Shabbat Mercury Retrograde in Pisces Shalom & Community Reading

 

*this post begins with one of the drafts that has been lingering on a back-burner since January 23, 2021, which has been edited and expanded.

 

I've always been deeply connected to my dreams, and still remember at least one from my very early childhood, and one I had during my pivotal 15th year, when a few life-changing awakenings happened for me at once.  I started a dream journal 10 years later, when I was 25, which I've continued to keep to this day.  I sometimes wonder if deja-vu is a recollection of a dream, and I have in fact had moments - BIG IMPORTANT moments - when that has turned out to be true, and the realization of "hey...I dreamed this!" can be mind-blowing and profound, testing the limits of what we know of and consider to be reality.  

 

even though I started the journal in 1994, I didn't start dating the entries until 2014!

 

dreamwork is one of the many things I've thought should be a more prevalent part of our education, and developed along with whatever forms of divination or psychic abilities young people (people of all ages) exhibit.  it's nice to see how much that's changed over the years, with literally thousands of courses now available in many 'magical' disciplines.  we have accounts of dreams and dreamers dreaming all the way back to Sumeria (the beginning of written history), and many examples throughout the ages of 'prophetic' dreams from well-known people across a wide variety of lifestyles such as scientists, composers, writers, programmers, mathematicians, and more.

sometime in 2020, I started recording some of my dreams on this blog as drafts, without publishing them, perhaps thinking I would get back to them later as a way to build my dream practice.  it could also have been due to transience because I move so often - it's possible that my dream journal was packed up in storage somewhere and the laptop was simply more accessible at the time.  as I periodically go through my many drafts to keep up the habit of finishing old projects, I decided to transfer the 'dream drafts' to my dream journal, then delete them from the blog.  it's been an interesting practice to relive those dreams and reembody them through the physical act of writing them down, and deleting old drafts feels great in the sense of making space for something new to form.

when I got to Israel, I started recording my dreams on the 'notes' tab of my phone because my dream journal (along with the rest of things I shipped) was making its way here on a slow boat, and my laptop didn't often have a way to connect.  that's more than a year's worth of dreams to put in the journal!  and since I'm running out of pages in the original journal, I had to look around and see if I had an empty one to continue writing in.  I didn't have a completely empty book to start over with, but I do have a 'spell book' that I started...many years ago, probably also back in my 20's, that I didn't keep up with because I don't really write spells, I just kind of create them on the spot when I'm doing that kind of work.  meaning - I'd only written on three pages of it, so...it will become the new dream journal!

 

I've gotten through 'Dreams' 1, 2, and a good bit of 3, which brings me to August of last year.  it continues through September, then moves into 4 which spans September through November, and culminates with 5 which is the rest of November up until last night.    

 

here we are today, with the original journal all filled, with the last dream written in it being from August of 2025.  again, it was a really interesting experience to go over most of the dreams I had during the past year (I'm sure I didn't write them all down, sometimes they get away from me), and see what they have had to tell me about my journey here, and what my mind has made of it so far.  I'm looking forward to getting the 'dream notes' out of my phone and onto paper, and returning the process of recording my dreams back into a hand-written practice, as I think there's some merit to doing it that way - I'm thinking of Julia Cameron's 'morning pages', here, if you're familiar with her or them.  if not, look it up in her book The Artist's Way.  

 

old dream journal, 'new' dream journal

 

during this time of Mercury retrograde in Pisces, some of us are having Really Heightened Dream Experiences, and if you're one of us, please share in the comments what you're dreaming, and how that feels for you!  or feel free to contact me on my tarot and dreamwork facebook page, Mysteriam Tarot & Dreamwork.  for instance:  my dream two nights ago was about understanding that not everyone sees, or judges me by, the trauma I've carried for years, and that if I can lead with the compassion I still have in my heart despite it all, it can help guide me back towards my own path - but it was all wrapped up in cool sparkly art installations at my old college, someone getting all kinds of sick in the bathroom and my having to walk through it, rescuing some kittens, and then making sure to take the right exit off the highway that I missed in the dream from the day before (!) that got me so lost and anxious I woke myself up rather than try to figure out how I was going to get home.

I love to listen to people's dreams and help them work out the symbols and feelings in them to paint a picture of what they may be dealing with, and see if we can glean from that experience some thoughts that can bring clarity and balance into their daily lives.  so with that in mind, let's draw some cards!  I'm using Isabella Rotman's This Might Hurt deck, and the question I meditated on was:

do our dreams matter/can we find useful information in them?

 

 

ah, The Magician!  of course this means YES.  The Fool's (sometimes called 'the dreamer') first stop on his trip to wherever he's going today.  why?  because that crafty old wizard is the one who gives us what we need to take in our little satchels for the trials and tribulations ahead.  we can see the symbols for all of the four suits/elements (earth, air, fire, water) floating around him as he channels the energy of the Universe through himself, and into the ground like a lightening rod.  he's saying 'as above, so below' to remind us that all we need to do in life is move through it with the awareness that we're simply conduits for whatever Higher Powers we ascribe to.  as an alchemist who moves between the spheres, he can be seen as someone who would take the messages found in dreams seriously, worthy of being studied.  The Magician is the pure potential for everything that comes after it in the tarot; the Spark of Creation.  Act Now, he says.  use all of that amazing potential to manifest your dreams into reality!  so focus, concentrate, and commit to the task at hand.  

one of my favorite sayings about dreams comes to us from Rabbi Chisda who lived in the 200's CE.  he said "an uninterpreted dream is like a message left unread".  so take the time to see what you can learn from your soul's nighttime journeys.  and if you need help taking that first step, ask me - I'm here to help!