Dream a little dream of me...

I wake in the middle of the night, startled into consciousness by the ending of a dream. The sound of winter wind whipping through the trees and around the house are an acoustic accompaniment to my dream process. Barney howls and I wonder if dreams wakened him, too. Dreams that I remember come seldom to me. I ponder them for days, hold them fast as I try to find meaning in their hidden codes. Dreams are a creative wonder, dark paths illuminated by night time journeys deep into our souls.
There are many different kinds of dreams. Often I will dream a calligraphy quote or a solution to a design problem. These practical solutions to a creative problem float to the surface and I wake up feeling energized and ready to work. Sometimes those I have loved and lost to death appear in dreams and it is a comfort. But the winter wind dreams, the dreams that waken me into startled loneliness, leave me feeling like joining Barney in howling. Dreams can be dangerous, reminders of our limitations and frailties.
As a child, I dreamed dreams of the future. As an aging woman, I dream dreams of past, present and future. Years of living, loss, loving and leaving have marked the trail that leads to the source of my dreams. This dream path, this way to wisdom, is both gift and curse. Wisdom comes with a price and sometimes the price is painful. Wisdom, the way of knowing that honors past, present and future, is one of the creative possibilities in aging. Dreams are lamps that light up the hidden, the not yet known, the forgotten parts of our individual wisdom and we are lead to a different way of becoming the ones we were created to be.
Blue streaks of sky are slicing through the grey clouds as I walk Rufus outside. I watch a solitary oak leaf, far from its mother tree, circle lazily as it gently floats to the earth. I have been away from myself for awhile, floating like the oak leaf, caught up and swirling. Internal and external forces kept me apart from God and from myself. The grey sky with blue streaks reminds me that I cannot see all of the sky, only the little part that is in my world at Sabbath Rest Farm. My blue sky dreams are waiting underneath the grey winter clouds, waiting as I dream a little dream of me.
Thanks be to the One who dreamed me into being, whose dreams of love and light sustain me in seasons of darkness. For the grace that brought me thus far and will lead me home, I am grateful. For those who wander in the wilderness searching for wisdom, dreaming of peace and joy, I pray dreams will come true. And for us all, companions in life and death and life again, I pray for traveling mercies as we journey home. Amen.