Selection taken from Gerald's Page Journal entry for May 20, 2004, a few weeks before my Hanblechyapi:
05-20-2004 "You were on a steep hillside, maybe like a mountain with different levels or steps, and you were having a difficult time to climb higher. You said; 'why is it so hard?' There were seven eagles that came and were flying around you and one of them landed on your shoulder. That eagle said to you; ' You chose this way. You did not have to choose it, but now you must go on and complete what you have begun.' You had a hard time of it. Bear came to you and you were very afraid. But bear lay down near you to let you know he was there to help you and you stopped being afraid. And wolf came also and bear and wolf went with you.
One of the eagles took you by the shoulders and lifted you up and carried you forward. Eagle carried you and you went much further than you had ever expected to go when you started."
That was the description of a dream of a Dene healer as he told it to me on May 17. He asked me what I thought it might mean, and what I had been doing over the weekend, as he had the dream late Sunday evening or early in the morning hours of Monday.
I answered that I had been at the New Green Alliance Annual Convention in Regina, and that some things had been good and others that had disturbed me and had interfered with my sleep that night. I said I would think about his dream further.
I am not sure. It was not my dream, but that of the Dene healer. Whatever it meant, I could appreciate the images and symbols of the dream as he described it, and whether the dream came from Creator or from his own imagination, I appreciated the positive character it had.
Perhaps it foreshadowed the experience of the Vision Quest ceremony I plan to do in a few weeks. If so, it would suggest that the suffering will be greater than I anticipated. That ceremony was not forced on me, but one that I freely chose, and I am expected to complete what I have begun. Eagle is one of my helpers, and the fact that a full sacred number of seven eagles had come to help me is a profound sign of great support from my Creator. I have not seen bear as a spirit helper, nor wolf, but the Dene healer explained that they represent medicine for me, and that they proceeded with me meant that I would have their help. I do not know if the medicine was for my needs or if they represent medicines that I need to learn about to use to help others.
I do not know what this means for me, but it is a nice affirmation that I am doing a good thing for me by proceeding with the quest. I had the sense that the dream was like the apocalyptic literature of the bible; images on many levels that are intended to support and comfort a people who are suffering and afraid.
I am not prone to remembering dreams that I know I must have when I sleep. Even when I think that I want to remember a dream that I have when I awake, after a few minutes of being awake, I soon forget what I had wanted to remember. My Freudian psychology background also tends to prevent me from giving any spiritual significance to what I dream. Perhaps that is why I have been given a dream from someone else ... Creator is trying to tell me something and I have lost my capacity to hear it and need to hear it from another ? Perhaps, perhaps not. I do not know.
Note: This entry made before the Pipe Fast illustrates how little I understand about my own Spiritual Journey. The elements from my friend's dream were incredibly predictive of what I would experience. Wolf did come to help, with first a single wolf howling to a moon-lit sky on the third night, and that was followed by the chorus of a whole pack. They were close to me and I rejoiced in their songs and presence that difficult night. Yes, wolf had come to be with me. But that was not the end of Wolf's assertions to me that wolf would be a helper to me. When my friends came to lead me out at the conclusion of the 4-day fast, we walked to where the quad waited on a forest trail as near as it could come to where I had spent my prayer time. On the ground we saw a large area scratched into the damp earth where wolf had marked territory. And a bit further along, another large territorial marking area. When we emerged from the forest and had to pass through a field of alphalfa along a narrow track, an adult wolf, who had been waiting there, stood up right in front of our approaching quad and loped ahead of us for the rest of our journey through the field, only swerving back into trees as we entered the yard of my host.
Subsequent to that day, my host friend returned and found a whole series of such territorial markings that surrounded the area where I prayed. As well, though I was not aware of bear being present during this time, my host friends later told me that they saw fresh bearscratching and hair rubbed into an aspen tree only a metre from where I sat and prayed. So bear, as in the dream, did not frighten me, but was present and offered me the medicine I needed to complete my commitment.
