Olaf Asteson Dreamsong: Art & Dream

HOLY NIGHTS ONLINE CLASS

The Dreamsong is an ancient Norwegian folk song. It was lost in time, but a clergyman named Landstad rediscovered it one night when he heard it in a winter’s deep valley in Telmark Norway.

The song tells us that Olaf falls asleep on Christmas eve and “sleeps” through the holy nights waking on January 6, the Epiphany. Olaf while “sleeping” experiences secrets of the human being and cosmos. The dreamsong gives us the “spiritual” pictures in poetic form of his initiation journey. As Joseph Campbell reminds us, the Hero’s Journey is found in myths, legends and poem-songs.

The 13 holy nights have been called “time outside of time” or “sacred time.” It’s a wonderful way to end the year and begin the new.

Every day we will make a small piece of art, and by keeping a dream journal through the holy nights, we enter into a living contemplative practice traversing the universe.

Each of the 12 holy nights are “outside” of time, and lay over the next 12 months of the year. So dreaming on the holy nights may give “glimpses” of the coming year, like pulling a rune for each month!