The Field of Dreams

The 13th Century Sufi poet Rumi talks of a field which, over the years during my spiritual awakening has drawn me in. Maybe it speaks to you too? Many of you will know the poem, and many of you will have already been to the field:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.

This month, at our The Way of the Buzzard Circles, seventy of us journeyed to this grassy meadow, and the insights were as usual, remarkably consistent across all five of our Circles. So, here is our group sharing.

The principle of The Field of Dreams

I first came across the concept of the Field of Dreams back in my early days of learning how to weave Earthcare and Spirituality together. I was reading a book by Marian Van Eyk McCain called ‘Downshifting’ which was all about reversing this concept our culture tells us which is ‘more is better’. I was told at school to work hard, get a good job, earn lots of money and then I will be happy. Of course, so many of us enter into this agreement only to feel cheated when we discover that earning lots of money and having lots of things is not the magic formula to being happy. Marian talks in her book of adjusting your life so you live with less, and therefore have more. More time and more satisfaction, and from the Earth’s point of view this way of living is more conducive to longevity, compared with our consumer way of living society tells us is necessary.

Marian explains a number of principles, one being The Field of Dreams: Build it and they will come’. At the time I found this so uplifting, as I was feeling disillusioned with the World and the rate change was happening away from our destructive western way of living to have any chance of surviving beyond another couple of generations. Marian talks of the need to invest in the alternative structures; that we are living in two Worlds. One of these Worlds is based on ‘the way things have always been’, consumerism, growth, increasing GDP and so on. The other is based on alternative ways of living, more in harmony with each other and the Earth and those we share the Earth with. She emphasises the need to invest our time and money in these alternative structures so they will grow, and the more of us who do this the more they will grow. Eventually the balance will tip, and one day we will wake up and the alternative structures will be the norm, as the old unsustainable, unethical ways fall away.

So this left me feeling empowered rather than disillusioned, hopeful rather than pessimistic. I felt my fire coming back, and I took to working on the side which builds the Field of Dreams as my work expanded into the business of spiritual awakening.

Dreaming this World into being

This is where the gift of shamanic journeying comes in, as the definition of shamanism is going to other realities to bring back the energies which are most needed at this time. So, we can literally go into the Universal energies and draw them down into our reality. We can dream the new World into being. I find this very exciting!

Psychologist and anthropologist Alberto Villoldo talks of this in his book – one of my favourite books on shamanism which I have read many times – Courageous Dreaming: How Shamans Dream the World into Being. In the opening paragraph of the book he says:

“Whether we realise it or not, we are all dreaming the world into being. What we’re engaging in is not the sleeping act we are so familiar with, but rather a type of dreaming we do with our eyes open. When we’re unaware that we share the power to co-create reality with the universe itself, that power slips away from us, causing our dream to become a nightmare. We begin to feel we’re the victims of an unknown and frightening creation that we’re unable to influence, and events seem to control and trap us. The only way to end this dreadful reality is to awaken to the fact that it too is a dream – and then recognise our ability to write a better story, one that the universe will work with us to manifest.

The nature of the cosmos is such that whatever vision you have about yourself and the world will become a reality. As soon as you awaken to the power you have, you begin to flex the muscle of your courage. Then you can dream bravely: letting go of your limiting beliefs and pushing past your fears. You can start to come up with a truly original dream which germinates in your soul and bears fruit in your life”

This moves us from feeling disempowered and unable to change our World around us, to being full empowered to create the World we wish to live in, and to start right now.

So what is it like in this Field

Oh it’s amazing…!

…and my sense is that at one level everyone who is on a spiritual path, who is consciously undergoing their spiritual awakening, has been there. Even if they just stood at the edge and peeked in briefly, just for a moment.

It is what we are all searching for, and which we get glimpses of on our travels. It is what keeps us going, amongst all the turmoil, as our Soul calls us home.

For it is a home coming. When we came to Earth we left something behind in order to come into a physical reality where we experience right from birth separateness. Those things we all crave for are in this Field.

There is freedom. Freedom we experience as we remove the layers of conditioning we have from being told what is right and what is wrong. Freedom we experience as we take off the masks we have built up as protection in a world which doesn’t make sense.

The fear we all have in us built up over generations upon generations of repression and control are stripped away, freeing us to know our own truth, and freeing us to speak our truth.

There are hands holding us, holding everything around us, even holding the Earth herself. These hands nurture us as we grow, and deliver us the comfort that we so desperately need.

There is co-operation, as we understand each-other at a new depth, because there is no ‘each-other’.

There is understanding – a clarity where everything makes sense, and all our questions are answered.

There is expansiveness and abundance, as we can draw on the limitless energies in the Universe.

Creativity is celebrated and encouraged, as we are here on Earth to create all that brings our soul joy.

There is peace as we Sing the World together.

It is my hope, my dream, that together we can build this Field of Dreams together, here on Earth. That we won’t need to wait until we die to experience that level of unity, where nothing and no-one is separate, as we are all one. Where, like starlings dancing together in the sky, and schools of fish turning together in the sea, our souls speak to each other as One, and we move as One.

This for me is the second coming which I was taught about as a child and teenager growing up in an Evangelical Christian community. This is the birth of what some call Christ Consciousness through all of us, here on Earth. Right now. We have a choice as to whether we join in, or watch from the sidelines.

It fills me with hope that each year more and more of us see those reaching hands guiding us and step into the grassy meadow to lie down in the sunshine together.

Pale Blue Dot

As we shared our journeys during the Circles I was reminded of a Carl Sagan video I saw a few years ago, called the Pale Blue Dot.

Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 3.7 billion miles. In the photograph our Earth planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of scattered sunlight. It’s humbling to see, and it spurred American astronomer and cosmologist Carl Sagan to write this extraordinary piece which i would like to round off with. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Thank You

A huge thank you to all who gathered in our Circles this month, where together we shared, just for a moment, a felt experience of the Field of Dreams. Precious times.