A journey, a dream, a video, a story, some synchronicities, colorful characters, sudden happenings, and the I Ching! Recently, I journeyed to Venice Beach incubating a dream and attuning to the synchronicities one meets when one’s heart is open and receptive to the soul’s subtle, quiet, and suddenly-sounding poetic speech that lets us know we are not alone: the Divine, God, Jung’s notion of the Self, Love, by whatever name this Presence is known, along with the invisible ones, the daimons, the angels, the fairies, the gnomes, our ancestors, spirits, and those we love who are literally here no longer yet continue to love us; all of these accompany us, console and encourage us, guide and protect us and are all around us, within us, below us, next to us, above us, behind us, and before us! They are all here with us, yet when we are submerged in the din and distractions of our days, or in what only can be registered by our senses, or addictively gripped by what the collective and these times say is real, important, true, and worthy of our attention, we cannot see them, hear them, register them, feel them, or, if we did, even recognize their sacred, gracing, blessing and loving presence! But in Venice Beach, somehow the veil is thin, and imagination meets more playfully and vitally, more deeply and with greater reality, with more and marvelous opportunities to see and hear and feel and sense the hidden soul and these palpable yet oft-invisible imaginal ones. When I am there walking on the boardwalk of Venice Beach, memories also visit and become powerfully present, taking me into such pungent and poignant joys and sorrows, reminding me of dear and deeply beloved ones no longer here with me, with the sharply stinging and yet healing draught of nostalgia. And how could we forget the movies that have created images and stories within the soulscape of Venice Beach and which now play on whenever we imagine, remember, or visit this lively place? Yes, this place, this beach, this Venice Beach, is like a genie’s lamp with suddenly billowing genie, like a red-curtained theater stage upon which players play into view the tragedies and comedies and realizations of our lives, and like the sudden reveries of the bright day and the flourishes of magical and obscure dreams that visit us in the night! In times of old, Zeus and Hermes would visit humanity in disguise; God and Moses carried on the tradition to see who among us was hospitable and generous, attuned to humanity and the Divine with kindness and respect. I sense that they often put their disguises on and visit us still…especially when we are walking and pausing on the boardwalk of Venice Beach! So amid the ruckus of wildness, the distant rhythmic beats of a drum circle by the ocean’s edge, the shifting songs of blaring music, the spinning and dimming of flashing lights, the ebb and flow of hungry passersby, the silent, exquisite and slow departure of the golden sunlight, the glints of increasing star-twinkles like the charging of electrons into radiant, glowing fluorescent colors of a neon sign, the mood-shifting wafts of weed-scent coming and going like the warm summer evening’s winds inhaling the invisible and exhaling eccentric imaginings into life’s visibility; I suddenly realized that the turbulent ocean waves swelling and frothing upon the sparkling sandy shore in front of me looked just like the turbulent waves of a dream the night before! And in that moment, this chaotic and meandering video was born and recorded! I felt prompted from within to share the dream in the video. Although the dream came to me, it is a dream you might contemplate as if it were your own. We can also consider the dream as speaking to all of us in this moment of history and time. We are all needing to go through a change in consciousness that lets go the old stories, particularly the one in which change is achieved through winning over a perceived enemy often through scapegoating, projection, blaming, and yelling. And painfully, tragically, sadly, acting out through violence to beat another into submission. There is a new story emerging as we step into water, perhaps the water of the collective unconscious, the streaming of Spirit, the river of deep, renewing and revitalizing myth, a new consciousness that is no longer of separating, atomizing fission, but of conscious, discerning, compassionate Love’s fusion! Yes, consider this dream as your own, speaking to your life, and meditate on this dream as an emerging collective storying into a new global and healing path. Hear what Michael White writes: “When a caterpillar first begins its transformation, an entirely new kind of cell begins to appear inside the caterpillar that scientists call Imaginal cells. These cells contain the imagining or blueprint of a whole new being. At first as these cells appear, they are attacked and resisted by the caterpillar, but gradually as more of them appear, they grow stronger and begin to cluster together to form the first organs of the new creature. Eventually clusters of cells will form extensions of connective tissue that bridge these small groups of cells into larger form. The old form literally dies, as a new being is born within the old.” The dream I report offers an image of what is going on in our caterpillar beings! After I left Venice Beach and later that night, a strange yet somehow familiar phrase came resounding into my mind out of memory: “It furthers one to cross the Great River.” It spoke from beyond my ego, and I could hear it with a powerful, wise, austere, yet kind voice of authority. It seemed to be a cousin to the voice in the Kevin Costner movie, “Field of Dreams,” but this voice wasn’t whispering. “It furthers one to cross the Great River?” I asked. No answer when I asked. It wasn’t on ego-time. Later, when I wasn’t expecting it and getting ready for bed, it spoke once more: “It furthers one to cross the Great River!” The voice wanted me to understand, but I was still slow on the uptake. Then a softer voice whispered, Field of Dreams timbre: “The I Ching.” Ah, suddenly my dogs started barking. No, not real dogs, but the dogs of alertness and intelligence that had likely been involuntarily chilled out by the second-hand, unavoidable wafts of weed-smoke from Venice Beach! I understood. This was a line from the ancient Chinese Oracle and Book of Wisdom! So I took down from the bookshelf two translations and found the line and the words of wisdom written around it. The authoritative voice and the soft Field of Dreams voice asked me to share with you some of what I found, apparently not giving a damn that this post is getting longer and longer and friend-readers will consequently be fewer and fewer! Oh, wait, I am getting another message spoken at a higher frequency, Lulu my cat just translated: “The invisible ones can read what you write when you write from your heart, love and caring are involved, and you seek to honor dream-guests and care for the soul. So don’t worry who among the living are reading!” How I understood Lulu, I don’t know! Maybe the lingering effects of second-hand wafts. But she definitely spoke clearly and succinctly their encouraging message. In any event, here are some quotes which illuminate…indeed further…the dream and that enigmatic line: “It furthers one to cross the Great River:” It turns out that there is an Oracular Hexagram in the I Ching that is Hsu: Waiting/Attending, and has that very line creating a poetic image: Attending, there is a connection to the spirits. Shining success, divination: the way is open. It furthers one to cross the Great River. “Attending describes your situation in terms of waiting for and serving something. Its symbol is the attendant at a sacrifice through which ancestral blessing will flow like the rain. The way to deal with it is to find out what is needed and carefully wait for the right moment to act. You aren’t in control of things, but in time you can provide what is needed. Act this way with confidence. You are connected to the spirits and they will carry you through. One day you will bring the rain. Look after things. Think about what is necessary. Illuminate the situation through repeated efforts. This is pleasing to the spirits. Through it they will give you success, effective power, and the capacity to bring the situation to maturity. Put your ideas to the trial. That generates meaning and good fortune by releasing transformative energy. This is the right time to enter the stream of life with a goal or embark on a significant enterprise.” (Karcher edition) Then the I Ching states: Clouds rise up to heaven: The image of WAITING. Thus the superior man (wise person who attunes to and follows the tao) eats and drinks, Is joyous and of good cheer. “When clouds rise to the sky, it is a sign that it will rain. There is nothing to do but wait until the rain falls. It is the same in life when destiny is at work. We should not worry and seek to shape the future by interfering in things before the time is right. We should quietly fortify the body with food and drink and the mind with gladness and good cheer. Fate comes when it will, and thus we are ready.” (Wilhelm/Baynes edition) So we cannot force change, belligerently yell at others and the world to change, wall off ourselves from others to solidify an us-versus-them, and we can’t force it to rain, but we CAN attend to preparing for and creating the best conditions to invite and respond to the rain. We can attune to synchronicities and signs of ripening and movement. We can await and watch for the right time, the right moment, to act, to manifest, to speak, to offer our unique part in creating soul and spirit movement, and to join our individual cell of being to others as we and the world become all beautiful-winged newly-born butterfly fluttering to the glorious flowering of Conscious Love and a new, non-violent, fusing story in service of the True, the Beautiful, and the Common Good. And it furthers us to cross the Great River, and to cross it accompanied by vitalizing communing in friendship with great food and drink, and nourishing ourselves, each other, and the very world with gladness and good cheer. And perhaps that reveals the essence of my heart’s intuition to walk along Venice Beach experiencing and sharing in the marvelous excitement and joy dancing and singing and weed-wafting through this beautiful, eccentric place!