if only she had known...

“We all shine on...like the moon and the stars and the sun...we all shine on...come on and on and on...”  John Lennon

The star was shining out of the center of my mother's head as she stood on the hill some distance from me. A radiating star. I was fascinated in the dream and somewhat lost in it's beams flashing out like an aura.

She died when she was ninety-two, a decade ago. In this place she is in her fifties. I notice her own unique attractive hair style which she created herself. For me, hair in my dreams symbolizes the condition of my spirituality -- hair mussed, spirituality mussed -- hers was perfect.

My mother and I had a difficult relationship that caused her to be deeply hurt and me to be continually protecting myself. Yet I always admired her for her integrity. She was self reflective and honest about herself to a fault, taking the blame in our relationship for far too much. I thought of my own flaws and "if wishes were fishes..." or something more tangible... .

I get lost in my humanity, my short comings, in my five senses trying to get along in the world, often bogged down as if this is the only reality. My mother loved me greatly, tried her best, looked after everyone and everything in her sphere. Yet her childhood had left her damaged. No self-help books, no social services to work through a shame that was not hers. Opportunities for her smarts and artistic creativity were limited by her role of wife and mother.

In the dream, as I watched her from the distance, I was transported into a larger knowing, into a personal/impersonal love not only for her but for myself, and every face I've ever known. I longed to tell her, to shout up the hill to her, "Oh, if you only had known how perfect you were. If only..."

My mother belongs to the invisible now.  I suspect she knows stars need not stay in the sky. “We all shine on...like the moon and the stars and the sun...we all shine on...come on and on and on...”

photo source: fotolia