My childhood home was an old farmhouse built in the late 1800s. I loved my childhood and I have fond memories of this house although by today's standards, it would have been less than desirable. One of the things I remember most though, is a long dark hallway that separated the bedrooms from the living area. The hall was also home to a long tall stairwell that led to the upper bedrooms.
We used to leap from the doorway of the living room in an effort to reach the light switch at the bottom of the stairwell before the door shut behind us, leaving complete (& scary) darkness!
The mint colored walls of this ancient abode were also unique in that they were a type of plaster made from horse hair and sand. When a wall was damaged, an avalanche of sand would typically pour from the wound and then continue to disintegrate, growing larger and larger over time. We would put masking tape over the wounds to hide the wood slats the plaster was attached to, and to block the draft of cold air that would also pour through. In high traffic areas our walls were a patchwork of masking tape!!
All of this is to help you see clearly the vivid dream I had when I was much younger.
In my dream I was adult me. For whatever reason, Mike and I were there, inside my childhood home. The tape was peeling back from one of the larger holes about waist high with the dark hall on the other side. I began to carefully remove the old tape, preparing to put fresh tape in its place. That's when I noticed something strange...
A little shard of light was streaming through one of the cracks. How could that be? As I peeled back another wide strip of tape more golden light shot through the opening. I leaned down to look, to peer through the wood slats exposed by the crumbling wall. Mike was anxious & told me to just put the tape back on so we could get going. He didn't have time to look.
But intrigued, I reached in and pulled on one of the slats, breaking it and causing a new avalanche of horse hair and sand to pour down across my feet leaving the gap larger. Now the light, all buttery golden like sunlight & bokeh was literally bursting through. I thought maybe someone had left the light on in the hall... When I looked closely, I saw a passageway partially flooded with light.
I couldn't help myself; I grabbed the slats an began pulling them out of the way until the hole in the wall was large enough to walk through. I reached for my husband's hand and we both stepped through. What I thought was the dark hallway with a light at the end was an alley, shadowed by tall, tall buildings and the glow at the end.... well we continued in awe to walk towards it until a giant golden temple surrounded by buildings began to emerge. I couldn't tell if the buildings were gold or if they were just reflecting the amazingly, beautiful light coming from the temple. As we came to the end of the straight smooth alley we could see the glorious city all around us, even the "brick paved" ground we were walking on glowed softly gold.
The sky, the light, the air; it was all so fresh and so beautiful.
Memory of the beloved childhood home I had just been standing in was now distant & dingy; a dismal shadowland behind me. And then basking in this wonderful feeling of freedom and fresh air, gazing up at the domed temple and it's surrounding sky scrapers of gold..... I woke up.
No kidding. This was my actual dream. I lay there trying to hold on to it... All I could think of as I snuggled in my pillow reminiscing in the beauty of what I'd just experienced was, "All of that was always there - just on the other side of the stupid wall we kept fortifying." I've pondered this a lot in the years since, and still my prevailing thought is, it really was always there, I just had to look; I just had to pull down that ridiculous wall.
Here's to many happy golden sunrises ~ Prayerfully Wendy
