Mountains, Ascension, and What Dreams May Come in the New Year
What an unexpected dream taught me about the journey ahead...
“There we will, I pray, remain and learn and grow until the time when we will rise together to the ultimate heights, changing in appearance but never in devotion, sharing the transcendent glory of our love through all eternity.”
Richard Matheson, What Dreams May Come
1.
I had the most vivid dream the other night. I was in the Blue Ridge Mountains free climbing a small outcropping with my husband and others. I was just shy of getting past the last ledge before our next feat, but I couldn’t summon the strength required to overcome it.
I desperately called to my husband who was waiting for me above, firm-footed on the clearing.
He heard my cry and came to me. His large body bent down over the ledge, his hand resting on my shoulder. And nearly cheek-to-cheek, he whispered firmly, “You have to do this for yourself. You need your own strength to carry you for what’s coming next. Push yourself up if you can…”
I listened, but no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t muster up the power to claim a single inch. I was defeated. And, honestly, I was angry at my husband, who was strangely more gray and father-like in my dream than in real life.
“Please do this for me,” I pleaded—nearly in tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do this part for you. You have to do it for yourself. And if you can’t, go back down the mountain, fight your demons, get stronger, and then come back up the mountain. I’ll be right here waiting for you...”
He pulled away and disappeared behind the ledge and glaring sun.
I was alone again with my inability to ASCEND. So, I descended the rock in defeat.
Like most dreams as they unfold, the meaning was simply literal: There was a mountain. I couldn’t overcome it. I asked for help. I didn’t get it. I had to accept defeat.
That was it.
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