New Photo Album of my Ancestors

I am back in Wolverhampton, around the shops at the intersection of Birches Barn Rd and Stubbs Rd. This is very near Eagle Street where my Maternal Grandparents used to live and where I used to go and see them - Kitty and Hotspur. I am with a friend who I think of as a "witchy" friend from London and we are walking around. 

She says to me that our pasts are interconnected and therefore, she has a photo album which may include some pictures of my family. She says she doesn't want it any more and wonders if I would like it? I am a bit unsure at first but take it anyway.

I start flicking through it as she goes into the shops and I wait for her (I wonder event if we have a pram with a baby in it that I am looking after? Anyhow, I remain outside.). I flick through an array of black and white photos and then - I am surprised to see one that is a picture that is of my family! My focus goes deeper into the album ...

I see several more, they are all black and white or "old fashioned" photos. They contain pictures mostly of my mum and her parents - then sometimes of me too - but the timeline is all skewed (i.e. I am there age about 10 with my mum in her early20s).

As I look at the photos something strange happens ... I step into them and they become short holographic vignettes. I.e. a few seconds of "action" around the still photo; I am immersed in these scenes as if I was wearing the most advanced of 3D specs!

Oh MY!!! I exclaim loudly ... I am seeing things for the first time about my family. In each picture the action that unfolds is pretty similar. They are outside with strangers (e.g. walking along a sea front on holiday) and then they start to do something comedic and hilariously funny.

E.g. one of them will start walking like "the ministry of silly walks" from Monty Python, the rest of us will catch the gag and follow suit all laughing hysterically. People around will notice and sometimes even join in with us.

I immerse myself in the photos, revelling in just how FUN and silly my family was. In my therapy journey, I have focused on some very difficult aspects of my family, so its amazing to connect with the laughter and humour in it too.

C comes out and I say to her effusively "THANK YOU!!! You have given me a new insight into my family, I have seen things that I never saw before!" She smiles warmly and is pleased.

Cold Dead Dad Dream

 I am walking down a street with my brother. I start to speak with a sense of dread in my heart - "M, you know, I can't quite remember, but did Dad die? I can't quite recall if he is dead ....". He confirms that yes, Dad did indeed die recently.

I say "but we need to make arrangements then? You know, funeral, ashes etc, there is so much to do!".

Next I am at a funeral parlour and they are taking me to see Dad. They take me to a big open freezer that is white plastic, a bit odd like a food freezer I think but never mind ... The director leaves me with my Dads dead body.

I think to call the funeral director back because I can see Dads body is moving! He is all white, frozen and with ice crystals on his skin, but his chest seems to move as if air is moving ... I think to myself "its ok, dead bodies do this, they settle and they move, thats all it is, don't be scared, don't be silly ..."

I move closer to him, until I am right by his side. Then in one slow awful movement, his whole body - arms extended - rolls and turns slowly towards me in one frozen rigid movement. I scream as his hands land on my arms.

I wake up in a state of terror ...

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.

Someone from the past ...

 I am going to meet a friend Alice and a few things happen on the way.

I have on a coat she has lent to me, I look in the mirror and at first it looks colourful and funky. But the more I look at it the more I dislike it. There is a hood which when I pull it up is structured and boxy - like some kind of "post modern" exploration of a nuns habit! I try to fold it down - this makes it slightly more tolerable but I end up feeling like my head is boxed in by this ridiculous contraption.

The more I look at it, the more it feels like some kind of awful fashion statement, not me at all and I take it off. I head to see Alice, I am walking trying to recall where she lives. Its on the edge of my memory, I am on a street, surely it is this way, it looks so familiar ... 

I take one last turn and head up a road thinking "if I recognise something in the next few minutes I will know I am going the right way. If not this is my last attempt and I will turn around and head home."

I turn a corner, something looks familiar - a shop, a doorway ... - as I am looking I see someone in the door way and then realise - it is ST! ST is a former partner of mine from my 20s, I have lost touch with him and sometimes grieve that. We lived together for 7 years I think - he was probably the closest I came to settling down in a conventional dyad relationship.

I see him in the shop - my heart leaps - I am SO happy to see him and I am also very afraid I will "scare him off". In the waking world I have written to him several times in the past years and he doesn't reply so I have [eventually ...] reluctantly stepped away accepting that he doesn't want contact with me.

He seems to be with a woman and a baby in a pram. I have a tinge of sadness that he has a child with someone else (he is the closest I came to having a partner I would have children with), but delight leaps in me too. I have worried about his silence and whether he is ok (in waking life) - in my dream I am delighted that he is with someone and is a parent and looks ok - as I would be delighted to know he is well in waking life too.

But then things change. The woman sees me and snarls something derogatory about me being "the ex". The baby in the pram on closer inspection turns out to be an old lady being pushed around (the woman's mother). Both are smoking, snarling and mean spirited - I am suddenly deeply concerned for ST. What I see represents my worst fears that he is in harms way and being exploited somehow (when I think about him in waking life these fears sometimes arise).

I fake a smiling hello to the two women - and then a real greeting to ST - the moment of saying hello to him is such a powerful jolt, finally seeing him again and being seen by him too. I am still afraid to "scare him off" and so I say "you know, I would love to speak with you, but only if you want that too. Shall we go for a walk together and chat, would you like that? No pressure of course ..."

Really inside I am hoping and praying he will say yes, but somehow I know I must not push him.

He does say yes, my heart leaps inside and we start walking round the corner together leaving behind the two mean women. I am so relieved to have an opportunity to talk with him alone. I walk behind him and can tell from his body language he is feeling angry and dejected. His body twitches discharging trauma - he walks ahead his fists clenched and shoulders braced not looking at me, he slightly staggers even - I am pained to see all this.

Walking along behind I wonder "how can I reach him ..." - I feel so sad for him and desperately want to help him yet he might not let me in - I walk along silently wondering what is the best thing to say.

I awaken and feel sad all day.

A tarot reading

The dream was so stirring that I did a tarot spread to try to better understand it. I pulled the following cards (Rider Waite major arcana only):

1. The overall true meaning - Hierophant
2. What the dream means - The Fool
3. What the dream doesn't mean - The Magician
4. The direction of events - Justice

Reincarnation dream

 I am a soldier in the desert - I have had dreams like this many times before - and in fact my Paternal Grandfather was a "desert rat" in the North Africa Campaign, WW11.

Back to the dream ... first I meet my Dad (who was also a soldier but at a different time of course). He is in uniform and is dancing an Irish jig style dance. I watch and think "oh so THAT is how you attracted my mom ...." 

Then he is gone - and I am in the desert and a group of us have been captured. At first I talk with the captors and think all will be ok, they will treat us in honourable ways. Then I am led to a grave dug in the sand, climbing in I vividly recall the face of a colleague that expressed in every silent line and twitch "we are done for, this is it". I recall his face so vividly ...

Next thing I know, I am in fact dead ...

Before I continue it is worth saying that my Paternal Grandfather in fact survived a firing squad in the desert. The little I know is that he and his men were captured and betrayed in some way, and executed by firing squad. But as everyone was being buried by local bedouin grave diggers / labour, he was found to be breathing, sneaked out and spent some months with them "missing in action" as he recovered ...

But back to the dream ....

I die and find myself in another realm. I am with a mature woman, warm, competent and friendly like a really good therapist or teacher. She tells me I am going back and I say "what already?". And she says yes I am due for reincarnation straight away.

She is counting out coins and says I have done really well. She gives me 8 coins with metal that is of 'lower value' and more impure first. Then she gives me a handful (5 I think) of higher value purer silver coins. The finally she gives me 3 large high value silver and gold shining coins. These are an extra special reward and I feel humbled.

But still, there is no escaping it, she says I must go back.

I step through a portal acquiescing to my return and just as I do so - she has a cat and it follows me through the portal. I call to the cat "nooooo you are not supposed to come!" - but the mature woman says its ok she is supposed to join me and that she will find us both some time later.

I arrive in the new world and the cat has become a young girl. She is very bouncy and energetic (like Lyla in the TV adaptation of the Phillip Pullman books). I struggle to keep up with her as she explores the new world with excitement and purpose. Its dark, we are near a big old church in a town centre, I can't quite work out the era.

I follow the girl around the back of the church thinking to myself "I am not sure if I am a man or a woman, I must find a mirror to find out what my body looks like ...". I think I am a man again but am not sure ...

We go round the back of the church. As we do so trouble is brewing at the front, it feels like some kind of protest or riot is taking hold. Some flames have appeared and the lick the church building threatening to consume it ...

Inside I have a sinking feeling "oh no, not another difficult one [incarnation] ..."

A side dream

Another dream branched off in which the soldier in the sand grave was in fact my Grandad and he survived - just as he did in real life.

In this dream he returns home to my Grannie and brings with him ornamental snakes from North Africa carved in wood. They are very ornate, stylised and organic - almost like a human nervous system.

He is home and the house is small and domestic - he wonders "how on earth will I fit my snakes into this small house? They just don't fit in."

I think when I awake of how much trauma he returned with, and marvel at how he continued on with his life, eventually running a sweet shop in Totnes. I loved him greatly and in later years would spend alot of time hanging out with him in his mobile home, smoking roll ups, drinking whisky and playing cards.

Ancestors at the festival

I am at a "festival" - or more like a very old fashioned gathering, lots of big tents.

I am in a big tent first of all by myself trying to decide what to wear, I opt for a deep burgandy long floaty "hippie" style skirt though its very old fashioned again, and I pair it with a top that covers up my throat and arms which is not my usual preference.

I go outside and find the people I am with, a man and a woman, they are older than me and I am related with them, its not clear if they are my lovers or my guardians perhaps (not parents, but guardians).

The man is setting up a yurt, I am SO delighted and express this - we have more space! He says yes and starts to talk about the resources that we have - the woman smiles and says "we are resources too, don't forget us" indicating me and her. She smiles warmly, its a loving chide, things feel good and very loving between us all.

I go and hug him tightly with deep gratitude for some time. The woman nudges and says "hey don't forget me" and I hug her too. I am deeply aware of both of their bodies which feel strong, competent - I am aware of feeling both love and arousal ...

Then they move swiftly to work - he is setting up the yurt, she is laying out items on a table, I realise it is a stall and she is selling things. I am a bit befuddled by the movement from love to activity but I think "toughen up" and move with it, and wonder what it is that I need to go and do to contribute to our "chopping wood and carrying water" wellbeing.

I have the sense that whilst she sells objects what I do is something more related to performance, something with my body, teaching perhaps ...

I wander off to try to find what it is.

Thoughts / feelings the next day

This feels STRONGLY resonant with my sense of myself as 3 souls, and these 3 souls being 2 old and one new. The younger woman whom I am throughout the dream being the younger soul, the guardians the older ones.

When I first read about this concept, I had woken up in the middle of the night one night with the thought "maybe I am more than one soul". I googled and found this and something clicked into place regarding my inner sense of self
https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380846/jewish/Four-Souls-One-Person-52.htm

These chapters also resonate
https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380841/jewish/Reincarnation-Ibur-51.htm
https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380847/jewish/Ibur-and-Growth-53.htm

And I feel uncertain as yet whether this phenomena of multiple beings occupying one body occured at birth or at the age of 13.

The Rabbi talks about the souls being "related to each other through the roots" and I feel that the three souls in this dream relate to -

Cathryn - the young soul, taking more from the side of my mothers ancestry
Rose - the first old soul to have been expressed
Reuben - the second old soul I am now encountering to be expressed

From this dream, my sense that these older souls relate to the ancestry of my paternal Grandmother Daphne is increased. Her ancestral line is has been hard to trace, including French for sure, possibly Jewish and Romany too.

From this dream I start to wonder if -

• The younger person as said was Cathryn
• The older soul "Rose" is Marie - mother of Daphne - was Rose a nickname for her? The origin of the name Marie is shocking, especially as it was birthed out of an intense and seemingly endless (though it did end) period of grieving, like a sea of grief. 
• The other older soul is Reuben - father of Daphne.

With this I wonder once again about the origins of Marie - I almost forgot about her origins having gotten so obsessed to find Daphnes father Reginald Hamilton - whom I eventually traced with near but yet to be proved certainty to be Reuben Brown, son of Leon Harris Brown, a Jewish man who fled the pogroms from Poland in the late 1800s and made his fortune as a Jeweller in Sheffield. In the linked to page, Reuben is in the back row, third from left.

Maries father is listed as "Ernest Saunders, a gentleman" - as for her sibling Ernest too - but her mother Ernestine never marries whilst living for some time in Maida Vale in a well appointed apartment.

"Ernest Saunders a gentleman" doesn't sound very Romany - however there is still the unexplained Romany link in my cousin matches. Also a Romany fortune teller who said my relative was there with her - a Romany man who had lied about his name and was in fact called "Mr Lee" and was very wealthy through not so honest means.

I feel drawn to restart my long suspended ancestry search again ...

The Gangster Couple - a dream about my ancestors?

The Gangster Couple - a dream about my ancestors?

I had a strong sense during this dream, that I was meeting some of my ancestors, this sense was present throughout. 

Its a different era in the dream, cars and clothes look older though sometimes they mix up with something from the present.

There is a man and a woman. He is a gangster, a big gangster, constantly on the run, though the authorities are catching up with him. There is a sense of options closing down throughout the dream. The woman involved with him is not a gangster, but by association she has become wrapped up in this environment of crime and fear.

I watch them both, they are frozen and rigid in their bodies, sometimes they walk comically a bit like zombies from a corny zombie apocalypse film. There is a sense that they are greatly suffering. There is a police presence throughout gradually moving closer and closer. There are many stories of evasion and near misses. This all goes on for a long time though I can only recall a few fragments:

He has been captured and is with the police. He is given leave to go visit his elderly parents, they are in a mobile home, on a site like the Romany one locally to me at the edge of the marshes. He tells the police "give use some space, this is all about my parents, its all for them" and the police relax their guard a little empathising with him.

But as soon as the police disappear, a dark blue van appears. He is rolled into a carpet, slung over a mans shoulder, carried and put into the back of the van. The van move slowly out of the trailer park and begins to climb up a hill. They have an old fashioned police radio and are listening to the police. They have noticed already that he has gone and the gangsters driving the van tense a little ...

But then the police say "alert we are looking for a white transit van" - completely different to the small blue old fashioned van (maybe like an old butchers van?) they are driving. The gangsters laugh, they have clearly bribed someone in the police to lie.

Later I see the woman and the gangster standing side by side again. It is so painful to see, their love so pure on the one hand, so fated on the other.

Finally - later - I am there as myself in the dream (I have been more like a witnessing presence till now). I am walking around a prison, it becomes clear that my relative did eventually get caught and spent his life in an institution.

He is now dead, but there are people talking to me. They tell me that he went into prison, but there he started a whole new life that was actually very healing for him. So it felt like the end when the one thing he feared happened - he was caught. But actually it was a whole new beginning for him.

I was told he got involved in a therapeutic programme which included breathwork (a modality I am training in) and that he actually found a great deal of peace and meaning in this, and in helping others.

I feel happy to know that he finally found peace.

Samain dream

Its that time of year again, of the thin veils ...

Last night I was in my childhood home, with all my family as they were then. We were in the kitchen milling about, cooking, normal family stuff. Then I "woke up" but still in the dream and realised "none of this exists, it is an illusion, none of it is real ..."

With that the walls started changing colour to red, to orange. The family scene carried on but at the same time, it felt like I had taken an acid trip in the middle of it, with multiple layers and timelines all interweaving.

Later I found myself in a swimming pool with my lovely mom Maggie (she died when I was 26). I have not seen her so vividly in dream time for some while now. We were kind of doing a partnered swimming dance in the water, taking turns to lead and to follow, swinging one another around getting giggly and dizzy.

We laughed each time we strayed too near the deep end, dancing on our tippy toes our long swan necks stretching (I was always rather proud of my neck, elegantly long just like hers).