Embodied Divination & the Loss of Dreams
On finding my way back to the unconscious
The recent birth of my second child has added so much to life. Little moments of her presence, fleeting and yet impactful, etching themselves into my psyche.
Her first smile, toothless and wide, filled me with an unbridled joy that swelled my heart to new size. Watching my oldest daughter, ever curious about her little sister, babbling her name and reaching out to burp her as I do. Gazing into her deep blue eyes, reminding me of my father and the great Mediterranean sea where our family is from.
Yet with this beauty, with this creation of life, there has been sacrifice. More so than with my first, I am feeling the impact of motherhood and what it demands of me. It’s not just the struggle of managing two children or even the physical toll of pregnancy, birth, and recovery. What has stood out the most over the last few months has been the loss of connection to my inner world, particularly the loss of my dreams.
Each day follows a similar pattern: broken sleep, wakings at night, a mind-numbing haze that I cannot seem to shake. Each morning, I reach for an image, an impression, a sense of my dreams, but there is nothing. It’s like total darkness from the time I fall asleep till the time I rise.
Dreams, for me, since I was a child, have been one of the most important spiritual centers of my life. They have always felt profound and meaningful, guiding me in times of uncertainty or haunting me when I let shadows linger too long. My relationship deepened even further when I integrated Jungian practices, for then my dreams became the lodestar of my individuation efforts.
The loss of something so essential is hard to put into words. It’s like being severed from the vital source; the color and vibrancy of life diminishes; the sense of being held by something greater now gone.
It struck me most poignantly when I was feeling lost in my creative work recently. I was planning out The Heroine’s Quest series, but felt really stuck on whether to go all-in on a three-month experience or dedicate the topic to a single month of study.
You see, I’ve been feeling the pull to change things up in the membership and with how I structure my teaching. Up until this point, we tend to cover a new topic each month (which I do love for the breadth of material we can explore). Yet something inwardly was urging me to try something different, to dedicate several months to just one topic.
Change, however exciting it may seem, is difficult. Doubts start to creep in, trepidations and uncertainties poison the clarity of the originating intuition. When this happens, I usually incubate a dream to tap into the unconscious. For its these perspectives, above all else, that I trust to give me an honest counterpoint. With my lack of dreaming life, I was left adrift.
While contemplating this dilemma one morning, my attention drifted, and I noticed a suncatcher sitting on my bookshelf. Suddenly, I was struck with the overwhelming sense of needing to pick it up and use it. The idea was strange; since it was gifted to me, it has sat unused and mostly unnoticed, I never even hung it in my window. I reached for it and knew that I needed to explore the issue of my workshop series using the suncatcher as a pendulum — a practice I haven’t utilized in at least 6 years or more.
Pendulum dowsing is when you use a weighted item, typically suspended from a string, to divine insight based on how it moves in response to questions. I find it a deeply strange and fascinating technique, one where the body and its micro-movements become a channel for the somatic unconscious. In essence, it’s an embodied form of divination.
When I practice it, the pendulum responds strongly, swinging in wide circles to indicate yes, and back and forth to indicate no. See the video below for an example!
While the pendulum moves, I also tend to receive a stream of intuitively inspired thoughts. It’s similar to when I use the tarot or get into creative flow states. Insights that had felt locked away, guidance that shimmers with a numinous air drops into the field of my awareness. The pendulum moves and moves, gaining in its intensity, and I turn inward, listening intently.
I asked, “Is The Heroine’s Quest meant to be a three-month series?”
And the pendulum began to swing in wide circles—a resounding yes. My body eased in response, softening as I felt the clarity wash through me. The thoughts that followed had much to do with the arbitrary fear that had clouded my mind. Creative evolution often takes you to the edges of what feels safe; it scratches at your psychic sensitivities and dares you to look at them with bold and sober eyes. The resistance is to be expected, but the task is to meet and move through it.
With a certainty I hadn’t felt even an hour before, I mapped out The Heroine’s Quest as a full three-month experience. The response, from both current members and new, has been overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic. It seems that the desire to slow down and go deeper with our material was shared in both me and my students.
There are so many ways to connect and commune with the rich depths of the psyche. I’m reminded that even when dreams are lost, there are new (or old and forgotten) ways to reach out. It’s an important lesson to carry with me in this season of life. I know it won’t last forever, that one day I will awake and recall my dreams. Until then, I’ll explore the other modalities that are calling to me.
Want to try out pendulum divination for yourself?
It’s quite simple! First, grab a weighted item (like a necklace with a pendant or a ring on a string). Next, calibrate it by asking it to show you yes and no. The movements might be very subtle at first, so keep at it till you notice two very distinct movements from the pendulum. Then, ask your question, and see how it responds!
If you give it a try, join me in the comments and let me know how it went.
The first workshop for The Heroine’s Quest series is this Saturday!
This month, we are exploring the myth of Psyche and Eros as an initiation into the mysteries of life and death through sisterhood and confrontation with the Great Mother archetype. Following Psyche’s story, we’ll consider how the soul awakens through relationship, impossible trials, and descent to the underworld. Her journeying will inspire our inner work and reveal distinct pathways for navigating the challenges of individuation and the transformations they require.
Our focus includes:
Understanding sisterhood and relationship as catalysts for initiation and psychological development
Exploring Psyche’s trials as symbolic stages of soul-development and the individuation process
Contemplating the Great Mother, descent to the underworld, and the awakening from psychic sleep
There’s still time to join the full workshop series and inner work experience. Read more about it here.
I wish I'd had you as an online companion in 1984 and 86 when I was a mother-in-a-struggle!
I read your essay last night and thought about it all day. It helped me name something. I too value my dreams highly and gain a lot of inspiration and guidance from them. But like you, I have been robbed of them these last many months. My body is in late menopause and I’ve gone through horrendous night sweats. I awake unnaturally in the morning, drenched, wrenched out of half formed dreams that have not completed. Then as hard as I try to lay there and recall my dreams as I have always done, being soaked is so uncomfortable that I inevitably arise to find dry clothes or a shower. I have written very little in my dream journal since they started. So I appreciated your essay because it reminds me that there are other ways to access my unconscious. And this phase in my life will not last forever. So I need to proactively turn inward in other ways.