Be Careful What You Ask For, You Just Might Get It

My Leave It to Beaver Medicine post stimulated a lively discussion about animal totems. So many of you chimed in to reveal your personal animal helpers. Others went looking for theirs. In that post I playfully made the comment "I'll take a lion!" knowing full well that you don't order up an animal totem like a Veggie Deluxe deep-dish pizza.

Even so...a couple of nights later I had another dream. Have you ever dreamed you were lying in bed sleeping? Disorienting, huh? OK, so I dreamed I was lying in bed half-awake, half-sleeping, when a small whitish animal emerged from the headboard and kind of walked lightly over my body. Well, not kind of. It did walk right over my body, but its footfalls were barely discernible.

I found myself standing in another room, one which I don't know in waking life. I was speaking with my children and my mother: "You know there's some kind of small animal in the house. It's white. I don't think it's dangerous, but let's be on the lookout." As if on cue, there was the small white animal walking through the door. It was headed towards us.

As the animal approached us, it grew. It morphed from poodle size to sheep size. For a few seconds it resembled a sheep. But it kept growing. And growing. And it was changing color. The sheep morphed into a really, really long lioness. The Super Stretch of Lionesses in fact. She was extra-long and lean and of this perfectly beautiful tawny hue.

I casually said, "Well, maybe this animal is a little dangerous after all," and the four of us--me, the kids, and my mom---were laughing despite ourselves. Our shoulders were shaking and we were trying to stifle our laughter. We stepped back into a closet with white sliding doors. But did we close the doors? Oh no, we just stood in the opening, plainly visible to the Super Stretch of Lionesses. And we kept laughing under our breaths. Then I of course woke up.

When I woke up, I didn't feel shaken in the least. I felt as though I'd been quite fortunate to get a fleeting glimpse of such a gorgeous creature as my Super Stretch Dream Lioness.