In the Body/Mind/Spirit Dream-Catchers, the red ring represents our body.  If we see ourselves as merely body, we limit our recognition of Who We Are.  Although the mind is golden, the next larger ring, it too, is much smaller than our Spirit.  The black rings, the color of the spirit world, suggest  that our True Self is much larger than a body-mind might suspect.  Not a body with a mind and spirit inside, we are a spirit that is using a body and mind to experience, play and learn from Journey in the Earth Dream Theater.  We are to walk in balance on the dream path as an integrated Body-Mind-Spirit.  We are the universe in full awareness of itself joyfully Dancing the Spiral and Singing the Songs.

The Paradox of Duality: The Seamlessness of Being

by Allen Aslan Heart / White Eagle Soaring

Driving from my parent's home in northern Minnesota in 1994, I was startled at the brilliant red willow saplings growing along the roadway. I collected an armload to make into dream catcher rings. A few weeks later I discovered that they had all turned black! I had a judgment about black. I didn't want to make dream-catchers in black! Then I realized that here was an opportunity to use contrasting colors. I could combine black with gold, black with red, gold with red. They are very beautiful together. Why not all three together! Using a collection of rings of many colors and sizes I played with the possibilities. By two o'clock in the morning I had a very beautiful three-ring dream catcher. So what did this dream catcher teach? For the smaller, innermost ring I had chosen red, the next was gold, and the largest, outermost ring was black. I hadn’t planned it to be this way, it “just happened.” Obviously red symbolizes body, gold symbolizes mind, and black symbolizes spirit! It had told me its name and its story:

How could black represent spirit? It seems contrary to the common assumption that all holy things are white. Still, if we accept that spirit speaks to us in our dreams in the darkness of the night, it is not so strange to understand the importance of black. One night we were doing a meditation for an 11:11 stargate and I saw the paradoxical brilliance of black. Now I accept it as a metaphor for the world of spirit. With its colorful rings, feathers, and many stones, Body/Mind/Spirit became a very popular dream catcher.

Recently, someone lovingly poked me in the literary rib to question my use of events in our material world to tell a story that teaches of the Wisdom of the Seventh Fire. It seems that it is inappropriate in the minds of some to look critically at the world around us. Better to focus on love and light. I’ve heard that often, actually, and it seems to grow out of that same judgment about light and dark, white and black. And what about the judgments we make to help us navigate through this illusion? It’s just the ego at work trying to make sense of it, a survival mechanism of arbitrary classifications and approximations with limited application, validity, and reliability. We get into making judgments, classifying good from bad, assigning blame and shame and forget all about our Original Instructions to love, honor, and respect all beings in the Web of Life.

The spirals sang old songs in a new way.