old warehouse

old warehouse (kind of similar to the one in my dream)

So last night was a good night. I dreamt of renting storage rooms at a warehouse – each about 10×10 (smallish), and devoted to separate Chakras – where I’d keep the appropriate stones (in each). But it was really hard to figure out how to get from one of the rooms to another, because there wasn’t just an elevator that went up to each room (or floor). It wasn’t aligned, you had to look around, climb about, to get from one to another. Outside the rooms it was all girders and wires, loose and hanging – as if the rooms and stones were the only places anything made sense – everything else was chaos.

Then I was participating in a show, an Expo or something, and I had to remember not to forget anything I’d need for it (a common dream anxiety, that you won’t be able to “show up” the way you’re supposed to, professionally). There was another exhibitor, an elder to me, who’d given me good advice (and turned me on to some cool new stones).

Pedestrian stuff: positive reflections of my days and efforts, with solutions arising amidst challenges. Both these dreams (though they were somehow related) had something to do with my conscious life. And there’s something reassuring about that – there’s a logical continuity with “reality” – as surreal as those dreams may have been (aren’t they all!).

an image from Dennis Nolan’s book “Sea of Dreams.” Is it an actual castle, or “just” a sand castle? Are we as a civilization “building our house on the sinking sands”?

Differently, I have nightmares – recurrent, apocalyptic – which seemed to make sense, or to have been in context, given the outcome of this most recent presidential election. Some of us have really taken the recent turn of events hard, as if it’s a worst case scenario.

But these dreams have been going on for too long to be politically related to the moment. There’s something bigger going on here. Though I found myself – facing the prospect (and his promise) of global climate agreements being torn up – being viscerally afraid first and foremost, for the Earth.

As a Crystal-oriented person, I necessarily have a connection with the more solid aspect of the planet – the fact of it’s being a great big living Rock. The stones represent natural and emotional energies, which ultimately “happen” in the context of Gaia, or Mother Earth herself. Any worldview that ignores her perspective does so to all our own peril.

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking – said by some to be the most brilliant scientist of our time (since Einstein) – predicts that we can only reside here on earth another thousand years. I mentioned that to some folks, who thought we’d do ourselves in more quickly. But having a timeline, a limit – a period shorter than that going back to 1000 CE (Common Era) – felt scary, and all too real.

I don’t want to take this blog into a larger allegory about our choices, as Humanity (though I will, still). That wasn’t my intention, originally – but as I review and edit – I am seeing the bigger picture. Our subconscious is the bigger picture. And everything – ultimately – is all about that.

You have to be a very small minded person to think everything revolves around you. Yes – sure – we experience everything through our own subjective lenses. But to think it stops there is ignorance. To deny others’ perspectives – or to think they are irrelevant, or that there’s no impact to our collective actions (on each other, wherever we’re coming from) – is irresponsible.

Are we a culture that embraces and grows with our neighbors, or separates off from them, vilifying them as the offending “other.” And what role do we as individuals have to take, in order to avert the disaster (a real disaster) of multi-racial suicide? We are ultimately one race. What part will we take in Tikkun Olam (Hebrew for repairing of the world)?

Waters rising in Japan

waters rising in Japan

Back to my dreams, the bad ones. They’ve been going on a few years now – and involve rising waters, tsunamis – being by the seaside and witnessing surging tides. Buildings crumble. Toxic hot waters come up from the depths with dead sea life. Gigantic primordial shells are exposed, and outlandish creatures surface. Not pleasant stuff. And not reflective of my daily experiences and challenges – not a projection of my own hopes – or daydreams.

What’s it all about? Is my subconscious processing or manifesting the garbage of all human existence? What part is my junk, what’s collective? Is my Dream Time inextricably bound up with the public sewage system?

I did have a dream recently about my basement storage space actually being connected to everyone else’s on the street (in one long, continuous, but subdivided underground common-space).

I don’t watch TV, partly to avoid some of the worst elements of the news and society caving in to my personal subconscious. But with the election – and also I track developments in the Middle East – it’s hard not to let the meanness and terror seep in.

Maybe during the day I deal with my own reality, and at night I tap into the collective Dream Time, grappling with what it is that we as a generation (of stacked and staggered generations) have to struggle with.

Each generation has their turn up at bat – and generally fails to produce a lasting Good – though incremental progress seems to be made. Then we take 2 steps backwards, in search of some wistful past. When was America great: during Slavery, Prohibition, the Red Scare of the 50’s, Vietnam? Please!

Of course Revelation and Biblical Apocalypticism are a common backdrop to our awareness. In his song “Ride, Natty, Ride” Bob Marley sings:

Bob Marley as envisioned by Stephen Fishwick

Bob Marley as envisioned by Stephen Fishwick

And it’s the fire (fire), it’s the fire (fire)
That’s burning down everything:
Feel that fire (fire), the fire (fire);
Only the birds have their wings, yeah!
No time to be deceived.
Oh, brothers, you should know and not believe:
Jah say this judgement – it could never be with water,
No water could put out this fire (fire):
This fire (fire), this fire (fire),
This fire (fire), a yaga y’all! Ride, Natty, ride!
Go deh, Dready, go deh,
‘Cause now the fire is out of control,
Panic in the city, wicked weeping for their gold!
Everywhere this fiyah is burning,
Destroying and melting their gold,
Destroying and wasting their souls.

Unfortunately, nuclear annihilation is a very real possibility, and that is most certainly “by fire.” Will that get to us first, or will the sea level rise beforehand? Or can we look forward to a bit of both!

Remember Noah – who saved some souls (and “all” the animals) by building the ark, as he was instructed to by G8D – so that the torrential rains could drown all corruption, as it was so pervasive back then. Was it really so much worse than what we’ve got now?

Alas, for those who think an upsetter/outsider will somehow “drain the swamp” of all its ills – we know better (really we do) – that badness survives and takes root anew (assuming it ever left). Sometimes the devil you know is no devil at all, and the devil you don’t know – you actually know to be so – and he actually is the worse of two evils.

That is why we are condemned to relive our nightmares until we process, or transcend the need for them.

Perhaps that’s my own lesson, the message from my own subconscious…a fire lit under my butt to get moving…to go full steam ahead, and fulfill the mission. It almost doesn’t matter what the mission is – certainly it’s different for each of us – the point is, we need to move it forward (or it will go nowhere).

Alessandro Casolani (1552/53-1607), Young Woman Contemplating a Skull

Alessandro Casolani (1552/53-1607), Young Woman Contemplating a Skull

The end will come, and we will have done what? Never mind Humanity, and it’s long term future. Look at your own life. You will leave this plane. I saw my father do it first hand, earlier this year. There ain’t no avoiding it.

After the Holocaust (a worst case scenario, if ever there was one) – we (or some) said “never again” – but who was (or is) listening? Even more widely repeated is the trope: “those who fail to learn from history are condemned to relive it.” And yet we relive it today, every day, from opioid addiction at home to evil alliances doing wrong in Syria.

post election graffiti, 2016

post election graffiti, 2016

Short term memories choose again and again to put their faith in false prophets and bad rulers.

That is why a failure to accept evolution – a refusal to embrace human responsibility (and yes, choice) – can never lead to progress.

Regressiveness – on the Left or the Right – is no solution. You have to have a renewable vision of where we’re going – and it can’t be backward – making us “great again” (as if we were, ever).

Chrysocolla - humility - and self forgiveness.

Chrysocolla – humility – and self forgiveness

Humility is key. Wonder and Reverence are essential. Faith and Co-Creation (with G8D) are the Dance of Life.

Turning back the clock and ignoring the floodwaters of time and globalization is just dividing us in ways that can’t lead to better outcomes for all.

People will die, unless we are actively trying to save them. We will hasten the worst aspects of Revelation, unless we wake up and choose Life instead. Salvation is not reserved for any one religion.

We have been blessed – relatively speaking (you can look up the statistics) – to live in one of the least bellicose (warlike) periods of history. For those who cannot see another way, indeed an eye for an eye will make us all blind. War will come again, and lives will be lost that could have been saved.

Maybe that’s the message of my apocalyptic dreams – what I’ve seen is our future – because too many won’t remember; refuse to accept that “never again” applies to them; and that it’s they who must learn from, and not ignore (or try to reproduce) history.

Such is the motivation (or destiny) of a flock of lemmings into the sea – putting blind faith into cretins – and trying to reach back into history without a vision for tomorrow. There will always be sheep, and not being the brightest, they will follow whomever “hears” and promises to lead them (without thought or discernment).

Pioneers and futurists (and yes, “globalists”) we must side with, aspire to be one of, and shoulder the load with. We may not – indeed will not – win over the majority, but we must be satisfied with being (and associating) with the “moral minority.”

Blue Apatite skull and polished piece

Blue Apatite – stone of the deep, human subconscious – me contemplating a skull and polished piece

Not to be self-righteous. After all, when the waters rise and the Angel of Death comes knocking, it won’t matter (and they won’t segregate) who thinks they’re right from who’s wrong. Passover was a blessing, in the moment, but doesn’t absolve us of all our sins going forward. Jesus’ sacrifice doesn’t erase your individual responsibility (and give you carte blanche to do whatever you like).

The signature of every human being is in the Book of Life.

We must all face judgement for our own deeds, sooner or later. So please make sure yours is not a view that’s self-congratulatory (and lets you off the hook). Question yourself and authority. No matter how right you think you are, there’s always a better way, a more blameless path you can take.

Stick to your knitting, but make sure it’s of a good garment.

I’m reminded of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” – which my mother forced me to memorize at one time:

If you can keep your head when all about you
 Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
 Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
 And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
 If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
 And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build em up with worn-out tools:
Rudyard Kipling, author of the powerful poem "If."

Rudyard Kipling, author of the powerful poem “If”

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

 And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
 And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
 Except the Will which says to them: Hold on!
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
 Or walk with Kings nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
 If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
 With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
 And which is more you’ll be a Man, my son!
clear Quartz emitting light

clear Quartz emitting light, hope, the opportunity for renewed vision

Some odd, out-dated patriarchal language. But relevant somehow, still.

Interesting, how I chose quotes from two important role models for me, Bob Marley and my mom (via Rudyard Kipling). All of Life and our Dreams are raw material – information – from which we are tasked to make Sense, find Logic, a common thread, a “moral to the story.”

I got tired of reading books ’cause I wanted them to “get to the point.” I’m mired in these tumultuous dreams – indeed the globe is mired in conflict of a very real sort – as we try (or fail) to figure it out. For myself, I’m actually feeling kind of resolved – as if all those crazy dreams are not in vain – and I’m not crazy.

My subconscious is delivering very realistic imagery of what is to come – regardless of what we do – but also, particularly, if we do nothing. Me saying “it’s just a dream” is not keeping it from recurring.

At least now I can strive for these dreams not to have come to me in vain. Like we would as if this was an angel appearing with fair warning, we have to take heed. We make it real, we have to make it personal.

It’s not someone else’s problem.

Someone else isn’t the problem – well maybe they are – it doesn’t matter.

What matters is, are we making ourselves the solution?

 

************************************* ABOUT THE AUTHOR ******************************

Discovering Crystals – or rather, their discovering him – was a catalyst for Kyle Russell’s spiritual development. A major download of interdimensional information has had 30 years to “marinate” as he’s worked with stones and people, developing his Crystal Concentrics perspective on how to work with Power Stones. A life is ultimately about the sense you make from it, and these blogs are a major way that Kyle synthesizes his experience and observations into lessons and learnings, made free and available for all to partake in. Email Kyle@CrystalConcentrics.com to connect.