Give Way To The Dead (Encountering Departed Loved Ones In Dreamspace)
Give Way To The Dead (Encountering Departed Loved Ones In Dreamspace)
DAILY ENLIGHTENMENT
Give way to the dead,
they're in a hurry to speak-
soft, nothing but love.
The Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery in London is overcrowded. Graves line the driveway entrance. Here, beside a beautifully adorned new grave right by the gate, is a handmade sign asking drivers to give way.
When I first saw it I thought the sign related to the grave and I wondered why I had to give way to the dead? My next thought was that this wasn't a bad idea. We grieve the mortal passing of our loved ones but the relationship with them continues. No supernatural or metaphysical belief in life after death is required, our ongoing relationship with those who have died is a lived fact.
Aside from our memories and conversations where they live on, if we are sensitive to the goings on in our dreams we will encounter the departed there, appearing unexpectedly to greet, comfort or teach us. I know people who are devout atheists, who do no dreamwork or meditation, who have told me of powerful dreams where they engage with dead family members. What is this if not a relationship?Â
If you've never tried dreamwork, the simplest method is to start keeping a journal that you write in as soon as you wake up. Even if you can't remember dreaming at all, just sit there with an open page and pen and wait, something, even a glimmer of dream memory might float to the surface. Write it down no matter how insignificant is seems. This one anchor will help, over days and weeks, help train the mind to recall more and more dream information. Don't enter into the practice with the goal of communing with those who have passed on, just keep up the practice for its own sake and over time you might be surprised at who unexpectedly turns up.Â
For me, when a friend or family member dies, it never feels like they are gone. I sometimes forget they are no longer with us in the flesh. I think I'd like to share something with them, or that I must go and visit soon, then only remember afterwards that they have died. I never have a sense of loss following this memory, more of a sense that I'll have to put off reconnecting with them until a later time, as if I'd forgotten that they'd moved overseas. My memory of them is fresh, I think of them often, sometimes I see them in my dreams and feel just as I would have had we run into one another on the street. Reconnection feels inevitable.Â
Here's a previous post I made after visiting the same cemetery: Beautiful Angel Feet
Here’s a very moving post actor Richard E. Grant made shortly after his wife passed away, and another from actor Matt Damon, and another from newly crowned world heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.
