Gypsy woman flower seller dream ...

NB I had this dream in Feb 2011, in the year I was turning 40. It popped up in my FB memories (I posted it there at the time) and I am now in my 50s. In the summer of 2011 my father became ill and died.

The end of a long journey facing many trials, I find myself in an unknown country nearly "home". I ask a Gypsy* woman if I can jump on the back of her rickshaw to get "there" and she obliges. We bump along, me waving to people, enjoying the ride. At the bottom of a hill too steep for both our weight combined and the rickshaw stalls ...

... so I climb off and say "it's ok, I am nearly there anyway".

Earlier in the dream is I faced a number of trials, mostly about drawing boundaries and saying no, all of which seemed fearful at first but then I passed really easily.

I am walking up a steep cobbled hill with the gypsy woman, reflecting I am nearly "there" (though all through I have no idea where I am going) and feel grateful to her. We reach the top of the hill, I see her flower stall and we are about to part.

I say I would like to thank her, and open my purse to give her something. The purse is lined with purple silk and filled with gold coins. I fumble around a little embarassed as I realise the coins I have are wrong currency for this country. I search in vain for the right currency.

The whole exchange suddenly feels not right, I wish I had just accepted her help and walked on. It feels my desire to "thank" is superfluous and clumsy.

Next thing I know she has reached into my purse and took out a hitherto unseen £50 note and replaced it with a 50 of some other currency saying "there, look, you will have some currency for this country now."

I pause for a moment uncertainly feeling something is wrong...

Then say "no, this 50 is worth much much less than the one that you have taken" and hand it back, the switch back happens easily. The £50 goes back in my purse and she laughs at me., not unkindly but a bit cheekily and with a wink she waddles off to her stall.

Finally over the way at another market stall I see my family, I can hardly believe I have made it here. When I did not even know where I was, where I was going, how I would get there - and yet, somehow, it all just happened.

It feels there is one more trial to go - I realise with sorrow that one of the family I am greeting is ill, but, I am home with my family.

Comments from original FB post

I feel there is something really significant in this dream. Hmmmm. Any reflections?

The "50" in particular the gypsy woman tried to take from me, it was a very specific sum. A very important looking piece of paper, purple, lots of scrolls, something of value and significance nearly lost.

There was no sense of maliciousness from her, more like she was the vehicle for one last test, to see if I had really got the lesson. She was a coyote trickster kind of figure, there to chuck the banana skin under my feet.

Had I really grown up, and grasped the need to drop superfluous and meaningless gratitudes?

Can I simply receive the magic of spirit?

And why in the last instance, finally coming home, the one sick family member (an older brother).

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

SIGNIFICANCE OF NUMBER 50 (from a bible study group site)...

FIFTY: is the number of jubilee or deliverance.

points to deliverance and rest following on as the result of the perfect consummation of time.

In the 50th year, known as a Jubilee year, all debts were to be forgiven, all Hebrew slaves were to be freed, and all land returned to the original owner....

How relevant is that to the dream!!!

I was in the dream delivered into rest, coming "home" after a long travel. The £50 note was part of an exchange in which I erroneously felt I owed a "debt" - the debt was then returned back to me, the original owner.

* I know this is not a correct or respectful term for Romany people. However I use it as that is the term used in the dream. A cousin of mine said of my Dad "of course when your mum married a Romany your Grandad was very angry. He was part of a Romany gang".

My Dad turned out to have French & Jewish heritage (on his mothers side) as well as Essex UK. The term Gypsy was probably applied to him as a slur at the time: he was olive skinned with dark hair and his origins 'mysterious' (even to him) when he married my mum. I discovered his maternal roots through many years painstaking genealogy work.

A curious side note, Romany people often appear in my dreams and a psychic upon meeting me for the first time in person instantly said "You didn't tell me you have Romany ancestry?" expressing certainty that I did. It has always felt very curious to me.