November 2014, Issue #1
Seeing in the Dark

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Susan Cerulean

Holding Sacred Posture

November 27, 2013

The world is in chaos. Deena Metzger in California has called me to do work on behalf of the Earth. A very small circle of us is trying to share sacred songs and ritual that must be done correctly if we are to save the world. But there aren't enough copies of the songs and the words are written in a very small typeface, hard to read. And there isn't enough time. Still, we do it. Then I return home all the way across the country. But almost immediately Deena calls us back to Topanga, this time in a larger group, including my husband Jeff Chanton, an oceanographer. Deena has several circles going. We have to do the work without knowing where or if we will sleep, or what we will eat. Time is short.

We try to figure out in leaderless circles what to do, how to proceed. My sharing in the circle seems too long for the group, but important to me. I do too much writing (or is it too much?). It pours out of me. I can hardly write the words, they come so fast. In one of the circles, after all that talk, all those words, I suddenly EXPERIENCE how to connect with the energy of Earth, the core of the Earth, the real thing. I connect with the sky and the fleecy clouds. I get very emotional about the beauty of it.

I assume a standing position, knees bent, head bowed, back rounded. My arms encircle the empty space in front of me, fingertips touching. The space inside my arms is palpably energetic, and it's Earth-shaped, round. In that position I can pull in, absorb, and also perhaps help protect the life energy of the Earth. I weep with gratitude.

Reflections

As a child, I was shaken from sleep from time to time with a dream or a nightmare that seemed as real to me as my daytime activities. But no one suggested that the reveries arose to guide me, and so I let them fade as quickly as they came.

In my early 30s, I was invited to join a group led by Tallahassee therapist and yoga teacher Loretta Armer that met every Monday night for several years. Two decades later, that circle still holds ten of us, and we still serve and honor the wisdom of the unconscious as we were taught by Loretta. This circle helps me see how my dreams were urging me into a kind of listening to the natural world, and a reflective writing style that as a trained biologist, I had never before imagined. The dreams asked me to advocate for wild birds and the Earth by communicating to a human audience what I learn directly from wilderness, wild birds and waters.

Writing and dream workshops with Deena Metzger have further carved my commitment to dream wisdom into my being. As each circle begins, Deena opens the day by inviting the wisdom of Spirit to inform us all through the sharing of our dreams. Often, there isn't enough time for all the dreams that people bring to the circle, and we can't always interpret their sacred text/instructions. Clear-cut direction from Spirit isn't always available. But we show up for the work, and there is a seamless quality to my writing with Deena that I cannot always access at home.

For the last five years, I have shared dreams in a "leaderless" circle of six women who gather once a month. Our purpose is to draw out froteach person the inherent wisdom coming through her own psyche, to allow what is transmitted to our unconscious dreaming to inform us. No one is in charge, and no one's opinion matters more than that of the dreamer herself.

The dream above illustrates how dream and waking lives can intersect and instruct one another. I’m especially intrigued by the specific instruction at the end. In the dream posture, the focus is inward, into the essence of what is being held or encircled by the woman's arms. Her eyes are downcast and contemplative, neither self-absorbed nor submissive. Absorbed, yes, with what is being held—clearly so precious—and submissive to the Earth's intention, but not to the old cultural paradigms, in which women are forced to submit to the patriarchy.

The woman is attending to what she holds. She is listening. She has been given, and holds, a gift of inestimable value. In this posture, she is midwife, husband, and laboring mother.

What do the woman's bent knees suggest? A stance that can absorb shock, a soft stance, a posture from which she can move and respond quickly. It is a posture that proposes reverence. And there is action in the firing of triceps and biceps as they encircle the roundness, action in the standing squat, the readiness to spring forward when summoned. And there is the throbbing response of what is held, that which is encircled by the body. In the dream, there appears to be empty space, but an empty space could not push back against the physical body like this does.

I have seen this very dream posture held by a rare unborn turtle, and I have seen the egg shell that clasped the embryo, and the sandy beach that sheltered the egg.

Some years ago I helped a friend who was tracking the nesting of loggerhead sea turtles on a north Florida island. Our job was to excavate any unsuccessful nests from deep under.

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