|
Chanting SessionFirst Dream: I was sitting on the floor in a room with several people. (Oh Shinnah ?) was just to my left. (Joan Halifax ?) was facing (Oh Shinnah ?). Behind me was (Oh Shinnah's ?) guitar. I turned around and plucked a couple of strings, and she reached for it. I boosted it over to her and she started to play to accompany a chant of 5 or 6 syllables. The few people present picked up the chant immediately. There was a painting lying horizontally before (Oh Shinnah ?), consisting
of broad swashes of mostly light blue and yellows. (Joan ?) reached with a
brush and started changing the painting with broad strokes of the same
colors. (Oh Shinnah ?) stopped chanting, (Joan ?) immediately after, and
I carried it one more pass. (Oh Shinnah ?) leaned forward and said, "I am
so tired, how do I resign?".
Second Dream: This dream was a long rambling thing with variable but reasonably stable scenery and settings. It involved people, firewood, paths, a hill, houses, and various other things, but was so long, wandering and without discernable point or plot that I made no real effort to remember it. ClarificationI attended multiple classes and other sessions with both the ladies mentioned. the ( ?) means the dream characters were very much like them, but I cannot be sure they were actually them. Oh Shinnah Fast Wolf was a Native American who gave classes in dreaming and many other metaphysical and American Indian subjects. She was also a well known folk singer and had many academic degrees. She died in 2022 at the age of 88. For more, see Oh Shinnah Fast Wolf. Joan Halifax is a psychologist, anthropologist, teacher, and writer on shamanic and metaphysical subjects. When I knew her she was running the Ojai Foundation, a retreat site devoted to Shamanism, Buddhism, Native American subjects and other metaphysical pursuits. Some time after I last saw her, she became a Buddhist nun and as of 2023 she is abbot of a Zen Center which she founded. For more on her see her Wikipedia entry Joan Halifax. |