“But you understand everything!” he said, scrunching his face into a question mark. “How did you get so smart?”

“Oh, I don’t know much at all,” I smiled, shaking my head. “Just like you, I learned to put away my questions a long time ago go make myself feel safe in the world. Then,” I tapped my hand against my heart, “in here I learned that nothing can be understood in only one way for very long, because magic is always at work. Magic has the ability to transform anything in life – anything – from what we originally thought it to be, into something quite different.”

His mouth gaped as he listened to this grown man speak of something as childlike as magic.

“It’s true,” I said. “You don’t need to try too hard to understand something. Because when the magic is finished, it will be so clear, so obvious what the something is, you will not even
need to think about it at all.”

“But why do the others not see the magic? Even after so many years of trying?”

“Because,” I answered, remembering the sad truth of so many years of my own lost innocence, “because they are so busy telling themselves the magic is not real, that they don’t see it working. I promise you though, there is only one thing you really need to understand about life. If you don’t like something, just wait. Wait for the magic to arrive to change what you don’t like. And if the magic doesn’t seem to be arriving, shout for it to come sooner. Remind it that you are waiting. Set a place for magic at your dinner every night and wait. It will arrive. This is all you need to know.”

Lying in the dark, can I still feel myself if I cannot see myself?

What is that, that glides against my skin?  If I cannot see it to engage my preconceptions of fear or delight, can I simply be with the experience of sensation?

Can I do the same with the experiences of my life – those unexpected “bumps” against people and situations?  Can I close my eyes and imagine I am in the dark, feeling the impact without knowing it as good or bad?

My prayer? To feel in the darkness and delight in the newness. To welcome that which the light reveals through night vision.

The form of the path is not what matters. Being on the path, open to its unexpected twists and turns, is what’s truly important. Going slow enough to stay on the path, slow enough to negotiate the sudden changes of direction.

Sometimes I want to be outside of myself, to see me as others see me. But this is only so that I can judge myself: How do I appear? Would I like myself if I were not me?

But this is not what matters. What matters now is that I like myself even while I’m being myself. What matters now is no longer how I appear to anyone else, but how I feel about myself. My words. My actions. My intentions. My life.

Yes, this is what matters now. My intentions. Setting them. Being them. For my own satisfaction.

The Fool Gets a Bum Rap!

Our culture is rough on you if you look “foolish.”  You know this if you’ve ever felt humiliated on April 1st.  But the original definition of fool wasn’t one of ridicule.  The true meaning has been twisted over time.

In order to understand how dreams of the Fool might be encouraging you to embrace a new perspective, or take the scenic route through life, consider the meaning of the Fool in the Tarot deck.

The Tarot’s Fool

The Tarot defines the Fool in the upright position as a symbol of new life; the overturning of the status quo.  Very powerful stuff.  Especially if you’re talking about politics, career, or relationship.  It’s great to know the status quo isn’t terminal.

But the Fool in the reversed position warns against ill advised risk, instability, or the wasting away of creative energy. It advises you to be alert to the risks that come with change.

Truthfully, these are two aspects of the same archetype. You can’t have new life, an expanded self, without taking a few risks.

Even nature demonstrates the true fullness of the Fool in spring.  Trees grow new shoots at the risk of dying in a late freeze.  Animals birth their young even though they may become prey for an awakening, hungry hibernator.  There just aren’t any guarantees!

So where did we go wrong in our cultural perspective?  Why did the Fool become such a symbol of ridicule?  When did we begin defining innocence and spontaneity as a negative?  Let’s start looking at foolishness from a new perspective.

A New Kind of Fool

Really, how are you ever going to grow if you don’t take a few risks?  Our greatest inventors believed in possibilities that seemed outrageous and often found themselves labeled as foolish.   Consider how the Wright brothers must have been judged by their neighbors, pushing that “winged thing” up and down the beach.  And yet they persevered through multiple attempts at their dreams before they found success.

In today’s world, those who are willing to look “foolish” should be prized members of a creative team; to be clung to for their stamina in life; cherished as a brave leader.

“But I’m not an inventor, or a leader,” you say.  Nonsense!  You’re inventing your self and your life every day.  And someone, somewhere, is following your lead.  And believe it or not, you have an excellent imagination.

Think back to an April Fool’s Day when you were approached with an unexpected declaration, and someone said, “Got’cha!”  Instead of feeling silly or embarrassed, what if you realized that for one moment, you believed anything is possible?  What if you captured that feeling of unlimited possibility for your own empowerment?

And what if you started looking to your dreams for help?  Wisdom and guidance are yours for the asking!

Dreaming the Fool’s Wisdom

There are dreams that nudge you down the path of the fool. They invite you to travel an unexpected, even crazy route in life. When you wake from that dream, you may shake your head and wonder, “What’s up with that!”

Yet we know that our dreams come in service to our wholeness and well-being. Our dreams will not present anything that we are not prepared to explore. So when you dream of the Fool, take a deep breath, and consider the possibility that your dream may be asking you to try on an attitude of innocence in order to grow more fully into your life.

Here’s a dream I had a few years ago that invited me to delve further into myself:

The Scruffy Legless Man Makes a Most Interesting Companion

There is a rugged man on the sidewalk with a scruffy, day-old stubble. He is close to my age, starting to gray, wears a worn leather cowboy hat, and has no legs.

We are sitting under the shade of a building overhang. He seems very interesting and I‘m intrigued by him. But I’m waiting for a different man who’s gone to get his racecar, and this legless cowboy is waiting for the bus.

In the next scene I’m sitting in the passenger seat of the racecar and the legless man is cruising down the sidewalk on a skateboard right past the bus stop. He can’t even be bothered to put his fake legs on so he can ride the bus. He gets himself around just fine. I’m thinking I should be out chasing him instead of sitting in this fancy car.

Fool?  Maybe … Maybe Not

When I woke from this dream I had to admit I was being asked to explore my values and approach people in my life from a different perspective.

In my waking life it would be a huge risk to accept a date with a legless cowboy on a skateboard instead of the man driving an expensive car.  Some would no doubt call me a fool.  But this dream has served me well in pushing past appearances, investigating possibilities, appreciating the true nature of everyone I encounter.

When you feel foolish in your dreams, ask how you are being called to grow? And when you feel like a fool in your waking life, ask for a dream to show how you are wise and courageous!

Mansions and Crumbling Remains

Sometimes the house I occupy in my dream is grand, sitting on acres of lush rolling hills.  Waking from these dreams, I feel bolstered with confidence, aware that my consciousness is expanding to include greater abundance.  These dreams inform me that my soul is growing and I’m doing a good job of claiming my place in the world.

Other times I’ve dreamed of being in homes that belong to my family of origin.  The interior walls are crumbling and I can see through the entire house, nothing hidden from my view.  These dreams reflect how I’m dismantling the emotional structure of my childhood, that my soul has an unrestricted, clear perception of my life.

Exploring Your Dream House Room-by-Room

Most frequently though, I dream about houses one room at a time: stuck in a bathroom with no way out, doing the dishes in an unfamiliar kitchen late at night, climbing the cold concrete stairs out of the basement, sitting in my bathrobe alone in a sparsely decorated living room listening to beautiful music. These dreams encourage me to delve deeply into exploring one specific aspect of my soul.

The details of the various rooms are always different, but there are only so many types of rooms in a house. During the past thirty years I’ve explored each room so many times, they’ve become archetypal  symbols for where and how I need to focus my attention to take care of myself.

The remainder of this article is my room-by-room symbolism for houses as they relate to my body, mind and spirit.

The Kitchen

Have you noticed that when you have family and friends in your home, they tend to congregate in the kitchen?  Instinctively they know that the kitchen is the heart of the home!  This is where we prepare the food that nurtures them, and ourselves.

In my dreams, the size of the kitchen, windows, lighting, cleanliness, food, dishes, appliances, guests – they all speak to me about my heart.  Am I opening my heart to others, sharing freely?  Am I tending to the needs of my own heart?  Am I feeding myself (on all levels) a healthy diet?  Do I feel lighthearted, or am I harboring darkness?  Does something in my heart stink, or does it smell fresh and inviting?  Am I hiding my heart from the view of others, or is it open for everyone to see?

The Bathroom

The basic purposes of a bathroom are to cleanse dirt and odor from our skin, eliminate waste from our bodies, and perform personal grooming.  Our skin is our largest organ, serving as a protective barrier between our delicate interior organs, and the world.  And if we weren’t able to eliminate toxic waste from our bodies, we would die within days.

Bathroom dreams ask me to consider if I am adequately releasing things from my life that are no longer supporting my health.  I may be holding onto damaging emotions, need to release out-dated belief patterns, or even assist my physical body in it’s elimination process.  These dreams also encourage me to look at how I am putting on make-up, masking my true self, or covering up parts of myself that feel like blemishes.

In my dream bathrooms I look for mirrors, windows, cleanliness of floors, toilets and showers, and even the color of the room.  Lack of a mirror indicates that I’m unwilling to look at something.  Colors may speak to the attitude I have about letting go.  One time I even dreamed of a bathroom with no door!  That message was strong: you are not leaving this room without letting go of something or cleaning up your boundaries!

The Dining Room

In my waking life houses, the dining room has always been used for formal occasions (dinners for holidays and celebrations) or entertaining business acquaintances and guests with whom I don’t share a personal connection.

The dining rooms in my dreams usually speak to me about the nature of my relationships with people and events.  In waking life I may see someone as a close friend, but they show up in my dream dining room and I have to consider if the relationship needs to be reevaluated.

On occasion I have dreamed of having a dining room meal associated with a waking life event that felt insignificant.  The dream encourages me to see this event as meaningful, to take a closer look at it and create a ritual to honor its place in my life.

The Bedroom

In family homes bedrooms separate children from each other and from parents, giving every family member a personal space.  They are the rooms where we retreat for privacy, where we rest and rejuvenate with quiet and sleep, and where we share our deepest intimacy in a partnered relationship.  In some cases, they are rooms where emotional, physical or sexual abuse take place.  Bedrooms are loaded spaces!

My bedroom dreams speak to my personal boundaries, my relationships with family members, my ability to give myself rest and repose from the world, my intimacy with partners, and the unhealed places in myself that I tend to keep private from the world.

The details in bedrooms are numerous: clean/messy, light/dark, spacious/crowded, uplifting/somber, furniture, personal belongings, mirrors, doors, etc. They all speak to the nature of my closest relationships – including how I relate to myself.

The Living Room

This is the most commonly used room when everyone in a household wants to spend time together.  The living room is open to guests and family alike; a room for mixing energies and sharing stories.  Generally, in a living room you share only the aspects of yourself that you are willing to expose to everyone who is present.

I have very few dreams of living rooms, and when I do they are usually filled with chaos.  There are so many people in the room, and so much activity that I feel uncomfortable.  This discomfort informs me that I am easily overwhelmed in a crowd, and need a low-key environment to truly enjoy myself.

Living room dreams can be an indicator of introverted or extroverted personalities and/or phases.  My dreams consistently remind me that I am introverted by nature, and need time alone to process information.  Others may enjoy busy living room dreams, indicating a more extroverted personality.

Basements & Garages

These are the great storage and dumping grounds of a household!  Garages and basements contain the things we use seasonally, or infrequently, even items we no longer need, but are afraid to throw out all together.  Occasionally, we stash things away, just to put them out of view when company is coming, with the intention of dealing with them later. Unfortunately, later often never arrives.

When I dream of garages or basements they typically represent old forms of consciousness, old ways of thinking that are no longer serving my highest good.  I may have put beliefs aside, out of view of my conscious mind, but really I’m storing them away, just in case my new beliefs don’t work like I hope.

Cleaning my basement is literally scrubbing the dark corners of my consciousness with the intention of tossing out old beliefs, making space to completely embrace a new way of thinking.

The Attic

This is where Grandma and Grandpa’s stuff is stored.  The treasures of the generations that came before me are packed carefully in trunks in the attic, revisited occasionally with nostalgic feelings.  There might also be an old family secret hidden away in the attic.  Discovering this secret may be shocking or painful, but in the end it adds depth to my family history, and creates a sense of richness about myself.

When I visit attics in my dreams, I’m looking for generational family information.  I might need to call a relative and ask clarifying questions about past events.  Or, perhaps I  need to examine how I’ve packaged history away.  Is it accessible?  Has it been too long since I last looked at my family’s treasures?  Is there something in the attic that would help me understand myself better?

Questions for Exploring Your Dream Homes

The next time you dream about a home – anything relating to a home – I encourage you to ask these basic questions:

What is the purpose nature of this room in my waking life house?

What is my personal history of this room in waking life?

What is taking place in my waking life that relates to the purpose of this room?

What is happening in my emotional/spiritual-self that relates to this room?

What clues does this dream room offer that could direct me in better understanding my waking life?

This list is a compilation of real life issues – either mine or my clients – solved by applying the information received through dreams.

finding a source of ABUNDANCE

BOUNCING through life without direction

need COURAGE

making healthier DECISIONS

feeling EMPTY

FEAR runs your life

GRACE seems to be for everyone else

resolving family HISTORY

needing INSPIRATION

JUGGLING too many tasks

having a hard time being KIND … to yourself

LOVE keeps passing by

unclear, inconsistent, conflicting MOTIVATIONS

feeling NEEDY

OVERWHELMED by life

PLEASING everyone except yourself

wanting higher QUALITY relationships

RUNNING away from problems

fear of SNAKES & SPIDERS

TREATMENT plan for cancer

you are unable to appreciate your own UNIQUENESS

being a VICTIM

having it all, and still WONDERING what’s missing

never having EXTRA energy, money, time …

wanting to say YES to life … but you don’t know how

ZOOS keep showing up in your dreams (just kidding!)