For your holiday reading I offer not a dream, but a long-ago memory, which in retrospect affected me like a big dream. (Whatever Big Sweetie needs us to find, we eventually come upon. Though we may not recognize it for years.)
When I was two, and still the only child in the family, my mother set us up to make cookies. I stood on a stool, watching her roll out the dough. Because I was a very small person, she explained, we would make very small cookies, so she cleaned the cap of a ketchup bottle to use as our cookie cutter. Some of you might recall such ketchup bottle caps from the 60’s, made of smooth metal, rounded and white, with a nice heft, a lovely fit for little fingers. I vividly remember wanting to put it in my mouth.
Mom cut the dough with the bottle cap and lifted out a perfect tiny circle. She cut a few more, then it was my turn. But I was barely breathing, slackjawed with amazement. How could this be? You take the irresistible bottle cap – and press it into the soft dough, over and over – and every time you get the same exact shape as the cutter, but none are the cutter itself. And every cookie is the same, but each one itself, is different from all the others ! At this point my memory stops because I was just overwhelmed with the inexpressible profundity of it all.
I remember this experience not with a detached objective mind but with my whole embodied childself – feeling, impression, action, sight, sound, touch – all of it a single, thrilling, incarnational mystery.
I hope that all of us have had a moment or two that made us feel such a bewildering, overwhelming thrill out of nowhere. And when you feel it – in your imagination, body, mind, or soul – I believe that you are recognizing a mark of your original genius and the patterning of God within you.
For me, that moment with the bottle cap was the first of several moments that helped me sense the patterning alive in me. When as a third grader I read the last chapter of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, I felt it again. One story! But somehow two! At the same time, with only one set of words! Amazing.
Years of poetry, myth, and metaphorical theology later, I discovered dreamwork. And it dawned on me that dreams give us all those riches continually – they are endless layers of reality, insights, images, and mystery all the way down – all linking us to each other and to the Living Mystery at the Heart of Life. Dreams delivered me into the realest version of that layered universe I’d intuited all my life. This was the place I was meant to learn from, live from, and give from.
Here at Christmastime, much of the world celebrates the Incarnation as the patterning of the divine in human form. Maybe you recognize that as a onetime event in Jesus. Maybe for you it is a daily miracle, renewed in the birth of every human. Or maybe you see the evidence of the Holy in every moment and molecule of the created world. Maybe you feel it as a presence that knows you. Loves you? Maybe even needs you to help co-create this gorgeous cookie-spangled quantum brilliance?
This season, pay attention for what moves you deeply. Reflect on your thrilling, soul-storming moments.
What do they say about your own incarnation – that is, being part of the holy creative Mystery, patterned by Divine Imagination?
What are you cut out for?
One last thing about those cookie moments: They’re not just a concept! Like cookies, you eat them; you integrate them into your life so you grow strong and radiant as you continually turn into yourself. There’s always more to the reality that is you.
With a lively appreciation for each of you sacred souls, I wish you a joyful holyday, deep dream blessings and some really fine cookies –
Laura
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OH this poem!
“As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. He taught me what I am trying to put into cookie language. It may take several passes to grasp everything, but really, just let it wash over you. That’s enough. So gorgeous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cGpjSz52hc
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Opportunities NOW!
The Clergy/Chaplain/SD groups are popular! One group is full and there are a few more spots in a second group. We start in January.
Looks like I may also have a Creatives group! Interested?
Let me hear from you soon if you’d like to join or just learn more:
Laura@firebynight.net.
And I’m always happy to meet you for a private dream session.
HAPPENING THIS SUMMER
Ring Lake Ranch in the Wind River Canyon of Wyoming is new to me, and I’m thrilled that we’ve discovered each other. I’ll be offering a week of dream exploration there May 31-June 6. Take a look and pass it on. So many wonderful people and programs on the schedule. I may stay all summer.
https://ringlake.org/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=12706848376&gbraid=0AAAAADtMxQa1IyN-YPFbWhBmgwzCI2YxK&gclid=CjwKCAiAt8bIBhBpEiwAzH1w6caWe1q48cn1JsgG6b5dKAQX_aD-P0UQboG_7IGulU9eJoUDZ34njxoCoDsQAvD_BwE
Photo credits: from Pexels
Jam cookies – Karina Kungla
Cut dough – Lina Kiraka
Tray of cookies -Karoline Ostrzokek
Child playing with cookies -Ksenia Chernaya
Kingfisher – Monique Laat