Earth Spirit Dreaming: Shamanic Ecotherapy Practices - Elizabeth E. Meacham 2020

We Are the Storytellers
Conclusion: Re-Visioning the World One Dream at a Time
Dream-Connecting Practices

We co-create the story of our individual and collective lives one moment, one thought, one engagement with life at a time. Each moment we decide how we will engage with the world, and these decisions add up over time to merge into the larger collection of the story of our species and, because of the profound impact that we are able to exert on the Earth at this time, the story of our planet. This does not mean that we control the world. Instead, we acknowledge our profound power to choose how we engage with the world. To become fully mature humans is to acknowledge that we are creating every moment. It requires seeing and accepting the mantle of responsibility of our impact not only in what we do every day, but also in what we choose to think and how we choose to feel. This is the initiation into our true nature; we are the storytellers, the story-keepers, the ones who vision with symbols and images.

It can be very overwhelming for those of us recovering from mechanistic, objective reality to feel so responsible. We didn’t create this giant “machine” of reality. What can we possibly do to change it? Asking these questions, we call out with hopelessness, thrash in anger, cry for guidance. What we can do is allow ourselves to become fully human within the web of a relational story of the universe. While it is true that we are never free from responsibility, we are able to rest in the creation once we turn our lives back into the stories of sacred and joyful relationship with all of life that they are meant to be. Conversely, it is by accepting the truth and responsibility of our “story-creating” nature, and finding our way back to life, that we are finally free.

This chapter helps readers create and share the stories about their Earth Spirit Dreaming visions of healing for the planet. It guides readers through the process of reframing their own sense of meaning and purpose as they integrate the new sensitivities and abilities that they have developed. The primary goal of this chapter is to help readers bring their new abilities and vision into the world.