The Stories Dream Catchers Weave: Chapter 16 Sunset-Sunrise DreamCatchers 

With its colorful rings, feathers, and many stones, Body/Mind/Spirit became one of the more popular Dream-Catchers.  Playing with alternatives, reducing to two rings, to four feather sets, and fewer stones a new design and a new story was born. 

Sunset/ Sunrise Dream-Catchers--Between the sunset and the sunrise lies the spirit world out of sight, beyond mind.  Mistakenly feared for its unreality, seemingly disconnected from our "real" life, we have learned to fear darkness and dismiss spirit.  Yet following the darkness in which we dream we can expect the dawn in which we awaken.  Darkness is simply the other side of light.  Many cultures value light and demonize the dark.  It's another judgment we place upon our experience.   

Personal and Planetary Peace, Purpose and Possibilities
by Allen Aslan Heart/White Eagle Soaring 

Often I have heard from people following “the spiritual path” that I should not read, watch, or listen to the news; that I should focus only on the light, on goodness. Only in that way, I am told, can I find that elusive peace of mind that is sought by the spiritual “elite.” I've thought about that a lot, and the tentative hypothesis I’ve come to is that this is not a short cut but a short circuit for the Earth Journey. It seems to me that we’ve come here for a purpose. It wasn’t an accident, and we were directly involved in the decision. In fact, we had to either take a number and wait in line or we had to have some kind of priority clearance to get us in here at the right time and place for something we are to learn or just to be here.

Planet Earth is one of the more high-class academies in the universe. Here we are given broad license under Free Will to experience life under such loose standards that most beings quiver at the thought of undergoing such turmoil and tribulation. The graphics are so real that we usually lose our bearings and think that what we experience here is the real thing. When we master this curriculum, we carry an insignia highly honored throughout the universe.

Fact is, we are here because we chose to be and our primary task is to be HERE, fully involved in the experience...but not to get caught up in the surreal illusions and lose sight of WHO we are. Play the games but don’t forget that it is, after all, just a game. We are utilizing a temporary carbon-based form that breathes oxygen so that we can thoroughly interface with the experience. Our senses are highly tuned receptors to take it all in, beyond the experience of most entities. Our mind interfaces with this surreal illusion (experienced through a body wonderfully designed for this function) and with the ocean of universal consciousness that surrounds and infuses us..

And what about the judgments we make to help us navigate through this illusion? It’s just the ego at work trying to make sense of it, a survival mechanism of arbitrary classifications and approximations with limited application, validity, and reliability. We get into making judgments, classifying good from bad, assigning blame and shame and forget all about our Original Instructions to love, honor, and respect all beings in the Web of Life. That's not to make the ego wrong and bad, just to point toward its limitations.  Beyond ego-mind:

Darkness Is. 
   Light Is. 
      Creator Is. 
         All That Is, Is. 

Good/bad.  Beautiful/ugly.  Big/little.  Hot/cold.  Wet/dry.  Up/down.  In/out. 

Love/hate.  Peace/war.  Christian/pagan.  Catholic/Protestant.  Him/her.  Night/day.  Civilization/ wilderness. Primitive/ modern.  This is a very short list of the dualities that we pretend are true descriptions of our "reality."  They all require judgment that is highly relative depending on culture and circumstance.  How useful is up/ down on a voyage to Mars?  Is it possible that what we judge to be primitive is far more advanced and complex beyond the ability of "modern" man to even imagine?  We had to invent "dawn" and "twilight" to fill the imaginary gap between night and day.  At what moment can we say it is day?  Where is the horizon when you live in the mountains?  When the sun disappears behind the mountain is it night? There are mountain valleys that receive very little direct sunlight at some times of the year. Catholics and Protestants are both Christians and yet they have killed each other for centuries.  How civilized is civilization?  How wild is wilderness?  How big is big?  To a flea a cat is big.  To a cat the human is big.  To a human a mushroom is little.  Yet the rest of the mushroom organism beneath the ground is often bigger than the house in which the human lives.  Is it good when the levee is breached in a flood or is it bad that the levee downstream is causing flooding upstream?  In Phoenix, Arizona, twelve inches of rain in a year is wet.  In Minneapolis, Minnesota twelve inches of rain in a year is dry.  Some flowers are male and other flowers on the same plant are female, but most flowers are both.  The earthworm mating with another earthworm is fertilizing the other while its own eggs are being fertilized--fathering one family while birthing another.  Do you suppose Creator is trying to tell us something here?  Where is the reality in the illusion of categories?  Is an anti-war protest really about peace?  Can you be in conflict with others about war and truly serve the cause of peace?  Is it possible to bring peace by waging war?  Really?

In order to succeed in the protection and conservation of the natural environment, it is important first of all to bring about an internal balance within human beings themselves ... Inner peace is the key.  In that state of mind you can deal with situations with calmness and reason, while keeping your inner happiness.... If we ourselves remain angry and then sing world peace, it has little meaning...first our individual self must learn peace.  Then we can teach the rest of the world.

                         Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet     

The spirals sang old songs in a new way.

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