White Lotus

I believe that dreams can be our subconscious' way of helping us in life.  Whether it is assuring us, warning us, opening us up, guarding us, leading us... it is our inner connectivity to things yet resolved with in us.  I have always had very movie-like dreams, they are generally long and complex.  Mixed in with dreams that include a dash of sex, and also psycho type dreams, of course.  Don't act like you haven't! Just look at you reminiscing about the one with your coworker... yea that could go both ways lol... But seriously, take note of your dreams, they are telling you something!

Now on that topic, there are definitely nights when I wake up completely distraught from what my brain apparently thinks is a good idea to bestow upon me at 2 a.m., like a horror flick with clowns leading a purge kinda day.  Those are the best, running from clowns trying to kill you... great for my already-at-a-10 anxiety ridden self! Thanks subconscious, you're a real prick! Xanax - your in, suit up!  The point of these dreams, in my opinion, are to help me figure out the important ones.  No psychiatrist would even attempt the normal, crazy dreams, why should I?  But they do help one realize the dreams that are actually meant to help us, to shake us up, to see something we are missing.  I am not a dream book guru by any means, but I have a couple I rely on, and let. me. tell. you - they are spot on.

::enter White Lotus, stage left::

So the other night I had an extreme dream.  It was like a marathon of dreams.  The kind that leave you exhausted upon waking and through out the morning.  WTF?! Did I actually run a marathon last night?  I won't go into all the deets, because it involves family members, and stories I may have already told, and because frankly it just doesn't matter.  Writing, expressing, tends to dredge up old, buried feelings and emotions, and I am used to that.  I can separate that.  What I needed, and got from the dream, was the symbolism in the White Lotus.  The people involved, friends and family, help it make sense, but they are not the real point.

The lotus flower is tied in to Hinduism and Buddhism, both of which I find parts of my Soul identifying with, the 

human, peaceful, oneness of it all.  Not to dumb it down, just not debating religions here, this is about my dream dammit!  It is also considered pure and beautiful, and while I see myself as far from that, my experiences, my words, my story, my life, my love... absolutely on point.  It favors descriptions such as rebirth, and one of the sun, and is associated with unification, spirituality, and faithfulness. The white lotus is considered the womb of the world.

If you have read ANY of my blog posts thus far, and/or know me at all, you can already piece together the beautifully woven meaning of this flower of depth.  The Faithfulness, the rebirth from my past life, being of the light or sun, unifying who I was before with who I am becoming, embracing the space in between. But there is one more major piece of the lotus that resonates with me.

I used to try and describe to people what it was like to be in an abusive relationship.  Because some people just don't get it.  Anyone who has never experienced  it for themselves, really can't grasp all of it, the entanglement of despair it leaves you in.  I would say "imagine falling in to a ditch, as you lay there injured, the cars pass and splash water on you, and the dirt and the mud cake up and become so heavy, and the leaves stick on to you, and the weather brings debris that covers you up, smothers the essence of who your are, and before you know it, the weight of all of these things on your body, leaves you handicapped, stricken into this mold that is becoming familiar, sheltered even, as you lay there in agony.  Desperately wanting to leave, but fearing going.  Now imagine the strength it takes to stand, impossible.  But a little piece of you knows you must get out of that ditch, so you start with coming up on your forearms, even if just to see your baby again, and then to your knees. You are getting it. Slowly the mud, and the leaves, and the debris starts to fall away, lightening your load.  That is what getting out feels like.  But it's not so glorious just yet.  You don't know where you are, and people passing by don't understand why you stayed there, getting so filthy. So mean and ugly, for a second you consider retreating to the awful, yet familiar place.  There are pieces of trash still in your hair, and dirt on your face, and your clothes are weighted with the water, but you decide to keep going.  As you take each step, leap every hurdle, more falls away from you.  You stumble, and sometimes fall, but you push through.  You are getting free, and then you find a huge smudge hidden beneath your jacket, and you try so hard to wipe it clean like the rest of you has started to become, but the stain is permanent.  You are damage, the mud will always be a part of you."

The lovely lotus is born in the mud.  It fights through the mud, earth and water, and it emerges on the surface of the water (which symbolizes emotions and self control, and well being in the dream book, by the way) and that lotus rises to the sky, beaming in the sun, becoming who she is meant to be.

"As a lotus is able to emerge from Muddy Waters un-spoilt and pure it is considered to represent a wise and spiritually enlightened quality in a person; it is representative of somebody who carries out their tasks with little concern for any reward and with a full liberation from attachment."

I needed to see the lotus, to know where I am and what I am doing is A-Okay! That the burden of the life before, no longer needs to be carried.  More shedding of the gunk, never completely gone, but no longer holding me back.

Y'all might say, "all that from a dream about a flower huh?!" Why yes, exactly that, I say back.  I am a survivor.

Be well friends,

T