The Wild Harmonic deck can be used in any reading style, depending on the reader’s aptitudes and interests. However, the deck was made to help a questioner go beyond the normal inquiries about everyday issues and to see into the subtle energies at play behind them. In this way, the deck offers a two-fold opportunity. First, it helps the questioner to step into the hidden principles at play behind a given situation, giving one an advantage to address them. Second, this act of shifting Awareness to the subtle, practiced regularly, helps one cultivate what I have called Dreaming Awareness in their everyday lives.
The Dream Sutras reading spread given here is a way of constructing what I call an Oracular Mantra. This short phrase contains the keys to a given situation wrapped in the form of a linguistic enigma to ponder and peruse as one continues on with their life situations. Such a practice of carrying an oracular mantra with oneself gives us an ongoing reference point to mine our experiences for insights and empowerment using the mantra as a reflective surface to bring new perspectives, and new light, to an otherwise ordinary situation.
Of course, a Dream Sutra spread is just as potent, if not more so, when applying it to non-ordinary experiences.
Using The Dream Sutra Oracular Mantra Reading Spread
The basis of the reading is to draw four cards, place them in order in front of you, and turn them over.
You then use this template to construct your oracular mantra dream sutra.
The (FIRST CARD)
Of (SECOND CARD)
Opens the (THIRD CARD)
Of (FOURTH CARD)
For instance, when I first dreamed this spread up, I drew these cards to clarify for me the purpose of such a reading:
The cards Watercourse Way, Self Creating, Ineffable Delight and Always Already became this Dream Sutra:
The Watercourse Way of Self Creating Opens the Ineffable Delight of the Always Already.
When I first read this, I felt instantly altered by the engagement of a deep process. It was like reading this passage accessed and set in motion an as-yet unknown force of nature in my being, and I could feel it rippling out from me into my life almost immediately.
From this initial reading, I gathered this basic idea of what the Dream Sutras held for me and others. The Watercourse Way of Self Creating showed me that using the Dream Sutras was a practice of creating myself, choosing who and how I am, but in a way that follows a natural course through life (rather than a bulleted list of self-improvement paradigms). Such a practice not only opens a sudden full-being joy but reveals that such ineffable delight is something that is already within us, just waiting to be acknowledged, accessed and expressed. I was sold.
Working with Your Oracular Mantra Dream Sutra
You will find your way of working with these, but I will offer some of my approaches here to give you an idea of how they can be used. The first thing I do is to read the mantra a few times until I have it memorized. I also take a picture of it to refresh my memory on the fly. Often I will come across an experience after a reading like this that triggers a sense of “ah, this is what those cards are speaking to!” That said, I just as often can only recall 3 of the cards, and the 4th sits in the dark, taunting and tantalizing me with the potential keys to my enigmas that it holds. Once I have had enough sense of impenetrable mystery, I look up the photo and get on with the penetration.
Sitting with the mantra and bringing it with me as I encounter and reflect on my life is my main approach with these mantras. When I have a moment, I may recite it to myself to invoke it into my Awareness. At some point, something triggers an association. I then repeat it as a means of superimposing the mantra to describe what is occurring in my life and see what insights it can tease out for me.
Sometimes the insights are about how best to orient me, on the inner planes, to an experience. Other times they clarify the attitude or type of action that will best serve. Often the first case leads to the second.
Playing with these mantras engages our aptitudes for dancing with the enigmas of Awareness. They can be both a receptive invocation of what we nurture and an active willing of what we wish to create. Though I am not sure how far removed, they are a cousin of the Zen Koan. While their form and use are entirely different than the Koan, the not-doing of how we work with them falls between fairly similar and identical.
Further Possibilities With The Dream Sutras
Of course, it wasn’t long before I put these into play. I encountered a deeply disturbing, overwhelmingly negative psychic experience just around the bend from their discovery. It is difficult to describe it in detail without sounding pompous or tragically hip, so I will leave it at that. Suffice it to say I wanted some guidance and went to the Dream Sutras for their counsel. I drew this mantra:
The Shadow Guardian of Subconscious Reflection opens the Dream Speaking of Chaotic Return.
Again, just reading this mantra dropped me into a deeper dreaming awareness, and I could feel a process of unfolding begin.
My initial take on this, which was very helpful, was along these lines. What I was facing was a deep shadow having to do with how I reflect life and how my life reflects me. Because of the shadow element here, I presumed it had to do with projections and deflections as much as reflections. By engaging the shadow with clarity, I would then open the ability to change my narrative. It was key to knowing that this shadow was here to serve my unfolding by playing the role of a guardian that would not let me pass until I solved the riddle of what it was showing me about myself. It promised me the opportunity to tell my story in a new way that opened my heart to embrace all I had denied. It played out just like that.
A few days into seeing this play out, I felt a shift and so drew a new mantra for the new energy position.
The Ineffable Delight of the Dreaming Layers Opens the way of the Creating Sacred of the transmutation of Self Destruction into Tantric Trust.
Again, it was true to my ensuing experience and provided an empowering perspective from which to navigate my non-ordinary experiences. By approaching the Awareness of other levels of being with joy, I open the path to restoring sacred consciousness to the realms where self-destruction can be healed into a path of engagement and trust.
This mantra shows how you can play with the presence of shadow cards in a Dream Sutra spread. Wherever a shadow is drawn, you will draw another card to remedy its transmutation. If a shadow is drawn to transmute a shadow, it indicates a deep shadow, and you keep drawing the transmutation card until you get a non-shadow. Of course, you will also pile up all the shadows drawn, building a powerful mantra addressing so much healing at once that you will need your big dreamer shoes to engage with it. But oh, what an adventure you have before you!
Word Play
A mantra will take shape differently depending on the cards drawn. When building the mantras, always let your inspiration help align the words and how they fit together. Using the format above is somewhere to start and gives you a structure to construct an alchemical formula for refining your situation into a higher and/or more expanded awareness.
When integrating the shadow cards into a mantra, which implies using five or more cards, use the above example as your guide, and let your inspiration in the moment guide you. The more shadows that appear at once, the more complexity, trauma, and/or wounding there is presenting itself, and the more healing/empowerment promised through the course of the inquiry.
Final Thoughts
Please post your Dream Sutra Oracular Mantras and let me know where I can find them. If you would like any help building your mantra, please message me in some fashion, and I would be delighted to play with you.