{"id":4154,"date":"2012-01-30T11:11:53","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T16:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=4154"},"modified":"2012-01-30T11:11:53","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T16:11:53","slug":"mouse-gives-a-lesson-in-creation-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/mouse-gives-a-lesson-in-creation-theory.html","title":{"rendered":"Mouse gives a lesson in creation theory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Magical child (from a Ragu ad in Oprah magazine)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I am sitting on an airplane next to a round-faced little girl in pink. Her mother calls her \u201cMouse\u201d and isn\u2019t interested in talking to her, but she\u2019s full of curiosity about everything from the ventilation system to the creation of the world, so she plies me with questions and stories for the whole flight.<\/p>\n

She gazes out the window as we skim the cloudbanks. \u201cIt looks like we\u2019re flying on glass.\u201d<\/p>\n

She asks, \u201cHave you ever landed from the sky in water?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot in this body.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut can people do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, sure. There\u2019s a kind of plane called a flying boat, or a seaplane, that lands on pontoons that keep it afloat. And then there are rocket ships that splash down and are fished out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever touched the sun?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot with my hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I feel the sun is following me, real close.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thinks for a bit, then comes out with, \u201cHow was the world invented?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people say God made the world. Others say it began with a Bing Bang and the star-stuff has been expanding ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know a boy who says the world was made by God blowing sand.\u201d<\/p>\n

I falter a bit, as she quizzes me further on cosmogony and the on how \u201cCheeses\u201d (it takes me a moment to realize she is talking Jesus) was born. Then she looks up at the air vent and asks me to show her how it works. I demonstrate turning it counter-clockwise to let the air out, clockwise to shut it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe that\u2019s how the universe was made,\u201d Mouse says brightly. \u201cSomeone turned everything counter-clockwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

She laughs. Her mother looks sullen; it seems Mouse isn\u2019t supposed to laugh.<\/p>\n

I am so sorry for Mouse’s mother, because she is missing so much. Kids are the masters of imagination, and we gain so much by listening and sharing their stories, their dreams, their versions of reality. If mom would only listen to Mouse, then perhaps the 11-year-old inside the adult would come alive, bringing energy and joy and everyday magic. I profoundly hope that Mouse will survive the efforts to turn off her world of wonder, and will be able to claim the name and the role in life that pleases her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am sitting on an airplane next to a round-faced little girl in pink. Her mother calls her \u201cMouse\u201d and isn\u2019t interested in talking to her, but she\u2019s full of curiosity about everything from the ventilation system to the creation of the world, so she plies me with questions and stories for the whole flight.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,41,3,26,8],"tags":[999,1000,998],"class_list":["post-4154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-dreams","category-coincidence","category-imagination","category-life-direction","category-synchronicity","tag-childs-imagination","tag-listening-to-children","tag-mouse"],"yoast_head":"\nMouse gives a lesson in creation theory - 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\/2012\/01\/mouse-gives-a-lesson-in-creation-theory.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mouse gives a lesson in creation theory - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am sitting on an airplane next to a round-faced little girl in pink. Her mother calls her \u201cMouse\u201d and isn\u2019t interested in talking to her, but she\u2019s full of curiosity about everything from the ventilation system to the creation of the world, so she plies me with questions and stories for the whole flight.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/mouse-gives-a-lesson-in-creation-theory.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-30T16:11:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2012\/01\/Magical-child-Ragu-181x300.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":"Mouse gives a lesson in creation theory - 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\/2012\/01\/mouse-gives-a-lesson-in-creation-theory.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mouse gives a lesson in creation theory - Dream Gates","og_description":"I am sitting on an airplane next to a round-faced little girl in pink. 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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\/4154","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=4154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4157,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4154\/revisions\/4157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}