For the past few weeks I have had vivid dreams. Some of them terrifying, others revelatory. I used to be in the habit of recording my dreams and more than one has proven to be very fertile story soil, but my dreams are mostly inconsistent at best. I often don’t remember them, even in the moments after waking up. But one dream in particular has stuck with me this week.
My boyfriend and I had come into possession of an old house. The sort with rough wood and creaking stairs, paint peeling away from the single-pane windows. It looked out over the water and was built right up on the shore so that it even had basement boat access. The only furniture was a dilapidated sitting room couch and a rather fancy pool table. Outside was an old swimming pool that had overgrown into a lake from disuse, but the water was still crystal clear. As I walked around it (accompanied by my father and boyfriend) I could see all the way to the mossy bottom and all the myriad sized goldfish that had taken up residence there. We were in search of the landlord, or perhaps he was the groundskeeper? We found him and he showed us to what he said was the library. It was a wholly separate building tucked in a stand of evergreens. It was one large circular room, bookshelves lining the walls. The domed ceiling was carved with stars, but the room itself was full of chairs and there was a stage as though it’s real purpose was to be a small woodland theatre. In that sudden way that dreams have, the scene shifted and I was standing among a crowd of people in the audience of that tiny theatre library. A drum beat began to play and the drummer, a huge man with wild black hair, leaped into the room. As the drums grew louder and the rhythm more intricate we were all drawn into an ecstatic spiral dance.
And then I was handed a book. I knew this book was an index of sorts, cataloging deities and spirits and that I was looking for Someone in that book. I thumbed through a few pages and landed on on showing the pen and ink portrait of a stern but not unkind man, pale, with high cheek bones and black hair. Below him was a sigil, a variation on the Gates of Moria, but with the eight point star resting between the hammer and anvil rather than below it. Looking at that symbol I knew the portrait was that of the Smith God, and it was Him that I was seeking. A familiar feeling of connection welled up within me, the same sensation I experience sometimes in ritual or when compelled to write for my gods, and then I was awake.
Now I have no skill at dream interpretation, and I’ve not asked anyone who does for their thoughts on this dream (though I’d certainly welcome insights). I don’t know who the Smith God may be, but I do know that whoever he is he chose to appear to me as I prepare to begin a massive creative endeavor in the guise of Fëanor, the greatest (but also most wild-tempered) creative spirit of Middle-earth. I have had a none too small obsession with this character and his family since the age of 12. It is clear, to me anyway, that his wild creativity and dedication to his craft is what I need going into this project and in my life in general.
A few nights later, I dreamed of a flower–a pale pink water lily, I think– unfolding from my belly. I’ve been feeling disconnected from my spiritual self, afraid that my impulses are disingenuous. I feel a need to get back into readings, but I have this fear that I’m only tricking myself and therefore would be tricking others were I to start reading publicly. I question whether I really have what it takes to be a spiritual and creative person at all. But this half-dream of a blooming flower made it clear, again, what I need.I have always been a very closed off, private person, but it’s time to let go of that fear and allow myself to open. I need to tend my spiritual side as much as I need to tend the rational and physical parts of myself. I must allow myself to Become.
MythWyse 