Saving My Son, the Dinosaur: a Spirit Journey

I've been called a lot of things, but I've never been called typical. For those of you who know me at all, you know that I hold my spirituality in high regard. You recognize that I also cling to the practicality of the Scriptures with a honey-badger type tenacity, yet admit to communicating with garden-gnome type spirits in my yard, and to experiencing alternate realities. I have come to believe that most types of nature spirits, dwarves, elves, fairies, etc., as mentioned in fairytales, legends, or myths, have their basis in fact, and are largely real.

Also, I believe in spirit animals, sometimes called inner animals. I believe that spirit animals are real and useful; that they are a part of God's teaching toolbox; and that they are mentioned in the Bible, though not by the names we call them. I'll show you sometime what I mean, but for now, I'd rather tell you how God used the concept of spirit animals to cause healing in my life, and in the life of my seven-year-old son.

Until recently, I understood very little about spirit animals, but I recognized myself as an osprey, and had communicated with this osprey emotionally at various points throughout my teen years. I was fascinated by the concept of living in another skin, and found flying both exhilarating and terrifying, depending on whether I felt like an osprey or like a human being in an osprey's form.

I had been originally introduced to spirit animals in an off-beat, small circulation print magazine, but had never taken them as anything more than a fascinating plaything until last October, when I begn to consider their implications for gaining knowledge of myself and others.

I had long struggled to understand my little son, and thought, "If I can go visit his spirit animal, perhaps I can gain the perspective I need to enjoy him, and help him learn to be more cooperative and enjoyable."

So I did.

Last night, I flew as an osprey over a place of dark, green and black water. I could not have told what I searched for, but I knew I was in the correct place to find it. I skimmed above the water, which shimmered like wavy glass, then dove in. The fact that I was not a water creature seemed immaterial. I went straight down, I couldn't tell how far, then turned toward a place where the energies changed. There before me was a four-finned dinosaur with a long neck and a smallish, triangular head. He was not swimming about, but seemed to float in one place near the sandy bottom. I spoke to him, a greeting, a signal that I had come on purpose to seek him, but he either would not or could not speak back. He seemed sullen, and stared straight ahead. I tried to follow his gaze, but saw only the water, with nothing in it save a small dot of yellow light in the distance.

So this was Cody, my almost-seven-year-old son, who in physical life had the energy of a rocket. He always began with a blast, and never quit, even if it meant orbiting around someone else's pull once he exhausted his own resources. I had not known before this moment what sort of being he would appear as...only that I would recognize him when I saw him. I knew the LORD would lead me to my son's spirit animal home, and I hoped He would allow me to see what had kept our relationship in a darkness of hurt and anger, stunted by irritation and emotional weariness. As I drew near this animal, I sensed that he was very much alone.

It was true that our relationship was the opposite of ideal. It tore at my heart every time I let myself think on it. We regularly exchanged ugly attitudes, and sometimes ugly words. I found myself in a state of constant tension whenever we were in close proximity, even in thought. It seemed we were always at odds, and it never got any better. Time and again, I felt I had given my all for him, and had received back nothing but snottiness, lies, or blatant disobedience. The hardest fact to face was that our relationship hadn't grown that way - it had begun that way. From the moment I knew, at three weeks, that he was conceived, he had been trouble. My joys as a mother began with nine months of debilitating morning sickness, and had culminated most recently in a desire to just quit, and run away. There were two things stopping me from forcing this plan into reality - 1) my husband, who loves me dearly, and would be stuck with our son if I disappeared, and, 2) my two-year-old daughter, whom I love dearly, and who was my constant reminder of why I wanted to be a mother.

So instead of running away, I had taken the only other option I felt like I had, and had said goodbye to what I had grown up believing was permissable. Spirit animals...alternate realities...being human and also being able to comprehend a lack of time...even transcending space and time - these were topics which were just not talked about by most of the people I knew growing up. But in these concepts lay the answer to my struggles with my son, and I knew it. So I embraced them as realities.

The road had been long, but now, here I was. I had arrived at an unknown body of water, as an osprey, staring at a glum plesiosaur.

Of course I could not leave him in this condition. But what was there to say? "Hi, I'm Mom. Why aren't you swimming around like you should?" And, really, I had never met a plesiosaur before. How could I claim to know how a typical plesiosaur spent his day?

But surely he did not sit still in one place and stare silently through the water. Something was dreadfully wrong with this dinosaur. Now what was the trouble?

I stopped about 15 feet from him, sensing a great uncertainty in the water around him, and fell to studying him. I sensed that problems which seemed enigmatical on our normal, physical plane were apt to appear in more obvious ways in this inner realm. At first I saw nothing, but sensed that problems would manifest by faith, and that I must be patient.

This was so, and at last I saw something wrapped about his forefins, connecting and binding, It was a plastic hobble, such as is used to bind turkeys' legs for roasting. I immediately knew that I could imagine any resources I required, and so I pictured a pair of yellow-handled tin snips in my right hand. (I had entered the water as an osprey, but became a human as needed, switching back and forth at will.) I slowly approached the plesiosaur, but he seemed not to notice my presence now. He stared off into the water, which appeared in patches of darkness and green and blue and rainbow, randomly. There was the glowing yellow spot, and this seemed to attract the plesiosaur's attention most. I could tell he longed to go explore the place.

I reached out at arm's length, and with a few snips, the binding came off in my hands, in two pieces. I became the osprey again, and, grasping the thing in my talons, flew up out of the water and toward a bonfire on the sandy shore. Flying far above it, I dropped the plastic into the fire, and watched it vanish instantly. I knew the fire was a devine, refining fire, destined to destroy utterly anything that hinted at evil, or that did not glorify and praise God and His purposes.

As I considered what the hobble might have represented in my son's life, I wondered: Would he now stop running about the house with short, flopping arms, like a spasmodic T-rex? Or did the plastic represent something strictly non-physical, like an emotional or mental outlook?

I returned to the dinosaur, diving into the water and speeding through it without drag.

He still floated in the same spot, and once more I stayed back from him, analyzing possible reasons for his inactivity. Within a few seconds, I saw a heavy chain around his neck. Hmmm...yep, that'd do it. Where did this chain lead, anyway? What was at the other end?

I followed it with my eyes away into murky, smoke-dim water behind the plesiosaur. He must have fought his fight with this chain, and decided he could not win. He seemed to ignore it now, though I knew that once it was off, he would likely swim and dance for joy. What was the chain? Was it something I had done to him, through my anger or diminished belief in his abilities? Afterall, he had shown me little enough to be proud of...but wasn't it my duty as his mother to continue to be hopeful of his capacity to grow into a reasonable, productive someday-man? I knew it was my duty - if I didn't do it, who would? But I felt as if every time I had actively shown faith in my son, or in what I knew God wanted him to do, I had received nothing in return except a blow to the solar plexus of my emotions.

Looking at this dinosaur on the end of a log chain, I half wished that my son would behave thus subdued. But I knew I coudn't and didn't want to leave this poor creature a slave to his position. He deserved to be free. And what if the chain represented some mental restraint, which would disappear once the plesiosaur was free? I had to try.

Now...where did the darned chain end, anyway?

I swam through the water toward the darkness behind the plesiosaur, feeling I didn't want to get too close to the repelling inkiness. But as I approached, I was able to see a rock. The chain disappeared into it. So...it represented something deeply rooted; something I couldn't just yank out or cut through and be done with. There were no openings in the grey rock formation, which was about eight feet high, flat on top, and extended back an indefinite distance into the water. It faded in blackness.

I fell into thought, going over the possibilities in prayer for removing the chain. I slept, with my subconscious still working on the problem, then woke in the morning understanding what I had to do.

Calmly I approached the plesiosaur in the quiet of the early morning, and said, "I'm going to cut the chain off, though I'm not sure yet what it means."

For the first time, the plesiosaur looked into my face, then asked, "You mean, you don't want me bound?"

"No!" I cried, thinking of the many freedoms I have in Christ. In flashes of color and objects, incidents and memories, these freedoms flooded my brain, and I sighed to think that somehow, some way, I had failed to make these liberties I felt clear to my son. How had I failed? I had worked what seemed continuously to portray to him my faith in my Creator, and my reasons for continuing in it. We had read Scripture together since he was an infant, and we had often talked of God and His desires and ways. God was ever present in our home, and welcome in every conversation. Even fights. Still, somehow, my child had missed the goodness I had meant to model for him, and which he had heard with his own ears from Christ's Words in Scripture.

I produced a pair of bolt cutters, and declaring the power of Jesus Christ's holy Name, cut the chain off the plesiosaur's neck. It fell to the sandy bottom, and immediately I asked the LORD to get rid of it for us. Christ, dressed in white robes, came down into the water and, taking up the end of the chain, gave a mighty pull. The rock formation crumbled into a billowing heap. Christ tossed the chain onto the rubble, then turned and looked solemnly at ust, with a little quirk of a smile at one corner of His mouth.

He turned away and began walking through the water.

As soon as the plesiosaur was free, he spun and twirled horizontally in the most graceful way.

Wait! I thought - my son, graceful? I had never seen such grace in him in physical reality. In that reality, following the tradition of his father's family, he's a klutz. His dad, his cousins - the fact is, those he most dearly resembles are all klutzes, and he's unlikely to outgrow the condition.

So I watched, fascinated, as this plesiosaur taught me a new respect for what was possible. God willing, the boy will outgrow his klutziness, but even if he doesn't, I'll know that, on some inner level, he has the capacity to be gracious.

He danced off about twenty yards from me, then turned back. He watched the Man in the white robes, Who had caused the rocks to fall, as He walked into the darkness where the rocks had stood, then disappeared. His face seemed to say, "That's the man you mean so often."

I nodded, slightly. It seemed that if I moved, his understanding might be dimmed, and he would be a creature without obvious thought once more.

Now his gaze returned to that spot of yellow light in the distance, past the large random patches of green and black water glittering like gem stones. Near the light, and beyond it, the water appeared even and clear, though green as though shot with dye.

"Do you wish to go over there?" I asked.

The plesiosaur looked at me quizzically, wondering if I were seriously sharing his intentions. "I'm curious," he admitted.

"What is over there?" I asked.

He seemed to shrug. "I don't know. I've never been able to get there."

So we went. I flew above the water, and he swam rapidly beneath. We arrived to find a pillar of the yellowest, most liquid-seeming light - or something that can only be described as light. It shot up into the sky, disappearing into the clouds and beyond. I dove down to the plesiosaur, then simply stared at the shaft, trying to stretch my mind to comprehend its meaning or substance. I swam to and fro, examining it from more than one angle. It appeared the same on all sides - a glass or acrylic case filled with liquid light. Particles, as of fruit pulp, floated in it.

Finally, I admitted to myself that not only had I never seen its like, but I could not yet feel sure of its meaning. Besides, I was in my son's private world - not everything was destined to make sense to me.

Quietly, I felt the LORD directing me to leave my son to explore the light in solitude, and so flew away.

I know I'll be returning.