{"id":109,"date":"2010-10-11T20:42:20","date_gmt":"2010-10-11T20:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/2010\/10\/song-of-soul-recovery.html"},"modified":"2010-10-11T20:42:20","modified_gmt":"2010-10-11T20:42:20","slug":"song-of-soul-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/10\/song-of-soul-recovery.html","title":{"rendered":"Song of soul recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thumbnail<\/a><\/span>When I am asked why I do what I do, I sometimes respond, “Because I love to see the light of spirit coming on in the eyes of someone who has recovered part of her soul.” Whatever the titles and descriptions, all of my workshops are about soul – about remembering the soul’s purpose, and reclaiming vital energy of soul that may have gone missing from a life through pain or grief, or wrenching life choices, through a broken heart or through giving up on a big dream. <\/p>\n

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I wrote the poem below after a profound experience of facilitating soul recovery.Through devastating events in her early life, a woman had lost child parts of herself that refused to remain in the body in a world that seemed terribly cruel. I found, not for the first time, that these missing child souls had gone to a safe haven, reminiscent of the place of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, which I was inspired to call the Island of No-Pain.<\/div>\n
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To persuade these beautiful children to come home to the woman’s adult self, bringing their gifts of energy and imagination, it was necessary to convince them that life in the body would be safe and could be fun. I don’t know whether full soul recovery would have been possible without the fierce and tender intervention of Great Mother Bear. She held the child self and the adult together in her lap, in her tremendous embrace, until the reunion was complete and they fused and became one being.<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n
Bearing the Child from the Island of No-Pain<\/b><\/div>\n
                                                                                                                                                                            There is an island beyond pain,
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Friendly to magic, where children sing
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And delight in learning the necessary things:
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The language of birds, how wishing is doing,
How to walk on moonlight and swim in the rain.<\/div>\n
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To get there, you must go off the maps,
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Track what rhymes in a day, do magical passes
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And go to Raven, Madrona and Orca for remedial classes
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In wearing darkness lightly, shedding old skin
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And plunging deep. You must travel through the gaps<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In the obvious world. The island reaches to you –
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How else could you know it? – in your dreams.
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One morning you fall awake with the gleam
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Of memory of a wise child, whole and beautiful
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Who owns herself but is gone from you. <\/div>\n
You long to go through the mist where she has gone
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To dance with shamans who heal to entertain
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And there is no fear, betrayal or shame.
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The red fingers of the tree that binds the shore
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Tap in madrona code: “Go, and bring her home.” <\/div>\n
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You are off in a heartbeat, a sail unfurled.
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Your dream soul is your leader
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To the house of rain and red cedar
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Where the lovely child flees from you.
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She won’t live in your body, won’t breathe in your world. <\/div>\n
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You will lose her again. Except for the great white Bear
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Who comes to embrace and enfold you
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Both, and will not let go, but holds you
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Together, till you cannot pull apart.
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In the arms of Bear Mother, the unhealed tear<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In your being opens the door to your heart
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And your child comes in, suspicious of your vows –<\/div>\n
“We’ll have fun!<\/i>” “What’s ours is ours.”
“I’ll never let them hurt you.”
“I’ll stand in my power.” We’ll never be apart.” <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Your double scream of birthing <\/div>\n
Scares the gentle black-tailed deer <\/div>\n
From the orchard, and sows fear
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Of miscarriage. But the Bear is with you
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And in you, bringing you to a place of birthing. <\/div>\n
You drink apple juice from the tree
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And your soul swells and claps her hands.
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The wise child looks out of your eyes and understands
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You will live your promises, be shaman of your self,
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Call souls back in others. You are home, and free.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I am asked why I do what I do, I sometimes respond, “Because I love to see the light of spirit coming on in the eyes of someone who has recovered part of her soul.” Whatever the titles and descriptions, all of my workshops are about soul – about remembering the soul’s purpose, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,22,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing-dreams","category-shamanic-dreaming","category-soul-recovery"],"yoast_head":"\nSong of soul recovery - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Song of soul recovery - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I am asked why I do what I do, I sometimes respond, “Because I love to see the light of spirit coming on in the eyes of someone who has recovered part of her soul.” Whatever the titles and descriptions, all of my workshops are about soul – about remembering the soul’s purpose, and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/10\/song-of-soul-recovery.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-11T20:42:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/10\/SanJuanIslandAtNight-thumb-370x277-18396-thumb-370x277-18397.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Moss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Song of soul recovery - 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}