As I write this invitation, we stand at a threshold – as a community, as a country, and most likely also as individuals. The old forms are no longer holding; the new forms are yet to be realized. Mother Earth is in her Dreamtime in the Northern Hemisphere. When we gather this month for our Manifestation Cafe, we will be sitting with the energy of the Presidential inauguration and all the feelings and emotions engendered by this event, as well as with the knowledge that we are coming to end of the Manifestation Café as we know it.
For the past eight years, we have been able to host our Cafes without cost, since the space was kindly donated by TAI. March will be last month when that will be possible, since TAI is moving out of that space in April. It is thus a moment of reckoning for us as a community. Do we close our doors this spring, or do we want to be reborn with a new form and with new vigor? Do we dare to reimagine ourselves in a new way? We will each need to delve deep inside ourselves and ask the questions, “What does the Manifestation Café mean for me personally? How do I see it in the near future? Do I have friends and family who might benefit from such a place of gathering and community? And… what am I willing to do to help reinvent it?”
This month, we will use the time we are together to do a community dreaming ritual – to dream our future into being. The idea is borrowed from the Australian aborigine worldview - their idea of Dreamtime. According to the indigenous Australians, their ancestors – mythical beings who lived a long time ago – dreamed the land they live on into being. However, this worldview does not see time in a linear fashion; so for the Australian aborigine, there is no past and no future. Consequently, the ancestors really did not dream the landscape a long time ago, it is being dreamed right now, every day – with each person singing and dancing and painting. The land is being constantly birthed. And if they stop, if they forget the songs and the dances, creation will cease to be! Not only are individuals and small community groups enacting the Creation Myth every day, different tribes then share their Dreamings, their songs - like beads on a string - to create Songlines. These Songlines are both mythical and VERY PRACTICAL highways that crisscross the vast outback, and also the nightly skies. These are maps composed of songs and dances and paintings. It is these Songlines that have allowed generations of Australian aborigines to navigate the vast stretches of land with few landmarks, without any traditional maps or navigational tools – to know where to find water, food and shelter. As the saying goes, "you'll never find a lost aborigine in the entire outback!"
What will our Dreaming be for our community? For our country? For ourselves? What are we preparing to give birth to this Spring?
We invite you to come and dream with us this month.
