I wake up knowing I have just had an important dream. Although I feel certain I will recall it I know how often that certainty is misplaced so I struggle to sit up and capture the key elements in the dream journal I keep ever vigilant beside my bed. I am waiting for a bus that has been arranged by Atum (my spiritual teacher) that is full of pilgrims coming to some event. He has asked me to meet the bus to unload some unspecified items. When the yellow school bus arrives, I climb aboard and begin to search for whatever it is I am supposed to remove. Meanwhile an efficient looking man with a clipboard is unloading boxes. All that seems to be left is a luggage rack filled with a disorganized jumble of personal possessions that I do not want to even touch. Atum is nowhere to be seen and I stand confused and puzzled as the efficient man makes the last check on his clipboard. I catch his eye and try to find out what he is doing. His response was to ask me what we did before the days of cel phones and technology, I responded that we engaged personally with names. “Is that stuff Atum’s” I asked. “You are heading in the right direction”, he replied and got off the bus. At this point people in the bus began to get up ready to unload and when they recognized who I am, they began to hug me.
This dream perplexed me. I began by examining the dream as though everything in the dream was about me. Frequently buses represent a collection of my complexes or personas, Atum has often shown up representing my inner teacher but none of that seemed to resonate with me. It felt a bit like trying on a suit that didn’t fit. I decided that I needed my dream partner. My friend Indrus and I have been dream partners for ten years and have over this time have refined a process we had learned from our teacher Atum O’Kane during the Art of Spiritual Guidance program we both completed. Dream partnering is a simple process to assist someone undertake his or her own journey of dream exploration. (NOT telling them what you think it means!) It involves exploring the environment, feelings, energy and consciousness within the dream. (Full details if you are interested at http://www.soulclarity.com/Dream_partnering.pdf)
The first step in the process is sharing the dream that she then replays to me as close as possible in my own words. Listening to my dream helped me realize that it was related to a current situation in my life. I have offered to assist Atum in the organization of the next meeting of the Spiritual Guidance community that is scheduled for Petaluma in October 2013. I have agreed to be the initial organizer and financial underwriter. This involves setting up procedures to solicit, register and collect money from the attendees. In this dream Atum is there not in his role as a spiritual teacher but rather as my colleague. The bus symbolizes the participants of the gathering from the community he has created over the years. As Indrus took me through the energy, and feelings of the dream a perspective began to form. What “Atum” wants me to unload is of course the registrations for the event. When Indrus asked me what the man with the clipboard represented, I knew immediately he was the aspect of me that is really good at this type of thing. All modesty aside, I can be very organized and create efficient systems to keep track of things. For example I have used Survey Monkey as a registration tool, PayPal as the payment engine and e-mail as the communication advice. It all should be so simple and streamlined. Except it is not. I am being driven crazy by sundry personality peccadillos that have arisen including unnecessary questions, requests, demands, as well as unbelievable procrastination in making payment. Something simple has deteriorated into chaos. The day before the dream I reacted negatively to what I considered an arrogant request to book someone a room in the adjacent town, “who does he think I am, a f*#!g travel agent?” my small self responded. Now the brilliance of the unconscious comes into play. The jumble of disorganized personal effects that is confusing, perplexing and distasteful symbolizes all the sundry personal fallibilities and shortcomings that make us human. The wise advice of the man with the clipboard is to get beyond my efficient technology and respond with humanity and compassion for the other. As I write this I realize the importance of the pilgrims being in a “school” bus; this dream has come as my teacher.
The impact of the dream has been enormous. Every time I receive a message that seems unnecessary or inconsiderate, I recall the dream and respond gracefully; as I notice frustration build at the reluctance to pay expeditiously, I recall the dream and relax. The constant stream of what once were irritations now represent a confused jumble of personal effects that are nothing to do with me other than to help me learn to respond from the heart not the head. Every morning I affirm, “May I open my heart to compassion and love”; why should I be surprised when the universe responds so wholeheartedly.
Posted by ta44 
SoulClarity 