Owls and Orchids

Enter the land of possibility….. sleep

“Even a soul submerged in sleep is hard at work and helps make something of the world.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments.

Night-time, the time of dreams and restful sleep. Except it doesn’t always work out that way. So went the ramblings of a sleepy eyed and sore body this morning. Since I was awake, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to share a few moments with you. I do hope you join the perhaps somnambulant yet also clear thoughts, thick with the night’s happenings, of this person you might recognise. Since they are one and the same, and it is I, then I hope so. You may laugh, cry and ponder the imponderables from  these ramblings.

 “It was that sort of sleep in which you wake every hour and think to yourself that you have not been sleeping at all; you can remember dreams that are like reflections, daytime thinking slightly warped.”     ― Kim Stanley Robinson, Icehenge

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There have been so many nights of late when sleep seems hard to hold onto. I can’t really explain why each time, and yet each time seems perfectly reasonable. I go to bed thinking of someone who is ill or having a hard time, and I spend the night in their company. I practise my Spiritual Healing and pray for their night to be easier. So many nights and so many people, friends, relatives, strangers I’ve merely heard about. I am transported on the back of a huge Powerful Owl and taken to where I am needed. Do I mind this broken sleep which leaves me exhausted and trembling? After the exhilarating rush from my magical Owl ride, well it’s time to “do my thing”.

“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?”   ― John Lennon

No, I never waste time considering this. I am privileged, and have always felt privileged, to be able to help in some small way, even if the person knows nothing of it. To me that is the blessing of being a healer, a Shaman, and a wielder of magic, as someone who cares about the world and all who live in it and the world itself. It is what I agreed to do when I entered this earthly coil, as a Spirit in Human form. I learn still about my place here on earth, but I work as I can, use my “magic’ and healing to aid those I am called to. Silently, and frequently with no-one the wiser that I have been involved in guarding their night’s sleep, their healing, or eased their passing. Such is as it should be, and will remain. This talk perhaps should never be, yet I have been absent so long, and this part of the reason why.

“Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.”
― Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla

 There are times when these night-time travels feel more like descents into horror as I work “my magic” attempting to bring some ease, some solace to those in pain, to the earth which shudders in agony. Mother Nature, Gaia, cries for release from the agony mankind inflicts on her.

At present there is yet another Cyclone wreaking havoc north of Australia … more people suffering, dying, their cries loud in my ears, reverberating in my heart. Who am I to turn away from these? What is a night of broken dreams, these I can easily make up later? Forgive my ignorance of geography… it has always been my downfall and yet it never stops me being taken by the hand, a Guardian Angel or my Guides and taken to where I might be helpful. I am humbled that I am able to be called and fulfil my part in this day, this night, these pain filled moments.

“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

 Yet last night was strange. Time after time I was hurled from sleep feeling that I was twisting on the end of a heavy rope, slowly choking, and my breath a whisper in my ears.

Perhaps that would have been alright but for the intense pain in my neck, as though I had, in reality and not my otherworldly dimension, been swinging from some gallows tree. Perhaps I was caught in the storm wrack wreckage, and suffocating in some other way. Morbid and difficult thoughts to lull one back to sleep. Was I in the present or the past? Does it matter at the moment? I find that once I have managed to get some real sleep I can, often with little difficulty, work out the real from the tempest tossed nightmares.

Even amidst the pain and suffering there are lessons to be learned. My trusting warm bundle, curled in my lap, reassured me that the day is like many others. Bella, my little love wrapped saviour, sighs contentedly as I type. Is this a simple sign that I am doing the right thing?

Dogs, indeed most animals have an almost uncanny ability to detect when something is wrong and lend their own love and support. Not just to me but to those I help. She cried piteously when my husband’s Uncle passed away recently. She now sits watch, guarding me whilst she sleeps so peacefully, yet awakens within a moment if she senses anything amiss.

“No matter how much you cry, the tears will dry. No matter how many nightmares, flashbacks, visions, or terrors you endure, they will pass. To weather these in order to find your true self and the happiness you deserve, that is not a risk. To waste the time you have in this body, never showing your soul to yourself or anyone else, living in fearful misery – that is really the most dangerous thing you can do.”
― Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset

So I must believe that I am doing all the things I should. Healing where I may with the gifts I have been given. Quietly and unobtrusively, without fanfare or applause. Perhaps the time will come when these stories can be told. If the time arrives and t serves its purpose then share them I shall, but until then they remain the vague reasons for my absence and the increasing pull towards my bed. My wonderful bed, to catch up on the restful sleep the body needs to continue the work Spirit has asked of me and I have readily agree. I am no-one special. I am simply one more Spirit on this earth bound place who is learning how to be silently useful when I am called.

May your nights be restful and safe. May I be there should you need me or you call. May our journeys commence at each day break.

Blessings, Susan. ♥

© Susan Jamieson. 2015