By Winnie Bolton
Did you ever have a loving dream that upon waking made you realize who you really are – like the goodness of which God made you?
Dreams will have that knowledge steeped within your subconscious if only we take them seriously. They touch in ourselves deeply allowing us to grow and open up to the spiritual side. They sometimes show us our faults and shortcomings we deny like the small-mindedness, superstitions and prejudices. We can only learn to forgive ourselves and others if we are shown the larger picture that the waking mind is often blind to because of its limitations and shallowness and inexperience. Remembering we are both body and spirit; the one (body) moving our matter, the other (spirit) moving our essence then we can understand more clearly the function of a human being.
In my dream, I was in my mother’s house and she was roasting chickens, the aroma of which was familiar to my nostrils knowing there would be her favorite garlic potatoes and onion gravy. My three daughters, in that dream, were 5, 6, and 7 years old. They were making the room look pretty and being of help and grinning ear-to-ear as though they had a secret.
The occasion was the arrival of my Auntie whom I dearly loved. She was my American grandma since her sister, my real grandma, lived in Ireland.
In dream terminology, a house is a symbol of one’s own self. We are a mixture of many experiences, emotions and feelings and I had lived in many houses in many states throughout my lifetime. Dreams are not logical, they are pure emotions, whether good or indifferent, fearful, regretful and so forth.
And why chicken instead of lamb, beef or ham?
Well a chicken can both fly (off the ground a bit) and also run around – so there’s the spiritual and physical presented to me symbolically speaking. My subconscious was strolling among those wholesome women and beautiful memories.
To feel the presence of Auntie, my mom, my daughters who are all parts of myself showed me the tremendous amount of love residing within me. In dreams, every person in it is oneself (the monsters and all “everyone”). My daughters because of the young age represented my innocence and fun that little girls have, my mother – the mature “take care” part of me – and Auntie – the understanding and wisdom of older folks.
The dream humbled me to the core, realizing I am truly a child of God. Because there were no males visible, like my father, uncle, husbands or sons, I took it to mean that I was dealing strictly with the female part of myself, the characteristics of which are instinct, wisdom and motherly love to name a few.
Maybe, just maybe, in my waking life I was feeling pretty low in self-esteem. I just remember the dream and not the circumstances I was experiencing in everyday life. Dreams are every night gifts trying to straighten us out as to who we are in this sometimes crazy, mixed up world of ours.
They speak to us of God’s love for us in daffy, unhinged but profound ways if we but care to believe in Him.
After all, He is a mystery, isn’t He? And isn’t it exciting? Exciting to realize we have so much more to learn about our God-given life.
