Souls on Deck

Hand on Fire by Elbichopt on DeviantArt

Here is a quote from one of my favorite authors of dream and vision work that carries some of the essence of what I am feeling in these times of extremist violence in our world.

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.” ~  Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

Many of my spiritual compadres are asking why? What can we do? What difference can we make? I do not have an answer. I beseech my own Goddesses and Gods and still I cannot see the answer clearly.

I am working with a dream where a man of fire is coming through a wall towards me. I am terrified. I have been working with fire for the last several months. I have fire in me. I feel the heat of it. I feel it rise and I notice when it comes out in ways that may be more about releasing the energy rather than embodying it.

I do not know what it means to live as one with the flames. I have only the dream moment to return to and then the next thing. Moment to moment. And mostly I forget and then I feel the heat again. It's good to have such visceral homework, the kind that comes unbidden. It is intense and it is nuanced and its unbidden nature helps me to remember that I am a creature of fire. The becoming is about remembering. The lion is in me. I forget. This is the human condition...to forget. Our work helps us remember, re-member, re-me-ember. The spiritual condition is to remember....

The being who is of flames is a reflection. The dream, like the moon, offers the gift of sight, the true seeing. It is subtler than the sun, whose fire can blind. When my dream guide had me be the being in flames from my dream, it felt encompassing and my vision felt obscured by the flames. Everything looks different when seen through eyes of fire. I don't know how to see through eyes of fire, so I don't understand what I see. I just see that everything looks different. It's like seeing from within the aura.

And yet I forget. When I can't hold the flame as the gift, the invitation, the offering, it can flip. Is there righteous fire? Is there a place for the fire to be the cry to heaven, the outrage at a world filled with injustice? At the helplessness of myself and others? And can it carry me to something more? Do I even want it to? How do we work with this material to support the fire in the world and all it has to offer as the fire of passion and love, the fire of pain that burns, the fire of anger that engulf and destroys, the fire that is eternal?

Is doing my work enough? What does being of service really mean? Can I offer more? Is it true, that I must first heal the split in myself before I can hope to offer healing in the world? What does it mean to be a soul on deck? How do I hold the flame and yet offer it?

On fire,
Laura

To find out more about how your dreams can guide you towards a fuller manifestation of your fire, contact me. www.archetypaldreamworks.com
Tend to your dreams, consort with them!