AN ANCESTOR DREAM
In real life, Rita, 40, a Maori woman whose husband was violent and abusive, scarcely knew her grandmother, who was deaf and blind. Rita had left school at 14 to care for her mother, who was seriously ill, and then had married young. For most of her life she had had a recurring dream, several times a year. It was unexpected, and always encouraging.
Dream report: Kia Kaha – Be Strong
I’m a little girl, about ten or eleven years old. I go into my Nana’s house. I fill her water-bucket from the well, and make her a mug of cocoa. She has a bedside dresser with three drawers. The bottom drawer is filled with lollies, and she always rewards me with a handful of lollies. She has a special seat on a flax mat on the floor beside the fireplace, where she sits and speaks to me in Maori. (I can understand it in the dream, but not in real life.) She points to the couch and tells me to sit there, and starts off, “Moko - right from wrong.” She tells me, “Look after your people. Look after the old ones. Love them, even if they hurt you. Don’t hurt people, because they’ll hurt you even badder. Kia kaha – be strong.” I sit and look at her. She comes over and hugs me, and I can feel her body, her arms around me. She holds me so long that I fall asleep in her arms. Then I wake up for real, still feeling the hug, and wishing it was real.
Rita has found this dream a source of strength over the years, knowing at a deep level that her Nana, who also had a very hard life, continues to love her and give her spiritual strength.