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Author Topic: I am that little soul yearning  (Read 5433 times)

Tony Crisp

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I am that little soul yearning
« on: June 16, 2020, 10:14:53 AM »

Dear Tony,

I just want to express my gratitude for you and all you have posted
on your website and for all the books you have written. I still have
your book "Do You Dream?" published in 1972 - the first book I ever
bought on dreaming, and have been carrying with me through life ever
since. I so appreciate "The New Dream Dictionary" and look forward to
its expansion. Your website is so insightful and inspiring.

I do have a question or two, though, and hope you can give me and
other dreamers like myself some guidance. As a person who recalls
numerous dreams each night and writes them in a journal (as opposed
to typing them in your on-line program), are some ways better than
others to "work" with such a plethora of dreams?  I don't want to
intellectually understand each and every dream , but what is the best
use of dreams for those who are such vivid dreamers? How does one
chose from so many dreams the ones to dwell upon, to research, to
work on dream groups, etc? (Yes, I have looked at dream series,
recurring symbols, etc. and see patterns and changes, and yet I still
find it a challenge to keep up with such a prolific dream life).

I am also fascinated with dreams and art, and perhaps you give some
pointers in this area as well? One understanding I have in regards to
dream art is to express the feeling of the dream through your art,
not to literally try to reproduce the dream with its setting and
characters in a work of art. But how does one bridge this gap from
the literal to the feeling aspect?

I am that little soul yearning for expansion....

Thank-you for taking the time to read this e-mail, and to respond if
you are able.

Sincerely,

Emily
California, USA




Tony Crisp

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Re: I am that little soul yearning
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2020, 10:26:32 AM »
Emily - Thanks for your really interesting email, and the things you said.

I am not at home at the moment, and am sitting cross legged on the floor of a tiny bedroom in a friend's house in London. She and her partner are still asleep, so I am being quiet here with her laptop literally on my lap.

It also means I am limited in my response as there are some things I would like to attach, but maybe later when I get home.

What is the best way to approach so many dreams? I believe that dreams are mostly like snapshots of an ongoing process that emerges and is an expression of our Life. As such they are all samples of the same thing. I remember working with someone on a dream of hers that was 18 years old. It had remained intriguing so she wanted to explore it. When we got to the heart of it I likened it to taking a core sample from a tree. Maybe the bit in the core was old and had been developed many years previously, but looking closely it was seen to be linked or supportive of what was happening to the new growth today. There was no separation.

So even if you only took one dream a week, or a month, you would still be gaining insight into the overall process of your life. Perhaps the most important thing is to try to reach the passionate core of the dream. I say this because my experience is that our own core is vitally alive and passionate. When we touch it through a dream we experience that passion, often with very powerful emotions. Within those feelings lies great insight. If we then record what we have gained or found, we gradually build up a grand awareness of the flow of our own life, and also of Life.

So my response to your question is to choose any dream that is vivid and interesting and keep approaching it until you get to that wonderful experience of its core. If you want to explore that idea with me further I would like to.

As for art and dreams, well, I think this differs with each person. I did write a piece about this years ago. It is at http://www.dreamhawk.com/art-d.htm.

But that is very general, and I think you are right about expressing the feeling of the dream in your art. Something I have noticed in doing this is that the actual expression in creating what arises from the dream is that it is partly conscious rational, but also a spontaneous eruption from the unconscious. So in painting, writing or creating in whatever form, it needs to be a marriage of those things, and maybe that has to be learned, or at least encouraged.

Most of my own attempts at this come out as poems or stories. A poem that arose from a dream is http://www.dreamhawk.com/bells.htm.

And a story is http://www.dreamhawk.com/shining.htm this was a dream that I slightly altered, adding a name and place to express understandably to a reader.

I have a feeling I would love to do a workshop on this subject.

As ever - Tony



« Last Edit: April 21, 2021, 11:58:55 AM by Tony Crisp »

Tony Crisp

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Re: I am that little soul yearning
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2020, 10:27:16 AM »
January 11th 2008

Dear Tony,

Good to hear from you! I'm not sure if I'm emerging into the New Year or if the New Year is emerging into me! It goes well.

I would love to work with you! I've heard of and read about "active imagination" and "dream re-entry" but have little to no experience with it, at least in working with someone one-on-one. I know I, for one, would benefit greatly from being guided by you over the phone, as you have such extensive experience with and knowledge about dream work. It may be just what I need in order to learn how to get to the core of the dream more directly.  Having read so much of your writing, I have trust in you.

Prior to this last reply, I've been thinking if I were to do this which (of my hundreds of dreams) would I chose. Suffice it to say I thought of a snake dream - one red snake and one green snake. So, life does work in mysterious ways.

Thank you for taking the time to read through Sheila's website. I have to agree it does sound like an association technique, but there's a part in Part II of her IASD award winning paper in which she details how the images of one of her client's collages relate to images in dreams the client had previously. I think Sheila's sense is that our dreams can be expressed unconsciously through art. This is different than bringing conscious material forward and expressing it consciously. I suppose this could be the difference in ways artists approach their work, intuitively such as I do, or preconceiving an idea and doing the art work to express that idea. Such an interesting topic, art and dreams!  And I don't mean to belabor any conversation about this.

Thanks for explaining the workshop scenario. I'm grateful that you are able and willing to do this work for free! To keep what we have we need to give it away...

As for setting up a time, I will be out of town (leaving tomorrow Jan. 11th and will be back the earliest on Tuesday, and maybe not until Friday the 18th. I have an aging mother and we will be having her diagnosed for her now very apparent memory loss.

If we were to talk this month, some days that would work for me would be sometime around the 22nd to the 24th (my husband will be out of town one or two of those days, so I would feel most comfortable doing this exercise - at least for the first time when he's not here, so the only presence in the house is my dream). But, if those days don't work for you, let me know what does and we can decide on a date and time.

Thank you for offering to do this - it means so much. Somehow it feels right, and I know it will be good for both of us!

Take care, Emily


Tony Crisp

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Re: I am that little soul yearning
« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2020, 10:32:03 AM »
On Jan 13, 2008, at 4:18 AM, Tony Crisp wrote:

The snakes dream sounds interesting Emily.

Okay - the dates you gave are fine - 22-24. So what we need to do now is to pinpoint a time and one of the days. Any of those days are free for me, and as I do not have any routine to adhere to at the moment I suggest you choose a time and day. However I don't know what time zone you are in yet, but here are my details.

Time zone is GMT/UK. My telephone number is *********** - or from abroad *********. If you have Skype you can find me as *********.

As I can get very inexpensive calls I could call you at a time we decided on, or use Skype for free.

Present day communication options are amazing. Having used this with people as far away as Japan I find it has knocked down previous barriers I had regarding working in this way.

So, looking forward to meeting you and your dreams.

As ever - Tony


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Re: I am that little soul yearning
« Reply #4 on: June 16, 2020, 12:00:58 PM »
29th January 2008

Dear Tony,

Who was it who said (something like):  "We are not human beings trying to have a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings trying to have a human experience"? I see more clearly that it's a life-long journey (or longer) to be human, or spiritual, or both.

Thank you again for your words. I have not heard of the diamond body before. You lead me in new directions that awaken possibility and potential in myself.

I spent time on your website looking at your vision of the world through the camera. The photographs of the child were most delightful and expressive of our human range of emotions. Your flower photographs brought me back to my first experience with the camera - using close-up lenses to photograph them. I would most times be crawling on the ground and experiencing the elements of the earth. I have several "favorites" from your galleries - the Unfolding Fern from New Zealand, the Orchid Heart, Forget-Me-Nots and more. The London Crow captivated me as well - perhaps because of its blackness against the white flowers and grey branches. I was pleased to read that you started your own photography business at 15 years old; you must have a strong spirit that has guided you, and continues to guide you, in your prolific life! I am honored to be in contact with you.

As I don't yet have the link for the art league which is hosting my images (and that of other artists in the league), I am attaching two images I created last year. The ideas were from two different dreams, and I manipulated them in Photoshop. This is to give you an idea of the direction I took and would like to continue to take, with dreams.

Thanks again for your time and words!

Emily - To see the whole series click on https://dreamhawk.com/interesting-people/emily/ - here is part of it:

Wow! Language! It is so designed to help us create a three dimensional world in which there is up and down, right and wrong, success and failure - and to get anywhere you have to drag this body around. What height is there to climb? What goal is there to reach to be yourself? You are already an emanation of the great reality. You are already IT.

A person experiencing enlightenment for the first time said -

I am a wave on a shoreless sea.
From no beginning
I travel to no goal,
Making my movements stillness.
Constantly I am arriving
And departing,
Being born and dying.
I am always with you
And yet have never been.

Obviously that was said from standpoint of someone not lock up in the feeling or ideas of paradoxes.

You wrote earlier, "How do you humbly walk with God."

The word God has got so many false association with it.

That is not simply my message. In early Christianity it was taught that you are already saved and washed clean.

Dear Emily, we have been fed so much information that actually puts us off from walking with God. We have been told or taught that we must utter prayers to God, we must sing hymns and other praises  - all things we have to DO. But that is completely the opposite to what we have been told God said - "Be still and know that I am God."

To put it in other words, "Do nothing and let things happen." We do not have to do anything to breathe, to digest our food or beat our heart, God/Life does that spontaneously. We are so full of doing things that we think we are masters of our self. Stand aside and know you are Life/God. See Healing Experience - https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-healing-experience/ Opening to Life - https://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/

Suzanne Segal in her book (Collision with the Infinite) says, "There is no one I could instruct to do something to make you the vastness. That’s already and always who you are.

There is no end to all of this, just as there was no beginning. There are constant “bus hits,” as I now call them, in which the infinite expands yet again and again. The substance of the vastness is so directly perceivable to itself in every moment that the circuitry at times requires another adjustment phase to get used to more infinite awareness. When asked who I am, the only answer possible is: I am the infinite, the vastness that is the substance of all things. I am no one and everyone, nothing and everything—just as you are."

With you Now - Tony



« Last Edit: June 16, 2020, 12:06:00 PM by Tony Crisp »