Spiritual Awakening Journey: I - The Initiation

“I followed a path out of a medieval town under sunny blue skies. The town is set high on a hill overlooking vast land that rolls on forever. We stop along the way to talk with jovial townspeople. But the girl, Anne (of Green Gables), had something important to show me and so we hurry along. She has freckles and red hair tied in braided pig tails. She skips ahead and I follow. We leave the outer edges of the town until we reach a dark and eerie forest. All the bright sunlight and colors of the town had faded away, and here in this forest were colors of dark blue, black and grey. I immediately begin to feel cold. Large boulders grow from the ground as I hop across. And there, nestled in the trees of the forest, was a small wooden shed. I feel a coldness run through my body. Anne leads me to the entrance. I feel my heart racing as I move my hands to open the door. And there, behind the old wooden door, is a frozen girl. Crammed in the shed upright like an ice block. Preserved in time and long forgotten in the woods. I feel a strange pang of familiarity. I do not know. And suddenly, a girl ghost emerges and with great speed begins to ominously chase me away from the shed. I run back towards the path, zooming across the growing expanse of boulders as she chases me from behind. The path seems to grow and go on forever. I look back at her electric blue and white whispy form, with terrifying black eyes and razer sharp teeth. I fear that she will catch me. Her ghostly scream haunting me and in the darkness of the night, I wake up. Paralyzed, it takes me some time before I’m able to move my body. My body frozen, like an ice block.”

I did not know it at the time, but this dream would jumpstart my spiritual initiation. The frozen dream was the most vivid, visceral dream I’ve ever had in my life. I felt as if I was alive, feeling, fearing, and moving in a different realm. When I woke up, my entire body felt as if I had just returned from an icy experience in the woods, and it shook me to my core. It was the first dream I had after nearly two decades of no dreams. It felt as if something was being activated within me, a switch turned on. A great tidal wave of vivid dreams would flood my sleep every night from there on out. And since then, with less intensity, has never stopped.

At the time, I was also undergoing great trials in my life. I had a priviledged and fairly successful life, according to societal standards. But beneath the surface, I had a tinge of knowing that I was continuing down a path that felt increasingly small, dark, and constraining. I felt my self continuing to disappear, It wasn’t that things were inherently wrong or something bad happened, but it felt as if nothing worked anymore. Despite attempts to fix it or work at it, it just wasn’t what it once was and it wanted to fall away. And in truth, I wasn’t happy and nothing felt right. The hardest part was admitting it.

As moments passed, and dreams unfolded, I had a greater and greater force within me propelling me to let it all go. I was faced with a very hard choice, one that I really did not want to make. This was the intiation. Face your greatest fear and let it all go, or continue onwards in denial. Eventually, one day, I took action without thinking. I had pushed the domino that set things in motion. I didn’t fully know it at the time either, but it would be the decisive moment that would bring about the cataclysmic death of my existing self and life. And would set in motion the next steps of my spiritual initation and opening. In the moment, all I could see and feel was the great storm I was swirling in, as I watched everything burn in flames and left to ashes. I was called to say goodbye to someone I loved, say goodbye to a home, say goodbye to a life, say goodbye to old dreams, and say goodbye to a self I envisioned for myself for a very long time. And in all the destruction, all I could do was surrender and let it happen.