Posted on Wednesday, 24th May 2006 by Maritzia
I’ve had a lot of convent dreams since I left the convent about 13 years ago. At first, they were persecution type dreams. I was still in, but was being constantly belittled. Later, I was going back, but it was obvious that even though they took me back, I wasn’t really wanted. Lately, the dreams have been more along the lines of I’m either just visiting them (i.e. they know I’m married and are happy to have me just visit on occasion) or I’ve entered or never left them and am very happy there. Always, in these later dreams, the community is the one I was going to enter when I met my husband, not the one I left. The earlier dreams were always about the community I left.
Well, last night I had an interesting dream last night. I was in the community (and for some reason we were in a mall….I don’t know why, but many of my dreams are set in malls), and I was reading tarot for some of the sisters. Then suddenly the bishop was on TV making an announcement that all occult practices were forbidden and cause for excommunication. The interesting part of the dream was my reaction to this pronouncement. While I was a bit perturbed by the announcement, I was resolved that 1) I wasn’t giving up my so-called occult practices/beliefs and 2) I wasn’t leaving. Nor were the sisters interested in making me give them up or leave.
I’ve been thinking all morning about the meaning of this dream. I do believe that some of our dreams are significant. Not all dreams….let’s face it, some dreams are just dreams, but sometimes they are our subconscious talking to us. This dream felt like one of those significant dreams. It’s interesting that I had this dream right after telling someone else this same thing (about dreams sometimes being significant).
Anyway…what does this dream mean? I’ve been struggling a lot lately because my belief systems are such a hodgepodge that I feel like I don’t belong anywhere. I retain too many of my christian beliefs for a lot of pagans to be comfortable, and have too many pagan beliefs for most christians to be comfortable. It makes it very hard to find a worship community of any kind. I think my history of convent dreams is my soul looking for a supportive community. I’ve even thought about rejecting (or at least not mentioning) various parts of my beliefs in order to have the community. I think this dream is telling me that the only way I will be happy in a community is to cling to my beliefs (after all, they weren’t formed on a whim but on a lifetime of self-reflection) and the community will come along that can accept those beliefs. That, in truth, it is the loyalty to my beliefs that will attract a community to me.
So, I’m still looking for a community of believers. But I’m comfortable continuing to worship on my own until the right community comes along.
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