The Key to the Dream ...

I left town for the long weekend. I packed up the kids, the tent, the sleeping bags, and a satchel of books. We drove west along the Trinity River. I'm a water~girl and when something is missing inside me, I go to water like a homing pigeon. I knew it would be hot and sunny here in the valley but it was cool and cloudy along the river. That suited me just fine. The spot that we picked to pitch the tent was, ironically enough, Pigeon Point, on the river side of the highway.

The first night there I slept deeply and awoke at 5:30am from a strange dream. I don't usually remember my dreams but this one stayed with me.

I had been taken somewhere. I didn't know where the place was (is) but it was deeply nature based and without people other than whomever had brought me there. That, too, was a mystery to me. It was a special place to that person; I knew that much. That it was shared with me was significant; I knew that, too.

I looked around in a complete 360° and I knew that THIS was the center of something. It wasn't the kind of center that things lead into, but, rather, the center or origin from which things lead out. That was/is important for some reason.

I thought a lot about the dream this weekend and wondered if it was addressing something in my life, if there was some message in there that I need to decipher and act on or simply soak in and learn from. This settled into the back of my mind and smoldered ... until I found the rock.

It is a small rock, no more than 1" x 2" and not very thick. It jumped out at me because of the center, lighter than the rest and outlined in an earthy bronze tone. You can almost see the shape of a heart at the top but there is no point at the bottom. Perhaps it has meaning in and of itself or, perhaps, it has only the meaning that I give to it. In the end, does it even matter?

Things in my life are changing, some slowly and some rapidly. I have to be centered to know where to go and what to do. I can't avoid the places that hurt but I can't live there and refuse to come out, either. From the center many things are visible and many paths are available. Some will obviously lead to better places than others but all of them will teach me something if I remain open to the lessons.

I think that many of us operate from the surface of life and do not delve too deeply into ourselves. How much rarer is it, then, to experience, however briefly, the center of another person? I think that may have been what the dream was about. It was, in essence, a sharing of something deeply personal. You can't truly receive something like that unless you open yourself up. I had that once, for an achingly brief time. Does lightning ever strike the same tree twice? Anything is possible.

Do we live to dream? Or do we dream to live?


Heart Stone

I have the dream. I have the rock.
I hope that I will know it ... if it ever finds me again.

Today's Plan: Be receptive (to dreams, to life, to the future) ...