The Three ONLY Things

Leah Piken Kolidas really flipped a switch in my psyche. When I responded to her Robert Moss interview in March, it reawakened an interest in the power of dreams.

I immediately pulled old dream books off my shelf, and put a few new ones on hold at my public library. Soon, I had The Three ‘Only’ Things in my hands, and was avidly devouring it. The subtitle identifies what those three things are:  Tapping the power of Dreams, Coincidence & Imagination.

Amazon offers a summary, but I think this section says it all:

According to Robert Moss, it is ONLY through dreams, coincidence, and the workings of imagination that we begin to remember that there is a world beyond the obvious one, a world where we reawaken to who we are and what we are meant to become. Reawakening to this world, and living fully in it, is like awakening to a world of colour from black and white. The Three “Only” Things offers practical ways to make our dreams, imagination, and coincidences more powerful and active in our lives. The techniques take only a few minutes a day, but have amazing results.

Deanna Joseph, the Inspiration Editor at Bella Online, was so impressed that she said: ” Honestly, if there was an instruction book handed out at our birth, it should be this one!”

You may be wondering just who this Robert Moss is. He is a world authority on dreams, a bestselling novelist, and a former foreign correspondent and professor of ancient history. In The Secret of the Three Only Things, Moss reveals a major flaw in the approach that so many have attempted to adopt (Hint: the title of the book is the first two words of the title of this small essay):

The great secret of fulfilling our heart’s desires and living in joy and abundance is an open secret. It is a power to be claimed as soon as we awaken to its existence and adopt the tools and habits required to bring it through.

The lesser secret involves the law of attraction: whatever we think or feel strongly, the universe says yes. If we carry around feelings of failure or dread, the world will give us lots of reasons to feel those things. If we follow our creative passions and are willing to make a leap of faith, the universe will support us and will bring us resources and opportunities in magical ways.

The greater secret is that to work the law of attraction successfully, we need to be aware of which part of us is doing the willing and choosing, and we need to develop a practice that engages the body and the larger self, not merely the calculating ego.

That calculating ego is superb at tripping up our good intentions. Why would we want to manifest something that is not, in the long run, for our own good? We have all struggled to differentiate between wants and needs. As an artist and poet, I am always seeking to reveal the essence of things. Whatever tools I can utilize to expedite that inner knowing, those intuitive flashes that literally feel like my spirit is vibrating within my flesh and bones, I am willing to give more than a few trial runs.

In order to continue awakening to my own motivations, what excites me, what is worth spending my time and talents pursuing, I believe dreams offer invaluable insights. Sleep is restorative, and we apparently dream at least 5 times a night. It seems ludicrous to me that such an activity, which our whole species spends so much time engaged in, is sometimes dismissed as meaningless.

Dreams emerge from within.They are products (or productions!) of my own mind and spirit. I am grateful to be offered more tools that aid the deciphering of my nightly treasures.

Of further interest:

Robert Moss interviews and reviews with Merryn Jose.

Dreaming the soul’s path: part two of a two-part interview for New Life Journal.

The Secret History of Dreaming #51.

Interview on KRON-TV

Interview on SHAW-TV.

Dreaming True, an interview with Robert Moss by Connie Hill.

Harvesting Your Dreams

I recently found a wonderful post by Leah over at Creative Every Day, where she interviews Robert Moss. I thought it was the perfect subject for her, as her art often looks like dreams captured on canvas.

I have read many books about dreams and dreaming, including those by Gayle Delaney,  Patricia Garfield, Stephen LaBerge (Lucidity Institute), to mention a few, and enjoyed Robert Moss’s Conscious Dreaming quite a number of years ago. I think I will have to read it again.

What, you may ask, do dreams have to do with art? Robert Moss experiences quite a direct connection, as he states in the interview with Leah:

My seven nonfiction books on dreaming and imagination have flowed almost seamlessly from my dreams. My dreams also give me scenes, plot ideas, characters and dialogue for my novels and sometimes the whole of a short story.

Moss has also written The Secret History of Dreaming, which one reviewer, Jo Harjo, describes as “an essential text” that “should be included alongside any study of human history or scientific inquiry.” Robert Moss, she continues, “is a brilliant teacher of the immense and intimate field of dreaming. Nearly anything imagined, from invention, to strategy to poetry, has its roots in dreams. Moss deftly and powerfully demonstrates that dreams are the spirit body from which this world emerges.”

What struck me most in the interview, however, was Moss’s description of “navigating your life by synchronicity”:

To harvest messages from dreams and coincidence, you need to develop a talent for resemblances – for noticing what looks like or sounds like something else. If you have an ear for puns, you’ll pick up messages in a dream that others may miss. If you have a playful sense that the universe is alive, and that unseen forces may be at play around you and with you – giving you a secret handshake, or mussing your hair, or sometimes pushing you back – then you’ll come alive to the great art of navigating by synchronicity.

This really struck a chord with me. I strive to constantly stay attuned to interpreting what is going on around me in a “symbolic” sense. I believe in a meaningful universe, which communicates with me (and everyone else) on a spiritual and energetic level. Every event contains symbolic information, which I learn to interpret as I practice listening with an open mind and heart. In a sense, I am treating my life as a waking dream, and applying the same sorts of tools that are used to decipher dreams harvested from the sleeping state.

It’s an exciting way to live. I can also attest that it provides vivid subject material for making art and writing poetry.

A~B~C~Dream!

I just completed a new paper quilt, and when you look at the colors, you can see that I am longing  for spring. The dimensions are 23.5″ (h) by 17.5″ (w).

A~B~C~Dream

Dreams are a door into a whole different world of sensory (and extrasensory) experience. It seems like pure nonsense if you apply the rules of the waking world. However, if you accept the freedom of the dreamworld, you may even be able to bring some of its magic back with you.

Quite a Step

It is quite a step to jump from doodles to passion, but I am inspired, for whatever strange reasons, to do so.

I have a great passion for doing art. I am constantly drawn to others who exhibit this passion, who spend every spare moment, or, who “steal” moments from activities that others might consider more necessary, or even sacrosanct, in order to practice art. My thoughts seldom stray far from some aspect of it. Whenever I spend money, it is usually in service of art. I read to educate myself about techniques and processes that would help me better serve my obsession. I dream of it, and wake with the desire to do more of it, always more. I am a devout practitioner, an ardent follower, of a practice that has gripped the hearts and minds of many others “foolish” enough to let their souls be revealed, openly, on paper, clay, stone, metal, cloth.

I cannot present an impressive list of accomplishments, or degrees that any institution has granted me to justify this title of artist. I have simply given it to myself. I make art to enrich my life, to better understand the world and my place in it. If I want to know something, I start making art around it. I listen for direct references or allusions to it: a song, a remark, a news article, a conversation. I notice things that are connected to it: a feather on the pavement, the colors of a fallen leaf, the design of a wrought iron fence, the gestures of tree limbs, reaching with the same yearning I experience, into an immense sky. My dreams provide startling metaphors. My hands fashion symbols, designs. To you, my piece of art may be unremarkable, go unnoticed; your journey and mine may not be compatible at present. Or, you may recognize my work as a signpost along your journey, because you intuit my underlying influences, the connections between us.

When I look at certain pieces of art, there is something that rises within me, that recognizes the beauty and strength of the artist’s vision, that is exhilarated by the possibilities inspired by that vision. I am compelled to keep looking, trying to take it in, hoping to absorb its energy or, perhaps, vibrate at the same level of energy I perceive emanating from it. At such times, I offer praise to that artist for affording me such a moment of grace. This is how I experience holiness/wholeness.

Mary Oliver says, at the end of her poem “Mockingbirds:”

Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning–
whatever it was I said

I would be doing–
I was standing
at the edge of the field–
I was hurrying

through my own soul,
opening its dark doors–
I was leaning out;
I was listening.

That is what I’m doing with the art I create. I’m leaning out. I’m listening. I’m opening every dark door of my soul that I encounter. And I’m willing to share the view.