She ran away from dreams.

The autumn before last, I had a stall at a local market to share my oracle deck for dreamers. A tall, robust-looking woman around 70 came in. She wore colourful clothes and had intentionally messy hair. She was looking through each stall, engaging in conversation with the other stall holders, enthusiastically buying their goods — all handcrafted, 'ethnic', some other tarot and crystals, essential oils, etc.

She came to mine and gasped. She uttered one word — 'dreams' — in what sounded like a choked scream and ran off. This horrified me a little, and to this day I still see her long legs leap towards the door of the church hall. Oh yes, the stall was held in a Catholic church. A surprise choice for me, you might assume. I agree. The market was separate, of course, but many of the visitors were local parishioners. Some I recognised as distant neighbours but had never spoken to before. Many of whom I've heard stories about. Some very cruel, some somewhat apathetic, and others who practise witchcraft with a coven in the local woods when they're not at Sunday mass.

But this woman. What caused her to flee like that? What was so terrifying about dreams to her? From her outer garb and her decision to enter the market, I had assumed she would have loved the oracles. She was repulsed by them.

I didn't get a chance to ask her. Does the word dream conjure up nightmares? Does the word dream remind her of some of the goals she's given up on? Does the word dream strike a chord in her subconscious space, so barren or crowded, thirsting for tenderness and time taken to be seen and heard? Were her dreams in desperate need of a dusting? Did the word dream remind her of biblical prophecies? Did the word dream create synaptic opposition that opposed her religious beliefs? What was it that caused such horror? I'll never know, I suppose.

Some of us are taught the good-and-evil dichotomy — God and the Devil — to varying degrees. I know when I was little and I'd talk to the moon, I thought the devil was watching and would lure me out of the truth and I'd die at Armageddon. Or I'd sneak a horoscope by overhearing the girls at school read aloud from the magazines. Astrology, tarot, even loving nature was occult. I told my dad once when I was younger that if I hadn't been taught about the Creator, I'd worship the creation. Now I kiss the soil and thank the sun and work with the moon. I worship this earth, so alive and wise. And I do tarot and even had the honour of having created through me my own oracle deck, ha.

The first time I pulled a tarot card was when I was babysitting. They had a deck on the kitchen table. I loved that family of artists. Anyway, I pulled a card when the children were asleep. This was after a year or so of starting the exit from the cult. I think the first card I pulled was Death. How terrifying. But my old life was dying, thank goodness. I ran from my life, for my life, to my life. A reclamation of the self. The 6 of swords — escaping from the Tower.

I think of that woman from time to time. I thought of her just now whilst sitting at the laptop. Well, I saw an old note on a file: 'The woman who said dreams and ran away'. So I thought I'd write about the fleeing woman. To flee from something is a privilege — it grants autonomy of body, and sometimes we need to flee mentally, physically, and emotionally even when our bodies are stuck in a physical environment or situation we can't free ourselves from. Some call this an escape. Escapism is necessary at times. That's why I love daydreams so much. They preserve the self until you can flee to safety — intact, whole, bursting with life. I fled to my dreams and I'm forever grateful for them.

P.S. Here's an activity — not long enough to put as a blog, so I'm sticking it here.

Adopt a grumpy rock. Infuse it with love and put it back into the world. You can tell it your worries, release the weight with the stone, let it sink into water, place it next to a tree, let it fall down to the earth as gravity pulls it close to the soil. Be grumpy together, then reignite some joy.

Pass time with the elements. Let it go. Love, R