I’ve learned over the years that one of the most important parts of dream retention is to pay attention to key words and phrases that stand out during a dream, even if they don’t seem to have any immediate meaning.
A while back I had a dream about my goddess self (a rare thing), and from that dream two phrases stood out:
“I am the mother of all my lovers. I bathe in the oceans, my hair in the clouds.”
The last few days have been strenuous and cold, and I came home this evening feeling very much in need of a hot bath. I have a hobby/side job making aromatherapy baths (balneotherapy!), so I filled the tub with hot water and a concoction consisting mostly of high altitude French lavender, South African peppermint, evening primrose oils and milk.
The water was perfect, and I just rested in the heat and steam for a long while, breathing deeply and grounding myself. I decided to try a gentle meditation experiment, and while I soaked, I started repeating the first phrase from my dream. I soon fell into a rhythm, and the tumbling words felt like fingers plucking endless arpeggios on a harp.
The sounds melted into new phrases as I repeated them:
I am the mother of all my lovers
I am the mother of all my mothers
I am the lover of all my mothers
…
Je suis la mère de tous mes amants
Je suis la mer de tous les amants
Je suis la mère de tous les enfants
…
As I chanted, drifting from English into French and back again, I began to see an image in my mind of a tall woman with long, flowing hair and a wide hat, standing in a garden, wearing a full skirt in a light, fine fabric, and over it a trailing white apron. I looked through her eyes at the sun-flooded rows of plants and bales of straw around her, the daylight on the fields and copses surrounding the little patch, and felt the draw of the dark, cool forest to one side, bordered by a deep green hedge.
Sharing one body, we turned slowly to face the hedge and advanced towards the forest, to a path between two small but ancient trees. As I watched our bare feet cross the boundary from light to darkness and touch down in the damp, shadowed soil, I suddenly noticed the row of tiny children following silently in her wake. Squinting in the sunshine, they were reaching out and gripping onto the edges of her wind-whipped apron as it billowed behind her, and as I pressed closely forward, she led them steadily and calmly over the threshold into the deep woods.
Tonight she soothes.
peacefully,
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Wandering Arrow 