Summer Revolution | Catherine Shainberg Ph.D.

It is summertime in my part of the world. We have dropped our heavy clothes and daily winter patterns, opened our windows and doors, stepped out into sunshine and breezes. We are riding the wave of July heat and summer blooming, a time when both nature and humans explode their boundaries, turning themselves inside out, exposing their hidden core. Is it surprising that July is the month of revolution in both American and France?

To what extent does a cyclical re-occurrence influence the passions that led to these seismic events? Is there something about the fact that the most shattering revolutionary events in the Western world happened in July?

We try to convince ourselves that time is linear. We get caught in the notion of progress. But time is cyclical long before it’s linear.  And July is the right moment to jump on the band wagon, crest the high wave, fly off into the sapphire blue space of sky and water.

Instead of fearing change, we can use the cyclical surging of energies to embrace our personal revolution. Why revolution, we may well ask? Aren’t we quite satisfied with our life and privileges? And yet, isn’t there a deep urge to sense more, to see more, to divine more?

Think of revolution as a revelation, a popping forth from the ground of our being of our most hidden urges and truths.

While religion and its rituals hum to cyclical patterns, spirituality in whatever form we embrace (Dreamers use inner gazing) rises the crest to leap into the beyond.

July is the right time to go on a holiday – a holy day – of freedom. Let loose the fireworks, shape shift – become a tree, a bee, an ocean. Gaze within and find the treasure that only the energies of early summer can liberate. It’s time to let go of the dust, the heaviness and the burdens of wintertime, whether within or outside of us. And while, like Jesus of Galilee, we all bear the cross of the four directions that define this earthly plane, we can also transfigure and resurrect into a new life.

Our July revolutionary forebears in America and France understood the importance of freedom and independence as a social contract and right. As Dreamers, we recognize the importance of inner freedom and independence as a divine contract and right.  And, like all revolutionaries, we must seize our moments of revolution and of revelation.

We do this by discovering the truth of who we are and what we want through dreaming and imagery work. We do this by freeing ourselves from the pains of everyday life.

Here’s an exercise to help us do that:

Exercise: Ocean of Tears

Close your eyes. Breathe out slowly three times, counting from 3 to 1. See the one tall, clear and bright.

Imagine that you are crying all the tears in your body. See them pouring out of your eyes and gathering in a pool at your feet.

Breathe out. Continue to cry, see the pool becoming a lake, then an ocean.

Breathe out. Dive into the ocean and swim downward toward the center of the ocean. Find the treasure that is waiting there for you.

Breathe out. Swim off to the other shore, come out of the ocean carrying your treasure.

Breathe out. Put the treasure down. Dry yourself in the sunlight.

Breathe out. Pick up your treasure, what do you have?

Breathe out. Look over your left shoulder, what has happened to the ocean?

Breathe out. Walk away, taking your treasure with you.

Breathe out. Open your eyes.