The other night I had a dream I was being smudged. What does this mean? What does it mean to you? Perhaps nothing? It means the world to me. Such a thing had never happened in my life time. Dreams were always just that, dreams. I’ll tell you what a smudging is, if you want to know?
Sometimes in my dreams I am on the Starship Enterprise being scolded by Picard or falling off the edge of cliff in an indistinct van, but this dream was so very different.
I stand in a room filled with white hopeful light. The edges blur in my mind as if I am watching this moment from inside a ball.
An elder man stands to my right staring down at the contents in his hands. In his right hand a sage bundle is stringed together loosely. The end burns black orange, sage smoke wafts up in billows of white filling the air. In his left hand he holds an abalone shell filled with the ashes.
He waves the smoke around holding onto the sage stick in small definitive movements of his ancient wrinkled hands, large and shaky.
The smoke fills my nose and it’s sweet pungent smell, calms me. It is lemony and fresh, but heavy and burnt. I feel it flow over me as he chants words I do not know, but understand. They are healing words he speaks in my dream. Here in the dream I speak the tongue of my Ancestors of Mother Earth. I understand him and he understands me, he heals my spirit because he can sense it is broken. Who has sent him to me? Who has asked him to come? This medicine man of my dreams. This great and wise ancestor. A Tsimshian Shaman from times long ago past, he knows not my world, but understands my pain.
A boy appears at my side. He was not there before. His age is in flux. He is two, no three, no five. He is taller than he was a moment ago as he towers over my left shoulder.
He asks me, “What is he doing that for?” as he points to the elder man before us still chanting, praying, healing me.
The smoke flows around us in circles as the elder moves softly around on his feet. Never breaking his chanting, his healing. Looking only briefly at the boy I see his face is blurred, his hair jet black and spiked up. He wears a black t-shirt. He stares at me, with eyes I cannot see. I cannot look at him, it hurts.
I look back at the elder still there his voice inaudible now as I answer his question “He is smudging me. Getting rid of the bad spirits, cleansing me. Purifying my mind and body so I can begin again, a new me. Free from all that bad.”
The chanting stops. It is over now.
I begin to stir and when I open my eyes it all just a distant memory. The day is sunny I am alone once again, but not entirely. I feel anew, I feel alive as if there is hope where there was none. I feel as if I have been cleansed down to my soul and all is clear. The future is bright and meant for good things. I will be a force of light, of hope. I will move forward knowing my Ancestors watch over me, when I thought I was on my on.
They show me the way even when I am so lost I think I can never find it. They come to me when I need them most, even when I do not ask them too. I am never alone you are always with me. Thank you.
This is an actual dream I had this week and thought I would share with you all. I hope it somehow can bring you peace in your daily life if you are searching for such a thing. I do not believe we are ever truly alone, before this dream I did feel this was life’s great lesson, we are alone. I feel now though that I have been proven wrong. So tell me what do you believe?
All my relations
XOXO (crystalannelizabeth)
Crystal Ann Elizabeth 