Dreams lead to knowing through the darkness of unknowing. The irrational and fantastic beasts and situations stem from a place deep inside – a place desperately needing attention and release; a place of instinct and innate wisdom; a place of fear and love; a place of being.
The snakes are made strong by us. They grow fat on the manna of loneliness, despair and isolation. They grow intelligent on the thought and desires we give them. Once they were threatening, slithering and hiding among the shadows. Now they are threatening, slithering and dominating our lives, powerful and unafraid of the light for we power them with darkness.
Deep tunnels house them. Dug slowly over time, the tunnels are a warren of hidden pain, unprocessed emotion and the sins of the humanity. They slide through the tunnels, their scales smoothly skating over the mud and muck of stagnation. The tunnels lead to us, so the snakes may attack at will – assaulting us in times of peace, coiling tightly about us in time of pain.
We make them what they are – grow them into powerful creatures that command respect and attention; fangs dripping with poisonous thoughts, eyes brimming with malice, bodies yearning to strangle and suffocate. The venomous vipers are constant companions, no longer retreating to the darkness. They feed upon us, gaining strength from our malice, resentments and jealousies. They twist about us – their vampiric natures draining us of resistance so that all we see is their huge bodies blocking the light, the scales of our sins reflecting our misdeeds back upon us a thousand fold.
How do we ever hope to defeat them? How can we possibly uncoil ourselves and find freedom? How can we, fallible and weak, find a reserve of power to banish them to the tunnels?
We need only ask. We honestly seek with willingness and an open heart to give ourselves and the heavy scales of our mistakes to a power greater than ourselves. That power resides in and about us. We only need to look inward and upward, away from the tunnels, away from the serpents, away from the misery of our lives. We look upward to find the sun, to find the sky, a calm pool of blue, a promise of freedom and light.
The monsters fight the light, hiss in despair and coil even more tightly as freedom beckons us sweetly. For we are unused to freedom, we are unused to being able to breathe without the stranglehold of the snakes. We are unused to love and light. So the temptation, the reaction to retreat to the comforting slow death of the snake’s hug seems to be the answer to the discomfort. The lie of comfort through comfortable and known pain appears as an oasis in the terrifying expanse of freedom.
Again, we turn to the light within ourselves for freedom and solace, for the guidance to loosen the coils and accepting freedom. We move from darkness to light, from pain to freedom, from ignorance to knowledge, from cowardice to courage, from lies to honesty, from self-hate to self-awareness. The pain and discomfort are promised to fade over time and the snakes will retreat to their tunnels.
Yet, always they remain, coiling below us, waiting for us to lower our shield of light and love. Always they watch and slither, patiently and eternally waiting for us to seek comfort in the lies, to reach for the solace of darkness.
May we each find the light within ourselves to overcome the darkness. May we each find love and understanding beyond our wildest dreams.
Words of Recovery 