Portal variation on bridge dreams

A couple of weeks ago, I had another bridge dream - the first in many years. Coincidentally, I have been listening to Marion Woodman, who spoke about how bridge dreams symbolize movement to a new phase.

Bridges, stairs, doors, she said. Last night's dream was a variation on a door. I was approaching the U.S. border. Passport control. In the lineup, I felt quite relaxed until I noticed pencil marks in my passport.

“I should have erased those," I told myself. And then, as the line crept forward, I thought, "or maybe not. They would have noticed an erasure, and they wouldn't have liked it." I moved steadily forward, feeling fatalistic. If they were going to let me in the country, they would, and if they weren't, there was nothing more I could do. I had prepared my passport; it would get me through or it wouldn't.

This reminded me of a brief conversation I had with Betsy Warland when I met her by chance while in the process of applying to the Writers Studio. "Do you have any advice for me?" I asked.

Betsy shrugged. "You know what you know," she said, and I found her words strangely soothing. In this passport dream too, I felt calm and accepting. All the preparation is done. Now that I've been accepted at TWS, I calmly await the awakening novelist.

In the dream, I woke up before I got to the customs counter. Nothing to do now but exercise patience and faith. Believe that I will be able to enter the country of my novel and finish it at last.