The Issue of Nurture for Sepia

DREAM that I passed by a woman in her fifties in a hall or some kind of wide open space inside a building, the lighting was a bit dim. She was pulling out and laying out stuff for 2 women who were staying there. Overnight things like nightgowns, etc., and putting them on the bed. A fluffy, comfy looking bed. She asked me if I would help her. I was suspicious and a bit reluctant but went closer to watch at least…

DREAMWORK:

This is something below my consciousness then, given the lighting. The woman was a shadow element in me, a caregiver and nurturer, a goddess figure. Caregiving and nurturing do not come easy for me. It’s not that I can’t be maternal, but I am reluctant to play the role. The essence of Sepia. I am afraid the giving takes something away from me, so that I won’t have enough for myself. Mostly, the ‘something’ in question is personal freedom. She was a bit older than me, so there is the wisdom and potential in me to become more mature about this, to heal this.

The hall was a prominent and central place, like the Middle Way, where everything else and all the other rooms run off from. It is the hub, the core, the ballast, the eye of the storm, stillness. And this dream is telling me that the issue I have with nurture is the main event of the moment for me, even though I was just passing by, aware of the issue but unaware of how central it is to my growth.

The 2 women she was taking care of and providing for are also shadow parts of myself, even though I did not see them in the dream. I go back into the dream now to see who and what they were… They are parts of myself who have come for some TLC and badly needed nurture, for a cozy, loving nest to rest in, to heal and regenerate. 2 sister parts of myself that need some unconditional and uninterrupted mothering. Their ailments are Isolation and Resignation. Hmmm… definitely keynote symptoms of Sepia. It comes with the price Sepia pays for her independence, to need no one and be free of the needs of others. Being maternal and nurturing is anathema to the Sepia woman who prizes and longs for personal freedom at any cost, certainly at the cost of isolating and resigning herself to many of the things that she can’t afford anymore. Such as feminine nurture, giving and receiving. Tenderness, and anything ‘soft’ or yielding is seen and disdained as weakness, denied and repressed by the masculinized warrior.

I guess I still have some of those armours left on me here and there, cold and numb areas that are dormant, awaiting awakening and life. I’m not sure what they are at the moment, so I ask Source and my dreams for further help with this, also with trusting the Goddess and opening to her, letting her take care of me, mother me, so that I might find the mother in myself and give her expression.

Thank you, Source and my dreams, for this gentle but firm reminder and healing.
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It came to me in a flash just now that Sepia is my warrior, who I’ve been asking for since the Warrior Dance in September. Diane had mentioned that everyone has a warrior who stands behind them from their ancestral line, someone of the same gender. I tried and tried but could not feel a connection to mine, until now. Sepia is the archetypal woman warrior of my lineage, the spirit and energy and history of all the women who came before in my family, my clan, my tribe. Thousands of years of patriarchal rule and oppression have made us what we are in this space and time, and although we are women known for our strength, creativity, penetrating mind and deep passion, there is much healing needed to heal the split in us.

Once, when you were whole, my warrior, I beseech you now to come forward and help me mend this terrible wound. Sepia, goddess of the sea, take me back into that rich and nurturing water for the embryonic, let me incubate in the utter safety and warmth of your love, until I am wholely myself and fully human again.