|
"The Mountain Teaches the Dreaming"
With each visit to a sacred place, we accrue knowledge, connection. The mountain, stream, or ocean beach helps us to find our wild selves. It helps us to cleanse, align, and find balance. Listening, and being still in a place, is essential.
Deep Listening
Aboriginal elder Miriam Rose Ungermerr-Baumann explains that dadirri, deep listening, "allows us to make contact with a deep spring that lies within us. Connecting with that spirit requires that we achieve a state of quiet, still awareness," what we might call contemplation.
Talking about the effects of this practice, for the indigenous people he has spent time with, Hank Wesselman explains in Awakening to the Spirit World,
"Following the natural course of existence removes worry from their life...They know that in the practice of dadirri--the deep listening and stillness of the soul--that all ways will be made clear to them in time."
Precepts of Dreaming
In an interview with Guboo Ted Thomas, Yuin Aboriginal tribal elder (1901-2002) some of the basic precepts of dreaming, and the wisdom of sacred place, come forth. I want to share portions of this beautiful interview conducted some years ago by Antero Alli and exerpted from Towards an Archeology of the Soul :
"As I look back in Dreamtime and see Australia, it is a land of dreaming where the law comes from the mountain. Here, the Aboriginal people have roamed around the bush for 50,000 years...listening to the birds, animals, Mother Earth... and She teaches us to send messages by our minds... hundreds of miles to our people...This is why the Dreamtime is so important to us...it is always bringing us together.
Dreaming is the main way we use the mind, you see. It starts outdoors in a very quiet place where there is no noise and where the wind is blowing. Here, all around are Nature Spirits..."
Guboo describes bringing people to the outback to learn the dreaming.
"I would talk to you and be in the spirit of the land and bring that spirit here (gestures to interviewer's heart). After walking in the woods for some time, you would dream and spirits would visit your vision. Yes, you would see these spirits and they talk with you...The dreaming is a way to be in the change of this world...
I do not teach the dreaming. The mountain teaches the dreaming. Uluru."
He continues, talking about the necessity of releasing and becoming childlike before we can dream. His words echo those of many wisdom keepers, bringing to mind the Andean prophecy of Eagle and Condor Coming Together:
"We need a spiritual cleanout first. Fasting on grapes for two days will bring you more power, so will praying and meditating. One thing you must know. You come as a child and learn how to crawl before you walk. I know today you have your education but I don't want you like that. I want you to come the way I want you to come. As a little child.
So, if you've got an education, you've missed two or three steps. Listen to what I say. How do you touch a tree and feel the love of that tree? Sometimes, you have to blindfold people and let them find their way around the rocks to learn. The rocks there are like natural churches, altars, so we don't need no artificial churches, you see. Just stand by the rock circles on the mountain and speak to the Great Spirit. You will feel a vibration; you will hear Darama, the Creator. Your words must come from the heart or it's just blah blah blah. This you must learn before Dreaming.
The mountain teaches the dreaming."
This ancient wisdom can guide us, still, as we continue to seek our inner sun, and as we continue to dream our way into our collective power.
Meg Beeler/Earth Caretakers
Copyright � 2013
 | | Connection Despacho, Mt. Tamalpais |
"The mystery of life
is not a problem to
be solved,
but a reality
to be experienced."
~ Aart Van Der Leeuw
| 
