The dream maker engages us in conversation, gives us feedback, makes suggestions.  Or, she may tell us how the universe is made, describe the configuration of DNA, or the spiritual dimensions of the heavens.  From the leading edge of the psyche, she reports.  Dreams can also offer solutions to everyday problems, point to answers, show those things not noticed during the day.  She can anticipate an outcome to which we are blind, provide a warning. 

Most of all, however, the dream maker tries to show you what you are, your magnitude.  You are not ‘merely’ human.  Only the ego has this status.  Instead dreams point to our spiritual essence, life purpose, the you that is more than who friends call by your name.  The dream maker wants you to recognize the presence of soul, wants you to live inside the territory of your true nature, to resonate with the spiritual dimensions there.  She is always trying to reach you, is always an ally. 

Imagery is the language of dreams.  Dreamscapes are pulled from life, childhood; what you read yesterday, what you did.  They urge you to see that you are a universe, aren’t confined to a single planet, or only one country, much less to the inside of your skin.  However, the dream maker seems to think it is important to know this truth while you are still alive in the body.  

Dreams clearly point to a spirit that knows you well, that is watching from the background and sees your life unfold.  Her language is poetic, but you are meant to understand.  More than understand, you are meant to believe in what the dream maker brings, to believe in yourself.  If you establish a communication with dreams the night-time events will be reflected symbolically in your waking life.  This spirit, the dream maker, is rooted, or elevated, deep in the mystery of the Other, but she is always trying to break through, to become an active spiritual ally to your waking self.  

Patricia Hamilton kindly reviewed On the Mountain.  If you have not seen Patrician's wonderful blog of reviews, or read her writing, visit her site and treat yourself.  Click on the title below.  
 ON THE MOUNTAIN: The Blue Child Series, A Novel ~June O’Brien Dec 16th, 2013
Have you ever been on a dream journey?  You know the kind of journey where your legs grow weary and you feel the cold and heat of the exertion; caught up in a mission which needs answers.  Are you relieved when you awaken or just exhausted and left wondering about the experience?
ON THE MOUNTAIN is a dream-mission story which takes place on the mountains just outside of my window.  The Heavens have sent a spirit child to protect the earth and her people from the greedy, controlling, European invaders who have released powerful evil on the earth. The writing is vivid and poetic and yet as the reader my legs ached with the climb and the cold, I was on the journey every step of the way.

Ruby is an older, reclusive Native American woman who resides on the west coast line of the Olympic Mountains.  She is the keeper of her Grandfather’s drum and gear, she is the wisdom of her Grandmother’s lessons in survival; she wanders in the forest and beaches a free spirit.  Ruby is a medicine woman and knows the wisdom of Owl.  She can hear the voices of the spirits of the plants and animals; knowing just when to use the right herb at the right time.   Ruby is called by the Old Ones for a journey onto the Mountains.  It is a mission to assist and heal her people.  She has been told never to spend the night on the mountain and in order to survive she much hear the spirit guides, trust herself and the voices, and follow the Old Ones on a journey of many days onto the mountains.
June O’Brien is a member of the Nansemond Tribe and knows plants and medicine. She knows the mountains and writes poetry about her life journey and her roots and dreams.  She has degrees in psychology and counseling and has written two books of poetry.  O’Brien is a dream consultant and knows how to capture a story from a spirit guide.  The mission which Ruby is on is just such a story and the words and descriptions of her trust journey are compelling – flowing like the Glacier Rivers and streams of icy cold water wandering off the cliffs to the sand below.  I found myself hungry, cold, exhausted and concerned that such an old woman might not be able to complete this arduous task; then the snow began to fall.
ON THE MOUNTAIN is beautiful storytelling and I am highly recommending this first story to everyone.  You will be on the trail and wandering the forest trusting the elders all the way.  As I set this story down, I will move forward to the next book THE NORTH ROAD   just recently released and the continuation of the dream.  This book can also stand alone. 

The subject of medicine and those who carry it is complicated.  We like to think that people of power are either good or bad, that healers can always be trusted, and those who use medicine to manipulate and hurt others are easily spotted.  But that is naïve.  A not-so-wonderful person can still sometimes offer healing; someone known for their wisdom and healing work might also use medicine irresponsibly in one area or another.  I have known powerful people with whom I would not leave the children, nor would I leave my wallet on the table.  Yet, though I am cautious and acutely aware around the latter, I have to respect what is present in them.  To do otherwise is also naïve. 

It seems that medicine does not too much care what direction we take it, what food we offer, but it will want more of what we put on the plate.  Or, to use another metaphor, it will pull on the reins towards what we teach it is its home territory – love medicine, violence. 

I don’t know for sure if there is a negative outcome to the negative use of power, but if there is it might be in this – over time the individual cannot keep up with the pull and the push of hate, of greed and manipulation.  Paranoia becomes rampant.  The person becomes burned, used up, empty.  Thirst isn’t quenched.  Even so, the person is still powerful.   I explored this aspect of medicine in The North Road.

On the other hand, the use of power for good purposes is not risk free.  I have heard old people say that if your medicine calls you, you must go - as Ruby did in On the Mountain.  But I have also heard it said that if medicine will not give the individual rest, we have to remind it we are human, that we have human needs.  Or, as a Jungian once said, we cannot stand in the doorway of the archetype for too long and live.  There must be room for the person. 

So, we can say medicine doesn’t care about our psychology, our defenses and patterns.  Medicine seems indifferent to these issues, but we can invite it into this very private territory.  If I ask for something personal, a goal I want to reach, a problem I am having, it will help.  A bit ruthlessly, as it doesn’t seem concerned with my sensitivities, but it will nevertheless help.  It can show me my repetitious loops, the see-saw of my psychology, those characteristics that are in my way.  It will provide information, draw maps, dump metaphor after symbol, tell me stories.  In the ‘bigness’ of medicine I may feel raked over the coals even though these ancient entities don’t much care if I, as an individual, ‘improve’ or not.  It accepts me as I am, even loves me; protects me even when I am wrong. 

Medicine, its natural scope, its work, is much greater than just me, even though I might peel off some of its power for my own use.  Through my incarnation it has its own work: healing, dreaming, teaching, holding old tradition intact through troubled times, dancing new energies into existence and in new combinations, creating the worlds.  If I can be less concerned with myself, I might be allowed to see into these dimensions, learn something of their affinities, get hints of ‘the bigger picture,’ participate in a way that is entirely satisfying. 

There is still something here we haven’t answered, isn’t there?  If medicine is so big, how can it sometimes be used for evil?  I can’t answer except to say this – more than once I have seen into a person who is so sadistic and violent that I wouldn’t hesitate to say they are evil .  If I saw them coming down the street I would cross to the other side, not meet their glance, maybe even hold my breath.  But for a moment in some of these I have seen something else - a spirit so clean and pure that I cried.   I say that I saw who they were born to be, but I am not sure that is correct.  It might be that I saw what they carried, or carried them.  If their personal characteristics had been different, if their personal damage was not so terrific, their choices so appalling, what might their lives have been?  And, did the old powers that inhabit them achieve their purpose, despite the behavior of the individual? 

Medicine is big, yet – as if we are a necessary ingredient – it works through us.  If I can learn to follow what lives in me, to listen to its peculiar language, and also make room for my human needs, try to skirt the limits of my psychology, can we - this old entity and I - become  enmeshed, intertwined.  Is there a possibility of fixed and far reaching alignment?  Can I also become big?