Ode to the Praying Mantis

There are some dreams you want to prolong, and others you can’t wake from soon enough.

I’m not usually a squeamish person, but some time ago, when I was trying to break out of association with someone, I had a dream fraught with symbolism. Trapped in a mall, I was alone walking and carrying plastic shopping bags (of my practical shopping) while dodging others who drove around in golf carts filled with styrofoam and glitter bric-a-brac. When I spotted the exit, I headed for it, but was blocked in the doorway by an enormous praying mantis–this skinny thing reached almost up to my thigh from ground level.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said to it, trying to use my shopping bags to shoo it out of my way. But it stretched its legs across the doorway and refused to be pushed. And I didn’t have the heart to smash the living thing, which I also thought was amazing in its size. I woke up then, heart pounding, wondering why a praying mantis was keeping me from leaving the circus that had been the mall. In the dream, all I’d wanted to do was get home with my groceries.

What’s a gal to do? Jump onto Google of course, and read up on the symbolism of the creature. It was heartening to know my guides were trying to communicate something, yet perplexing why the message seemed to be that I couldn’t leave the situation/building/relationship that occupied my attention, not just yet.

So I waited and stayed quiet, till inspiration struck within days. I followed a hunch, which gave me a crucial piece of information, which started a small movement, and soon enough got a snowball rolling down a mountain–all this to bring some semblance of justice to what had been a frustrating and bullying situation that had actually affected several people–I was simply the “last” one to go through it. The effort I made had been minimal–it was only to use information which my hunch had supplied, then karma seemed to take over. Every new twist that happened to wreak more consequence on the bully/manipulator surprised even me.

But that’s really rushing ahead in the story. This was supposed to be about what I did on the day after the dream: I journaled the dream by writing a thank you letter to the creature that had scared me–the praying mantis. Somehow, and I don’t know how I did it, I produced nearly 3 pages of gratitude to the skinny insect I’d previously been not so hot about. I mean, again, that thing was yuge in my dream. When I’d tried to shoo it and get it out of the way, it’d stuck to its duty despite being smaller and lighter, and that’s kinda worthy of praise.

Just after I wrote that, I realise that I got another lesson in there about timing and tenacity (and this draft just saved itself at 10:11:15am). The guides are always around and always genius. GOSH YOU GUUUYYYS. (Alright, this was a short one. Back to work!)