A Vision Epiphany

Last night I had one of the most intense experience's of my life to date. I thought that I was dreaming but it was so strange a dynamic in the dream that I forced myself to awaken and then drifted back into the vision which was precisely that and not just a dream. I was in an enormous house that was mine. My Grandma Lucile who died in 2000 was there with all of her girlfriends and some of my female relatives from my childhood. I knew they were all spirits but they were also solid in form and glowing with love and peace. They were about the kitchen and the house doing things like cooking, needlework, cleaning; just the ordinary activities of everyday life. I was so thrilled at being with my Gran again and also grateful that these wonderful women/spirits were dwelling in my house and content to be doing so. I had to go to the basement for some reason which turned out to be this dank, decrepit, warren of falling down rooms and walls. The foundation was crumbling; shorn up in places by rotting timber. Along with the accumulations of old possessions that one would expect to find (most of them not mine and in many cases I wondered how these strange objects came to be in my basement) there were also massive piles of dirt that had to be climbed over to get from foul room to foul room. The light was wavering and casting strange shadows. Water pipes were broken and spewing liquid. Everywhere in this basement were strangers, most of them very young (immature like teenagers) working at trying to fix the foundation or stop a broken pipe from leaking. I was not afraid but merely curious to know what these strangers were doing in the bowels of my house. In climbing over and though the dirt and mud I became filthy, finally making my way circuitously back to a stairway that lead upstairs into the house itself. I was thinking about the sad state of affairs of my foundation and how much work it was going to take me to fix. Also the enormous job of cleaning out the leftover debris (that was not mine to live with) and the piles of dirt that were everywhere blocking passage was going to have to be done by me and not these minions of strangers that were somehow in my house. I knew that I was responsible for their being there and that I alone were responsible for removing them. I could hardly wait to get up into the light and back within the circle of my Grandmothers warmth. In my filthy and bedraggled state I entered the bright and lovely kitchen that smelled of good foods cooking and was amazed to find my beloved Pyewacket and her daughter Natasha (cats who had passed over many years ago). Both the cats and I practically jumped with joy at seeing one another again and I explained that I was too filthy to touch them and so we kissed each other on the lips. This made sense in the dream as all I felt for these creatures and they for me was pure unconditional love.
At this point I came back up to full waking reality to lie in my bed and analyze this experience. In a material house I would not allow inexperienced adolescents try to repair a foundation why would I be permitting this in my ‘spiritual’ house? Years of my own insecurities have developed in me the need to be liked by everyone and to allow anyone in. It was in a blazing flash that I understood that all of the decent people and creatures that I need in my life are there in my heart and experiences and more to come as I go on but that I don’t have to like everyone and certainly I can let go of the need to be liked by everyone. My foundation is mine to clean up and to shore up. On the surface my ‘house’ looks fine and has many good qualities but every structure needs a solid foundation. For the first time in a long time I awakened feeling both peaceful and hopeful. There is nothing that I’m experiencing in life that is not within my control to change/fix provided I’m willing to stop giving up my control to others and willing finally to take responsibility completely for myself.
Many years ago I’d written a poem in which one of the lines is, “to clean the rooms that in dark souls reside.” This is still the case for me but now it seems clear and not frightening to do this. I don’t have to accept anything from anyone that I choose not too. I need not any longer be tied by my insecurities to a future that is not working for me. I don’t have to carry any burdens that are not mine and it’s possible to fix what has been broken which I’m not sure I believed or understood how to do before. I’ve prayed long and hard for a message that will get through to me and I believe God send my Grandmother and others whom I had always unconditionally loved to deliver the message.
I stayed in bed until 5:30 pondering this experience and additionally coming to understand that my capacity to love is not a burden if I treat it like the gift that it is and also use it on myself. That it’s ok for everyone to be whom and what they are, I don’t have to like them nor them me, and it’s really ok for me to say no. I ended up spending the next two hours happily ironing and packing for my upcoming weekend in SF feeling/knowing that a burden had been lifted from my soul by these revelations.