Comforted by a Nightmare
a message from a steep road, a gravel cliff and an Amish woman
In June, I had two nightmares.
This was very unusual, since the last time I’d had a nightmare was several years ago. Perhaps in recent years, the universe has felt I was being dosed-up with plenty of fear in my waking moments, and it didn't need to dose me up again in my sleep.
So both of June’s nightmares were a bit surprising. Yet I’ve grown intimate with pain and fear in the last few years, and this intimacy helped me find their key messages, their gifts, within seconds of waking.
One of the two nightmares remains clear in my memory.
I was driving up a very steep road. Too steep to continue, I pulled over, parked the car and got out to find myself on the edge of a cliff made of gravel.
A huge boulder stood in my way yet I had to go around it. This seemed deadly and I trembled in fear, but I somehow made it around the boulder and suddenly I found myself in a tiny, charming university village. I approached a tall woman dressed in Amish attire and asked her for help.
That’s when the nightmare ended.
I sat up in bed, still startled by the terror of that unstable cliff, and the meaning of the nightmare was exquisitely clear.
“Stay,” I heard a clear voice telling me. “You have made it. It has happened.”
“The road you have been on is heinously challenging. You have made it. You have made it by turning to the graceful cosmic mother, the wisdom in the belly and womb of God.”
Since when is a nightmare comforting? Its message clearly was. Its clear symbolism came to show me I was on the right path. My dedication to doing the Big Work of ‘making love to fear’ was paying off.
Moments ago in the bathtub, I was reminded for the 20,000th time that—
life is a screenplay we are
each projecting, about
leaning into light.
When fear greets us in its seemingly endless costumes, we simply have this moment of now to choose to feed it, grow it, make it stronger, by giving it our power — or to heal it by seeing it as the presence of love, in disguise.
The voice inside of me was totally clear:
“Stay, another moment, breathing.”
Stay. Keep doing Pilates and hiking up hills singing love songs to God.
Stay. Thank your daughter for telling you she loves you even when you're grumpy.
One day you won't be in a body. One day you'll be ascended like Christ and Buddha, seeing past and through the rise of the sun and drops of rain that dazzle this amusing human experience.
Perhaps that is what all our nightmares are telling us. From the dark quiet space beneath our blankets, they scream or whisper —
Hey humans?
Stay.
As you greet the dramatic climbs and dark caves of these times, with the great abyss of human despair everpresent in your days, keep leaning into light.
Keep trusting, keep being brave, keep living your fullest life.
It’s only yours to live, and freedom likes your company. One day you’ll look back and be blissfully blinded by your own Light.
Here’s a tune called Stay from my songstress queen, Alison Krauss. I’d not seen her live in 15 years and got to last week as she and Robert Plant entranced the audience with their own songs and even a Led Zeppelin goodie.
If you know me by now (wait, you don’t?), you know I practically live for music. Yesterday I told my daughter for perhaps the third time, “Without music I don’t think life would be worth living.” So I’ll share a few more snippets to sweeten your day.
Here they are doing Robert Plant’s In the Mood and Led Zeppelin’s The Battle of Evermore. My friend and I couldn’t stay in our seats for long so we pranced in the high grass with a glorious view of the whole scene at Stanford’s Frost Amphitheater.
My two highlights from the evening? A perfectly pleasurable Passionfruit Pisco Sour and delectable Austrian food at Naschmarkt in Palo Alto and Alison’s heavenly voice singing, “Dance in the dark of night, sing to the morning light…”
Works for me! What makes your soul keep shining?
To great food, great music and the art of loving ourselves~
Jessica
Jessica Rios
Writer + Love Coach
Founder, Making Love to Fear
