Bees, Alligators, and Art

The past few weeks I’ve been plagued by nightmares which have left me sleep-deprived and grumpy. Having done some dream work with Dr. Clarissa Estes, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves, I know that dreams are no joke! They are, rather, “portals, entrances, preparations and practices for the next step in consciousness” (Estes). Knowing this, in some ways,  scared me even more.

In one of these dreams, I was combing out my hair when I suddenly felt something catch on the comb. It was a bee.  I panicked as I discovered that the more I combed the more bees I found. The details are fuzzy. For instance, I don’t remember if they were dead or alive, if they were stinging me, or not. I just know that it was disturbing and I woke up feeling very  unsettled.

The next night an alligator showed up. I was hiking through some flat terrain with Olivia when all of a sudden I turned back to say something to her and realized a gator had lurched from the brown sandy dirt and was chasing us.

Googling the ‘meanings’ of these images left me feeling even worse: death, illness, deceit, danger. Let’s just say it seemed pretty apparent that these were not good omens.

With my anxiety petty high, I tried to process some of this with a trusted group of creatives I meet with via Zoom every other week.

They helped me ‘reframe’ my bee encounter in some new ways. Even though I don’t particularly like bees I  feel a kind of affinity with them given that my last name “Ambrosia” translates to nectar. One of the women on the call pointed out that in ancient mythology hair is often associated with ideas which reminded me of other theories I have heard about hair being antenna to spirit. My friend said, “Maybe you were combing ideas out of your hair.” I liked this interpretation much better lol.

After our call, and some more thinking, and a little Etsy shopping (thank you Pop Bang Boom for the gorgeous bee clip and the so cute black and yellow wrapping), I decided to ask another friend/artist who was on that call if she would help me get the image out of my head and onto some paper. I thought that it might be helpful and healing to try to transform my fear into something that, while haunting,  could also be made beautiful. She agreed to help.

But how to include that pesty gator in this image? I had done a cord-cutting meditation  during this string of nightmares period in what turned out to be a failed attempt to stop the dreams. Since that didn’t work, I asked her to turn the alligator into an ally and have him cut, with his teeth, the cord I couldn’t seem to cut in my sleep. I started thinking about a curved mirror my mom had given me some years ago and which I need to find a place for since redoing my bedroom. I snapped this pic last night to add to this post.

And then this morning I got a pop-up pic from 5 years ago of the same mirror (that is spooky shit, right?).

I thought of the mirror’s ornate floral scroll work and how an alligator tail might look curving up into the design.

I love working with artists who intuitively understand how important it is to get the details just so. No easy task when given guidance that is messy, disjointed, and dream-hazed.  Lyndsie took such time in asking me questions regarding the shape and style of the comb, its coloring and detail. We talked about the position of the woman’s arms and the length of her bangs and how important it felt to me that the alligator be facing opposite the woman in the mirror – a desire to move behind past pains.

I am so excited to share her work both here and on Insta @creative_collective_co.

She will be launching her new website soon and is currently accepting clients. So if there is some vision you also want to get out of your head and into a frame, on an invitation,  scripted on signage, etc.  reach out and introduce yourself. You can find her her on Facebook @chaysingdreamsdesigns

“The wild woman is fluent in the language of dreams, images, passion, and poetry.” (Estes)