{"id":2632,"date":"2011-06-05T00:14:52","date_gmt":"2011-06-05T04:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=2632"},"modified":"2011-06-05T00:14:37","modified_gmt":"2011-06-05T04:14:37","slug":"whats-behind-the-green-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/06\/whats-behind-the-green-door.html","title":{"rendered":"What’s behind the green door"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A green door in a white wall, with a \u00a0creeper trailing about it. You push the door, and find it unlocked. You enter, and discover yourself in a garden of surpassing beauty, where a lovely friend takes you by the hand and leads you to a palace where a wise woman in shows you the book of your life, in which the pictures are all living scenes. In the garden behind the wall, you are a \u201cwonder-happy\u201d child.<\/p>\n

When the adults around you pushed you to hurry up and grow up, and stop “making things up”, and get through school, and work, work, work, and make your way in the world, you forgot about the green door, and the beauty behind it – or dismissed all of that as an idle dream. From time to time \u2014 usually when you are off your usual path, or totally lost, you come upon that door again. But you have appointments to keep, you\u2019re under deadline, you\u2019re with companions who would not understand \u2026 and you pass by the green door, until at last the \u201ckeen brightness\u201d goes out of your life, and you lose your appetite for the things you have worked so hard to accomplish.<\/p>\n

H. G. Wells evoked this place of true imagination in a wonderful short story simply titled \u201cThe Door in the Wall.\u201d We can dismiss the story, and the world it vividly brings to life, as the product of childish fantasy, but to do so would be terribly and utterly wrong.<\/p>\n

Each of us has a door to a place of wonder and imagination that is altogether real. The child inside us – or the child we need to bring home to us – knows that door very well.<\/p>\n

For me, the door to one of these places is a tunnel that winds through a mountain. On the far side, a path leads through flowering gardens alive with the sounds of water to an amazing building, which combines countless architectural styles without dissonance or confusion, guarded by a gatekeeper who asks newcomers, \u201cWhat is the correct time?\u201d (To which the only correct answer is, \u201cThe time is now.\u201d) Beyond the gatekeeper is a gallery filled with the art and artifacts of many cultures and times. To touch any of these objects is to be transported to the place from which it derived.<\/p>\n

Deeper inside the House of Time \u2014 that is its name \u2014 is a library of which I never tire. Any book in this library opens another world. The librarian appears as a gentle scholar, but sometimes his shadow throws the profile of a long-beaked ibis bird against the wall. Master teachers appear in this library. I come here often, and have guided others to this place. When we have need \u2014 and sufficient courage \u2014 we can inspect our personal Book of Life.<\/p>\n

If we are very lucky, we may chance upon the door to a place of wonder as we travel the physical world. I know a garden gate, approached through an arcade of rambling roses, in a mellow brick wall behind a country house in Gloucestershire that opens into dappled greenwoods where beech trees have voices, and beings of an order of evolution older and other than humans lead busy and colorful lives. You cannot see them or hear them if the \u201cwonder-happy\u201d child in you has gone missing.<\/p>\n

I am not sure which is a sadder condition: to have lost the green door, or to open it and find that there is nothing extraordinary on the other side because you have lost the power to imagine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Adapted from The Three “Only” Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence and Imagination<\/a><\/em> by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.<\/p>\n

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

A green door in a white wall, with a \u00a0creeper trailing about it. You push the door, and find it unlocked. 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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\/2632","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=2632"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2637,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632\/revisions\/2637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}