A dream I had...

[MonkeyGrass]

So, last night I had a dream, and it felt so significant, and the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking it's my subconscious sorting out my spiritual journey. I thought I'd post here to get your highly insightful (or hilarious, ridiculous or reassuring) thoughts.

So, here tis:

I'm visiting a farm with my family, and there's a young woman there with a baby, and she's convinced that a demon (or some invisible entity) is killing her animals. She wants us to go...ward it off or something, and for some reason, we have to visit an old stone church building to do it. I have my doubts, but she's crying, so we humor her.

As we're leaving her land, we get caught up on this mammoth of an old tree (I remember assuming it was oak)...tangled up in ropes, tethered to the expansive girth of it's trunk. We start getting pelted with bullets or something, and suddenly, I have some sort of gun, and am shooting back. Then, I'm leaning against the rope, running sideways around the trunk, trying to break free, and I realize that this trunk it HUGE. The edge of it just keeps coming and coming...finally, the rope snaps and we're on our way.

We're walking a long dirt path, and it's windy and overcast. My spouse and children are with me, and, for whatever reason, the kids are taking turns riding on a giant dog.

When we arrive, the old church building is more like a castle ruin. Overgrown, and all the rooms are filled with old, musty smelling materials. Sunday school papers, pamphlets, books, broken toys, broken furniture. My daughter starts reading one of the books out loud, and I take it from her and thumb through (all the while, my spouse and I are on the lookout for this "demon", which is, apparently, invisible). One page says, "This is Janie-she's going to hell" over the caption of a smiling six year old. I toss it back on the pile of scattered ripped books and pages.

I hear a noise, and the hairs on my neck stand completely on end, and I get one of those full-body goosepimple sessions. Neat. I remember feeling annoyed at being so spooked, and then my spouse backs down one of the stone staircases and says, "You have to do it yourself." I feel...irritated, but I'm overcome with the sense of rightness of his suggestion, for whatever reason.

I walk over to where I feel the whatever is, take a breath and start to mutter whatever incantations I was taught to in childhood, in case such a situation as this arose, but then something catches my eye...

The opposite wall doesn't exist; the stone in the hallway has literally given away, revealing that I'm about a story above the ground, allowing me to see in detail a grove of stark, white, perfectly symmetrical, almost artistic or stylized, truly breathtakingly beautiful trees. All equidistant from one another, against the backdrop of a totally blackened sky...they're glowing, as if an unseen sunset behind the stone church is casting that (what photographers call the "magic hour") light on them. There's a nice breeze, fresh air, the smell of wet earth. I rarely cry, but the grove is so full of some ethereal, brave message, I start crying. And I'm not afraid anymore. The "demon" now seems trivial, and I'm completely mesmerized.

And then I woke up. And I've been flooded with a stomach full of emotions ever since.

And now, you know way more than you ever wanted to about my dream life.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Were you raised with religion? Are you female?

 

[MonkeyGrass]

Raised as a fundamentalist pentecostal, yes. (am not any longer, fwiw, and haven't been for several years) Female, most assuredly.

 

[Stanton Moore]

It's absolutely about your spiritual journey. The trees are significant. the oak, large old and strong, is your upbringing. the beautiful grove is the fulfillment of the task of overcoming childhood 'demons' (or beliefs that have outlived their original purpose, which defined reality for you as a child). Those demons are represented as a threat to the church, which is probably based on your identity as a child being largely based on religion. The book with the words "She is going to hell" is telling of this ( As is that fact that your daughter handed you that specific book). That is the way you probably felt about yourself at that age. The ruin, with all of the debris of the past, including religious items, is your subconscious mind's image of all of the rules put on you as a child and your desire to let them go. You confronted the demon and suddenly saw that something beautiful and peaceful lay beyond this. Something unexpected. The reason it seemed frightening, and the result so unexpected, is because the fear is based out of a child's perspective, which is necessarily limited.
It's not saying that religion is bad, but that your childhood view of it needs to adapt to new knowledge.

 

[MonkeyGrass]

Beautifully and articulately put; this makes good sense, especially giving my circumstances in the past year. My spirituality (which has been largely put on the shelf for the past 4-5 years) is on the cusp of a major reworking. Thank you for taking the time to type that; it brings a lot of clarity. :heart

 

[Stanton Moore]

My pleasure. I enjoyed that. Thanks for posting it.