Articles by Subject › Dreaming › Souldancer: Awakening into the Dream

Souldancer: Awakening into the Dream

As she lay in her childhood bed in the late hours of night, memories of shadows dancing on the walls begin to drag her from a drowsy state into sudden alertness where fear begins to penetrate the bones. It paralyzes the body and opens the senses to perceiving a flood of strange occurrences that hide behind the bedroom door of a child secretly ready to meet her destiny. She looks downward toward her feet and the horror of seeing she has no skin seems so overwhelming it evokes a chilling thought that she might soon die.

"White bones. We all are made of white bones. Men, women, children . . . black, white, brown, yellow, red . . . no matter your gender or race you are all made of white bones," the demons would whisper to her.

There were many vampires, skeletons, zombies, and monsters who would come to visit her and their presences always made her feel like she was an exotic bird that had been captured, trapped in a cage and on display for spectators to gawk at. She would always pull the blankets up so that they would cover her neck, scared the vampires would come to bite her as she slept so innocently. She was afraid to become one of them, thinking she would have to give up her human life and lose her parents, her sister, her toys—the simple things that humans see in complex light, the simple things that one day become the dramas of war and greed.

She would stay awake in bed, stiff and trembling for hours until the fear would consume her, taking her downward into a deep slumber where she would roam the shadow worlds. These shadow worlds are places in the Dreaming where those who walk the dark side of consciousness reside. You need be neither good nor evil to find yourself there; it is only a place where the secrets of humans are housed, those things we want to hide from ourselves behind the veil.

Finding herself in the body of a young woman but with child?s heart, she began drifting into a soft slumber until her attention pulled her again to the shadow beings dancing on the wall. The fear she had been holding since childhood awakened and instead of using the blankets to protect her neck from a vampire?s bite she simply embraced her fear, took a deep breath, and removed the sheets which were covering her neck. That night she slipped into a deep sleep where she dreamed of a vampiress? bite.

She awakened one Saturday morning, rising from bed with the sun to meet her secret destiny. As her feet touched the floor she felt a strange crawling beneath her skin and she noticed her heart seemed to have been silent. She began to hear the demons whisper, ?White bones. We all are made of white bones. Men, women, children . . . black, white, brown, yellow, red . . . no matter your gender or race you are all made of white bones."

Her mirror?s reflection revealed she had become what she had once feared ? a vampire. The booming voice from the heavens sounded, "Souldancer, Awaken the others into the Dream where all can touch their souls." Suddenly she found her place on a stage floating and gliding as a vampiress, dancing seductively with the silver-gold pole connecting the heavens with Hell. Bringing all who watched-entranced, to touch their souls once again.

 Chuparrosa is a Dreaming Woman who inherited the sacred art of the ensueño (Dreaming) from the Yaqui Queen of Dreams, Heather Valencia. She has also been training and closely working with Koyote, a Toltec Man of Knowledge, integrating the art of invocation with her academic training in psychology. Chuparrosa works her dream weaving by unifying worlds and mystical visions, using her body and words to sensually integrate, rearrange, and transform.

www.tequihuafoundation.org