{"id":2307,"date":"2011-04-28T06:33:56","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T10:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=2307"},"modified":"2011-04-28T06:41:38","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T10:41:38","slug":"here-on-this-earth-to-present-a-report-on-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/04\/here-on-this-earth-to-present-a-report-on-it.html","title":{"rendered":"Here on this earth to present a report on it"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
\nI am savoring these lines from a poem titled “Consciousness” by the Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz:<\/p>\n

I think that I am here, on this earth,<\/em>
\nTo present a report on it, but to whom I don’t know.<\/em>
\nAs if I were sent so that whatever takes place<\/em>
\nHas meaning because it changes into memory.<\/em><\/p>\n

These words go deep into the soul. Say them aloud, and see what stirs in you. Perhaps you will sense, however obscurely, a soul assignment older than your entry into your present life experience. This is the beginning of soul remembering<\/em>: reclaiming the knowledge that belonged to you, in spirit, before you came into your present body.<\/p>\n

With poetic clarity, Milosz also evokes our responsibility, as conscious humans, to be the authors of meaning in our own lives. This requires us to construct stories, and then share them.<\/p>\n

Some must take on this task for whole peoples. In my recent travels in the Baltic, I became vividly aware of the enormity and vital importance of this task among populations that suffered three savage occupations – by the Soviets, the Nazis and then the Soviets again – during World War II and remained under the iron boot of a totalitarian system that deformed memory and sought to crush the spirit for another 50 years. In a searingly brave and beautiful book, With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows<\/em>, Sandra Kalniete, a Latvian art historian who became her country’s foreign minister after independence, reports on her efforts to construct the true story of her family’s tragic experiences as deportees to the slave labor camps of the Soviet Gulag, where she was born. As the reader trudges, starved, with her mother or grandmother through the Siberian snows, a tiny flame flickers. “Whatever takes place\/Has meaning because it changes into memory.”<\/p>\n

I took the photo at sunrise on a stony beach on the Bay of Riga in front of the retreat house where I taught a workshop on Active Dreaming and soul recovery last weekend. I am chronicling my recent experiences \u00a0in Latvia and Estonia at\u00a0http:\/\/mossdreams.blogspot.com\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am savoring these lines from a poem titled “Consciousness” by the Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz: I think that I am here, on this earth, To present a report on it, but to whom I don’t know. As if I were sent so that whatever takes place Has meaning because it changes into memory. These…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,32,29],"tags":[140,137,138,139],"class_list":["post-2307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conscious-living","category-soul-recovery","category-story","tag-czeslaw-milosz","tag-latvia","tag-sandra-kalniete","tag-soul-remembering"],"yoast_head":"\nHere on this earth to present a report on it - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/04\/here-on-this-earth-to-present-a-report-on-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Here on this earth to present a report on it - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am savoring these lines from a poem titled “Consciousness” by the Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz: I think that I am here, on this earth, To present a report on it, but to whom I don’t know. As if I were sent so that whatever takes place Has meaning because it changes into memory. These…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/04\/here-on-this-earth-to-present-a-report-on-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-28T10:33:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-04-28T10:41:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2011\/04\/latvia-sunrise-stony-beach-small1-300x224.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":"Here on this earth to present a report on it - Dream Gates","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/04\/here-on-this-earth-to-present-a-report-on-it.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Here on this earth to present a report on it - Dream Gates","og_description":"I am savoring these lines from a poem titled “Consciousness” by the Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz: I think that I am here, on this earth, To present a report on it, but to whom I don’t know. 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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\/2307","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=2307"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2311,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions\/2311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}