I Once Had a Dream!
set in an ancient time, perhaps in another world. In this dream society, everyone's hand was embedded with a red stone. The vibrant color of the stone began to fade as the person's allotted lifetime reached its end. This was the signal for the individual to complete worldly affairs and say good-bye to loved ones.

In this dream, I was a woman with many children and a loving husband. While still relatively young, my stone lost its color, and I began the process of leave taking. According to the custom, I went into a cave, without food or water, to await death.

Quite some time later, one of my children came to the cave, to pay respects to my remains. To her surprise, I was still alive, despite having had nothing to eat or drink in all that time.

The only difference was I could no longer speak. The girl shared with me all that was happening in her life, all that she was feeling, and I listened.

Word soon spread and my husband and other children began stopping by for visits. No matter what they shared, I listened and loved them. I awoke from the dream in tears, realizing the cave woman represented an energy inside of me, the Magic Child, that has compassionate acceptance for me too, exactly as I am.

I have so often denied myself that acceptance. I can mentally harass myself for days if I make an imperfect choice, especially when others, feeling injured by the decision, get angry at me. There are parts of my body, aspects of personality and limitations of talent that I have long treated like the wrong experience. I am finally learning the merciful lesson of the cave woman but it has taken me nearly fifty years to be able to welcome my entire self.

I once had a dream!