“He who has not been bitten by the serpents of light and snapped at by the wolves of darkness, will always be deceived by the days and the nights.”

–Khalil Gibran, The Broken Wings

Wild dreams, dark dreams, bright dreams. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? There’s so much to say, so much to write about, and yet I find nothing in words that can truly describe what has happened over the last few months. Some of it I can’t write about as it’s not mine to tell just yet, though perhaps one day I will. Lovely moments, wondrous and bright, and then heartbreaking ones, too. For a long time, I felt like I was holding onto threads and praying they wouldn’t fray too soon. Just a little longer, to hold onto so much. But good news has come now, and we’re taking it all day by day, driving miles and miles while the world seems to unravel around us. In the end, it will all have been worth it, if dreams can be believed. That’s why I even began writing this blog to begin with: because someone believed in my dreams.

So tonight, as I sit on my porch surrounded by beautiful strands of hammered-copper lights, I write of a few dreams I’ve had lately. Though they were all dreamt on different nights, they seemed to blur together over days into one message.

The first dream revisited my blue serpent friend from a couple of years prior. This time, I stood in the middle of an infinite field of soybeans. I walked for a while, aimlessly roaming, searching for anything other than the ankle-high plants that stretched beyond for miles and miles. The sounds of summer were all around me, cicadas and katydids and crickets alight with song in the thick heat of the day. I wandered for ages until I came across a man, standing still, back to me.

I approached him slowly, cautiously, but he never turned. As I drew closer, he merely held up his right hand, index finger pointing skyward.

And in a rush, something darted out of the field and towards me. I barely realized what happened before the snake coiled completely around me, fangs tearing into my right hand. And yet, I felt no pain.

“She cannot hurt you, though she will try until you learn to use her the way she is made to be used.” The man said, still turned away from me.

I looked down at the snake as she slowly released my hand. There was no wound, no blood or venom. Cold black eyes looked back up at me, and she reared her body up so that we came eye to eye.

As our eyes met, her hood unfurled from behind her, finally revealing to me what she was all along: a king cobra.

That dream ended as abruptly as it began, but I did not have to wait very long to meet my cobra friend again in dreams.

A few nights later, I found myself on the edge of the same field from before. The cobra was following me as I walked to the edge of a forest. There were other people here now, darting in and out between trees draped in Spanish moss. Those who came too close were struck down by my serpent quickly and without mercy. I pleaded with her to stop, as I did not know these people and surely they did not deserve to be hurt.

She began to sway back and forth as she looked me over, an unnerving amount of humanity glimmering in the darkness of her eyes. Another person dared come close and she turned to face them. I called out to her to stop, and she paused, swaying again.

As she moved so gracefully back and forth, I noticed that on the back of her hood was a pattern of scales that looked like an all-seeing eye. The longer I stared, the more defined the eye became, and I noticed that there was a depth to it. I became entranced by it, between the sway of the serpent and the eye. Hypnotized, I slowly felt myself falling forward into the snake, and through the eye into darkness.

Once more, the dream ended here, only to pick up a few days later.

I was falling in darkness now, when I suddenly felt myself land in what felt like a box. Blackness was all around me, and I felt frantically with my hands. If I had to guess, it felt like I was in a coffin underground. At the very least, I had the acute awareness that I was dead.

“It’s time that you’ve come through here”, said the voice of an older man, cracked with age and weighted by wisdom. Candlelight seemed to flicker from somewhere above my head, but I was so constrained, I could not twist my body around to see.

“But I’m not ready,” I whimpered, voice weak and wary. “Can I take my loves with me, at least?” My mind went to my son, my love, my critters too.

“No, none of them may pass here.” replied the voice.

“My body? My clothes? My key?”

“No, none of that either.” the voice sighed, annoyed, as if this was a regular argument he had with many.

“Then what can I take?”

“Nothing of the flesh can pass through here. No loved ones, no possessions whatsoever, not even some memories. Only that which has been written on your soul; good deeds and bad. That is the only weight you may carry through this place.”

I fell silent at his words. What was written on my soul?

I woke up with that thought. I’m still replaying it over and over. I know the good I’ve done, just as I know the bad. In every moment, we have a choice on how we write upon our soul. So I’m choosing to move forward in peace, love, and light, as best I can. I’m not perfect and never will be, and it’s certainly made hard by such uncertain times. The world feels like it’s falling apart around us. But if I can choose what gets written from here on out? Then I know my path.