Do you consider yourself a Goddess? You should. The Goddess is the earth. We are all part of the earth. But the Goddess is more. She is also that spiritual vessel that brings love in new unexpected ways. She is connected with the moon. This week’s Mindfunda is about dreaming with the goddess, incubating dreams that aligne with the phase of the moon. Find out how you can dream the Goddess into your live!
Mindfunda explores the Goddess in 4 blogs
The Triple Goddess was hot in the seventies of last century. Marija Gimbutas put the Goddess back on the map. She inspired a lot of scientists, anthropologists and mythologists up to this day. But the attention for the Goddess seems to have faded away. Mindfunda want to invite you to reconnect with the Goddess. During the month of November Mindfunda will share 5 blogs:
The Goddess, 4 blogs to integrate the Goddess in your life.
Eve as Goddess: a Guest blog written by Susan Scott, of the Garden of Eden.
Triple Goddess dreaming: an alliance with the moon.
The Goddess and the Earth: a Guest blog written by Trista Hendren
A review of “The Book of She” written by Sara Avant Stover.
Dreaming with the triple Goddess
In our rational world the Goddess seems to have disappeared. That is why the dream group I am part of spent a mont of dreaming with the Goddess. We wanted to see how the energy of the goddess still resonates in our lives, our loves and our dreams. Each week during a month, one of the members shared a dream incubation devoted to the Goddess. The new moon or Maiden Goddess, the half-moon dedicated to Shakti, the full moon dedicated to Mother Goddess and the last quarter dedicated to the Crone Goddess.
Looking back on this project, I can say that I was struck by the archetypical motives we encountered in our month of dreaming. To connect with the creative power of the Goddess has increased my faith in my own body and how it reflects the wisdom of the earth. Find out how you can dream the Goddess into your live!
Dreaming with the Triple Goddess week #1
In our first week we connected with the Goddess in a beautiful way. There are so many beautiful inspiring dreams that it is hard to choose. I selected two that show the qualities of the Goddess in a very clear way. They represent the Triple Goddess in clothes and colors. I had these two dreams:
First dream: I am flying on a bird…
The second dream I am in a marketplace. An elderly lady is sitting there. She is short-haired and she looks at the clothing me and my sister are selecting. It is clothing our mother gave to us and she wants us to pick out what we like. I select three dresses, a dark one, a light blue one and a white one with blue figures on it. I take the last one, the white with blue with me, to try on. I take a leather bikini a brown one but put it back because it is not my style.
When I walk away and I wonder if I took the right dress, maybe the dark one would have been better.
The bird in the first dream can refer to the soul, just like the bird C.J Jung saw in his dream that changed into a blond girl. Marija Gimbutas associated the Bird Goddess with the Great Cosmic Creator.
The second dream shows the Crone guarding over the clothes my Mother left behind for me. There are as many outfits for me as there are manifestations of the Goddess. A dark one, representing the Dark Goddess, a light blue one representing the Mother and a white one with blue figures on it representing the Maiden. I choose the last one, but it does not feel right. The perspective of my life is changing. I am no longer the young girl, I have become a mother. With my children growing up to be teenagers It is significant to me that I do not change into this dress, I only take it with me to try it on.
The light blue dress resembles the dress frequently depicted on mother Mary.
Carol had this dream about the triple goddess:
Dream I am somewhere I don’t know lots of people around. I am putting in a tricolor rug noticing colors red and green not sure of third color. I look and go into a crawl cave like space under the floor it seems. I am talking about the rug with someone laying out the patches of pieces side by side seems more like leftover remnants. I then look out a back window and see a fire burning in a one level building. I am telling others to look at the flames. I have seen this happen before. I see people inside trying to put it out. Then I look at the wood planked floor under my feet and see flames from burning fire too.
Maria Cernuto commented on this dream: “The tricolor rug reflects the Triple Goddess most likely: Maiden (green or white is Her color), Mother (red), & Crone / Grandmother (dark blue or black). The colors woven together (tricolor) in the rug are like the Triple Goddess figure… the Moon’s phases / Phases of the Goddess are not separate… even time… past, present & future are woven together, they’re not separate”.
To me, the fire on the wood represents “the fire inside, the fire in the mind” as Joseph Campbell would phrase it. The Goddess came and said hello to us that first week and enlightened the flame. This theme of colors and clothing returned in my dreams later that month…
Dreaming with the triple Goddess week #2
Maria Cernuto shared a dream incubation devoted to Shakti energy.
Knowledge of Shakti occurs primarily in the Tantric texts from India. Shakti translates loosely to “Cosmic Energy” or simply “Power.” She is energy, force, sexuality, spiritual fire, ability, faculty, strength, potential, etc. She is the Divine Feminine energy of all –of both genders, male and female – She is that which causes all action to occur.
Maria Cenuto
And indeed, most of our dreams displayed couples, relationships and sexuality. Debbie shared this dream:
It is as if I just woke up in my bedroom. It is bright and sunny. There is a young couple intertwined with each other on Michael’s side of the bed (left when standing facing it) and Michael and I are intertwined on my side of the bed. I realize that the couple and Michael and I are covered in a huge amount of sexual excretions; as if a bucket of it was poured over each couple. Woke up in a bright sunny bedroom and said wow that was a lot of “come”.
Note* there was no sexual excitement to the dream at all and no lovemaking. It was more like everyone was done hours before.
Maria Cenuto commented on this dream:
This is very Shakti-like in that she is sexual energy. I like the young and older couples, especially given how long you and Michael have been together. “Michael is on my side” — I like the way that sounds metaphorically… he’s “come” to my side. How could this relate to the incubation? What part of sexuality or sexual energy could be “developed, harnessed and utilized” for the benefit of your own inner shakti power?
In her dream Maria wears a necklace of the perfect couple:
Instant Karma, Libra Judgement and the Blue Bindu:
I am in a mall and run into D. She wanted to walk with me to say “hi” to somebody I was with. I say to the person, “I don’t know if you remember, but this is I’s daughter.” I don’t know who I was talking to. I am walking around the mall alone. I am wearing the pentacle necklace with the “perfect couple” in the center. A slender Asian / Orient male is walking towards me, and for some reason I flash him the pentacle – not sure why I did it, like I thought he could be dangerous and I am trying to intimidate him with witchcraft. He made a face like why are you showing me this object / necklace; and then he simply asked me a question. I answered him and we both walked our separate ways. As I am walking away my necklace / the chain part breaks. I think this karma for jumping the gun and judging him and using a sacred symbol to instill fear or threaten him.
Then I see rare blue macaw parrots, and then a blue dot appearing on my forehead / Anja Chakra, only bright, electric blue; and it seemed to have dimension to it, not flat, bubbled outward.
In this dream the Goddess appears in the color blue. In “Renowned Goddess of Desire” Loriliai Biernacki associates the color blue with creating life and the moon:
“The color blue makes things prosper; the color blue is indeed a God. The soft kind Goddess Avitri, the light of the world (Kali) is blue and the ancient teachings in the throat of Shiva are blue.
The Goddess Shakti to which the incubation was dedicated has a blue manifestation in MahaMaja. A goddess blue-black in complexion.
“The Sanskrit word Maya has two important meanings – one is measurement and another is extraordinary or supernatural power and also illusion.
So the term Mahamaya is an attempt by human mind to capture – unimaginable qualities of Goddess Shakti – like she is matter, she is energy, her various forms, creation, sustenance and destruction.
Sadly no human word is powerful enough to capture the true form of Goddess Shakti and it can only be known through self-realization“. (Hindu-blog.com)
In this way Shakti/MahaMaja is a dream Goddess. A dream, an illusion, a created reality that makes everything possible.
Dreaming with the triple Goddess week #3
In this week we dreamed during Full Moon. The Moon and dreams are connected according to old traditions. Connie Kaplan has written a very good book about it: The woman’s book of dreams. It is one of my favorite books. During the week of incubating dreams, the moon is known as the harvest moon. It is the full moon that happens closest to the autumn equinox. Farmers used to harvest using the light of the moon. We incubated the question of what we needed to harvest in our lives right now. The first dream of Shelli tells about the present she gets from the Goddess, but also about the hurt she needs to let go off.
“I’m at Maria’s house with Ralf, Debbie, I think Patricia, Susanne and my hubby, his parents, and a few young kids. I see K. and she wants to tell me something unimportant and now forgotten.
One of the young girls has to go pee and as I grab her, she does a bit on a couch. I rush to the bathroom and I try to get her to sit but her legs end up in the toilet. It’s deep so her feet aren’t in the water but she pees.
We are getting ready to leave and I have to pee. The bathroom door is a drape that is pulled across a wooden bar. In-laws and Maria come in as I’m sitting there. I shoo them all away and hubby comes to my assistance to rid them so I can pee without them all. One has to leave through the bathroom and everyone is leaving.
I walk back to a bedroom to find my clothes as I am just in panties. I try to cover myself as I see a bunch of clothes hung over the back of a chair. Beside them are gift bags that Maria has for us, but I pretend I didn’t see them.
We are ready to go, and I leave with hubby and in-laws. Maria says goodbye and when we are outside my mother in law asks everyone’s names but I tell her I’ve only met some of them once and couldn’t remember who was who“.
In Shelli’s dream the dream group is present at the house of the current Goddesses Mary. The Goddess has presents for everyone. The Maiden represented by the young girl has to go to the bathroom. She has to let go of emotions no longer needed. The dreamer herself also has to get rid of old water. Water as a symbol of the Goddess. Water as emotion, creation. In situations were I have a broken heart I usually dream about going to the bathroom. In “A branch of the Lightning Tree” Martin Shaw writes:
“Years can pass in our own lives between and event that caused us to both love and lose, and the slow birthing of insight that one day (seven years perhaps?) causes our shaman-fox to saunter through the groves of difficult remembering and shuffle out the seed we carry on into the rest of our lives. That seed could grow to contain any number of things -But some parenting is required: the other disciplines of the Queen or Magician have to come into play to help it grow into the bespoke shape it wants to become.”
With this perspective we can see the dream as an invitation to an initiation from the Goddess. The Goddess invites the dreamer to let go of her old emotions: the pee of the young girl and later on that of herself. She helps her Maiden and even puts her in the middle of the toilet, with her legs in it: now that is an invitation to an initiation! Changing waters, changing emotions, stepping forward. Her husband is there to help her unload, to get into her new life stage as Crown with a new view on love. And the dreamer finds gifts for everyone in the house of Maria. She does not open them yet, but the invitation is there! A very positive invitation…
The water element of the Goddess also played an important part in a dream of Maria Cernuto:
Goddess of the Water Element
I am involved in a sort of competition. A group of people creating altars, sacred space and rituals to express an aspect of the Goddess. I was assigned the element of water, so I was to honor Water Goddesses – others were assigned a different element (Fire Goddess, Air Goddess, and Earth Goddess). I placed the white statue of Venus that I have in WPR (Botticelli’s Birth of Venus) on the altar, and then I put the large conch shell I have in waking life in front of the statue to represent a vagina – I drape a strand of puka shells in the opening / spilling out, and a tubular shaped seasponge (also have these in waking life).
Recall hanging a poster on 1 of the 4 quarters’ walls – it was from the major arcana of R.J. Stewart’s Dreampower Tarot, “The Maiden” – a female wrapped in a white fluid like substance flowing from the blue-black background with a the Celtic Sheela na gig – her vulva exposed as usual with a white water-like excretion flowing out and wrapping around the female figure (see below).
I placed other art prints relating to Water Goddesses on the other walls – can’t recall what I used. We used items gathered from this one large room that was for everybody to build their ritual / altar with.
Maria Cernuto is an astrologer and the full moon at the time of dreaming was in Pisces. Connie Kaplan says in the Woman’s book of dreaming that dreams can involve water. Maria herself says about this dream:
I could use more water in terms of being more in touch with feelings / emotions (intercepted Moon in Capricorn in the 1st house — cold and repressed). I have Venus in a water sign, Cancer (Mothering/Birth), though it too is intercepted in the opposite house of the Moon, the 7th.
Venus relates to the arts though She expresses differently through either Taurus or Libra; the Morning and Evening Stars respectively. The former more sensual via singing / music, sculpting, makeup artistry / beauty, etc.; and the latter with refinement thru dance, poetry / literature, music / instruments, painting, etc.I get the message of birthing something with all the open vagina symbols, and water breaking type images. Some form of creativity to manifest.
The dreamer seems to be harvesting one of the four elements of the Goddess. She has an alchemical approach of the Goddess: there is a water, an air, an earth and a fire element to the Goddess. In our first week we have encountered the fire element in a dream shared by Carol (see paragraph Dreaming with the Triple Goddess week #1). In the second week we had the air element of the Goddess symbolised by the blue bird in the dream of Maria Cernuto (see Dreaming with the Triple Goddess week #2). And now she shares her vision on the water element of the Goddess as something she needs to cultivate. That is the harvest of the Goddess. The gift that Shelli saw in the first dream I shared in this paragraph.
Dreaming with the Triple Goddess week #4
The last week of our month of dreaming with the Goddess was dedicated to the Crone. I selected a paragraph of the incubation Debbie shared with us.
“The Crone is associated with the waning Moon and the moment of exact darkness of the moon before the new moon. She is also associated with autumn and winter. She is death but with the promise of new life. She is known as The Grandmother, she is past her child bearing days and bleeds no more and holds that power within. She is the Wise Woman and midwife, The Wisdom Keeper, Seer and Healer”.
The Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess is the most feared and misunderstood. She represents the most frightening aspects of humanity: destruction and death. In “Well of Remembrance” Barbel Kreidt tells about her meeting the Crone after spending a few days and nights in the desert.
Photo: theliberatedsheep.com
“I am the Goddess who solves all riddles because I know everything. The golden one has sent me to you. Every person must gaze upon me at least once in life. I am veiled because my face is unendurable when it is unveiled. Yet whoever searches for knowledge can ask me to lift my veil”.
Her Face!
The nameless fear, the horror. Death, war disease, cruelty, the tortures of all times and the whole world can be seen therein. I hear the screams, the cries, the despair. It simply flows out of her face. A face as cold as stone, ageless. A model of ugliness. Inconceivable. With eyes that close for nothing. I take it into me and hear her voice as she tells me it is not enough to simply endure her. I must also love her.”
In our week of dreaming with the Crone she manifested herself as the Goddess of Ice in a dream of Shelli. In this dream the water of the Goddess has turned into slippery ice. Shelli has learned to control it. She skates, dances, controls it and finds her way home. The Goddess has shown her to let go of old emotions and now she has “thougned up” for the job. She twirrles and skates
I’m at my hometown arena, figure skating. There’s only a few of us on the ice. I am my present age but trying to see if I can do the jumps and spins I was able to do when I was skating.
There’s a coach from the south there to watch us, looking for exceptional skaters. I know I’m not one of them, but just have something to prove to myself. The coach is a bit arrogant, and I do my best to ignore him.
I start with some jumps as I work my way up to the more difficult doubles that I was able to do. There’s a bit of an audience as there will be a hockey practice after.
I decide it’s time to try some spins. I can do a basic upright corkscrew very well, but my camel spin isn’t very good. It’s slow and pathetic, so I go back to my jumps.
I see a few of the guys I went to school with and someone I don’t know in waking live but I know in my dream and want to show off without looking like I am. I don’t make eye contact and just pretend I am practicing.
I eventually am able to do the difficult doubles, all of them. I am very happy as they came a lot easier than I thought they would. Again, I am trying to be noticed but not obviously. I set up for the double lutzes and do them right in front of the one I’m trying to impress the most. And I do it very well!
I go back to do a few spins again, including a difficult entry camel from my right leg. Again it’s a bit pathetic, so I stick the jumps. I decide to see if I can do some double combos. I do a double toe double toe well enough and decide it’s time for a double lutz double toe. After a few attempts I land it. I am very happy with myself!
One of the Zamboni drivers when I skated tells us it’s time to get off. A coach tells him that they usually give us a but more time. He says he knows this and usually he can but there are hockey players out ready to practice.
I skate and do a few more lutzes, then get off the ice. I go to the lobby and sit on the floor. There’s other people there that I know. I wipe off my blades and look at them closely. The picks look well-used and I think I’ll need new blades, but there’s still enough of the blade left and they are very sharp still. I wipe them with my mitts to get them dry.
As I sit there, I see lots of family. I also see B. She asks if I need a ride as she’ll have to ask her parents. I tell her I can probably get a ride with my family. My younger brother says we can find a ride home and I see my aunt. I ask if we can go home with her. She says sure that she can do it. We get into the front of her truck and she drives us to our parents home. Recall fades.
Note (from Shelli). I believe this is about becoming confident in my abilities. I’ve always been doubtful that I am actually good at what I do. Also, I just discovered yesterday my new Director is someone who I skated sometimes with. I believe I am to be confident that she will see me as having great potential. Thank you, Goddess Crone for this gift!
When accepting coldness and arrogance that you encounter in this world as a fact of life and not as a personal rejection you can skate away on your own pace and find your way home again. I love how in this dream Sheli finds her way home again by accepting a drive from her mothers’ sister: her aunt. The love between sisters is strong. Do you remember the film Frozen? The Ice Queen Elsa showed that love was the only form of magic.
Loving yourself, embracing your own shadow is the gift of the Crone. To become an old man or old lady that is wise and accepting. Carol dreams a dream of accepting the two sides of everything: the Warrior and the Goddess, Logos and Mythos, the Shadow and our Conscious Self (it is no wonder that Elsa keeps creating mandala’s in the film frozen):
Another Wake Induced Lucid Dream visual: I am crying two times. My dreams seem to be repeating: there is two of everything. When my tear drops are falling from my eyes down my cheeks someone is holding what looks like a circular tin can to catch my tears while saying: “Have to get them before I die”. It is like this is a way of saving the energy of DNA. I am saying really like nothing notable.
There is no reason to be smart, there is every reason to just be yourself. To accept your wisdom, your sorrow, your pain, your joy. Like Clarissa Pinkola Estes says in Women who run with Wolves:
“If one overlooks a woman’s dual nature and takes a woman at face value, one is in for a big surprise, for when the woman’s wildish nature rises from her depths and begins to assert itself, she often has interests, feelings, and ideas which are quite different from those she expressed before.”
The tears with life juice are captured in a Grail-like tin.
The Grail as symbol dates back to the 12th century. It was said to have captured the blood of Christ. During the centuries the Grail has become a symbol for divine grace. To unite the God and the Goddess is a key to become the authentic Self.
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Jung
Literature:
Biernacki Loriliai, Renowned Goddess of Desire: Woman Sex and Speech in Tantra Oxford: University Press, 2008.
Estes Clarissa P, Women Who Run with the Wolves New York City Balantine Books 1996
Metzner Ralph, Well of Remembrance Boston Shambala Publications 1994
Shaw Martin, A Branch of the lightning Tree Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2011.
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Comments or suggestions? Share your thoughts:
Golly Susanne, this is a very powerful post indeed thank you so much. How well you've incorpoated the Goddesses. who visited you all during October. I'll be going back to it to digest further. There is so much depth to it. How I would love to be in dream group. Discussion about dreams embeds them well. Thank you to you and your lovely friends for this ..
Thank you Susan for your comment. I have been truely blessed to be invited to such a sparkling group of dreamers. We dream twice a month: mutual dreaming, remote viewing or any other “experiment” one of us proposes. It has improved my dreaming abilities so much.