Spring 2021 Equinox Insights - On Living with Dread

A sunbow captured sometime last Spring in Vermont

If every emotion has a unique color on the spectrum, I welcome that rainbow within myself. One of the gifts of our time is the ever-expanding range of emotions and states we humans get to experience, name, express, and integrate. When we allow ourselves to be with whatever is arising within us, we create space for great vibrancy and potential. 

Colors are vibrational frequencies, just like emotional states. I see and feel emotions as colors—in myself, other people, and animals. I see energetic patterns in plants the same way. Some emotions are sunny and bright, others are murky and shadowy. Some emotions oscillate between colors. No color is unwelcome—all make up the divine rainbow of the collective emotional experience. 

Dread is a feeling state that is a-swirl in my field, especially in the last couple of years. The dread ranges from a swampy green to the grey of a dark stratus cloud. I have always lived with dread. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot—but it is always there lurking around the corner like a ghostly bogeyman or pot slowly simmering on the stove. The dread feels like a foreboding sense of perpetual doom that swallows past, present, and future. No matter how well things are going, or how disciplined I am with “doing all the healing things,” it never leaves me. 

I know so much about my dread. I know how I was conditioned for it in childhood. I know how it connects to my spleen deficiency, and weak Sun in my natal chart. I know so many friends and clients who similarly feel the stormy clouds of dread within and also gathering in the world. I’ve come such a long way with the part of me that feels dread, and yet this part continues to require so much of my care and attention. The mounting toll of the apocalypse has colluded with my dread and I am confronted with the very real possibility that this dread might be here to stay forever.  

What if you invited your dread to tea? 

Illustration by Artebellaerin

At some point, I wonder: How much do we get to heal in one lifetime? How much is predetermined, and what do we actually get to shift and transform? 

Discernment has brought about new mastery with the dread. Sometimes I welcome it like a visitor. Other times I swat it away like a fly, “No, I see you, but I’m not engaging with you right now. We don’t have time for that today.”

This is not a safe world, so you can throw the assumption that you can make it so right out the window. Cultivate what safety you can, of course, but maybe we release this fantasy and trust that our beings can adjust as they are being asked to. Trust that our children and animals deserve all the care we can provide, and that they too, chose this time and the challenges that come with it. 

One of the trickiest aspects of trauma, whether it be traditional or complex, is that it fools you into thinking the harm is still occurring, when it has, in fact, already occurred. This egoic trick plays into our dread programs. I know that there will be mounting challenges for us to navigate in the future, and I also choose to believe that the worst has occurred as it relates to my own trauma. I am stronger now than ever. You, too, can choose to be open to the possibility that your past is not your future. The choices of your less-conscious self, of your family, of your ancestors—you can choose what becomes part of your legacy, and what choices, rules, beliefs, patterns, etc. can be consciously released. We are all micro-rainbows of the ever-changing, macro, collective rainbow. 

Prayer for When I Feel the Dread 

Remember that the worst is over.

Thank you to the teachings of that time, I release you. 

What is ahead is not what came before.

I have no need to brace myself for life, for the future.

I have no need to hide bc I know the truth. 

I need no permission to be in my knowing, in my power. 

I am entering a different time, full of peace and love. 

I passed the test.

I broke the spell. 

The work has been done and I’ve let it go. 

This is the new present moment, where all things are possible.  

Trust this. 

Illustration by Chelsea Granger

If you are curious to explore more about how dread shows up for you, I recommend the following flower essences. 

Bach Essences Aspen - fear of unknown things “The Psychic Flower”, from dark premonitions to conscious sensitivity. [Develops] the Soul’s potential for sensitivity” [M. Scheffer, Encyclopedia of Bach Flower Therapy] Positive qualities: Trust and confidence to meet the unknown, sensitive attunement to the spiritual world; perceptive awareness of psychic realms Patterns of imbalance:  Fear of the unknown, vague anxiety and apprehension, hidden fears, nightmares; easily startled or frightened.

Alaskan Essences Bog Rosemary - Indications: lacking trust; immobilized by a fear of the unknown; inability to take risks in order to grow or heal. Healing Qualities: promotes the release of fear and resistance held deep in the heart; strengthens trust in Divine healing and support to open to the flow of blessings

Delta Gardens Clary Sage - For fear of risk; for fear of new cycles or challenges; fear of the future

Bloesem Essences Corncockle - brings clarity and encourages you to follow the direction of your heart; helps you to assimilate unknown chaotic emotions. Lets you make a vision quest to your center, passing by all disturbing influences. Supports you to stand strong for yourself, gives the insight that if you want to move on, the growth and development of the consciousness is necessary. No growth without the development of the consciousness. Helps you to release feelings of revenge and opens you for the higher consciousness of forgiving and love. It brings you to a state of being, beyond all problems. When you have lost faith in your life, in the world, in humanity; brings you back to a state of purity.

Bach Essences Gorse – “The Hope Flower”, from giving up to going forth. [Develops] the Soul’s potential for hope.” [M. Scheffer, Encyclopedia of Bach Flower Therapy] Positive qualities: Deep and abiding conviction and hope; equanimity and light-filled optimism Patterns of imbalance: Pessimistic attitude, unable to trust or imagine a positive outcome for future events 

Woodland Essence Eastern Hemlock - eases one through the process of change and personal transformation. For guiding one through a shift in awareness/consciousness. Support through the changes that are ahead - personal and planetary.

Bach Essences Mimulus – “The Bravery Flower”, from fear of the world to trust in the world. [Develops] the Soul’s potential for courage and trust.” [M. Scheffer, Encyclopedia of Bach Flower Therapy] For confidence to face daily challenges and fears; for those prone to phobic personality Positive qualities: Courage and confidence to face life’s challenges; radiant light that shines outward to the world. Patterns of imbalance: Over-exaggerated concern for daily life events; extreme apprehension of new thresholds of experience.

Bloesem Essences Protection Formula - A combination of the Sneezewort, Greater Celandine, Rue and the Sensitive Weed. A good combination to give protection. It calms and brings you to the deepest centre of your being in times of tension, which is related to the influence of the outer world. Surrounds and protects with a mantle of light. Restore yourself and helps you to feel yourself good in your body. If you are not aware, that you are absorbing emotions and energies, it might happen that you become aware of it. This awareness helps you to change, however this can be a difficult and not always easy process, because it is often connected with pains and fears from the past, which also need to be solved.

Flower Essence Society Red Clover - Positive qualities: Calm and steady presence, especially in emergency situations, internally generated behavior Patterns of imbalance: Susceptible to mass hysteria and anxiety, easily influenced by panic or other forms of group thought