Dream: I want to jump over the rail instead of having to walk all the way round to the stairs, it would be faster. But I think better of it, too risky and I walk around and take the steps down to the lower level.

Look for phrases that carry a deeper resonance in your current life. Here, the simple line: ‘take the steps.’

This feels like an affirmation of real progress. A movement away from impulsive or less grounded ways of choosing and toward a way of being that is more measured, more aware. Not a loss of vitality, but a wiser use of it. I’m taking the steps to ensure my progress.

Dream: In my dream at the beginning, I have a loyal and devoted dog with me. It is highly attuned to me and we are always together.

Though the dog can often symbolize positive things, as the dream plays out it suggests an instinct that has become overly domesticated - no longer fully wild or self-directed. The dream is showing me how I may be bound in ways that limit my vitality. Consider your assumptions may be blind spots.

Dream: Someone is handing me a very long, thin, dark blue handled artist’s brush, holding it vertical with the brush tip at the top as if saying “Here!”

I literally wake up, sit up in bed and reach out to take it. Is something being asked of the dreamer? The gesture carries a kind of authority, as if it does not require permission from the thinking mind. The brush suggests embodied expression. How might I express myself in ways I am not yet allowing?

Dream: I look out my kitchen window and see a massive ancient building - I can practically reach out and touch this monument to time, knowledge, and treasure. I can’t unsee what is right in front of my face!

Sometimes images are exaggerated in some way to catch our attention, especially when something in us has fallen out of balance. What ancient knowing is being overlooked?

Dream: I see a black butterfly and wonder it’s meaning when it transforms into a black moth eyeing me directly. I’m taken aback with it’s intelligence and gravitas.

Nature has an expedient way of showing us who we are if we just take the time to look. A creature of the night, attuned to what emerges in the darkness. At times, what we encounter in the natural world feels less like observation and more like recognition, as if something in us is being seen in return.

Dream: I noticed the spotless house I had just stepped out of, onto the spotless porch beneath my feet.

That dream opening, all by itself was showing me something about my ego self. It felt eerily prescient. As the dream continued I felt as if I was looking over my shoulder; I felt the weight of all that orderliness, all the care and overdoing that was the platform of my life…

Pay attention to the words in your dreams. Sometimes they point to an attitude or bias that we often overlook.

Dream: As I’m moving with my heavy gear and climbing tall fencing I see a young man who is stuck on the fence. He can’t move forward because part of his gear is caught on the fencing holding him back. I stop to help him by holding part of his gear so he can let go and then unhook the snag that’s holding him fast. He’s free and now we both can move on.

Dreams can convey many layers of meaning in your life - all of them pertinent. Where in your life might something caught, be asking for your attention, so that moving on becomes possible?

Dream: I’m standing outside in sunlight and in front of me is a very wide area of land going upwards for a long distance. It is obvious that earth movers are clearing the land to make way for a huge multi-lane highway. The ground is rutted with track marks, brown soil, chunks of grass and uneven terrain. I need to go up the slope of land…

Something new is being built and for public consumption. What is calling you to participate?

Dream: I turn and see a lioness coming into the bedroom straight toward me. I’m on the bed and the lion lies over me, feeling her full weight on my chest, her warm breath on my neck. I’m thinking ‘What will it be like to be eaten alive?’

Could this symbolize being taken into something larger, being claimed or even consumed by a force that brings about deep and fundamental change?

Dream: I awaken with the image of a beautiful, strong, powerful horse with muscular legs and neck. It is dark Indigo with purple, where the light hits its hair it is glistening and you can see brilliant rich red, purple and indigo.

A request for strength the night before, becomes a beautiful symbol to companion me on my lengthy, miles long pilgrimage.