From Annie Wattles, Director of The Center

I have a dream that I am walking in a lush, fully fruited and flowering apple orchard with my friend and colleague Dorothy. This orchard in my dream is on the slope of Norris Mountain where we have our Center. As we walk through the many corridors of trees, we are quietly talking and laughing with our arms around each other. The trees reach towards us in the sun with their branches bending from the weight of the many red apples.

The tree of knowledge.

As a student of the dream I understand that what we are offering in our Center is the opportunity to experience the recovery of a knowledge that is forbidden to us somehow. How many of us eat the apple? How many of us want to be in relationship with the unconscious material that offers us a chance to reconnect with our deepest selves? The knowledge of self. As we reach under the veil, we find the intention of the dream.

In making this choice, we agree to let the dreams take us toward the forbidden knowledge and underneath the persona. As the dream confronts us and we let go, piece by piece, we recover the boy and the girl who were left behind. The false self dies. We reenter the home of the soul.

We trust dream after dream to lead us to ourselves and our relationship to the Divine Realm. We leave thoughts that our own worldly ideas can help us in this realm. We shy away from expertise and rules, and we say yes to the journey into the unknown.

We welcome you to join us.

Apple
by Karla Van Vliet

1.
Within, a star
cut from whole to what
is left after, yes,
the blade has split you.

2.
And the serpent said, eat of the flesh
and when she did, there was a light
from within, and from that light
she could see the path, which leads, not
into darkness, although there was
darkness, but to the center, to the seed
from which lay a new life, beginning to grow.