentions, however, were wholly benign.

When I went back through my journal, tracking all my turlte sightings in both worlds over several decades, I rediscovered a poem I wrote to honor Great Turtle in 2012, five years before our unexpected encounter in Green Park:

A'nonwara (Turtle Dreaming) 

I am the turtle that does not hide.
I wear the armor of a knight, not a skulker.
My vulnerable belly says, Get me if you can;
I stick my neck out.

You call me slow, but on water
I am faster than you, and fast on land.
Deep down, I am the teacher you need
to show you how to fight the Dark One.

I am the broad back you live on.
Ignore me for too long,
go on harming my other children
and I will shake you off my back.

Journal drawing: "Great Turtle Rises" by Robert Moss

The Shelf Elf School of Dream Interpretation

Shelf elves are constantly at play in my book-filled life. They may push a book off my shelves, or hide one, or send one flying across the room. Sometimes they want to give me an opinion on a dream. I woke before dawn one morning from this dramatic scene:

Battle of the Turtles and the Crocodile

There is a commotion outside. I go to the window and see an army is encamped along the edge of a body of water where a battle is taking place between a giant turtle (the size of a dozen men) and a giant crocodile. I call to the others to come and see. When I turn back, I see that the army has saved the turtle, which is being transported to safer waters. They have constructed or opened a kind of raceway, and the turtle is swimming between walls. Now I see that there are actually two giant turtles.

    I look out to the water again. Beyond military lines, the crocodile stands on a headland, tail raised like a scorpion, apparently triumphant for now. I understand that the conflict will be resumed. It’s part of life. The role of the army is to ensure that neither party destroys the other.

I left the dream feeling both excited and satisfied. In the dream, I was an observer with a commanding view. I felt that I was being shown something of huge importance in life.

    I know both Turtle and Crocodile as members of my personal mythic bestiary. I have swum with sea turtles, and I am from a country famous for crocodiles. I know that in life, there are contests between opposing forces and attitudes that must continue if life itself is to go on.

     Instead of spending much time analyzing the dream, I made a quick drawing and decided to ask Jung for a second opinion. Who better? I had already had it in mind to do my daily bibliomancy with Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections, a book of seminal importance in my life and the most personal and accessible of his works. 

     However, when I reached into the Jung section in a glass-fronted bookcase in my personal library, the shelf elves had other ideas. Another volume in Jung’s Collected Works came flying off the shelf, striking me lightly on the chest.

    Naturally, I changed my ideas about where to look for guidance and took this flying book to my desk. Its title is Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, which seemed to match the revelation of the two turtles in my dream rather nicely. The volume is a dual edition of two of Jung’s early essays, volume 7 in the Collected Works. I opened the book at random and read this:

There is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites; hence it is necessary to discover the opposite to the attitude of the conscious mind…Repressed content must be made conscious so as to produce a tension of opposites, without which no forward movement is possible…Just as high always longs for low and hot for cold, so all consciousness, perhaps without being aware of it, seeks its unconscious opposite, lacking which it is doomed to stagnation, congestion and ossification. Life is born only of the spark of opposites.

     I saw that there was no need to invent a snapper to carry the essence of my dream. Jung had given me one. Life is born only of the spark of opposites.

     This little incident is a practical example of how we can turn to a book to give us a second opinion on a dream. Our curiosity may, of course, take us far beyond the initial passage we find when we open a book at random. I found myself drawn, irresistibly, to read both of the essays in that volume of Jung, in which we find his mind devising and developing theories of aspect psychology, the shadow, and the relations between the ego-self and the collective unconscious, which were to become fundamental to his approach.

I went looking in an old journal for my drawing of the battle of the turtles and the crocodile to post with this article. I found the relevant journal fairly quickly. But as I pulled it off the shelf another journal, bound in green leather, shot off the shelf above it and slapped my shoulder. Yes, I will spend some time with the journal that was thrown at me. A sketch on the first page immediately catches my attention.
     As I rise from my desk, green journal in hand, to make coffee, I am pretty sure I can hear mumbling and squeaking among the stacks of my personal library.

Text adapted from SidewalkOracles: Playing with Signs, Symbols and Synchronicity in Everyday Life by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.

Journal drawing by RM

Turtle rescue, Turtle blessing

In the dream, in a busy shopping area, my little dog is after something up ahead. I glimpse it under a lamppost. It looks like a pigeon that has gotten hold of a paper plate. Oskar rushes at it, with me hurrying behind. It jumps up onto my left shoulder. I am surprised to see that it is a little turtle. The “paper plate” is its shell.
     I experiment with removing the turtle. It clings to me with determination. Since I have not figured out what to do with it – beyond keeping it away from my dog – this is okay.

     My body is stirring in the bed. I could leave the dream now, but I want to stay in it. I want to take care of the little turtle that is still clutching my shoulder.
    Fully lucid now, I walk with a protective hand over the turtle while I keep Oskar on a short leash with my other hand. I look for a safe place to set down the turtle. There is a large garden on the next corner. Behind an ornamental iron fence, I see steps leading down to a pond. There is a sculpture garden and there are statues of animals – including a turtle – there. This seems like a good place to release my little refugee.
    I open the gate and walk down the steps. I tie Oskar up while I set down the turtle near the pond. He seems fine now.
    But there is a tremendous stir in the waters. They fountain upwards. With a great roar an immense being rises from the water. Its great head looms over me. I look up at the leathery skin, the lures of the tongue, the ancient, heavy-lidded eyes. I know in this moment I am looking at Great Turtle, A’nonwara, the Teacher of the Deep. In its gaze, I remember the story of the Real People: how the Light Twin, descended to the deep realm of Great Turtle, to learn how to wage the eternal battle with the Dark Twin.   
    Great Turtle wants me to descend to his realm. I let myself drop. I am on my back in the water, falling, falling. I have no problem breathing. I go through utter dark to a place of light. There is a world of light own here, in the depths of water. Here Turtle adjusts its form and becomes humanoid, but nothing like a Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtle.
     I am infused with an ancient and sacred story: of an eternal struggle between Dark and Light and of the Teachers of the Deep who help humanity to remember its origin and purpose, and keep the great game in play.

I step out of this lucid dream adventure feeling blessed and filled with light.
    I recall that I live on what Native Americans call Turtle Island. I have great respect for the snapping turtle (the kind in the dream) and its cousin the sea turtle. They can’t retreat into their shells. Their underbellies are not armored apart from a tiny shield piece called a plastron.
    I have studied the cosmology of the Iroquois (the Onkwehonwe, or “Real People”) in which Great Turtle not only offers its back as a home for Sky Woman but becomes a form of the Great Teacher of the Deep. I have swum with sea turtles. Shamanically, I could meet Great Turtle again.

    I immediately made a drawing of Great Turtle. His fierce appearance reflects my original nervousness as this huge creature exploded from the water. His intentions, as I turned out, were wholly benign.

My bumper sticker: When I help turtle, Turtle helps me.

Unedited report and drawing from my journal dated January 3, 2017

Rescuing Turtle, Releasing the Artist Within

More than ever, my dreams are driving me to draw and paint in watercolors in my journal. I dreamed that my little dog rushed ahead of me at what I first thought was a pigeon that had picked up a paper plate. When I got closer, I saw that the "pigeon" was actually a tiny turtle. It managed to jump up on my left arm, near the shoulder, and held on tight.
    I began to leave the dream but thought No, I must make sure the little turtle is safe. Fully lucid, I walked, with the tiny turtle on my shoulder and my dog held on a short leash, until I saw a pleasant garden, with a pond and some statues, behind an ornamental iron fence, I opened the gate, tied my dog up, and walked down steps towards the pond. I saw a safe spot on the grass to release the turtle from my shoulder.
    No sooner had I done this than the waters spurted and roared. A huge being exploded from the waters and loomed over me. I realized this was a giant snapping turtle, maybe a distant cousin of the one I rescued. Though huge and fearsome, the intent of the giant turtle was wholly benign. I was instantly reminded of the role of the snapping turtle in the cosmology of the Iroquois, the Native American tradition I know best. A'nonwara, Turtle, lends its back for the Woman Who Fell From the Sky to dance an new Earth into being. And Great Turtle is also the teacher of the Deep.
    In my conscious dream, Great Turtle invited me to go to the depths of the waters to recollect essential things. I did this, and I feel blessed.
    My first action to honor the dream was to make this picture. Our dreams call us to release the artist, as well as the writer, within.

Drawing of Great Turtle from Robert Moss journal January 3, 2017.

Getting a second opinion from Jung on the Battle of the Giants

There is a commotion outside. I go to the window and see an army is encamped along the edge of a body of water where a battle is taking place between a giant turtle (the size of a dozen men) and a giant crocodile. I call to the others to come and see. When I turn back, I see that the army has saved the turtle, which is being transported to safer waters. They have constructed or opened a kind of raceway and the turtle is swimming between walls. Now I see that there are actually two giant turtles.
    I look out to the water again. Beyond military lines, the crocodile stands on a headland, tail raised like a scorpion, apparently triumphant for now. I understand that the conflict will be resumed. It's part of life. The role of the army is to ensure that neither party destroys the other.

I woke from this first dream of the night feeling both excited and satisfied. In the dream, I was an observer. I felt that I was being shown something of huge importance in life.
    I know both Turtle and Crocodile as members of my personal mythic bestiary. I have swum with sea turtles and I am from a country famous for crocodiles. I know that in life there are contests between opposing forces and attitudes that must continue if life itself is to go on.
    Instead of spending much time in self-analysis of the dream, I made a quick drawing and decided to ask Jung for a second opinion. Who better? I had already had it in mind to do my daily bibliomancy with Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections, a book of seminal importance in my life and the most personal and accessible of his works. However, when I reached into the Jung section in a glass-fronted bookcase in my personal library, the shelf elves had other ideas. Another volume in Jung’s Collected Works came flying off the shelf, striking me lightly on the chest.
     Naturally, I changed my ideas about where to look for guidance and took this flying book to my desk. Its title is Two Essays on Analytical Psychology which seemed to match the revelation of the two turtles in my dream rather nicely. The volume is a dual edition of two of his early essays, Volume VII in the Collected Works. I opened the book at random and read this:

"There is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites; hence it is necessary to discover the opposite to the attitude of the conscious mind...Repressed content must be made conscious so as to produce a tension of opposites, without which no forward movement is possible…Just as high always longs for low and hot for cold, so all consciousness, perhaps without being aware of it, seeks its unconscious opposite, lacking which it is doomed to stagnation, congestion and ossification. Life is born only of the spark of opposites." 

I saw that there was no need to invent a snapper to carry the essence of my dream. Jung had given me one. Life is born only of the spark of opposites.

    This little incident from this dreamer’s life is a practical example of how we can turn to a book to give us a second opinion on a dream. Our curiosity may of course take us far beyond the initial passage we find when we open a book at random. I found myself drawn, irresistibly, to-read both the essays in that volume of Jung, in which we find his mind devising and developing theories of aspect psychology, the shadow and the relations between the ego-self and the collective unconscious which were to become fundamental to his approach.

Drawing by RM