The mystical boat of change
Image: Roger Bygott
Boats have featured prominently in my dreams recently.
These boats show up as places of transition, of transience, sometimes inspiring, sometimes threatening. One dream became a nightmare, in which I was on a ferry about to be attacked by a predator; in another, the boat became a sort of moving art gallery. I witnessed snow, as though in a slow-motion animation, gather dynamically in a cloud in front of me.
What might my psyche be telling me?
Some of my favourite work with coaching clients is to explore with them their dreams. Together, we enter into a symbolic field—reconstructing the dream not in terms of what happened but to connect with objects, moods and atmosphere. For example, after my boat dreams, I asked myself questions like: am I the boat itself? Am I the water? Might I even be the attacker of my nightmare or the beautiful snow cloud I observed with awe? This symbolism is the soul’s message. To hear it requires imagination and a surrender to logic; it’s sometimes challenging (it’s uncomfortable to ‘become’ a violent attacker) but always illuminating—an insight into where the intuitive mind might want to take us.
Waking from my snow-cloud dream, my partner reminded me of one of his favourite paintings: La barque mystique (c.1890-95) by the French symbolist painter, Odilon Redon (often translated as The Mysterious Boat). There is, indeed, something mystical about the image, with its yellow sail raised high, the purposefulness of direction; the two passengers in the boat looking directly ahead and moving into an unknown future.
Odilon Redon’s La barque mystique
The message I took from the symbolism of my snow-cloud boat dream is this: there is beauty in change. Frightening though it can be to leave terra firma, my dreams are calling me to explore where I am in life and where I’m going; to embrace fluidity and uncertainty as part of the journey. And there’s always a companion beside me. We never journey alone.
Change has mystery in it: we are poised between the known and the unknown.
Writing this, a memory has bubbled up to the surface: of a soul reading I had a few years ago. The soul reader’s first comment was that she felt I was in a boat, floating, without direction but that I shouldn’t worry: I would know in a few years where I was heading.
That waiting and floating has been challenging. My snow-cloud dream is, I think, a message that I’ve arrived—at least for now. I’m still in transition (as we always are in life) but I have a clearer sense now of where I’m going; enough direction and agency to hoist the sail, take the tiller and steer.
And, after the waiting and floating, I’m able to see how change is part of life’s inherent beauty—a shifting, mystical net of stars or snowflakes to inspire us as we go.
