The matriarch on the golf cart: welcomed to the future by the deceased

I always pay close attention to dreams that unfold around the turning of the year. They may give a feel for the quality of the year ahead and sometimes contain clear glimpses of the possible future. In the early hours of January 2 this year, I entered the following report in my dream journal:

2020 1.2 New Year's Night

dream

Invited to a Famous Women's Retreat

I am invited to lead a program at a famous women's retreat center in the rural Midwest. The legendary founder - an aged and immense matriarch - drives up in a golf cart while I am being given a tour of the rural property. She greets me warmly and I treat her with appropriate respect 

Feeling/reality check. I welcomed this dream as both a glimpse of a possible coming event and as lovely confirmation, as a mere man, that my work is of service to women.

Action: The dream had sufficient energy for me to draw the matriarch on her golf cart. I resolved to be ready to receive a corresponding invitation.  

I included a summary of the dream in a selection of "Dreams of Epiphany" (reported over the week before January 6) in my new book Growing Big Dreams

When the pandemic shut down all my travel plans,I mentally filed my dream of the matriarch on the golf cart as a glimpse of a possible future that had been rendered inactive.Clearly I would not be traveling to that rural campus this year. 

Then my friend Normandi Ellis -renowned for transporting us into the mind of ancient Egypt - approached me to sound out whether I would be willing to give presentations for at the annual conference of a Spiritualist association. Normally their gatherings take place at a center inIndiana, but this year the conference would be conducted remotely, via zoom. I said I would be honored, and my calendar was open for their October dates because I can no longer jump on airplanes to foreign destinations.. 

I did not fully grasp the connection to my dream until I received the contract from the association this week. The address of the association is  "Historic Camp Chesterfield". I promptly sent my January 2 journal report and drawing to Normandi, who fired back this response:

Ha! Yes, it was about Camp Chesterfield! Mabel Riffle who ran this place for 50 years was known to tour the grounds in her golf cart to see how everything was going. There is even a portrait of her in the Art Gallery here. I'll send it when I find it. BTW. I live in Mabel's house.  

When Normandi found the portrait I was amazed and delighted to see that it shows Mabel (on the right) standing by an old-fashioned golf cart with her mother.  

Normandi noted that Mabel Riffle presided over Camp Chesterfield with great authority and presence for half a century. We agreed it would be most appropriate for the leader of a Spiritualist association to welcome me, in spirit, to a conference where I will be speaking about dreaming with the departed and opening paths for for personal journeys to the Other Side. 

Sometimes little stories are instructive about big things. This happy little tale of dream manifestation confirms several big things about dreaming that are deeply relevant to all our lives in these troubled times: 

* We have natural contact with the deceased in our dreams.
* We dream the possible future, scouting challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
* Dreaming, we can travel without leaving home