Dreaming With the Wheel

How to Interpret Your Dreams Using the Medicine Wheel

Sun Bear, Wabun Wind, Shawnodese

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781439146767
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

An explanation of the dream-interpretation principles of the Native American medicine wheel. The authors of The Medicine Wheel explore different views of dreamtime, both historic and contemporary, to provide an explanation of the dream-interpretation principles of the Native American medicine wheel—and a new framework for working with dreams.

Chapter 1

THE DREAM COUNCIL

Welcome, friend. Come and sit with us in a dream circle. Let’s imagine we can all sit together in the longhouse at Vision Mountain. We have a talking stick* we can pass, a pine branch Sun Bear picked up from the earth outside. As one of us speaks, the rest of us listen as attentively as we can. We’re here to learn how to make the dreamtime a more active part of our lives. Through this learning, we will be able to bring about a much better balance in our lives, and on our planet.

People who lived close to the earth all around the world had a great respect for the dreamtime. They knew what we call waking reality is only one of the many realities open to us two-leggeds.

The sun is preparing to set, the twilight to come. Some say this is the time of day when you can most easily find a “crack” between the realms of reality. We hear our brothers the thunder beings in the distance. They add their good medicine to the dream circle.

This is the first night of the dream circle, so it is time now to share the medicine of dreaming. With Sun Bear are two of his medicine helpers, Wabun and Shawnodese. Wabun has been with him since 1970, growing into her power and understanding. She has helped guide hundreds of people on vision quests. She has worked hard to understand the language of dreams, and she has a powerful gift for bringing dreams into reality. Some of Sun Bear’s most important medicine dreams have become reality through her gift.

Shawnodese has worked with Sun Bear since 1979. Understanding and working with dreams has been part of his medicine since childhood. Through his dreams, he helped to create Sun Bear’s apprentice program and has taught many workshops on dreams in that program and elsewhere. Shawnodese is also a healer of both mind and body.

Sun Bear, Wabun, and Shawnodese have invited other teachers to join the dream circle and share their experiences of the dreamtime. Luke Blue Eagle, a young man who has studied with Sun Bear for over a decade, sits in the dream circle. He is one of Sun Bear’s apprentices who now has apprentices of his own. He comes from the north country, from Canada, and has a good understanding of the dream world. He’ll be teaching for most of the five days, although he has some friends in Spokane to visit sometime during the circle.

Steven Foster is here tonight and tomorrow. Steven is the director of the School of Lost Borders, where people learn about wilderness rites and ceremonies of initiation. Steven has guided a large number of people in such rites, and is the author of several books about this process. He has to do some visiting, too, but will be back later to help.

Grandmother Twylah Nitsch of the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge has shared some of her teachings with Wabun via a taped interview, and Wabun will present this interview as the council proceeds. In Twylah’s eighty years of earth walk, she has had the opportunity to dream many dreams and see them come into being on earth. She has helped many people to understand the dreams that have come to them.

Brooke Medicine Eagle has also shared teachings with Wabun through a taped interview. This sister is an Earthkeeper and healer who knows how to be guided by her dreams, and knows how to inspire others to dream.

Page Bryant, Sun Bear’s first apprentice, an author and teacher of twenty-five years, spoke on tape with Wabun earlier about a couple of stories that come from her studies about the dream life of people.

Waiting to hear from these teachers, both those in the circle and those who will speak via tape, is an international group of students who have come to learn how to better experience the dreamtime. Of the thirty people here, eighteen have been out to fast in the wilderness; of these, five guide others in this wilderness initiation process. Eleven participants are from Europe, two from Canada, the rest from the United States. Two participants are doctors, seven are therapists or counselors, and one is a minister.

It’s a good circle of people. All of the teachers have taken the time to both dream and go out into the wilderness themselves to seek vision. So have many of the participants.

But the teachers and the students aren’t the only ones in this circle. The spirit forces, the keepers of the dreams, are here, too. They’ll tell stories between the words you might hear, stories that might guide you into living a dream life.

Wabun takes the talking stick and begins to speak. “In a time so long ago most people forget it ever existed, we all lived in the dreamtime. It did not matter whether we were awake or asleep. We all remembered where we came from, who we were, and where we were going. With our eyes open, we could see and feel as much beauty as most people only feel today when they shut their eyes in sleep.

“We could fly. We could talk to the animals. We could hear what they said back to us. We could go to the gods; we could part the waters. We could love wholly and completely. We could gather, we could chant, we could dance, we could drum. We could build, we could birth. We could feel the beauty of the Earth Mother. We lived within the sacred web of life.

“There were only two things we could not do: We could not think, and we could not speak. But there was no need for speech. What I felt, you knew. And what you knew, I felt within me. We could communicate so completely that if one of us had a need, others of us would give whatever help was required. If the need was to be alone, we could withdraw. If the need was to be supported, we would draw closer. If the need was for ecstasy, we would share joy. If the need came from one of our animal brothers or sisters, we would give whatever they needed. If a plant encountered problems, we would try to remedy them. If the balance of the earth was threatened, we would draw together and bring that balance back into place.

“And then time passed. With its passage, change occurred. We began to realize we were singular. We felt the difference between yours and mine. Within a short period of time, we began to think. Our thoughts drove even more distance between us. When that happened we drew apart in a way we never had before. We started to categorize, to measure. Thoughts were different from the communications we had before. They were singular in such a way that our unity was never quite the same. While we could feel together, dream together, we could not quite think together. Unity seemed not within the nature of thought.

“More time passed. The sounds we had made in the past to honor the Earth Mother, to honor all of the Creation, began to change. Instead of the tones of unity, we uttered the words of singularity. As we spoke them, we put even more distance between us. While these words sounded alike, they were not. All of them held the feeling meaning of the person speaking them. While we thought we spoke the same language, we never did.

“As we began to speak, we began to understand more clearly the changes that had occurred. We realized the difference between being awake and being asleep. We lost our ability to speak to the animals, or to hear what they said to us. We could no longer feel the plants, or the minerals, or the elementals in quite the same way, except when we closed our eyes. A part of us yearned for the former unity we held between us. Yet only with our eyes closed could we approach that state of unity.

“One day a young one did something with her words that no one had ever done before. She used them to try to describe the feeling of unity she had experienced with her eyes closed. She used them to tell others about her dream.

“‘What is this?’ all the other people said, at first with disbelief. ‘How could this young one fly like a bird? How could she speak to the stars and know the hearts of the animals?’

“She said to her people, ‘Just close your eyes for a moment and remember.’ And they did. They remembered the times when in sleep they had talked to the animals, when they had been one with what they now called the gods. They remembered what it was to feel the ecstatic joy of unity, the wonder of true community, the passion beyond passion of complete love. They remembered, and they spoke. As they spoke, they wove that other reality into the reality that had become their everyday life. And they knew this was good.

“Time went on. Some people remembered to speak of their dreams, others forgot. Some cultures respected the power of dreams, others feared it. That young girl was born many times more—sometimes as a young man, sometimes as a young woman. Always it was her destiny to speak of the wonder of dreams. Always her speech was met with many negative feelings by the people who denied the dreamtime. But those who remembered what their hearts had felt in the reality of the dream heard her with happiness. These people found more joy in life and had less fear of death. Sometimes the rememberers were the prophets. Sometimes they were the truth-speakers. Sometimes they were the persecuted. But always they spoke their truth, and by so doing they helped the people to remember and helped the people to live.

“Perhaps that young woman, wearing either a male or female body, is someone you know today. Perhaps she is your teacher, your grandmother, your husband, your child. That young woman, and her brother from the dreamtime, is very present today, trying to teach us that for life to continue we have to weave back the broken cords. We have to remember not only our individuality but also our unified core. We have to learn again that we can and must listen to the animals, the plants, and all parts of the sacred web of life.

“Come now, brothers and sisters, and allow this dream circle to help you remember,” Wabun concludes, and passes the stick back to Sun Bear.

“It’s good, sister, ho!” he says. “Now let’s all go to bed and see what dreams come to us.”

Chapter 2

DREAM WISDOM

People awaken with a sense of anticipation to begin this first full day of meeting in dream circle. It is a bright, clear, and crisp autumn day, washed clean by the rains that came with the thunder beings last night. The magic of the mountain begins to work on the participants new to the area, as it always has. Many find themselves rising earlier than usual and going out to take a walk and feel the energy both of the place and of the pine trees that seem to guard the location where the longhouse is built.

Some people walk as far as the pond where the Tribe’s original sweat lodge was built. Others walk a little farther to see the first Medicine Wheel built as a result of Sun Bear’s vision. More hardy souls go beyond, up to the area known as the Moon Rocks. Others climb still farther to the Air Mound, which gives a beautiful view of Long Lake in the distance and much of the surrounding countryside.

The teachers have agreed that there will be no firm time constraints on the beginnings and endings of the dream council. Since this is a time of contemplating the dreamtime, and since dreamtime has no sense of clock time, the teachers agree that the material will best be served by allowing participants to walk, talk, and interact both with one another and with the magic of the mountain. An additional benefit to the teachers is that it will give them time also to enjoy being on Vision Mountain.

When people are done with breakfast, Sun Bear suggests that the morning circle take place outdoors, so as to take advantage of the light and warmth of Father Sun before he climbs too high in the sky. It isn’t a terribly warm day, yet people seem to feel just fine sitting in the sun wearing light jackets.

Sun Bear takes the talking stick and reminds people that the person holding the talking stick has the right to speak, while everyone else has the right to listen. Then he begins: “I am a dreamer. Dreaming is one of my strong medicines, and much of my medicine comes to me through dreams. I delight in this, as I always feel good with the spirits. I always keep a notebook close to my bed so I can write down the good ideas that come to me from my dreams. You can do this, too. When people ask me where I get some of my super ideas, I tell them very honestly, ‘I dreamed it up!’

“To me, dreaming is a time when we get in touch with the spirits. It’s a time we set aside when we are not being bothered with all the rush and run of everyday life. We are able to go to our bed at night and pray for strong dreams, dreams that will tell us things about what is happening in the world, dreams that will take us off into different parts of the universe so we can learn through things that we hadn’t brought into our lives and our minds before.

“In the Native way, we always feel we have certain spirits that come to us. These are guardian spirits and protector spirits. Sometimes the best time they can come to us is when we are in our dreams. So we pray for them to come, and when they do they give us very powerful direction and teaching.

“There are many dreamer societies among the Western Indian people. Chief Joseph was a member of a very powerful dreamer society. Among the other Natives, Wovoka was the Paiute prophet and a great dreamer. Like many Native people, he relied very much on his dreams to teach him and give him knowledge.

“The Australian Aborigines say their life history consists of over forty thousand years in the dreamtime. They even dream their children before they are born. They dream whether they will be boys or girls. They dream what they will look like, and what their behavior patterns will be. The Aborigines feel that all the rest of creation can dream. Sometime back there was a movie called Where the Green Ants Dream. In it, many Australian Aborigines were protesting a uranium mining company going into an area to mine because they believed that was the area where the green ants dream. They knew that to disturb that area was to disturb the whole of nature.

“When Aboriginal youth reach a certain age, they go out on a special voyage called a walkabout. It is done at a sacred area, such as Ayers Rock, which used to be a favorite location. At this time, they live off the land completely in the old way. They live off what they call bush tucker, which is the food they can get off the bushes. They hunt for their own food. In their travels, they go from one dreamer place to another. They go to each place and pray. As I’ve mentioned, Ayers Rock is a very powerful dreamer rock for many of the Aboriginal people. As they go along across the country, they have all kinds of sacred places. The young men pray that the spirits come to them there and give them new knowledge.

“The Aborigines are very powerful in their knowledge of how to dream about something or someone, and change the events or improve the health of the person they are dreaming about. Some of the Aborigine people I met told me there was one man who was going to build a supermarket in an area. He found out that part of the area was the place where old men come to dream. So he set that aside for them so they could continue to pray and dream there. This is a very strong and respected part of the Australian culture.”

When Sun Bear puts down the stick, indicating that he is done speaking for now, Luke Blue Eagle asks whether he can have the stick next. When it comes to him he begins to speak.

“The dream world and the dream work was a part of the training of all the medicine people, of all the shamans, and it’s a part also of teaching. Like the Australian Aborigines, many Native people teach the history of their nations through the dreamtime. What I’d like to add about the Walkabout ... is that they’re taught directly from the ancestors in the dream world about their heritage. This is also a part of the American Indian way of looking at things. Dreaming was a part of everyday life; when you woke up in the morning, you’d discuss your dreams with the family. And people would know that there were different types of dreams and qualities of dreams, that there are serious dreams and dreams that don’t mean anything. Unfortunately, society today has lost this kind of knowledge. But everybody in Native societies had access to this body of knowledge that’s in the dream world. So everybody was considered as some kind of an authority on life and spiritual matters, because everybody could dream.

“Dreaming was considered to be the real world, as opposed to awakened, everyday life, which was an illusion for many peoples. Natives used to look at the dream world as the real world that was actually the creative aspect of our being. They believed that what we did in the dream world had direct influence over what we would do in the awakened world. They believed that the dream world or the dreamtime had physical consequences, that what you were doing in the dream world was creating what was happening in the physical. They believed that actually we are all in one big dream that is the Creator’s dream, and that’s what’s creating the world we’re in.

“Consequently, they believed that if you had things you’re not sure about, you could ask the dream world to tell you if it’s true or not. And that you can trust what the dream world says, where you can’t always trust your awakened perceptions. I believe this is also true today.

“When people talk to me about dreams that they’ve had, the symbols that come up most frequently are animals. I think that’s because animals are the closest to humans as far as our relationship with the various kingdoms is concerned. They speak to people in a way that is very refreshing and important for them. The animals have a way of life that is very simple, and very, very in the moment. This is something that we have lost, and we are estranged from our true nature by not being able to be with ourselves in the present moment. The teachings that come from the different animals are relevant to understanding who we are on a much more basic and fundamental level, which people need to come back to today. So, as I work with people and their dreams, I often find a lot of animals coming up in the dreams. Often these are very helpful in getting the person to come back to a more basic and simple way of understanding who they are.”

Wabun asks if she can have the talking stick next. “When people have come to me with their dream symbols, animals often appear. Sometimes plant and mineral beings, particularly those associated with the Medicine Wheel, also appear in people’s dreams. I always think that it’s really good when someone from the other kingdoms of creation comes to visit a human in the dream state. It’s so important for people today to recognize the necessity for them to come back into harmony with the sacred circle of l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Description
• About Sun Bear, Wabun Wind, and Shawnodese
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Authors’ Note
• Preface: The Vision of a Man; the Birth of a Vision
• Part One: The Dream Council
• Part Two: A Dream Language of the Earth
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• The Dream Council
• Index
• Footnote