Download Dreaming the Soul Back Home Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole Robert Moss 9781608680580 Books

Product details Paperback 304 pages Publisher New World Library; 6.12.2012 edition (May 29, 2012) Language English ISBN-10 1608680584

Dreaming the Soul Back Home Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole Robert Moss 9781608680580 Books Reviews

• I had no idea what shamanic dreaming was before I picked up this book by spiritual writer Robert Moss, who has penned a plethora of books on dreaming. For those who are unfamiliar with shamanism, a shaman is a spiritual practitioner who has mastered the art of journeying beyond the body to communicate with spirits, guides the souls of the living and the departed, and brings them healing.
  
  Dreaming The Soul Back Home Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole introduces shamanic dreaming, or how to be your own shaman through your dreams. For shamans, a dream is a journey of the soul, a “spirit messenger.” Soul loss can happen when we suffer trauma, bitter disappointment, or violent shock. The soul then may leave the body to escape. Symptoms of this can be low energy or depression. Shamanic dreaming is a way to reclaim our soul.
  
  The author does go through step-by-step instructions on how this can be done, but only a small part of this book is dedicated to this exact practice (there are thirteen levels of shamanic dreaming). The rest focuses on the soul journey and dreaming, including ideas from Carl Jung, the Sufis, poets of the soul like Yeats and Auden, and the power of animal spirits—ravens, owls and horses, to name a few.
  
  Though I found the book to be incongruous in its presentation of the practice of shamanic dreaming, I also found it to be compelling read. My favorite exercises included journeying into your “Soul Tree” (where at its upper branches you can look into the future), “Secret Library” (where you can access any kind of information that interests you), and meeting “The Soul of the Soul,” (a term given by Sufis, otherwise known as your Greater Self).
  
  “Meeting the Soul of the Soul” was my favorite chapter. Moss says this is the friend of the soul that will never lie to us, and will never judge us. It is the Self on a higher level than the ordinary self (thus the capital S!). A strong connection with this Greater Self is pivotal for healthy and peaceful living, and this chapter can show how to foster that bond.
  
  Ultimately, Moss says that the most important knowledge comes through reclaiming what the soul knows (the timeless Sufi poets Rumi and Shams of Tabriz tirelessly repeated this maxim), and that the road to soul recovery is to take a dream and make it a gateway for a personal journey.
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the author’s writing style, which is as lush, fluid and colorful as his ideas. His pages opened my eyes to dreaming and taught me new aspects of the soul. I started having vivid dreams myself, of butterflies, sailboats and killer whales, dreams that guided my days and enriched my nights.
• Every time Robert Moss publishes a new book, I pre-order and devour it cover to cover. Each book sends me in new dreaming directions, and refreshes older dreamwork lessons. This one is no exception, and like his others, I will re-read to garner even more treasures.
  
  This book is not really a book, however, but a Time Travel Machine. Using examples of his own dreams, and that of other dreamers in his circle, Moss teaches us how to connect with our younger selves, and even with past life selves. Unlike many other shamanic practitioners, Moss instructs readers with a plethora of techniques for doing this on our own. We do not need to pay large sums of money to someone else for the experience. Furthermore, he points out that the past is not necessarily linear. Perhaps our "past" lives are instead alternate realities happening right now, concurrently.
  
  On page 148, Moss offers an exercise, to ride a Spirit Horse to the House of Gifts. His stories and instructions reminded me that I used to have a herd of invisible (to others) horses. I managed to put the book down, grab my drum, and head for the fields. Drumming, I called my horses. They came galloping across the field in my internal vision. I claimed one as my own Spirit Horse, and rode off to seek the younger Me who had ridden these horses so long ago. I found her. She did not know what to make of the adult Alice, astride a beautiful horse named Aphrodite, but was willing to join me, on another, Star.
  
  Another day, I again drummed, and rode off in search of an Ice Age self, who had long been on the edges of my awareness. I found him, hungry and alone. I spent time with him in my wide awake dream, and later realized the energy of him had shifted and matured. I expect to be riding my Spirit Horse on many journeys from here on.
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which seems to be Moss's most personal to date. I feel like I know him better, as he shares more and more of his own journey to the man he is today. Thank you, Robert.