Daring to Dream a New World From the Divine Womb - Second Week of Advent
Mystical Hope and World Salvation Born through Advent
“We are all of us together carried in the one world-womb; yet each of us is our own little microcosm in which the Incarnation is wrought independently with degrees of intensity and shades that are incommunicable.”
This advent season we are considering our own conception, our own carrying within, the capacity to bear our own divine offering, to bring into this world our particular contribution toward the redemption and healing of the planet.
We can bear this possibility within ourselves, each one of us if it might be so conceived. If we believe that we have already received our own annunciation if we consent to this service.
Becoming divine mothers of Christ in the world means that we carry within the hope of glory, the hope of all that might come forth for the goodness and redemption of the world, born forth through each and all who might be carriers, who might hold within and nurture the generative possibility which may grow in our very own wombs, divinely cocreated and prepared.
Our spiritual womb is a space of possibility and potentiality. Whatever it is that might be born forth is, for the most part, unknown. It is shrouded in the nurturing darkness. We cannot mentally know what it is that is growing inside of us, nor do we need to know in this way.
In a time of pregnancy, we are given the gift of holding not only the new life that is coming into being but also the gift of anticipation, the gift of dreaming into the scope of possibilities that might come forth from this fresh new life waiting to be born. We are free to dream what might become, the delight and joy ripe potentiality growing from within.
Choosing Hope for the Future
We may also feel some fear, too, as any parent-to-be does. There is much to be concerned about regarding the future of our world. And it’s easy to get overwhelmed or discouraged, to feel that the future will not be kind.
While immediate fear of danger is an instinctual survival mechanism, projected fear of the distant future is often more a choice we decide to make. Yes, we want to be informed and respond to the data and as much of reality as we can be aware of in any moment—from all possible credible sources. That is always a process of discernment and wisdom that is best done with others in authentic community.
But what we decide to do with the information we have—how we respond—is on some level always a choice that we can make. Will we live in fear of the worst possible outcome? Are we so clairvoyant as to deem the situation hopeless?
To declare hopelessness is almost always an overstep, often born out of fear and the desire to avoid being hurt or disappointed in the future. It is the pessimists refrain. It may at times feel safer, but it is always smaller.
Not that I am advocating for mere optimism, but rather the choice of hope.
Hope, not as a denial or avoidance of difficult realities. Nor as an excuse to keep from changing or taking the necessary steps toward being a part of bringing about a better future. But hope as a choice to believe and act for beyond what we think we can see. To work from that hope for a better outlook and be open to surprise. Perhaps even if we dare to be so faith-full, divine intervention.
There is always an emergent possibility that we cannot see in the present moment, even with all our data and projections, even with all our previous experience of disappointments and failures, even with all the pain, trauma, and wounding.
This is the message of advent, that there is a star in the night sky that tells of a new hope, a new dawn. Not only that Christ will come, but will come again and again. That there is still hope for the salvation of the world.
For a tree has hope:
though cut down, it can still be removed,
and its shoots will not cease.
Though its root grow old in the ground
and its stock die in the dust,
from the scent of water it flowers,
and puts forth branches like a sapling.
Job 14:7-9
Dreaming a New World
When we have chosen to hope, then we can dream.
No longer captured by the doom of despair, hope opens us up to be able to receive the mystical dreams beyond our own calculations and considerations.
A mystical dream is not a plan for problem-solving, though it may lead to that at some point. Nor is it a fanciful indulgence of naïve imagination.
Rather, a mystical dream is a cocreation with spirit that arises in intensified consciousness. It comes through a posture of openness and receptivity, much like Mary receiving a divine conception. We are participating, yet also receiving something from beyond ourselves. We are allowing for the bringing to bear of a new form, a new life, a new possibility.
We receive these dreams not in our heads alone, though we may see them there. Our capacity and generativity are often sourced from deep within, given by the breath of spirit to our bodies, sprung from the scent of water beginning to flow again.
Daring to dream.
A Spiritual Practice of Dreaming
This is an intentional practice that we can take into our prayer or meditation time or into our WeSpace groups. It is best done from this receptive space of openness, though you also may find it helpful to do in response to a situation that causes you fear or anxiety.
1. Start by spending some time moving into a state of deeper consciousness and awareness, however you best do that. Perhaps going through dropping into awareness in each of your four centers through Whole-Body Mystical Awakening. Or any other practice that moves you into a state of inner spaciousness and energetic sensitivity.
2. Let yourself gravitate your awareness to whichever center of spiritual knowing within (head, heart, womb, feet) that you are feeling drawn to in the moment. In a WeSpace group, whoever is facilitating the guiding can follow his/her intuition here, either leading everyone to the same space for coherence or allowing each to move according to their own leading. For this practice, I might recommend going to the womb, but any space will have its value and different qualities. You might also even consider doing further separate practices for each of the centers. Whichever space you move into now, focus this time on an inner posture of opening and welcome to something new, something not already known.
3. When you are ready, raise the question, “What is possible?”
(You may find other questions arising also. Feel free to explore those as well.)
4. Don’t try to answer the question yourself or think through possibilities. This is not a problem-solving activity. Rather, let yourself be open from that center of spiritual knowing to receive. These impressions may come in a fleeting instant, or sometimes rather strongly in steady awareness. They may come in the form of images, sensations, intuitions, or even just a deep feeling. You may find thoughts coming up, and these, too, might be the form of the dream. You’ll sense if it’s of a different quality or tenor than your usual ordinary thoughts.
These forms of possibility may be related to an unknown time in the future. Or something very particular in the moment now. Don’t try to “pin down” a time or move to any “action steps” yet. For now, just let yourself receive the dream into your body, as a gift.
In a group, if you like and when you feel ready, you can speak these arisings and dreams to one another. You may even find sharing from others adds to or enhances your dream in cocreative generativity. If alone, you may want to write down or journal from this state, but try to do so in a way that is just recording, rather than reflecting over what has come—so as to not move into systematic thinking. You can do that later. Try to stay with the arisings from the center as long as is fitting. Be willing to let yourself be surprised by what comes.
So, here is the practice again with short directives. Feel free to be for as long as you need in each step:
1. Move into mystical awareness.
2. Move into a particular center of spiritual knowing with the posture of openness and welcome.
3. Ask the question, “What is possible?”
4. Be open to receiving the arisings from that center, speaking or noting what comes, cocreating a mystical dream of possibility.
(For step 3, you can also experiment with different questions that might be a little more focused on your particular life situation at the moment, either choosing a question beforehand or letting it arise in the moment)
If you’d like, you can use a recorded guided meditation of this practice from Martha O’Hehir, at the bottom of this page.
A Dream of You, A Dream of Us
In most of our sleeping dreams, we watch the events unfold before us with little to no control over what is happening.
In a mystical dream, there is still a quality of releasing control from our usual state of personal will. We are choosing to receive something beyond our own usual egoic conceptions. We are opening ourselves to dreams born from divine conception, participating together with us.
Also, even in lucid dreaming—where we find a sense of awareness and personal choice—we are still usually bound to the singular perspective of ourselves and what we might personally choose to do.
Our mystical dreams need not be so limited, nor so individual.
In these dreams, you are not alone. Possibility doesn’t rest on just your shoulders. You will have your specific dream and calling that is your unique incarnation “wrought independently” and to some extent “incommunicable,” as Teilhard put it. More about this vital uniqueness in following weeks.
But our mystical dreams also cannot exist on their own alone. In isolation, our individual dreams will fade into forgetfulness or flights of fancy.
When we are able to bring them into conjunction with others in the same field of coherence, they take on a greater substance and a fuller energy—a shared vitalization amidst a community of dreamers. And we, in turn, support and cogenerate one another as well. We may even find others with the same dream being brought forth within them as well, our own mystical kin.
This is one of the great gifts of community, of the shared belonging to the collective becoming of the body of God—the incarnation again and again, together. Full of hope for a better world, saved by the in-breaking of God with us, Emmanuel.
You are the divine intervention. And so am I. And so is everyone who chooses to work and bear forth the better world that is possible.
Christ, the savior of the world.
If you’d like to be part of a WeSpace group that engages in practices like this together, you can sign up here for groups starting in January!