Dreaming

Anyone else having a lot of dreams since the solstice? I've been dreaming all kinds of stuff, some new, some old recurring dreams. All seem to have messages in them... about who I am, what my personal characteristics are, and situations that play out in integrity. It's been amazing to watch this unconscious life evolve lately... I hadn't dreamed reliably in years... well, since the kids were born. Honestly, I didn't get much sleep for the first few years the each of my kids were here... which really calculates out to almost 5 years without all-night bouts of sleep. I've been kinda worn out.

But, back to the topic of dreaming. Last night I had a dream that is, in its basic form, a recurring dream, although the details of the dream often change. It's a dream where I'm in an airport... trying to catch a flight. The planes are often different... and the origination and destination are often different... or sometimes I don't even know that part... but it's the classic dream of angst about being on time or finding my way around. Some people dream about school this way, or work, or they've transformed it into their very own story. Anyway, last night my dream ended with me missing my flight... which is very odd... I almost always end up getting there, and somehow I knew this dream was a culmination of a few events... stick with me for a second while I tie some seemingly unrelated things together.

I woke up, with some kind of odd knowing... that something that I had been holding on to, something that was no longer serving me, had been released. I do a lot of work with the Chinese meridian system, and the clarity was in the Gall Bladder/Liver pair of meridians. These are the "wood" meridians... which are associated with creativity, the ability to see (both physically and intuitively), and the emotion of anger (commonly held in the liver meridian).

Now, rewind to the day before the dream: I've been reading a book called Plant Spirit Healing by Pam Montgomery... and I had JUST read this passage about the Wood Element in Chinese medicine. I had identified strongly with the Wood Element in this framework, and felt that the imbalances in that element had been strong in my life. They were the issues that led me to growth, and to identifying with who I really am. In summarizing the Wood Element Pam Montgomery says that the key to the element is to be flexible and to "go with the flow". Damn... now that phrase "go with the flow" has come up for me over several years, in many places, and out of the mouths of many people. I wonder if that will shift for me now.

Reading this Plant Spirit Healing Book had me thinking about plants I feel connected to. I decided (yesterday) that I was going to try to form stronger relationships with some of the plants in my yard... some I've planted, some are relentless "weeds", and then there are some plants that just don't seem like they are willing to grow here, no matter what I do. But, I digress. Yesterday I laid down under my favorite tree in my yard. It's a Liriodendron tulipifera, or a tulip tree, and is quite beautiful. Its leaves look like little birds and they dance in the breeze. I was hanging out with this tree, trying to deepen our relationship, because me and this tree have some history, but I'll save that for another post. Initially, when I put a leaf on my cheek, I got a strong vision of a geometric pattern... like through a kaleidoscope. Unfortunately, I didn't get far with this exploration because the kids were hungry and life in general got in the way. But I don't think it's a coincidence that I had the dream following this initial connection.

The dream (where I go with the flow, but am ultimately thwarted at getting to my destination... thus a block), the book (the Wood Element and the Gall Bladder and Liver meridians), and the tree (where maybe more happened than I had understood)... seem to create a triad of symbols that indicate to me that something important is happening... and after this SUPER long story, I was wondering if it was happening to anyone else?