{"id":2427,"date":"2011-05-11T10:37:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T14:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=2427"},"modified":"2011-05-11T10:43:24","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T14:43:24","slug":"dancing-and-drawing-with-the-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/05\/dancing-and-drawing-with-the-bear.html","title":{"rendered":"Dancing and drawing with the Bear"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am reading a stream of dream reports this morning involving bears. A woman dreamer is nervous when she sees huge brown bears on her lawn, and rushes around trying to secure windows and doors. Then she finds two sweet bear cubs right inside her home and cuddles with them. This denouement pleased me a lot, since I have learned from experience that Bear is the great medicine animal of North America, and that when we run away from bears or try to shut them out in our dreams, we may be seeking to avoid our own healing.<\/p>\n

As I continue to scan old journals, I find hundreds of images of the bear among my drawings. The sketch below honors four scenes from a dream reentry, in which I went back inside a dream in which I had been scared by a giant bear \u00a0who turned up inside my living space. \u00a0When I reentered the dream wide awake and conscious, I found a powerful ally for healing. To enlist such allies, we are of course required to brave up.<\/p>\n

Titled, “Visions of the Bear”, this drawing appears in my journal for January, 1995.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Text in “Visions of the Bear”<\/p>\n

At the top: “Don’t cry little one, the bear is coming to dance for you (Mohawk cradle song)”<\/p>\n

1. “Bear comes and we hug. We are joined at the heart by a glowing pink cord. This feels good! I know it is a true power of healing.”<\/p>\n

2. “Now I can step into Bear’s skin, and he into mine.”<\/p>\n

3. “We stomp-dance together, making thunder in the earth.”<\/p>\n

4. “I burn sage for him.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am reading a stream of dream reports this morning involving bears. A woman dreamer is nervous when she sees huge brown bears on her lawn, and rushes around trying to secure windows and doors. Then she finds two sweet bear cubs right inside her home and cuddles with them. This denouement pleased me a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,39,34,5,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-animal-dreams","category-creativity","category-dreams","category-journaling"],"yoast_head":"\nDancing and drawing with the Bear - 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\/05\/dancing-and-drawing-with-the-bear.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dancing and drawing with the Bear - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am reading a stream of dream reports this morning involving bears. 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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\/2427","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=2427"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2434,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427\/revisions\/2434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}