Tattooed Dreams...

I am wearing an emerald green dress. My right arm and right side of my neck is covered in an elaborate tattoo. I am in a panic, hyperventilating.

I do not dream. Well, I do, but I rarely ever remember them, until now. I have had this tattooed dream four times in the last month. Each time the dream comes to me, the tattoo changes; it becomes clearer and more vibrant. How I feel in the dream is also beginning to shift. The feelings of panic and mourning are slowing beginning to fade, replaced by a feeling of restlessness. What lies ahead?

2015 was a creatively uncertain year. I could not quite put words to it, until Sarah invited me to join her in reading Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. In the chapter, La Selva Subteranea: Intitation in the Underground Forest, Estes talks about three-year periods in mythology being of mounting momentum. She says, “three years of something occurs, then comes a destruction, then from that ruin is born a new world of peace.” She goes on to say, “This period of time is sometimes characterized by ennui. Women will often say their mood is such that they cannot quite put their finger on what it is they want, whether it be work, lover, time, creative work. It is hard to concentrate. It is hard to be productive. This nerve-restlessness is typical of this spiritual development stage. Time alone, and not very far down the road, will take us to the edge we need fall, step, or dive over.”

I spent most of 2015 expending a lot of my energy pushing against those feelings of restlessness and uncertainty. I refused to listen to what they might be whispering to me. Surrender. Surrender Bethany. So, I set my intention for 2016, to let go and relish in the not knowing.