The synchronicity on Tuesday of reading the Skywoman myth and dreaming of the Great Flood earlier that morning has made me contemplate my muskrat dream from a few years ago.
The original dream presented as a simple fragment. I saw a round house far off in the distance, in a parched riverbed. The house appeared to be made of sticks, with no door or windows. So this mystery of how to enter the house motivated me to work the dream with Sheila Asato.
And in the way that often happens with Sheila as the guide, the dream exploded into an incredible shamanic vision. As I walked closer and closer to the round house, I realized it was not a Navaho hogan, not a beaver den, but a muskrat lodge made of twigs and cattail reeds. I understood that the entrance to the lodge was from beneath, and I suddenly found myself inside. It was here that The Ancestors began communicating with me, expressing their sorrow about the two-leggeds and our deafness to the spirit world, to the natural world. They told me that anytime I wished to speak with them I simply needed to enter the spirit lodge of brother and sister muskrat.
I left the inner lodge to travel the river bed. The valley seemed to be that of the Mississippi, but it was dry like an arroyo. I could sense the flow of an underground river made of sand. I began to fly above the bluffs, and from this vantage point I was able to follow the hidden river connecting the Wabasha valley with the mountains of Santa Fe.
At the time of this dream, I had no knowledge of the Dakotah creation story of muskrat and Turtle Island. I had no idea of the importance of muskrat in the Dakotah teachings. I feel I must have truly been communicating with my blood ancestors, for them to be able to tell me this story.
Additionally, I feel they must have told me of past lifetimes as Pueblo Indians in the Taos and Sangre de Christo mountains of New Mexico. Two lifetimes came to the surface when I worked with Sabine Lucas.
As a child of eight I experienced a Great Flood on the Mississippi River. My sister Jo and I stayed with my grandmother while my brother was being born. My father had to come pick us up in a boat. The road to the farm was completely underwater.
Muskrat totem: breathe deep!
The more I study dreams, the more miraculous they become. The more grateful I become.