Here I am, approaching Winter Solstice, 2019, and I’m thinking about the ‘family dream’. Actually, it’s the females in my family who share the same dream, and we all love it.
None of us knows why, or when, but at some point in time, during a random conversation, we learn another one of us has dreamed it. And it’s always the same.
We are the woman in the dream. It’s very brief. She is standing alone in a grove of trees, it’s nighttime and there’s light in the distance. She’s wearing a white gauzy gown with wrist length flowing sleeves, and she is barefoot. Her hair is very long (as is all of ours in real life; I can sit on mine), and it reflects flashes of soft moonlight as she turns her head, and looks over her shoulder.
Recognition of someone or something flits across her face, then a slight smile. And that’s it. I’ve had the dream more times than I can count, and it never varies; it’s always the same in every detail.
The one thing upon which we all agree is we are of Celtic heritage, and each of us feels perfectly at home there. It feels like an ancient forest, and we are a natural part of it. Are we having some shared genetic memory of Druid lives from long, long ago? Were we in the forest for a ceremony? Perhaps a Solstice celebration? Have we died, and the distant light is calling us there?
I don’t know if our dreams will ever take us further into this common history; but should they, I believe we will meet a fate which only a sisterhood would understand. Until then, the dream is lovely, the mystery sublime. And I believe those are cherished gifts shared with the women of my family.
(Photo courtesy of harmoniousearth.org)