Editor's Note: This is the eleventh of a projected series of 26 articles in which Allen Aslan Heart will pass along the spiritual wisdom found in the stories behind his dream catchers. Like many others, Mr. Heart feels that the time has come when we must get our spiritual and ecological acts together if we are to survive and evolve.

Heritage and Honor: A Story The Dream Catchers' Weave

by Allen Aslan Heart/White Eagle Soaring

One day between dances at a powwow in Minneapolis I wandered back to the vendor's area to look for food and examine the crafts. I was drawn to a circle of twig that had been woven and decorated with feathers and stones. The weaving fascinated me. How did they do it? I studied the weaving for half an hour until I had satisfied my curiosity and went on. The legend of the dream catcher was lovely:

The night air is filled with dreams. Since ancient times Ojibwe people have woven dream catchers of twigs, sinew, and feathers. It was woven by the grandfathers and grandmothers for newborn children and hung above the cradle board to give the infants peaceful, beautiful dreams. Good dreams are clear and know the way to the dreamer, descending through the feathers. The slightest movement of the feathers indicated the passage of yet another beautiful dream. Bad dreams, however, are confused and confusing. They cannot find their way through the web and are trapped there until the sun rises and evaporates them like the morning dew.

Still, I had no intention of weaving even one dream catcher. A week later a friend called me to ask if I knew how to weave dream catchers. I said that I thought so. She had an idea she wanted to play with, would I help her? Not only did I find I could weave dream catchers; new designs and better methods came to me. It seemed very natural for me to do this work – even though I thought I was a white man doing “Indian” things.

The spirals danced and turned.

“He has remembered how to listen with his heart. Now he understands that Power is with him. Someday he will know that Power is within him.”

“We had a moment of surprise when he did not begin to weave the dream catcher after we had shown him how to do so. However, we always have a contingency plan to overcome the stubborn, reluctant, or unaware nature of humans.”

“The time has come. Let that which has been hidden and forgotten be found and remembered.”

Eventually I decided to use natural materials and played with ways to form wood twigs and branches into rings. I discovered I could split the imitation sinew so my dream catchers didn't look like little snowshoes. Since it takes nearly fifteen feet of sinew to weave a small dream catcher, it took a long time to pull sinew through and back for each loop. I found I could wind the sinew around my fingers to form a shuttle held together by the beeswax on the thread. This could be passed through the weaving and back in a second. I had found an easier, economical way to weave.

Most of the dream catchers I had seen had feathers attached to the ring or glued to strips of buckskin. They looked so rigid, so heavy, not light and free like dreams. I developed an easy way to tie the feathers so that the sinew would disappear into the feathers so they seemed to dance and float. To the remaining tails of sinew I could attach semi-precious gems. It became unnecessary to use bulky pony beads made of plastic or painted wood. And the energy of turquoise, topaz, jade, garnet, carnelian, lapis lazuli, malachite, hematite, citrine, moonstone, rose quartz, crystal quartz, peridot, and amethyst could be carried among the feathers to bring dreams of power, beauty and healing.

Natural colorful feathers from wild birds were used at first until I was told that there was a serious penalty for using feathers from any migratory bird – thousands of dollars and time in jail! So I found colorful, natural, and legal feathers of domesticated birds from commercial suppliers.

My first dream catcher was a simple mid-point weaving that I called...

Power of the Hoop – The circle represents the unbroken wholeness from which we draw our power and strength. It is our Source of Being. Everything is in the circle. Within the circle the traditional people follow their ancient ways of connection to each other and to Mother Earth. At the center of All That Is the Creator weaves the Web of Life spiraling from the known into the unknown. Four orders of being – the rocks, water, and air; the trees, grasses, and flowers; the four-legged, winged, swimmers, and the crawlers; and the two-legged, the humans – are interdependent on each other and are one in the essential foundation of the universe.

It is more than a catcher of dreams. The spirals cross and interconnect creating a matrix of being, the Web of Life. Although this weave was probably used to make the weaving of the hoop in the hoop and stick game, its later adaptation as a dream catcher has served to teach the complexity of the spirals. Children, usually boys, would roll the woven hoop along the ground and try to throw a wooden spear through the opening. Later, as the dream catcher was seen to have commercial potential, this commonly woven child's toy was adapted to making dream catchers. The weaving pattern most often seen in dream catchers and therefore usually mistaken as traditional, could be called the mid-point weave because it makes loops around the mid-point of each segment. It leaves a sizable opening in the center because originally it was used in the hoop and stick game found among many tribes.

Weaving a dream catcher is an adventure of the heart, an intuitive and playful journey that connects the weaver with the natural world. As you weave, you bring the other beings of Mother Earth to your thoughts and in your heart. Remember the plants as you handle the wood twig, the four-leggeds and winged ones as you use the feathers, the rocks and waters as you add the semi-precious gemstones. Honor them as though they were your own relatives. They are. Your heart is brought into the Circle of All Beings as you weave the connections within the wood ring. Even though the thread is very fine, we are all connected and have much to learn from each other. As you honor all the beings of creation, you bring honor and harmony to yourself. Into each dream catcher is magically woven the Dream of the Earth, and your connection to the Creation and the Creator unfolds. Weaving the dream catcher is much more than a craft project. It is a meditation that will bring you into an awareness of the Creator, the Great Mystery, WHO also abides in the heart of each of us. Love flowing through the heart like a carrier wave modulated by power and wisdom is a creative and healing energy. The dream catcher is a three-dimensional tool to weave the connectedness of All your Relations into a wholeness, a web of light and being.

The spider web dream catcher may be seen in the Mille Lacs Indian Museum in central Minnesota, as a dream catcher. Other dream catcher-like objects may be found in photographs or as artifacts, but not as dream catchers. For many years each tribe sold its own crafts. Only Ojibwe people sold dream catchers at the powwows. About thirty years ago, when the dream catcher caught the imagination of white people, many craftspeople of other tribes decided to take advantage of the growing market.

Each tribe and clan, however, has its own oral tradition and memory. Passing along that memory by storytelling has not been easy with the traditional culture challenged, the tribal languages fallen into disuse, and poverty, drugs, and conflicting values have created a climate of fear, anger, despair, and confusion. Now there are many legends of the dream catcher from many different Native American cultures. Sometimes Anishinabe tell the story of the Lakota dream catcher with their own traditional spider web, and Lakota tell the “Shinob” story with their dream catcher. Authenticity is difficult, if not impossible, given the intermarriage among many tribes, with non-Indians, and the loss of the continuity historically provided by traditional elders. I have encountered a few traditional people who wanted to learn how to weave the dream catcher, but they could find no one in their community who would or could teach them how to weave the ancient designs of their culture. They had come to me. In another year I would discover my own Native American heritage and in two years I would dance the honors dance with the elders at the Rediscovery Center on the White Earth Indian Reservation.

The spirals danced.

So….be light.

©Copyright 2002 Allen Aslan Heart