Tag: Spirituality

Dream Weaver

Published on by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment

Sometimes a source of comfort and encouragement comes in the form of a song. This is not surprising, music carries a resonance that goes beyond words. A song can magically bypass the thinking, label-making brain and bring us in touch with the Divine.

If you have been following my blog, you will know how fascinated I am with dreams. For many years, I have written them down, sometimes analysing them or allowing them to inform my practise as an artist and also guide me along my spiritual path. To put this dream in context with my life, I had been experiencing artist block, and just a general lack of confidence and direction in my arts practise. I was working on a painting with a kind of frustrated energy, painting then painting over things, changing composition and colour endlessly. It felt like I was going round and round in circles with no sense of agency or purpose. I was hovering dangerously close to full blown depression. This dream occurred in one of those lucid moments that happen just before waking up fully.

The Dream

I was in a dark closet, playing a motivational tape by one of the teachers from ‘the Psychic Teachers’ podcast I used to listen to. There was ivy all around me. The teacher said, very clearly, “I am going to play a song and just really listen”. I recognised the song, it was ‘Dream Weaver’. My first reaction was how left field it seemed, it had never been one of my favourites or one I had connected to anything. As I heard the song I felt the presence of Jesus- a very real and palpable presence. Then I woke up.

The Investigation

I knew I needed to look into the symbolic content of this short dream. It had such a lucid and clear feel to it, like Spirit took an opportune moment to shoot an arrow into my psyche in the short moments where I was open enough to receive it. The first thing I found was the backstory to the song by Gary Wright:

“In 1972, my friend George Harrison invited me to accompany him on a trip to India. A few days before we left, he gave me a copy of the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Needless to say the book inspired me deeply, and I became totally fascinated with Indian culture and philosophy. My trip was an experience I will never forget. During the early ’70s while reading more of the writings of Paramahansa Yogananda, I came across a poem called God! God! God!. One of the lines in the poem referred to the idea of the mind weaving dreams and the thought immediately occurred to me, weaver of dreams… Dream Weaver. I wrote it down in my journal of song titles and forgot about it. Several months passed, and one weekend, while in the English countryside, I picked up my journal and came across the title ‘Dream Weaver.’ Feeling inspired, I picked up my acoustic guitar and began writing. The song was finished in an hour. The lyrics and music seemed to have flowed out of me as if written by an unseen source. After the record was released and became successful many people asked me what the song meant. I really wasn’t sure myself and would answer ‘it was about a kind of fantasy experience… a Dream Weaver train taking you through the cosmos.’ But I was never satisfied with that explanation, and as years went by I began to reflect on what the song actually meant and then it came to me: ‘Dream Weaver, I believe you can get me through the night…’ was a song about someone with infinite compassion and love carrying us through the night of our trials and suffering. None other than God Himself.”

(Source: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/gary-wright/dream-weaver)

Needless to say, these words comforted and blessed me beyond my ability to express. Even the way the song came together for him gave me so much encouragement. The alchemy and co-creation we get to participate in with God, it is truly wonderous.

The collision of the sacred in ordinary spaces

Published on by Alyssa Kanitsch2 Comments

“Nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see. On the contrary, everything is sacred.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

There is a quietness and comfort that can only be found in the everyday. I believe that the most intimate sense of the presence of the Spirit is found in the nuts and bolts of our daily lives. The rising in the morning, the dirty dishes, the mealtimes, the shopping. The things we must do in our daily lives are like sea masts that tether us to our sense of purpose, of usefulness.

We seem to be bent toward thinking that God lives elsewhere….somewhere majestic, or at least in some piece of nature that is particularly divine or spectacular. But God firmly and persistently meets us in the daily grind, right where we are, with no makeup and no pre-rehearsed words. In our clumsiness, our boredom, our failings, our addictions and doubts.

I can hear so many voices, from Jesus, the mystics and spiritual men and women throughout the ages, cautioning us of fruitlessness of seeking God as if God were to be found outside of ourselves. Together they form a beautiful life affirming cacophony of voices inviting us to embrace Divinity with childlike eyes of wonder…

Paul the Apostle:

“In God, (or Divine Source) we live and move and have our being”

Julian Of Norwich:

“Greatly ought we to rejoice that God dwells in our soul; and more greatly ought we to rejoice that our soul dwells in God. Our soul is created to be God’s dwelling place, and the dwelling of our souls is God, who is uncreated.”

St John of the Cross:

“However softly we speak, God is so close to us that he can hear us; nor do we need wings to go in search of him, but merely to seek solitude and contemplate him within ourselves, without being surprised to find such a good Guest there.” ~

Jesus in John 17:

“So that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us”

God is at home in you, where you are. You can speak to Spirit just as you are. Divine presence is always with you, wherever you are. You do not need any earthy being to mediate between you and God. Where you are, that’s where God is. Right now this moment. In your sacred space, at home.

And it is not necessary to have great things to do. I turn my little omelette in the pan for the love of God.

Brother Lawrence





			
		

	
	



			
				



			

			
				
			
		

	
	

		
		
My Soul Will Glorify the Lord

				

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I made this little video in collaboration with Kylie and Sammy Horner, with lyrics by Beki Hemmingway. Artwork is mine and is an amalgamation of older pieces, some from my ‘Angels and Archetypes’ collection from 2019, and a couple of paintings from my most recent series “Butterflies With Tattered Wings’. 





I was participating in an ‘Introduction to Trinitarian Theology’ course with Baxter Kruger, and part of the content was to explore the Mary, the mother of Jesus and the very significant role she played in the story of redemption. She is the link between us and the humanity of the Christ. I hope you enjoy.










			
		

	
	



			
				



			

			
				
			
		

	
	

		
		
The Serendipity of Dreamwork

				

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Something is calling me towards re-engaging more fully with my dreams.





What started as decluttering my house led to a kind of decluttering of the mind: holding on to the valuable, letting go of the things that had been weighing me down. I found long-forgotten treasures like dream journals, some from recent years, and others from many years ago.





I want to follow the staircase down into my dreaming world because I believe the unconscious has new and wonderful offerings there for me. Wonderful, in the sense of revealing both shadow and light. But it seems to me that one cannot feel joy unless there is a willingness to dive into the shadowlands too. After all, that is how we become fully human.





I’ve been researching, as is so easy for us, when we find a subject of interest. There’s a plethora of information out there to be had on everything, and dreams are no exception! I zeroed in on the work of Carl Jung. He’s always fascinated me, especially in the way he fleshed out the idea of archetypes and used visual art extensively to explore dreams. 





According to Jung, dreams are revelatory. In other words they present content that we are completely unaware of in the daily chatter of our conscious minds. This may seem obvious at first to those who have dabbled in the practise of dreamwork. However, when you think about it, having an idea or concept presented to us, about us, which is outside of our inner dialogue feels miraculous. We are lifted away from the physical entanglements of our material existence into the unknown of the Divine.





Our dreams have an eternal quality- dreams from long ago can evolve in meaning. Rather than being like deadwood of the past, dreams are more like facets of a diamond ever revealing different aspects from the deep waters of the psyche. This is why it was so serendipitous for me to re-discover old dream journals and the artwork I did around them.





Feather





This piece ‘Feather’ was a collage around a dream character from more than 15 years ago, when I was studying counselling. When I found it, I felt compelled to do some more work around this drawing by asking questions and writing intuitive insights down. Not surprisingly, I found these archetypes just as relevant for me now as they were then, and the meaning has deepened and developed.





Interestingly, the owl-like creature represented God for me, which is comforting now as a mother who has lost a child. I see my heart being held in this picture. Not long after he passed, my angel son Jordan sent us many signs in the form of owls. Because of this, it speaks as reassurance that just like the girl in the picture (an aspect of me), his heart is also safe in God’s care.  It’s hard to describe the utter wordless wonder I feel in my soul with these deep symbols. They tell a much larger story.





Our lives, all of our lives, are truly a labyrinth of treasure.





I wrote a short poem about this dream character, which illustrates one aspect of the Jungian way of dream analysis. Unlike Freud, who used free association to decode dreams, Jung’s method is a way of bypassing the logical mind by trying to examine the images and archetypes as if you had never seen them before. As if you are trying to explain something to an alien or a small child.










Feathers are light
They are lifted by the air
They are soft to touch.
With feathers, a bird can
fly and enter into the 
heavenly space.
They shelter and comfort gently,
so quietly.
God has wings, too.
We gather under,
allowing them to enfold us,
Like a Mother Hen.


















			
		

	
	



			
				



			

			
				
			
		

	
	

		
		
Pond Days

				

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On days that are cloying,
When my ears protest with ringing
When my brain has decided to
blanket itself with a heavy haze,
Blurring my vision
And
Aching my bones...
The Spirit and I agreed
We should sit together 
and watch fish swim.
And side by side there,
just try to be.
She tells me my scattered,
anxious thoughts
Will entice me 
To coil up all my energy
and release it like a spring;
Only to find I become weaker still,
Snapped and broken.

I tell her:
"I'm glad you are ok with weakness.
And I'm glad that's where you work best.
I'm complex like a fractal,
And you knit everything together so well
Even when it looks so feeble and fragile."
So, she sets aside these little pond days for me,
Where we spend some time gazing at the fish,
And I'm learning how to just be,
I in Spirit and Spirit in me.


My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9 MSG