Torah & Dreams: Lizards and Mourning Doves, Part II
A few days later after this dream of iguanas, I had a healing session with a friend. I’d just finished a book called Buried Rivers; A spiritual Journey into the Holocaust, which I felt had an important message for me. My friend intuited, and I agreed, that I needed to heal some ancestral stuff and free myself of old fears passed down through generations of living in terror. My friend calls this a Divine Mother, or Shechinah, healing. It was profound and cleansing.
The next day I got a terrible headache that turned into a three-day migraine.
Migraines for me are always an opportunity for deep spiritual work. The pain, the pulsating stabs that won’t subside, no matter what I take, drive me to tears. This time, waves of grief passed through me that came out in loud sobs throughout the second day, I felt like I was releasing generations of grief over loss.
The next day, as I was still recovering, I spoke to a friend who is a medium. We were talking about a friend from our synagogue, Evelyn, who just died a couple of weeks ago at 92 of pancreatic cancer. And Evelyn came with a message for us: “Live with a clear and open heart. Start living that way now. It will change your life. I’m not talking out of my ass.” We laughed and cried.
And I asked Evelyn that if she visited me again, would she please show a sign.
Shabbat morning, as I was just waking up, still in that liminal space, I remembered it was Shabbat, and quietly said to the world, “Shabbat Shalom,” and tears immediately sprung to my eyes. Would it be a Shabbat Shalom? And July 4th--what’s to celebrate? A history of continuous and continuing oppression of Black people, stark inequality on the rise, Coronavirus on the rise, I feel so much rage, and no, I would not be going to synagogue or seeing friends or being in community.
Then I heard the sound of a mourning dove outside my window. I often see them in the park, and they’re my favorite bird besides blue jays, but never do they come into the courtyard below my window. So I went to make sure that’s what I was hearing, and it was.
A couple of minutes later, as I’m wiping my tears still, I hear it louder. I look up and there it is perched on my window sill, inside the little slit between the open glass and the screen. It could have much more easily landed beside the open window on the other part of sill, but it comfortably flew in between the small opening to walk back and forth, cooing and looking in at me through the screen. I immediately thought of Evelyn, and tears came up again. Is it her?
I go to look up doves this time as spirit animals. This is what I found on two different websites:
Doves lay two eggs. This is apparently unique and important.
They are ground eaters so they remind us to stay connected to the earth--the feminine aspect of the Divine, which is linked to creative energy.
The mourning dove in particular invokes new “waters of life” from its mournful cry. It reminds us that new waters can still flow and new life is still possible even in the worst of times.
The mourning dove reminds us that it’s fine to mourn what has passed, but we must remember to awaken to the promise of the future.
This is a bird of prophecy. It can help you see what you can give birth to in your own life.
It reminds you to soar; to know when to move your wings and when to allow the wind to take you to new heights; when to surrender and let the wind support you.
Or stop and take a deep breath; let go of the turmoil surrounding you and take time to find peace within. Reality is shifting in ways you never thought possible.
Finally, it may be a sign that you need to purify your thoughts, because you attract what you focus on.
Words associated with the dove are: ascension, peace, gentleness, grace, holiness, hopefulness, love, peace, promise, prophecy.
Evelyn’s message, over and over again, was: “Do the hard spiritual work while you’re here. You can do it when you’re gone, but it’s better when you’re here. It’s worth it.”
May we all find ways of living with a clear and open heart. It will change our lives. And I’m sure it can change the world.
And I’m not talkin’ out of my ass.
