When I was in the fifth grade I had a dream that I was falling. I awoke in the early hours of the morning to the sound of my voice calling for my parents. My jaw was twisted out of shape from the impact of diving head-first into the pine floor of my bedroom from the four-foot height of my bunk-bed. Blood was already filling my mouth from the hole my tooth had left under my bottom lip. My fear of falling off my home-made bunk bed without a railing had been realized.

Last night I had a two dreams that I can remember. In the first I was walking through a foreign city in asia with my daughter. The streets were crowded with buildings and street vendors. We found ourselves passing a tall building with many stories, and stopped in awe to observe the people who lived there. Outside the large windows that faced our side of the street, instead of balconies, there were beds. As my daughter and I watched, the inhabitants of the apartments within the building were in various states of getting in and out of their beds, which were all double-sized, canopied and attached to their windows, but without any sort of railings to prevent their occupants from careening out of their sides onto the street below. I was captivated by the scene. How did they not fall? Why did they not fear?

In my second dream, I found myself inside my maternal grandmother’s apartment. I had just gone shopping for her and was unloading bags of groceries in the kitchen when my ten-year deceased grandfather appeared at her kitchen table. Instead of taking on the age he was when he died, he appeared to be in his twenties and looked like a cross between his own son and my nephew. We had a long conversation while I tried to assemble a salad.  I asked my grandfather why he was still hanging around my grandmother’s house after ten years. He seemed unaware that he could let go, and he wanted to be there for his wife who didn’t want to let him go.

The scene within the dream switched to my grandmother weeping. Still, after ten years, my grandmother was incapacitated by her grief for her deceased husband, crying on the cushions of her sofa. She was clearly holding on. I found her vulnerability frustrating. I wanted to shake her back to life. Instead, I told her it was time for her to dance. And, literally, as I watched my grandfather leave the table, my grandmother, in the other room, started dancing back into herself. Her face filled with joy, her body moved to a music all her own.

I have learned through my study of dreams that the characters we dream about our manifestations of ourselves. Yesterday, I had listened to a World Puja Network broadcast by Pippa Merivale. For more about Pippa, go to http://www.metatronic-life.com/. Pippa channels the angel Metatron, and during this broadcast the focus was on the New Year and cellular cleansing. Pippa spoke of the memories and experiences the cells in our bodies hold onto, sometimes focusing into pain within specific points in our bodies. I know where mine is held, most likely, you do as well. As Pippa said, there is no need to ignore these “shadows,” and, in fact, we should not deny their presence. What we can do though is free the trapped pains, cleanse our cells and give them a chance to renew.

So, I ask you, as I did myself, what are you holding onto? What is trapped within you that seeks the light of recognition? In this New Year, why not offer your body the chance to let go, renew, and dance into all the possibilities of your spirit?