an ocean dream

"IT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED, BY ONE WHO IS LIKE YOU, BUT IS NOT YOU."

This is the cryptic response we receive from the Oracle, when we finally seek its help. "We" (in this dreamstory) are a crack team of experts (top-notch scientists, but also something like channelers or empaths: healers). Our task is to heal the waters of this ocean, at whose verge we live. Something is out of balance in its waters, and all the life in it is suffering, and much of it is dying. One of the team has already spent hours diving, exploring, running tests, but he cannot fathom what to do. The Oracle that we consult is our trustworthy source of wisdom, of authority, of knowing. It is part high-tech computer system, and part ancient voice. Or maybe, it is the ancient voice, and we access it (or translate it, perhaps?) by means of a high-tech computer interface. We watch the twinkling multicolored screens, as their scans of the databanks run through all possible answers to our problem, and narrow in at last on a single image: a sea turtle. We're all astonished. We had expected something more complex. But we do see a shadow of resemblance: this is a creature that is like us, but is other. We recognize it in something of physical similarity - a creature that breathes, walks, and swims - and this much better than we do, because it is made for the ocean. But we also sense a kinship in its intelligence, in its awareness.

We leave the computers, head back to the shores, and find a nest of turtle eggs. There are at least a hundred of them. We take one off the top (it's unnaturally large, like an ostrich egg). We decide the need is so great that we will intervene: we tap the shell just to crack it, to speed its hatching. This bothers me, even in the dream. But awareness of the impending need of all the life around us leaves me hoping we'll be forgiven, in the greater scheme of things. The turtle emerges almost immediately. He is bigger even than the egg was, about 8 inches across, and a rubbery, almost translucent, olive green. He is aware of his mission: I see it in the dark and sentient look he gives me, out of murky eyes just a few shades deeper than the water's green-brown-gold depths at our feet. The water is deep, and drops off straight from the shore where we stand, so I set him on my foot for a jumping-off place. As he perches there for just a moment, I can feel a single beat of his heart through my shoe, much stronger than I would have imagined from a small creature. Then he dives into the water, which is full of swirling colors like a dark agate, and is gone. He will find our answers, and help us to achieve the healing our world must have.

Dreamgroup interpretations always allow room for multiple levels of understanding. As well as for the possibility of seeing every being in the dream as an aspect of the self. An approach which never fails to fascinate me.

At the personal level: this dream expresses my gratitude for the "team" of excellent people who are part of my life right now. Whose welcome, acceptance, and collaboration on various fronts is helping me to craft the healing my own soul seeks. Who remember me to various aspects of myself that I need to be connected with. Who are like me, and so wonderfully unlike me. Who let me know, the task is daunting, but it can be done.

At the collective: surely we do all need each other's input and expertise. Surely we are all the experts with our limitations, the baffled seekers, and the empowered healers, at once. Surely we are the interface of infinite complexity, transmitting the voice of the Oracle. And surely, we are the struggling, suffering, waiting ocean...