Sometimes you need an answer to a dilemma and just can’t come up with a solution. Did you know that it is in your blueprint to hear messages through your dreams, if you would let go of your fear long enough to welcome an experience, and let go of your expectations of what it should look and sound like?
It’s a tough position to be in: to fear the unknown or to fear the answer. You can’t have it both ways because it will cement you into the life you are presently living. And you already know my feelings about this issue: knowledge is power. Take a risk and choose to know what needs changing or addressing in your life. A gentle way to receive this information is through your dreams.
Set the intention to find out what is blocking you, or to understand your next step, how to step beyond your fears, or discover truth. Or perhaps you have a situation that doesn’t respond to the usual solutions and you feel like you are treading water and barely keeping your head above the surface. Maybe you’ve even tried everything to resolve it, or almost everything.
I went to sleep and asked for guidance and dreamed I was swimming in the ocean and was swept far out to sea. My dream was in black and white and I could not see through the water. The shore was a distant blur on the horizon and I wasn’t sure if I could swim back to it. A shadow flew overhead and I looked up to a large raven that landed on the water just in front of me. I found it odd because ravens do not float in the ocean.
I found myself swept further out from the shore and was now certain that I couldn’t swim the full distance to shore, or continue to tread water much longer. Suddenly several ravens flew overhead and landed around me. I was surrounded by ravens, which happen to be one of my power animals retrieved through shamanic journeying. They represent magic and transformation, but in the dream, those ravens represented a crowding of my space within a vast and endless body of water.
The more I tried to swim to shore the more ravens plopped in the water around me. The water’s surface had become darkened with their presence and I could barely take a full swim stroke without brushing against one of them. I was tiring quickly and all but immobilized as they died one by one around me.
I swam in an ocean filled with the dark bodies of dead ravens; they barely left room for me to tread water or suck in a breath as I was swept yet further from the shore. In my dream I prayed for help and suddenly a very large hippopotamus surfaced just beside me. At first I was overjoyed because hippos are so buoyant and he was clearly heading toward the shore.
Two more hippos surfaced around me, enclosing me and expelling the ravens. Without a thought I joyously reached out to the hippo on my left to support me and hopefully tow me to the shore. But my arm shot back to my side as I questioned my actions. How dare I just assume I could rest on the hippo without even asking? And what was I thinking—how rude. Oh, and let’s not forget that the hippo has amazingly large teeth inside of an even larger mouth.
I needed help but hesitated, arm in midair, wondering if I would be the hippo’s lunch, and how awful that would feel. Two blind emotions made me hesitate: drown or be eaten, eaten or drown. Did it really matter? This dream didn’t seem to be climaxing toward a happy ending.
As I considered my choices, I began to laugh. How absurd; neither of those choices appealed to me, so I couldn’t make either. If the hippo wanted to eat me, so be it, and while I didn’t relish the thought of drowning, I knew I was too tired to make it to shore. But were there truly only two options to my dilemma?
And then it struck me like a bolt of lightning and I began to laugh even harder. I did pray for help, and apparently I got it. The ravens surrounded me force me to stop swimming for the shore. The magic was there, but I only saw a bunch of dead black birds. I was being told to stay still and surrender, and stop fighting against the onslaught of magic around me and be still. I wrapped my arm around the hippo and within no time was back on shore, feeling the warm sand under my feet, as the color returned to my dream.
The ravens had all but disappeared from the water’s surface and the hippos simply continued walking along the beach until I lost sight of them. It’s was a poignant dream. I asked for help and it came. I was surrounded by magical energies and I misread their presence. The raven, the symbol of my mystical power seemed to be blocking my path in the water, so I tried to ignore and move away from it.
The ravens were actually a sign, and I nearly drowned because I was looking for something other than what I was sent. And of course I didn’t expect a hippo to come to my rescue. I had assumed it would be a muscular life guard in a Speedo with a large set of smiling white teeth. Well, at least I got the teeth right.
I asked for help but had expected it to look like normal help, like a lifeguard, or even a boat. Once I allowed the scene to unfold without constraints on how it should happen, I received the delightful assistance of those beautiful hippos and an absolute answer to my dilemma.
When your back feels up against a wall, and your options seem limited, ask for clarity about your situation in your dreams. Let go of any preconceived notions and allow the mystical to unfold. Be open to the idea that even in all of your brilliance, every solution you have considered may not be the correct one for you, or that maybe, just maybe a smarter presence has an option you never considered. It’s humbling, I know.
The messages were clear: when you ask for help, be prepared to look, listen, and feel for the answer. And don’t question the messenger.
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