I made a video (posted above) about specific dream imagery involving refrigerators. Like I say in the video, dreams screen themselves in boring imagery to speak to us in our “waking life” language.
The images are a translation, and yes, the imagery is boring, but that’s only because we, as humans, are boring. Our spirit is the opposite of boring — our spirits are a multidimensional mystery and in constant communication with us through dreams and synchronicities and in the silences throughout our day.
Being human flattens us and we spend our whole earthly lives trying to expand and find fullness and meaning. It’s when I am most patient and most quiet, that the meaning of my mystery shows itself.
What I forgot to say in the video was this:
I am using refrigerator imagery as a tool for being in the Now. I ask myself in the moment, “Am I pulling from the refrigerator or am I using fresh ingredients?” Fresh ingredients are whatever the moment is presenting to me. Not my biases or fears or assumptions or even nostalgia — those are stored in the refrigerator. Fresh ingredients are only what I sense and feel in the moment. This is what brings me back to the Now.
This is how the boring dream imagery was transformed into a magical approach to living. Symbolism itself is a magical approach to living. If we treated our waking life moments like we act in dreams, there would be an abundance of creative energy flowing throughout our days.
Claudia and her animalitos
One of my favorite teachers Robert Moss, the Dream Shaman, advises against reading outside interpretations of animal energies. If an animal enters your life — whether in dreams or waking life — you should imagine what it might be like to shapeshift into that animal, and spend some time with them in daydreams or meditation, or imagine a dialogue.
Animals are allies and guides and we are meant to work with these energies and pull them into our daily lives.
The Tiger haunted me for years before I understood what the Tiger within me needed. After I understood that the Tiger was my heart and true passion wanting to claw itself out of me, I stopped having nightmares of malnourished or caged tigers.
Here is a doodle poem I made for my tiger:
The animals come and go as they please. Some of them I still don’t know that well even though they’ve made their first appearance. Like with all dreams I remain patient. Animal messages and meaning can shapeshift. Sometimes it is a message, or lesson, or energy, or question. Below is a list of the animals lessons from the past year.
The Parrot — The Parrot is a translator, he can speak both the human language and the divine language. I don’t know if the parrot is my personality or just an aspect of my soul or both. When I journey I am sometimes a parrot, most times a bird, all the times I have wings.
Tiger — The Tiger is my heart, my passions, my bloodline. I never want to find it caged in dreams. I want to feed it whatever it wants.
Whale — The Whale has been with me my whole life. Her lessons are beyond this dimension. The Whale is an angel — it is a high vibrational being whose way of life is all heart. It is my mother and it is me and it is my home.
Pig — The Pig is also a mother. She is tough love and boundaries and her lessons I am still trying to master. Here is the nightmare where she first made her entrance: The dying pig mother and her suckling piglets
Sea Turtle — The Sea Turtle showed up in a dream, relayed a cryptic message and has disappeared. The Sea Turtle is cosmic memory. This is what he said about me a year ago: “She remembered so little, not enough to remember her lives, yet she knew by the memories of others that life was and is ancient.”
Pablo (dog) & Frida (cat) — These are my waking life animalitos. They are my shadows and my family and familiars. They teach me in time – chronos and kairos. Frida the cat teaches me the spirit of survival, independence and detachment. Pablo, my Chocolate lab, is all love and play and devotion.
Seal — The Seal made it’s appearance in this dream: The waterless seal. It is all my creative faculties and potentials. It needs to connect with my watery subconscious realm to survive. When the seal shows up I feed it with play and introspection and by spending time alone.
Condor — The Condor symbolizes the transmutation from death and shit and the sewage of existence to absolution and freedom and purity, and so many other paradoxes I have yet to explore.
Squirrel — The Squirrels see the future and they prepare for it better than most humans. They are memory keepers and they work hard and they play A LOT. There is humor to the Squirrel energy, a c'est la vie attitude and they’re just super chill. The coolest animals I’ve ever hung out with. 😎
Frogs — The frogs are healing and they are helpers. I’ve known them since childhood and there is still so much to learn from them. When they show up they bring with them my 5-year-old self. She understands them better.
White Mice — Mice, like Condors, are composters of human crap. They hold both the horror and the beauty of life. I first met them in a psychedelic journey when they danced the damage of my ancestors, positioning themselves in shadow boxes to depict suffering. They always urge me to play with life and to not forget that being a human is a gift and a privilege.
Serpent — The serpent is probably the most complicated animal energy I’ve ever encountered. She is a true shapeshifter. The Serpent is the goddess, our shadow, the dark witch, creation, sex — so many things. It is powerful and I have yet to tame it. Although one dream said very clearly — you have to grab it by it’s neck otherwise your serpent will just flail out of control. If I tame the serpent this lifetime that would be a miracle.
The Dragonfly — The Dragonfly is my favorite. It is mental acrobatics for a new perspective. When I am stuck with an issue or problem, I imagine I am a dragonfly and I flip myself upside down to change my perspective and see things differently. It requires a partnership between the subconscious and the mental realm.
Spider and Spiderweb – Oh the Spider. I wrote a full moon letter about what it symbolizes for me: Deep Continuity: the spiral web your soul weaves. It is a goddess. It is weaving of life and time and space and it is our universe, but mostly what it triggers within me is a remembering of who I truly am.
It’s my last newsletter of the year. Last year I shared a compendium of diary excerpts from the year. This year was a lot of psyche excavation and trying to figure out the best way to translate the language of dreams. Poetry is the closest I can get to my spirit. AI imagery has also helped to close that gap.
Below are my favorite dreams / creations / full moon letters from 2022.
The Devil and I gaze at the damned stars
38th Birthday Dream, June 8, 2022
I found myself in Hell being led by the Devil into a house that looked a lot like my house. I thought this can’t be my birthday dream! This is more like a nightmare. And then I saw the sky and all the stars in the sky looked like heavenly stars, and I said to the Devil, “I didn’t know you could see Heaven from Hell.” He said he had never noticed the stars before and he stood there, awestruck. I could feel him falling in love. I knew then this was not a nightmare — this was a gift. I never wanted the moment to end. The Devil and I in Hell, both of us in love, gazing up at the damned stars.
The sad girl & the island
On a ferry floating across a body of water, I meet a young girl on her way back home. She is sad. Her eyes well up with tears.
She had lived her whole life on an island she thought was paradise. Before this voyage, she never knew what it was like to leave. Now, as her island comes into view, it begins to feel too small for her. She had caught a glimpse of a whole new world, and because of that she now had to answer to a new mind and a new heart that made her want more and more for herself.
The girl mourned her past perspective which had kept her satisfied and safe. She now understood she could never go back home. She was being pushed toward the unknown, and even though the guiding force is divine, and every new discovery would be life-expanding and destined for her, she was still sad and she cried and I cried with her.
Disembodied spirit check-in
"You're on Earth. There's no cure for that." ― Samuel Beckett
We gathered in a dream — a check-in for disembodied spirits.
A man told me I was looking bright and brilliant — better than I had before. There was a loving warmth in his words, and a familiarity in the way he spoke to me.
I alluded to a recovery. Another spirit stranger piped in and asked if I had been dying. He thought by recovery I meant a terminal illness.
I was surprised at his question, as if he should have known me better. I said, “No, I’m on the life path/plan right now — same as you — we’re all dying.”
When I woke up I knew that by recovery, I meant something in the heart chakra that needed restructuring. A healing had occurred that made my spirit shine in the dream realm.
I was grateful for my disembodied spirit check-in. We were a family of souls catching up on each other's reality progress.
I considered how I could accomplish this in my waking life. How to conduct a disembodied spirit check-in with myself.
There's a divorce that needs to happen – between reality and the spirit. A disentanglement of your identity from your life path.
“How is it going?” Your spirit friends will ask you.
Failure, disappointment, heart break — you all laugh about it together.
That's just what it's like on the life track, someone will say.
You see humor in the hurdles.
You see the finish line and are in no hurry to get there.
No one is competing.
You hang back. You catch up with your friends.
You all look bright — like new stars just birthed.
Pro-aging skin treatment
I was an older woman in my dream. Someone said I had aged rapidly and it was most noticeable in my elbows. The skin around my elbows was loose and sagged toward the floor. I said, “I know. This is why I walk into every room with my arms up in the air — celebrating myself.”
Boring dream imagery, the elusive NOW, and animal energies