From time to time, I would like to post significant dreams that I have recorded in my dream journal. I’ve been collecting my dreams for as far back as I can remember. For me, they represent exquisite parts of my soul, little mysteries of what truly resides within me.

This first one is from March 5, 2009. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this brief snippet of a dream has inspired me to write a Young Adult story: Mia and the Guardian of the Sun.

Dream 3/5/09 

6:20- 7 a.m.

I was in this gigantic grocery store, like Meijer’s or one of those Super Wal-Mart stores that I despise. My mom and Melanie (sister) were in the car. I remember that they were anxiously waiting for me, but I was trying to get stuff I needed and the temptation to browse the massive aisles was taking a hold of me. So I began to wander around….

I recalled in the dream that someone once told me that there was another building attached to this place; it was a secret, mystical place. In the back of my mind, I suddenly became a character, a character I was manipulating and weaving into a story (this is the second time this week I have had such a dream).

Well, in one of the aisles, I noticed a brick wall with a hole at the bottom. My mom and Melanie were still waiting for me but I had to find out how this “story” went. So I crawled through and emerged on to the top of a historic castle or fort. It was in the middle of a rolling, green countryside—like Scotland. I was a little nervous because I was way up high and the terrace had no railing.

I walked over to the left of it and I saw a strange looking creature/person. He reminded me of the dwarf in Lord of the Rings—the one that would use his axe to fight. He seemed just as surprised to see me and I felt like I was the little girl in Pans Labyrinth. He was friendly but curious why I was there. I noticed that he was protecting a huge wooden door. I remember thinking in the dream this would make such a cool story.

I can’t recall much of our conversation but I did ask him his name and it was something like “welcome of the sun or guardian of the sun”. I remember thinking that it was cool he was facing the north where the sun rises each morning (I know that the sun rises from the east, but in my dream it was from the north).

 I woke up ten minutes late this morning because I was so entranced.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
 That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
 When all at once I saw a crowd
 A host of dancing Daffodils;
 Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
 Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.
 
The waves beside them danced, but they
 Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: —
 A poet could not but be gay
 In such a laughing company:
 I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
 What wealth the show to me had brought:
 
For oft when on my couch I lie
 In vacant or in pensive mood,
 They flash upon that inward eye
 Which is the bliss of solitude,
 And then my heart with pleasure fills,
 And dances with the Daffodils.

~William Wordsworth

I was thinking about this popular passage from the Song of Solomon the other day. What does it mean? I am sure there are a myriad of interpretations for such a simple line, but I had to ask myself: “What does it mean to me?” 

It brought me to the question of my perception of love and what it means to be a part of someones life. I am a delicate mixture of my Mexican heritage and American pop culture. Growing up, I was surrounded by the concept of one love forever. And if you enjoyed being in the other’s company, well you were one of very few. But still, you always belonged to the other and there were songs and movies glorifying this concept. In fact, the more powerful the sense of possession, the more our little hearts would twinkle. 

Then something switched in me, I can’t really tell you when exactly, but the piercing cry of: “I am Woman Hear me Roar” came out and I began to feel a severe detachment from such a barbaric concept. As if I were a cave woman that enjoyed being dragged around by my hair, never! I began to feel the howl inside of me grow louder and fiercer, “I belong to no one, but myself. I entered this world alone, alone I shall leave it.” 

And truthfully, it felt great! I felt protected because I was the one solely in control of my destiny. If I fell victim to the warmth of a lover, I knew that if it didn’t work out between us, I would still be OK because I didn’t need him!

I don’t need him…

                             but I am OK with wanting him.

Looking back into the telescope of my youth, I see things a little different now. I don’t need him, but the satisfaction of knowing that another soul loves me as much as I love him, is worth all the pain and sadness that may one day follow.

I have let my guard down before, I allowed the “I am woman hear me roar”, quiet her inner lioness and I allowed myself to feel that I am a part of another person. The beauty of belonging to another person and they belonging to you, can never fully be understood. So whether it is perhaps the romantic Mexican girl in me or the independent spirit of an American woman, I know both sides of the coin now.

No, I don’t need him, but I certainly am OK with wanting him.