HOMEGOING

Dream: I’m with a large group of African people…hundreds…walking through an underground passageway to a dock where we’ll board a ship. It feels as if I have been here before. We’re all walking in the same direction with a sense of purpose. Large metal rust-covered planks on the ground connect us to the massive vessel before us. It’s crowded, with hundreds, maybe thousands, and still more to get on. I feel anxious, hoping there’ll be enough space for me. A lady is near me…tall, large, bold…like a Nigerian market lady in one of my children’s storybooks. She shows me how to call out to someone far away by using her powerful diaphragm muscles. “Yaa-Yaa!” she shouts in a gutsily strident tone. I call one syllable as loudly as I can, but not nearly as strong as hers. I finally get the hang of it and call both syllables heartily with my full voice.”Yaa-Yaa!” Mahershala Ali, one of my favorite actors, appears and stands right beside me! I feel comforted by his presence and know he’ll be with me for the rest of the journey. I like being both near him and the lady. I feel full, celebrated and connected to everything and everybody, including the Ancestors.

This is a celebration dream that means so much as I compare it to a much older set of dreams in which I was girl child stolen from my tribe, assaulted, sold in slave market and manacled in the bottom of a trans-Atlantic slave ship. I recall the misery of seeing men and women like me lying around in trauma-induced  daze, unable to help me. That set of dreams left me with waking life aching physical symptoms that took 2+ years of qigong and bodywork to clear.

But that’s not what’s happening in today’s dream. . In my ferry boat dream, not only am I returning to my geographical and spiritual home, but I’m also returning home metaphorically. “Home” in my body, “home” in my psyche…home in my inner support systems that are more accessible to me because I’m working through my trauma. There’s no abandonment or captivity here!

I’m enjoying the gift of feeling alive, celebrated and reconnected with throes of support all around me and in me. Mahershala Ali, who I greatly admire and respect, stands in the role of the Divine Male. He and the Lady are not frozen in trauma, but very present and alive. Mahershala in his tall, protective stature amd the Lady, big, free and gutsy. When residuals of old memory raise my anxiety and I get scared that there won’t be enough space for me, I must remember to go back to the Tall Man and the Big Woman,  acknowledge my need, and ask for their help. Just call on your inner support system of characters and your Ancestors. They’re always with you.

Many persons are born with the immense capacity to hold embedded memories and the energies of their current and ancestral stories. Our dreams may sometimes involve terrifying and mournful scenes, but the also show us the way out, towards our healing, and of course, the celebration.

My cultural/ethnic background and historical experience gives my dreams a particular flavor. Your “flavor” may be different because of your historical or ethnic background, but what’s common among us is that our dreams are always leading us “home,” back to our true nature, before the terror, separation, humiliation and deprivation. When we pay attention and open ourselves to their messages and partake of the “medicine” they bring, we can be led through true alchemical tunnels to reclaim our primalcy and potency. 

HOMEGOING . . . that’s what the Now Journey is all about.

With Love,
Cheptu

Thanks for stopping by. Reach out to me at nowjourneyhome@gmail.com if you would like to discuss the power of archetypal dream work.