Weaving The Dream

In my dream, I am walking through my (waking reality) house to put something I am holding out back.  I come out of a front door but instead of walking around to the back yard, I open another door in the front onto a corridor that leads through the house to another door in the back.  As I step into the corridor and close the door behind me, I think “This is a shorter route.  Why do we get stuck traveling in the same patterns all the time?”

Then I notice that there is a door on my right that I remember leads to another part of the house.  I open the door on an unfinished bathroom.  The shower and sink are installed but not the toilet.  There is a large radiator-like fixture in there as well.  I come out and see another door on the same side.

I open it into a large room that, at first, looks like everyone’s ideal media room but the room appears unfinished, sculpted in what looks like Styrofoam. I think how big the space is and have an idea where everything goes.  Then I turn and look back in the direction of the door I came through and what has previous been black and white is now in full color. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a sense this isn’t real, that this part of the house doesn’t exist.

I see a kitchen with a sink, open shelves above it and a large island/bar.  There is a woman standing there that resembles our mail deliverer who is there to help me.  And I say “I could give workshops here!”  She nods yes, says I could and because of her response, that she sees what I see, I think, oh it is real!  I am so excited about the possibilities, and when I turn back to the media area it is a finished, furnished, comfortable living room.

Now I see an open staircase going up to another floor and I investigate and discover another sitting/living area to the left and know that there are bedrooms beyond on the right – a place, I think, where people who come for my retreats and workshops could stay..  I am so excited by the possibilities.  I wake up.

The title of this dream is appropriate since I have had other dreams about this house having more space, more rooms, yet undiscovered, yet unfinished, and I am always happy about the extra space, regardless of its condition.

Two things strike me about this dream, however.  The first is the comment to myself at the beginning about moving out of old patterns and paths.  Doing this in our lives and our creativity, opens us up to both seeing things in a new way and to discovery.  I would not have found this space in the dream if I hadn’t taken a different path.

The second interesting thing is that in many of my previous dreams the extra space that is off the family room of our waking life house, has, to this point been in the raw or unfinished state.  In this dream, with the exception of the toilet and some paint in the bathroom, this space is finished.  In fact, I remember in the dream having the recollection that a couple and their small child had lived there for a year so the space was even previously inhabited.

This dream had me springing out of bed this morning, humming with the idea of news paths and hoping that the image of a space to teach – a finished space—implies that the I am moving closer to being able to do the kind of teaching and other work that I want to do.  That soon, I will be able to live in this new space, i.e. this new place in my life.  The space is comfortable with cheery colors, comfy furniture and natural materials.  Roomy but not overwhelming.  Intimate, actually, the way I like to work with people.

So what new paths do you need to take?  And what creative space or creative dream do you yet need to claim?

Potential and possibility shimmer in that space and that dream.  Maybe I should title the dream, Spirit House, instead.

This past weekend was my last craft show.

Wow!  I say that and then I want to put all kinds of qualifiers around it.  Like maybe it was the last craft show in Virginia.  Or maybe it was the last craft show for the foreseeable future.  After all, I have been exhibiting at craft shows, both wholesale and retail for 15 years. 

Putting an end to something we have invested a lot of time and energy into is difficult, especially when it is a relationship, business, or career.  Who we are, how we think the world sees us, and our source of challenge, growth, and fulfillment can get too tied up in things outside ourselves.

And I did put a lot of time and energy into growing the business.  I was office manager, marketing and sales person, and shipping clerk as well as designer and weaver.  I spent most of the 10 hours per day, at least six days a week winding warp, threading looms, weaving, and tying and re-tying fringe.  I often spent three or four nights before a show awake until 2 in the morning to finish work and ready it for my display, making sure seams were straight, threads were snipped, and labels applied.

While my business was successful enough to pay the business’s bills and make payments on the college loans my husband and I took out for our three sons, I never made enough of an income to support myself or anyone else.  My husband did that.  But the business, especially the shows, provided other benefits, usually intangible.

The craft show circuit provided a place of community, learning, and growth.  As a weaver and writer, it is too easy for me to isolate myself in my woodland studio and forget the world.  Going to shows in places like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco, Sarasota, Boston, and Washington DC allowed me to move out into a world of new sights, sounds, and tastes, and meet new people.  The show circuit also forced me to learn the importance of niche marketing and not under-pricing your work, how to engage and understand the needs of your customer, and to get over my fears of driving in unfamiliar and heavily trafficked areas.

While at the shows, I discovered and acquired clothing, jewelry, gifts, and art to decorate my home that I would never have otherwise.

Being part of the show circuit also gave me an opportunity to spread my wings as a writer, as I wrote artist profiles and business articles for two different professional crafts business magazines and thereby acquired credentials to write for other publications.

Our sons learned the value of careers that don’t involve a 9-5 routine, that allow some measure of independence, and that value things like creativity, passion, and exploration.

Most of all, being part of the craft show community meant meeting and making friends of some incredible people, all with unique stories, a strong desire for independence, and a passion for fine crafts.

Also, through the experiences of the show circuit, I found myself encouraging others to explore their creativity as they stood in my booth and said “I am not creative,” which led to my study and practice of creativity coaching; I spent months and years weaving, giving me the inspiration and knowledge to write Weaving a Woman’s Life: Spiritual Lessons from the Loom; and I couldn’t help but see that though we all start with the same materials, the miracle that is the human brain allows us to create with those materials in defiantly unique ways.  And it is because of the gifts of these experiences that I am ready to grow a new career, a new business.

I will still travel to new places and meet new people, but now I will be sharing weavings of another sort—the weaving of words and events through writing and speaking and coaching.  I want to teach and share with others the magic of dreams, the passionate joy of creativity, and the mystical delight of connecting to the spiritual self.

Will I continue to weave and sell my weaving? Absolutely!  At conferences, workshops, online, and from my studio.  So don’t hesitate to email me if you want a shawl for meditation, or a scarf for your mother.  The weaving I do now will be custom—for you.  It will now just be part of all I do—not all I do.

So I walked out of the show on Sunday after packing up my booth with the help of my son and his fiancée, and I knew I was doing the right thing because I felt no regret, only excitement for new possibilities.  And immense gratefulness to a business and community that gave me so much. 

I went to a women’s networking meeting two days ago and the guest speaker was a local news celebrity who has won several awards for her reporting.  Her topic for the evening was stress.

As I listened to her speak—with much enthusiasm, humor, and energy—I realized that almost all the information on stress she presented I had either heard before or read somewhere.  I didn’t learn any new information but I was certainly reminded about something that is as true for speaking as it is for creating.

It is not the what but the how that makes the difference.

I could have listened to a presentation of that same information and been asleep at the table from boredom or constantly glancing at my watch frustrated with the waste of my time.  Instead, the speaker kept our interest by interjecting personal anecdotes, using examples particular to entrepreneurial women, and helping her audience focus on the point she was trying to make with pertinent questions.  And, for a bit of fun, when someone gave the answer she was looking for, she came down into the audience to place a star sticker on that woman’s shoulder.

As I grow my own speaking career, one of my biggest worries is about coming up with original information and an original approach to offer to potential clients.  But as I watched the gathering of women applaud the speaker enthusiastically, I realized I had been demanding more of myself than was necessary.  Indeed, I was burdening myself with unrealistic expectations.

Of course, unrealistic expectations is one of the ways we block our creativity.  We worry that what we have to say, paint, write, sing, play—whatever—is not important enough, original enough, new enough.  And then the canvas stays blank, that cursor continues to blink at us from an empty screen, and those empty bars of musical notation stretch unendingly before us.

Enough already!  How many times has the essential story of Romeo and Juliet been done?  How many photographs or paintings of sunsets have you seen?  How many love songs are there in the world?  And yet, we can always enjoy another movie about star-crossed lovers, or listen to another song about the headiness of love, or gaze with rapture at a colorful photograph of a sunset.

We don’t have to work to be original—we are.  All we have to do is express our shared experience through our unique perspectives with our form of creativity.

For some of us that expression may mean using a lot of humor, for others drama, and for some color, texture, form, shadow, light, gesture, excitement, sorrow, memory, hope, gentleness, or fiery passion.  As long as we do it with honesty and passion, from our own personal experience and knowing, “behold all things become new again.”

So that means even old ideas can be fair game for creative exploration and expression.

Now, have I told you anything new?  No, I just told it my way.  So where is my star sticker?

“So where have you taught dreamwork?” a metaphysical shop owner in Indiana asked me when I broached the subject of presenting dream workshops to his customers.

“Uh, well,” I said, stepping back, “I’ve, uh, taught regionally in New York and the surrounding area, but, uh, I want to teach elsewhere now…”

Great answer, huh?  Makes you want to hire me to teach on the spot, doesn’t it?  NOT!

Two nights before that conversation, I had a dream, and, if I had paid more attention to that dream as I teach others to do, I might have been prepared with a better answer for the shop owner.  In the dream, I am promoting dreamwork as a great tool for executives to help create company vision, team bonding, and stress management.  I remember speaking passionately to this person, using my hands, and leaning forward as I talked.  I felt strong and confident about what I, and the dreamwork, had to offer.  I woke in the middle of pointing out other benefits.

This is how I should have talked to the owner of that Indiana shop—leaning forward, speaking with passion and clarity.

My husband called me on it (lovingly, of course) and said my body language was sabotaging me and that there was a disconnect between how I talked about myself to potential employers and how I handled a class of dreamers.

Why is it that many creative and entrepreneurial types (especially we women) are so lousy at self-promotion?

Even after years of experience promoting my weaving while standing in my booth at craft shows, talking to retailers and private customers alike about the unique quality, color, and finish of my work, I still manage to become shy, tongue-tied, and apologetic about my book and my speaking and teaching.  Why is that?

Maybe it goes back to those days in elementary school when I discovered that my classmates did not like someone who always had the answers.  Or maybe it is our societal mindset that says expertise belongs only to those possessing framed degrees and credentials.  Or maybe we just don’t believe we are good—good enough—until someone else (with degrees and credentials, or even more impressive, fame!) tells us we are.  Better yet is to have more than one someone tell us…and tell us…and tell us!

Am I a good teacher of dreamwork?  I am a GREAT teacher of dreamwork because I have been practicing and teaching dreamwork for almost 15 years, and because I love sharing the magic and power and wisdom of dreams with others.  I love seeing people light up when an insight into their dreams gives them insight into their lives.

Wow!  See, I can promote myself!  I am just going to have to practice saying those last two sentences over…and over…and over.  Toot, toot!