Thank you, Becca! And ME TOO! I’ve been a cat person for as long as I can remember. (Tiny cats, big cats, imaginary cats… I love them all. They're pretty much the best things in existence.😻) So I wish that I dreamt of them even more often than I do. I suspect even the dream ones have that catitude that won't allow them to show up unless THEY feel like it.
Forever Free sounds like such a gem! I’ve heard of Born Free but didn’t realize there was a follow-up about Elsa’s cubs. That sounds like a beautiful and adventurous read—those old photos from Africa must be stunning. Thank you for sharing! 💖💖
Thanks Becca! And what you are reading sounds lovely! Born Free, the movie had an incredible impact on me as a young person. That moment marked the beginning of my recognition: the wild holds immense power, and it must be protected in its wildness.
Have you had any dreams about smaller cats? Or big animas, like bears?
I loved reading this post...it was like sharing a cup of tea with you both around a fire and you both "story telling" to me in a way that invites healing, depth and holding.
I really appreciated the thought provoking questions...
What is my relationship with raw power?
Can I be in relationship with it without turning away?
What power in me is frozen, held at bay?
How can I use my inner power for comfort, healing and support...
My main power animal is a wild cat...black as the night. Powerful. Strong. Aware. Real. She has taught me many things about myself, about the depth of my consciousness, about how to be in the world.
Oooooh, I love that your power animal is a black wild cat! That feels so perfect for you! ❤️🐈⬛❤️ And the three of us must one day sit around a fire for storytelling. How lovely that would be!
Thank you, Sam! I love that your power animal is a wild cat. After doing this dream exploration on big cats, I feel much more connected to them. And astrologically I'm a Leo, a cat lover all the way and had a mountain lion encounter in the wild. Yes, I'm a cat person!!!
Dreams offer us an incredible information about ourselves and the world we live in. These questions that arose during Jenna's and my conversation were deeply profound and moving. I am still contemplating them. And I love how they all centered around power and the divine feminine. There is no mistake here.
Sam. have you had any big cat dreams? Would love to hear one! 💜
I haven't had any big cat dreams, although my power animal has protected me more than once on a walk. Just turning up when I felt unsure, just being there when I thought should I be walking this route...so strong that I felt its fur, felt its presence. The connection we have with our spirit animals can be so profound.
This hits home with me! Firstly, I LOVE cats! Secondly, Tigers have visited me in my dreams. The first Momma Tiger showed up a while ago. In my dream we were in a preschool, and I saw a momma tiger, and her legs were cut off, so she had 4 kind of half leg/stumps, and her babies were in a cage. The second tiger that showed up in my dreams was a half of a tiger! She had a front half, and was cut right down the middle, with no back half. I've dreamed about kittens too many times to recall, often, an overpopulation of kittens; which I suppose I chalked up to all my work in animal rescue. The tiger dreams felt very significant, and I feel they are trying to tell me something about embodying feminine power. The half tiger was very striking and dramatic! What do you thing that means? Thanks for this awesome discussion! I really appreciate it, ~Susy Porter
Thank you so much for sharing this, Susy!🤗 What vivid, powerful dreams! And yay, another cat lover! 🐾 😻 Your tiger visitations gave me chills… especially that image of the half-tiger. It feels like dream medicine, but in that raw, unfiltered way that asks you to sit with it slowly.
The way you described the mama with stumps and caged babies… and then the bisected tiger… it all feels like such deep imagery around truncated power, vulnerability, and maybe even fragmentation or confinement of some kind. And your instinct about feminine power? I’d trust that completely. I don't believe a tiger would show up for no reason, especially not in pieces. There’s something so primal and striking in both of those dreams—it feels like a big cat kind of initiation.
And oh my gosh, the kitten overpopulation dreams! That makes so much sense given your animal rescue work, but it also makes me smile, like your subconscious can’t not bring home a few hundred more furballs. Believe me, I get it! 😁
I’m really honored you shared these with us. Thank you. ❤️❤️
Susy, I am so glad this resonated with you! Dreams about cats, especially big ones, really called to me and Jenna! I am not a dream interpreter, but what I can offer is that I have been in a dream group for three years. What I can offer is a reflection through my own lens, retelling your dream as if it were mine. That said, I encourage you first to explore what these dream symbols mean to you and your life. Your own wisdom is primary.
If this was my dream… I am saddened and disturbed that this tiger mama has her legs cut off and her cubs have been caged and taken from her. I want to rescue her and restore her natural grace and strength that has been severed. I ask myself where in my life do I feel cut off from my feminine power?
The second dream echoes this, this tiger with her back half missing. The womb and the strength that is in her hind legs. I feel a theme here in my dreams. A call to look deeper into what meaning this has for me. What is my relationship with my divine feminine? And how do I relate with anger, power and the ability to stand up for myself. To say NO.
Oh I love this, Julie! I loved thinking about Susy's dream and ideas around truncated power. But I really felt an a-ha when I read your words here about the ability to stand up for oneself. If this was my dream, that would totally resonate. 💖
Thank you, your analysis lands with me, for sure! I especially appreciate your mention of the "womb and strength in her hind legs." I've been contemplating these dreams for months. I asked a Jungian counselor about the dream and she offered me these ideas. I thought you might appreciate them too.
"I think your dream is significant and gives you a hint of your psyche’s condition. Tiger is immense feminine power and has the cubs which is the potential…. But it is caged and the legs are missing, so all of this power and potential lacks a capacity for movement – it’s stuck.
I recommend that you do some inner visualization and go back into this dream to care for the tiger and cubs. Imagine the tiger is able to restore her legs and break free from the cage – see her in her natural element, moving freely and gracefully. She is a part of you and needs care."
Thank you for this wonderful share. Keep the cat imagery coming, as we embrace the power if our Inner Tigers; the raw, creative power of the Feminine!
Embracing and embodying this power has been a long road through feeling disempowered, shamed, and less than. My prayer for all women is that we "find our legs," and embody our Divine Power. With "Ravenous" Appreciation, ~Susy Porter
Thanks, Susy for sharing what your Jungian counselor said about your dream. This makes complete sense. I love her suggestion of going back into the dream to care for the tiger and her cubs. I did something similar to this with a dream. But more than just visualizing, I also did it somatically by acting it out with my body. This duo brought further insight, healing and conclusion to my dream. I no longer stood at the portal, afraid to go in, I jumped in and explored what was there.
Also, the dream group I am apart of is based on Jungian principles and exploring the archetypes. And your prayer for all women is my prayer too!
Susy may your dreams reveal to you what your soul and being long for, along with a compass to guide your way. 💜🌀
The word "somatic" is popping up everywhere in my life! I'm so grateful for this awareness. As someone who's been in my head my whole life, praying, meditating, studying sacred texts; the whole idea of somatic integration and FEELING and experiencing in my body, and not just my mind is deeply life changing. I'm convinced many trauma survivors live in a spiritual bypass way (escaping rather than integrating the pain of our past) without even realizing it. The beautiful thing about animals is that they live in their bodies, by instinct. As women in a patriarchal culture, we're shamed and silenced out of our raw power. These tigers are here to tell us to be wild, free, natural, and fully alive; with no fear.
This was such a treat to read, thank you both. The comments section here has been the cherry on top, no less. It's so interesting, I can't recall ever having dreamt of cats, large or small...but this has me reflecting on how I've regarded them in general.
As a child, one of my sisters had a very intense phobia of housecats - an instant flee reaction, which would cause her to, say, run in front of traffic rather than confront a cat. I am 12 years her junior, and as a kid, I learned to "protect" her from cats and to regard them with suspicion myself. At the same time, I felt very drawn to tigers as a kid.
This past year, on the winter solstice, I went outside to the edge of my neighborhood pond to bury a piece of writing I'd done on the solstice, with the thought of retrieving it on the spring equinox to see what insights had come from it. The winter solstice was unusually frigid here, and the ground was covered with the first significant snow of the year. Nobody was out and about. As I approached the log I wanted to bury the writing under, I saw a black cat lolling around, seemingly with great bliss, in the snow near the log. It saw me and sat erect, staring at me. I'd never seen a cat in or around this spot before. The black of this cat stood out so dramatically against the snow. I buried the writing, then walked on, thinking I'd stop again on the way back to spend more time blessing the spot and figured the cat would be gone by then. Well, it wasn't. It was still reveling in the snow, and once again, it sat up and stared at me as I paused at the log. I walk by this spot all the time (almost every day) and have never since seen this cat.
Of course, the significance of the light and dark on the solstice seemed significant to me. I'd also read that in some traditions, black cats are regarded as protective (I think I read that sailors used to take a black cat out to sea with them as protection). My felt sense was that this cat was blessing my practice.
Grateful to both of you for all you give so generously here on substack, thank you again! 🐯🐆🦁😻💛🧡💖
Oh wow, what an amazing experience, Keith! 😻✨ And I echo what you and Julie said that it feels so much like a waking dream. I'm curious how your specific winter solstice writings might be related to the experience. I feel there must surely be a connection. Remember our conversation about how the people in memory care facilities might sort of leave their bodies from time to time and another can come in? I feel like this can happen with certain animals too...where I live, I think it tends to be cats, corvids (crows, ravens) and coyotes. Anyway, I wonder if, in addition to all the other layers of meaning with the cat, it might've also been acting as a portal for a visitor. I love your tradition of burying some writing at winter solstice to revisit in spring! Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us! 💖💖💖
Thanks for all of this, Jenna! My solstice writing talked about how it feels like on the summer solstice, creation starts slowly inhaling me back into its womb, until I reach the depths of it on the winter solstice, when it slowly exhales me back out into the light. It went on to say that it does this so that I will remember, at the top of the "inhale," that the dark is nothing to be afraid of - it's where I came from and where I will return. So in saying all this to you now, the black cat takes on new significance as another reminder of the dark being protective and...benign! And yes, I remember that conversation with you very well! I love the idea of that a visitor may have portaled in through the cat. I'll sit with that and see if anything pops. Wishing you lots of felicitous feline visits to come! And thank you again for sharing your wisdom so freely with me. 🦁😻🐅🐯✨
Thanks, Keith for what you share here. Asking me to ponder does our relationships with cats affect whether we dream about them or not? I know for me; I have always been a cat person. As a young person growing up, I always had them as a pet. I am Leo (even had a cat named Leo) and I have two other planets in Leo.
Keith, I am drawn to your solstice experience. It is like a living dream. The archetypes visit during these times of transition and black cats are also witch's familiars, possessing their own magic. And the fact that it was there the second time you returned to the log, fascinates me. They are also protectors. It was like this cat was witnessing your ritual, while protecting the space and now your buried writing. That is strong mojo! Also, the beautiful symbology of the light and dark. A black cat against the white snow, the dark night and the beginning of the growing light... all significant. All of this which you expressed, I'm just reflecting this back through my dream. 🐯🦁🔥🧡💛
Thanks so much for this generous reply, Julie. I also had the thought that the encounter with the cat was a living/waking dream. I love thinking of it as a protective witness, and that definitely tracks with my felt sense of it. It seems like the solstice is such a thin time that in that sense, I wasn't surprised by it (mostly just awed and honored)! I love learning of your Leonic influence...a luminary and two planets there...wow! I also have two planets there, believe it or not (Mars & Mercury!) as well as an asteroid. But as I recently told you, I'm pretty thoroughly water-logged in my energies. So when you and Jenna do a post on dreams involving sea creatures, I'll be ready with my trident! 💦🧜🌊
I love this combination of the two of you sharing your wisdom, its so beautiful. A lot of this resonated with me. I love big cats and always have, Jaguar is one of my spirit animals. There was something that sparked about the wildness and power. That we can be scared of the power that it can unleash, that in the end we won't be able to control it. We have to tame it in some way that works for us, whilst allowing it to run free as well, it will rebel against being caged. Feeling that push and pull of keeping yourself safe and letting yourself go is a very strong message for me right now. Delivered right on time as always! Last night I dreamt about giving birth to fish, if anyone knows what that means..........................Thank you Julie and Jenna xx
Ooooh, Jaguar! Yes, SO powerful! I agree with Julie that you bring to mind here that liminal space so perfectly. We are raw power contained in a body, in a self, and how do we manage that? That's pretty much the tension of life in a nutshell! And a dream about giving birth to fish feels profound indeed. I think I saw you wrote a post about it. I'm off to read that now! 💖💖
YES!!! Louise that is exactly it. That liminal space between relating with the wildness and power without over taming it. I wish there was a word that was like taming, but not about breaking an animal into domestication. A word that includes deep respect and connection and honors the wild. Letting a delicate balance be the relationship. Maybe the word is attunement... befriending... even dancing with... works. Where there is an honoring the wildness and learning from it! Letting that feral power in me rise without trying to control, mitigate or temper it! And definitely not caging it!
Regarding the fish dream, if it were my dream and through my lens, I sense a new beginning, a newness coming into my life. I find it fascinating that we start our development in the womb looking aquatic, like fish. Again, in my dream, I am birthing myself. The authentic me!
I love this, Julie! A word like taming, but without the limitations and restrictions. Attunement, befriending, dancing with. These are so good! And I thought of embracing, like to contain the wildness within the fluid boundaries of self. Now I want to spend all day pondering this! Thank you for your words here!
I agree Julie, taming feels like you want it to submit, dancing works for me! So interesting what you say about the fish as when I looked it up it was about new beginnings, which is definitely relevant.
Loved reading about your big cat dreams Julie and Jenna. And beautiful images. I’ve always been a cat person. Never dreamed of big cats, though.
I’m reading a 1962 book by Joy Adamson - ‘Forever Free - Elsa’s Pride’ about the cubs of the famous lion Elsa from ‘Born Free.’
Quite an adventure! And beautiful photos from Africa.
Thank you, Becca! And ME TOO! I’ve been a cat person for as long as I can remember. (Tiny cats, big cats, imaginary cats… I love them all. They're pretty much the best things in existence.😻) So I wish that I dreamt of them even more often than I do. I suspect even the dream ones have that catitude that won't allow them to show up unless THEY feel like it.
Forever Free sounds like such a gem! I’ve heard of Born Free but didn’t realize there was a follow-up about Elsa’s cubs. That sounds like a beautiful and adventurous read—those old photos from Africa must be stunning. Thank you for sharing! 💖💖
Thanks Becca! And what you are reading sounds lovely! Born Free, the movie had an incredible impact on me as a young person. That moment marked the beginning of my recognition: the wild holds immense power, and it must be protected in its wildness.
Have you had any dreams about smaller cats? Or big animas, like bears?
I loved reading this post...it was like sharing a cup of tea with you both around a fire and you both "story telling" to me in a way that invites healing, depth and holding.
I really appreciated the thought provoking questions...
What is my relationship with raw power?
Can I be in relationship with it without turning away?
What power in me is frozen, held at bay?
How can I use my inner power for comfort, healing and support...
My main power animal is a wild cat...black as the night. Powerful. Strong. Aware. Real. She has taught me many things about myself, about the depth of my consciousness, about how to be in the world.
Thank you, Julie and Jenna. x
Oooooh, I love that your power animal is a black wild cat! That feels so perfect for you! ❤️🐈⬛❤️ And the three of us must one day sit around a fire for storytelling. How lovely that would be!
Indeed it would be lovely. x
Thank you, Sam! I love that your power animal is a wild cat. After doing this dream exploration on big cats, I feel much more connected to them. And astrologically I'm a Leo, a cat lover all the way and had a mountain lion encounter in the wild. Yes, I'm a cat person!!!
Dreams offer us an incredible information about ourselves and the world we live in. These questions that arose during Jenna's and my conversation were deeply profound and moving. I am still contemplating them. And I love how they all centered around power and the divine feminine. There is no mistake here.
Sam. have you had any big cat dreams? Would love to hear one! 💜
I haven't had any big cat dreams, although my power animal has protected me more than once on a walk. Just turning up when I felt unsure, just being there when I thought should I be walking this route...so strong that I felt its fur, felt its presence. The connection we have with our spirit animals can be so profound.
This hits home with me! Firstly, I LOVE cats! Secondly, Tigers have visited me in my dreams. The first Momma Tiger showed up a while ago. In my dream we were in a preschool, and I saw a momma tiger, and her legs were cut off, so she had 4 kind of half leg/stumps, and her babies were in a cage. The second tiger that showed up in my dreams was a half of a tiger! She had a front half, and was cut right down the middle, with no back half. I've dreamed about kittens too many times to recall, often, an overpopulation of kittens; which I suppose I chalked up to all my work in animal rescue. The tiger dreams felt very significant, and I feel they are trying to tell me something about embodying feminine power. The half tiger was very striking and dramatic! What do you thing that means? Thanks for this awesome discussion! I really appreciate it, ~Susy Porter
Thank you so much for sharing this, Susy!🤗 What vivid, powerful dreams! And yay, another cat lover! 🐾 😻 Your tiger visitations gave me chills… especially that image of the half-tiger. It feels like dream medicine, but in that raw, unfiltered way that asks you to sit with it slowly.
The way you described the mama with stumps and caged babies… and then the bisected tiger… it all feels like such deep imagery around truncated power, vulnerability, and maybe even fragmentation or confinement of some kind. And your instinct about feminine power? I’d trust that completely. I don't believe a tiger would show up for no reason, especially not in pieces. There’s something so primal and striking in both of those dreams—it feels like a big cat kind of initiation.
And oh my gosh, the kitten overpopulation dreams! That makes so much sense given your animal rescue work, but it also makes me smile, like your subconscious can’t not bring home a few hundred more furballs. Believe me, I get it! 😁
I’m really honored you shared these with us. Thank you. ❤️❤️
Susy, I am so glad this resonated with you! Dreams about cats, especially big ones, really called to me and Jenna! I am not a dream interpreter, but what I can offer is that I have been in a dream group for three years. What I can offer is a reflection through my own lens, retelling your dream as if it were mine. That said, I encourage you first to explore what these dream symbols mean to you and your life. Your own wisdom is primary.
If this was my dream… I am saddened and disturbed that this tiger mama has her legs cut off and her cubs have been caged and taken from her. I want to rescue her and restore her natural grace and strength that has been severed. I ask myself where in my life do I feel cut off from my feminine power?
The second dream echoes this, this tiger with her back half missing. The womb and the strength that is in her hind legs. I feel a theme here in my dreams. A call to look deeper into what meaning this has for me. What is my relationship with my divine feminine? And how do I relate with anger, power and the ability to stand up for myself. To say NO.
Oh I love this, Julie! I loved thinking about Susy's dream and ideas around truncated power. But I really felt an a-ha when I read your words here about the ability to stand up for oneself. If this was my dream, that would totally resonate. 💖
Thank you, your analysis lands with me, for sure! I especially appreciate your mention of the "womb and strength in her hind legs." I've been contemplating these dreams for months. I asked a Jungian counselor about the dream and she offered me these ideas. I thought you might appreciate them too.
"I think your dream is significant and gives you a hint of your psyche’s condition. Tiger is immense feminine power and has the cubs which is the potential…. But it is caged and the legs are missing, so all of this power and potential lacks a capacity for movement – it’s stuck.
I recommend that you do some inner visualization and go back into this dream to care for the tiger and cubs. Imagine the tiger is able to restore her legs and break free from the cage – see her in her natural element, moving freely and gracefully. She is a part of you and needs care."
Thank you for this wonderful share. Keep the cat imagery coming, as we embrace the power if our Inner Tigers; the raw, creative power of the Feminine!
Embracing and embodying this power has been a long road through feeling disempowered, shamed, and less than. My prayer for all women is that we "find our legs," and embody our Divine Power. With "Ravenous" Appreciation, ~Susy Porter
Thanks, Susy for sharing what your Jungian counselor said about your dream. This makes complete sense. I love her suggestion of going back into the dream to care for the tiger and her cubs. I did something similar to this with a dream. But more than just visualizing, I also did it somatically by acting it out with my body. This duo brought further insight, healing and conclusion to my dream. I no longer stood at the portal, afraid to go in, I jumped in and explored what was there.
Also, the dream group I am apart of is based on Jungian principles and exploring the archetypes. And your prayer for all women is my prayer too!
Susy may your dreams reveal to you what your soul and being long for, along with a compass to guide your way. 💜🌀
The word "somatic" is popping up everywhere in my life! I'm so grateful for this awareness. As someone who's been in my head my whole life, praying, meditating, studying sacred texts; the whole idea of somatic integration and FEELING and experiencing in my body, and not just my mind is deeply life changing. I'm convinced many trauma survivors live in a spiritual bypass way (escaping rather than integrating the pain of our past) without even realizing it. The beautiful thing about animals is that they live in their bodies, by instinct. As women in a patriarchal culture, we're shamed and silenced out of our raw power. These tigers are here to tell us to be wild, free, natural, and fully alive; with no fear.
YES! YES! YES! Agree completely, that is it exactly.
You had me at "Dream Group" How can I join?!
This was such a treat to read, thank you both. The comments section here has been the cherry on top, no less. It's so interesting, I can't recall ever having dreamt of cats, large or small...but this has me reflecting on how I've regarded them in general.
As a child, one of my sisters had a very intense phobia of housecats - an instant flee reaction, which would cause her to, say, run in front of traffic rather than confront a cat. I am 12 years her junior, and as a kid, I learned to "protect" her from cats and to regard them with suspicion myself. At the same time, I felt very drawn to tigers as a kid.
This past year, on the winter solstice, I went outside to the edge of my neighborhood pond to bury a piece of writing I'd done on the solstice, with the thought of retrieving it on the spring equinox to see what insights had come from it. The winter solstice was unusually frigid here, and the ground was covered with the first significant snow of the year. Nobody was out and about. As I approached the log I wanted to bury the writing under, I saw a black cat lolling around, seemingly with great bliss, in the snow near the log. It saw me and sat erect, staring at me. I'd never seen a cat in or around this spot before. The black of this cat stood out so dramatically against the snow. I buried the writing, then walked on, thinking I'd stop again on the way back to spend more time blessing the spot and figured the cat would be gone by then. Well, it wasn't. It was still reveling in the snow, and once again, it sat up and stared at me as I paused at the log. I walk by this spot all the time (almost every day) and have never since seen this cat.
Of course, the significance of the light and dark on the solstice seemed significant to me. I'd also read that in some traditions, black cats are regarded as protective (I think I read that sailors used to take a black cat out to sea with them as protection). My felt sense was that this cat was blessing my practice.
Grateful to both of you for all you give so generously here on substack, thank you again! 🐯🐆🦁😻💛🧡💖
Oh wow, what an amazing experience, Keith! 😻✨ And I echo what you and Julie said that it feels so much like a waking dream. I'm curious how your specific winter solstice writings might be related to the experience. I feel there must surely be a connection. Remember our conversation about how the people in memory care facilities might sort of leave their bodies from time to time and another can come in? I feel like this can happen with certain animals too...where I live, I think it tends to be cats, corvids (crows, ravens) and coyotes. Anyway, I wonder if, in addition to all the other layers of meaning with the cat, it might've also been acting as a portal for a visitor. I love your tradition of burying some writing at winter solstice to revisit in spring! Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us! 💖💖💖
Thanks for all of this, Jenna! My solstice writing talked about how it feels like on the summer solstice, creation starts slowly inhaling me back into its womb, until I reach the depths of it on the winter solstice, when it slowly exhales me back out into the light. It went on to say that it does this so that I will remember, at the top of the "inhale," that the dark is nothing to be afraid of - it's where I came from and where I will return. So in saying all this to you now, the black cat takes on new significance as another reminder of the dark being protective and...benign! And yes, I remember that conversation with you very well! I love the idea of that a visitor may have portaled in through the cat. I'll sit with that and see if anything pops. Wishing you lots of felicitous feline visits to come! And thank you again for sharing your wisdom so freely with me. 🦁😻🐅🐯✨
Thanks, Keith for what you share here. Asking me to ponder does our relationships with cats affect whether we dream about them or not? I know for me; I have always been a cat person. As a young person growing up, I always had them as a pet. I am Leo (even had a cat named Leo) and I have two other planets in Leo.
Keith, I am drawn to your solstice experience. It is like a living dream. The archetypes visit during these times of transition and black cats are also witch's familiars, possessing their own magic. And the fact that it was there the second time you returned to the log, fascinates me. They are also protectors. It was like this cat was witnessing your ritual, while protecting the space and now your buried writing. That is strong mojo! Also, the beautiful symbology of the light and dark. A black cat against the white snow, the dark night and the beginning of the growing light... all significant. All of this which you expressed, I'm just reflecting this back through my dream. 🐯🦁🔥🧡💛
Thanks so much for this generous reply, Julie. I also had the thought that the encounter with the cat was a living/waking dream. I love thinking of it as a protective witness, and that definitely tracks with my felt sense of it. It seems like the solstice is such a thin time that in that sense, I wasn't surprised by it (mostly just awed and honored)! I love learning of your Leonic influence...a luminary and two planets there...wow! I also have two planets there, believe it or not (Mars & Mercury!) as well as an asteroid. But as I recently told you, I'm pretty thoroughly water-logged in my energies. So when you and Jenna do a post on dreams involving sea creatures, I'll be ready with my trident! 💦🧜🌊
I love this combination of the two of you sharing your wisdom, its so beautiful. A lot of this resonated with me. I love big cats and always have, Jaguar is one of my spirit animals. There was something that sparked about the wildness and power. That we can be scared of the power that it can unleash, that in the end we won't be able to control it. We have to tame it in some way that works for us, whilst allowing it to run free as well, it will rebel against being caged. Feeling that push and pull of keeping yourself safe and letting yourself go is a very strong message for me right now. Delivered right on time as always! Last night I dreamt about giving birth to fish, if anyone knows what that means..........................Thank you Julie and Jenna xx
Ooooh, Jaguar! Yes, SO powerful! I agree with Julie that you bring to mind here that liminal space so perfectly. We are raw power contained in a body, in a self, and how do we manage that? That's pretty much the tension of life in a nutshell! And a dream about giving birth to fish feels profound indeed. I think I saw you wrote a post about it. I'm off to read that now! 💖💖
YES!!! Louise that is exactly it. That liminal space between relating with the wildness and power without over taming it. I wish there was a word that was like taming, but not about breaking an animal into domestication. A word that includes deep respect and connection and honors the wild. Letting a delicate balance be the relationship. Maybe the word is attunement... befriending... even dancing with... works. Where there is an honoring the wildness and learning from it! Letting that feral power in me rise without trying to control, mitigate or temper it! And definitely not caging it!
Regarding the fish dream, if it were my dream and through my lens, I sense a new beginning, a newness coming into my life. I find it fascinating that we start our development in the womb looking aquatic, like fish. Again, in my dream, I am birthing myself. The authentic me!
I love this, Julie! A word like taming, but without the limitations and restrictions. Attunement, befriending, dancing with. These are so good! And I thought of embracing, like to contain the wildness within the fluid boundaries of self. Now I want to spend all day pondering this! Thank you for your words here!
I agree Julie, taming feels like you want it to submit, dancing works for me! So interesting what you say about the fish as when I looked it up it was about new beginnings, which is definitely relevant.