The Dreamtime
There once was a woman who dreamed herself awake.
As with any worthwhile endeavor, she had help. In her Dreamtime, she would be visited by snake, butterfly and stag.
When you open your eyes and go back to the other place, they said, remember - there’s more to Life than this.
You see, she had forgotten who she was. She spent her days asleep, even though she looked quite awake. The truth of it was that she had become utterly disenchanted by this other place, the one that insisted the world was not vibrating with aliveness, that it was soulless, fit for plundering with abandon. So she took her own bright soul spark of aliveness and hid it away in the Dreamtime, that place from which all things come to be.
During her sleepyhead days in this other place, she would hear the wind or a tree or a bumblebee or her heart whisper: Remember, there’s more to Life than this…and she would remember the Dreamtime. Soon, she started staying awake more often in this other place, curiously letting the remembering guide her, not knowing where she was going but trusting anyway.
Art by Martín Mancha
Back to the Dreamtime she was taken - but this time it was here, in this other place. With eyes open, she saw it weaving through all that is, through time + space, lovingly connecting everything; even while men waged war in the name of peace and God, forgetting the truth of what they belonged to.
She saw that this other place was not other at all, but a place where the Dreamtime could be tasted in all its sensational aliveness.
She was guided to her burial spot under the shade of an old oak, where she retrieved her Self.
No more hiding, said snake, remember the Dreamtime back with the stories.
And as any soul worth its incarnation knows, following the wisdom of the serpent is the choiceless choice.
On Spring Equinox, we begin a new season of remembering in Root + Rise: The Space for Mythic Transformation. We’ll be journeying into the rich, world-building realm of the Dreamtime from the Indigenous Australian people, through the creation myth of Baiame and Yhi.
Registration for the season is open until 31 March. Enter the portal here.