Category: Dreams

Requests for Connection to Feed the Soul While (Not)Settling #balance #connection

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Reflections, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light, yoga12 Comments
It all started with A maze, a crow, and six warriors of light…

I had a fitful night of sleep, again. My dreams have been vivid and detailed every night, one following the other in a breathless chase to be the most dramatic and wildly cast. But last night it was not just the dreams that kept me dancing between wake and slumber, but the ache on the right side of my neck and shoulder. It’s becoming a chronic reminder of imbalance. Yesterday, after teaching my Friday morning Zoom yoga class, I drove to the health center and spent four plus hours checking people out of their appointments and making reminder calls. The right side of my body taking on the onus of the repetitive work. By the end of my shift I was crabby and decidedly unsettled.

What the hell are you doing to yourself?

It’s a question I have begun asking myself (again). It’s a question several of my friends have formulated in various ways over the past several weeks. The ones who know what pulls my soul into the space of wonder and joy. But here we are again…

The truth is, I have settled. I have settled for a job that in many ways demoralizes me, but fulfills, in part, the nagging obligation I have to contribute more financially to my household. It’s not even close, though, to fulfilling the potential that exists inside of me. I return each day for the regularity of the paycheck, as well as the human interaction that comes with it. I work with a roomful of kind and compassionate souls, and most of the patients I connect with daily, whether I am checking them in or out of their appointments, allow me to share a moment of connection.

Connection is what pulls me forward. It is pulling me now, with persistence. You are here to do more, it tells me, This is not enough.

I know this. I have never deluded myself into thinking I would settle permanently, but the challenge I now face is how to bring an equal balance into my life at this time of financial obligations. This wildly expansive vision of connection I carry inside of me needs to somehow be tamed in a manner that allows me to grow it with logic and care. I cannot bring it fully into maturity all at once without winning the lottery, so practicality must become a friend.

I must reach out the hand of connection in the form of requests and find new mentors and means that allow this persistence to take root and grow. People do it all the time. They take their seeds of dreams and grow them into wonders. Why not me?

A few days ago, I reached out to SCORE and have been given a new mentor. Years ago, I gave it a try and it never went anywhere. The fit was not good and the time was not right. But I feel readier now. The vision more clear. The roots itching for space to spread and connect.

If anyone who is reading this knows about other mentorship programs or resources that help visions take root and grow, I would be grateful if you would leave them in the comments. In particular, how to create a nonprofit that serves a diverse community but also has a physical space(s). Or, better yet, someone who wants to donate 100 acres of land and a structure (or two or three…) to form deeper connections to Life! 😁

Thank you for reading and for connecting.

Why do Good Books (and Films) go “Bad?” #amwriting #ethics

On By Alethea KehasIn A Better World of Books, Dreams, Reflections, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light37 Comments
Image by Peter H from Pixabay

We are, here in the USA, residing in the aftermath of another horrific mass shooting at a school. It has become a normalized discomfort. A discomfort that does not have to exist, but yet, here we are, again.

I’m not going to blog about the need for gun control and legislation, because it’s a fact that we keep repeating without doing anything about. I keep voting and signing petitions, I keep practicing and teaching yoga. I keep trying to do my part to change what feels like the unchangeable. But, it’s never enough. There is always more to be done. The simple and obvious start is to enact those laws we refuse to enact as a nation. I do not hold a position of public office, I’m merely a voter, but I’m also a citizen who engages with and creates entertainment in the form of books (which, one day, I’d love to see recreated on screen).

Last night, I wrapped up my engagement with the Blood & Bones series on Netflix by watching the final two episodes. And, just as I did after seeing the series You through to its latest episode, I found myself wondering why I had allowed myself to endure it. I am a sucker for seeing things through. I rarely put a book aside, no matter how much it pains me to finish it, and I often do the same with films. But, I’m done with You and I’m done with Blood & Bones. Why? Because even though the writing and creative execution is, at times, beautiful and even brilliant, I have decided not to torture myself any longer waiting for the good to prevail over the bad. And, let’s be clear, there’s a whole lot of bad in both of these series.

We wonder why we are obsessed with violence in this country, but we cannot seem to break the cycle. Rarely do we see fantasy series created without an over-abundance of violence and we keep churning out thrillers filled with murder and horror that push the edges of extreme in the name of entertainment.

When will we decide we’ve had enough? When will we decide that maybe, just maybe, we benefit more by spreading the good we are capable of, over the bad?

After waking up at 2am this morning from dreams laced with the violence from the last two episodes of Blood and Bones, I renewed my vow to do my part as a creative to spread the good over the bad. Violence is not a prerequisite for fantasy, nor is it for drama. We do not need blood and gore to keep the page turning, or the viewers locked to a screen. We need a good story. And, dare I say, a story about good. Conflict need not turn to violence, and when it does, it behooves us to ask why? Why are we writing it? Why are we reading it? Why are we watching it?

I know when I engage with it on the screen or in a book, I am always waiting for the bad to turn back to the good. But, as we see in the series mentioned above, it never stays good for long these days. We have normalized violence, and we can’t be too surprised that we are seeing it normalized in our schools. If we want change, we must be the change.

And so, I’ve decided to put aside those two series and focus on creative that brings me hope and joy, which is also how I engage with writing. If it doesn’t educate me through historic violence, I see little need for engagement. I know through personal experience with writing fantasy and adventure books, that violence need not dominate the prose. It need not be a means to keep the viewer locked to a page or a screen with a rush of destructive adrenaline. Why torture ourselves with the bad when we always have the choice to bring forth the good?

The Monk in the Bunker: A Visionary Experience #visions #mindfulness #dreams

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Reflections, yoga28 Comments

Not exactly the vision I was given, but I like how this image presents a similar concept

I wasn’t exactly dreaming, in fact, I wish I were at the time. It was the middle of the night, or rather the wee hours of the morning long before the sun rises over the crest of Earth were I live. And, I was awake, too awake. My mind had become a playground for my thoughts, which ran amok in wild abandon, swinging from the neuron’s of my brain like defiant children refusing to go to bed.

As a teacher of yoga, you’d think I’d know how to tame these wild beasts into submission. I have plenty of tools tucked away in my yoga toolbox, but on nights like these I often find myself on the losing side of the battle. When the stress of life overwhelms me, I am reminded of how much I have become attached to worry. And, usually that reminder arrives around 3 am.

So, there I was, with my eyes closed upon the pillow encased in a womb of stillness, and a mind ablaze with color and action. Then, suddenly, in the midst of it all, the truculent children of my worries dispersed and a metal fortress began to take shape. The metal grew behind my closed lids in breadth and height until it was all that I could “see,” then wrapped itself into a half oval. It was, I realized, a mighty bunker so large and impenetrable I was sure it must be holding the most powerful of weapons known to humankind.

I was right. Even though what I saw inside was not what I had expected.

Floating within his own aura of light, sat a monk. His eyes were closed, his brow unfurled into a smooth canvas, and his lips lifted into the slightest of smiles. The armored shell that I thought was encasing him was nowhere in sight. Instead, all I saw was the monk, floating in his bubble of light.

The angst outside that armored fortress had disappeared and a pure, unfettered peace had taken its place, dissolving that false sheath that seems so real at those times when we succumb to our own distress. And that’s when sleep found me and welcomed me to rest.

The Dream of a Life #lifegoal #aspirations

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, the labyrinth, Warriors of Light18 Comments
To help build my vision into reality, I enjoy taking photos of “Wild Wonders.”

If you could dream anything into being what would it be? We all harbor secret longings and aspirations. There’s that needling, persistent urge inside of each of us that won’t let us go. Or maybe you have followed that needling and somehow brought your dream into reality. Whatever the story might be, I’d love to hear about it. Share it in the comments, send me it as a guest post, whatever pulls your heart toward joy…I’d love to hear about it. Let’s share those secret, or not so secret, longings that sometimes keep us up at night with all their wonderful “what ifs.”

My middle grade character Aponi is able to shape-shift into a monarch butterfly

My secret longings have changed over the years, but there have been some constants. There has always been a pull inside of me to help bring more beauty into the world to erase some of the darkness… These days there’s a nagging dream that follows me while I walk in the woods. It seeps into my dreams and shows me the full beauty of its wonderment. I don’t know if it will ever be realized, but maybe, just maybe someday I will see it transform into the daylight. When I envision it, it makes my heart sing. Isn’t that what all dreams without the nightmare are meant to do?

I have become particularly enraptured by the “Winged Wonders” around me.

I’m sharing my dream with you in the hopes that you will share yours too. That perhaps it will spark a light that grows a little stronger as we find the courage to find a home for each of our secret longings.

Here is the “dream” that fills me with the Wild Wonder of What-If:

Imagine a place, if you will, where people can go to find their own wild wonder. Where we are moved to step outside the confines of structure and conformity to find that home inside the heart where we realize we are a part of everything that surrounds us. It is a place where nature runs wild and free and where we are reminded of home. That we are not separated from, but a part of the whole, and the natural world that surrounds us.

This winged beauty reminds me of Sue, who seems to be ever-present as I “dream.”

In my dream there are “centers” where people can explore wild wonder and what it means to them. They are places where the inner child opens to joy and finds home inside the self and all that surrounds it. Perhaps that center offers classes and workshops, or maybe it is simply a gateway to nature. The only rules are kindness and compassion. Both for the self, and for our surroundings.

Winged Joy

It is perhaps a movement, more than a place. A reconnection to our roots. The knowing that we are not just of the Earth and all that exists, but a part of it.

Because I’m writing a middle grade book series that very much centers around this concept, my dream includes the heroes of my books and their passions. At the centers I envision:

  • Sula’s Library of Wonderful Reads
  • Aponi’s Field of Pollinator Delights
  • Shesha’s Meditation & Mindfulness Maze
  • Lupe’s Local Eats Organic Cafe
  • Dell’s Fantastic Fairy Gardens & Pools
  • Ari’s Adventure Walks in the Woods

And so much more…

It’s fun to dream about what we want to create, but creating can be a challenge. I am trying to bring my vision forth in steps. Writing the book series is one of them. My husband and I talk about where we might live someday when our kids are out of college, and I can envision the first center perhaps beginning at that place. After all, my ideas for the centers arose out of a walk I took with him on the 4th of July. Somehow we landed at a place that perfectly suited this vision. It had, already, all the foundations of the elements I saw in the vision. The property, though, was not for sale. That’s okay, we’re not ready to move.

Gifts of Joy Sometimes Arrive in the Night #dreams #ghosts #dreammessages

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams28 Comments
Photo Credit: KELLEPICS of Pixabay

My grandmother is 94.5 yrs olds. It’s one of the few, consistent facts she remembers. It’s become quite clear as of late that she has turned a corner in her life’s journey. When I call her, I’m never quite sure what type of response I will get, if any.

A couple of weeks ago, I called to receive her announcement, “I dumped all my medications.”

I hesitated a moment before I asked, “You did? How are you feeling?”

“I feel great,” she declared as she went on to tell me how all her previous discomforts had now vanished.

Later, after we hung up there were a flurry of calls and messages that she didn’t know about to confirm facts and safety. As far as I know, though, Gram is still off her meds but is being closely monitored and cared for in the facility where she lives. My grandmother, you see, has wanted to die since my grandfather passed away two decades ago.

But she has lingered here in this life and often she wonders why. Nearly every time I call her, she brings up her daughter, my mother.

“Did you hear your mother called me and she’s coming to visit me?”

This announcement followed the heals of the one about her medications. It took me a little longer to react, and now no one I have spoken with is sure if it is true. More than a week has now passed and as far as I know my mother hasn’t left the state where she and I both reside to travel 3,000 miles across the country to say goodbye to her mother before she passes.

My feelings are mixed, but what matters is how my grandmother feels. She’s waited 30 yrs, as she tells me know each time I call, for this moment, and it is enough in her mind that a long awaited connection of peace was been made. I don’t care if that call was real. I care that it has brought my grandmother the peace she has been waiting for.

Stories of the elderly or terminally ill lingering longer than expected in life are not uncommon. And, quite often it is because of a desire to mend relationships or to say goodbye to those that one holds dear. I am so glad my grandmother got the call she has been waiting three decades for. A call where her beloved daughter told her she wants to let go of their wounded history. Whether it was real or not doesn’t really matter because it has brought my grandmother the joy and peace she has been waiting for.

Last night, my grandmother brought me the gift of joy. And, after a very challenging year, it was just what I needed. Joy, in the dream, arrived in the form of a magical room I didn’t know existed in my “house.” When I crossed the threshold of the door, my body lost the pull of gravity and flew, guided by the unseen presence of my grandmother. Each stop in the room, yielded a gift of love and symbol of joy for the four members of my family.

Whether my grandmother’s spirit actually visited me in my dreams, doesn’t really matter. It is not uncommon though, to hear of such occurrences when souls are preparing to transition. Because I have had more than a couple “spectral” visitations that have been aptly timed, unexpected, and with synchronistic messages for loved ones, I’d like to believe this one was real. Real enough, at the very least, to bring the gift of joy. And, for that I am grateful.

The Land of Oz & Alice: Adventures in Dreamland #dreams #dreaminterpretation #dreamsymbolism

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams15 Comments
I journey into a Wonderland and Oz-like dream realm with Sue...
Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay

It should come as no surprise to me that Sue would find a way to weave her wisdom into the realm of my dreams. She knew me better than most, and what better place to seed the journey than through the map of the subconscious.

Sue also knew I loved to study dreams. In my weekly journal correspondence I could not help including a dream or two as they always, inevitably, related to waking life experiences. That’s the way dreams work, even though they may appear random and irrational at first glance. There is always a lesson (and usually many) to uncover when one takes the time to delve into their symbolism. Mostly Sue made me uncover them for myself. It seems nothing has changed 🙂

Thankfully, as Sue well knew, I love symbolism. My mind is ever-searching out the meaning hidden below the surface of life. And, to be quite honest, I was surprised and a little dismayed that she hadn’t appeared sooner in the land of my dreams.

It was, alas, a mere cameo… about two weeks ago. I nearly missed her. She came and went so fast from the dream I could have doubted it was Sue if I didn’t know her better. And she uttered just one word: “Jabberwocky.”

You’ve got to be kidding!

No doubt she was chuckling a bit. Fair enough. I do like a good puzzle, and certainly this one was intended to draw me down the rabbit hole…

And as I usually do when messages are cryptic, I asked a few intuitive friends for their thoughts. Each one gave a different answer, but each answer had relevance. I read the poem, more than once, and pondered each possible meaning. Days passed and then another dream came to me. This one per my request.

“Could you give me a message,” I asked her before I fell asleep, “Something, anything, to let me know what you think I should do.”

Instead of “Wonderland,” I was brought to Oz. You, as a reader, no doubt will already be drawing the parallels between the two. Sue is undoubtedly clever. But this was not exactly the Oz of Dorothy’s dream, this was an Oz designed for me. The journey, rich and filled with symbols at every turn I took, took me into a different aspect of something I either had overcome, needed to overcome, or was in the process of overcoming.

When I finally reached “Oz,” I found myself atop a magnificent waterfall. It was a straight down vertical dive from the height of at least the Eiffel tower. A wonderful source of power…then the dream shifted one more time.

Suddenly I was at the bottom of the fall and the water had been replaced by sand (note the parallels to “The Wizard of Oz” movie, as a friend pointed out, and the “sands of time.” Up a ladder I began to climb while the sand poured through the rungs. Using, somehow, only my left hand while my right clutched a stack of books. I hauled those books all the way to the top of that darn latter. Then, looking down far below, I released them. As they scattered into a circular on the ground, a woman appeared and laid in the bare space in the middle one book, The Wizard of Oz, smiled and left. After she left everything else disappeared and I found myself gazing into a sky so vast and beautiful it felt like heaven. Shapes formed out of the clouds, the first and more prominent of which was a lion.

Thank you, Sue. I get it, I think. Mostly. Now to find that courage within. 🙏

Photo Credit: Pexels

Silent Night #suevincent #grieving

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Reflections24 Comments
Photo taken on the moors of Derbyshire during my first trip to England for a Silent Eye workshop

I knew it was coming, but there was still resistance. Isn’t there always? The pull to keep those we love here with us fights against the letting go.

The news of her passing was brought through the soft waves of a song weaving through the space between dreaming and waking.

“Silent night

Holy night

All is calm

All is bright”

It took the repeat of this refrain, over and over again, and me growing irritated by its interruption, before the dawn of realization broke. She is gone. Her soul released back into the union of light.

“All is calm. All is bright.”

Somehow she knew I needed to hear it from her, first. The delivery, perfect, as only she could create.

“All is calm. All is bright.”

I am holding onto those words as the hours pass into this first day without Sue in physical form. I am holding onto the memories that filter through the minutes to remind me of her love. Around my neck I wear one of her gifts, a symbol of the “Feathered Seer,” knowing there is a comfort that she has found reunion with the magic on the other side, and that already she has threaded it back to us.

“All is calm. All is bright.”

I need to hold onto those words, and so I do, because I am still not ready to think about the days ahead. And I know all of you who were graced by her presence will understand. For a tiny, “hobbit-sized,” woman, Sue had the capacity to hold an infinite amount of love in her arms. She was, and I know she knew this, an embodiment of the mother archetype many of us long for. How lucky I was to experience her unconditional love and grace, if only for a few years. How lucky I was to feel the embrace of her hug, knowing I was beloved in her eyes.

Wayland’s Smithy: A portal to the beyond and the last day I spent with Sue

Castles in the Sand #dreams #dreamsymbolism #lagunabeach #freesoul

On By Alethea KehasIn DreamsLeave a comment
Image by Michael Gaida from Pixabay

If you read my last post, Dream Guardians, you may have sensed that it was about love and partnerships (the clue was also in the hastag😉). I decided I would let it sit before I lended my own interpretation. Sometimes our dreams hold meaning for others too. To me, the dream spoke quite clearly in symbolism of insecurities I am attempting to unravel and come to terms with: How two people can love after growing together, then growing separately. That union of allowing individual space, while still supporting each other.

In symbolic terms, horses are often associated with strength, but also of freedom. They are wild animals who are often domesticated. On the magical side, they are thought to be one evolution away from unicorns. In the dream, it took a child (a representation of the inner child) to show me that the magic/life force/love was still there, it just needed to be fed. The inner child is that ever-wise voice of truth, even though we may often ignore/neglect him/her.

And so together, the child and I fed and watered those two wooden horses and saw life begin to return to their rigid forms…

Early this morning I woke from this dream:

I was at Laguna Beach in California with my family. The name is important, as names seem to be in our dreams. Laguna Beach is the place where my birthfather gave up the chase to find me and my sister when we were in hiding with the Hare Krishnas. After months of trying to follow the cryptic trail of our sitings from commune to commune, he took a break to surf the waves of Laguna beach and suffered some broken ribs. It was, you could say, his moment when he surrendered to the tides of life.

In my early morning dream, I was standing on a cliff facing the ocean. In one fleeting moment, a scene of pure magic unfolded before me. The tide had receded, and suddenly a world of wonderment was revealed. The light was soft and cast incredible shadows over the patterns of the ocean floor, which became undulating hills of sand. I grabbed the camera of my phone, knowing I had but moments to capture its splendor. I started to text the family, on a ridiculous band of fabric. An impossible feat. The scene was mine alone to capture.

And so I did what I could to take it in. I watched the unfolding of play and felt the pure joy it held. Would-be swimmers were now building endless castles in the sand, their spires reaching to the heights of mountains. How could it be, I wondered, knowing that within seconds the tide could take it all away…

Dream Guardians #dreams #love

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams1 Comment
Image by Susann Mielke from Pixabay

Last night I found myself under an arbor of branches with a young girl. It was dusk, I believe, in this landscape of dreams. The colors were muted as though we were on the verge of darkness. The space, wrapped with the remains of two trees. Or, at least I thought they were remains…

When I tipped my head I could see the forms of the branches as they bent to create a natural roof that filtered in light. There were two. Guardians, I decided. Their heads close together, but not quite touching. I thought them beautiful, but also sad. As I studied them, I realized they were horses.

Lifeless, or so I thought. Their lips, mere inches away from union. The thought of love frozen in place before it could be realized filled me with melancholy.

“They are dead,” I declared as I reached up to stroke the wooden neck of one.

“No,” the young girl declared. “They are not dead. They are only in need of care.”

And as I listened to her child-wisdom, I saw that she was right. Ever so slightly, the two wooden horses began to move. I followed the girl to the place where food lay forgotten in the dust and helped fill their bowls with nourishment. Together, we brought our offerings to the pair of guardians.

“See,” the girl said. “They just needed our love.”

Dream musings #dreams #symbolism

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Reflections2 Comments
Image by Comfreak from Pixabay

There are dreams that you wish you never woke from and those that leave you grateful for the exit from a nightmarish realm. I’m not sure one is more valuable than the other if you seek to learn from their teachings.

Our hidden, or not so hidden, terrors often take the form of nightmares. They can adopt fantastical and gruesome visages, leaving us breathless for want of air when we wake. Sometimes our voices scream us out of their grasp, and sometimes our words strangle our voice into silence. The voice, then, becomes our key to opening their mysteries.

Although it can be equally terrifying to journey through the dream realm, as it is to unravel its symbolism, it’s well-worth the effort. Even the seemingly nonsensical dreams can make sense if we are willing to look into why our minds chose to play their forms.

If you don’t tend to remember your dreams, there are techniques you can use to train your brain to recover them. One of which is simply telling yourself before you wander into sleep to remember what you have dreamt. When you do this, you may find you start to wake up after each dream. I tend to do that a lot, which can be both an inconvenience and a blessing.

Instead of transcribing my dreams after I wake from them, I’ll often spend some time mulling over a dream I have woken from before my mind succumbs to a new one. Although perhaps not has valuable in some ways as having a written log of the dream, this allows me to observe patterns, themes and symbols, as well as gage my emotional response.

Symbols in our dreams often reoccur over and over again. For example I quite often dream about water and stones, both of which hold a lot of interest for me in the literal sense, but also quite often teach me about where I am residing on an emotional level. I also dream quite often about bathrooms, and going to the bathroom, which inevitably leads me down the exploration of what I am holding onto or seeking to release, as well as personal struggles with exposure and privacy.

Themes, patterns, and symbols in dreams are important to notice if you want to learn from them. Equally important, I believe, is how you feel during and after you wake from your dreams. As well as how you felt before you fell into the dream. For example, I can go to bed feeling pretty good about the day I have experienced, only to find myself falling into a fitful dream world. When I wake, I feel significantly more unsettled than when I fell asleep. Unpleasant, yet revealing. When I examine the dream I find the clues to why. Although I had thought I was feeling emotionally balanced, there was a hidden aspect of my self that was calling to be revealed. What our dreams unearth for us are often opportunities for self-examination that can lead to both healing and release of the emotion tucked away inside of us.

Some people believe we can dream other people’s dreams and travel to other dimensions and realms. I tend to agree with these theories based upon my own experiences. If this is the case, and we feel we have dreamt a dream that is a bit “outside” of us, what does it mean? Perhaps we have traveled into a past of future life memory to retrieve valuable insight. Perhaps we have dreamt another person’s dream because our energies are too intimately intertwined. Or, perhaps we have traveled to another realm to learn something about “Life” on a larger scale.

Entire books, poems, inventions, and scientific discoveries have been gleamed from the realm of dreams. I find it nothing short of remarkable how our minds can form such complex and vivid scenes in the dream world which always, I believe, point to a deeper truth that begs to be explored.

Each dream, when examined, becomes a puzzle of the hidden, or not so hidden, self. Some, I admit, are so crazy at first glance that I cast them aside for later, hoping that their cryptic nature will reveal themselves overtime. For those of us who enjoy a good mystery, there’s no better place to explore than the world of our dreams.

At the moment, I’m still mulling over last night’s dreams, and dreams that I dreamt many nights ago. Through them I thread the lines that join symbols and take note of the patterns that are formed from them. Sometimes I chuckle at themes captured from TV shows or lines I have recently read, wondering why until the emotional symbolism is revealed. I marvel at fantastic forms and how far the mind can stretch reality until I realize that the limits are always self-imposed. Anything, absolutely anything, is possible in our dreams.