Dreaming in The Dark…
Author: Wren
Author: Wren
The
veil between the worlds grows thin. We can feel it. As Pagans across
the
globe decorate their altars and prepare to celebrate another turn of
the wheel of the seasons, we can sense the subtle difference in the air.
In the Southern Hemisphere, it is Beltane. Wildflowers and the first
fruits of the land are heaped high amongst the ribbons and wreaths of
pink and light green. Here in the Northern regions, pumpkins and Indian
corn nestle in harvest baskets while orange and black candles flicker
away the shadowy shapes of the evenings that now seem to come too soon.
Whether we are welcoming back the strengthening sun or bidding farewell
to our long summer days, Pagans can feel the energies changing. Another
season has passed. A new beginning approaches. And it is somewhere
between what was and what will be, that we now stand.
But
it is more than the shifting of the energies that we feel. There is
also an increasing awareness of something else afoot. A swift shape
slips by and is visible only for a fraction of the second that it takes
us to turn our heads in its direction. The tinkling silver sound of
ethereal laughter is carried over the treetops only to fade away in the
very same instant that we realize it is there. There is definitely more
going on here than meets the eye or greets the ear. We can feel it: We
are not alone.
All
moments of birth and of death are great mysteries. Even as we shed our
tears of joy as a new life begins, somewhere there is another who weeps
for one that has just ended. And each of these moments –that of birth
and that of death — contains something of the other within it. At birth,
we leave our suspended state within the womb and begin our journey into
this life. Whatever past we may have had before our lungs again drew
breath is lost to us save for that brief flash of odd recognition that
we might experience from time to time. And at death, we once again must
leave behind all that has become so familiar to us in order to enter
into the realms where the bodies of flesh have no footing and the
thoughts of men have no words.
When
we
come to realize –as most Pagans do — that the same comforting embrace
of our state before birth is the very state to which we shall return,
then death no longer conjures up any terrors for us. It is a natural
changing of energies. And just as the seasons flow seamlessly from one
into another, so too can we. Even if the outward circumstances of either
our coming or our going seems abrupt, sudden or violent, still the
prepared spirit can pass easily from one state to another. We have done
it before. We shall do it again. And we are not alone.
In
the times of transition, in the seasons of change, we can catch
glimpses of those who are never far off. Spirits of nature,
spirits of the elements, visit us in our dreams. Dreams are an
in-between state. While we are neither fully conscious nor totally
unaware, our bodies may slumber but our spirits wander the corridors of
timeless space. In these realms, we may meet the Others who live on
planes much different from our own.
Figures
from our long distant past wander here also while awaiting some new
adventure. Some may appear simply to offer a bit of timely advice or a
word or two of inspiration just when we need it the most. Our Ancestors
too, we can greet once again and then talk for a while of fond memories.
They also appear to remind us of something of value that we have
overlooked. It
is no big wonder then that upon awakening, we so often have a taste of
immortality upon our lips. For we have been in the presence of immortal
things and of the Immortals Themselves. Therein the past and the present
and the future exist together. The boundaries between finality and
possibility are as close as one second is to the next. Nothing there is
stagnant. Nothing there is really dead. There the energy of the past
still exists — as it must — in order to give birth to the future.
We are
someone’s future. Just as we look forward to the future embodied within
our children and our children’s children, someone in the
past looked into what was their future and it was we whom they saw. We
are someone’s hope. We are someone’s dream. We are those whom our
Ancestors dreamt of and upon whom they placed their trust of a
future. We are the proof of their faith, the product of their love and
the culmination of their present. They desired us. They looked for us.
They live within us. We are not alone.
And
so it is not so very strange then that in the times of transition, at
the changing of the seasons, we who now are here should look both into
the past and into the future. Yet nowhere do we feel that this is a
contradiction. The Earth is both
awake and asleep. At Beltane, the Earth is just awakening from Her
dreams; at Samhain, She is once again falling into slumber. As She
awakens, She tastes the immortality of all of the spirits that share Her
energies and as She is falling asleep, She draws them around Her in
comfort. Somewhere She slowly awakes. Somewhere She drifts into sleep.
She is beginning to dream. She is remembering the dream that She had.
She isalways in a state of transition.
And
perhaps that is what, in the end, sets Witches and Wiccans and Pagans
apart from other folk. For it is we who recognize that it is no
contradiction to say that we believe in
“what was, is, and shall be again”. We have lived before. We are alive
today. We shall live again. We are the past of the future. We are the
present. We are future of the past. We each are one person who holds all
of these things within him or herself without contradiction.
If
this is indeed possible, we can understand now too that the past is not
dead nor the future unborn. All exists. All can be found if one knows
how to seek it out. And we Witches know how. There is nothing unnatural
or supernatural about it. In the times of transition, it is simply
easier to see. The hard part is in the believing of the possibility
itself. And that is why we are not
alone.
They
come to help us to see. They come to help us to believe. They come
because we are the future that They hoped for. They come because we are
the future that They saw. They come because we are the future that They
believed in. They come because They care for us. They come because They
care about the future that we now shall shape. They come. In the times
of transition, They come. While we are dreaming in the dark, They come.
We are not alone.
We are never alone.
