Hello dear earthlings,
Happy full moon, and belated solstice greetings <3. I’m wishing you the sweetness of a summer rainstorm, and the blissful relaxation of a bee taking a nap in a flower. It’s been awhile since my last letter. I’ve been on multiple journeys and am just coming back to land before heading off again soon. Writing to you now with an unfolding, incomplete contemplation that I’ve been finding myself in — something about opening up and becoming part of the world.
The Safe House
In the dream I’ve recently arrived, after traveling through lush mountainous terrain, at a large well-kept house with many rooms. It’s colorful and bright inside, with vibrant art and furniture. This place is a refuge, an “underground” for people who are seeking solace from an oppressive external force that seeks to control and terrorize them. Inside this house I see mostly women and children, playing and running from room to room. The view outside the large window in front of me shows that lush mountainous valley and the cover of thick green trees, sunlight softly dancing into the room.
On either side of the window are long dark drapes that sweep down to touch the floor. When I notice them I feel a spark of panic — suddenly afraid that the people seeking refuge here will be seen from outside by the forces that aim to abduct and imprison them.
As I hurriedly start to draw the drapes closed to cover the window, someone gently touches my arm. They kindly let me know that what I’m doing is the opposite of what’s needed. They say, “This is a Safe House — we are inherently safe here already.”
I’m startled, and a little confused. As I take in this information, my perception of the situation begins to expand and shift, as if my eyes are opening to a new reality. I start to perceive the energetic difference between covering up, being hidden and out of sight, obscured by dark drapes so that nothing can see out or in — versus the clarity, the confidence, of being able to see and be seen. The relief of having nothing to hide.
I heard the idea once that in a dream, all the characters that show up represent different aspects of the dreamer. I consider how the part of myself who I identified in the dream as myself was the one taking the role of protector, wanting to control the situation in order to shield the others from harm, by concealing them, making them undetectable to outside forces. The protector’s instinct is to keep the others safe. To then be told, by perhaps another aspect of myself, that while this instinct may have been needed in other environments, and other timelines, it is no longer useful. The safety here, in this Safe House, comes from trusting, comes from having eyes wide open, comes from knowing that we are inherently protected. By what, or How, is not clear exactly, but not knowing everything is part of learning to trust.
•
This all reminded me of something I read once from a Buddhist teacher, though I can’t remember who it was. In any case, she’d shared this mantra:
“My open heart keeps me safe.”
When I first heard this, it felt a bit like a puzzle, similar to the dream. Didn’t make sense at first, until I let myself experiment with feeling it, embodying it.
A closed heart feels tight and brittle
An open heart feels fluid and soft
A closed heart resists
An open heart allows
A closed heart keeps things in
An open heart lets go
•
I wonder too, what is safety?
And I think it has something to do with freedom. The freedom to be free, to be wild, self-willed.
•
This dream also made me think of a page in the Tao te Ching (Stephen Mitchell translation):
When a country is in harmony with the Tao,
the factories make trucks and tractors.
When a country goes counter to the Tao,
warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.
There is no greater illusion than fear,
no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself,
no greater misfortune than having an enemy.
Whoever can see through all fear
will always be safe.
A few weeks after this dream, I was with friends on the weekend of my birthday, paddling down the Colorado river into relentless headwinds. What was in theory supposed to be a relaxing float trip was in reality a wrestling match between surrender and effort, between the imagined experience and the undeniable material conditions.
Through this hours-long wrestling match a thought came to me that said something along the lines of ~
“You can breathe yourself into the world.
You don’t need to resist it.
Let yourself become part of the world.
Merge, allow, become.”
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It was a bit of a strange message, because of course I am inherently part of the world whether I am deciding to be or not. But in the landing and settling of these words there was a similar energetic shift within me as there was in that dream. I realized that in some ways I have been resisting the external world, which sometimes feels so wild and messy and terrifying and out of control. I had been keeping “the world” at arms length, and also hiding myself away and apart.
•
This invitation to “merge”, to see and be seen with clear eyes, feels apropos for this time of the summer solstice, when daylight is at its fullest expression. And the solstice also reminds me that life is a paradox here on Earth. The opposite is also true, in that the other half of this planet is simultaneously experiencing the darkest and longest nights of the year.
There is a time to close and conceal and go inward, into the darkness, look inside, and stay hidden. There is wisdom here.
And there is also a time to be bright, to be visible, to bloom and look outward.
Each day and each breath is a continued step in the dance of expansion and contraction, a wave rising and crashing.
Another mantra landed in my heart as I stopped paddling and let the wind and water carry me down the river.
“when you move with Nature
you will have what you need.
you will know what you need to know.
you will be what you need to be.”
•
In this season I’m hearing a call to come out of hiding.
To let the messiness, the unsure, the worried, the wildly imperfect elements of myself to be known as part of myself and of the world.
From within the storms of scattered energy, travel and restless projects I can hear the haunting yips and yowls of coyotes. The grumbling of a noncommittal rain cloud. I can smell the smoke in the air, and hear the wind swelling and crashing through the trees. I think of the great blue herons and their long elegant bodies, the full expression of their wings as they glide between the bends in the river. The power, and the ease of their movements. Steady, awake, and free.
With love,
Rachel
Lovely, my dear daughter 🩵
Thank you for this, my dear fairy friend. I deeply appreciate your thoughts and insights.