Writing this up so that I remember it for posterity. Not sure what the end result will be.
I don’t often remember dreams, and when I do they are usually gone within a few minutes of my waking up. This one has stuck with me now for awhile, and I want to get it written down so that I don’t forget it.
*****
I dreamed I was going through an ordeal – in the original sense – a test of sorts, where I had to pass a certain number of gates. I was on a long and winding path, and there were ten total gates that I had to pass through. (It was very important that there were ten.) Each one had a gate guardian who was tending a fire at the gate, and the only way to go forward on the path was to pass through. The gates had tall sides, and were blueish-purple and swirly, like portals, but they were (to my mind) clearly “gates” I had to pass through.
I passed through the first four without incident or really memory. I just know that they felt “easy” and that I didn’t have any trouble getting through them. When I got to the fifth gate, my FB friend Cat Heath was the gate guardian, tending her fire.
Except I couldn’t get through. I threw myself at it and bounced off or slid down or fell. I did this for some time, until I was bruised and battered and lying in a heap at the foot of this impassable gate. And Cat looked down at me and said “Well, clearly you’re not ready for this.”
And I woke up.
My first thought was, “Well fuck, I didn’t even make it halfway through before I failed.”
Sometime later in the day, with the dream still on my mind, I went to lay down and see if I could get back into dream-space and ask some questions and maybe look around a bit, and I was immediately back into the space in the dream, lying at the foot of the fifth gate.
And I asked Cat why I wasn’t ready, and what I needed to do. She looked at me, a little puzzled for a moment, and the said “The slow blade penetrates the shield.” She turned back to the fire.
I hauled myself up, approached the gate, and then slowly – painfully slowly- began to push my hand through the gate. And it worked. After some time, my hand was able to pass through.
And then I snapped back to reality again.
*****
I have taken this to mean that it’s time to slow down, that things will happen in their time (whether I’m talking about my clergy work or my divorce or any other thing in my life). Talking with other priests makes me think that this is especially related to my clergy training, but I think there’s more to it. Also that this isn’t something I can force – that I must – MUST- go slowly and force myself to take the time that it takes to be ready for what is coming next. Which is a hard lesson for me, but I will take it as a good sign that my divination on this has been very favorable since I had the dream.
I am still looking for a good diviner to confirm my suspicions, so if that’s you, please get in touch with me. I’d love to get an outside confirmation on what I think is really going on here.
Little Druid on the Prairie 