Affirmation2


	Robert Moss WAY OF THE DREAMER	mossdreams.com FEATURES & ESSAYS

AN AFFIRMATION FOR DREAM TRAVELERS

In the Mohawk language, if you want to say, "I am alive", you say "kia:tonte", which literally means "I have a body" or, "I have a body attached to me". The implication is that our fundamental identity lies somewhere other than in the body and brain: that we are spirits who have taken on physical bodies for this life experience, and will drop those bodies and travel on in a different form after it.

When I moved to upstate New York in the mid-1980s to get away from big cities and back in touch with the Earth, I started dreaming in Mohawk . I studied Mohawk in order to interpret communications from a wise woman (an "arendiwanen", or "woman of power") and a warrior shaman from an earlier time who insisted on speaking to me in their own language. Like other Native American peoples, traditional Mohawks believe that the soul travels beyond the body in dreams, and that these journeys are the source of our ability to see the future and enter deeper dimensions of reality where we may encounter ancestors, animal guardians and spiritual teachers and healers. From this perspective, active dreaming is the best preparation for physical death. As conscious dreamers, we learn the paths of the Otherworld and learn how to adjust our perceptions – and above all, our power of choice – to navigate other realities. Without this experience, we are liable to get lost or confused after death.

There is such power and clarity in the statement, "I am a spirit that has a body." Try saying it out loud, pausing after the first phrase ("I am a spirit"). How does that feel? As you say these words to yourself, perhaps you will find yourself becoming vividly aware that, because you are a spirit, you are at home in dimensions beyond the physical realm, that you are connected to life experiences beyond this one, and that you belong to a spiritual family. When we return to this awareness, it no longer seems exotic or strange that in our dream travels, we may be able to fold spacetime, journey to other worlds or other dimensions, or converse with spirit guides. The spiritual realm is always open to us (unless we bar the door by our habits and self-limiting beliefs) because it is our home.

During several incandescent days in Toronto in May, 1999, when I was leading a powerful and challenging workshop and felt in deep attunement with my Higher Self, I wrote the following affirmation and shared it with our circle. As the members of our group repeated the words and took them into their hearts, the affirmation opened the way to deep experiences in nonordinary reality and close encounters with the deeper Self, the "soul of the soul". I would like to share these words with you, to encourage and guide you on the paths between the worlds.

AFFIRMATION

I am a spirit that has a body.

I am at home in dimensions beyond the physical realm.

I can travel at will beyond the body and beyond spacetime and bring back gifts.

I live and move under the protection of powerful forces of Light.

I call on the powers of Love and Light to guide and protect me in all my journeys

And to help me bring wisdom and healing from the spiritual world into my physical life.