The Rainbow Lodge of Robert White Wolf

I had been a fan of Robert Moss’ shamanic dream chronicles for years, but the first time I met him in person was when he came to Madison to promote The Dreamers Book of the Dead. He gave a talk at Meriter Hospital on “Dreaming with the Departed”. White haired and silver tongued; he was a magically charismatic personality. He spoke of his childhood, where 3 near death experiences and years of debilitating illness catapulted him deep in the spirit world. He talked about how we could visit our deceased loved ones in dreams because we travel to the astral plane where they are each night. He talked about the basic mechanics of the astral plane, where what you think is created instantly, just like in the movie What Dreams May Come. On the astral plane imagination is king. So one of the biggest gifts we could give to loved one’s who’ve crossed over but were stuck was to help them creatively imagine themselves onward. At one point, he talked about the potentially destructive impact of people who died with addictions, where their lower astral body tended to hang around the living, trying to still get its addictions fed by proxy through the living. He told the story of a man with lung cancer who he saw clairvoyantly smoking for two generations of deceased smokers. The Narcotics Anonymous Day of the Dead dance was tomorrow, and I was feeling my former recovery sponsor Robert Lujan around me, wondering how his spirit was getting on after passing away under bad circumstances, overdosing in the midst of a relapse on heroin.

After Robert passed, my wife Kathleen had a dream that he was riding a spirit horse off into the sky. Riding home from the funeral service, she heard on the radio that there were wild horses running up and down the train tracks on Madison’s University Avenue, right in front of the VA Hospital. The police were trying to subdue them, and no one knew where they had come from. This seemed an appropriate send off for Robert, a Vietnam Veteran and Apache who had both a strong tribal connection to horse culture, and a strong destructive pull towards the dark “horse” heroin. Kathleen later created a quilt based on this dream. Shortly after she’d started on the quilt, I found a beautiful rainbow colored art horse from a series “The Trail of the Painted Ponies” which had 3 silhouettes on its side that looked just like Robert going up in flames. The horse was running on a path of stars, a blue green milky way. So when I was talking to one of Robert Moss’ assistant teachers Karen McKean after the talk, and she had on an elaborate horse pendant, and she said that Robert Moss was doing a weekend workshop on Making Death your Ally which started the next day, I followed the lightning path of coincidence, cancelled all my plans, and signed on.

The next morning, when I arrived at Karen’s house off Hwy B in Oregon, I was touched by how close it was to Tom’s house on Hwy A where Robert Lujan’s spirit fire had burned for 7 days following Ojibwa tradition, 9 months earlier. As I drove down the long driveway and looked out at her two horses and the rolling gold hills, I had a flash of déjà vu, and I remembered a dream I’d had recently of a very similar landscape. In that dream, there were three giant rainbows in the sky, and I felt a great peace and calm. Today however, my heart was leaden, and the weather was grey and drizzly, so there was little hope of a rainbow. I went in and found a seat and a few minutes later Robert Moss arrived and said “All right who’s the shamanic guy who took my seat?” Apparently, I had stolen his favorite spot, facing the western door, the doorway into the spirit world on many medicine wheels. After doing some shamanic songs to raise the energy, we went around and introduced ourselves and I talked briefly about Robert Lujan’s death and my desire to help him complete his journey. Robert Moss took one look at me with his piercing clairvoyant vision and said that Robert’s energy was all wrapped up in mine. He said that we would have to do something about it as that wasn’t good for either of us.

He had the class take a break and he cut a golden apple in two halves which I was to hold over any spots on my body where I felt Robert’s energy attached to me. Then I was supposed to find a spot outside to lay those spirit soaked apples where elements could finish the job. I had hip pain in my right hip since just before Robert passed which started after a 49 day juice fast. Robert’s hip replacement and the opiate painkillers that he had to take for the pain had triggered the old demon of his addiction which made this the most likely spot of attachment. I held one half of the apple over my right hip, and the other half on the left side of my belly where I felt constricted, and I walked down to the far edge of the property. There was a concrete structure there with a small waterfall coming off it that fed a dark stream that snaked up the edge of the property. Next to it was a metal box with a high voltage warning on it. When I had been there for a while and it felt right, I put the apple on top of the high voltage box, imagining Robert burning in the electric blue fire of the star horse. I came back up to the group and asked about the waterfall and river and was told that it was a sewage treatment stream. How appropriate.

Later, we went on our first shamanic journey, riding the steady drumbeat through the base of a tree into the underworld. Robert’s native name was White Wolf and I saw a white wolf right away who lead me along, scaring off hell hounds and disgruntled lost souls with his fierce barking. Then I came to a great cauldron, inside a large sweat lodge. The cauldron was being stirred by Robert’s grandmother and my own grandmother. Inside the cauldron was liquid electric blue singing starlight. Robert was lying down here and we poured this singing starlight water over him, turning the table and returning the favor for years of him pouring purifying lodge water for me. I thought of Kevin, preparing Robert’s body for cremation in the traditional Ojibwa way by washing him down with cedar water. As Robert gathered strength from the water pouring, the white wolf began running very fast in circles around our group. Sun dogs, full circle rainbows, began shooting up around us with dolphins now spinning in circles and making more and stronger rainbows. Then Crazy Horse came in and we were outfitting Robert for his journey onward, dressing him in ceremonial garb as an Apache Warrior, his true self. A horse was brought in for him to ride, a beautiful rainbow spirit horse. The journey ended and we were told to go hold a tree and ground the energy. I went out front and held a small tree, while Karen’s two horses watched me with some interest from their enclosure. Later, Robert Moss talked about the need for Robert and I both to get into the electric blue fire together and I wrote a letter inviting him into the fire.

“Robert, I love you. I wish I had gotten closer to you on the earth this go round, but I know we’ll share the stage again in this infinite play. I am so grateful for all of the healing, teaching, and inspiration you brought me. You taught me so much about selfless service and community building. I know that you feel that you lost everything you taught us at the end, but nothing can take away all the light and love that you brought us before you got lost again in the shadowland of addiction. I am honored that you’ve allowed me to help you return to the light and let go of your regret and your dense energy shell. I know that you are trying to help me by blowing up my computers, you Windigo, helping me stay focused on Kathleen’s healing during her own dark night of the soul. I believe that I have the energy and support that I need and it’s time for both of us to resurrect ourselves to a new level of liquid singing electric blue firelight. I thank you for the elegant beauty of this process. Let’s jump in the fire together, and die into the light!”

My homework was to take a bath and rub myself down with bath salts to continue to release Robert’s energy from me, and to find a special object for tomorrow to serve as a container for Robert’s dense energy body. I got home and bathed, repeating over and over again an entity healing prayer I learned in my energy healing school Inner Focus: “Dear Robert, You are healed and forgiven, You are free from pain, suffering and the vibration of the earth plane, You are one with your own Higher Self, You are surrounded by Love, You are surrounded by Light, Go now with Jesus to your place of perfect expression, Go now in peace.” I had a long dialog with Robert, and my heart overflowed with gratitude as I shared over and over with him all of the joy and beauty and healing he’d brought to my world. When I was done, I found a piece of wood that I’d had on my dresser for a while that was shaped just like a hip bone. Then I took a crystal that I had gotten in Inner Focus that fit at the end of the wood. Then I looked in a leather bag that I had made as a kid in Indian Guides (Where I was Crazy Horse) that was filled with old coins that I’d collected over the years. Amazingly, there was an Australian one (Robert Moss is from Australia) with a Ram head on it (Robert Lujan was an Aries) and the date on it was 1952, the year that Robert Lujan was born. It fit neatly into a notch in the piece of wood. That night, I woke up after a few hours of sleep and couldn’t get back to sleep. I felt Robert’s spirit close by me and continued to dialog with him. He was concerned about Jenny and the kids. He also wanted the lodge community and the healing work he was doing to continue, and asked me to lead a ceremony around the 1 year anniversary of his passing with people from the lodge to help them let go of his energy and renew the bonds of that community.

When I got to the workshop the next day I asked Karen for something to attach the crystal to the wood and she had Crazy Glue, (of course!) which worked well, and I had a perfect container for Robert’s dense energy body. We broke up into small groups and shared a dream with each other. I didn’t have one from the night before so I shared a recent one from my dream journal which started in the basement of a childhood friends house whose father and brother both died of heart attacks within 6 months of each other when we were in high school. In the dream, his dead brother was sitting in front of the TV with a lead helmet on, and I wanted to help him get the helmet off, but his mother said that it was necessary for his protection that he keep it on. Then the scene shifted, and I became lucid and I was flying in front of a giant cathedral. There was a big upside down Jesus on a cross. I turned the cross right side up with my mental intention and after I did, I suddenly heard the most beautiful gospel choir music, which I listened to while flying around.

After sharing our dreams, each group did a group journey into one members dream and my group chose my dream. The four of us journeyed together, touching each other gently. I returned to the dream with my friend’s dead brother and realized that it was my magical child with the lead helmet and we turned the helmet to gold by radiating love and sunshine at him. Then the white Pegasus which my magical child rides came and took us to the cathedral where we met the white haired resurrected Jesus, who had come down off the cross, and went inside. The same people from the lodge journey yesterday were there except this time the liquid singing starlight fire water was in my crystal bowl and Jesus and I continued to pour water to purify Robert’s energy. He was laying in a baptismal pool and there were Salmon eating away at the dark energy clinging to him. There was a full gospel choir and their tones filled the cathedral and uplifted our spirits. After a while the Pegasus flew to the bell tower and began flapping it’s wings powerfully, flapping away the dark clouds from the sky. The dolphins came and spun their sun dogs opening up the rainbow portal in the ceiling of the cathedral. Sitting Bull and Geronimo came in at the end with the spirit horse and Robert, adorned now with a big headdress of eagle feathers, got on and flew through the rainbow portal. I got up and blew his energy into the crystal and put it on the altar. We had a short break where I ate some strawberries and when I came back into the room the sun had finally come out after two days of grey and rain. There was a prism in the window by where we journeyed, and it was making small rainbows all over the place where I was just laying. The rainbows had come after all! We did four more journeys later that day focused on helping the dead imagine themselves onward, one for each of the four elements. At the end of the workshop, I wrote a song to honor Robert our fallen Rainbow Warrior.

Rainbow Warrior

Rainbow portal opening above your head
Rainbow soul know that you are dead
Dolphins spinning aloha joy to your soul
Sundogs for a white wolf showing you the whole
HO HO HO Rainbow GO GO GO Rainbow FLOW FLOW FLOW Soul

Bubbling fountain of healing and peace
Baptised purified all your grief released
Let me pour water for you this time
A choir of liquid singing sizzling starlight
HO HO HO Rainbow GO GO GO Rainbow FLOW FLOW FLOW Soul

A Rainbow Loge is waiting for you tonight
Jump in with me into the electric blue fire
Burning true blue to soul smoke pink and green
Rising to the white light transformed homing
HO HO HO Rainbow GO GO GO Rainbow FLOW FLOW FLOW Soul

Lay down your pain shed your dense energy haze
Let white wolf shake off all of Black Dog’s daze
Rainbow warrior take your crazy spirit horse and ride
Rainbow warrior flying across the sky
HO HO HO Rainbow GO GO GO Rainbow FLOW FLOW FLOW Soul

Check in your medicine bag go buy a pipe of light
Put on your celestial rainbow robe and take flight
Pegasus strong wings will take you to your next life
Tri-Star Orion or the Orient you decide


The next day I after work I went to bury the talisman with Robert’s energy at the base of a tree as was suggested. I went out to Cherokee Marsh with the intention of burying him near the bench with the vista looking to the sunrise in the east. I figured that this would help him move away from the house and the lodge. It was getting dark when I arrived, and when I got to the bench there was a young couple sitting there. I walked by and down the path a little and realized that there were only small trees for a ways. The first big tree that I found was an oak with two trunks. There would still be a view of the sunrise from the higher branches of the tree, and I thought that looking out at this young couple in love was appropriate. Robert passed in a lot of heartache over his relationship so this would start him off in a new direction, moving towards a renewal of love. I dug a hole as deep as I could with my little garden trowel and as I put the talisman in and covered it over with dirt, a series of military jets roared overhead. After singing the Rainbow Lodge song, one of the women at the workshop had come up and gave me the name of a woman named White Eagle from New Mexico who led Rainbow Lodges and who came up to do Solstice ceremonies, like Sun Dances without the piercing, in Northern Wisconsin every year. I contacted her through some e-mails and read an article by her describing the Solstice ceremony and how the central tree that they tie up to is a split tree with two trunks. I thought of Robert’s physical scars from piercing at the Sun Dances, and the emotional scars he carried from a violent childhood and the war in Vietnam. I wished and imagined for him a kinder, gentler life in his next incarnation, one where his gifts and dreams were nurtured from the beginning so he could grow a healer without so much wounding.

One month later, Karen started an ongoing group for people who had been through one of Robert’s workshops. I had had three lucid dreams since then that were related to this experience. In the first one, there was a short narration that said that I was in Borneo. I was walking through a city, and then by the ocean with more thatched huts. People were speaking another language, and I groaned with the knowledge that I’d need to learn another language to live here. I went inside a hut and I noticed a rug on the floor and realized that it was a doorway. I put my hand through it and tried to open it, but I couldn’t open it. I was kneeling on it with all fours and suddenly it gave way like a trap door and I was falling through a shaft. I thought of “Door in the Floor” as I fell and I became afraid that I was going into the underworld without my helmet of protection and I hit bottom and a fiery spirit screeched at me and I freaked out and went into a different scene. In the second dream, I was walking in a forest and I came across a black dog in a wooden cage. I realized I was dreaming and I flew around behind the cage and the back was open and I signaled to the dog and flew towards train tracks where a train was going by and looked back and the dog was flying after me. In the third dream, I was walking further down the same train tracks and realized I was dreaming when a bunch of elephants were coming towards me. There was water to the left and there was a polar bear floating on some ice floes. I flew over by the bear and it turned away from me and turned into a white dog. I gave up on the polar bear and flew up a ways and then flew down into the earth and swam downwards until I reached the same spot as before. It was filled with burning spirits and lakes of fire and I was able to stay for longer this time. I was still scared, chanting the entity healing prayer for protection but forgetting the words. I could feel the disturbed thoughts of the souls who were trapped there closing in and crowding by own, until I woke up suddenly.

After sharing our dreams we did a short initial journey. The polar bear that had avoided me in my dream came close to me this time and held me in a warm bear hug embrace. I shared this with Karen and she said that one of Robert Moss’ most significant power animals was the white bear. I’m sure I picked this up through reading all his books over the years, but I wasn’t consciously aware of it, so it was a nice confirmation. Later we journeyed as a group into the final dream in my series. This time the elephant was a white elephant and it and the white bear came with me as I flew into the earth and into the underworld. When we got there the white elephant trumpeted loudly with its trunk, which quieted the disturbed wailing and got the lost souls to pay attention. The pits of burning fire were for purification and didn’t burn when I dipped my hand in them because I was fully in my light body. They only burned off lower vibration thoughts and feelings. I bent over a red flaming pool and saw scenes in it of war and violence from different lifetimes of mine. The white bear held me in a tender bear hug while I watched the savagery. The lost souls gathered around me and watched with empathy, resonating to the dark scenes. Then suddenly, Kwan Yin emerged from the pond on a white dragon. She began to sing beautifully and soothed all of our souls. The last thing I saw was the red eyed face of a hell hound that melted with Kwan Yin’s singing into a gentle white dog which I ended the journey petting. After the group, Karen said I had to come with her up to the house. We walked up the snowy driveway to her house and lying curled up in the garage was her white Samoan dog McCloud, looking just like the dog I’d just seen and petted in my journey. I sat and petted this white wolf and the line between dreams and waking reality blurred completely and in that moment everything connected and wove together.

I had one last lucid dream that completed this series. After realizing I was dreaming while sledding down a snowy hillside, I flew up and spun, which erased the scene. I waited for a few seconds and in front of me appeared the black granite names carved into the Vietnam War Memorial. I was drifting downward, reading the numberless names as they scrolled by. I continued to fall downward through a large tunnel lined with red bricks. After descending for awhile, I came to a spot where many tunnels shot off horizontally and and this crossroads, in even redder bricks, it said “Hell”. I drifted down on of the side tunnels and through a wall and into a small area with the burning red pools and black lava rocks. Immediately, a great light emanated from my heart along with beautiful choir music which was the same sound I had heard in my most healing lucid dream where I felt myself drawn up into liquid singing starlight and dissolving in ecstasy. This time, though, that beautiful harmony was emanating from within me. I floated over to a soldier soul who was pacing around in the corner in circles hyperventilating. I was able to hold him and calm him with the light and harmonious singing, and I was about to take him back up the tunnel with me when my cat meowed at me to pet him and woke me up (that selfish creature!) In 1989, Joe Beavers who had been a friend of my brother and I for our whole young lives, died when he feel asleep at the wheel and drifted off the road. My brother and I spent two days talking to him via a Ouija board, and one of the things that came out of that which was confirmed in a thousand big and small ways afterward was that my last lifetime ended violently as a tunnel rat in Vietnam. To be able to come full circle now and help a fellow soldier and a lost part of my own soul out of hell and to the light has been the greatest miracle of my recovery.

Peace, Love, and Recovery, Rev. Michael Dinan