Kathleen Webster OMalley - The Healing Wisdom of Dreams

Copyright 2022 by Kathleen Webster OMalley

Published in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com Published in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Project editor: Anna Cooperberg

Cover design: Leah Jacobs-Gordon

Interior design: Karim J. Garcia

Illustrations on : courtesy of Andrei Verner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

Tradepaper ISBN: 978-1-4019-6913-4

E-book ISBN: 978-1-4019-6914-1

Audiobook ISBN: 978-1-4019-6915-8

To Virginia Harrigan-Hodge Webster, my grandmother, who nurtured my essential gifts of dreaming and compassion. And to her mother, Mary Louisa Harrigan, who brought her into being.

In the summer of 1989, when I was 15, I dreamed of walking along a familiar beach when I noticed a crib. Inside the crib, there was a fish. When I told my grandmother of this dream, she said it meant that someone was pregnant. Oh, because of the crib? I questioned. She said, No, because of the fish. I had no reason to doubt my grandmothers wisdom since she had given birth to nine children, though she never fully explained the message of the fish.

My grandmother was my primary caregiver from infancy until just before I turned five, when my mom resumed care of me. We lived in a small fishing village known as Island Harbour on the island of Anguilla, a British territory in the Caribbean Sea. My grandmother was small in stature, yet she had an enormous presence. When you received a hug from her, it was with her entire being. When she looked you over, it was as though her eyes penetrated your entire being, arriving all the way to your soul. Though she had a calm demeanor, everyone knew to never cross her, as she was known for her sharp tongue just as much as her bright smile.

Before sunrise until late afternoon, my grandmother spent her days cooking, planting, or harvesting, and tending to her chickens, pigs, goats, and sheep while my grandfather, a sailor and fisherman, was at sea. She knew the earth. She understood its cycles and its rhythms. She somehow knew the benefits of every plant that grew around her, while I was more fascinated by the lizards and the bugs, including the caterpillars that I would find in her bucket of freshly husked corn.

Even after it was decided that I would return to living with my mom on the island of Saint Thomas, I still spent every summer with my grandparents. Even without electricity and indoor plumbing, my best childhood memories were at their home gallivanting about the island, as my grandmother would say. My grandmother was the person who listened to my nighttime dreams. Often she would tell me what my dreams meant. Other times, she would respond with, Child, did you forget to say your prayers last night? And sometimes she would simply respond with a short Hmm, her lips firmly pressed together as though to indicate that someday I would understand what she knew the meaning to be but was not yet ready to hear it. As I journeyed into motherhood, my grandmothers interpretation of fish proved to be true. Dreams of fish became the way my inner wisdom communicated each time new life was growing inside of me.

I have experienced nine pregnancies, including three unexplained premature births. We also had two unsuccessful attempts at gestational surrogacy. Our only surviving daughter had been our second pregnancy. Weeks before my pregnancy with her was confirmed, I dreamed of a fish swimming in the sky. I knew exactly when I had conceived because of this dream, or so I thought. On the day I started to experience signs of preterm labor, an ultrasound measured her to be just 28 weeks gestation, not 34 weeks by my calculation. Up until then, my pregnancy was being followed by a midwife. Other than mild spotting at about eight weeks gestation, this pregnancy had been uneventful, so there were no early ultrasounds.

When I saw my midwife, Sue, the morning after labor started, she explained that it was too early in my pregnancy to safely deliver at home. She accompanied my husband and me to the hospital, where I received steroid injections to speed up lung development and medication to prevent further contractions. A second ultrasound was done, and the findings were the same. You are not more than 28 weeks, my doctors insisted. I questioned myself. How could I have been so wrong? I listened as they explained that despite their best efforts to stop labor, they had been unsuccessful. My only option was to have an emergency C-section, and so my tinybut healthybaby girl was delivered at 10:38 that evening. As it turns out, she was 34 weeks after all, and arrived at 18 inches long and weighing four pounds, seven ounces. After just 10 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, she was released to come home. It was then that I started to pay even closer attention to my dreams, as it was my dream that had shown me the truth of my daughters coming to be in the womb, and in this world.

Needless to say, my waking dream of having a water birth in the comfort of my own home was never realized. It felt like the most natural option, as I grew up surrounded by the sea. Despite a near drowning at age 13, I am still drawn to bodies of water. Our home in central Massachusetts is on a peninsula surrounded by a large pond, and one of my favorite New England states is Maine, where the mountains meet the sea.

Go to the sea, my grandmother used to say. She believed that the sea was the cure for just about any ailment, physical or otherwise. She would send us off without a word of caution. My cousins, my siblings, and I would swim in the ocean, often without any adult supervision. She trusted we would be okay, and we were. If we were to speak now, I know she would say, Child, you were never unattended. I asked the sea to watch over all of you. If ever you ventured too far, its waves would gently usher you closer to shore. And now, now I am the sea...

Whenever I have been in a state of grief, my dreams have taken me to the sea, and there I have found healing. After the loss of our daughter Jade, a second spontaneous preterm delivery, I returned to that familiar dreamscape and somehow the memory of the crib had entered my current dream. This was the summer of 2006. My dreaming mind began to search the beach for the crib, thinking that my baby girl was inside. Believing the crib had been swept away, I ran into the sea. A tidal wave appeared and gently lifted me out of the water, carrying me until I woke up. I now see that tidal wave as an aspect of my deeper self, helping me to awaken and not lose sight of my other daughter, a then two-year-old who needed her mother. My belief is that our deeper self is always reorienting us toward life and toward greater purpose.