Resting in the Heart

In the spring of 2007, I had a series of visions of women creating peace. I share them here so that they might bring you a sense of peace, hope, happiness, and connection with the Sacred Feminine. The following is one of joy.

A large, deep bell begins to ring in an open tower above an old, spacious stone-paved plaza in a European city. Several streets radiate from the plaza, like the spokes of a wheel. The ringing of the bell startles a flock of white doves, which take flight, fluttering up around the ringing bell. They don't leave, but descend into the plaza where a lone woman stands. She laughs familiarly as they come to her. She reaches out her hands to welcome them and they alight on her arms, shoulders, and one simply perches on her head! Some land at her feet, bobbing and cooing around her. She giggles like a child overcome with delight. As if on cue, giggling children begin spilling into the plaza from the radiating streets and surround the woman and the doves. The woman smiles at them. She takes a dove in her hands, kisses it on the back of its head, and releases it into flight. As she does this, a luminous wave of joy bursts forth from the dove and washes over her and the children. As it passes through each child, joy and delight bubble up within them as musical laughter. Giggling, they each lovingly pick up one of the doves and cradle it as they run into the streets from which they came.

They each return to their own neighborhoods where they stand in the middle of the narrow streets, still giggling and laughing with utter joy. The neighborhood women lean out windows and doors, drawn by the laughter. The child looks up at them, then kisses the dove he or she holds on the back of the head, as they have seen the woman do, and releases it. As before, a clear wave of joy bursts forth from the dove and washes over everyone. Now the whole neighborhood erupts in joyful laughter! It ripples through the city as each woman in each neighborhood experiences the depth of joy that bubbles up from her being.

As the laughter settles down into a deep sense of peace and contentment, they each nod to the child in gratitude as the child skips home. The smiling women withdraw into their homes to sit with this new experience, this new sense of joy and deep peace. They are awed at the profundity of it and want assurance that it will endure, not pass away as quickly as it arrived. As they look within themselves, each one is surprised to discover a dove resting in her heart. After a moment, each realizes that, yes, this dove will indeed stay. It is now part of her, and the joy and peace with which it imbues her are hers to pass on to her family, to her friends, and to the world.