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Our dreams are like a lab where our brain tests out emotions and enables us to process them in a healthy way. This is called the “The Emotional Regulation Theory,” and researchers claim that this is the main function of dreams—to support us in coping with our feelings and, most importantly, the really difficult ones such as loss, grief, trauma, sadness, and those *feels* that are an unavoidable part of life. Your dreaming mind is a safe space where you can “practice” for what you might encounter in real life. I am sure you have had emotionally charged dreams in your REM sleep and woke up thinking it was all real. These vivid dreams are your brain at work.

Do you share your dreams with others and talk about them? I suggest you do, as neuroscientists, those who specialize in how our brains work, discovered a high degree of empathy in those who discuss their dreams with family and friends. This is yet another way in which dreams are really good for us!

What does any given symbol mean? Is it all right if you don't see it the same way as someone else does? Do you have to view it in a specific way in order to "qualify" as following a certain spiritual path? If you don't view that figurine up top the same way I do, can you still follow a path of Ariadne's Tribe style Minoan spirituality?

The short answers: 1) Something different to each person 2) Yes 3) Not usually 4) Yes.  Now for the long answer.

We're going to revisit all the quartz crystal types, condensing the information to just a few items to make remembering easier.

This week we're going to revisit Bridge or Inner Child quartz crystals.

Being an introvert, interacting with other humans is tiring. And yet I must, not only because the world is full of us, and I will be more healthy and live longer if I do, but because we all need each other in order to make our lives better. Every day we get help from others even if we never step outside our home or answer the phone. Short of moving out to the woods, building a shelter and finding all our food – an activity statistically likely to result in death – we are enmeshed in a web of human assistance.

This spring, my husband and I bought a house we are fixing up. We aren’t doing it alone thank the gods. We don’t have the time or skills to do everything that needs doing. We have a plumber, Kenny, and Steve, the fellow who did the gutters, but the fellow who has done a great deal of our work is Rey. Rey and his various helpers have re-roofed the shed in the back of the house, replaced the boards on the deck, cut doors in concrete and brick walls, and installed doors and windows. I too am a maker. I can do construction, sew things, and create art. But I physically cannot do everything. My body is not strong enough to do what Rey and his crew achieve in the space of a few weeks. If I did not have their help, it would take months, if it got done at all. I like very much that my energy is in this house. It is an act of magical creation to transform an space that has been empty and lonely for two years into warm and inviting nest. But it is not my energy alone. Rey enjoys his job. He takes pictures of everything he does. He teaches his helpers how to do things, and he keeps doing it, even when they abandon him to make more money working on their own. He helps me, he helps them. Yes, we pay him, and he pays them. But that doesn’t change the good feelings I have about a man who has made my life better. And he feels good about us too. He’s so happy with the amount of money that we have given him over the summer, that he offered us a half day of work for free. (And for the cynical, no, he doesn’t over-charge for his work.)

By candlelight we sat together on the king-sized bed as a family engaged in something we rarely do in our home or our nation.  With the power out and our bellies full of grocery store deli food, my partner, children, and a few of our cats, sat or wriggled about as I read a short story about a clever feline who saved a town. My partner, daughter, and I each selected a book we thought appropriate and let the toddler decided which of the three to read from.

Town Cats by Lloyd Alexander, Dada's selection. My daughter groaned because she wanted Percy Jackson.

I read the first story, candles flickering, and little fingers playing with the corners of the pages. I held the hand light over the book, and smiled when my daughter laughed at the funny parts.  I waited patiently each time my son interrupted with his Rarity plushie or demands the cat move out of his way.

Once the story ended and the call to give the little one milk came from his little lips, we ran back to our bed and snuggled until he fell to sleep. When I stood up to head back to my partner's room to talk, I paused in the hall and felt how clean and pure the sensation to be in the house in near dark with no electric noises on. The hum of the refrigerator. The almost imperceptible buzz of the computers and monitors, my partner's clock radio droning on about news or playing jazz, the J-Pop coming through my daughter's earbuds another room away.

Their absence left me feeling calm, whole, at peace.

We live in the woods and outages happen often, but usually in winter, when we can't appreciate the stillness because we're working hard to stay warm and the additional layers are uncomfortable.

But the outages in warm months are rare and beautiful.  I seem to be the only one in the house who takes pleasure in them. I don't mind being temporarily deprived of the stove or the computer, because when we don't have these constant distractions and electronic noises that only I notice, we're a kinder family, and we do more to connect.

It's not a new sentiment: to feel joy when relieved of our technological burdens. To escape into nature. But it was Saturday night, as I lay in bed, and a cool breeze brought in the honeysuckle and muddled plum fragrance of summer's farewell.

There has been so much talk lately of peace. The world is not an easy place right now, and I see difficulties all around, from the level of geographical turmoil to communities in chaos, to quieter, more internal distress. And I see friends, well-intentioned and hard-working people, left bereft of direction, unsure of what to do in the face of it all.

We are all part of something. Family, tribe, online and in person, we have those we love and who love us in turn. We try to reach out, to help where we can, but it can be very difficult, as the connections become loose. Understanding can be lost as beliefs differ, opinions clash, cultures seem confusing. There is never just one side to a story.

I often say that I do my best, because that's all I (or any of us) can do. And I mean it, even if some days, my best doesn't seem like very much at all! But as a Druid and a Pagan, I feel the connection with those around - both human and non-human. My hilltop home, but also the pull of the lands of my childhood (varied though they were) and welcoming places that I've visited, both across the UK and overseas. So many lives, so many stories. How many do we touch, as we walk our paths? What effect do we have on the tides of this world?

I'm currently going through an emotionally painful time in my life, which includes plenty of tears, and I'm not ashamed or afraid to admit that. It has got me thinking about a lot more about my future, my place in this universe, and not only what my spiritual path means to me, but where it's headed. I foresee a lot of change this year in my life, and it scares me. Recently, while having one of my less formal 'morning chats' with one of the goddesses, I broke down and began to cry at the overwhelming pressure and fear.