Queen of Dreams, 10

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10.

Serpent & Hummingbird

245-71

pp. 245-6 indigo-aurai of dreaming-women

p. 245

"The only light in the entire land is coming from the auras of the two women. ... Through the creaky door comes the indigo light from the two women. ...

p. 246

These two women are taking me deeper into the mysteries of the dreaming power and of the dreaming women. ... It was they who first hinted I should begin a group of women ... for the purpose of creating a dreaming circle."

pp. 247-9 blue in dreams about, and by, dreaming-women

p. 247

"Ever since the elder women of the dream place visited me en masse in Kansas ..., blue has been the color announcing the presence of a dreaming woman ... . ... Chonita was the high priestess of the dream place, the seaneeya, and ... taught me more than any other ... . ...

p. 248

"Seyem pul tenkuk" -- What did you dream? ...

Chonita ... is the dream finder ... . The people in Rio Yaqui would always know before I came that I was coming; Chonita would dream me, as well as what I was bringing ... . ... Around us the room would glow in the blue light of the dreaming women from time immemorial. The ancestors would be around us in the room."

p. 249

"Chonita and the dreaming women of Torim taught me how powerful the collective dream realm is, how powerful the collective mind! ...

In the dark silence, in mysterious ways, the dream fire flows.

The men manifest the dream fire;

the women conjure in the dark silence. ... But the women are the source of real power. ... Anselmo ... is in the protective circle of the dreaming women. They enable him to give form to the ancient, timeless acts of creating that have always been the women's realm of purpose."

pp. 250-1 animal-feet as food for humans

p. 250

"I myself caught a tori. ... . ... the people haven't eaten tori in forty years ... . ...

p. 251

[In] his favorite soup ... When he was little he would see little tori feet ... and he would eat them."


"Anselmo ... took the chicken foot ... out of my bowl."

{cf. chicken's "feet thrown out the door" (PM, p. 168).}

PM = Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold : Palo Mayombe. 2011.

pp. 252-6 a pilgrimage by the couple to sacred mt. Tosal Kawi

p. 252

"Anselmo replied, "Great treasures are always secret. ... Who ... would know Tosal Cawi is an opening to the other world? ... Today is a day for ceremonial magic. I want you ... up on top, ... as a living prayer." ...

p. 253

It was here, on Tosal Cawi the story went, that as a young man Anselmo Valencia entered the Dark Enchanted Flower World, and


conquered the Great Serpent. "Is that true, Anselmo?" I asked ... . ... "Rosario Moses had his chance with the Great Serpent ... . I also have had mine. ..." ... Anselmo suggested

{At "Gi>ito Wak" (L&LPPI, p. 305) was located ("Southeast of Sonoita, Sonora", L&LPPI p. 401a) a serpentine long monster (depicted in L&LPPI, pp. 306-7).}


I take off my clothes while he prayed to the ancestors. I [took off and] folded by pink skirt and blouse ... . [Anselmo likewise "undressed" (p. 256).]

{Caerimonial nakedness is apparently required on the summit. "They went naked" (FC 1:8, pt. II, p. 16) for Teteo-innan.}


The summit of Tosal Cawi is like a shallow dish ... . When I sat down, all I could see was the sky, the [interior of the cupped] edge of the mountain itself ... .

p. 254

... "Now pray," Anselmo said in my ear. ... "... Pray to our Mother {= Aztec goddess Teteo-innan (Deities' "Mother" -- FC 1:8, pt. II, p. 15)}. Then we must make her altar." ... I seemed to keep expanding. I managed to pray ... . ...


He carried many stones over, and together we set them into a ring.

{In order to deal with the long monster, "they were to get a kind of rocks that are on a certain mound, black rocks." (L&LPPI, p. 311)}

p. 255

"Lie down in the center." Anselmo's voice startled me, but I reclined ... . ...


I felt dizzy, as though ... expanded to the breaking point. ...

{Momentary dizziness is, in African secret-societies, a divine signal of acceptance of a candidate, by the deities into their own society. [I have felt it myself while reading the original Kongolese text of the initiation-rite.]}


I was only painfully aware that at any second my body was going to explode into tiny fragments ... . ...

{cf. the spontaneous exploding of a "witching olla" (TC, p. 20)?}


I did ... see ... some sort of yellow and black pattern, as if I were inside a basket ... .

{cf. the yellow-and-black striping of Tezcatli-poca?}


Then ... a sticky, wet red tongue longer than a human body licked me all over. ...

{[myth of the Ai-lao-yi folk (according to the Hou-han-s^u -- HChM, s.v. "Dragon", p. 104)] "And then the dragon licked the boy on his back."}


The serpent opened its immense mouth -- I stared ... -- ... and my body ... disintegrated. Simultaneously I recalled the last instant when my body was whole and human ... .


It was for a fraction of that instant an excruciating weight,

{being sat upon by the "Old Hag" : usually an incident occasionally accompanying so-called "sleep paralysis"}


and suddenly it was very pleasurable. The Great Serpent had shattered me and in the gap of time while I was shattered, I was nothing; I was between daylight and starlight, between mountain and molten, between child and parent, between ... now and then. ...


And then I knew that ... we are eternal, starlight.

{allusion to mica-balls "in the sky as stars" (HSWSh^M, p. lii)? Mica must be the "mirror-stone" (FC 1:15, pt. II, p. 34) of Omacatl.}


The Great Serpent and I were the same, and I saw the memory of the woman I had been through the serpent's eyes, but the woman I saw was made of light ... . She exists to the serpent for less time than a flicker ... .

p. 256

Anselmo's voice is at first muffled and far-off. At the same time


it is in me like a searing needle ... .

{cf. heating of acupuncture-needles by moxibustion}


... I respond by ... breathing the way you do when you give birth ... . When I open my eyes I see the face of something like a boa constrictor ... . ...

[cf. p. 266 infra : "dreamed she gave birth to a huge rattlesnake."]


And instantaneously there is in me the knowledge that ... I am floating on the great void from which everything is born."

L&LPPI = Dean & Lucille Saxton : Legends and Lore of the Papago and Pima Indians. U of AZ Pr, Tucson, 1973.

FC = Florentine Codex. (Bernardino de Sahagu`n : General History of the Things of New Spain.) MONOGRAPHS OF THE SCHOOL OF AMERICAN RESEARCH, No. 14, Pt. 2. Santa Fe` (NM), 1970.

TC = Jane Holden-Kelley : Tall Candle. 1971.

HChM = Lihui Yang & Deming An : Handbook of Chinese Mythology. Oxford U Pr, 2005.

HSWSh^M = Ekkehart Malotki & Ken Gary : Hopi Stories of Witchcraft, Shamanism, and Magic. U of NE Pr, Lincoln, 2001.

pp. 256-8 talking whirlwinds, containing faces; directed by luminous fibres extended out of the heart of the Enchanted Flower World

p. 256

"Every medicine person I have ever known has been a living reminder that w cannot predict the form magic will take. We just have to be ready, in the moment. It is important that we

p. 257

appreciate the magic as it unfolds -- Anselmo told me that, as did Aunt Charmaine and George Allen before him."


"looking over the Kansas plains, ...in 1970, ... I watched before me so many dust devils ... roving the Great Plains. I heard them talking ..., and those that came near me contained faces ..., and the whirlwinds told me then that the dream is all around us, wherever we care to see."


"Anselmo was deer-singing; I fell into a strange reverie in which many times and places that I had witnessed were again present.

I heard the song about the ladybug.

I heard the singers sing about the javelina, the wild pig {peccary} ... . ...


When the fibers of our beings are illumined, we can join in the heart of the Enchanted Flower World -- something divine within us can reach out ... . ... So I let my eyes follow the bright fibers into the spirit land ... . ...

p. 258

It is important that we appreciate the magic as it unfolds ..., and soon I was in some other time and place. The whirlwinds took me to the Papago sacred mountain, Baboquivari. There I was standing ... in front of a sacred cave, ... used, I knew, by our ancestors who had been dancing and singing so powerfully recently."

pp. 259-61 arrival of dreaming-women : formation of a dreaming-circle by her

p. 259

"Suddenly Chonita came into the room, the blue light glowing from her. ... When she stopped speaking, through the windows I saw dreaming women in the form of wolves and coyotes, their eyes lit with blue and aquamarine light. They peeked into the room to see ... what was going on. ... "Heather!" Cara said loudly ... . "There are coyotes out in the rose bushes ...!" "No ..., it's just the dreaming women," I said ... . ...

p. 260

When Macaria and Chonita in their sly way instructed me me to start a dreaming circle of women ... in my house ..., ... various women would appear at my door. ... Anglos and Mexicanas, blacks, Yaquis, Hopis, Arikaras, ... Sioux -- we found each other in a ... medicine way. ... The dreaming women recognize and find each other in such ... predestined ways. ...

There were many dreaming circles. In addition to the circle of women from all cultures and backgrounds that I began, I was part of an all-Yaqui circle of women who were approximately of my generation. ... There was also a circle of older women important to me, ... who were elder teachers to me. ... But naturally at any one time in history, for those who feel the call of other dreaming women, it becomes apparent who should work together. ...

p. 261

A young dreaming woman may not even know she is part of a circle. What she sees ... is that ... you do a lot of gathering of medicines for ceremonial uses. ... But as you mature you may realize you are also in the circle to learn; and when you are an elder, you are there to serve the younger dreaming women through your wisdom. Quite naturally you become a circle of women who do ... teaching. ... Often, after Tosal Cawi, I would forget and remember, forget and remember that real knowledge means surrendering control -- to serve the greater magic that is life."

pp. 261-2 singing for dying dreaming-women : the tune, not the words, is the essence of singing

p. 261

"I was asked to come ... to sing for don~a ..., who was dying. ... I was a complete stranger, yet she had met me in dreams ... . "I am going back to see the ancestors," she said. ... I sang. I don't even know what the words were, I didn't even know ... any ... . But ... the sound, the feeling were there in my ... songs. And she passed [away] in the night."

p. 262

"The words aren't the meaning. ... All languages blend when you sing from the heart of your being."

p. 262 magical thinking : suspension of judgement as to one's personal identity/existence

"When a snake appears to a medicine person, he or she knows it had made an appearance because the spirit realm deemed it necessary. ...

{It appeareth because Asklepios (watching from a divine realm) deemeth it necessary to the curative process being undertaken.}

In watching the snake, the medicine man or woman disappears into the snake, into the moment, into the intent of the Creator {the Deities}. ...

{The medicine-person's soul disappeareth temporarily into the divine healing-realm of Asklepios.}

Actually, a medicine person just gets out of the mode of "who" and has no thought of magic or outcome. When you have medicine, you have power because your presence in this world is suspended. Only the uninitiated would fail to comprehend that

magic occurs not because of the presence of some powerful person, like a sorcerer, but because of his or her momentary absence."

{During the temporary absence of the sorcerer[ess]'s soul, the deity is praesent, efficaciously performing the magic. This is similar to the usual process in any other episode of spirit-possession by a deity.}

pp. 263-5 a gathered meeting : praeternatural realization of the after-death state

p. 263

"I think it has been life's little joke on me that I've had such a strong sense of what I am, while I've so often found out from others who I am. ... After a while who wasn't what mattered at all.

p. 264

All the women in the dreaming circle stood up suddenly ... . There were thirteen of us ... early in 1982 ... . ... Something amazing was happening which we had all sensed and on account of which we were standing in awe. For out of everyone's mouth, eyes, and ears flowered a lambent amethyst light. I thought I was the only one seeing it, but Cindy said, "I can see everyone's aura," and ... I was so overwhelmed ... with ... something we collectively formed. ...

And suddenly again, as if at once, several of the women looked at me and said,


"Heather, I can see your lifetime,

[while others said] I can see her whole lifetime,

[or else said] I can see all her lifetimes!"

{Record of the lifetimes of his arhant-disciples, as seen by the Buddha, is written in the Avadana.}


Somebody said, "Heather, it's true, it's really you, you are ... the queen of heaven with stars all around you ...!"

{The woman who said this was seeing future lives of Heather, when she would be exalted in Heaven as Queen thereof.}


... then I felt {saw} it ..., I felt {saw} I was in the starry, starry void and wherever I was standing the void was behind me and I was surrounded by stars, stars.

{She herself at this juncture started witnessing her own future lives, when she would be constantly traversing interstellar realms on some mighty cosmic venture.}


... all of a sudden there were more women in the room than we had started with, I hadn't seen them before, I knew they weren't there in their {material} bodies, but they had also come to join us.


It was not long {a little more than an hour} after this wonderful circle that Aunt Charmaine's husband, Julian, called the house to tell of Charmaine's death an hour earlier.

{Evidently, the circle of dreaming-women had been vouchsafed the vision of future lives by the divine entourage of goddess Yami when that goddess had come to conduct the soul of Aunt Charmaine out her material body into an exalted future life.}


Hearing the news ..., I saw ... Aunt Charmaine in the stars ...


expanding beyond her own body ...

{Expanding beyond the body at death is described by Carlos Castan~eda as expanding "beyond the horizon"; and in Kemetic lore as "going to one's horizon".}


toward the ... life in which we never die. ...

p. 265

I had the greatest certainty that the dreaming women always were and always have been, and that they would keep finding each other,


endlessly ."

{even in outer space, through future lifetimes}

{So, here on p. 264, her destiny was witnessed (by women) to transcend that which had been said (by a man, though he may have intended mere teasing of her in saying this) of her on p. 237, that she would "want to come back" to be reborn on mere planet Earth.}

p. 265 who or what [is one's self]? what of the group-dream (collective consciousness in the divine world)?

"Who {in the material world} we are will die. What {variety of soul in the divine world} we are is timeless, and we understand what we are at moments when we surrender our {material} form. When we are open to the greatness of {the divine} life, what {soul} we are cannot die. All my life I created dreams {without fully realizing that actually divinities were creating the dreams for me}. So much of the time was lost in them {lost, in the sense of losing track of the ro^le of divinities in producing those dreams}. It took me years -- and teachers on both sides of the wall between worlds {of the living and of the dead, of the waking and of the dreaming} -- to help me remember who {one's guardian-angel or spirit-guide, or the collectivity thereof} had begun the dream.

My dream of Yaqui and the Dark Lord was a group dream and its power intensified a millionfold. It nuances and all its intricate aspects were but one ... in the {praeternatural-collective} network ... of {divine-collective} creation. But I was lost {immersed, engaged} in the dream{-world} long enough to experience completely that particular form of our collective human{-soul and -spirit} dream power. I stayed ... many years after Tosal Cawi. ... I could not go, really, because I still didn't remember who {mortal or divine? individual or collective?} had begun the dream."

p. 266 dreaming-women as co-creatrices in the Web-of-Creation

"If you are a dreaming woman you are at the beginning of the web of creation. This web is extremely elastic, like a spider's web.

The old stories describe the web like this : When Cloud-Dreaming Woman's daughter Spider Woman created this earth, it was left to her daughters to carry on the endless dream weaving. But Spider Woman started things. She dreamed and spun out the things of this world. She did not kow what she was dream weaving; only that she was dreaming ... something. ...

If you are a dreaming woman, however, you know you and your sisters are together making this world.

Sometimes we know each other first, then the world we are making;

{Such a situation would start with souls hovering in empty space, before creating anything.}

other times we know the world first and find one another afterward.

{This familiar world is wherein we are now residing is an example of this sort of situation.}

It {i.e., the result} is the same. We are making one unending weaving together. ... Where the material and dream realms meet ..., something is left over for our use. ...

We must release ourselves from the strangling fears of the unremembered and remember it fully.

{Such "strangling fears of the unremembered" are largely fears of what may have transpired before we emerged into the praesent lifetime; such praevious lifetimes must be remembred thoroughly in order to inspire adequate confidence in our divine (dreamworld-controlled) means of coping with the current, and with future, lifetimes.}

There is magic.

{residing in the divinities who function in the dreamworlds, and who willingly impart such magic to all who earnestly co-operate with them}

It's what will join opposites together into new expressions of life."

pp. 266-8 beadwork to activate rattlesnake's medicine-song

p. 266

"Dana dreamed she gave birth to a huge rattlesnake. In Yaqui, all creatures {all deities, including animal-deities (which are, incidentally, reckoned as creators, not as "creatures")} have a song. The rattlesnake, however, belongs to the Dark Enchanted Flower World, and his song is sung only in the Dark World because he is the familiar of the Death Lord and therefore under his, not human, protection. In Dana's dream the snake revealed its medicine song. The dream awoke her, and she wove the dream into a band with a

p. 267

rainbow diamond {lozenge, parallelogram} pattern set on black. ... The beads are tiny, and subtle shifts in color and pattern within pattern make each diamond unique. ...

Anselmo ... wears little mirrors and eyes all over his regalia. ... Anselmo loved the band and wore it on his black hat ... . ... Someone stole Anselmo's new medicine hatband during prayers. ... I found Anselmo's hatband that had been made from a rattlesnake. ...

p. 268

The rattlesnake is the only animal that is not allowed in the Light Enchanted Flower World, the Seatica. ... Anselmo wore his hat with the snake on it into the deer lodge, an act that terrified and astounded many who witnessed it. ... Anselmo invited the serpent from the Dark World into the Light Enchanted Flower World. ... Anselmo was calling the snake in because the snake knew all the dark and hidden places where a man might conceal things. Then something extraordinary happened. ... As the song ended, ... handed Anselmo Dana's magnificent hatband ... . ... From then on Anselmo wore the snakeband into the deer lodge as a signal that the people must live blending the Dark and Light into one world. ... Things from now on would be more unstable, unpredictable -- and powerful."

pp. 268-9 the prophecy praedicting the forthcoming advent of the Feathered Serpent

p. 268

A. V. Tori said : "There is a story about Grandfather Rattler. Grandfather is the

p. 269

master of the Dark Enchanted Flower World, but Hummingbird is the mistress of the Light Flower World, and Grandfather isn't welcome there

{In Aztec myth, Rattlesnake is combatted by Eagle, who feasteth on prickly-pears of cactus; but in Hopi myth, "prickly pear cactus" hath a blossom which is alighted on by Hummingbird (HSWSh^M, pp. xlvi-xlvii; citing Malotki 1996:16).}


because he just loves {to dine on} hummingbird eggs. ... But if Grandfather should happen to get one of those hummingbird eggs and he should happen to swallow it, then a feathered serpent would be born {to his wife?}, something that has never before existed. ...

The dreaming women have dreamed this new world already, and now it is time to make it happen. ... That is why you have come. You know that already."

Malotki 1996 = Ekkehart Malotki : The Magic Hummingbird : a Hopi Folktale. Santa Fe` : Kiva, 1996.

pp. 269-70 achieving transparency of the body; bodies in the mirror-world

p. 269

"In the darkness of last night we made love in bodies that became transparent with ... so much light that opening my eyes once I saw a blue light had filled our room like the storm glow that fills an electric bottle {or an electrified vacuum tube}. Later I became more familiar with the blue light and recognized it as the harbinger of my dream life with the elder Yaqui [dreaming-]women. ... Despite so much ..., I didn't know the dream catches you, ... and gives form to what we perceive." Malotki 1996

p. 270

"I already had a sense that this couple in the cherry-wood{-framed} dressing mirror was ... two people who came for us at night and slipped our bodies on ... . ... Sometimes, even now, I see ... floating farther down the stream, those lover selves, ... floating back into the Rio Yaqui, ... past the Talking Tree, past the formations of giants in the bay".


"He said, "Mirrors have medicine. ... This mirror ... will work for you. This is you mirror, to be filled with ... medicine ... . And it will empower you.""

{These characteristic might better apply to mirrors in the dream-world than in the waking-world.}

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Heather Valencia & Rolly Kent : Queen of Dreams : the story of a Yaqui dreaming woman. Simon & Schuster, NY, 1991.