Creative Cue : Dream

Tornado Dancer

Years ago, in my early 20s, I was plagued by recurring nightmares about tornadoes bearing down on my family's house. I couldn't find them, couldn't call out to them to warn them or call them to safety. The sense of terror and frustration and helplessness really got to me ... Living in the midwest, Tonadoes in May and June are a fact of life. You just hope you don't run into one ...

Finally, I shared these dreams with one of my coop housemates, a wise woman named Sinden. She suggested that the Tornado was probably trying to tell me something. Since I kept running away from it and shutting it out, it kept pursuing me ...

So, one day, I planned a meditation where I would meet this Tornado and find out what it wanted to tell me. It came, laughed a bit and said, : "It's about time, kid." His name was Morrison, a small whirlwind--but effective. It took me up into it's whirl so I could see the view from the upper rim It was not spinning wildly up there--it was more like I was in the eye, so it was calm. After a while, the Tornado set me back down on the deck, under the birch trees. He "stepped" back and presented me with two gifts :

1) a four-pointed blue white star
2) a rose just beginning to bloom

I never had another tornado nightmare. I'm not sure I can say much about these two gifts in terms of the symbolism and what they mean to me ... They speak to a place where words don't go easily.

At about the same time, my friend Terra Gold (a budding Shamin) who lead drum circles made a drum. She put it in front of an open oven to dry, but the heat was too intense and it warped. She brought this sad bent drum to a drum circle and I fell in love with it. It sat perfectly on my knees. At some point, I decided to paint these images on the drum. Here it is ...

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This story was published previously at Hidden Passages in May 2008.