Category: Dreams

You Can Leave it all Behind

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Memoir, Reflections4 Comments
Behinds and Baggage
Behinds and Baggage

I was looking through photographs, hoping for an image of baggage and hit the jack-pot when I stumbled upon this one. Baggage and behinds. Perfect! The idea that these kids (mine) were waiting for the school bus, also seemed to fit with the message I was going for. I couldn’t resist.

But this is a post about dreams, in the broadest sense of the word, and for quite some time I’ve been having a dialogue with my dream-self in an effort to shift my realities both at night and during the day. As many of you probably know, I’ve got a manuscript that’s been sitting in wait for awhile that I’d like to have published. There’s another one in the works. The finished one I wrote out of a need to heal myself, realizing as when I finished, that it had a universal message about voice and truth that applies to, well, just about anyone.

So, there’s this theme of healing and writing. They both, in my opinion go hand-in-hand. I I write to heal. I heal to write. This is a big part of my life’s journey. I’m here to incorporate both gifts in a life that involves truth, freedom and letting go of entanglements.

For those of you on a similar journey of healing, you will know that entanglements are of the self, and therefore it is up to the self to release and set free. Easier said than done. We cling to our baggage like we would cling to a life-raft at sea. Well, I do anyway.

If you were to flip through my dream journal, you would see a reoccurring theme of baggage. Our dream-selves love to use symbols and metaphors and some are rather blatantly obvious to get the point across. Quite frankly, though, I had had enough of these dreams about baggage. It was almost a guarantee that I’d go to sleep at night only to be immersed and a scene of frantic search. Usually I’m about to embark on, or leave from, a journey, and I’m in a frenetic race against time to collect all of my baggage in the form of clothes and various belongings I think I need for the trip. Things are often scattered in a cluttered room. There is too much of what I am looking to take with me. There is not enough time to collect it all. Heck, sometimes I’m even trying to wear it all. Crazy, I know. But, telling.

These last several nights I’ve been having a dialogue with that dream-self who is holding onto the idea of necessary baggage. “Give me a new reality,” I tell her each night before I succumb to slumber. For several nights I’ve refused to record her dreams, rebelling against the repetition of messages. “Show me a new reality.” And, last night, she did.

The funny thing is, I almost forgot the dream, and then I remembered.

It began as it typically does. The chaotic search for my hotel room and the things I think I need to take with me. I won’t bore you with the details, but it sure did seem to drag on endlessly. Then it shifted. There I was outside, doodling on a pad of paper, while a spirit guide with an Irish or British accent (hard to recall now) chattered in my ear. I glanced across a dirt road and saw belongings piled under a tree. They were not scattered or bagged, just a small pile in wait. A test.

“You know, you can leave it all behind,” she told me. And so I did.

It was effortless. Easy. There was no turning back. I simply left it. The female spirt guide became the physical manifestation of a man, who reminded me of the character Kane in the ’70s TV series “Kung Fu.” (For those of you who don’t know, I was named after the Jodi Foster guest character in an episode called “Alethea” that aired before my birth in 1973). I followed this Kane-like figure across the countryside and found myself without a scrap of baggage on me. Together we dove inside a hillside cave where a wondrous home was unveiled to me. Picture Dagobah mixed with Tatooine mixed with a Shaolin Temple on steroids and you’ll have an idea of what was offered to me. Suffice it to say, it was glorious. It was so worth it.

When we “leave it all behind,” we open the door to the magic waiting. Leaving the baggage of our pasts behind does not mean that we will forget that we had it. The life events still shape who we are. We learn from them, knowing that someday we will no longer need to hold on. When we strip bare the trappings in a bold release of freedom, we realize that what we thought we still needed was just baggage weighing us down. It has nothing of value, only the lessons we take with us, which are weightless. Last night I became The Fool in tarot, starting again at 0, only, unlike the fool, I carried nothing with me.

You Can Leave it All Behind
You Can Leave it All Behind

My Life is Beautiful

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections6 Comments

In fact, it is infinitely beautiful. This, quite simply, is Truth, all else is an illusion. Let me show you why.

Flower of Life
A Flower of Life

Like you, I am the embodiment of Light. This is the the truth of all life, yet sometimes we choose the path of shadows. Years ago, I made the conscious choice to walk the path of light. It’s the path we have all agreed to walk, whether we realize it or not. A shadow is a barrier of illusion, its purpose is to give definition to light.

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The Birth of Life-Light

Yesterday was a beautiful day, as each day is. My day brought me the gifts of friendship and the love of family. It showed me the infinite glory of life in the state of becoming. Spring blooms abundance and joy bursts forth in song from winged beings. Each moment holds everything offered, and since that is all there is, it is always enough.

Winged Being
A Winged Being

I was reminded of this yesterday. If you asked my ego, it would tell you how it suffered two major blows. That the hopes it held onto for weeks had been crushed. Two punches to the gut. And, I crumbled into its energy of defeat, until my dreams brought me back to reality. I woke this morning remembering that my life is beautiful.

Fearless Abundance
A Symbol of Fearless Abundance

Mother Nature called to me to join her in the state of becoming, and I listened. I walked into her embrace. Here she showed me life is always beautiful when we choose to see it. to feel. To allow. That at any moment we can choose to embrace the light, or stay in the illusion of shadows.

A Beautiful Grump-Stump
A Beautiful Grump-Stump

There is even humor, and therefor light, in the symbols that show us shadows. Today, I laugh at doubt, knowing that it is an illusion. That I can shake its frumpy clothes free and run naked in the light. This is my destiny of becoming, and it is, always, in each moment, enough. It is beautiful. My life is beautiful.

Life Being and Becoming
Life Being and Becoming

The house as body

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Memoir, ReflectionsLeave a comment

It seems I cannot decide which house to claim as my own. This is clear in my dreams. Too much clutter leaves the residue of frustration and anxiety. Unstable walls and floors, the fear of collapse. Some nights I build palaces that rival Versailles. I walk gilded halls and call them my own. The rooms are endless, each floor more brilliant than the one before. I am a vessel of unlimited creation, before I crumble back into a buried fear.

Last night, my house made me uncomfortable. The bedrooms extended into living rooms without doors. The kitchen needed updating. There was a graveyard outside my son’s window. My own bedroom opened into a balcony of trees, and my heart filled with joy as I imagined waking to the ever-changing scene of wildlife, until I saw the gaps under the floor, and the futile attempts to secure a house against the elements that would inevitably pervade the constructed space. Who was I fooling? I could not live here.

Yet, I could not leave. This was the house I had chosen. It was mine. So, I began to clear the rooms, freeing them of the energy called fear. I did it alone, using my hand to feel the unwanted vibrations, my breath to clear the energy into light. There was no sense of discontent. I was not discouraged that each room seemed to hold pockets of energy that needed to be cleared. I simply did what I needed to do to make my house my home.

Perhaps tonight I will build a palace again. I’ll use my hand to paint the forest on the walls, upon the ceilings I’ll map infinity in stars. When I am done, when my hand is tired and my palace is complete, I’ll let it crumble. I’ll watch the walls recede into the body of the Earth, the ceiling dissolve into the heavens, and then I’ll know I’ve come home.

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Taking the lead #loss #grief

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Memoir3 Comments

Recall the Bird of Spring who appeared to me on the the 24th of January. I have not forgotten her, nor have I forgotten how she appeared in the days before the 11th. She often watched in silent vigil from the bush filled with winter berries in the neighbor’s front yard, while I waited for Alex to get off the bus. You were usually inside.

There was the flock of robins, Dad said there must have been 20, if not more, outside his office. Did you send them after you came to him in a dream, telling him you were leaving? I already knew. How could I not? I felt you release the tug on the orange nylon that bound us together months before you finally let go. I knew last summer you were patiently urging me to take the lead, knowing well before I did that I was ready. In the heartbeat of 5.5 years, you showed me how to walk the path of love, and to take the lead. The last 6 months were a gradual letting go, your final gift to me in your physical form.

Oh, but you knew I would weep and rage. You knew I would cling fiercely to the memory of  the brown silk of your fur pressed against my lips, and feel of home when I wrapped my arms around your body. You knew that I would miss the tug-of-war, the constant test of who was in charge.

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You knew I would hold on, even after I let you go. So you sent me robins and hearts. I saw the love that you wore on your face everywhere, in the days before you left, and even more now that you have crossed the rainbow bridge without me. One thought, and you are back. I see the symbol of your love burned into snow, etched in ice on windows and carved into the lifelines of wood. I saw your love two nights ago, when you sent me the barn owl (whose face is a heart) in the cypress tree. I see it each time I remember your face.

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Your rebirth into pure spirit was my letting go. To become my own spring and bloom new. Even though I still shed the waters of sorrow, my garden is ready to birth strength. How many nights, as I was preparing to let you go, did I dream of a home, my home, surrounded by the rebirth of life? I woke happy, filled with hope. Filled with promise.

Even the 3 crows that caught my eye, circling the invisible wheel, made me think of the magic of birth and not death. You were the 3rd, though, in a close trinity of passings. My days and nights were filled with the numbers 3 and 7, even when they appeared with the numbers 10 and 11. The 10th was the day I knew for sure you were leaving, the 11th, when I opened the door to let you go.

On the 8th, two days before I decided it was time, I saw two robins. That evening I fell into dreams of rebirth. I played through the game of life, recording scores, which reduced to the number 9, the cycle for birth. I searched tables of food and ate. I took the driver’s seat and drove, with the top open, over a bridge where above me a green wheel turned. I watched my child (who looks so much like me) let go and felt only peace as he released his hold. I turned back time and became a young woman again. It was summer, 74 degrees (reduces to 11), and I was among a crowd of peers heading down a hill to swim. At the intersection of paths, I decided to walk alone. I went to the rocky shore, instead of the sandy, sun-filled beach, and stripped bare of my white shorts and flowered blouse before I lay my body on the pebbles and let the water wash me clean. Here, I felt freedom. I felt release. I shouted back, fearless, to the girls who taunted me, calling them out for who they really were. I swam away from the boys who followed my naked form through the water, and pulled my clothes over my wet body before I walked back up the hill, alone. Later, in another dream, a messenger hugged me and told me it was time to surrender. To let [you] go. So I did.

Each knot holds a memory that seeks to be free

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Energy Healing, Memoir6 Comments

Remember the robin in my last post, appearing blatantly bold outside my window during the snowstorm? The only bird to be seen by my eyes that day?

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Somehow I had forgotten her, amid the daily struggles of life this last week. Yet, she was there, a silent reminder as I opened my blog to write this morning, showing me that her message had come full circle. Yesterday, without thought given to my friend the robin, I reclined on a couch with my left hand cradling the orange energy of my womb, my right, the blue energy of truth held inside knots along the right side of my neck.

The robin, I am reminded on this morning as I watch another snowstorm fall outside my window, is the bird who welcomes rebirth each spring. She wears the color of creation without fear as an apron of feathers that spreads from her upper chest down to her lower abdomen, where it meets the purity of white. Here, in this lower region, she releases into her half-moon nest, a brood of sky blue eggs each spring. Her creation in the beautiful hue of truth.

When I saw the robin a week ago, my neck felt fine. But, as I think back now, it was a prelude of what to come, as soon after that last snowstorm, my neck formed a rope of knots connecting the base of my skull under my right ear, down into my shouldere where it wrapped into a pile of more knots.

The energy held inside the knots seemed to tighten with each day of a week filled with surreal reminders of the cycle of loss. Within the space of a few days, two children passed in my town. The loss of a child, even if it is a child not well known to you, can unearth a well of emotions and memories inside of you. There is, arguably, nothing quite as poignant as this form of loss.

I will not enter into the details around the passings of these two children, as their stories are not mine to share. For me, and my family, they were triggers, as all death is, impacting each of us in individual ways. My son, who wears the open cloak of an empath, struggled I believe the most. That is his story, but I will share its effects on me.

My son, is in many ways my mirror. His eyes are mine, and when I look into them I see the little girl I once was. In his moments of struggle last week, I was brought back to that child inside of me as I watched his over-taxed body attempting to process and release an emotional burden that was mostly not his. I was thankful, in the midst of feeling heart-broken and helpless, that he did not swallow his storm, as I had so many times as a child.

What brought me to the couch yesterday, was that desperate need for release. My emotional limits were crumbling, but the rope of knots that held the right side of my neck in traction was stronger than ever. I thought about hiring help to release the tension, but it wasn’t until two of my friends, in separate messages, spoke of going inside, that I allowed myself to acknowledge what needed to be done.

Even though it was a Sunday, and I was sharing the space of my home with the rest of my family, I retired into a semi-quiet room to enter the energy inside. Here, as I channeled healing into my body, I found myself returning to that little girl named Truth.

“You were a beautiful child, so open to love.”

These words, I knew where not mine, but there was a part of me that cringed before I began to release. This was not a truth I held onto for long as I grew in this life. Instead of lingering on this notion, I let these words unfold into memories and the tears that come from release. Scenes flooded my consciousness, each one gently unraveling a knot. Each memory was a mere snapshot of a larger plot, but there were themes I could not miss.

Each memory was formed outside, where walls do not exist inside the expansive womb of Mother Nature. Inside these snapshots from my early life, I was welcomed by the energies of freedom, peace, beauty, magic and love. Each held my truth before it was changed.

Bird of Spring

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams3 Comments

There’s a theme running through my dreams these nights. Springtime. I find myself in houses, and when I step outside spring is unfolding into gardens  abundant with the colors of rebirth. These dreams bring me hope – the promise of new life and all that it promises.

Today we had a nor-easter in New Hampshire, and life is still outside my home, save for this robin who has boldly braved the snow to remind me of that promise of rebirth.

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The flying squirrel as a metaphor for thoughts #flyingsquirrelsymbolism #dreamsymbolism

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams6 Comments

medium_15549799756photo credit: makitani via photopincc

I almost dismissed the dream. Another release dream, I thought as I woke with the lingering emotions of irritation and frustration. Then I began to examine the metaphor of the flying squirrel and why it took the leading role in my dream.

I was in a large, multi-storied house. It was my house although it was not the same as the one in which I reside in. And, it was undergoing renovations. The renovations where absorbing a lot of time, finances, and physical, and emotional energy, as they often do. My recollection of the dream begins on the main where I watched a flying squirrel fly and land throughout  a white room. My family was with me and we were all trying to capture it, but it managed to evade our attempts.

It is worth noting, at this point, that I have experienced the challenges of having a flying squirrel inside of my present-day home. Not once, but twice. On both occasions, the flying squirrel had made its way to the basement, where it quite successfully evaded capture by my two cats. Flying squirrels, if you have had the mixed-pleasure of meeting one, especially in your home, they are rather cute little critters in an unnerving way. They have huge black eyes that stare unblinkingly into the very depths of your soul as you try to maintain the stance of a brave warrior. When you look away, and you will, they fly, soaring to their next perch in a blink of the eye that causes your heart to stop and your body to arrest into panic. It doesn’t matter that you’re dealing with two pounds of furry cuteness. This foe is silent, unpredictable, and quick. And, did I mention those eyes?!

Well, you’ve got the picture by now. Back to the dream. I’m not sure if we managed to catch the intruder, and it doesn’t really matter. When we walked to the attic, which was quite large and expansive, with high, peaked ceilings, what we discovered was much worse that what was happening below. There were nests everywhere, hanging from the ceiling, and I knew we were doomed. The task of recovering the house from the squirrel invasion seemed overwhelmingly futile. I was about ready to throw in the towel when I woke up.

Naturally, those emotions lingered as I was pulled into the waking dawn. The day progressed, and I began to think about those flying squirrels and why they had made their way into my dream and, well, into my body (as the house metaphor). And that’s when it hit me. They were thoughts. Thoughts that begin in the attic, or the mind, and find their way of invading the lower floors of our bodies, evading capture as they find a place to hide. I couldn’t think of a more perfect metaphor if I tried.

The flying squirrel is a nocturnal animal. The owl is its primary predator. As you ponder this, consider how they invade our houses (and bodies), often coming in through trees (as they had in my dream) and making their way down from the attic into the lower levels in their attempt to hide, and ultimately to escape capture (even though what they really want is a safe, warm place to call their own, while also trying to get back to their natural habitat).

A thought also follows this pattern. First it invades the space of our mind, often nesting before it breeds more thoughts that are related to the first one. Eventually, those thoughts, when we choose to keep them, and breed them, make their way down to the physical body, finding dark, warm places to hide and live. But, like the flying squirrel, they don’t really belong in our body-as-home, they are meant to fly free, outside of the mind. They are meant to come and go, but never take up permanent residence. When they do settle into our bodies, thoughts turn into emotions that stagnate and cause discomfort. When these thoughts-turned-emotions arise from those dark places of fear they become attachments of energy that create dis-ease.

My dream was a warning. My mind’s way of saying get rid of these fears before they breed and travel. It seems at least one had already escaped. Although it’s not a pleasant “thought” to linger on, I’m okay with it. I’m going to let it go. I’m going to trust that in each moment we are offered the choice. We can hold on, or we can let go.

The cat & the heron

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Poems2 Comments

This poem came out of two recent dreams, one with a cat messenger, the other with heron.

Bast, scratch memory back into skin

I walk the Hall of Two Truths

searching for rebirth. Bennu, shed

the gray for white with a ribbon

of blue. Lonely hunter of voice

speak to me of silence. I wade

between worlds seeking balance

to bend with willow’s grace

is the gift of sorrow

Trading the red dress for purple

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams2 Comments

Naturally, now, I wish I had pulled through the fog of sleep when I first woke, and wrote the scene of events when they were still painted in vivid hues. Here, though, is what I remember:

There was a dress, a brilliant red frilly affair, not unlike the Red Riding hood flock my daughter wore for Halloween, the color of blood when first spilled and trimmed in lace. I had it on backwards, at first. There was conflict, the replay of the past in different form. People I love, but have caused heartache, still lingering in the shadows of the mind. They had come out of the shadows last night, in the eve of the new moon, to remind me of what I still must shed.

It didn’t take long for me to notice the dress I was wearing  was backwards, so I righted it without taking it off. I wore if for awhile, through that play of scenes, before I traded it in for another. But let me tell you what else occurred last night, as I try to put the disperate pieces together.

There was another scene, entirely new from the other, and seemingly unrelated as dreams have that way of changing course suddenly. But, one knows really that nothing is unrelated.

I stood in water under a bridge. To my right, the river went upstream, to my left, down. The bridge above providing the option of two more directions, one a path into the past and the option of returning to the scene I had just left.

The water was a beautiful blue, full and strong, and I stood solid in the middle of the crossroads. To my right I watched with longing the tempting play of laughter as boaters paddled the current together. The sun shone high above. The only darkness was over the bridge, hidden through the tunnel of trees.

Here the dream became lucid in form. I knew the bird was coming before it appeared, quick and sure, from an unknown location. I knew I needed to remember her, as she was a messenger from Spirit. She was white, with the hint of brown and gray edging her feathers. A tiny (snowy) owl still in the early stages of her life where energy abounds but wisdom has yet to truly ripen.

My silent messenger of magic stopped her rapid flight in mid-air to balance at the point of my third eye. Our eyes locked, and she lingered long enough for me to remember. I had a choice, which path would I take?

Now, let me take you back out of the water, to that woman in the red dress. Through the course of those night travels she shed that red dress. She took it off, even after she righted it, and traded it in for another, and when she did everything shifted. The troubled scene she traveled through earlier became a place of joy as she twirled into her light in a lavender gown, sure, oh so sure, of who she was. Nothing, it seemed, could hold her back from living the true magic of her soul.

 

 

 

Dreaming the Sweetest Pair of Uggs

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams2 Comments

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My earliest recalled dream last night found me hosting a group of sort-of friends from long ago. We appeared to be having a book club, and my friends were hungry and asking for something to nibble on. Suddenly, I found myself sorting through clutter, old newspapers and collected material that needed to be cleared and disposed of, as I attempted to work around it to make the snacks.

Chocolate cookies were going into ovens, bagels were being toasted. Each heated treat waiting to be topped with ice cream or cream cheese. Sounds delicious, right? But, I was feeling over-whelmed with the task. There was too much clutter, and the cookies were starting to burn before I could get to them. Forget the ice cream intended as stuffing, my hungry “friends” were waiting.

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Fast-forward to the next remembered dream. Here I was in high school, although not the high school I had once attended in waking life. This high school appeared to be a private school for grooming elite students. Again, I found myself among my friends, only this time I was comfortable and happy. The head-master (or the equivalent of one) pulled me aside as my friends and I chatted, and for a moment I thought I had done something wrong.

“You are a phenomenal student,” she told me when  we were alone in the hallway, our heads huddled together in the corner. “We’ve chosen you for the competition.”

My task, if I decided to accept, was to design a new pair of UGG shoes.

But I can’t draw, I told myself. And then I stopped. Yes I can. I can do anything I want to. It just might take more time, more practice and dedication.

Suddenly, I was dreaming up amazing ideas. There was no limit to my imagination and ability to create something new. I was putting zippers down the backs of boots that looked like they might rip every time someone pulled them on. I was applying new adornments, colors and textures. Finally, I settled on the design I would sure would win. A white pair of wedding UGGs to be worn by a bride in northern climates. They would have a thin lining of fur, soft and delicate as UGGs could be made, with a slight heel to lift. I was over the moon, this was going to be so much fun!

Although I never finished the dream to see if I had in fact won the competition, it didn’t matter. I had won, after all. I woke feeling light and lifted and full of joy. The full potential of creation was stirring inside of me. I knew the limitlessness of my being and how wonderful it feels when one stirs that put into being.

I often analyze my dreams for their messages, and here is what I took from these two dreams. The moon, right now, is just starting to wane. It has waxed into its fullness and is now starting to shed its weight. When the moon waxes, my dreams are often troubled and filled with scenes that play out the ego’s fears. They peak at the full moon, and then they begin to transform and shed their weight.

Last night, in my first dream, I was reminded of the weight the ego carries in the form of fear. There was clutter all around me. It was frustrating, it was getting in the way of the tasks I wanted to accomplish. But, these tasks were also of the ego and its fears. I was striving to please people who really didn’t deserve it. As a result, I was placing myself in a lower position to them (I actually went down a hill in the dream to prepare their food, which is also where I encountered all the clutter). The food I was preparing was sweet and rich. It was food that adds weight to the body. The foods we crave to feed our fears, which quite literally add to the emotional weight we carry in our bodies.

Then spirit gifted me with the second dream. A full transformation from the first. Here I was amid peers again, but a true leader and not someone who tries to please others at the sacrifice of her true self. I was admired and recognized for who I was, and my true potential was allowed and encouraged to shine. There was that moment of self-doubt that likes to creep in for most of us, but look what happened! I over-came it! I went beyond it to stir that pot of limitless creative potential. It was glorious, it was fun, it lifted my heart. It filled me with light. This is is the stuff inside all of us, we just need to shed the weight of the ego, stop feeding its fears, enter the womb of creation inside and birth. Again and again! We are all limitless beings.

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