The expression, "I can't get it out of head" comes to mind. This is true of the dream, but it's not the complete story. There is much more than having it in my head. It is also in my feelings. It really was more an emotional , heart-filled experience than a mental one.
Since I can't get it out of my head, my intellect has tried to make sense of the dream. So I have been thinking about what it could mean. I came up with a lot of impressions. And yet, it is the feelings that are more prominent.
While thinking about the dream, I tried to interpret it on a rational level. But it is the intuitive feelings that tell me the most, not the thoughts. Still, both are at play and interconnected.
First, I started to interpret the symbolism. Some things jumped out at me immediately, others were slower to come to view.
I thought about the obvious theme of the Nativity. The dream centered around the Christmas story. The placement of the Little Fur Family in the "quartz home", mirrors the placement of baby Jesus in the manger with Mary and Joseph next to him.
The Christmas tree-like lights glowed around and down from the quartz womb, soft and warm inside, after it was placed on the mountain. I feel this as the Christ Light, or Source Light, which is joyfully shining for me, too. I just need to look up to the mountain to see it.
I began to see the quartz I'd carved out in a more Earthly manner. Quartz is a stone found on Earth, often a clear stone, which allows us to see into another dimension while still feeling it's density. Sometimes quartz is opaque, blocking the radiant light one can see through a clear quartz. Yet, that light is still there. It is we who block ourselves from seeing it.
The quartz I was carving was opaque, but when it was placed on the mountain, it shone with many colored lights, like Christmas tree lights. Christmas tree lights glow from all sides of the tree and through the branches. The different colors of the lights that make up the whole strand are separate, yet interconnected. It's the multitude of colors that blend together to make one rainbow-colored scene.
It was interesting to note, after I began thinking about the dream, that the Little Fur Child was placed in a pinewood crib. As some you know, Len had requested a "Green Burial". We had no idea what that was at the time of his funeral and burial. We soon learned "Green Burials" are natural burials, allowing the body to return to Earth, and in turn promote growth of wildflowers, which bring birds, insects, and other wildlife to the area. Len's body was placed in a pinewood coffin. Pinewood is biodegradable.
Len was buried in Belgium with one of his baby blankets, which he'd slept with every night since the day he was born. The blanket, his "sniffy", always comforted him. I had received the blankets (he had three of them) at a baby shower for Len. Every time I washed the blankets I would to put them next to Len's face so he could smell the freshly laundered scent, and I'd say "sniff this". When Len started to talk, one of the first things he named was his blankets. It's no surprise he chose the name "sniffy". When I think about this, I feel happy he could take a part of me with him everywhere, by cuddling his sniffy, whenever he needed the comfort of his mama.
At the time of Lens funeral, we, his family in the States, wanted badly to bury him here. Belgium law prohibits a body transfer out of Belgium, unless the body is embalmed. Meredith, his wife, wanted badly to honor Len's wishes and give him the Green Burial. We suggested a compromise; have his body cremated and brought over here. No, even though the body becomes ashes, it's just not the same, and not what Len wanted.
At first, I couldn't see why Meredith wouldn't comprise for the sake of his family members. Now, I am so happy that she did honor his wishes. We wanted him here for us, she wanted him there for him.
The theme of exchange could be seen through my memories of the "back and forth" placement of the tiger ornament on our Christmas tree. What I saw as ugly, Len saw as beautiful. He felt it was just as beautiful as the other ornaments and deserving of a place where it could be seen. The game we played in moving the ornament front to back and then back to front was actually fun. We would laugh about the tiger ornament. It was the one ornament that stood out among the rest. Even though I wanted in hidden, Len found fun and laughter in the movement of the tiger. Consequently, it made me (and Calvin) laugh, too. Certainly, neither Len, nor Calvin, nor I will ever forget the tiger ornament.
The different ways Len and I saw Reality was often one of disagreement and stubbornness. Both of us wanted the other to see the way he/she saw it. Neither wanted to meet in the middle and listen with an open heart. This was the essence of our estrangement; the estrangement that broke our hearts.
When Len passed on to the Light, our hearts were opened and healed. Now I feel nothing but his love, forgiveness and gratitude, which he in turn is feeling from me. Thus Len's words in his note, and his voice in the dream, "Thank you, Mama". I'm unable to grasp adequate words to express the gratitude I feel for the life I share(d) with Len. I am thankful for all he has taught and shown me while he was here, but I'm especially thankful for what he teaches and shows me now, after his passing.
Len allowed me to feel the special bond and deep love a mother has for her child, and to recognize the love her child feels for his mother. I feel this between Calvin and me as strongly as I feel it with Len. Len is showing me now it's a love that can never be broken, even if it appears to be broken.
The buzzing of the cicadas, from one tree to the other, symbolizes for me, the exchange between the realm of Heaven and Earth. Heaven and Earth are intrinsically connected as One through Love. Each is dependent on hearing from, and listening to, the other. We can never be separated. It's a lesson Len and I couldn't quite learn while he was still here.
Ah ha! Now I get it.
Ah ha! He mirrors my smile and says, I get it, too.
Furthermore, as I noted in my recollection of the dream, during their childhood, Len and Calvin delighted in removing and collecting the discarded shells of the cicadas clinging to the pine tree outside our house.
I remember Len, who knew so much about nature, and especially insects, telling me cicadas live underground as nymphs until they travel through a tunnel to the surface and emerge to climb a tree. Once on the tree, they molt, leaving their shell behind as they take on the adult form. We often had the thrill of watching this process. The emergence of the adult from the molt revealed a fragile, wet body, which quickly hardened. Then the cicada came to life, chirping, buzzing, and flying in the air.
It makes sense to me to see the correlation between the tunnel the cicada travels, through the dirt, in order to continue to change and grow as an insect, and the dark birth canal the human baby travels in order to continue to change and grow as an imperfect human reaching for perfection. When the time comes to leave the human body, the spirit travels through a tunnel of Light and arrives Home to change and grow in Perfect Love. It a learning process both in Heaven and on Earth.
Len, ever the teacher, the rabbi, has taught me about the nature of Love. As in the quartz home for the Fur Family, Len's home with his Earth family (including his family, friends, and lovers) provided love, warmth, shelter, and protection while he lived here with us. Len lived here until it was his time to return to the place of love, warmth, shelter, and protection in his Heavenly Home. Len now dwells with his Heavenly Father, Mother, Saints, Angels and Spirit Guides (some of them animal spirit guides). These include his family and friends and pets in Heaven and on Earth. They appear as bright lights, similar to Christmas tree lights. They surround and embrace us all with Love, even when we on Earth won't see or feel them. Len sees and feels them now.
Len sees and feels in Heaven, the Perfect Love he had searched for during his short life on Earth. He is sending me glimpses of that Perfect Love. I can see and remember, and best of all, feel it now, with a tearful expression of joy and gladness.
Len wants me to spread the words he is sending me; words he couldn't access, or let himself feel, while he was here with us. It's up to us to recognize them now. It's up to us to see and feel the lessons he has taught. If nothing else, appreciate what he has taught me. Sometimes it take a sudden and tragic event to teach us what we are here to learn.
It's all about LOVE.
We are all connected and here to teach and help each other on our journey.
There is so much more I am seeing, so much more Len is showing me. I'll write more soon.
Love to all of you,
Dana
Mama loves you, Len.
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