The man with the sunburst tattoo at the third eye

I met a dubious character in my dream wanderings last night. I saw him first as a vigorous 40-ish man with wild dark hair and beard, wearing a long, loose coat or robe of many colors. At his third eye, he wore a tattoo of a sunburst. It was inked in flashing colors, giving the impression of solar flares. He also clearly meant to indicate to those he was trying to impress that his third eye was open, and capable of projecting immense psychic power.
     His energy was that of a sorcerer; his style that of a huckster. I watched him in a marketplace, up on a little platform, seeking to win followers with his tricks. I gave him a wide berth.
     But later in the dream, after traveling far and wide, I met him again. I did not recognize him to begin with, standing near an arch in an old brick building that might have been St James's Palace in London. He was now an old man, very tired and pale, his skin almost white, dressed in a three-piece black suit. His hair was close-cropped, curly and white, his lips almost colorless. I would not have known him except for the sunburst tattoo. It was now leached of color, its lines puckered like the edges of an old wound.
    He stared at me intently, and I remembered a figure in a dream of long ago - a leader of a British esoteric order - who had sought to impress me by opening a third eye, quite realistically, in a gathering of his acolytes. Would the old man with the faded sunburst tattoo try a similar stunt? Apparently not. We took each other's measure for a long moment, then I moved on.
~
Dreaming is traveling. We get around, we visit various neighborhoods in a geography much vaster than that of the physical world, we meet other people. I could play psychology games with this dream - for example, by asking "what part of me" is like the man with the sunburst tattoo, in his two versions and his aging - and they could be interesting, up to a point. But I know, as a lifelong dream traveler, that he is not merely an aspect of myself; he is a transpersonal figure, living another story that occasionally (it seems) intersects with my own. I don't feel inclined to follow his trail, but I'll be on the lookout for his possible further appearances in my night life. I haven't got his number yet, but I know his mark.

Chinaberry gleam

Chinaberry Gleam

Gentle soul, the Spirit caught you up as a raptor

beating wings, and tore your flesh

and drew you through the night worlds

and hurled you into deeps where no sun shines

and the moon is a blind pulse, a drum unheard,

so you would learn to shine in your own light

so you would steer by your inner sun

so you could unwrite the book of Fate

so that, remembering, you move as a dancer among your kind,

in the world but not of it, not different and not the same,

sharing what you have lived at your heart's core:

love, and courage, the flash of the sea-horse racing waves,

the gleam of rain on a chinaberry tree.

Chinaberry photo by Mauraguanandi

Storytelling in Hathor red

In last night's dreams: I am at a table where we are swapping stories. When it is a person's turn to tell or read a story, a colored disk floats in the air behind and just above his or her head, flashing a complementary color. It is my turn. There is a red disk behind me, flashing light turquoise. I take the seat at the head of the table. I am very happy that I have a 5-page finished typescript I had long forgotten I had written, about past life issues that surface in the lives of a contemporary couple.
     Waking, I recall magical exercises for training vision that involve using a Westernized version of the tattvas and their complementary or flashing colors. The red of the disk and its placement remind me of the symbol of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, who wears a red disk between horns, when depicted as a woman or a cow.
    We often play story-swapping games in my workshops, especially "Writing as a State of Conscious Dreaming", which I led last month as a 5-day retreat at Mosswood Hollow and will lead again next year. I am engaged in gathering and editing stories I have written over many years for a new collection, and am intrigued by my dream discovery that I have one "ready to go" on a theme Dion Fortune took up (as discussed here yesterday) 90 years ago.   

Dr Taverner releases a soldier from a hungry ghost

Dion Fortune says that she told the story titled "Blood-Lust" (in The Secrets of Dr Taverner) exactly as it was played out in physical and psychic reality.
    Captain Craigie, back from war, starts killing for blood. He starts by raiding chicken coops and works his way up to sheep. Along the way, he can't help trying to sink his teeth into his fiancee's neck. He tells Dr Taverner, the unusual practitioner who turns his attention to the case, that he suffered "shell-shock" in the trenches. This was a familiar term in the World War I era; today we are more likely to speak of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). But in this case, "shell-shock" seems an exact description. Captain Craigie was blown out of a trench.
    The source of the problem becomes literally visible when people start seeing the apparition of a German soldier in a flat cap and field-gray uniform. This, we learn, is the etheric or dense energy body of a dead enemy soldier who has attached himself to the unfortunate Craigie, seeking to feed his "vitality hunger" (as Taverner diagnoses his condition) through his living host.
    Dr Taverner's solution involves baiting a trap, by nicking the neck of the captain's girlfriend. While Craigie is physically restrained, the hungry ghost of the German soldier leaves his body to seek the fresh blood. Taverner stands between the ghost and its host and forces it into "a psychic killing-pen" in the form of a triangle.
    Dion Fortune is discreet about what happens next. Taverner makes "a Sign and a Sound". The gray etheric form spins into a whirling spiral and disintegrates. Captain Craigie is released from the hungry ghost that was riding him,
    Dr Taverner pronounces that the source of the problem was "a corpse who was insufficiently dead."


While some parts of the plot summary may sound like the script for one of those old Hammer horror flicks, the story touches on themes of perennial importance, including the plight of veterans of foreign wars yesterday, today and tomorrow, who may be carrying unwanted energies of the dead.
     One of Dr Taverner's lessons, in this story, is that we have more than one physical body. To be specific: 


We have two physical bodies...the dense material one...and the subtle etheric one, which inhabits it, and acts as the medium of the life forces, whose functioning would explain a great deal if science would only condescend to investigate it.


By my observation, this is exactly correct. Failure to understand the nature of the etheric body and its survival of physical death confuses our relations with the dead and delays or prevents recognition of the need for spiritual cleansing and releasing in healing cases of PTSD, addiction and other disorders.
     Dr Taverner instructs that "it is possible to keep the etheric body together almost indefinitely if a supply of vitality is available". In "Blood-Lust", the supply of vital energy comes through "a human feeding bottle" that feeds on others in an effort to replenish itself.
     How common is the problem? Well, literal vampirism and blood-drinking may be rare (despite the contemporary vampire fad) but energy vampirism has never been uncommon, alas. Dr Taverner, the magician, alludes to dark side magical practices by those who seek to avoid the second death (of the etheric body) by forming "a connection with the subconscious mind of some other soul that still has a body." He cautions that "the lower type of medium" is especially vulnerable to this type of parasitism. But "higher" types can be vulnerable if in a weakened or absent condition, as when Captain Craigie was blown out of his trench, and (for a period) out of his body.
     Who ya gonna call, if you don't have a Dr Taverner down the street? Well, I give rather specific guidance on spiritual release, including staging a "second burial" for an etheric body that does not belong with the living, in The Dreamer's Book of the Dead. And we have Dion Fortune's classic Psychic Self-Defence. 

"You've got to name me"

Yurt at Mosswood Hollow, scene of many of my workshops

I am leading a workshop for a huge number of people, gathered in many rooms and on several levels of a spacious building. The central space has a domed ceiling with a skylight.
    I call everyone to come as close to me as possible, under the dome. I teach them the Lightning Dreamwork process and have them choose partners to do dream sharing together. Next I select some experiences that are teaching examples of how healing can come through dreamwork.
    One of those I choose to share a personal experience with the whole group is a man I call Father David. When I look at him, I can see him standing by a fountain in Rome. He came to my workshop with some misgivings, but he is going through a deep transformation.
    He is not only willing to talk to the group; he is ready to sing.
    His voice rises in the cadence of a spiritual. The chorus of his song is "You've got to name me."
    I wake from my dream, thrilled with excitement, with the music and that one line pulsing inside me. "You've got to name me."

Sometimes a single phrase is all we need from a dream, especially when it comes on the wings of song. This "old" dream, which I found in a 2002 journal just now, has lived with me ever since. Though the details of the dream report had faded (until now), the message has not.
    There is such power in naming.
     When it comes to our health and healing, we require the correct names for conditions and symptoms. We also want to claim the ability to re-name what ails us in ways that can help our bodies and our hearts to heal. In Madeleine L'Engle's luminous novel A Wind at the Door, the villainous Echtroi, or ancient enemies, are the Un-Namers who kill by Xing things out.
     "You've got to name me." Coming in a spiritual, from a man who may be a priest, this also carries the message that we want to remember that we can call on a saving power, by a name we believe in. If in doubt, call on Love and Light, and Forgiveness. Those are saving names.

Thanks to the dream Brownies

Osamu Tezuka, "New Treasure Island" (1947)

Robert Louis Stevenson thanked his "Brownies" for some of his best creative work. He described them as laboring away on his stories when he was asleep or in half-dream states, so that better than half his work was done when he came to put pen to paper.
    I woke with a similar delightful sense of creative assistance around 4 am today, a time when I often rise to record and research my dreams and see what wants to stream into a story, an article or a poem. My dream reports from last night include this pair, with the recurring motif of creative help:


1. I examine a typescript I've been working on. I have left gaps in the narrative. Someone has filled in these gaps and inserted some further material. I can see at a glance where the new material is, because it looks like it has been highlighted in yellow, though the highlighting effect fades as I read it. I am at first annoyed that someone unknown has been fooling around with my text, and assume that the inserts are random. But when I study the new passages more closely, I see that they are just right. The penultimate paragraph is beautifully expressed. I try to figure out who has been working on my text. In the distance, I see a beautiful woman in a yellow robe. 

2. With a woman companion, I have been encouraging an older man to take up art. We have expressed enthusiasm over some colored drawings he has done, and are looking at a folder of these. Most are incomplete, and they are not especially well executed when we look at them more carefully. There is a spill; I think it is my companion who spills water or tea over some of the drawings. This makes the colors run and the effect is quite magical. I am excited that an accident has brought the drawings to life.

I stirred from these dreams in a state of excitement and delight. 

Reality check: I am currently writing a story and have left gaps in the text. I draw a good deal, often with colors, but my technical execution could do with improvement. 

Action plan: I'll fill in the gaps in my narrative, and let the colors run - by using oil crayons and perhaps watercolors - in some of my new artwork.

And I reopened RLS' "A Chapter on Dreams", included in his book Across the Plains, where he describes in detail the role of his dream Brownies, including this celebration:

And for the Little People, what shall I say they are but just my Brownies, God bless them! who do one-half my work for me while I am fast asleep, and in all human likelihood, do the rest for me as well, when I am wide awake and fondly suppose I do it for myself. That part which is done while I am sleeping is the Brownies' part beyond contention; but that which is done when I am up and about is by no means necessarily mine, since all goes to show the Brownies have a hand in it even then. 

The Interview with Yama I

I


A mountain of smoking charcoal with flaming eyes

opposes my passage. No way around.
The mouth opens into hellfire,
giving me the only way. I fly into the fire,
leaving my moist soft overcoat behind,
seeking his master. Where's the boss?

Yama, we know each other.
You consented to speak with me
in the cultured voice of a maharajah
who plays polo with heads
though you would only answer my questions
when I agreed to let you place your noose
around my neck. I have seen you
in a business suit, in a robe of flame,
and in the black Tom Mix outfit
of a cowboy swinging a lasso.

Can this be you? This monstrous being
skyscraper tall, who makes your gatekeeper
look like a child's stuffed toy?
So many arms, so many appendages
that snake and spider from your terrible black core -
the devouring eyes, avid to drink breath of the living.
I have come here to purchase a life.

- from a journey on Gore Mountain, April 29, 2012