Tamika's Chamber

One of the most important dream initiations I ever experienced occurred while I was having a powerful series of dreams about a Native American medicine woman. She called herself Mother Big Bone. In these dreams, she taught me how to make a variety of protective amulets, journey into the Earth, perform certain rituals. We even battled an evil sorceress and her daughters.

One night she prepared me for a sacred task. I don't remember all of what the ritual involved, but I know she anointed me and smudged me. We were under a starry night sky. I remember the smoke spiraling into the air. I wore a turquoise earring I'd been given by another medicine woman in an earlier dream.

I descended into a lower realm, an underworld full of hungry ghosts. I was in a labyrinth of tunnels. The walls were dark, but seemed to be inlaiden with golden wires shaped into intricate designs. This place had an Oriental feel to it. I had to fight my way through the eerie figures who all wanted something from me. They were crazed, out of their minds with wanting earthly pleasures and many simply floated through the tunnels in a daze or immersed in the idea that they were taking part in a decadent masquerade.

I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but I knew it when I saw it. I spied a door in one of the walls and opened it, entering a chamber, darker than the tunnels outside, but even more dense with the intricate golden designs. At the far end of the chamber sat an eldritch golden being with six arms. The name of this genderless, Asiatic being was Tamika. Tamika indicated a gauntlet of traps that I was to navigate through to get to the treasure at the end.

I don't remember being afraid. I navigated the gauntlet almost effortlessly and felt a keen sense of pride when I came to the beautifully carved cupboard at the end. I was able to retrieve the item I'd come for.

Unfortunately, I do not remember what it was I retrieved for Mother Big Bone. I feel that it was golden and may have been a goblet or a bottle with an important potion inside. I awoke from this dream with an extreme sense of accomplishment, certain that I'd received a real and important initiation in the Otherworld.