Dreamtime

****Let me be clear. Some of the writings I will post on this blog are from earlier times in my life. My thoughts, or the places I am in have changed. I have grown a great deal in doctrinal knowledge (although, I have an eternity to go) This passage I disagree with in some distinct ways now. Most importantly, I want to highlight that I do not believe that Dreamtime is the only way to achieve meaning in one's life.

I believe it is a means to drawing closer to God for me, and that is why it is so powerful to me. But, it is only a means for me to hear from God, not an end in itself. I cannot be more urgent in stating this distinction between my original writing and now. I don't feel I ever thought Dreamtime was an end either, but my writing seems to indicate I do, and that is horribly wrong. So please keep that in mind while reading through this passage. I copy it here, because I believe it has value, and some insight left to give. I also feel it gives some insight into why I love movies so much.****

With no further adieu, here is a passage I wrote my friend Jonathan last year regarding Dreamtime.

These quotes are in the context of Karen Armstrong talking about the Paleolithic Period (20000 to 8000 BC). Amazing to think that in some ways these people are WAY more advanced than our culture. I think this is why I have such an underlying, deep current within me that wants to be sitting around a campfire in the woods all the time.


"It is natural for these indigenous peoples to think in terms of myth and symbol because, ethnologists and anthropologists tell us, they are highly conscious of a spiritual dimension in their daily lives. The experience of what we call the sacred or the divine has become at best a distant reality to men and women in industrialized, urban societies, but to the Australian aborigines, for example, it is not only self-evident but more real than the material world. 'Dreamtime'--which the Australian aborigines experience in sleep and in moments of vision--is timeless and 'everywhen'...

...Dreamtime is inhabited by the Ancestors--powerful, archetypal beings who taught humans the skills that are essential to their lives, such as hunting, war, sex, weaving and basket-making. These are, therefore, not profane, but sacred activities, which bring mortal men and women into contact with Dreamtime. When an Australian aborigine goes hunting, for example, he models his behavior so closely on that of the First Hunter that he feels totally at one with him, caught up in that more powerful archetypal world. It is only when he experiences this mystical unity with Dreamtime that his life has meaning. Afterwards, he falls away from that primal richness and back into the world of time, which, he fears, will devour him and reduce all that he does to nothingness.

One of my favorite things to do in all the world is to just sit in front of a simple fire. Mandi's parents often wondered what was wrong with me. They had an outdoor fireplace, and during this time of year I would build a fire, and sit in front of it for 2 and 3 hours at a time. I wondered what my fascination was. Why was I just staring into this fire? Why did I feel as if I was somehow Home, and in such a peaceful, beautiful place?

Now I think I know. What can be older than fire? What can reach back farther into humanity's shared soul than sitting around a fire? I think if you just tweak the quote above a magical thing happens: "When a person stares into a campfire, for example, he models his behavior so closely on that of the First Campfire Starer, that he feels totally at one with him, caught up in that more powerful archetypal world. It is only when he experiences this mystical unity with Dreamtime that his life has meaning."

I have often wondered what happens to me while watching a powerful story in a darkened theater, especially those Fantasy or Myth type stories like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Braveheart. Jonathan, sometimes, in the middle of these movies, I feel like I am heating up on the inside. I feel chills that gouge the depth of me. I feel like a spring deep within is being let go, allowed to flow in its full force for a brief, rare moment until I am a waterfall of emotion. THAT'S WHEN I GO CRAZY! Because, when its over, I come home, and all I can do is sit and hold my head in my hands. And I pray, I pray to God to let me be in that Story. I pray that I will be caught up in that Story. I HAVE to be a part of that Story. This is what always leads me to feel the need to make movies. But it is only recently, starting last year, with reading through your early journals, and then reading Eldredge, that I am beginning to understand that more than anything, I am wanting to be in a Story that I already am in.

Then, I come across passages like this and it starts to make even more sense. The puzzle moves closer to being finished. I have long thought that the movie screen is the modern day fire, and the filmmaker the modern day shaman or storyteller. How much more does that strike me in light of this understanding of Myth! How deep this thread runs! Why do I love going to the movies so much? "When a person stares into a campfire, for example, he models his behavior so closely on that of the First Campfire Starer, that he feels totally at one with him, caught up in that more powerful archetypal world. It is only when he experiences this mystical unity with Dreamtime that his life has meaning."

I am modeling my behavior on the First Campfires and the First Storytellers. In this act, my soul is clutching onto fleeting glimpses of eternity. For those few moments, I am in the Lost Woods of New Mexico, a stranger in a familiar land. "It is only when he experiences this mystical unity with Dreamtime that his life has meaning."


"The spiritual world is such an immediate and compelling reality that, the indigenous peoples believe, it must once have been more accessible to human beings. In every culture, we find the myth of a lost paradise, in which humans lived in close and daily contact with the divine."

"At the center of the world there was a tree, a mountain, or a pole, linking earth and heaven, which people could easily climb to reach the realm of the gods. Then there was a catastrophe...Most of the religions and mythologies of archaic societies are imbued with longing for the lost paradise."

Taken From A Short History Of Myth by Karen Armstrong