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Having been granted (in effect) ‘a stay of execution’ from aggressive, advanced cancer as I mentioned in my previous post, I can think of something I would so much RATHER be doing than sit here at this computer and write this post.
I WANT to be at some beautiful ocean beach with good friends and happy children, watching and listening to ocean waves crashing upon the shore. I want to walk barefoot on warm slippery rocks as I investigate fascinating miniature life in tide pools there. I want to lay back in the perfect warmth of a sunny day and watch puffy clouds glide across the sky while below them sailboats slide across the sparkling, glistening water toward the horizon.
But, no. Here I am with a dream story to tell. Even here though, I want to change myself from the “I” of the story into someone else – not me – though it was ME in this dream and me who dreamed it. So I might as well get on with this telling now, because I know I will not rest until this post is written, nor will I be able to move on. I have work to do in this time I have been given on this earth……
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I was in a small and humble village that was a ‘cross’ between something like a small American Pennsylvania town and a remote village in Mexico. A man discovered that I contained-possessed a great talent and a remarkable gift. He brought me to a yard in this town, and soon after our arrival people began to gather.
In the center of the yard people began to clear and level a spot on the ground for a boxing ring. Part way through the owner of the house pulled a small white object out of the moist black earth in the center of the yard and began gently brushing the soil off of it.
“Oh!” He quietly exclaimed. “It is San Miguel that watches over you and guides you with this gift!”
I am not Catholic. I know nothing about Saints, and do not really understand about angels. What I saw in that man’s hand as he turned, continuing to mutter silently and reverently to himself as he left to wash this little statue, was a figure that looked to me to be part bull and part lion. (See notes below)
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I was prepared by the man who had found me and my gift, and who had escorted me to this place and called the people to gather, for the boxing ring. I know nothing about boxing. Nor did I know in the dream. But into the ring I climbed and fought with a worthy opponent a perfect boxing match – much to the delight of every man and woman watching.
I seemed to have butterfly wings for feet that could move faster than a hummingbird’s wing. I could see into the future and perfectly deflect every punch that was thrown my way. I felt myself to be in a completely different world as the fight progressed, and in the end, after 12 rounds, I won even though not a single instant of pain or violence had actually transpired.
I humbly had been given the most miraculous gift of being able to box through a perfect fight without causing or experiencing any harm at all.
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A week later everyone gathered again to watch yet another match. All these people were humble and more friendly than I had ever known humans to be. There was a sense of love, respect and again reverent appreciation for this gift I had been given – to fight the perfect fight.
This second time we all waited a long time for the man who had discovered me – my ‘manage’ to arrive. Eventually word was sent that he could not come. Slightly disappointed, the crowd continued to visit – and I woke from my dream.
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I believe this dream came to me in part because of the great conflict I experienced yesterday as I realized that my mother’s written words, eight years after her death and fifty years after she wrote them, still contain the power to hurt some of the still-living people she wrote about. (see the parallel line of concerns expressed in the comment section HERE.)
That does not mean (according to my dream) that I cannot ‘fight the perfect fight’ in relation to what I hope to accomplish by my work with my mother’s writings. I was surprised to read information online like what I mention below. The connections between my mother, the severe child abuse she perpetrated, the deeply disturbed relationships she had with everyone in her life – and my fight against severe child abuse – become obvious in looking at the meaning to me of this dream.
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Catholic Prayer to Saint Michael
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host –
by the Divine Power of God –
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
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“Cherubim are first mentioned in the Bible in Gen 3:24, where Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden, and two cherubim are set at the gate to guard it, so that no one may enter.
In Ex 25f and 36f, the Israelites are to make a chest called the Ark of the Covenant, and place on the lid statues of two cherubim, with their wings arching over and meeting in the middle. Aside from the fact that they had wings, we are not told anything about their appearance. It was apparently taken for granted that the Israelites already knew what a cherub was supposed to look like. It is a reasonable guess that they looked like the guard figures already standard in Middle Eastern art, as noted above.
Ancient Middle Eastern art regularly shows the throne of a king or a god flanked by, or sometimes resting on, two creatures. Typically, each creature has the body of a lion or a bull (often the front quarters of a lion, with claws, and the hind quarters of a bull, with hooves, or vice versa), the head of a man, and the wings of an eagle.”
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The Lion and the Bull image:
The Sumerian word lama, which in Akkadian is translated as lamassu, refers to a helpful and protective female god. The corresponding male god was called alad, in Akkadian, šêdu (cf. Hebrew שד šed).[1]
In art they were depicted as hybrids, as winged bulls or lions with the head of a human male. There are still surviving figures of šêdu in bas-relief and some statues in museums. Notable examples of šêdu/lamassu held by museums include those at the British Museum, Musée du Louvre, National Museum of Iraq, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Oriental Institute, Chicago. They are generally attributed to the ancient Assyrians.[2][3]
To protect houses the šêdu were engraved in clay tablets, which were buried under the door’s threshold. At the entrance of palaces often placed as a pair. At the entrance of cities they were sculpted in colossal size, and placed as a pair, one at each side of the door of the city, that generally had doors in the surrounding wall, each one looking towards one of the cardinal points.
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Stop the Storm 