Three dreams came the night after the ring of fire eclipse.

In the first one an adolescent girl was outing the abusers. This brave young woman was letting a son know his father wasn’t who he thought he was, that the father lied and did terrible things. She was screaming this and more aloud at a dinner party where such unseemly things weren’t supposed to happen. She would not be silenced.

It turns out the girl was being held captive at that same location. In a twist of fate and due to the kindness of a friend, she had an opportunity to escape unnoticed. She knew she had to leave. 

When her friend showed her the unguarded back door, she said, “I’ve got to go.” The friend looked at her and said with grave concern, “Your debt!” (Such a strange and wise clue in the dream. Her friend was saying that if she ran, she’d never be able to settle what she owed, and that this was a fully compelling reason not to save her own life. So interesting, since the system of human slavery through debt is so prevalent in this world).

“I have to go. Now!”

So she did. She limped out a back door into the rainy dark. She was injured and weak, and knew she’d have only a couple of hours before they discovered her room was empty and set the dogs out to find her. She shuddered thinking of that violent end as she scuttled down alleyways and between buildings, wondering how she would ever have a chance. 

I woke and continued advocating for her, thinking how she needed to get to water so they’d lose the scent, or maybe she could find a sewage line to trudge through…

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The second dream was a different scene with different players, but followed as a redemption of the first. Three misfit foster boys, now men, were in hiding. They were from different birth families but had been raised by the same foster parents at one point. They’d been hiding together for years. Their looks were so unusual and distinct in ethnicity, color, and affect, perhaps archetypal representations.

I was helping them to find and reunite with their birth parents, though that very act put them in danger as it meant they were coming out of hiding. The miraculous thing was that when they finally showed up at the apartment door of their foster parents, when they were greeted with a flood of joy, love, and relief, it meant they were no longer in danger. We didn’t know that reuniting meant emancipation from the oppression.

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In the third I was standing in a barren, brown landscape and looked up just in time to see a massive black manta ray swooping across the sky and going out of view to the right. I had seen the flying mantas before, but not for a long time. I felt a quiet but palpably hopeful enlivening in seeing their return.

As I turned back to look up at the sky above, I was amazed to see two more mantas. This time they showed bright kaleidoscopic colors as they swooped and soared. I was awestruck.

I knew this was a massive harbinger of what was coming, and also that most of humanity was still living in the barren wasteland of weariness from all that had come before. I sensed most people still had a rough road for a bit, but it was only a matter of time before that which is already (harmony and beauty beyond measure between and among all creatures) was the only reality. The flying kaleidoscopic mantas meant the change was underway.

I woke feeling that this was a dream of both now and the future…not a fantasy future that couldn’t be, but one that very much is already. I believe our souls already know such worlds of harmony and freedom. I know mine does. Seeing the mantas felt like a bleed through from that world to this, and one that isn’t fleeting or singular. The movement will continue. Reason enough to keep looking up, for sure.

I honored the dream by creating the picture as well as doing a little research on manta ray meanings. Symbols of grace, power, and flow, the manta presence can indicate harmony and balance between the physical and spiritual worlds as well as spiritual wisdom, strength and understanding.

In Hawaii mantas are an aumakua, or ancestral guardian. The Hawaiian word for manta ray is Hahalua, or two breaths. In Bali they are often seen as divine messengers from the sea gods as well as connectors between worlds, particularly the sea and sky.