She-Bear and Baby
On an early winter night, nearly a decade ago, I dreamed I was walking through white drifts of snow in a wonderland I did not know. The scene was like a familiar hike in the Maine woods with misty light that made the landscape melt into another place. Dreams are like that - the edges of our imagined reality can be blurred. In the cinema of the night, our intimate stories emerge with fright and delight. Amid this dark December’s slumber, I was caught in a dream, struggling to make my way through a dangerous course of characters and terrain that gripped my soul and disrupted the instinct to hibernate.
Like most healthy dream cycles, my mind was stirring to stimulate my own healing. Our dream images and themes are the metaphors and guideposts for what is yearning to be healed. They can recur in REM sleep - our deep sleep when we are dreaming with rapid eye movement. As crazy as they can be, dreams help us better understand the psyche and signal what may be needed for conscious change. Dreams are a metaphoric language and the continuation of consciousness. The mind is always awake.
Though I was sleeping, this dream exhausted me until I found the strength to navigate beyond the weirdness into a bright and gentle oasis. Still wandering in the woods, with snow falling all around, my cold body warmed and I was comforted by the purity of where I had arrived. There, but not there, I saw a large mama black bear who was happily snoozing. I was in her winter den, a rocky cave under a great tree. The She-Bear was part of the tree. Not afraid, I felt a need to be embraced by her motherly paws. Just at that moment, she stirred and turned on her back to show me her baby who was healthy and active. The baby bear was pure white, like snow, with a special glowing and knowing that seemed to tell me, “You are blessed”. Then, the baby, like an oracle from the other side, winked at me and I awakened.
The dream was a miracle. Though subtle, to receive its gift required all my emotional courage to let go. When I awakened, I knew that beyond the challenges, life’s unbearable obstacles can be benefactors. I felt agency, and the wholeness and confidence to be true to my creative being. The dream reminded me to always remain hopeful. In a time when I was sad and heavy with self-doubt, I resolved to stay on my path as artist, teacher, writer; and to love and know I’ll always be loved in all my creative imperfection and glory.
It was my dream in the days approaching the winter solstice. This is a deeply spiritual and creative time of the year when we naturally go inward to honor our lightness and strengths. Magic and miracles happen. The art therapist in me was inspired to tell this story, first in paint and now in words. It was a miracle because the dream gave me what I needed most, the faith in my creativity to keep moving ahead and believing in myself, and to know that I am seen and loved. I am blessed, and every time I look at the painting, I see that wink and know I’ll be okay.